Cupcakes For Baby Ella

Isn’t social networking great?
I have recently had the pleasure of meeting with some lovely people I have been chatting with on Twitter through our shared love of baking at a Charity Cupcake Bake-Off in Edinburgh.

About a year and a half ago I was contacted on Facebook by Jill, who I hadn’t seen in over 10 years.
We went to the same High School in Lisburn, Co Antrim, but were an academic year apart.
Jill contacted me after I had put a comment on Facebook about being out and about in Glasgow one day. It turned out we live a 15 minute walk from each other in Glasgow’s West End, so we quickly decided to meet for coffee and cake!
From this quick catch up over coffee and cake, Jill and I have enjoyed many coffee and cake dates over the last 18 months, with the occasional glass of wine too!
As two Northern Irish gals with shared life experiences, living in Glasgow, married to Scots, we have plenty to chat about!
I now consider Jill as one of my closest friends, so was thrilled when she first told me she was pregnant!

In March 2012 Jill gave birth to a beautiful baby girl, and named her Ella.
I had been planning these cupcakes for this little one long before her arrival into the world.

Congratulations to Jill & Iain on the birth of their gorgeous baby girl, and Thanks to Facebook for putting me in touch with Jill… a great friend! xx

Spring Flowers Cupcakes

Today I attended a Cupcake Bake-Off at Sofi’s Bar in Edinburgh, to raise money for the MS Society.
The event was planned by 3 very lovely Edinburgh Cake Ladies; Fiona, Katey and Victoria.

I had a lovely afternoon. I met some lovely people who love to bake as much as I do, and sampled some seriously delicious cupcakes! My personal favourites were Melissa‘s Lime & Coconut Cupcakes.
Most importantly, the afternoon raised £460.56 for the MS Society, so well done Fiona, Katey and Victoria, and Thankyou for all your hard work in planning and organising this event.

The theme for the cupcakes was Spring.
Inspired by a recent issue of Cake Craft & Decoration magazine, and Paul Bradford’s How to make a Sugar Daffodil video, I decided to go with Spring Flowers for my decoration, and raspberry & white chocolate for my cupcake. Half were fondant topped, and half with the traditional buttercream.

Of the fondant topped cupcakes the Daffodil, Hyacinth, & Rose cupcakes are my favourites.

For the buttercream-topped cupcakes, I went for a simple flat top of buttercream with a swirl, adorned with rainbow-coloured Hydrangeas.

All boxed up, and ready to go…

There was a great turn out today, with so many delicious cupcakes. I was thrilled and surprised when it was announced that my cupcakes won first prize!
I can’t wait to book my prize of a Chocolate Connoisseur Evening at Coco in Edinburgh. Just have to decide who to take with me…

St Mirren Cupcakes

I have to confess, I am not really a football fan… but, I am married to one, a lifelong St Mirren fan at that.
As part of Mr Hungry Squirrel’s “big” birthday celebrations, I baked him a chocolate celebration cake, but couldn’t resist baking him some St Mirren – themed cupcakes.

As usual, I used Top That Edible Cake Toppers for the St Mirren logo cupcake toppers.

For those of you who haven’t heard of St Mirren (I have to admit I had never head of St Mirren before I met my husband – sorry St Mirren Fans), the mascot for the Paisley-based football club is the infamous Paisley Panda…

Image © http://www.saintmirren.tv

So, I just had to have a go at making these Panda Cupcakes…

I used Paul Bradford’s Panda Bear tutorial to create these little pandas.

Mr Hungry Squirrel was over the moon, as were my niece and nephew!

Mr Hungry Squirrel’s Big Birthday

Mr Hungry Squirrel celebrated a rather significant birthday at the beginning of March.
A special birthday called for some special cakes…!

I have limited experience in decorating celebration cakes… my first was last year’s Christmas Cake.
However, I have recently attended an Introduction To Cake Decorating evening class at a local college, and have picked up some tips, and gained some more confidence, for tackling celebration cakes.

I baked a deliciously moist chocolate cake, sandwiched and coated it with a rich chocolate buttercream, before covering in a layer of chocolate sugarpaste, followed by a layer of ivory-coloured sugarpaste.

I decided to keep the decoration simple, opting for a colour scheme of ivory and chocolate-brown.
I had been looking forward to trying out my new Funky Alphabet & Number Cutters, and was thrilled with the results. They were a little fiddly to use at first, but I soon got the hang of it.

Sadly I didn’t manage to get any photos of the sliced cake, but I was thrilled with how the cake turned out, and it didn’t take long for it to disappear!

I also baked some rather special cupcakes for the birthday boy.
Blog post coming soon…

Little Bunny Cupcakes

Mr Hungry Squirrel and I spent last week in Co Kerry & Co Cork visiting friends and family.

My eldest brother lives in Fermoy, Co Cork with his wife, and 3 beautiful daughters; Daisy, Meadhbh, and Rosaleen.

On my last visit to Co Cork, I brought the girls a batch of my Hello Kitty Cupcakes. These went down so well with the girls,  that I felt I couldn’t turn up cupcake-less this time.
I wanted to surprise the girls with something different, and I knew they would just fall in love with these adorable Little Bunny Cupcakes!

I first saw this cupcake design when I attended my cupcake class with Mrs Jones. I already had the little bunny cutters, and I managed to pick up the nozzle for the grass at Mrs Jones’ fabulous shop (online shop coming soon on the Mrs Jones website…).

The girls were thrilled with their Little Bunny Cupcakes, and they disappeared in no time!
I look forward to making these fun cupcakes again, they were a pleasure to make, and are guaranteed to bring a smile to the face of recipients of any age!

Valentine’s Day Cupcakes

Happy Valentine’s Day!
Saint Valentine’s Day, in modern times, is most often celebrated with the exchange of greeting cards, flowers, and confectionery.

I present to you my Valentine’s Day Cupcakes – Hungry Squirrel Cakes’ version of confectionery and flowers!

I decorated my vanilla cupcakes with some elegant curved hearts on a miniature swirl of buttercream, and with some pretty miniature sugarpaste roses.

This post is for Mr McK (a.k.a. Mr Hungry Squirrel).
Mr McK is not only a wonderful husband: he is my IT support, my photographer, my proofreader, and is a huge source of encouragement and support for my adventures in baking and blogging.
Thankyou! xx

Cupcakes & Roses… Lessons With Mrs Jones

Last year I attended a local evening class on cupcake decoration, which was great for getting me started with the basics of working with sugarpaste… Since then I have enjoyed creating different cupcakes for friends and family, such as my pretty little girly cupcakes and baby shower cupcakes.

However, I am keen to learn more about cake decoration, and to explore the possibility of setting up my own small business selling cakes and cupcakes from home. So for my Christmas present I asked Mr Hungry Squirrel to book me in to Mrs Jones’ Cupcakes as a Business class, and he generously obliged!

After 7 years in the NHS as a Registered Nurse and Midwife, followed by 25 years service in HM Forces as a QARANC Officer, Sheila Jones now runs her own business teaching people of all ages and abilities to bake and decorate cakes from her beautiful kitchen in Glasgow’s Southside. Mrs Jones also creates beautiful bespoke cakes and cupcakes to order.
I have tasted her vanilla cupcakes, and can honestly say they are the most deliciously light, and beautifully presented cupcakes I have had the pleasure of eating - definitely the standard I aspire to!

So on Sunday January 15 2012 I packed my notebook and pen, and arrived at Mrs Jones’ beautiful house, ready to learn all about setting up my own cake business from home.
The class ran from 10.00 – 16.00, and covered a wide range of topics from the world of tax to essential equipment, and from social media to local business contacts…
I would highly recommend this class if you are considering starting your own business. I left this class feeling much more focussed on what I need to work towards now in order to sell my cakes, and armed with an array of useful contacts and suppliers..

I enjoyed my time with Mrs Jones so much that I was keen to book one of her hands-on decorating classes. So I decided to treat myself, and booked the Wedding Cupcake class.
Once again, I had a lovely day with Mrs Jones, and was thrilled with the fruits of my labour. The icing on the cake was learning how to make this life-sized rose…

And these miniature roses are so sweet.

I love the vintage feel of  this cupcake with the pearls and roses.

I am thrilled with the final ensemble of my cupcakes, and am most grateful to Mrs Jones for her expert tutelage.

Keep an eye on Mrs Jones‘ website, as she is currently in the process of setting up an online shop where you can buy some of the cake decorating tools used to create the cupcakes above.

WPScotland’s 1st Birthday Cupcakes

A few weeks ago Martin from WPScotland asked me to make some cupcakes to celebrate WPScotland‘s first birthday.

WPScotland was founded by Martin Young and Taryn Wallis.
It is a nationwide network of WordPress bloggers, users, developers and designers. Their main aim is to bring these groups together, and foster a community that supports each other through sharing experiences and learning from each other.
Their first meetup was in Glasgow in January 2011, and from those 7 people, they now have monthly meetups in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Inverness, and almost 80 different people have come along. Their first one day conference sold out in less than a week, and their second, on Feb 04 2012 in Glasgow, is set to do as well.

For the WPScotland birthday meetup cupcakes, I baked my Raspberry & Orange Cupcakes, and decorated with a swirl of frosting, and topped with the WPScotland logo.

I reckon they look pretty smart!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WPSCOTLAND!

I use Top That Edible Cake Toppers for my printed cupcake toppers.

Raspberry & Orange Cupcakes

Happy New Year followers!
The Christmas & New Year season was a busy one. Mr Hungry Squirrel and I had a lovely time catching up with friends and family, as I hope you all did too!

I am most definitely finding my baking feet after a bit of a break from blogging over the festive season, so I decided to ease myself in with an old faithful… My first bake of 2012 was Raspberry & Orange Cupcakes. I have used this recipe on many occasions now, and it always goes down a treat!
The orange compliments the raspberry so well, and the orange-tinged cream cheese frosting is divine.

I am also entering this post into the Citrus BlogHop. Check out Mike’s, from Mike’s Baking (one of my favourite blogs), post  on his delicious looking Clementine Basil Mojito Loaf Cake, not to mention all the other fab posts in this #citruslove event!

The Recipe

Ingredients
Cupcakes 225g unsalted butter at room temperature 150g caster sugar finely grated zest of 2 oranges 3 medium eggs, beaten 225g self-raising flour, sifted pinch of salt 4 tbsp orange juice 125g raspberries, lightly crushed	Frosting 150g unsalted butter at room temperature 75g low fat soft cheese 500g icing sugar, sifted ½ tsp vanilla extract 2 tsp finely grated orange zest pink food colouring

Method

Preheat the oven to 170°C.

In a freestanding mixer beat the butter and sugar together, until pale and creamy.
Add the orange zest, then gradually beat in the eggs, little by little.

Add the sifted flour and a pinch of salt, and gently fold in using a large metal spoon.
Finally fold in the orange juice and raspberries.

Spoon the mixture into cupcake cases, and bake in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes.

When ready, they will be golden brown on top, and a skewer inserted should come out clean.

Cool in the tin for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, use a freestanding mixer to beat the butter and cream cheese together until creamy.
Add the icing sugar, mix on a slow speed initially. Once incorporated, turn the speed up to maximum and beat for 4-5 minutes.
Add the vanilla extract, orange zest and a little pink food colouring, and beat well.

Spread or pipe onto the little cakes, and decorate as you wish.

Enjoy!

This recipe makes 14-16 cupcakes.

This recipe is adapted from a Rachel Allen recipe for Kerrygold.

 

Pretty Little Girly Cupcakes

 

My friends all know I have a bit of a soft spot for all things floral, often in dress-form, so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to make these pretty little cupcakes!

I found this party dress cutter  and vintage vine embossing sheet from Purple Cupcakes online shop.

I think these make great toppers for pretty little girly cupcakes…

I brought these over to Ireland as part of my sister-in-law’s birthday gift.
These would also make great cupcakes to say Thank-you, or for a Hen celebration…
I can’t wait to try out different colours and decorations to create many more pretty little girly cupcakes!

Here’s how I made the toppers…

Add some CMC powder to some coloured sugarpaste.
This powder is used to make the sugarpaste firmer so it doesn’t stick to the embossing mat.
You only need a teaspoon to about 250g icing.

Roll out the sugarpaste, lift on to the embossing mat, and roll over the paste again, in order to transfer the pattern to the sugarpaste.

Gently peel the sugarpaste off the embossing mat, and use the cutter to cut out the dress shape.

Decorate as you like…
Leave overnight to dry/firm, before you put on top of your cupcake!

Enjoy…!