Birthday Box

I love making cake for my friends, especially for a birthday. I made the vanilla hummingbird cupcake recipe with half vanilla frosting and half nutella frosting and of course used sprinkles for a birthday. I sometimes find it tricky giving people lots of cakes because of them having to return tupperware or tins. This cardboard box was perfect and made them look neat and professional.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Frosting

Assuming that most people like chocolate I made these chocolate cupcakes for my sister's office. They are Hummingbird recipe chocolate cupcakes topped with Nutella Frosting. I am a huge Nutella fan and it's often eaten straight out of the tub with my housemates at university, but in frosting form it's even better.

Cricket Cupcakes

I couldn't tell you anything about cricket, except that Weybridge Cricket Club are having a fundraiser this Sunday. I know this because my friend asked me to help her make cupcakes for it as she works for the club catering for the teams. We used the logo on their cricket tops to inspire the decoration and colour. I think they look kind of masculine and cool but have not helped to enhance my knowledge of the game one bit.

4th July

Yes, I'm only a tiny bit American but any excuse to make cupcakes is good. I made vanilla cupcakes with stars and stripes cases and red, white and blue sprinkles and distributed them to all the Americans I know, including my Granny. Happy 4th of July!

Astrid's Leaving BBQ

So just before the end of exams I decided to have a leaving BBQ for Astrid as she is moving to Manchester to do a new university course. I promised her some cakes before she left (she would have got a bigger whole cake if she had decided to stay). I chose these colours before they remind me of her, I think she had a turquoise cardigan or something at the start of university. I am going to miss her so much! University won't be the same without her.

40 Point Birthday

Even though her name doesn't score very many points, it's Ginetta's birthday tomorrow. Considering how we have a continuous 'Words with Friends' scrabble game going on, these were the obvious choice! They are mini cupcakes with vanilla frosting, topped with mini hand made biscuit scrabble tiles.

Cupcake on Cupcake

When icing cupcakes I normally just pile it on with a palatte knife, but for these birthday cupcakes for a family friend I decided to have a proper go at piping. There are so many different kinds of piping bags and having previously used the disposable ones, on a brief encounter with piping (it was okish), this time I decided to test out a silicone bag which was supposed to be really good. I can tell you that it wasn't. The icing squeezed out around the nozzle, which eventually popped out. Despite the bag issues they turned out pretty cute, with pink spotty cases and topped with mini chocolate cupcakes.

Idol Nights

So I'm aware of the lack of posts, this has been due to hideous amounts of end of term essays and a rather nasty cold. These Idol cupcakes were for an American Idol viewing night a few weeks ago. American Idol pretty much takes over our lives for a few months and I love it. We often have friends over to watch it and so I made these bright blue cupcakes complete with ice cream cone microphones.

Victoria Sponge Cupcakes

This evening I went to my friend Alex's for pizza night, where we had her now famous Naan pizzas, seen here on her amazing blog for student cooking. Not wanting to go empty handed, myself and Astrid made these cupcakes from this Martha Stewart recipe. We filled them with raspberry jam and instead of chocolate frosting we used vanilla, which to me makes these mini Victoria Sponge cakes.

Aaarrrrrrrrgh

Tonight I went to my friend Rosemary's pirate themed birthday party. I was pretty excited to wear some stripes and an eye patch (which sadly snapped within the first five minutes of my arrival at the party). I wanted to make her some cupcakes and after finding these cute little flags I was all set. The cake is vanilla but for the icing I used rum flavouring, so they truly did stick to the theme.

University Challenged

Last night we hosted a 'University Challenge' evening. Mainly because I wanted to play my new University Challenge game, in which my team managed to score a shocking total of zero points. We all dressed up and I served these themed cupcakes topped with the University Challenge logo and jelly sweet brains. Paxman would be proud.

Road Trip Reunion

Last night we had a Road Trip Reunion. It was a lovely evening with everyone getting together to look at photos and share stories from our trip to America this summer. We were hosted by the Speer family and special guest Judy who kindly made us dinner when we met up with her in Charlotte. As she was over for Christmas, last night she recreated the amazing spaghetti and meatball dinner we had while visiting. I contributed these cupcakes I made using the Primrose Bakery recipe. I used blue sugar pearls and strawberry laces for the flag. They were nothing in comparison to the amazing cupcakes which Peter Speer made (below). They replicated the spaghetti and meatball dinner we had just had. It included ferrero rocher for the meatballs, jam for the sauce and white chocolate shavings for parmesan! Genius!

Birthday Ducks

Although it looks like someone I know has had a baby boy, these are birthday cupcakes I made for a friend over the weekend. She has a duck which she takes on all her adventures and I thought she would like these little guys.

Macmillan Art Sale

I'm sure cakes bought for charity always taste better. These ones were for a Macmillan Art and Craft sale in Brighton. I used the poster for the event as inspiration and used mini smarties and colourful cases.

Candy Corn

The time between Halloween and Thanksgiving is candy corn season. I had been craving them for a while and so wanted to put them on everything. They made these cupcakes a little bit festive. This was the first time I used squirty icing as I was rushing to make them before class and I can safely say I won't ever again. It was way too sweet and I much prefer the one I make, but I guess for these the colour was perfect.

Hooters Party

A good reason to have a silly party is your best friend is moving to Spain for a year to teach and you are going to miss her. I threw a 'Hooters' themed party for my friend who loved visiting Hooters while traveling this summer. It was really just a reason for us to wear the tshirts and eat mini versions of fast food. And as a party always needs some cake...I made these cupcakes which were a mixture of the Hooters writing and boobs. They were probably the most fun cakes I have made, I spent ages discussing nipple size and getting the icing to look like skin. They were also a great excuse to eat two, as of course they are better in pairs...

Banana Cupcakes

Banana cake has been eaten by my family since I can remember.I decided to use Mum's cake recipe (with her knowing) to make these cupcake versions. They came out exactly like hers but in mini. I made vanilla frosting so that you could still taste the banana and put dried banana slices on top.

Story so far...

I have grown up with baking. So many memories include elaborate homemade birthday cakes and other family specialties like brownies and banana cake. Inspired by watching my mother bake since I was small, it is now a big part of my life. Here I will share endeavors from my favourite past time.