Cupcakes 4 Good

Tomorrow, Sunday 6th June I'll be at the International Food Festival - Food 4 Good - at Plaz Aretsou in Krini, Kalamaria (from 8-8.30pm) in Thessaloniki with my cupcakes. The festival will have lots and lots of delicious food from all over the world and I'll be joining the IWOG (International Women's Organisation of Greece) table with 100 cupcakes. There are four flavours: choco-banana with chocolate frosting, vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing, lavender cupcakes with lime cream cheese frosting and carrot cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. All of them will have my handmade decorations made of homemade sugarpaste in different colours :)

The income from the festival will go to various charities, so here is your chance to eat well for a good cause!

Make sure you drop by to taste some delicious food and scrumptious cupcakes!

Here are some beautiful photos of the cupcakes I made for the event. These photos have been taken by my friend Carolyn Carter who is a photographer (among many other creative things!). You can see more photos of the cupcakes she made on her Facebook fan page called Apali Post or her blog also called Apali Post (blog)

Vanilla cupakes with a vanilla buttercream frosting:


Lavender cupakes:


Chocolate/banana cupcakes with a chocolate buttercream:


Carrot cupcakes with a cream cheese frosting:


It was so great to participate in this event, and despite the sporadic rain 10,000 euros were raised for local charities. Hopefully next year will be an even more successful one!

THE BIG 3-0

A friend of mine recently turned 30. I thought it deserved some special cupcakes. I wanted to make chocolate ones, but then I remembered that her favourites are cakes with lemon in one way or another. I also really wanted to work on my meringue, so had the best excuse to make my lime cupcakes with lime curd filling and meringue frosting. I know lime aren't lemons, but hey, they are a citrus fruit, so hoped my friend would forgive me!

I used the same lime cupcake base as the mini lime cupcakes I made during Easter and I also made my own lime curd. Even after living in the UK for quite a few years I had never tasted lemon curd, so it took Greece and a passion for cupcakes to try it out! Turns out I love it! The receipe I use calls for lemon, but I replace it with lime and it really is supereasy to make. The recipe doesn't make a whole lot, but just enough to fill the cupcakes, and I use the spare egg whites for the meringue. That way, nothing goes to waste - it really is a win, win situation!

The other two times I have made these cupcakes the meringue has always sunk almost right after taking them out of the oven. I had read that it is important to whisk the meringue long enough and also, one shouldn't make it on a wet or a humid day as the humidity causes the meringue to be limp and sticky. I was looking to get a crispy meringue on the outside and pretty soft and gooey on the inside. I know that a bit of cream of tartar stabilises the egg whites, so I did this and whisked it long enough and the meringue was perfect. It didn't sink when I took the cupcakes out of the oven, but the hard or crispy shell as wanted wasn't exactly there. I guess it is too much to ask after only 5 minutes in the oven...





I like decorating my cupcakes, so had to come up with some nice decorations for these ones as well. I was planning to have the number 30 in sugarpaste on the cupcakes, but I wasn't sure on how I would do it and get them to stay on top of the meringue, but then my creative (his words, not mine!) husband suggested I could have one letter on each cupcakes spelling out "Life begins @ 30". What a perfect idea!! My friend had already said in her blog post about turing 30 that she will embrace it, rather than fighting it, so I thought this was the best decoration ever!
I made the sugarpaste, coloured it, made 12 hearts and added the letters on 10 of them and managed to roll out thin lines to spell out @ and 30 on the last two. I took these pictures in a hurry, but I think they look pretty cool!





Some family members have their names days and birthdays coming up within this week, so I will be making some cupcakes this week again. I think I am definitely trying out a red velvet recipe and possibly a chocolate and cardamom cupcake. If you have any other suggestions, I would love to hear them!

Lavender cupcakes

It has somewhat taken me forever to continue this blog. I haven't stopped baking cupcakes though.

I am ridiculously proud of most of my cupcakes, so I think most of them deserve their own blog entry. I'll try to keep it short and sweet with some photos showing the cupcakes and my progress.


After the raving reviews of my daughter's baptism cupcakes, I tried a rather more complicated vanilla cupcake with a lavender cream filling and lime cream cheese frosting. I was inspired by Chockylit's lavender cupcakes, but the lavender cream failed spectacularly compared to the instructions, so I improvised and made my own lavender cream. I dare say it is probably better and it gives just the most perfect hint and taste of lavender, not too little and not too overpowering. Paired with the lush lime cream cheese frosting it is my most popular cupcake yet!

Here are some photos of my lavender cupcakes:



These have tiny handmade butterfly decorations made of homemade Marshmallowfondant (by that I mean that even the marshmallow was made from scratch!)



These are decorated with small crystalised violet petals, which I found on a trip to London.



These are decorated with homemade marshmallowfondant butterflies with blue sugar for a sparkly, glittery effect.



And finally the icing on the cake so to speak, lavender cupcakes with a handmade sugarpaste (homemade!) princess crown made for a little princess' birthday.