August Updates from the JC Kitchen

It's been a busy month here. Lots of yummy orders going out. I've also been pretty busy with Pink Chilli VA with some new clients and working on future plans.

So who is on Instagram? You can follow me here.

I'll be sharing a recipe post next week so be sure to pop back! You can also sign up for my Newsletter by entering your email in the box on the right hand side of the post.

Ruffle Rainbow Cakes

Gruffalo Cupcakes

Cute Owls

Elegant Ruffles

More ruffles

Giant Cupcakes

I've also been pretty busy with classes. To celebrate I have a special offer going. See below for details!

April Showers

Hi everyone, Will it ever stop raining? I know they call it April showers but we have had so much!

April has been a busy month with lots of classes and parties. I wanted to share some of the pictures of what people have made in the classes. If you want more details of classes and parties you can check out my website.

Now we are into May the wedding season starts so expect lots of pictures!

I'd also love for you all to join me on my Facebook page. Come and join me!

Updates from the JC Kitchen April 2012

Hi Everyone :)

Just wanted to share some recent pictures with you.

I also have space on my cupcake class this Saturday. 11-2pm and costs £50. Please email mail@jessicascupcakes.com to book.

I'm also continuing with my unhealthy addiction to Pinterest. You can follow me here.

If you haven't already please come and join me on my Facebook and Twitter.

Mother's Day Cupcakes

Mother's Day Cupcakes

Mother's Day Cupcakes

Mother's Day Cupcakes

Birthday Cupcakes

Black & White Wedding

Cookie Crunch

Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry filling, vanilla butter cream and raspberry top 

Yes that was a cookie in the bottom :)

Sprinkle Power

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

It's not long until Valentine's Day so have you decided what to get?

Cupcakes might be a very welcomed gift!

Cakes can be delivered local to Banbury or collected from me on 13th February up until 8pm.

4 cupcakes- £8

6 cupcakes- £12

12 Cupcakes- £22

Delivery charges are £3.95 within 10 miles of Banbury

Please contact me asap if you would like to book some in because as you can imagine it's a busy time of year.

Of course cupcakes are not just for Valentine's Day so let me know what ever your order.

Jess

xx

Where is the sun?

So it's summer? Where is the sun? I'm hoping this means we have a lovely August and September!!

I've been busy with cupcakes and classes which is great. Please contact me for class dates. They last 3 hours and cost £50.

Here are a few pics of recent cakes.

Sheep Cupcakes- The clients surname was "Wooley" so her husband thought it was a good idea :-)

Top cutting cake

Ladybug Cupcakes and cutting cake

Plans are coming along to expand the business a little. I've mentioned the vintage china hire- I've been doing smaller events but the plan is to build the collection so I can do much larger ones. And i'm excited about the Tea Party Packages!

I also have a personal blog over at Pink Chilli Vintage so please pop over and say hi :-)

Cupcake Overload!

It's been a busy couple of months here. Lots of orders and weddings going on. Plus a lot of cupcake classes too!

I've also been on the hunt for more vintage pieces to add to the collection for the vintage china hire as well. Hopefully launching this year.

Wedding cupcakes in various flavours and a top cutting cake.

My main goal this month is to get up to date with all the business admin- you'd be surprised to know how much there is!

Another piece of good news is Jessica's Cupcakes got a 5 star rating from the council. Yay!

Two new books I've got this week are "Peggy Porschen Pretty Party cakes" and "May Clee-Cadman- Cakes for Romantic Occasions" lots of wonderful inspiration in both.

This weekend I have a Vegas themed wedding with a Dice top cutting cake and card suit cupcakes. Great fun!!

If you are not yet following me on facebook you can do so here

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!

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

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

Merry Christmas

Hi Everyone, hope xmas plans are coming along.

I love Christmas! Busy time of year though. Got a few orders coming in which is good. 18th Birthday, Thank You cakes for local vet, Christmas Cupcakes etc.

Anyone been watching Kristie's Homemade Xmas? I love that show. So many fab ideas for Xmas and how much do I want to do Salt dough shapes! ?Takes me back!

Jobs I'm planning to do over the weekend: make candles, make cookies, send xmas cards, order xmas food shop online, make some more chutney and finish sewing bear.
Also I want to update the www.jessicascupcakes.com website. Need to freshen it up a bit, add some more pics and add some more flavour ranges so watch this space!

I'm loving the hummingbird bakery cookbook. I have done 2 recipes so far and both have been fab. Coconut and Pineapple and Strawberry Cheesecake. Yummy!

Couple of weeks ago I held a cupcake party, a girls night in one. They all had a fab time and made some fabulous cupcakes.
Next weekend is my Nephew's birthday so he will be having cupcake decorating and I'm also doing "magic" theme cupcakes for him.

I'm hoping that 2010 the party bookings get a bit busier as I love doing them.
Right must be getting on with things. Will post update and more pics soon, especially of anymore "crafty bits"!

Well firstly apologies for the long delay between posts, just not found the time to get on here.

Been busy baking, getting sorted for my new (day) job which starts tomorrow and sorting out admin.

I have a couple of cupcake parties booked now which is fab, they are great fun and seem to be popular.

Really starting to feel the cold weather now, the slow cooker is out and has been used a fair bit already. Also searched high and low today for a hot water bottle but could not find one anywhere! May have to order one online. Shops are full of these things you put in the microwave- i just want a normal bog standard hot water bottle!

Made my Christmas cake the other day which filled the house with all my favourite smells, also used some of the mixture to make christmas cupcakes which went down lovely with a cup of tea.

Made some sex and the city girlie style cupcakes for a 40th which worked out well, loved the colours- see below






Also have a done a few simple poured fondant cupcakes



This week not many orders to do apart from some wedding samples which is probably a bit of a blessing seeing as this week I am starting my new day job with Nationwide. Wish me luck!