Christmas is coming....

Its been a while i have blogged, as i have been tied up over the few months with travelling, family and friends, a baby shower, a baby christening, weddings etc. Plenty of fun, but tiring as well!


Well am back now, and before you know it Christmas is just round the corner! The last i checked it was still August. How time flies. 


There have been many opportunities (yay!) for me to practice baking and decorating my cupcakes. NEXT on the December calendar - being the charity bake sale at the office. I decided to contribute 12 cupcakes. Why only 12 you might ask? Well, i didnt have much time (i baked, iced and decorated them just the night before!) and because i tried to make it look quite nice, it did take a considerable amount of time.


I started off baking some lemon cupcakes.


I found the recipe from this website kitchenwench, and it turned out really yummy! See recipe below:


Ingredients for cupcakes (makes approx. 16 medium sized cupcakes)
90g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1/2 lemon (or 1 lemon if you like)
Juice of 1/4 a lemon (about 3/4 - 1 tbsp)
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/3 tsp baking powder
225g all-purpose flour
3/4 cups whole milk


Method:
1. Preheat your oven to 175 degrees C, and using an electric mixer, cream together your butter and sugar till creamy.

2. Beat in the eggs, vanilla, salt and baking powder and continue beating till the mixture is light and fluffy, then add your lemon zest and juice and beat in for another few minutes.

3. Add your milk and flour in 3 alternating batches, beating well after each addition. Once all the milk and flour has been added, beat at top speed for about 30 sec – 1 minute or till the mixture is smooth and shiny.


4. Line your cupcake baking tray with cupcake liners and fill each liner about 1/2 full. 


5. Remove them from the oven and place on a cooling rack till they have completely cooled. While they are cooling, start to prep your lemon buttercream.


Ingredients for lemon buttercream (makes enough to just cover the tops of about 16 medium sized cupcakes)


175g icing sugar
85g slightly salted butter
zest of 1/2 lemon 
1 tbsp lemon juice


Method:
1. Cream icing sugar and butter with an electric whisk. Start on low speed to prevent the mixture from going everywhere.


2. Add the lemon juice and lemon zest, increase speed of mixer and beat the buttercream until it becomes pale, light and fluffy.


*note: you can store the buttercream for up to 2 weeks in the fridge in an airtight container.


Now, the hard, but really fun part - decorating the cupcakes! After much consideration, i decided on the following patterns.

Close-ups of illustrations v the actuals:
First up, the Christmas tree cupcake 

Next, the snowman 

Then, santa

Then the starry-eyed cupcakes

 And lastly, the buttercream swirl cupcakes

Now for the packaging!

It was nice to be able to do something for charity especially at this time of year! Hope that the collection from my contribution was able to help someone less privileged out. 

A surprise Baby shower followed by a hen night

Yup, you read it right!

Due to time constraints (as most of us were back in Malaysia for my friend's wedding), we decided to split the weekend to be able to have a double celebration i.e.  a baby shower and a hen night (just to clarify it was not for the same person!)

Basically, the cupcakes you will see below are a collaboration between my friend (a keen baker) and myself.

We started off the afternoon with the surprise baby shower first for my unsuspecting friend who was 7 months pregnant then! We rented a few villas to stay the night and decorated one room for the baby shower (See below)

A close up of the cupcakes

And another room for - the hen night! The theme was Japanese night (As the bride is totally in love with all things japanese, including her husband to be who looks japanese). Thinking back, she might have enjoyed herself too much!

And, the cupcakes for the night (Theme: think naughty!)

Woo hoo....

Fun fun fun...

Had a blast catching up with my friends! Miss ya girls...

Cupcake for cupcake

Another weekend gone by too quickly..and here we are on another Monday -Back at work

I brought in some of the oreo cupcakes i made for my husband on saturday for my colleagues. As i handed them round in an attempt to brighten up the mood, one of my colleagues says that he made me a cupcake as well.

Look!

I was in disbelief as i never figured him to be able to bake cupcakes...pretty ones with glitter too!

Turns out, it was his cousin that made them over the weekend and he was present when it was being made. Plus he brought it in for me.... haha

Oh well, at least i got a pretty cupcake out of it! What a nice way to start a week off..

Full moon party

We were invited to our friends' baby's full moon party i.e. their baby just turned 1 month. It was held at Royal China in Canary Wharf http://www2.royalchinagroup.biz/. They dont take reservations on Sundays so we were all told to show up promptly at 12pm.

The little baby was just cuddled up in his mother's arms for most of the time sleeping, whilst the adults enjoyed the dim sum..yum yum

The baby's grandma (a keen baker) also made cupcakes for everyone... so cute!

It was chocolate cupcakes, with a "duck" topping..  was nice and moist.

Cupcakes galore

Had a bit of time on my hands and inspired by DC cupcakes http://www.georgetowncupcake.com/, decided to practice my icing technique i.e. "the swirl" on some cupcakes. I started off by baking some classic vanilla cupcakes and whipped up some buttercream. As i was going to bring the cupcakes to the office, i opted for a neutral colour ie pastel green.

Sprinkle some sprinkles on top..

Place them in a nice tin (my sister gave this to me)

I noticed that my icing didnt go round the entire cupcake though, and its because i used a nozzle that was too small. A bigger nozzle is definitely on my list of things to get next...