fancy pants cute cupcakes

That's right, I finally got round to buying a 1M piping nozzle and it arrived in the post today. How on earth have I managed to bake for so long without having one of these?! I don't think I can ever go back to icing with spoons and knives!

I spent a while deciding what to bake but in the end I wanted to ice as quick as possible so I went with plain little buns, in pink cases of course, because the icing HAD to be pink. Mum took a photo of me because she found it hilarious how much enjoyment I was getting from a piping bag and nozzle.

Aren't they unbelieveably cute? I've iced using a piping bag before, but only with smaller nozzles for decoration, so I'm quite pleased with my first swirly icing attempt. Now I am fully equipped for all icing related emergencies.

On a sad note, the Hummingbird Bakery finally claimed my poor mixer. It found their icing a bit too difficult to mix through and the beaters stopped turning properly. Fortunately I have another (identical!) mixer. It's in storage in the attic along with other kitchen related things from my old flat so I'll have to dig it out. Then when that one dies I'll finally have a proper excuse to buy a kitchenaid! I'm favouring the yellow one at the moment.

My first whoopie pies!

Since discovering where I could buy marshmallow fluff, I've been itching to try my hand at whoopie pies. I liked the idea that they looked like a cross between a cake and a kiss. There are quite a few whoopie pie recipes in the Hummingbird Cake Days books, but I decided on the chocolate chip whoopie pies.

Here are my whoopie pies, or "bombs" as Mum likes to call them. They're massive! As you can tell I went for the more rustic, lumpy approach. I tend to only start baking around midnight so I generally can't be arsed faffing about with piping bags to make them look even and perfect. I really liked the flavour of the sponge, a bit like a sweet oven scone, and the yoghurt gives it a nice, smooth texture. If I was to make them again I don't think I'd use the marshmallow fluff icing as it is a bit sickly sweet. I would also make them smaller, maybe more like a kiss, just so they're a more manageable size to eat.

As much as I love my Hummingbird Bakery book for its fun recipes and glorious pictures, I have a few niggles: I always end up with far too much icing (I hate wastage), everything seems to need an at extra 10 minutes baking time in the oven, and the recipes are destroying my poor little food mixer with their thick batters!

.....Still a great book though :)

It seems I'm doing an outfit post

I went for a walk today to take some landscape photos to draw from and suddenly thought "what the hell, I'm going to do an outdoorsy blogger photo!" I still don't think I'll ever do a full on fashion blog, but it does seem like a lot of fun. I thought I'd found a pretty secluded spot, but just when I set the timer to "pose" a little fishing boat sailed past. Pretty sure whoever was in it spotted me. Not quite as embarrassing as getting caught having my picture taken with the massive Captain Barbosa and Jack Sparrow cardboard cut outs at the cinema last week. Not my coolest moment, but that's another story.

Back to my outfit, today I was wearing a gingham dress/tunic which I bought in a sale from Red Herring at Debenhams two years ago and a pair of seriously baggy, old trousers. 10 years old! Yes, I've discovered they are that old. I've had them since I started secondary school! I'm aware I need new trousers.

Sunday scones

I intended to get up this morning and bake some scones to take over to my Aunty's as a belated birthday treat. I slept in but when I went downstairs I discovered Mum had baked some for me! Mum doesn't bake very often, but when she does it's always damn good.

 I arrived just in time to fill the scones with cream and strawberries.

belated bun post

A few nights ago I baked two batches of buns/cupcakes to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Mum's business. I forgot to take photos at the time but managed to take a photo of the last two today. The one on the left is lemon flavoured and the one on the right is apple and cinnamon. I appear to love these flavours at the moment. They are sitting in my super cute cupcake caddies from Alice. Now isn't that great alliteration!

Lemon cake and recent purchases

After the success of my lemon cake at work on Friday, I felt compelled to make another at home on Saturday. However I got in a bit of a muddle with oven temperatures. I opened the oven door thinking "oh crap the cake is nearly burning!" but it still wasn't cooked. I turned the temperature down but I knew the damage was done, my poor cake sunk a little in the middle. It appears that the oven at work isn't as hot as the one at home.

In an attempt to redeem myself I thought I'd bake some buns with strawberries inside. However that didn't work particularly well either. I took them out the oven thinking they were all pretty, but they soon went all wrinkly and their bottoms were soggy. Once again, not entirely cooked, and possibly too many strawberries(?). I fired them back in for a further 5 minutes but the bottoms stayed soggy. I was so disappointed I didn't even bother taking pictures.

I also went into town at the weekend to buy a birthday present for a friend. Turns out I'm shit at this as I can't buy presents for other people without buying something for myself. I bought this beady/buttony necklace for £8.95 and it came in a really cute bag.

My piping set arrived too, but it doesn't have the nozzle I was looking for. This is partly my fault for not checking properly before I purchased but I thought there was a fair chance it would be 1 of the 28 nozzles in the pack. Nevermind, it's still a cute box and I like how it matches my bedding.

I also made another purchase...... a playsuit! Now I NEVER thought I would hop on the jumpsuit/playsuit bandwagon, but when I spotted it on the Dorothy Perkins website I thought it looked pretty cute and I liked the old-fashioned William Morris style print. I've also been getting pretty bored with the clothes in my wardrobe so thought a jumpsuit would be a fun addition. I immediately changed little bits though. I took off the weird belt loops and gold buttons and unpicked a seam at the bust to remove nasty boob padding (I HATE padding, plus they weren't even in the right place for my chest!)

Although I started this blog thinking I would only ever use it to document my cakes, I've become really interested in fashion/life blogs. There are so many that it's hard not to feel a little inspired! I don't particularly like my photo being taken as I'm so self-conscious, and whenever I looked at the camera directly I looked like a bit of a twat, so here I am in full, awkward "ooh don't I have a nice bookcase!" glory.

Sorry about the boring grey socks. For a fancy sock addict they are shamefully boring (work) socks.

artist/barista/baker

Working in a coffee house, I get to bake and decorate cakes in the afternoon in between the busy rushes. We only use Betty Crocker chocolate or carrot cake mixes, but it's still one of my favourite parts of the job. I occasionally take baked treats in to work, secretly hoping they might consider hiring me as a full time baker. This week my baking skillz were finally unleashed in the kitchen as we ran out of our Betty Crocker boxes. I made a vanilla cake and a lemon cake and the latter looked particularly impressive. (I thought about taking photos of my cakes but my coworkers think I'm strange enough as it is.) Half of the lemon cake disappeared within the first hour or so of me putting it on the counter! I think this is what all the cool kids call an "EPIC WIN".

Let's hope I get to make more tasty cakes at work.

I've also finally got round to ordering a Wilton piping set. So watch this space for fancy pants cupcakes.

Blueberry muffins

What do you do when it's after midnight and you've just had a nice shower? Bake in your pyjamas of course! There were blueberries in the fridge which needed using up soon so I thought I'd make muffins using my Great Aunty Lizzie's recipe. I like having old family recipes, my Granny and her sisters were amazing bakers.

I got very excited taking them out the oven, they were oozing berry goodness. What a great colour!

Aunty Lizzie's muffins

8oz plain flour

4oz sunflower oil

4oz caster sugar

1 large beaten egg

1.5 level teaspoons of baking powder

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence if liked

a little milk

Sieve flour, sugar and baking powder (although I rarely bother sieving) together into a bowl. Add vanilla essence, beaten egg and oil with a pinch of salt. Beat thoroughly and add milk to make a fairly soft mixture. Add blueberries, a dollop of jam, mincemeat, raisins, chopped chocolate, coconut - whatever you like! Fill cases about 3/4 full. Bake at gas mark 4 for 20-25 minutes. Mixture makes around 9 muffins.