Hey there!

Since I got my new turntable cake stand, I’ve made more cakes than I usually did before. I can’t stop it! I love spreading the icing with the palette knife and scrapping the cake sides whilst I turn around the stand. It’s very relaxing!

Last weekend was even hotter than the previous one, so I had to prepare a refreshing recipe as well, like the previous lemon & orange cupcakes. But in that occasion it had to be a cake… 

Furthermore, I wanted to try techniques that I had never tried before. I wanted to experiment… So I checked my nozzles and I noticed a new one, which I got several weeks ago.

It was the tip #47, used to make the basket weave effect. As you can see, it has a flat side and a serrated one. Then I though on how could I benefit from it. When I checked my fridge and I saw some fresh raspberries, the idea came instantly. Oh, yes! A raspberry basket!

To make this cake, I used:

♥  5″ round cake tin (13 cm) to bake the lemon sponge (my favourite at the moment).

♥  Tip #47 to make the basket weave effect (see this technique down below).

♥  Tip #22 to make the effect of the borders on top (by drawing overlapped U shapes).

♥  Brown food colouring. I used the Wilton brown concentrated paste to colour both buttercream and marzipan.

♥  Brown coloured buttercream. I used triple of the amount of icing sugar (375 grs) than butter (125 grs) because it was an extremely hot day and I didn’t want my buttercream to melt! I flavoured it with lemon to enhance the sponge flavour. 

♥  Brown coloured marzipan to make the basket handles. I twisted 3 thin marzipan rolls in order to emulate them.

♥  Raspberries (as many as fit onto the top of the cake). 

♥  Cake board (base)

I left the lemon sponge to settle for a day before decorating. It is what most cake decorators recommend, but it was a long wait for me!!  

I used my new turntable cake stand to turn the cake around whilst I was applying the icing. First of all, I covered the cake with a thin layer of brown buttercream by means of a palette knife. Then I left it to cool inside the fridge for about 30 min. After that, I piped the basket (tip #47). Look at the Wilton basket weave tecnhique: 

Once the basket dried, I covered the top of the cake with a thick layer of buttercream and piped the borders (tip #22). I stuck both basket handles onto these borders and carefully placed the raspberries onto the center (fresh buttercream works well as glue!!). 

Once the cake was decorated, I had to put it inside the fridge because of the baking hot! 

The citric lemon flavour works well with the acid and sweet raspberries. Very refreshing. Try it out! Yesterday I repeated this combination with some cupcakes. And I’m sure I’ll do it again! 

Have a nice week!

Hi there!

About a couple of weeks ago I bought two packs of Oreo biscuits: the standard ones and the mini ones. At the beginning, I wanted to make Oreo buttercream (which is still pending!), but finally I used these biscuits for another purpose. Check it out! 

Have you noticed it? Can you find the Oreos? Look at the owls’ eyes! 

I just separated both sides of each biscuit very carefully, taking care not to break them. I had to remove some white cream because it was covering the whole biscuit surface (I think it was because of the hot!!), and it’s necessary to keep a thin black circle around it. Then I covered the top of the cupcakes with dark chocolate buttercream, stuck the “Oreo Eyes” and applied one dark chocolate chip in each eye (making cross-eyed owls). After that, I took the black biscuit sides without white cream, cut them in half and placed them as eyebrows. Finally, I placed an orange Smartie as a beak. 

They are funny, aren’t they? I took some pictures emulating a nightly forest. The moon and the stars were made of white sugarpaste (rolled fondant). So they were edible too!

They’re all gone now, not even the eyebrows are left! Just some pictures to remember them… 

By the way, in that occasion I made chocolate sponges (ok, I have some posts pending to write now…!). So these owls were almost pure chocolate! Mmmm! 

Have a nice weekend!

Hi there!

How are things going?

Last weekend it was a warm one. The sun shined almost the whole day and lots of people went to the park for a picnic. Some friends told me to go out last Saturday morning to enjoy this wonderful day, but I was eager to bake some refreshing recipes, and that was the perfect time!! 

I took some lemons and oranges from the fridge and I started to make the most refreshing cupcakes I’ve ever made!! They were not too sweet and had a slightly citric flavour: perfect to cope with that baking hot!

Is it now hot in your town? If the answer is yes, you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to make these refreshing cupcakes! If the answer is no, make them anyway! You won’t regret it! Just follow these easy and quick steps.

Lemon Cupcakes Recipe

 Ingredients (for 4 cupcakes)

♦  50 grs  (room temperature)

♦  50 grs 

♦  50 grs 

♦  1

♦  1/2 tsp  

♦  1/2  zest 

Process

1) Pre-heat the oven (170º)

2) >>   + +   zest  in a mixing bowl until fluffy and creamy.

3) Add and keep for a few seconds.

4) Add sifted  +     and keep  for a few seconds (slow speed, no over beat).

5) Place the into the    and fill them with the mixture.

6)  Bake for 20-22 minutes (check the cupcakes with a skewer or cake tester)

7) Let them cool onto a cooling stand (wait 2 hours at least before decorating).

Lemon Buttercream Recipe

Ingredients (for 4 cupcakes)

♦  50 grs (room temperature)

♦  125 grs sifted

♦  1 1/2 tsp 

♦  1/2zest

♦  Yellow food colouring (I recommend a paste or gel one).

Process

all the ingredients in a mixing bowl until fluffy and creamy (2-4 minutes aprox.). Add the yellow food colouring until getting the tone you wish (a small amount it’s usually enough).

Choose and fit the nozzle you wish and fill the piping bag with the lemon buttercream. LET’S DECORATE!!  

Orange Cupcakes Recipe

Ingredients (for 4 cupcakes)

Same as lemon cupcakes (see above), but using 1/2 zest instead of lemon zest.

Process

Same as the lemon recipe (see above), but using orange zest instead of lemon zest.

Orange buttercream Recipe

Same process as lemon buttercream (see above), but using:

- 1/2 zest instead of the lemon one.

- Orange food colouring instead of yellow (I recommend a paste or gel one).

Choose and fit the nozzle you wish and fill the piping bag with the orange buttercream. LET’S DECORATE!!  

Take advantage of the summer and try these bright and colorful citric cupcakes before it is gone!

By the way, I went for a walk with a friend the following morning and I could enjoy that lovely and sunny day

Ooops! And all those tasty cupcakes have already disappeared… None of them left in the tin!

Have a nice week!

Hello everyone!

Most people like chocolate. You can’t deny it! It’s one of the greatest pleasures in life. We can find it in several flavours and presentations: chocolate bar, chocolate cream, chocolate cookies, chocolate ice cream, chocolates box, cocoa powder… and, luckily, CHOCOLATE ICING!!!

Which is your favourite kind of chocolate? 

With regard to flavour, I prefer the milk one (although I like the other ones as well!). Regarding consistency, I prefer melted/cream chocolate rather than solid one. Chocolate bars don’t usually appeal to me as much as Nutella or chocolate buttercream. Mmmm! 

But there is even a greater pleasure …  Just try to combine chocolate buttercream with vanilla one in the same swirl. It’s a fantastic combination!!

We will need both vanilla buttercream (see easy vanilla buttercream) and a chocolate one. Here are the chocolate buttercream recipe which I propose: 

Ingredients:

♦ 85 grs  (room temperature!)

♦ 70 grs

♦ 320 grs 

♦ 80 ml 

♦ 1/2 tsp 

 Process:

1) >>  + + half of the amount of  (cover the bowl with a clean cloth to avoid splashing everywhere!)

2) Add +  and keep for a few seconds. 

3) Add the remaining and until smooth and creamy (4-5 minutes).

    That’s all!

Once the buttercream is ready, we will have to make a two-tone buttercream. I showed you this technique in one of the previous posts (click here to check the pictures). You just have to take 3 disposable piping bags (one of them should be big enough to contain the other two) and:

>>  Cut the corner of the biggest one and fit in the nozzle you wish (I recommend both #1M and #2D).

>>  Fill the second one with the vanilla buttercream and cut the corner (about 0.4″ cut) – (1 cm).

>>  Fill the third one with the chocolate buttercream and cut the corner (about 0.4″ cut) – (1 cm). 

The amount of required buttercream will depend on the number of cupcakes you want to decorate, but it always has to be the same in each piping bag. Insert the two filled piping bags inside the biggest one, trying to fit the opened corner of each one into the nozzle. We will get a piping bag like the following one:

Then, you have to decorate your cupcakes (easy vanilla cupcakes, for example) by making different swirls onto them and sprinkling chocolate strands as soon as possible to stick them easily onto the buttercream. 

To enhance even more your chocolate experience, try to add some chocolate chips in the cupcakes mixture before baking, or fill the sponges with Nutella once baked. 

Bon appetite,  Chocoholics!!  

The Olympic Games are already here! We’ve been enjoying them for more than a week now, but there’s still another week to go. 

Great Britain is doing pretty well so far, with almost 30 medals currently, 14 of them golden ones! Congratulations, Team GB! 

I try to follow as many competitions as possible during these days, specially Gymnastics, Athletics, springboard dive and synchronized swimming, which are my favourite sports. 

When I was a child, I witnessed the 1992 Summer Olympics in my birth city, Barcelona. I’m lucky to stay living in London now and enjoy them one more time

These are some pictures from my last cupcakes order. The order consisted of 24 Olympic Cupcakes. I chose some of the most important Olympic symbols for decorating them (rings, medals and torches), as well as Union Jack cupcake cases. I hope you like them!

By the way, how many medals do you think GB will win? Make your own predictions! 

Have a nice Olympic weekend!

Hi there!

Two weeks ago I received a new food colouring. It was the “Extra Red” concentrated paste of Sugarflair. I ordered it because I had never got a genuine red colour on my cakes before. With the standard red colourings, I used to achieve just pink tones, fuchsias… 

My original idea was to make Olympic cupcakes with this colouring (in order to get an intense red icing), but when I received it in my hands, I had another idea: Red Velvet Cupcakes! I was eager to try to make them since long time ago. So this was my opportunity!

Red velvet is a popular red layer cake covered with cream cheese icing. This cake is made with buttermilk instead of milk. The sponge has a nice touch of cocoa.

The most special thing about this cake before tasting it, is its bright red colour. But once you taste it, your opinion will most likely change: its flavour is wonderful!! The cream cheese melts in your mouth with the moist sponge… Mmmmmm!!

Nowadays, it’s becoming trendy to adapt most of classical cake recipes into cupcakes. And these are the Red Velvet ones!! Extremely red and fluffy!!

Due to my good experience with this purchase, I strongly recommend “Extra Red” concentrated paste of Sugarflair for colouring your sponges, buttercream, sugarpaste… This food colouring has become my favourite because of the deep red I can achieve with it.

I will post the Red Velvet Cupcakes recipe in some days time. You can’t miss it! 

See you soon!