National Cupcake Week

Hi everyone!

I have been flying solo this week with the baking as my lovely partner in crime Rosie has been extremely busy starting college and making beautiful displays. But Buns and Roses is still on the cards and we have our next project over the next couple of weeks with a Simon's Cat themed birthday cake with also some other unusual ideas incorporated thanks to the request from Lucy. I will keep you updated as we really need to get pen to paper this week.

So it has been National Cupcake Week this week so I thought it would be a crime not to bake. I chose a neon theme and used some fantastic things in Morrisons at the moment including metallic pink, blue and silver bun cases and neon sugar sprinkles.  I chose to make pink, blue and yellow cupcake batter using gel food colourings, top with vanilla buttercream and then finish with the neon sugar sprinkles. I took these into work and unfortunately they disappeared before I could take a picture. I got couple of pictures of the last one:

I have had the boyfriend to stay this weekend and had a fab weekend shopping and relaxing. But he did remind me that it is his Mum and Dad's silver wedding anniversary on Wednesday. I decided I couldn't not bake something for them so whipped up a quick cake last night. Quite a challenge because I wanted a chilled evening with Xfactor, Cider and of course Luke haha. But I managed to quickly cook up the following:

It is vanilla sponge and mixed fruit jam topped with white regal icing. I used several different floral cutters and my new giant number cutters  to cut of of regal icing and painted them with food colouring and a paint brush. Not the normal approach but I took the idea of painting cake decorations from my lovely friend (who has just moved to Cambodia) Anna's childhood xmas cake decorating sessions. Hopefully it will be a taste success.

Did anyone else bake anything for National Cupcake Week? My next bake may be a cake for a work friends birthday or the Buns and Roses Birthday cake. I will keep you updated with another post coming shortly :)

Samantha Who (Loves to bake)

Buns and Roses

Hi everyone!

Sorry for not posting in what seems like forever, a lot has changed since my last post which has been keeping me very busy! I finished university in June and now have a 1st in BSc Mathematics whoo! :D. I made the most of my summer and went on 3 great holidays - Crete, Menorca and Ibiza. Then moved to York in July and am working in a graduate role at Northern Rail as a Data and Information Manager. It has taken almost 2 months to settle in because I have been here there and everywhere over the last few weekends including the Paralympics and V festival, but beside the chaos I am absolutely loving life in York!

3 months without posting has meant I have done a lot of baking and not posted the pictures on here so I will start with a few pictures showing what I have been up to:

Chocolate Fudge formula 1 cake for Luke

Cakes for the Bake Sale at work. Chocolate and vanilla cream cupcakes

Rainbow Macaroons

Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes with Doves

JP's chocolate giant cupcake

Anna's beach themed leaving cake

Ash's Mr Bump birthday cake

Rainbow inside of Ash

Danielles Sweet Cake

Dad's Garden Cake

Summer Trifle

I hope you like them. Luke's Formula 1 cake has been my biggest accomplishment so far I think along with Ash's Mr Bump which my lovely sister helped me with. I am hoping I have passed the baking bug onto Charlotte too :).

More recently I have joined baking forces with the lovely Rosie Artley produced a cake for her Mum and Dad's wedding anniversary, the masterpiece in the picture below:

A 3 tier cake requiring an awful lot of mix! But the effort and the burn to my right arm was worth it :) from the reaction when we wheeled it out.

 After the success of this cake me and Rosie have decided to go into business together as "Buns and Roses" ( thought of by me :)) as Rosie is currently training to be a florist. So this is my next big baking adventure!!!!!  We already have our first order together and its a wedding cake eee! I've had a meeting with the lovely lady who has ordered it and we have drawn up a design and have been asked to do it for the 27th October so not long to get it sorted but we are both very excited and keeping hush hush so not to spoil the suprise.  (We will document the process though with pictures for you all)

Because we are going to business there may be a few changes to this blog when we do, it may become the blog for Buns and Roses but we will see. So keep reading as I promise to post regularly now, with the progression of the cake and the business. You will also see us (Buns and Roses) appearing on Facebook in the coming months so if anyone has any upcoming birthdays/weddings/parties, Rosie and I would both be happy to have a chat with you and draw up the perfect cake and/or cupcakes.

So watch this space!

Samantha Who (loves to bake)

Jubilee Trifle Chocolate Cups

Hey guys

 

Sorry long time no post! I have finally finished my exams, assignments and dissertation, everything is in and university is over! The last 4 years have flown by and I am quite sad that it's all over. Today is the first day that I have done nothing in a while and I am actually quite bored! But I am very much looking forward to my holiday in a few weeks time. CRETE!

Anyway, on to the baking. For the Queen's Jubilee I decided to do a twist on something traditionally British. . . . Trifle. I made Raspberry Trifle in chocolate cups.  To do this I got my silicone cupcake cases that the lovely Steph and Andrew Artley (Lucy and Rosie 's Mum and Dad) bought me. I have 12 in total and 4 tea cup moulds. I used 450g of melted chocolate and painted it into the inside of each case using a teaspoon. After leaving in the fridge for an hour I repeated this with another 450g of chocolate and left to set again in the fridge for another hour. I could then peel away the silicone and was left with chocolate cups. I then placed trifle sponge and fruit cocktail in the bottom of each cup and filled the cup half way with Raspberry Jelly made from jelly cubes. (I had to leave the jelly to cool slightly before putting in the cups as the chocolate could have melted). I then made custard using instant custard mix and left to cool slightly, I then spooned this into the cups up to the top.  Now for the cream... I whipped up double cream and tried to fashion it on top of the cups and added decorations and sprinkles:

Very British

Chocolate Trifle Cups with icing union jack and decoration

Trifles in teacups <3

 My next plan is my boyfriends birthday cake next Tuesday, I don't have a clue how I am going to decorate it? I just know it has to be chocolatey haha! I will blog about that next week :)

Samantha Who (loves to bake)

TUTORIAL TUESDAY : Pina Colada Cupcakes

Hi there Pi-ettes!

I am writing after a very busy weekend, workwise and party wise! As you all know it was the lovely Nicky's birthday party on Friday and then I have also been out for the bank holiday too :D. I've also been very busy with uni work and completed one of my three assignments. I have an interview for a job this week as well eeek, so everything is going to continue to be hectic until my exam on the 22nd.

The majority of this blog will be about the baking I did for Nicky. I made her a birthday cake and then I did Pina Colada cupcakes for the party. For her cake I did two plain vanilla cakes sandwiched with buttercream and jam and covered in ready to roll purple icing, see the pics below. I topped it with some lovely icing flower decorations:

1 <3

2, look at all that glitter!! <3

For the cupcakes, I made pineapple sponge cupcakes with the following ingredients 2oz butter, 5oz sugar, 120ml (1 can)coconut milk, 1 large egg, 5oz plain flour, 2tsp baking powder, 425g (1 large can) of crushed pineapple. To make them I just creamed the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat the egg and coconut together and added to the butter and sugar a bit at a time, it did look slightly curled but ends up okay in the end. I then sifted in the flour and baking powder a little at a time then added the pineapple. The mix makes 12 cakes and can be cooked at 180C for 20mins until springy.


I then made Malibu butter cream. I needed around half a beaker of Malibu to give a good taste, with about 50g Butter and 275g icing sugar. It was incredibly yummy and addictive! I split the mixture into 3 and added a bit of flavored colouring into each, I made one strawberry pink, one lemon yellow and the third orange.

To decorate I cut down some straws, added some cocktail decorations and some cocktail umbrellas and put on some sprinkles and jelly orange and lemon decorations. Its quite a simple (as always) and unique recipe. And I have to admit me and the girls got a bit tipsy making the buttercream haha. I will add a more indepth recipe to the taskbar as usual when I next have time :). Hope you like the pictures below:

Pina Cola - Cupcakes <3 Strawberry and Orange

<3

I have also added a picture of the birthday girl <3 :

The girls at Nicky's Party!

On another note, me and Billie were meant to be at a cupcake class this weekend but unfortunately being a Sunday and a bank holiday there were no trains or buses to Worksop :( we are hoping to rearrange, so fingers crossed!!!

After my interview on Thursday I have my Dad's garden cake to do so I will be posting about that at the weekend/at the beginning of next week.

Ciao for now,

Samantha Who (loves to bake)

TUTORIAL TUESDAY : Caramel Cheesecakes

Good evening!

I promised I would re introduce the Tutorial Tuesdays after a few weeks AWOL and this week its going to be Mini Caramel Cheesecakes <3. I have made full sized caramel cheesecakes before but wanted to use the mini star shaped tins my sister got me for xmas again (they last featured when I made the mini black forest gateaux).  I trawled the internet trying to look for recipes to use and they are either way too complicated or use american ingredients for which direct substitutes aren't available here. So I kind of made it up. The response from the boyrfriend wad the base wasnt really cheesecakey as I used ginger nuts so feel free to substitute for digestives as they give a more 'cheesecakey' base as he put it.

The full recipe if you want to make these has been added to the task bar at the top, but for a taster here are the basics:

So I started with greasing the mini star tins, you could do this in muffin tins but I think you would have to grease them well. Then preheating the oven to 170 degrees.

I then made the bases by mixing 240g of biscuit crumbs with 4tbsp of light brown soft sugar and 70g melted butter. (its easy to make biscuit crumbs by putting the biscuits in a see through food bag and rolling with a rolling pin.) I then packed the crumbs evenly between the tins and put in the oven for 5 minutes.

To make the filling I creamed 450g cream cheese then added 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence, 30g sifted flour and 200g of light brown sugar and stired well. I then added two eggs one at a time stiring well. The mix was then shared equally between the tins and put in the oven for 20 min (until set).

When they were cool I spread a layer of dulce de leche on top and sprinkled on a few pieces of chopped up snickers.

And volia :

Caramel Cheesecakes - Picture taken by the lovely Chris Green (Luke's flatmate)

So thats it, they are pretty simiple and I think they could wow at a dinner party? Tommorow I am making Nicky's Birthday Cake so I will let you know how it goes :), fingers crossed. I will probably post again Saturday about the cake and cupcakes for Nicky's Party and then I've got the cupcake decorating class to look forward to on Sunday :D.

Ciao for now,

Samantha Who (loves to bake)

Upcoming baking and posts.....

Hello again!

 I am finally free after handing in my dissertation yesterday. I say free but I actually have three assignments to be getting on with eek! Well today is a chill out day as a reward of finally finishing my dissertation so I thought I would blog :)

The next few weeks will be busy weeks for me. I have 4 weeks left at uni then it is all over, which is pretty scary and means I have to start looking for jobs :S. I did online numeracy and verbal reasoning tests for one job yesterday so I am getting there and have applied for another which I am looking forward to hearing back from. Its a shame I can't spend my life baking cakes, I can always dream.

But thats not all for the next few weeks, I am also going to be busy with baking <3.

Firstly, next week is my lovely flatmates 22nd birthday party, so I am baking a cake for her to keep at the house and some cupcakes to take to the party. I have a few ideas already but she's quite creative herself so I can imagine that she will have a few ideas for the cupcakes so I will post on here when they are done :).

Secondly, next Sunday me and my lovely baking friend Billie are going on a cupcake decorating course in Worksop. It was my Christmas present to her and we are finally getting round to going. I am so excited and can't wait to learn a few new things. I will review the class also on here the following week :).

Thirdly, May the 12th is my amazing Dad's Birthday so I will be making a cake. I picked up some cute garden gnome candles so thought a garden related cake would be perfect for him. BUT and it's a big but as I love using ready to roll icing, he doesn't like it. Therefore I have the challenge of decorating the cake using as little as possible. I think it will be a challenge but I have drawn something up already so I have a few thoughts.

Finally, I am itching to bake the Bakewell cake that featured on last weeks Saturday Cookbook. I have got really into that programme and LOVE Nadia! As I am busy with work I have to find an excuse to bake it, so I think I may have fatten up the bfs flatmates again haha.

So as you can see the next few weeks are going to be busy, but there's also lots of things for me to blog about, so my next blog will be this weeks TUTORIAL TUESDAY and the Mini Caramel Cheesecakes. But today I will leave you with a few pictures of the cakepops I did last week, I used vanilla flavoured cake for them and have to say I think they are yummier than the chocolate ones. To decorate them I ordered some red candy melts off ebay which were great but also tried experimenting with some Tescos own dark chocolate which was a bit thick, I had to add vegetable oil to thin it. I also used the normal Silverspoon Strawberry, Orange and White chocolate, see what you think:

Vanilla Cakepops - I love the ones with sprinkles best

And again <3

Be back Tuesday lovelys,

Samantha Who (loves to bake)

Sorry ...... I Am Back Now :D

Hey there Pi-ettes!

Sorry I have been AWOL over the last few weeks. I can now say the fear has set in at university and I have been working very hard to get my dissertation done as well as all my other work. Anyway it's due in on Monday then I have 3 assignments and an exam then it is all over, very scary!

Anyway even though I have been exceptionally busy I have still managed to have two baking sessions, 1) Mini Caramel Cheesecakes and 2) Vanilla Cake Pops. These will appear properly in upcoming posts but here are some pictures to get your mouths watering haha:

Caramel Ginger Cheesecakes

Vanilla Cake Pops

I am hoping to be back  a week on Tuesday for the next Tutorial Tuesday  :D and may even be back posting again this weekend once my dissertations sent for print :).

While I am here I am going to get sorted with all these award things the lovely Lucy keeps nominating me for:

Firstly, today I will do the One Lovely Blog award:

So there are a couple of rules:

1. Nominate 15 fellow bloggers. 

2. Share 7 random facts about yourself. 

So my random facts:

1) I have recently been retracing my family tree.

2) I wish I could pull tattoos off like my lovely sister.

3) I love being a 'Ginger'

4) My Kindle accompanies me on all long journeys.

5) I am addicted to shopping on Ebay.

6) I am honestly quite strong for a girl and enjoy doing weights.

7) My personal best for 5k is 28 mins (not amazing I know)

My 15 ( I don't have 15 favorites) so 5 bloggers are:

1) Lucy

2) Rosie

3)Cupcakes Take the Cake

4) Leap Frog

5)Bubble and Sweet

Anyway moustache (must dash haha),

Samantha Who (loves to bake)