Summer Strawberry and Vanilla Cupcakes

The sun is shining, the garden furniture has been dusted off so it's time to hold an al-fresco tea party! Our Summer Strawberry and Vanilla cupcakes are the simplest and prettiest things to make to serve with tea and a glass of fizz. Try out our easy recipe the next time you need to impress your guests.

Ingredients

150g/6oz of Butter (softened)
200g/8oz Self Raising flour (sifted)
1 1/2 level teaspoons of baking powder
150g/6oz Caster Sugar
3 medium eggs
3 tablespoons of milk
2 teaspoons of vanilla essence

Large cupcake or muffin cases x 12
Muffin tray

300ml Whipping cream
Strawberry Jam (good quality)
Strawberries

Optional to decorate
Mint leaves
Edible glitter
Icing sugar

Method
Heat the oven to 180c or Gas Mark 4

1. Start by beating the butter until light and fluffy.

2. Next add the sugar

3. Sift the flour and baking powder in to the bowl

4. Beat the eggs together and add to the bowl

5. Add the milk and vanilla essence

6. Beat the ingredients together with a hand mixer for 2 -3 minutes. Arrange your cupcake cases in the muffin tray and spoon the mixture in to each case. Put the cupcakes in to the oven and bake for 25 minutes or until golden on top and a skewer inserted in to the middle of the cake is clean when removed.

7. Next whisk the cream until whipped and fluffy and place in the fridge.

8. When the cakes are ready, place them on a wire rack to cool completely.

9. When cool, cut out the middle of the cupcakes carefully to make a deep hole in the middle. Place a teaspoon of jam in each cupcake and spoon or pipe the cream in until the hole is full and some of the mixture is on top of the cupcake. 

10.Dust each cupcake with icing sugar. 

11. Next slice your strawberries in half and decorate the cupcake, sticking them to the excess cream on top. Decorate the strawberries with edible glitter and a mint leaf. Arrange on a pretty plate or cupcake stand...doilies are optional. 

Now relax in the garden amongst the flowers with a cupcake and a glass of fizz, whilst your guests worship you and your baking skills. Enjoy!

Creating a Dream Cake

One of our favourite challenges was our Snow White Cake. It was created for a 21st Disney themed birthday party and the birthday girl was going to be dressed as Snow White. We were given free reign over the design of the cake, the only request was that the cake needed to be made out of carrot cake.

A vanilla sponge with a core of strawberry jam iced with red sugarpaste

We contemplated various cake designs, a fairy tale castle seemed too obvious so we thought it would be a good idea to create a giant poisonous apple to compliment the birthday girls costume. We set out by creating a very, very rough sketch which involved a rectangle and a circle and then built the design around this.

Here's Phoebe. We painted the apple effect with red food colouring and edible gold dust, before leaving it overnight to dry.
 

The base of the cake was a delicious carrot cake, iced in pale green sugarpaste and decorated with edible leaves. The leaves were cut out, printed with a veiner and moulded before leaving overnight to harden. We then decorated the leaves with green, gold and silver dust. The vines were painted on to the cake with a mixture of green food colouring and vodka and then edged in gold.

A mixture of edible glue and sugarpaste helps the leaves to stay stuck on to the cake.

 Here's Catherine, painting the apple. Once the colour had dried we glazed the apple with sieved jam and then added some sparkle with a touch of edible red glitter.

A sugarpaste stalk and a flower paste leaf completed the apple and it was carefully lifted on to the base of the cake and secured with dowel rods to ensure the cake did not sink. A flourish of edible fairy dust added a magical shimmer to the completed cake.

 
Here we are with the cake...all ready for the ball!

Our cake took centre stage on the buffet table at the party.

Very naughty Chocolate, Amaretto and Raspberry Brownies

These brownies are so good and very, very naughty! But then it's ok to have a naughty little treat every now and again and if it's for a special occasion well then even better...these little babies will go down a treat with your friends and family. Forget about the calories, once you smell them baking in the oven you'll forget that they are slightly sinful and you'll feel like a wonderful, domestic goddess instead. They are also great for winning over your other half...they'll worship you after one bite!

Ingredients

250g unsalted butter
200g chocolate (70% cocoa)
80g cocoa
65g plain flour (sifted)
360g caster sugar
1tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
small pack of fresh raspberries
4ml of Amaretto
100g sliced almonds

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 180c/450f or gas mark 4. Grease and line a square baking tin with greaseproof paper.

1. Melt the butter and chocolate in a bowl placed over a pan of hot water.

2. Whilst the other ingredients are melting mix the cocoa, flour , sugar and baking powder together in a separate bowl.

3. Wash the raspberries carefully and tip on to some kitchen roll to absorb any water.

4. Beat the eggs together and put to one side.

5. When the butter and chocolate has melted, take off the heat and add 4ml of Amaretto to the mixture and stir. Add the butter, chocolate and Amaretto to the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly until all the ingredients are combined.

6. Pour in the beaten eggs and mix in well until you have a shiny, silky mixture.

7. Pour the mixture into the baking tin and then carefully drop the raspberries into the mixture making sure they are spread out evenly and covered in the chocolate (try not to stir them in or they will break up and you want to keep them whole.)

8. Sprinkle the almonds over the top and place into the pre-heated oven for 25 minutes.

9. After 25 minutes check your brownies, the outside should be crisp, the inside should be slightly soft and almost gooey. Stick a skewer or knife in the top, if it comes out covered in mixture leave for 5 minutes and check again, the knife/skewer should be almost clean.

10. Leave to cool slightly in the tin, then very carefully turn out on to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely before cutting.

Serve on their own or with some really good vanilla ice cream. Yummy!

You are now a smug cake goddess!

Cake, Hope and Charity

Well done to Waterstone's New Street in Huddersfield who have been supporting the Children's Reading Fund by holding a bake sale amongst the books today to raise money for an important cause. The Children's Reading Fund targets disadvantaged children by giving them the opportunity to engage  more with reading and writing. With our help by donating to the Children's Reading Fund more children will get a better chance in their education and the potential of so many disadvantaged children can be discovered.

The lovely Waterstone's Booksellers at New Street cooked up a storm. Let's hope that their display of beautiful cakes will have been far too tempting for their customers and plenty of money will have been raised for this very important charity.

To read more about the charity and how you can support it visit http://www.booktrust.org.uk/support-us/childrens-reading-fund/ 

Cake makes everything better!

Cake and Eurovision

Every year at Kiss Me Cake we hold an annual Eurovision party. It's one of the highlights of our year...sound sad? On the contrary...we bake, drink and indulge in some bad Euro pop and make fun of the weirdest acts. The BBC have put together a great collection of recipes to help make your party super fun...we love the strawberry and mascarpone Swiss roll by Lorraine Pascale and their Union Jack fondant fancies.
 

Last year each person attending our party had to bring with them a dish from one of the competing countries. Unfortunately the country I chose Finland, didn't make it to the final but I baked these rather unusual but lovely pies called Karelian pies, which are made from rye flour, rice, butter and milk.

This year my contribution will be some beautiful raspberry, amaretto and chocolate brownies topped with toasted almonds, our own Kiss Me Cake recipe. Very gooey, chocolaty and full of sugary goodness. Watch this space for the recipe.

So, grab your Union Jacks, print off your score cards and stick a pound in the sweepstake to celebrate Eurovision. Check out this link http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/eurovision_party_ideas and cook up some treats for your Eurovision party friends!

Tea and Cake

Whilst the sun is shining you've got to grab the opportunity now to dust off the garden furniture and get outside for some lovely al fresco tea and cake. Cake makes everything better...whether it's a traditional cream tea with scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam or a nice slice of sponge invite your friends a round and indulge!

In our opinion you can't beat a good Victoria Sponge, and our Kiss Me Cake one is a beaut! Lovely, light vanilla sponge filled with fresh cream, strawberry jam and real strawberries and topped with a light dusting of icing sugar. Delicious with a cup of tea or a little bit of sparkly (hic!)

So wherever you are...get outside and be very, very British, pull out the best china (tea cups are essential) and indulge.

The Cake and Bake Show

We attended The Cake and Bake Show on Friday, which took place at Manchester Central. Famous bakers such as Mich Turner, Paul Hollywood and Eric Lanlard were all there along with many of the Great British Bake Off contestants. It was like walking in to Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, we now know just how Charlie felt as it was like a cake filled dream world.


Disney Villain Cake

We picked up lots of hints and tips and saw some amazing cake creations that we hope to recreate at Kiss Me Cake Bakery. One of our favourite cakes of the day was Mich Turner's demonstration of her raspberry and rose cake, a beautiful vanilla sponge cake iced with raspberry and rose flavoured buttercream roses. Unfortunately we didn't manage to get a taste so that's definitely one we will be trying to recreate soon. 

At the end of the day we were able to put our cake decorating skills to the test by decorating gingerbread hearts in the Gingerbread garden and then we sampled some delicious chocolate brownies. Fantastic!

 




We've taken lots of inspiring ideas away with us to make Kiss Me Cake even better and hopefully next year we will be able to display our own cakes at such a fantastic event...maybe we will see you there?

 


A rather orange Paul Hollywood!