Halloween Cupcakes

As it is nearly halloween I thought I would add a recipe and a few ideas for some fun halloween cupcakes.

I have just given a basic recipe and some ideas for toppings but i am sure that you are more creative than me!

Halloween Cupcakes www.howtomakecakes.co.uk

Halloween Cupcakes www.howtomakecakes.co.uk

Halloween Cupcakes www.howtomakecakes.co.uk

Halloween Cupcakes www.howtomakecakes.co.uk

Watch a video of how to make this cake and decorate them:

Ingredients for the cupcakes

120g unsalted butter at room temperature 

400g caster sugar
360g plain flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
350ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ingredients for the buttercream

100g unsalted butter at room temperature 

200g icing sugar
2 tablespoons boiling water
food colouring as required

Other ingredients
fondant icing
piping icing
anything else you want to use to be creative!

Equipment Required

large bowl

electric mixer

cupcake cases

cupcake tin

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees centigrade (or 360 fahrenheit or gas mark 5).  First mix together the butter, caster sugar, flour, salt and baking powder with an electric mixer until it is a breadcrumb type consistency.  Add the eggs into the milk with the vanilla essence and lightly whisk together in a separate bowl. Add about three-quarters of this to the breadcrumb mixture and beat together and then add the rest of the milk mixture and mix until a smooth batter.

Put the cupcake cased into the bun tin and fill about two-thirds full with the mixture.

Bake in the oven for around 15-20 minutes (not on the fan setting) unit springy to the touch and starting to lightly brown. 

Leave them to cool for a few minutes in the tin and then put on a cooling rack to cool completely before adding any topping. 

To make the buttercream first beat the butter with an electric mixer to soften. Then add the icing sugar and boiling water and carefully mix together until creamy and smooth.  Split between bowls to add different colours as required.

Please see the video for ideas of how to decorate using simple approaches that you can get the kids to help you with. The decoration approaches are:
(1) Creating a spiderweb with buttercream icing and piping icing.
(2) Using fondant icing to create words and pictures.
(3) Piping words onto the buttercream icing.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Watch a 10 minute video on how to make these cupcakes by clicking here to watch on YouTube or watch on the blog posting:

red velvet cupcakes

Red velvet cakes are an american tradition with cream cheese frosting. They were made famous in the film Steel Magnolias when they were featured as a wedding cake and are a very popular cake made by The Hummingbird Bakery. Below is a recipe for red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

cupcake

Ingredients
90g unsalted butter, softened
225g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
30g cocoa
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
40ml red food colouring
225g self-raising flour
3/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
165ml buttermilk


Equipment required
large mixing bowl
sieve
electric whisk
muffin cases
muffin tin

Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric whisk until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and continue to beat together.
In a separate bowl mix together the cocoa, vanilla essence and food colouring. It does seem a lot of food colouring but dont worry about it! Mix them together so that it becomes a dark coloured paste. Add to the butter/sugar/egg mixture and beat together. Then add half of the buttermilk, beat together, add half the flour, beat together and then repeat this process. You will then just have the bicarbonate of soda left. Add this and beat slowly to start with and then increase the speed so that everything is mixed together and you should have a lovely deep red mixture.

Divide between the muffin cases - this recipe should make about 18 cupcakes. Fill the cases about 2/3 full. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for around 20 minutes on 170C or 325F or gas mark 3. The cakes should be springy to the touch when properly cooked. Remove and cool on a wire rack.

Creamcheese frosting
Ingredients
200g cream cheese
75g unsalted butter, softened
450g icing sugar
1tbsp warm water
1 tsp vanilla essence

Beat together the sugar and butter with the water. Then add all of the cream cheese and beat together until smooth and glossy. Add the vanilla essence and mix together. Using a spoon top the cupcakes with the frosting. A nice touch is to crumble one of the cupcakes and sprinkle a little of the crumbs on top of the cake for decoration.

Tips
Try and use a deep muffin tin if you have one - this keeps the cupcakes in shape in their muffin cases while cooking.
Don't be put off by the amount of food colouring that is required - it gives the cake the deep red colour.

Wedding cupcakes

I recently made some cupcakes for a friend’s wedding. They wanted chocolate cupcakes with buttercream. I made the buttercream in both a cream and a green which matched the bridesmaids’ outfits. To add a bit of sparkle the cupcake cases were silver and I used silver chocolate beans also as well as white chocolate curls. As they wanted to cut a cake on the day I also made a chocolate cake which was covered in buttercream and then had white chocolate cigarellos round the outside.

Using the cake stand I have it all came together really well and with the flowers on top made a great centrepiece.


wedding cupcakes

wedding cupcakes 2

close up

top cake

It took a fair amount of research to find everything that was right for these cakes and I spent a while finding the right colouring to get the desired shade of green. A really good shop that I can recommend is Surbiton Sugarcraft. They have a small shop in Surbiton that has everything you can imagine for cake decorating and it can all be ordered online. I used the Sugarflaire colour powder to make the buttercream the desired colour. I wasn’t sure how well it would work initially as I have been used to using liquid colouring but it was great and really easy to use.

Double chocolate cupcakes - makes about 12

Ingredients
125 softened butter
125g caster sugar
2 medium eggs
90g self-raising flour
30g cocoa
100g milk chocolate drops

Equipment required

12-hole muffin tray
silver muffin cases
large mixing bowl
electric or hand whisk
sieve

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius. It is better to use a regular setting rather than a fan setting.
Beat the butter and sugar together
Add eggs to the bowl and sift the flour and cocoa on top
Beat all together until smooth
Stir in the chocolate drops
Fill the cases about two-thirds full and bake for 12-15 minutes or until springy to the touch

Buttercream – enough for 12 cupcakes
175g butter softened
350g icing sugar
3tbsp boiling water
few drops of vanilla essence

Beat together the butter until soft and smooth
Add everything else and beat until smooth and pale in colour

Tips
For these cupcakes I then used an icing bag with a large nozzle and iced them using that. It gave a much more professional look and was quite quick to do once you get used to it.

To make a good buttercream it is also vital to ensure your have softened butter - so leave it out overnight in a cool room. the beat it on its own first before adding the other ingredients - this makes a really light and fluffy buttercream.

More Cupcakes!

I was recently asked to make some cakes for another 40th birthday party. The idea was to have something that could create a centrepiece that guests would see when they arrive. We agreed that I would make some creative cupakes and use the 5-tier cake stand to present them on. Here are some photos of them

prepared at home

setting up at the party

chocolate and violet cakes and maple syrup and ginger

top layer had shards of rose flavoured chocolate

Basic Halloween Cakes

Halloween Sponge Cake

Another excuse to make some fun cakes has to be Halloween. There are only a couple of weeks until 31 October! I have made some Halloween cakes for a friends party previously and rather than create a big iced cake on the shape of a pumpkin (and let’s be honest we don’t really want to eat bright orange fondant icing!), I have used some basic recipes I have already talked about on my blog and decorated them with some Halloween decorations. It is surprising how just using some black and orange colours instantly make cakes look like Halloween cakes. Marks and Spencer sell some great jelly sweets with bats and spiders on which can be put on cakes and you can always pick up some good orange and black sprinkles from supermarkets and kitchen shops at this time of year.
Because I like to talk a bit about the history of cakes I thought I would add a bit to the blog about the history of Halloween.
Halloween
Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred. On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
To commemorate the event, Druids built huge sacred bonfires, where the people gathered to burn crops and animals as sacrifices to the Celtic deities. During the celebration, the Celts wore costumes, typically consisting of animal heads and skins, and attempted to tell each other's fortunes. When the celebration was over, they re-lit their hearth fires, which they had extinguished earlier that evening, from the sacred bonfire to help protect them during the coming winter. Over time this has turned into the Halloween we know today where kids go ‘trick or treating’, pumpkins are turned into lanterns and everything becomes orange and black!

Here is a photo of a cake I have previously made for Halloween. It is basically the Victoria Sponge recipe below, but use Apricot jam in the middle to be more of a Halloween colour. On the top I then used a basic icing with some orange food colour and orange juice added to it. The recipe for the icing is:

2-3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
200g icing sugar, sifted
few drops food colouring

Put 2 tablespoons of orange juice into a bowl and gradually sift in the icing sugar, stirring as you go until smooth and spreadable. Add more orange juice of required. Add afew drops of food colouring until you get the desired colour. Decorate immediately with black and orange sprinkles and any other Halloween decorations you can get!

Halloween Cupcakes

You could also make some basic cupcakes with buttercream which again you could colour orange and add some fun decorations on.

Halloween Cupcakes

Basic Cupcake recipe
115g butter (at room temperature)
115g caster sugar
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
grated zest of one orange (optional)

Buttercream recipe
150g softened butter
340g icing sugar
3 tablespoons (45ml) warm water
Few drops orange food colouring (black could be used for Halloween also)

Equipment required
1 12-hole muffin pan tray
muffin cases
sieve
large mixing bowl
electric whisk

• First preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 160 if it is fan assisted.
• Put the muffin cases in the muffin tray
• Beat the butter and sugar together using an electric mixer until smooth and fluffy
• Beat in the eggs one at a time
• Sift in the flour and fold in by hand using a figure of eight movement
• Stir in the milk and orange zest (if used)
• The mixture should be a smooth, creamy, spoonable mixture.
• Spoon into muffin cases (fill them just over half-full) and bake for 15-20 minutes until firm and springy

Buttercream
• Soften the butter and beat until smooth
• Gradually add the icing sugar, beating well
• Add the water and beat until smooth
• Add a few drops of food colouring
• Spread generously the buttercream over each cake and decorate with sprinkles and Halloween treats!

Cupcakes

‘Flame’ Cupcakes

You will see from the photos and posting below that I recently made some cupcakes for a friend’s 40th birthday party. As well as the chocolate cupcakes featured above I made some ‘flame cupcakes’ that I put on the top of the cakestand. These looked great and everyone asked me how I made them. As the creation was to replace an actual birthday cake, they had the appearance of flames on the top of the cakestand.

I used a maple cupcake sponge with maple syrup buttercream and then made the sugar flames for the top. This isn’t the easiest thing to do but with some patience and a lot of trial and error you can make some dramatic cakes.

The recipe and instructions are set out below. This will make 12 cupcakes. As to get some really good ones there is a bit of trial and error I suggest making all 12 even if you end up with only 4 or 5 really good flame cakes. The others are tasty even without the sugar shards:

Maple Cake Ingredients

60g butter, softened

150g self-raising flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

110 g dark brown sugar

60ml maple syrup

2 eggs

Maple Buttercream Ingredients

90g butter, softened

160g icing sugar

3 teaspoons maple syrup

Sugar Flames

330g caster sugar

250ml water

Equipment required

1 12-hole muffin pan tray

muffin cases

large heavy based saucepan

sieve

large mixing bowl

electric whisk

• First preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 160 if it is fan assisted.

• Put the muffin cases in the muffin tray

Cakes

•Put butter, sieved flour and cinnamon, sugar, maple syrup and eggs in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on slow speed until all the ingredients are mixed together. Increase the speed until the mixture becomes paler.
• Divide the mixture amongst the 12 muffin cases and bake for 20-25 minutes until the cakes start to brown and are firm to the touch.

Buttercream

While the cakes are cooking you can make the buttercream but it shouldn’t be put on the cakes until they are cool (which won’t take long).

• Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl and beat in the softened butter and maple syrup. I find using a metal the spoon the easiest way to do this, pushing the butter against the bowl using the back of the spoon. Eventually it will all come together in a nice creamy buttercream.

• Using a teaspoon spread the buttercream generously on top of the cakes.

Sugar Flames

Now for the fun bit!
• Combine the sugar and water in a heavy based saucepan.

• Stir over the heat continuously until the sugar dissolves being careful that it does not boil.

• Once all the sugar has dissolved bring it to the boil. Then reduce the heat and leave the liquid to simmer.

• The liquid will start to become golden brown. This will take quite a while (maybe 20 minutes) but it must become this colour before making the flames. If you have a candy thermometer then the mixture should be between 138 degrees Celcius and 154 degrees Celsius. It is not essential to have one however as it is the colour that tells you it is ready to use.

• Remove from the heat and allow the bubbles to subside.

• I then use a granite worktop but you could just use greaseproof paper or a glass chopping board to make the shards. Dip a wooden spoon in the mixture and then drizzle it on to the granite worktop or greaseproof paper moving the wooden spoon back and forth. Here are some photos of the drizzled sugar.

• Allow the sugar to set at room temperature and then using a sharp knife or a metal spatula. It will break up so just keep lifting some off and you get some long strands. Arrange it on the cake with shorter shards at the back and longer ones at the front to give a dramatic effect.

Tips

My tips for these cakes would be:

• Make plenty of sugar shards and work then quickly. Drizzle the sugar syrup and then start to try and lift it fairly quickly to see if it is set. If it is left for too long it goes too brittle.

• Don’t make them more than a day ahead – the next day the sugar starts to melt a bit and they don’t look good. It is fine to make the morning of an afternoon or evening party.

• Place the shards firmly into the buttercream and the cake so that they don’t fall over.

Making the sugar flames

Fabulous Chocolate Brownie Cupcakes

This recipe will make 20 cupcakes. The base is like a brownie mixture which is then topped with a great creamy ganache and chocolate curls.

Chocolate Brownie Cakes Ingredients
250g butter, chopped
150g dark eating chocolate (Bournville or similar)
440g caster sugar chocolate
250mil water
225g plain flour
40g self-raising flour
25g cocoa powder
2 eggs

Ganache Ingredients
300ml double cream
400g dark eating chocolate

Decorations
200g milk chocolate
200g white chocolate
Glace ginger (optional)

Equipment required
2 12-hole muffin pan trays
muffin cases
large heavy based saucepan
sieve
large mixing bowl
electric whisk

• First preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius or 150 if it is fan assisted.
• Put the muffin cases in the muffin tray
Cakes
• Put butter, chocolate, sugar ad water in a saucepan. Melt together on a slow heat, stirring all the time. The mixture will become smooth. Once it is all smooth pour it into a large mixing bowl and leave it to cool for 15 minutes.
• Sift the flours and the cocoa powder and whisk them into the chocolate mixture with an electric whisk
• Whisk the eggs into the mixture
• Don’t worry that the mixture seems runny still. It is like a brownie mix so it is meant to be like that
• Pour the mixture into the muffin cases. These cakes don’t rise hugely so fill the muffin cases to about two-thirds full (but no more). You don’t want them too high as you have to put the ganache on top
• Bake cakes for about 35 minutes

Ganache
While the cakes are cooking you can make the ganache as it needs time to get to the right consistency
• Coarsely chop the chocolate and put into a large bowl
• Pour the cream into a heavy-based saucepan and put on a gentle heat
• Heat until it starts to boil
• Pour over the chocolate and keep stirring until smooth. It may go a slightly strange consistency to start with but be patient and it will become a lovely glossy consistency
• Cover the bowl with cling-film and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes (an hour if you have time)

Decorating
It is important that the chocolate is at room temperature and has not been kept in the fridge to make the chocolate curls. Personally I think that a combination of white and milk chocolate look great on these cupcakes but I have also used just dark chocolate. Use whatever you think looks good. I have also used chopped glace ginger which looks and taste great

To make the chocolate curls, use a simple vegetable peeler and using reasonable force scrape along the long side of the chocolate bar.

Once the ganache has a nice spreadable consistency, spread it generously on each cake and immediately add plenty of chocolate curls or glace ginger.

Tips
My tips for these cakes would be:
• Try and use big muffin cases and gold or silver ones really make the cakes look special
• Make sure the ganache has become thicker and spreadable (consistency of chocolate spread) before using it otherwise it will run down the sides
• Use plenty of chocolate curls to make they look extravagant
• Try and have something great to serve them on – like a great tiered cake stand or a large white plate

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