Alice in Wonderland

This weekend I had lots of fun making Alice in Wonderland Cupcakes. Alice in Wonderand is one of my favourite Disney films and i've wanted to make these for so long.

I also make some breakfast themed cupcakes which were fun to make.

And some simple snowflake cupcakes.

Today i'm going to be trying out some new flavours and ordering supplies. I also need to get my paperwork done as i've left it for a while! Oops!

Remember I'm running a little competition on your Fantasy Cupcake on my Facebook page. I've also got a great offer on cupcake classes. Check it out.

Jess xx

Busy with cupcake classes

Hi everyone, sorry I've not blogged for a while.

At Jessica's Cupcakes I've been really busy with cupcake classes. People have been saying how fab they are and how much they learnt. Which is fab new.

Here is a few pics of people's creations. Great work.

Lots of orders have gone out of the kitchen this month. Some of my favourites were these bumble bees. Cute!

Today I held a cupcake party in Leicester for a group of lovely ladies. We did a christmas theme and here are some of their creations. They were all thrilled with what they made.

I've added some more dates to www.jessicascupcakes.com for classes so check them out. I'm always adding more and you can purchase gift vouchers for them which would make a great present and they are valid for 6 months and the recipient can choose their own date.

Plans are moving along with the business expansion next year into vintage china hire and holding vintage tea parties. Watch this space!!

I'm running a competition from my facebook page so have a little look and become a fan.

Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

September already!

I can't believe how quickly this year is going by. Not long until Christmas!!!

Here are a few cupcake highlights

White chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes- divine!

Giant Cupcakes

Cupcakes created in one of my cupcake classes

I also did a little tea party with my cousin and friends :-) I was in charge of cakes! Great fun!

The weekend just gone I was a bridesmaid for my best friend Catherine, it was a wonderful day and was great I could share it with her.

I did some experimenting the other day with seasonal flavours and created these fab Blackberry and apple Cupcakes. You must try them!!! Here is the recipe:

Blackberry and Apple Cupcakes

Ingredients

230g unsalted butter

220g golden caster sugar

225g self raising flour

4 large free range eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 – 2 tablespoons milk

2 large apples

3 tablespoons water

20g golden caster sugar

Jam filling

275g fresh blackberries

2 tablespoons water

20g caster sugar

Cream cheese Icing

250g soft cream cheese

150g butter

400g icing sugar

Method

You will need a 12 hole muffin tin and line with 12 cupcake cases and a large piping bag with nozzle.

Top tip: Make sure the baking ingredients are at room temperature and try not over mix the mixture once the eggs and flour are added.

1. preheat oven to 170-180, gas mark 4 (fan assist 150-170)

2. peel the apples and then chop into small cubes then gently cook with the sugar and water in a small covered pan, until slightly soften. Strain apple and put to one side to cool.

3. In the same pan put the fresh blackberries, sugar and water and cook until it looks like the consistency of a thin jam- about 15 minutes. Transfer to a bowl and leave to cool in the fridge.

4. in mixer cream butter with sugar and vanilla extract, beat until light and fluffy.

5. gently mix in the beaten egg and fold sifted flour with a wooden spoon.

6. fold the cooled apple pieces into the cake batter and add a tablespoon or two of milk if required to form a dropping consistency. Don’t make it too thin as the apples won’t hold in the batter.

7. Spoon mixture into the 12 cupcake cases & fill until three quarters full.

8. cook for 20 minutes or until golden. Test with skewer (it should come out clean). Remove tray from oven and leave for a few minutes. Place cupcakes onto wire tray to cool completely.

Top tip: Always bake cupcakes on the middle shelf of the oven where possible

9. cut out a teaspoon sized piece from the cupcake. Add a teaspoon of the blackberry jam to the centre.

10. To make the cream cheese frosting mix all the ingredients together and place into a piping bag. Pipe onto the cupcakes and top with a fresh blackberry. These are best enjoyed straight away but can be eaten up to 2 days after but remove the blackberry on top.

For bakes sake!

It's been very busy in the Jessica's Cupcakes household. We are moving house in 12 days so lots of packing going on. As it's bank holiday Monday tomorrow we are also going to do a car boot to get rid of some things. Plus I can have a mooch around for some vintage china bits.

Cake wise I've done a giant cupcake

Congratulations Cupcakes

A cupcake party

I'm shortly going to be adding decorated cookies to the range. As with cupcakes these can be for any occasion: wedding, birthday, hen party, engagement, baby shower...the list goes on. I'm really excited about the cookies so watch this space!

A few other bakes I've done this week are banana bread (love this with a bit of butter spread over it), chocolate brownies (the best yet), millionaire shortbread, lemon macaroons and pistachio macaroons.

I want to share the banana bread recipe with you as it's so yummy:

Banana Bread- makes about 8 slices

Ingredients

270g soft light brown sugar

2 eggs

200g peeled bananas, mashed

280g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

140g unsalted butter, melted

1. Grease a 23x13cm loaf tin and dust with flour. Preheat the oven to 170C / 325F / GM3

2. Put the sugar and eggs in an electric mixer with a paddle attachment and beat until well incorporated. Beat in the mashed bananas.

3. Add the flour, baking powder, bicarb of soda, cinnamon and ginger to the sugar mix. Mix it until all the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the egg mixture. Pour in the melted butter and beat until all the ingredients ar well mixed.

4. Place mixture into the loaf tin and smooth over. Bake in the preheated oven for about 1 hour or until firm to the touch and a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Leave the cake to cool for about 15 minutes in the tin before turning out to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

5. Enjoy!

Cakes glorious cakes

Firstly an apology.. I know I've not updated the blog for a long time. No excuses just one of those things that gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list!

Anyway lots of cupcaking has been going on. Summer seems to make people want cake! Plus wedding season is among us.

Wedding Cupcakes- Handmade gold butterflies and burgundy roses.

Cupcake classes have also been busy the past few months and I love doing them. The feedback is always great and i'm so glad when people are really proud of what they achieved. I had a mother and daughter come yesterday and they were thrilled with what they made.

I'm doing a summer cupcake offer for July and August. One dozen cupcakes are £18 (normally £22) and half dozen are £10 (normally £12). To take up this offer please mention the promo code SUMMER1 when calling/emailing.

Here is a few of the cupcakes I have done this month- pink and girly has been the main theme!

Vanilla Cupcakes for an employees leaving present.

These are some cupcakes I did for the Big Lunch on Queens Road Banbury

Some pink and girly christening cupcakes

Flat top fondant cupcakes

The sun has got his hat on...

I'm loving the weather we are having at the moment. It just makes everything so much better!!! We have had 4 bbq's already in the past 2 weeks!

This week i had a lovely lady called Sharon come to a cupcake lesson with me. We had a great time chatting away but she created some fab cupcakes that she is now going to go away and practice making more with her little girl!

It's been pretty quiet on the cake front the past couple of weeks. The last big lot I did was for a wedding in Corby. Lovely wedding and lovely couple. A couple of pics below but apologies for the quality as they were taken with my phone. One thing i'm saving for is a proper camera as the pictures I take of my cakes are really pretty bad!

For my birthday I got the big cupcake cake pan from my best friend so I must make one of these soon the 1st chance I get. The I think i'll add them to the site for people to purchase if they want. Big giant cupcake!! Can't be a bad thing!

I'm thinking about some new designs to do to celebrate the better weather. So i'll keep you posted. But lots of brights!

The recipe i want to share for this post is the cake I made Phil for his birthday. It's not fancy looking but it tastes like a birthday cake should. Let me know if any of you try it. I found this recipe on Nigella's Website

INGREDIENTS
200g plain flour
3 tablespoons Bird’s custard powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
4 eggs
225g soft butter
200g caster sugar
2–3 tablespoons milk

FOR THE BUTTERCREAM FILLING
125g icing sugar
4 teaspoons Bird’s custard powder
75g soft unsalted butter
11/2 teaspoons boiling water

FOR THE CHOCOLATE ICING
60ml water
2 tablespoons golden syrup
125g caster sugar (or use 50g if using milk chocolate)
175g dark chocolate
1 pot hundreds and thousands

Serving Size : Makes up to 12 slices

METHOD

1.Make sure everything you need is at room temperature before you start. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4/180°C, and butter and line two 20cm sandwich tins.

2.Put all of the above ingredients except the milk, into a food processor. Process to a smooth batter, and then add the milk a tablespoon at a time to make a soft dropping consistency. Divide between the two cake tins and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes will have risen and feel spookily puffy; this is because of the cornflour in the custard powder.

3.Let the tins sit on a cooling rack for 5 minutes and then turn them out on to the rack, peeling away the paper.

4.FOR THE BUTTERCREAM ICING - Process the icing sugar and custard powder to get rid of any lumps, and then add the butter, processing again to make the buttercream come together. Feed the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running to make the filling easier to spread. Then sandwich the cooled sponges together with the custardy buttercream.

5.FOR THE CHOCOLATE ICING - Combine the water, syrup and sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve over a low heat.

6.Let it come to the boil and then take it off the heat.

7. Break up the chocolate into small pieces if you are not using chocolate buttons (as I do for cooking, but good quality not confectionary standard), and then add to the pan, swirling it around to cover in the hot liquid. Leave to melt for a few minutes, and then whisk the icing to make it smooth and shiny. Pour over the buttercream filled cake, letting it drip down the sides, and then sprinkle generously with the hundreds and thousands before the icing sets.

Have a fab weekend everyone.

Jess xoxo

What a busy week!

Well Mother's day weekend was very busy in our house! Lot's of lucky mum's out there getting yummy cupcakes! Below is a few pics of some of the one's that went out.

I also had a cupcake class with a lovely couple from Wales who want to set up their own cupcake business. It was a fun few hours and they had a great time learning decorating techiniques and were really pleased with how their cakes turned out. Below is a picture of them!

My cupcake classes are getting more popular now with a lot of bookings coming in, and i love doing them.

Order wise not much this week. Had some to do for a 40th Birthday this weekend and it's my lovely man's birthday so some baking to be done there!

On Tuesday at 20:30 BBC2 "The Delicious Miss Dahl" starts and I cannot wait. I have her book "Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights" and it's one of my favourites. Yummy recipes and a beautiful book to read as well.

Hope everyone has a fab week :-)

I can't believe it's March!

The past few months have wizzed by! I can't believe we are in March already. I'm happy that the snow seems to have steered clear for a while now and i'm looking forward to getting some more sunshine!!

Some sunshine theme cupcakes

Last time I mentioned I launched the cupcake classes. I have 2 people coming on Friday for a 121 class. So looking forward to that. She is looking to set up as a business so will be sharing my experience of setting Jessica's Cupcakes up.

This week I have some cupcakes I'm donating for a charity cake sale for a local nursery- they are going to be Chocolate orange brownie flavour. Yummy crumbliness (is that a word?!). Have posted my recipe below.

I also have some christening cupcakes to do in a pink and cream theme. So a fairly quiet week- means I can do some testing with new flavours and designs.

Something i've always wanted to do is to write a book so currently researching that- want to do a cupcake book- or maybe baking in general. Need to do some thinking. If anyone has any hints and tips on writing/publishing a book then please let me know!

Remember the upcoming dates for cupcake classes are:

Friday 23rd April 2010
Friday 21st May 2010
Friday 18th June 2010

They run from 10am-1pm and cost £50. See http://www.jessicascupcakes.com/ for more info.

Here is an order i did for a girly girl who loves Top Gear!

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

Makes 12 and few cupcakes

Ingredients

60g milk chocolate

Rind and juice from 1 orange

90g softened butter

225g brown sugar

2 eggs

80g self raising flour

2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 175 degrees celcius

1. Put chocolate, orange rind and orange juice in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and stir until melted. Then leave to one side to cool slightly.

2. Put butter, eggs and sugar in a mixer and mix until light and fluffy.

3. Sift flour and cocoa into butter mix. Then add the chocolate orange mixture and mix until combined.

4. Spoon into cupcake cases and bake in oven for about 25 minutes and then cool.

For topping you can use a vanilla buttercream, chocolate buttercream or a yummy cream cheese frosting with some orange zest added.

Cupcake Classes Launched

Yesterday i launched my cupcakes classes. They will be held at my home in small groups and will allow people to learn some of the techniques of decorating cupcakes.

The dates I have so far are:

Friday 23rd April 2010
Friday 21st May 2010
Friday 18th June 2010

They will run from 10am until 1pm and cost £50. I'm very excited about these as I love teaching people how to decorate cakes and get great satisfaction seeing people suprised at what they can create.

On the order front been quite busy which is fab. I have a lot of birthday and Valentine's orders coming up including some stig cupcakes for a 6 year old girl which i think is fab!

Here are some Birthday cakes I did recently.

Happy New Year

Wow xmas was a busy time, also was poorly for a lot of it so wasn't much of a relaxing time. Hope everyone had a great xmas and New Year.


Wedding orders starting to flow in now for 2010 which is great. I love doing wedding cupcakes :-)


My new favourite flavour is coconut and pineapple cupcakes, soooo yummy. Also Strawberry Cheesecake is a close second.


This year i'd like to start branching out into bigger celebration cakes, will look for a couple of courses as i'm getting lots of requests for bigger cakes.


Here are some pictures of cuppies done the past few weeks:



Xmas cupcakes for a Vet





Magician Cupcakes






Girly Birthday Cupcakes