Vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream for baptism

Wow, it has been months and months since I last wrote a post for my blog! I am blaming the hot summer, the house moving, the no oven for some weeks, and morning sickness for the absence and neglect! :)


I made these cute vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream for a baptism this summer. The gorgeous little girl who was baptised had a pink little bunny as a detail on her white baptism clothes, so her mum wanted the cupcakes to match the clothes. I love how things come together like that.

The frosting were in three different colours, pale pink, pale yellow and white. The little pink bunnies were made of homemade sugarpaste and they had a white sprinkle as an eye. I think the whole look came together pretty well if I may say it so myself ;)

Here are some pictures taken by my Dad (playing around with his new fancy camera!)

Pink chocolate baptism cupcakes

It has been a while since the last post, I have been busy baking cupcakes for baptisms and having my family visiting from Norway.

The daughter of a good friend of mine (from Wishing Tree) was baptised almost three weeks ago and I was asked to bake cupcakes for the party afterwards. I was of course only too happy to obliged! We decided on chocolate banana cupakes to keep them nice and moist as they were to be picked up the day before the baptism and as the summer is pretty hot in Greece I went for poured fondant instead of any other type of icings which might melt and get spoilt by the heat and the sun.

Poured fondant is made of melted sugarpaste. It is really easy to make sugarpaste, but not having a microwave makes it a bit more timeconsuming to melt it, and also to keep it hot enough to be able to dip the cupcakes into the fondant. I dipped them twice to make it a nice, round and tall finish to the cupcake, so it did take quite a few hours to dip 100 cupcakes, but it was all good fun!

I had made homemade flowers for decorations made of homemade chocolate paste and a pink sugarpaste on top of it and then finishing it off with a silverball in the middle.

The invitation for the baptism was made by my friend who designs birthday invitations, baptism invitations etc, so obviously the cupakes had to be pink as well :)

I love the way these cupackes turned out, matching the chocolate base with the chocolate flower and the pink fondant with the pink flower. What do you think?

A view of the cupcakes on my kitchen table:



Cupcake on a princess plate:



A close-up:


And finally a view of the cupcake in the box:

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.