new arrival!

pretty pink and white cupcakes to welcome a new arrival!

Just for fun!

summer weddings

Having fun with wedding cupcakes and samplers.......

Vanilla with lemon and raspberry buttercream frosting and fresh flowers.......so pretty!

Chocolate Truffle with rich chocolate frosting and Vanilla Raspberry

Chocolate Truffle, Banana Maple and Carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting - very elegant

chocolate puddle cookies...and fluffy pink marshmallows

Is it wrong to eat Chocolate Truffle cupcake for breakfast?......

well.....I just couldn't resist when I'm surrounded by them! Over the last couple of days I've baked and iced dozens of cute Valentine Chocolate Truffle cupcakes - chocolate heaven, seeing them all lined up neatly, ready to be boxed and delivered in time for Valentine's Day.

I always love delivering the cupcakes.....to see the smile on people's faces, but delivering the Valentine ones has been especially enjoyable. I've dropped them off with an air of planned subterfuge, and have shared the sense of excited anticipation as I've handed over the gift boxes filled with decadent chocolate treats, knowing that they will later be presented to unsuspecting loved ones!

So,...... with all these chocolate truffle cupcakes in production I found myself left with surplus Pink Velvet cupcakes . and lots of egg-whites that needed using up, and.....the obvious solution was Pink Cloud cupcakes!! Moist fluffy raspberry vanilla sponge, topped with clouds of the pinkest marshmallow meringue frosting

......and these little fluffy pillows of delicate pink raspberry marshmallow using this marshmallow recipe from James Martin.....I'm a sucker for anything pink and edible, especially when it's so pretty!

Coincidentally, I'd also come across this recipe for Chocolate Puddle Cookies the other day on one of my favourite blog sites while looking for some healthy dinner ideas - honestly! (it's amazing how easily distracted I become with chocolate) It was a perfect coming together of serendipitous circumstances; a recipe for fudgy chocolatiness, and spare egg-whites.....

These are soooooo good. I couldn't wait for them to cool, and had to have one while it was still warm from the oven. It was chocolate heaven, soft, fudgy, and dense in the middle, and what's even better - they don't contain any wheat so they're gluten-free, a perfect indulgence, so that even those chocolate lovers with a wheat intolerance don't have to miss out, or compromise on chocolatey bliss!

cupcake crazy

A New Year, a new decade, a fresh start.....

I haven't posted in so long, but it's all been a bit cupcake mad lately!!.... I decided that after a love affair with cakes and baking for years, I would start my own cupcake business Pretty Sweet. It was definitely the right idea, and I'm having so much fun doing something that I absolutely love. Seeing all the cupcakes lined up neatly in their colourful rows, and being up to my elbows in icing sugar and buttercream is my idea of heaven!......I have so many plans for new flavours whizzing around in my head for the new year, and a special valentine range in mind for February.

My own passion, as you will know if you are a regular reader (sorry guys for neglecting you for so long!) is for fantastic quality food - real food; so it's no surprise that this goes for my cupcakes too, and I'm passionate about sourcing excellent quality (and local, where possible) fresh ingredients. After all, it's not just about what the cakes look like - it's important that they deliver on taste too! So, I use fresh fruits to flavour and colour the cakes - no nasty additives. Although, I must admit that I have included a 'just for fun' range that indulges my love of all things bright and glittery, and the cake toppings are like I said, just for fun. That said, I am always trying to source additive free sprinkles and decorations.

I'm looking forward to the spring when all the flowers start to bloom again - they are just beautiful sitting pretty on top of the pastel cupcakes for the naturals collection and this is something that I want to develop even more. Of course, there has been a lot of cupcake eating (in the name of research, naturally!) so.... I think my new year will start with getting back to some healthy detox foods - though, of course, this will just allow me to start again with more 'research'. I wish you all a magical New Year....I have a feeling it's going to be a good one :o)

when life blows you a raspberry.....

...blow it right back with White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Cupcakes with a raspberry cream cheese frosting! Ha!... right back at ya with sprinkles on - or raspberries!

These are actually a bit of a mish mash of lots of things that I love all mussed into one, a desire to use up a cream cheese 'surplus' from a carrot cake recipe, plus a whimsical notion to put it all together with white chocolate.....and why not!

So, what I ended up with is a white chocolate cupcake, based on my Banana Chocolate Muffins, using white chocolate instead of dark chocolate. Thrown in with a smattering of fresh raspberries and cheesecake (I snuck the idea of how to incorporate this from David Lebovitz's ..... Cheesecake Brownies )

Then, as if that wasn't enough gorgeousness overload in one cake, I felt like topping it all off with a raspberry ripple cream cheese frosting, based on the cream cheese frosting for the carrot cake!

Definitely just the thing to make the world right again!

sweet violet cupcakes

With Spring unfurling her rainbow hues, my garden is now carpeted with sweet violets, their frail purple blossoms a florid blaze.

Dating back to Roman times there has been evidence of violets being put to culinary use. In Rome they would welcome the Spring with 'Violetum' - a sweet violet wine, and why not? Like other plants, violets too are not without their medicinal properties. Folklore has it that the plant is good for all sorts of ailments from sore throats to headaches, to moderating anger, and even curing cancer. Violet blossoms are, in fact, higher in Vitamin C than any other domestic green vegetable, and also contain Vitamin A! Tea made from the entire plant is used to treat digestive disorders, whilst new research has detected the presence of a glycoside of salicylic acid (a natural aspirin) which affirms its use for centuries in many countries as a herbal medicinal remedy.

There have been recipes for using violets through the centuries, but the violet became particularly popular with the Victorians and Edwardians. A 'Violet Tea' was a Spring event, held when the flowers were in bloom. As violets are such delicate flowers, the Edwardian Violet Tea was presented in suitably elegant fashion. All food was especially light and miniaturized, with bite sized scones and sandwiches flavored with violet jelly or crystallized violets.

The violet is such a beautiful and evocative flower that I was inspired to use those delicate blossoms from the garden. Of course, my thoughts immediately turned to cupcakes! I was also reminiscing over the sickly sweet, but very addictive, 'Parma Violets' that I remember eating as a child. You can still buy them, but I haven't had any for years!

So, I started by baking a batch of cupcakes using a basic sponge mixture and adding lots of vanilla (I decided that anything else might overpower the delicate violet flavour) I wanted a flat topping that would frost the cakes with a slight crunch, so I used Royal Icing and added crushed Parma Violets to it. This produced a lovely pale lilac colour, and also, not surprisingly, tasted like Parma Violets....rather like a grown up and more sophisticated version of the candy! Finally, to decorate the cupcakes how could I better nature, so I picked fresh violet blossoms from the garden and crystallized them with a glimmering coating of fine sugar. They looked so pretty, a bit like ethereal butterflies.

The tender violet bent in smiles

To elves that sported nigh

Tossing the drops of fragrant dew

To scent the evening sky.
(Elizabeth Oakes Smith 1806-1893)

Sweet Violet Cupcakes

(by Alfie)

Sponge mix

100g self-raising flour

100g caster sugar

100g butter softened

2 eggs

1-2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking powder

Royal Icing

1 egg white

1 teaspoon lemon juice

icing sugar

3 packs of Giant Parma Violets

For the cupcakes, beat together all of the ingredients for 4-5 minutes until well combined and pale and fluffy. Spoon into cake cases but don't overfill - you only want the cakes to come about two thirds up the case when they're cooked.

Bake in a moderate oven Gas 5 for about 20-25 minutes until they are risen and spring back when touched. Take out and leave aside to cool.

When the cupcakes have cooled, cut the dome off the top just to flatten them out a bit so the icing will sit better. Then make the icing.

To make the icing, lightly whisk the egg-white and lemon juice in a clean bowl just to break it up a little, then beat in icing sugar, a tablespoon at a time, until the consistency is thick but it will still find it's own level. If you add too much icing sugar and it becomes too thick, just add more egg white to thin it down again. Crush the Parma Violets - I found the easiest way to do this was in a pestle and mortar. Using the food processor made too much fine powdery dust!. Then mix in a little hot water to make a paste. Stir this into your icing and then pour carefully into the cake cases. Leave to set - preferably overnight.

Decorate with the crystallized flowers - attaching them with a little more egg-white

lemon cloud cupcakes

Yes! it's raining again - I know I shouldn't complain, after all it does seem to happen rather a lot! You would think I'd be used to it by now, but really I'm a Summer girl at heart!.........still, it was the perfect excuse to bake a little sunshine into my life. Lemon Cupcakes to banish away those grumpy grey clouds, inspired by the bright yellow and white primulas bravely standing sentinel against the assault of the rain in the barren Winter garden. Not that I ever need an excuse to bake cupcakes anyway, since I love them in all their enticing incarnations...
These ones, I decided, would be lovely and lemony and dense, with a swirl of fluffy pink & white icing. So, off I went with flour, sugar, eggs lemon and butter all thrown into my basin, to be transformed twenty minutes later into gorgeous edible nuggets. Isn't it amazing how a bowl full of apparently unrelated looking creamy goo can manifest into something so wonderfully and completely different, all springy and golden. It's like magic!!

Unashamedly, I'll admit that my favourite part - and sometimes, the whole reason for baking! - is to eat the leftover cake mix straight from the bowl........(funny really how there always seems to be more mixture than I need). It's one of those childhood things that has stayed with me......it was always a real 'treat' to be given the bowl to clean out when mum was baking......scraping around the sides eagerly with a spoon, that velvety, vanilla flavoured confection that just melted on your tongue.

Anyway, here's my own recipe, a blend of various basic principles. The texture of the cakes is more madeira than sponge - a little more heavy which makes them more substantial. For the icing I decided to keep it plain with just a little vanilla flavouring, although you could add some more lemon juice or zest if you wanted it lemony too. The two-tone colour is really easy to achieve as well, simply by loading the icing bag with pink down one side, and white on the other!

And.... before I go, here are some links to some other gorgeous things cupcake-related.....cupcake shaped soaps and so cute knitted cupcakes from Betz White.

Lemon Cloud Cupcakes

175g self-raising flour

100g butter

100g caster sugar

2 large eggs

zest and juice of 1 lemon + a little milk

Icing:

275g Icing sugar

175g butter

4 Tablespoons milk

Pink food colouring

Vanilla essence

It couldn't be easier to make these. Just put all of the ingredients for the cakes into a mixing bowl and whizz up together until it's pale and fluffy (a couple of minutes). The consistency needs to be fairly soft, so you may need to add a little extra milk - flours vary in the amount of liquid that they take up - to make a 'soft dropping' consistency.

Spoon the mixture into cake cases (I used muffin moulds) to about two thirds full, and then bake in the oven at 190C / 375 F / Gas 5 for 20-25 minutes until they are golden and spring back when touched. Leave to cool.

For the icing, soften the butter in a bowl and then mix in the icing sugar and enough milk to make a soft fluffy icing. Divide the icing in half and colour one half with pink colouring, then pile into an icing bag with a star nozzle - pink on one side, and white on the other - and swirl it onto the cooled cakes.

Instant sunshine!