Peanut Brittle Caramel Swirl

A friend of mine recently wanted to impress the mother-in-law with some pretty cupcakes for her birthday party - but not just your typical pretty sparkly ones, but something a little more sophisticated, so I suggested combining Peanut Brittle over a vanilla and caramel swirl icing, topping a moist chocolate base. 

The result was delish! If ever my friend was being cut out of the will, she is quite sure she is now back in! 

For the base I used my regular chocolate cupcake mix but for the icing I made my favourite cream cheese topping, then split the icing in two and added a dash of caramel essence to the one half. (As they were wanting something smarter I opted for the essence as opposed to actual caramel treat as this may have been too sweet.) Then gently eased both the vanilla and caramel icing into my piping bag and iced them both at ones to create the swirl affect.

Mellow Yellow

Not all cupcakes have to be pastel pink or baby blue.

For the parents leaving their baby’s gender a surprise, a batch of summery yellow and muted grey cupcakes keep the gender safely a secret.

 

 

Girly Pink Cupcakes

A friend recently ordered a batch of girly pink & white swirl cupcakes for her sisters surprise baby shower.

The mom-to-be very unsuspectingly walked into restaurant filled with all her dearest and nearest all there to celebrate the upcoming birth of her little princess.

If you have a baby shower coming up and are looking for cupcakes, feel free to email me tipsytart@gmail.com and I'll be happy to see what we can do for you :o)

We're all mad here...

My family are a bunch of nutters so when we decided we needed to have a family photo shoot (because all our pics are always missing at least one person - the one taking the photo) the most 'sensible' theme was a mad hatters tea party.

Raining Marshmallows!

We had absolutely zero inclination towards a typical blue jeans, white t-shirt, soft smiles on the beach shoot, because that's just not us.

Derryn Semple took some photos of Dane and I a while back (see them here & here) and we knew she was the perfect lady for the job.

Derryn beautifully captured the fun yet silly side of my family and let us misbehave while she was shooting. (And just like before, her humour and relaxed attitude made it easy for everyone to forget their nerves in front of the camera and just have fun!)

CUPcake anyone?

Spot of tea dears?

 

My gorgeous sister

 More pics from the shoot here.

Marshmallow Flowers

 

Looking for an easy-peasy way to decorate your cupcakes? 

I added a touch of fun to these cupcakes by simply using marshmallows to make flowers.

Firstly ice your cupcake. Then cut your marshmallow into thin petals. I managed to cut marshmallows into 4, sometimes 5, slivers.  The slivers are then super sticky so I dropped them into sugar crystals which stuck easily, just to give them a sparkly look.

Assemble marshmallow petals around a jelly tot on your cupcake, and voila, a flower!

How fabulously easy!

Baby Cakes

It was one of my best friend's Baby shower this past weekend so, as we don't know whether she's having a little boy or girl,  I baked up a batch of gender neutral white pearly cupcakes...

loving her adorable preggy belly!

American Flag Free Printable

Yesterday I posted the recipe and pics from my Americana themed cupcakes. For these cupcakes I made a bunch of little American Flag cupcake toppers and thought I'd share them.  Feel free to download them here.

The (multicolour) American Dream

For a friends recent 40th, I was tasked with baking the American themed cupcakes.
As he wanted a variety of flavours I opted to do 24 red velvet cupcakes, 24 chocolate cupcakes, and 24 vanilla mulicoloured cupcakes.

Vanilla Multicolour Cupcakes Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Method

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• In a bowl sift cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Stir together with whisk, and set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer, add eggs and beat 10-20 seconds.  Add sugar and continue to beat on medium speed about 30 seconds.  Add vanilla and oil and continue to beat.
• Reduce mixer speed to low and slowly add about half of the flour mixture.  Add half of the buttermilk, then the rest of the flour and the rest of the milk.  Beat until just combined.  Scrap down the side of the bowl.
• Share batter out into 3 measuring jugs (I use measuring jugs so that I can make sure I have the same amount of batter in each)
• To one mixture add blue food colouring and to another red colouring. Add as much as needed to get the colour you require.
• Slowly pour one colour ( I wanted blue at the bottom) into teh bases of all your cupcake liners. pour about 1/4 full.
• Next, gently pour the next colour in (I used the uncoloured vanilla). Don't pour straight down the middle as it will drop below teh bottom colour. gently pour around the edges working in.
• Do the same with the last layer of colour.
• Bake cupcakes in pre-heated oven for 18 minutes.

To ice I just used my favourite cream cheese icing recipe.

Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients

• 1 tub (about 230g) Cream cheese (cold - directly from fridge)  
• 1/3 cup butter ( room temperature) 
• 1tsp Vanilla Essence  
• 4 - 6 cups Icing sugar

Method

• Place butter in a large mixing bowl and beat until smooth. 
• Add cream cheese and blend until fully combined, about 30 seconds. 
• Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar (one cup at a time) while mixing.  Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy. Keep adding sugar until you get the desired consistency. I find on hotter days I need to add more sugar as the cream cheese is a lot more melty.
• Frost cupcakes and decorate if desired

 

Welcome to Americana...

It's a friend's 40th  this weekend and I'm making the cupcakes. 
As it is Americana themed I've been preparing some decor and props for my cupcakes...
Will add pics and recipes as soon as I've baked them all up!

Happy Friday!

Halloween kisses

Halloween, although big in the states, is hardly a big deal in South Africa.

However, pretty much everyone I know loves to dress up, so Halloween gets her fair share of celebrating, despite that fact that you won't see pumpkins or skeletons decorating any lawns. It's actually mainly the dressing up that we partake in, and that's about it. (Some kids trick or treat but they have to visit quite a few houses as many folk forget to buy sweets as the shops here don't make a fuss over halloween candy)

This year we headed to a friend's beach cottage down in Umzumbe for a  little shindig. I didn't take too many pics, but I did instagram a few...

I baked a batch of angry spider cupcakes

we may not have pumpkins but we do have oranges...

Day of the dead, pocahontas and a hobo

 

ghostly decor

The Boyfriend and I

and of course I had to make my nails halloween appropriate