No Baking staining on your cupcake papers with Wilton Colour cups

Today I baked our new white chocolate mud cake mix. I was curious to see if the white chocolate flavour came through. 

These bake low and slow (for cupcakes 30mins at 130c) not long after this photo was taken, I devoured this cupcake. I’m pleased to say I could smell and taste the white chocolate (I used 100g of Whittaker’s white chocolate) 

And a shout out to Wilton Colourcups!. I love these cupcake papers. They’re my all time go to, as they ALWAYS look this good after baking. Even at higher temps.

 

Mini chocolate bars cupcake decorations

These cute little cupcakes were super easy to make. I'd been dying to get my hands on some of the limited edition Caramilk by Cadbury, as it had been a favourite of mine as a teen. I teemed it with a Millionaires caramel drizzle over vanilla buttercream

To create the drizzle, I popped a spoonful of Millionaires Caramel in to a disposable piping bag and zapped in the microwave for ten seconds, I then snipped off the end and drizzled over the cupcakes. The larger you cut the hole in the end of the bag, the heavier your drip will be, I did both fine and heavy drizzles, to test out which I liked better. Start small though, as you can't go backwards if you cut the hole too big.

These are super easy to make, each little bar weighs aprx 7 grams, so you get a heap from one block of chocolate. I used this mould -5-with-chocolate-printed-on-each-square I melted the caramilk gently int he microwave and spooned in to the mould, Tap underside of mould gently on bench to expel air bubbles

 Lots of cute little bars just waiting for their cupcakes.

SPCA Cupcake Day 2017

I recently took a trip to the Whangarei SPCA to deliver some cupcakes and chocolate VW cars to Andrea (manager fo SPCA Whangare at right) and the staff/volunteers who work so tirelessly. I felt they deserved a treat.

The cupcakes were decorated with our 4 new sprinkle medleys which have been created in support of SPCA cupcake day 2017.

$2 from the sale of every pack of these 4 animal themed cupcake medleys will go to SPCA Cupcake Day. You can grab a pack here If oyu love the cupcake papers, you'll find these here too 

Red Velvet cupcakes in support of All Blacks rugby

I recently outed myself as a closet rugby fan. I attended the first Lions test match her in my hometown of Whangarei and have been glued to the TV ever since. Tonight the Lions take on the Maori All Blacks. I'll be perched on the edge of the couch screaming at the TV as all good rugby supporters like to do.

I seemed a good day for some rugby cupcakes. I'd been wanting to try the new Whittakers Full Eighty chocolate bars. Which consequently are very nice. Using Rainbow Dust edible metallic lustre dusts, I trialed "metallic dark silver" left, "metallic light silver" (middle) and "starlight silver saturn" (right) - whilst the beauty of each colour is hard to portray in the photo, my favourite was the "silver saturn". I dusted the lustre powder straight on to the chocolate and on to grey fondant silver ferns, made using this mould

I Wanted a black cream cheese icing for my red velvet cupcakes, so I first made a chocolate cream cheese icing to which I added black progel food coloruing . I find a good dark cocoa such as this one makes a nice dark buttercream/icing meaning you need less black food colouring to go from dark chocolate brown to black 

Recipe

125 grams softened buter

125g room temp cream cheese

4 cups icing sugar

3 Tbsp cocoa powder

6 Tbsp water.

Beat together butter and cream cheese. Add. cocoa powder. Add 1 cup of icing sugar at a time and continue to beat. Add a little water after the addition of each cup of icing sugar.

If you do not want chocolate flavoured icing, omit cocoa powder and add a good squeeze of lemon juice instead.

Because I'm 99.9% sure the Maori All Black are going to come out on top It's black icing atop red cupcakes for me today

How to pack cupcakes for shipping

This short video shows you how it is possible to pack cupcakes ready for shipping so they arrive at their destination intact. At Kiwicakes we have the Cupcake boxes, lollipop sticks and dowel cutting scissors needed.

Gracie's Frozen birthday party part 2

This is part 2 of Gracies Frozen party. Part 1 with her cake is here. Jenny spent months planning Gracie's party. Collecting party items for months, many of which came from Kiwicakes. The cupcake papers and cupcake stand can be found here 

Jenny piped her cupcakes with our buttercream recipe  using tip 4b

The back drop was some lovely sparkly blue fabric that was going begging from our storeroom and the drapes were made with plastic snowflake tablecovers

The party table made Gracie's day and her friends loved it.

The girls could choose between milk bottles or frozen cups

Frozen snowball cake pops anyone?. They look stunning on our acrylic cake pop stand

The chocolate covered oreos were a hit with the little party goers. Using this mould

They're fun to make with kids in the lead up to the party. Simple melt your chocolate

To create a contrasting colour, add some powdered or candy colour to your white chocolate.

Fill this colour in to the mould first and allow to set

A squeeze bottle makes it easier

Then add some white chocolate. And then place an Oreo cookie down in to the mould.

You can leave the back uncovered, or cover over with some more melted white chocolate. Whichever you prefer.

For take home loot. Gracie's little party goers took home sweets in Olaf cups and a few treasures in snowflake bags 

The bags are a good size, but can be cut down easily if you don't need the extra space.

I think Jenny did an amazing job of Gracie's party. No wonder Gracie declared it "the best party ever!"

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

Bring a Plate Minis - from Kiwicakes test kitchen

This bright offering always goes down well at parties. They are the perfect bite size so never any waste! Your favourite cake recipe will make dozens in mini cupcake papers.

Simply top with a little swirl of easy frost icing and place a special lolly on top to hide the peak. I used gumballs this time but we have all sorts of old fashioned lollies to suit your theme. Think snails, coins, strawberries, pigs, aliens, hearts, bats, teeth, leaves etc...

Another easy way to lift a standard cupcake is to give it a light spray of colour mist. No need for an airbrush here! I used yellow and it gently highlights the peaks of the easy frost swirl. Great to have on hand for a little pop of fun!

Valentines day - open heart cupcakes

These heart cupcakes started with an idea from Glorious Treats (although my method was a little different). They are quick and easy to make and something a little different to a fully frosted cupcake.

Take your favourite cupcake and using a heart cutter press gently down, this will cut a heart in to your cupcake. You then need to slide a knife under the heart to remove a shallow piece.

I coloured my buttercream icing with pink progel colouring. I fitted my piping bag with a bismarck tip to make it easy to fill the cavity.

I coloured my icing sugar pink using Rainbow Dust colour (please note I used an edible pink, I've inadvertently photographed the wrong pink and shown a craft dust here)

Shake the two together and the resulting icing sugar is pink, this is dusted over the surface of the cupcake.