Summer Fete Bakeathon

From the loving request of my Nan, I have been busy baking away for the Hayling Island Summer Fete. I managed to rustle up four delicious batches of cupcakes. For these I used a mixture of online recipes + a few variations that I will describe below.

Chocolate Cupcakes

An essential dessert for any fete!

(6 cakes) The sponge recipe was taken from this link.
For the frosting I whisked together 100g butter, around 1 tbspn of coco powder and 100g of icing sugar. But this link as a pretty awesome chocolate frosting recipe.
The garnish was made from sifted icing sugar and a malteser.

Banana Muffins 

They came out beautifully, I would strongly recommend making these!

(8 cakes) The sponge was made using this recipe, and I am definitely keeping that somewhere safe!
The frosting was a simple butter cream. If you haven't made it before, this is a pretty good guide (though I would use Vanilla Extract instead of food colouring).
To garnish, I used British style cake toppings and more maltesers.

Strawberry & Cream Cupcakes

Very British, perfect for a Summer Fete.

(8 cakes) For these delicious summer treats, I used this recipe. Whilst the sponge was lovely, the icing was terribly runny. I would suggest using a fraction of the suggested strawberry puree (more like 50g).

For the garnish I simply used some delicious British strawberries. 

Lemon Curd Cupcakes

Because I freakin love Lemon Curd!

(12 cakes) To make the sponge I used this recipe, although they tasted great, I was disappointed at the density of the sponge and highly recommend looking for an alternative recipe.
I also used a Delia Smith Lemon Curd recipe instead of the one specified in this recipe. It was from her book Winter Collection. Great book.
The frosting was a simple icing (icing sugar + water) which I mixed with the Lemon Curd.

Apparently they were all bought. I'm relieved.

xxx

Black Forest Gateau Cupcakes

Cupcakes are all the craze at the moment, so as a present to my family I decided to take the classic Black Forest Gateau as a cupcake.

To make them, I followed this recipe.

Also, although the recipe says it makes just 6.... I managed to make 16??? (Can't complain really!)

This recipe was loved by everyone, so I think it's going to become a regular. 

xxx

What do you do when your ill?

My housemate has been ill for the past few days :( So as a little pick-me-up, we did a spot of baking!! (Btw, Tesco is doing 3 for 2 on all baking products.. it's a good time to bake!)


We made some very yummy Walnut Cup Cakes! Again, these are from a recipe book, so I won't be giving you the recipe.. however click here for an equally nice Coffee & Walnut Cup Cake Recipe from BBC Food

For those of you counting.. 4 were misplaced in the making of this shoot :) 
xxxx