Strawberry cupcakes

Strawberry cupcakes (makes 30 mini size cakes)

Ingredients
125g (4.5 ounces) butter, softened
1 teaspoon (1/3 ounces) strawberry flavouring
150g (5.2 ounces) caster sugar
2 eggs
150g (5.2 ounces) self-raising flour
40g (1.4 ounces) mini white chocolate chips
60ml (2 fluid ounces) semi-skimmed milk
2 tbsp strawberry jam

Cooking instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160-180 deg C (325-350 deg F).
2. Line baking tray with silicone cases.
3. Beat flour, butter, milk, eggs and strawberry flavoring in a bowl with an electric mixer until the mixture turns a pale colour.
4. Stir in the choc chips and strawberry jam and mix thoroughly.
5. Spoon mixture into cases.
   
6. Bake for 15-20 minutes.
7. Place cakes on a wire rack to cool.

Decorating the cakes

You will need:
Vanilla butter frosting
Roll-on icing (sugar paste)
Black concentrated food colouring paste
Edable art cake glitter in Disco Mulberry
Bird cutter
Rolling pin
Small paintbrush
Piping bag and nozzle
Sieved icing sugar (confectioners sugar)

1. Fill piping bag with vanilla butter frosting and pipe in peaks on top of the cakes.
2. Sprinkle glitter on top using a small paintbrush.
3. Lightly dust work surface with icing sugar.
4. Place roll-on icing onto surface and gradually add food colouring to roll-on icing with a cocktail stick (as it is very concentrated), and knead colour in. Keep adding food colouring until you get desired colour.
5. Roll out icing so it is about 5mm thick, and cut out bird shape using cutter.
6. Place on top of cake, and with a damp brush lightly paint the top to bring back the blackness and shine.

See Halloween cake stands and cases for where to buy the cupcake wrappers and stand.

As I have to have a gluten free diet, I substitute the self raising flour for gluten and wheat free self raising flour.

Have a sweet day!

Halloween cake stands and cases

Black glass cake stands. Pink glass cake stands



Black skull and crossbones fairy cake cases



Black & white dotty cupcake cases



Spider web cupcake wrapper



SK black baroque cupcake cases



10 silicone mini cupcake cases



Zebra cupcake cases



Pink foil cupcake cases


I love making cupcakes and if you are a regular reader of this blog you will know how much I adore cake stands. So, Halloween was a perfect excuse to buy a few more! I hunted around for cupcake wrappers to fit my Halloween theme and found those above.

I decorated my cupcakes with white butter cream and little black birds in the pink mini cases. I'm still deciding on the others, but black and pink butter cream with pink, black and silver sparkles will be a must! For example, pink edible glitter flakes and silver edible glitter flakes.

I tried out some of my cupcake ideas for the Halloween blog party this past weekend, and will show you more later this week!

Have a sweet day!

Black and White Halloween

This week on Flickr Faves Sunday, I bring you a black and white Halloween colour palette, with these gorgeous pics. Check back soon for some more of the most inspirational photographers on Flickr.

Some beautiful shots from my Flickr favourites (clockwise from top left):

• The stylish EEEK! Treat Bags by this good day
• The graphic Halloween Black & White Cupcakes by Gourmet Cupcakes
  
• The close up of Glow-In-The-Dark Bat Magnets by Orwellsvision
• The adorable Jack Skellington cookie lollies by CakeJournal
  

Have a great day!

Halloween blog party

Welcome to my Halloween Party! Thanks to Vanessa at A Fanciful Twist for hosting such a great party. I have been blogging about Halloween for over a week now and thought I would show you today what is still to come. There is also a giveaway (see below for details)!



Free crow pattern and instructions on how to make them.



Halloween table cloth stretched over canvas and embellished!



Glitter skulls and bones floral display!



Halloween candles!




Halloween cocktails!




Blackberry Cupcakes!




Strawberry Cupcakes!



Now for the giveaway... So how can you get your name entered to win a dozen of these delightful cookies from The Fancy Lady? Simple! To enter....

• Become a follower of my blog! OR
• Leave a comment by Thursday October 22nd.

A winner will be picked at random on Friday October 23rd.

Also, please make sure to check out The Fancy Lady's shop on Etsy for more of her yummy sweets.

Oh, and tell your friends!!! Any questions? Send me an email.

Good luck and enjoy the party!

Halloween candy jars

Skull Marshmallows





Licorice Allsorts



Blackberry Domes



Jelly Skulls




Pink Glass Candy Jar, Poison Label.

Having admired Amy Atlas candy tables for a while now, I really wanted to create one for Halloween. The top image is of my experiments with what it could look like.

I did a post back in July called Candy Jars. I used the same candy jars this time, but changed the ribbons to match my colour theme. I also strung "Happy Halloween" alphabet beads onto pink elastic and tied them around the middle of the jars.

Don't forget the Halloween party tomorrow!

Have a sweet day!

Skull candy

Skull lollipop mould



Lollipop wrapping kit



Skull chocolate moulds. To get the different colours, I used white chocolate, white chocolate with natural pink food colouring, and dark chocolate.

To get the shiny, flawless appearance of chocolate you must temper it, otherwise you can be left with dull chocolate that has white streaks running through it. It also makes for better melt-in-the-mouth chocolate.

How to temper chocolate

1. Finely chop 750-1000g (1 1/2 to 2 pounds) of chocolate; with any less than this it is difficult to control the temperature.
2. Place two thirds of the chocolate in a metal bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Place a candy thermometer in the chocolate and stir frequently with a rubber spatula. Do not let the temperature exceed 105 deg F for white and 120 deg F for dark chocolate.
3. When the chocolate is fully melted remove from the heat and add the remainder of the chocolate gradually whilst continuing to stir.
4. Let the chocolate cool to 82 deg F, then return to the heat until it reaches 86 deg F for white chocolate and 90 deg F for dark.
5. Remove from heat and carefully pour into moulds. For the lollipops, add sticks when you have half filled the mould, then fill to the top.

Easy alternative

1. Finely chop 750g-1000g (1 1/2 to 2 pounds) of chocolate, and place in a microwaveable bowl.
2. Microwave on 50% power in 10 second increments, stirring after each interval till chocolate is almost melted.
3. Remove from microwave and stir till chocolate is fully melted.

Packaging for skull cones

You will need:
Cone wrapper
Double sided tape
Cellophane
10mm Ribbon

1. Print cone wrapper (choose a "cone wrapper" below which you can save and print).
2. Cut around cone wrapper and along lines to give 3 wrappers.
3. Roll one of the wrappers into a cone shape and, using double sided tape, fix in shape.
4. Place a second piece of tape inside the cone along one side and peel off backing.
5. Cut out cellophane (use the "cellophane pattern" below as a stencil to cut out your cellophane). Note each straight line is 24cm long).
6. Roll cellophane into a cone shape and place inside cone wrapper. Press against the tape to fix in place.
7. Fill with candy.
8. Tie ribbon around the top.

Packaging for Poison Candy Bags

You will need:
Shocking Pink Candy Stripe bags
Double sided tape
Poison labels
Masking tape

1. Print the "Poison" label below.
2. Using double sided tape stick the label to the front of a bag
3. Fill with candy
4. Fold the top over towards the back and masking tape in place.

If you don't have time to make your own skull candy my new affiliate, A Quarter Of... has some great ready-made skull candy that can be packaged as above.



Skull crushers from A Quarter Of...



Psycho skulls from A Quarter Of...

Check back tomorrow for my Halloween candy table ideas!

Have a sweet day!