Safari jungle animal cupcakes for a Zoo themed party

Jenny has been creating again!. She made these wonderful safari themed cupcakes for a jungle zoo party her young daughter was attending. I think she did an amazing job. She used zebra straight sided cupcake papers to bake her chocolate cupcakes. The buttercream swirls used a Wilton tri colour coupler fitted with a 1M piping nozzle.  

-Grey swirl  white buttercream tinted with Progel Grey with clear vanilla essence)

-Caramel swirl (CK white buttercream tinted with Progel Caramel with peppermint essence)

-Chocolate brown swirl (CK Chocolate buttercream, really nice tasting according to Jenny)

On top Jenny popped our zoo safari animals sugar icing decorations on top. Which are a quick fix for busy parents.

And they looked awesome in one of our black & white striped cupcake boxes

Sugar free cupcakes and buttercream icing with Natvia

The good folks at Natvia again sent me some of their product to try out and give away to you my readers (see competition at bottom of page). Whilst you could make the sweeping statement my life at Kiwicakes revolves around sugar, many of our cake decorators are having to deal with allergies & intolerances for their family, friends or customers special diets Just this past week, I've been asked about vegan baking, gluten free baking, lactose free icings and sugar free baking for a diabetic. As well as ingredients for a lady with Crone's disease. I don't claim to be any expert on any of these things, however I endeavour to do my best to help out.

So I was intrigued to try the new Natvia icing mix - opening the pack, it looks just like icing sugar. When the icing is mixed up, it looks and behaves just like a pipeable buttercream, so for cake decorators it's very easy to use.

I made two different cupcakes. The first "Black Walnut" and the second "Bavarian Cream". Both used the two recipes below for the buttercream icing and the basic chocolate cupcake recipe below.

For the Black Walnut

Add 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts to the cake batter, along with 1/4 tsp of Lorann oil Black Walnut flavour. For the buttercream icing add 4-6 drops (to your taste) to the buttercream icing and stir until well combined. Garnish cupcakes with chopped walnuts.

For the Bavarian cream

Let me first describe Bavarian cream for those who don't know the flavour, it's a wonderful toffee-ish, caramelly super yummy flavour. I add 1/2 tsp Lorann oil Bavarian cream flavour to the cake batter recipe below and 4-6 drops of Bavarian cream flavour to the buttercream icing recipe. My cupcakes in the photo are garnished with a fondant flower, which is not sugar free, but for the most part, they are removed prior to eating by most people, as the taste is not great.

I made a chocolate buttercream using

125g butter whipped in the stand mixer until light and fluffy

To which I added the Natvia icing mix, 3 Tbsp milk 1/2 cup sifted cocoa. Whip until smooth.

To make the cupcakes, I altered my chocolate cupcake recipe swapping out the sugar for the Natvia

Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (use baking cocoa, not drinking cocoa)

1/8 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter, softened

1 cup Natvia

2 eggs

3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Method

1 Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Line a muffin pan with paper or foil liners. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa and salt. Set aside.

2 In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well with each addition, then stir in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture alternately with the milk; beat well. Fill the muffin cups 3/4 full.

3 Bake for 15 to 17 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Cupcakes iced and baked with Natvia certainly taste different to those baked with sugar, it's a little hard to describe the flavour, there's almost a cooling quality to the icing - I think it's something you need to try for yourself.

Competition: Enter to win one of 5 boxes of Natvia icing mix delivered anywhere in NZ. You receive one entry for commenting here and one entry for commenting on our facebook post. Tell me have you ever tried sugar free baking was it a success?. 5 winners will be drawn at random Tuesday 28th April

A special first birthday for Antonin - Poppy Bakes

This small cake was made by my daughter Poppy (11 years) for a family friend Antonin who was turning 1. The family is French/NZ and the wee character is Petit Ours Brun (little brown bear, from a french story book). Poppy was the one specifically asked to make his cake. She decided she wanted to make cupcakes as well. As Anotnin loves bananas, she decided to make a banana cake.

The cake was covered with a layer of Bakels white truffle, which I thought would be easier for Poppy than making ganache. I stepped in and leant a small hand to help her achieve a flat-ish finish. It was then covered in Satin Ice fondant. The little figure was modelled from Satin Ice fondant to which tylose had been added.

The cupcakes have small motifs on top that frequently appear in the story lines. The cupcakes are finished with easy frost  using a 1m tip

The little cake sat next to a cupcake stand at the birthday boys home. We used a simple cardboard cupcake stand, the way these cupcake stands fit together allows for a picture to be slotted in easily, it is held in place as a topper.

Both the cupcakes and the birthday cake we well received by Antonin, it was so much fun watching him eat birthday cake.

Strawberry pink champagne cupcakes

These cupcakes came about when I was tasked with making something for a cake guild meeting about "flavour profiles". I knew in advance what our demonstrator was making for the evening, so I tried to make something a little different to her flavours. The recipe formed and grew in my head as I was making them, and had a minor adjustment part way through.

To my regular vanilla cupcakes, I added two tablespoons of freeze dried strawberry powder. I baked them in the usual way, but the resulting cake was a little too subtle in flavour. Here's where they took a turn for the better: I decided to add a Strawberry creme  to the centre of each cupcake using Gobake Easy Frost and freeze dried strawberry powder. It's super easy, the recipe for creme is right there on the packet. Any unused portion can be stored in the fridge or frozen to make ice-cream like this. I used a Wilton bismark tip to fill the centre of the cupcakes (using Wilton's method, which you can see here).

To my buttercream icing recipe I added a few drops of Americolor pink gel paste colour and some Lorann champagne oil flavouring. It was piped with a simple 1m swirl (these cupcakes were all about the flavour not the decoration). We had a lot of items to taste test during our guild evening. These were a hit on the night and I will definitely be making them again.

V8 Racing flag cupcakes

When you're asked to bake for a charity bake sale with only a few days notice and you already have a hectic working week, what do you do? These V8 racing car cupcakes were  another of my quick bake sale solutions. Once baked they were decorated in under ten minutes. The V8 lollies are available from kiwicakes (they only come two colours).

The buttercream swirl is pipped with a Wilton 1m tip. The checkered racing flag food-picks can be found here. I heard they were a real hit with children (and big kids obsessed with V8s too) They would be a fun addition to any racing car themed birthday party.

Cupcakes in Disguise

When you're asked to bake for a charity bake sale, with only a few days notice and you already have a hectic working week, what do you do? These crazy cupcakes were one of my solutions.

These were decorated in a matter of minutes (less than ten) using a buttercream swirl with 1M wilton tip as the base. The eyes are Wilton large candy eyeballs, which stay in place when pressed on to the buttercream. The mouths, teeth and moustaches are Natural Confectionery Co "Lolly Disguises".

I really can't decide whether I like "Hot-lips Cupcake" best

or "Professor Cupcake".

"Geeky cupcake" also has his own charm

As does "Mr Cupcake". One bag of lollies will make aprx 18-20 cupcakes. I did get a few malformed lollies in my bag, but the children didn't complain when they were given them to dispose of  eat.

Happy Birthday Jenny - Part two

You may remember an earlier post for Jenny's birthday with details of her cake here. Today's post has the details of the rest of her birthday party food. I'd decided on a theme of pastels, which meant all of the food HAD to be pastel. This is super easy for sweets, but not quite so easy for savouries.

The cupcakes were baked using these stiletto high heel cupcake papers. I love these papers, I can get two dozen cupcakes on a flat baking sheet and bake them all at once.

Down inside a large 18'' bag, I placed 2x 12'' piping bags, each with the end cut off - one with green and one with white buttercream. Separating the colours inside two separate bags, rather than putting two colours of icing in to one bag stops the icing mixing together and getting muddy/dirty. They were piped with a twin tone swirl using the Wilton 1m tip.

I topped the cupcakes with baby pink Kiwicakes's own brand sugar pearls, as well as a little petunia made from baby pink Satin Ice fondant using this cutter & veiner set.

Frosted caramels, pastel meringues and floral cachous lollies looked great in our candy jars.

The meringues I served with whipped cream, to which I added some crushed freeze dried raspberries. Grandma Kiwicakes declared this her "new best favourite".

I used square pink dotty cupcake papers to hold mini pink shrimp cocktails. The mayonnaise I coloured pale pink by adding a little tomato sauce.

These carrot canapes are made by mixing cream cheese, freeze dried carrot powder, seasoning and pecans together (they were not quite as orange as the photo portrays). The lettuce leaf addition to the rose was cut out of iceberg lettuce using a rose leaf metal cutter (plastic doesn't work well on lettuce).

Jenny had a wonderful birthday here at Kiwicakes, we don't have long to wait until the next staff birthday, it's Grandma Kiwicakes in January. We've already started planning for her party.

Black lace, skulls and pearls cupcakes

Lately, I've notice an upward trend in the use of skulls for bridal showers & weddings (till death do us part). I think they'd also be great for birthdays and Halloween too.

The Black 3D skulls were very easy to make using this Wilton 3d skull chocolate mould and black candy melts. You mould them in two halves, but with a little melted chocolate they glue together seamlessly.

The cupcakes are baked in Black lace cupcake papers. They're great to bake with, as no muffin pan is needed to support them, they sit flat on a baking sheet, which means I can get two dozen on one shelf of the oven at a time.

I've finished the tops with a 1m swirl of buttercream icing and a few Kiwicakes own brand sugar pearls. The long strands of pearls were made with fondant, that has a little tylose added, which was moulded in these bead moulds (6mm & 3mm).