Double Vanilla Cupcakes and Real Raspberry Buttercream!

Uh oh!  It's Tuesday and I'm only just getting round to writing this weekend's blog post.  But, although it was all the busy this weekend I did get some time to do some baking for a friend's birthday :-) 

 

After making a lot of cake recently, all seeming to be lemon flavoured, I wanted to try something new this time.  But what?!  ...  I toyed with the idea of incorporating some kind of chocolates or candy into the cupcakes, but I REALLY wanted to use these super pretty Spring cupcake wrappers I was given!  I love the pastel colours, and the small pretty flowers... so I felt the chocolatey colours wouldn't work with them.  Instead I needed to think of a pretty colour to go with them!

 

 

And so, the idea of a real raspberry buttercream came to me!  I baked a basic vanilla cupcake, but upped the ante with my usual buttercream by adding raspberries!  I'm so happy that the beautiful Spring pink colour was made without food colouring and was a totally fresh feel to my usual buttercream!

So here's how it went! ... The recipe below will make 9 cupcakes (there were 9 of us bowling for my friend's birthday and they fit SO well in a cake box for her!!) and we have a TONNE of baking at home leftover from the youth group's 2nd annual Fun(d) Fair that we didn't need any more for just us!  But do double up the recipe to make more, especially if you're treating your Mum this Sunday!

Ingredients:

4oz unsalted butter
4oz vanilla sugar (or regular sugar for slightly less vanilla flavour)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
4 self-raising flour

Method:

1.  Pre-heat the oven to 375°F/190°C and line cupcake tray with cupcake cases. 

2.  Cream together the butter and the vanilla sugar.  A long while ago, after baking with vanilla pods, I thought about using the leftover pod and adding it to a mason jar full of sugar.  Since then I hadn't used the vanilla sugar, but when I opened up the jar on Sunday the smell was perfect!  An extra hit of vanilla to make these a double vanilla cupcake :-) 

 

3.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition, and then add in the vanilla extract.

 

4.  Sift the flour and beat well until combined.

 

5.  Scoop the batter into prepared cupcake cases.  I used a small OXO cookie scoop and needed 2.5 scoops per cupcake for it to rise to the perfect level.

 

 

6.  Bake for 10-14 minutes, until slightly golden brown on top, springy to the touch and when a cake tester comes out clean.

 

7.  Leave to cool on a wire rack and in the meantime, prepare your buttercream!

 

Ingredients:

 

4oz butter, softened

8oz icing sugar

1 cup raspberries - fresh or frozen

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon milk

 

Method:

 

1.  Measure out your raspberries (this time I used frozen as obviously, as usual was on a time crunch in the baking!  But next time for sure I will try fresh and see if it changes the taste... But fresh or frozen, whichever you choose - it's still a delicious real raspberry fresh flavour for the buttercream!)

 

2.  Add the lemon juice and puree the raspberries with a hand blender, and then strain through a sieve to eliminate the thousands of seeds.  From this I got about 2 and a half tablespoons of raspberry puree which all went into the buttercream.

 

 

3.  Cream together the soft butter, icing sugar and milk until light and fluffy.

 

4.  Add the raspberry puree and watch the colour go a beautiful shade of pink!  The more puree, the deeper the colour.  For me, I could have kept adding raspberries - not for the colour but for the tart taste... However my love for lemon and other tart fruit flavours isn't shared as much as everybody and my number one taste-tester husband said he could definitely taste the raspberry flavour in the buttercream so I stayed put and didn't go too crazy!

 

5.  Pipe your buttercream and enjoy your pretty in pink real raspberry cupcakes!

 

I used a Wilton tip 1M to pipe the buttercream onto my cupcakes.  With the liners already looking like they had flower petals, I wanted to pipe a low flower like swirl on top of the cupcakes.  Here's how they turned out!

 

 

Some quick photos before we headed downtown to The Ballroom in Toronto to have a delicious dinner and some fun bowling ~ even if I did lose!

 

 

The buttercream was a really great texture to pipe - I think the raspberry puree contributed to this and can't wait to try some other natural flavours and colours in future cupcakes!



 

Did you see this Sneak Peek on my Facebook or Instagram?  If you love baking, then please do follow me!  Those are the two places I update to most of all... and even if the blog post was a little late, I was glad to still have had time to post a little preview last night!!

 

I hope you get to try doing some baking with fresh or frozen fruit! ... It made a great change for me than just using lemon juice and lemon zest (although real fruit as well), or extracts and I can't wait for something to try next... Maybe strawberry...mango...blueberry... Mmm Summer is coming and so are the great fruit flavours that come with it :-)

 

Do send a picture of these if you make them for Mother's Day this weekend ♥

Cupcakes for a New Baby Boy ♥

"Straight from heaven up above, here is a baby for you to love"

We are so happy that our great friends welcomed a new baby boy into their sweet family earlier this week - he is a baby truly loved already, and we were so excited to be able to go and visit when he was just 1 day old - treats and gifts in tow of course!

I have been busy for a good little while now making some secret projects (that I had to hide away when they came over to visit!) in advance of their new baby and have a lot of blogging to do about it but first, seeing as I had shared a Sneak Peek of my cupcakes on my Facebook page I thought these could come first.

There was definitely a theme to my handmade gifts, you will definitely see elephants popping up on this blog a few more times as I write more about the projects.  A lot of the inspiration came from a cookie cutter/press I found months ago in a small kitchenware shop that I KNEW I would want to use for their new baby!  I hadn't used it until now, but I am so so pleased with how it turned out.  

The best bit about choosing an elephant theme... elephants may be making an appearance in the new nursery they are preparing!!  SO excited to see more elephants everywhere, we are all zoo lovers after all!

We found out their new baby had arrived on Monday afternoon, so straight after work I got to making the final sewing project for him (whilst watching the Leafs get knocked out of the NHL Playoffs BOO) before starting on some cupcakes to take with us when we visited the next day!

I had known all along I wanted cupcakes to be a part of the gift, and this set of 3 designs meant a little bit of variety, but still on the same theme - blues and elephants of course!

I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe, with buttercream frosting piped on top (see the recipe below), and whilst I was aiming for a pale blue buttercream colour - the liquid food colouring I was using (which was definitely blue!) turned this beautiful shade of mint green after a few drops, and I was happy with that - it's such a summery colour (and one of my very favourite colours!) and provided a good contrast with the cupcake toppers and decorations I was going to use :-)

As I mentioned before, I used a cookie cutter/stamp to make the elephants but rather than cutting out cookies, I cut out fondant I had coloured grey!  BAH I love the press - and am definitely going to buy more from that same shop!  I also cut out pale blue fondant stars, and then used blue and white sugar big round sprinkles (that came from a pack of red, white and blue jubilee style sprinkles!) for the other two designs of cupcakes.

I am SO pleased with how these cupcakes turned out and cannot wait to share the rest of my projects with you, although the most important people this time already received them...the new beautiful baby boy, the cutest big sister and excited parents of two little ones! :-)

Recipe - makes 12

Ingredients:

4oz butter, softened
4oz caster sugar
2 eggs
4oz self-raising flour

I told you it was basic right?!  I also added a splash of vanilla :-)

8oz icing sugar
4oz butter
1 tablespoon of milk
Flavouring or food colouring if required

Method:

1.  Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and line a 12-hole cake tin with paper cases.
2.  Place the butter, sugar, eggs and flour in a large bowl and beat together until smooth.  Add vanilla if you like!!
3.  Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.
4.  Bake for 15-20 minutes or until well risen, golden brown and when a cake tester (I use a potato skewer) comes out clean.
5.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.
6.  While they are cooling, make the buttercream:  Place the butter in a bowl and beat until fluffy - sift in the icing sugar and beat together until smooth.
7.  When the cakes are cool, spread or pipe the icing on top of each cake and decorate as you like!

Nice and easy, which was lucky as it was 10.30 at night - but all totally worth it.  And I got the best approval of the taste - when a not quite 2 year old keeps coming back for more bites... Now that makes me a happy baker :-)

*** Two links to click today! ***

Check out the incredible photography business our friend and cousin runs here in Toronto - taking a little break while she enjoys time with their new baby gives you lots of time to read her blog and check out her great website full of beautiful babies and their families :-)  

Click here to see the fantastic Krista Lii Photography website.

And don't forget my new Facebook page is always looking for new followers and friends!  Click here to 'Like' my page and get Sew Lah Tea Dough updates right to your newsfeed.

Summer Piano Olympics ♫

What better way to celebrate London 2012 than by running my own Summer Piano Olympics for my summer students!  As well as working on our usual pieces of work they would each get a Summer Olympic pack with colouring pages and an Olympic notebook to start.

For each good thing they did over the Summer, some good practice, completed great homework or something else musically exceptional they got a star to stick on the runner page... of course understanding that there would be a prize at the end... just like any good Olympic competition!

A few of my favourite pages, including one that really got me laughing!!

After a really fun Summer of learning National Anthems from countries my students had a connection to, or had visited on vacation... really fun Summer homework activities and worksheets *** Many thanks to Susan Paradis' amazing website for these *** ...and lots of hard work and fun my students all got their prize!

A personal certificate, a music medal (necklace!) and a vanilla cupcake with Oreo butter cream for every lucky student!

Congratulations to all my students - well done for working so hard - I'm always so proud of you! ♫

MA Brains!

Jonathan just completed his Masters in Psychology - thesis submitted and passed he is now the proud owner of his BSc and 2 MAs!  So proud of him for finishing up on his latest studies!  ... Now just the PhD to go!!

As a lot of his research and coursework was on brain stuff I made cupcake BRAINS!  I guess I will tag these as Halloween cakes as most people might enjoy making these for that time of year but I thought it was appropriate for his end of school year congrats!

I used a vanilla sponge cake recipe and piped the brains on with butter cream.  It was VERY hot both outside and also inside our place that day, so some of the piping was a little squishy but most were okay.

And the main thing is, Jonathan liked them (and could tell what they were!)...  He also likes when the baking is all for him, so there we go - success on both counts!

Ryerson colours to say Congratulations Jonathan!! ♥