Wednesday 21 November 2012

Sponge Cupcakes & Peppermint Cake Pops

Christmas is almost here, and its time to bring out the sugar.

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This delightful Christmas cup is full of Candy Canes, Sponge Cupcakes and Peppermint Cake Pops. I claim no credit for the candy canes, I bought them at the shops. However the Cupcakes and Cake Pops are my unoriginal creations.

Sponge Cupcakes:
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You will need:
4 eggs
1 cup sugar
pinch of salt
1 cup flour
1-2 drops vanilla essence 
a cupcake tray filled with patties

1. Beat the eggs until thick and bright yellow. 
2. Beat in the sugar gradually, until well mixed. 
3. Sift the flour and fold into the mixture gently.
4. Add the vanilla essence, and pour into cupcake patties.
5. Cook at 180C until lightly brown on top.

I iced my cupcakes with pink butter cream using an "AVANTI" icing gun. You might like to try crushing candy canes and sprinkling them on top of the icing.
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Peppermint Cake Pops:
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You will need:
A bowl of crumbled cake  (I made a double batch of sponge cupcakes and crumbled half of them warm from the oven)
A large spoonful of jam
Melted dark chocolate (approximately half a  standard block of chocolate)
4 candy canes
Lollipop sticks or short marshmallow sticks.
1. Crush the candy canes roughly on a chopping board.
2. Stir the jam and cake together and roll into small balls.
3. Melt the chocolate over a low heat.
4. Dip each stick into the chocolate and insert a chocolate coated end into each ball. Freeze for 10 minutes.
5. Re-melt the chocolate and dip each cake ball in, making sure the chocolate is even. 
6. Whilst the chocolate is still soft, sprinkle the crushed candy cane over the cake pops and stand in a cup. 
7. Once all the cake pops are coated and sprinkled, freeze in the freezer.

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Monday 5 November 2012

Cinnamon Scrolls


I happened to come across a recipe for Cinnamon scrolls on the Internet. It didn't take long for my mouth to start watering, and with a few tweaks to the low-fat recipe they were delicious!

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To make these sugary treats you will need:
1 1/3 tablespoons of yeast
1 cup of milk
1/4 cup of white sugar
3 cups plain flour
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

Friday 19 October 2012

Sticky Jam cupcakes



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My sister hates Sticky Date pudding. In her opinion, dates are not edible. I on the other hand, love the goey delicousness that makes sticky date pudding so wonderful. When the request for cupcakes came, I knew I had a challange:

Make sticky date cupcakes- without the dates.

I decided to adapt a chocolate cake recipe, as most chocolate cakes have jam in them. If I could subtract the coco and icing suger from the recipe, I should have a sticky cupcake recipe.

So I did,

I was a little worried over the mixture colour, as grey sludge does not look like an appealing cupcake mixture. However, once the cupcakes were cooked they turned a nice brown colour.

My adaptions weren't entirely perfect (Big surprise!) as the cupcakes were super sweet. I coated them in Dark chocolate gnash, and added frozen chocolate flowers on top: Perfect!

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To make these cupcakes you will need:
1. 75g butter at room temperature
2.125g  caster sugar
3. 2 eggs
4. Teaspoon Vanilla Essence
5. 1/2 cup blackberry Jam (Or if blackberry isn't to your taste, another jam will work fine)
6. 1 and 1/4 sifted self-raising flour
7. 1 teaspoon sifted bicarbonate of soda
8. 2/3 cup of milk

Step 1. Preheat an oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F). Take 3 cupcake trays and fill them with patty pans.

Step 2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a mix master/ or similar. Add the eggs gradually, and beat in the vanilla and jam. 

Step 3. Turn the speed down to low (1-3) and add the combined flour and bicarb soda alternatively with the milk.

Step 4. Pour the mixture into the cupcake trays and cook for 15 minutes or until brown.

Step 5. Turn the cupcakes onto a wire tray and allow to cool. Ice and eat!

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  P.S.I left some of the cupcakes un-iced and they were deliciously sticky!

Wednesday 10 October 2012

Rainbow Cupcakes


When I was little ~ 11 and under~ my favourite ice-cream was rainbow. As a kid I never bothered trying other flavours, I was firm in my understanding that there was No better flavour then rainbow.

I've moved on. Today I eat the delicious and mature flavours of macadamia and raspberry.
However every once in a while I have an urge to make cook something pretty, not because I'm craving cake (Although I was!) , but because pretty food makes me smile.

A faint trace of my early ice-cream choices still remains, so I made Rainbow Cupcakes.

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I know right? Feel those cupcakes cravings consume you~ and go make your own.

You will need:

A cake/cupcake batter ( I used the plain cake recipe from The Common Sense Cookbook)
4 different food dyes
A cupcake tray
Cupcake cases
A lot of spoons (I used about 6)
 4 small bowls

1. Take the bowls and fill them almost to the top with cake batter.
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2. Stir a different dye into each bowl, until the colour is evenly mixed.


3. Start with one colour and place a small spoonful of batter in each cupcake case. Repeat with all of the remaining colours.

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4. Even out the top of the cupcake,and very gently shake the tray until the batter is in the cupcake case shape.

5. Bake for 20min or until a fork comes out clean when stuck in a cupcake.

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Ice and eat!

Tuesday 9 October 2012

Chickpea Fritters

These delicious fritters are healthy and nutritious. When I make them for my family we have them hot in bread rolls with salad and Greek Yogurt, or cold in lunches.

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To make these chickpea delights you will need:
1 cup of Self-Raising flour
4tsp of coriander seeds
2tsp mild paprika
a pinch of salt
pepper (to your taste)
3tsp cumin seeds
1/3 cup of water
Olive oil
One small onion (diced)
2 eggs
600g can of chickpeas (drained)

1.Grind the coriander, pepper, paprika, salt and cumin into a fine dust. Take a food processor and mix the flour and spice mixture.

2.Whisk the eggs and water together in a separate bowl, and add to the dry mixture.

3. Process this mixture with the chickpeas and onion until it is blended to a smooth consistency.

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4. Coat a non-stick frying pan with olive oil and place on a low heat. Drop heaped spoons of batter on the pan, and cook until golden. When both sides are evenly cooked transfer to a warm plate and serve.

Enjoy!

Monday 8 October 2012

Super Quick Ice Cream

 Last weekend I made this ice-cream.
It is wonderful and super-duper easy!

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It's kinda a cheats way of making ice-cream cause it doesn't start from scratch. However it is very quick and tastes delicious! 

You will need:
Some cheap- vanilla ice cream
Strawberries/ Tinned apples
A teaspoon of sugar for ever two scoops of ice-cream.
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Take all your ingredients and process them in a blender/food processor. When the mixture is smooth, pour it into a sealed container and leave in the fridge for 1 to 2 hours.
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Perfect for a hot Summer afternoon!

P.S. A friend of mine has a mulberry tree, and she made a sorbet with the fruit.
When she gave me some of the sorbet I found it a little too sweet, so I used this recipe to make ice-cream (Minus the sugar of course). It was fabulous!

Monday 10 September 2012

A Leather Hair Bow




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Cute isn't it?
This darling bow looks delightfully simple, but the truth is it took me over an hour to make.

This was my first try at this particular bow, and I thought it went rather well. It involved a few minor glue-gun burns (Ouch!) and a whole lot of fiddling, but was completely worth it.

I started off with two leather lengths, approximatedly 7cm in width, and 24cm in length. Like so:

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I then took one legth of leather and hot glue-gunned the long edges down.


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This step looks really dodgy but don't worry this isn't actually visible in the finished product.

I then measured the centre of the strap of leather and drew a line of hot glue down it. I folded the straps ends into the middle and held it down until dry.

 I cut another leather strap from the other orginal length of leather(I know, I did waste a rather large rectangle of leather...Whoops!) about as long as my folded strap.

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This is where the fiddeling comes in. I had to fold and bend the leather vigurously before I was able to get the two round typical ripples in the front of the bow. Pinching the bow tightly in the centre to keep the shape I wrapped my little strap around the centre once, glued and cut off the excess leather.

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Once the bow was completely dry I was free to admire my hour and a bit of work.

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Lovely isn't it?

Wednesday 5 September 2012

Watch Hair Piece

I am a huge Steampunk fan. I know right, Gothic and Steampunk? What am I thinking?

The point is both styles are extremely awesome, and despite the fact I don't have the guts to walk around in full Gothic or Steampunk clothing I love them anyway.

I made this hairpiece because my watch stopped working. It was a very pretty watch, and I felt it was rather a shame to just throw it out. I cut the leather straps off and decided it would make a cute Steampunk hair piece. (Watch hair decorations are very cool in the Steampunk society)

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I'm afraid my photos are rather out of focus, however I'm sure you'll get the general idea.

To make this hair piece I used:

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A hot glue gun (I finally got one!),a needle and thread, a little more ribbon then the length of your arm, a hair clip, an artificial loofa (See above photo),a watch face (Working or not) and some scissors.

1.) Remove the cord from the centre of  the artificial loofa. When you have unwrapped the loofa to it's full extent you will notice it is shaped like a big tube with open ends.

Cut a large circle approximately the width of your palm. You will need to make sure that some point at the edge is not cut, so that the your circle is like a smaller version of the tube.

2.) Take your ribbon and fold it into a loop. Sew it firmly. As you make a new loop sew it onto the first loop in a petal arrangement. Continue until your run out of ribbon.

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If you would like your flower a little larger just add bigger looped petals to the back.

3.) Take your glue gun, and once it has fully heated up add some glue to the back of your flower and attach your circle-tube you cut out of the loofa.

4.) Take your watch face and glue in the centre of your flower. Leave the whole thing to dry completely.

5.) Take your hot glue gun and attach your hair clip to the back of your hair piece.

A one of a kind gorgeous Steampunk hair decoration.

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Tip: If your looking for gears or watch faces to make a similar hair piece then try your local markets and junk shops. A good wash and they're ready to go!

Tuesday 28 August 2012

Cupcakes

Today I finished my cake decorations. I finally got around to making some cupcakes (See below) and whilst I may have left them in the oven to long, after cutting the overflowing edges off, they turned out rather well.

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I used the fondant in it's original pink colour (The recipe called for white marshmallows, but I had pink ones handy!) and rolled it out very thin. I spread this over the top of the cupcakes and used the decorations I had made previously.

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I still had heaps of fondant left over, even though I cut the original recipe in half. So I made some blue, green and black fondant. I made little squidgy flowers out of small balls of pink fondant with some green for the centre, and left the black fondant with some swirls in it.

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I'm not expecting they will last much longer; my little brother is on the cupcake prowl!

Monday 27 August 2012

Fancy Cakes

I have been rather slack on the hair-attire pieces as I have been cooking instead!

I follow this wonderful blog called Cake Whiz.   This wonderful lady makes cakes/cupcakes/biscuits and various other delicious edibles. Today, I decided, was the day to try out her recipe for fondant.

It worked!!!!

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I used H-E-A-P-S of Icing-sugar and marshmallows, and it was delicious. It melted a little in our warm spring weather but I just stuck it in the fridge for a while.
I would suggest adding a little lemon/lime juice for a fruity flavour but apart from that, I coloured it and made:

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As well as these:
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And as I am completely impressed with my new found cake decorating skill I'll show you them again, except this time~ Together!

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Have you been admiring my beautiful nails in the first photo? No? Well here is a closer look:

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Don't worry, I did clean up around the edges with some nail remover and Cotton wool.I just forgot to take a photo of the finished effect :) 

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Oh, I almost forgot! Here is the cake Chrysanthemum made to put the cake decorations on. A gorgeous butter cake, perfect~

Sunday 19 August 2012

Green Vine Flower hair piece


Today was a glorious sunny day, and what better way to enjoy it, then to sit outside in the warmth and make this cute hair piece:

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It didn't turn out how I had planned, but I still think it's pretty.

To make this flower you will need:

A needle and thread, a pen, fabric scissors, enough fabric for 10 small circles, a more subtle fabric for the centre and back and a roll-on Dove deodorant lid.

1.  Lay out your first fabric and draw 10 circles around the outside of the Dove deodorant lid. Cut them out neatly (The edge will be visible in the finished flower).

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2. Take 5 of the circles. Fold each circle in half, then in half again. You should end up with triangular shapes like these:

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 Sew along the edge of each triangle.

3. Take the other 5 circles and your needle and thread. Sew around the edge of each circle on the wrong side of the fabric. Your stitches should be about 0.2 cm away from the edge.

4. Place your little finger in the centre of each circle and pull your thread tight. It should look like this:

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Remove your finger, pull the string completely tight and stitch through the end of each petal.

You now have:
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5. Lay your triangles and petals like this:

(With the petals on top, and the triangles underneath)

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 -And sew in place.

6.Add a square of your other fabric to the back, making sure it doesn't peek out around the edge of the flower. Sew in place.

7.Roll up a rectangle of the same fabric from 6 and then roll it up the other way to form a bud shape. Sew into the centre of your flower. Like so:

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For extra support add clear nail polish the threads at the back.

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 And you're done!
 TA DA!

Saturday 18 August 2012

Rust and Green eye make up

I bought this double-ended roll-on eyeshadow a while ago, and I recently tested it out. I bought it from my local chemist and it cost me around $5.00. It is super easy to use, and doubles up as a really cool lipstick.

You can get in several shades, however I purchased the Rust and Green version:(Below)


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I created this effect using the green end of the eyeshadow as a base and adding the rust over the top at both ends of my eyes. I added a top coat of mascara and drew a then line of liquid eyeliner along my bottom lid

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I used a light dusting of pale powder on my face and added a thin coat of black eyeshadow on my eyebrows to darken them. I drew a little point at the end of my eyebrows and carefully blended it in.

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To enhance this effect I rubbed a small amount of pale foundation under my eyebrow and under my eye. This gives you a more even skin tone and brings the focus to your eye and the eyeshadow you are wearing.


Handy Tip: When I applied the mascara I forgot to add a coat to the top of my eyelashes, not just the bottom. This meant that any eyeshadow which had stuck to my lashes was visible when my eyes were closed (See image below). To avoid this add a thin coat to the top of your lashes, or if you're not a fan of mascara gently pull your lashes through a tissue to remove the excess eyeshadow.


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