Tuesday 20 May 2014

Halloween

I know its not Halloween, very far from it in fact, but this is the start of my back log of baking adventures I wanted to blog about. 

So this post has pictures from both Halloween in 2012 and 2013. I went with the same kind of themes of the pumpkins, ghosts, mummies etc both times.

I made batches of both basic vanilla cupcakes and also red velvet cupcakes.





Scary pumpkin Cupcakes

These were actually quite simple to make. I whipped up some buttercream frosting, tinted it a nice vibrant orange. Then while the frosting was still fresh dipped it upside down into a bowl of orange sugar crystals, this added to the intense orange flavour and also gave it some texture.



Then the eyes and mouth were simply made from licorice pieces. Depending on how evil, scary or happy you want your pumpkins to be depends on how you cut and shape the licorice.




I also used some black gel colour on some of the pumpkin faces, it was a lot easier to use than licorice.


Vampire cupcakes

There are a little hard to be recognised at vampire cupcakes! haha the idea is they look like teeth marks/bites with little bits of blood trickling down. On the inside I wanted to add something moist and red to portray blood. I ended up using some red jelly, raspberry of strawberry flavour will work, then cutting a chunk of the cupcake out, adding it in the jelly, then placing the top back on. 


   


The jelly was ok, but next time I think I will use jam. The bite marks were done with red gel colouring simply dotted and dripped onto the white frosting on the cupcake.






Ghost cupcakes

These are my favourite halloween cupcakes to make! I frosted my cupcake with a base of orange buttercream frosting just to contrast with the white ghost, then got 2 marshmallows and stuck them on top of each other, held together with a small dollop of frosting, then put them onto my cupcake. This is what allows your ghost to have height.




 Then roll out some vanilla/white fondant to just a few mm thick, I'm sure modelling chocolate would be fine to be used as well and cut a circle that is one size larger than your cupcake. Place a small dollop of buttercream frosting onto the top of the top marshmallow then rest the fondant circle on top and gently push it down. The fondant should naturally fall/drape over the marshmallows and cover them nicely. You can gently squeeze and shape the fondant to make it look more ghost like. Then add two little mini M&M's or black dots (using an edible marker) for the eyes, and your done!


Evil Mummy Cupcakes


These were very simple and fun to make. Basically choose two M&M's that are the same colour, these are our eyes. Place them on your cupcake, a third of the way down from the top, then pipe over them with white frosting. I cant remember the name of the tip I used, but its long and thin, so that when you pipe it, it comes out in straight lines. Similar to what you can use for rose petals.



         

Brains cupcakes


The hardest part for these cupcakes was getting the brain colour right in the frosting. Mine are a little darker than I would have liked, however adding the red gel colouring in between and over the brain, helped to lighten the colour and make it more 'brain like'. 


  

Spider web cupcakes

This was a bit of a last minute idea I had with some leftover frosting. Cover you cupcake with the white frosting, then with the black gel draw circles on the cupcake, starting small and in the centre and getting bigger as you work your way out. Then use a toothpick to 'draw' straight lines out from the centre, making it look like a web. Add a plastic toy spider for added creepiness!

               

You can also simply draw a spider onto the cupcake. As you can see I need to brush up on my spider drawing skills!

Happy Halloween!

Time - Part 2

Its been almost 2 years since my last blog post! I cant believe it! Especially after my last post was pledging my devotion to my blog and how I would not neglect it! Haha oh how it makes me laugh at myself for saying that. Anyway, this time its for real. Yeah I know you have heard that before, but Im willing to be a little more realistic now. The aim is to do a minimun of 1 blog post a month. And if I'm super awesome, then I will try and do more i.e 1 a week! 
Ive also created a facebook page, feel free to jump on and like my page: Delicious Cupcakelicious
 And I'm also hoping to throw some posts up onto G+ too, once I figure out how to use it that is! Anyway, its time to get blogging! :)