Halloween Pumpkin Cupcakes with two-tone orange 'n' white frosting... (AKA Unwittingly pretty peach cupcakes)

With All Souls Day looming, I thought I'd put my Libby's canned pumpkin to good use and make some spiced, autumnal cupcakes. These turned out well - really moist with a subtle chai flavour resulting from the mixture of ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg (yes, I made the same sponge batter a year ago in November).

In terms of decorating, I planned to use Betty Crocker's cream cheese frosting (rather than making my own) to create a two-tone orange and white piped effect (to give the desired Halloween-y feel). I mixed my own shade of "orange" by combining using a red and yellow food dye but the result was a delicate peach hue. Gorgeous but not very Halloween-y - note the contrasts in shades of orange below!

I must say, Betty Crocker's frosting isn't a patch on home-made cream-cheese frosting. It's overly-sweet, somewhat artificial tasting and rather looser in consistency than I am used to. I have another couple of tubs to get through, as they were on offer (3 for 2) which incentivised me to bulk buy, but going forward, I will definitely be making my own frosting. That said, I appreciated the ease of being able to simply spoon the product straight into the piping bag without first dispersing icing sugar all over my kitchen and living space as is customary with making one's own from scratch (it literally goes everywhere, doesn't it?!)

So... over all, even though these cakes didn't come out quite as intended, I did like the two-tone effect, and I plan to try this piping technique to create roses on top of some future cupcakes. Watch this space...

Wizard of Oz cupcakes

 

   

 

I made these cupcakes for the colleagues who were closely involved in the putting on the production of "The Wizard of Oz" with me in the school where I work. They made good little thank you pressies - people do always seem to appreciate it when you go to a bit of trouble and personalise your thanks, I find! I made the toppers myself. Very easy in fact! I found some iconic images from the film, printed them on card and cut each one into a disk shape using a brilliant little gadget from "hobbycraft". Using cellotape, I then attached the image to a cocktail stick and, to conceal the unsightly and slightly amateurish appearance of the taped stick, I attached another identically-sized image on the reverse using mini double-sided sticky pads. The cakes were quite plain - vanilla sponge with regular, buttercream frosting (tinted Oz green, of course!) A few silver dragees were added for a bit of Glinda-esque sparkle. Sorry that the quality of the photos isn't brilliant - taken on my phone.....

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Maple frosting

I stole the idea for these cupcakes from make bakeswap buddy Susie, who has a fantastic baking blog called 'fold in the flour': http://foldintheflour.blogspot.co.uk

They taste very autumnal with cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger in the sponge mix (they do taste like gingerbread, don't they Susie?!) The use of pureed pumpkin in the sponge mix and maple syrup in the frosting made me think of America, as these ingredients were being used in abundance during my recent visit to New York (yes! I am a Hurricane Sandy survivor!!) With that in mind, I suppose you could call them thanksgiving cupcakes...

Violet Rose Birthday Bakes

My peers and I all turn 30 this year which is keeping me busy in the kitchen! These cupcakes were made for one of my old school friends and enjoyed with a glass of bubbly :-)

Dennis the Menace Cupcakes

I made these for one of my best friend's 30th birthday. We've known each other since we were tiny and Dennis the Menace was her childhood hero so I thought it would be fun to go with this theme. I chose black and red cases for my colour-scheme as those are Dennis' colours of choice and I shopped around for the "waferettes".

30th Birthday Bakes

18 cupcakes made for a colleague's son's 30th Birthday. They were going to be having a bit of a get-together over lunch and these were 'pudding' :)

I went for a star design as I thought it was slightly more masculine than flowers. I did do some flowers for the girls in the party too. Thought that the star design worked well so will probably use it again over the Christmas period.

Pink and Blue Flower Fondants

I made these to mark the start of the autumn term and to try out a new icing colour - a baby blue. I also wanted to use this gorgeous, vintage cake stand which a great friend gave me to display my cupcakes. Enjoy!

Romantic Rose Cupcakes

I made these today for my beloved who arrives back from Australia after 2 months. Hope he likes them! I was hoping to flavour the buttercream with some rose essence but Lakeland didn't have any in stock alas. I used my new handmixer - a John Lewis one. It's fab!