Wedding Cakes, Sesame Street and more!

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Well, I did say it could be a while. However, I am back, and back with lots of photos of cake! The last month has been absolutely flat out with cakes for me, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be slowing down any time soon! Which is not a bad thing, it is nice to busy making cake, than busy writing essays! Anyway, lets get to the important stuff – this cake below was made for a very special family wedding in late November, and I was super happy with how they turned out:

WeddingCake

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The top cake was a 4” vanilla bean layer cake, filled with lemon curd. All of the cupcakes were a nice simple vanilla bean, with fondant flowers to match the bride’s beautiful dress. I love making vanilla bean cake, because it’s so simple, but has such a lovely flavour (providing you use good quality paste or beans). I am definitely a chocolate girl at heart, but vanilla bean brings a nice change and is so underrated.

WeddingCake2

I used the trusty vanilla bean cupcake recipe by Taste.com, which I have been using for years, for both cakes. The recipe is so versatile – the result is always great with cupcakes, and small and large layer cakes.

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These cupcakes below have to be the most fun I have ever had making cakes! I was a little nervous to make these because I have never done anything like it before, but I was very happy with the results! As you probably know from my previous work, I am not a fan of fondant at all, but I had to make a slight exception for these cuties 🙂

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It was only the second time I have attempted bright red buttercream, because the first time, it was a nightmare! Red is such a difficult colour to get right, because you have to use sooooo much colour for it to be deep enough. However, if you add too much gel to the buttercream, it splits due to the amount of liquid = disaster. It took me two times to get it right, and the trick for me was to start with a deep pink, and then add the red to deepen the colour. If anyone has any tips for red buttercream – please let me know!! 🙂

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Below are some other Birthday and Christmas cupcake orders I have been lucky enough to make 🙂

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Happy Christmas baking to you all, stay tuned for a delicious festive dessert soon! x

P.S. For more regular photos and updates, follow me on Instagram – @whiskitforabiscuit

Vanilla Bean and Raspberry Melting Moments

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Melting moments are one of my favourite biscuits to make, and one of my favourite doughs to eat! (Let’s face it, there aren’t many doughs that I wouldn’t eat!) They are so yummy, and this version takes the usual melting moments up a notch, with delicious homemade raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream.

This recipe was featured on Masterchef Australia 2 years ago (I think?!), and won contestant Julia a challenge. I have been wanting to make these for a long time, like many others things, but I am very glad I finally did. They really are delicious and were certainly worth the wait! Yum! I will most definitely be making these little gems again.

Vanilla Bean and Raspberry Melting Moments: (recipe by Julia Taylor on Masterchef Australia)

I doubled the original recipe, as it said it would only make 5 sandwiched biscuits. I ended up with about 25 with a double batch, although I did try and make them small.

Biscuits:

360g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
120g icing (confectioner’s) sugar
120g custard powder
1 tbs baking powder
360g plain (all-purpose) flour

Preheat a fan forced oven to 180c. Line 2 oven trays with non-stick baking paper. Beat the butter until pale and creamy, about 2-4 minutes. Add the sugar and custard powder, and stir with wooden spoon until well combined. Add the flour and the baking powder to the dough, and stir with a wooden spoon until mixed well. Roll small ball of dough, and place them on the pre-lined oven trays. Press fork lightly onto dough, to leave an indent. Bake for approximately 12 minutes or until very slightly golden. Let biscuits cool on trays, then transfer to wire racks.

Raspberry Jam:

200g fresh or frozen raspberries
150g caster (white) sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
Tbs cold water
1/2 tsp powdered gelatin

Place raspberries, sugar and lemon juice in a medium saucepan, and cook on low-medium heat for about 20-30 minutes, or until thickened. Remove from heat. Place water and gelatin together in a small bowl, and mix until combined. Stir into jam, and place in heatproof bowl, in the fridge, to cool.

Vanilla Bean Buttercream:

250g butter, chopped and softened
1 cup icing (confectioner’s) sugar
2 tsp vanilla bean paste/natural extract

Beat butter until pale and creamy, 2-4 minutes. Beat in vanilla bean paste. Gradually add the icing sugar and beat until all well combined. Spoon buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a medium star nozzle.

To assemble:

Place likely pairs of biscuits, facing upwards, next to each other. On one biscuit spoon a small amount of the raspberry jam, and on the other biscuit, pipe a swirl of buttercream. Gently sandwich together. Be sure not to use too much jam as it will just drip out when you press the biscuits together. Biscuits are stored best in an airtight container, in a cool, dry place. FYI – they are also best made the day before, as both the jam and buttercream will set, and the flavour will develop also.

Happy Baking! 🙂

Triple Salted Caramel Mini Cupcakes

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

I made these super delicious morsels for the RSPCA Cupcake Day at work, and I believe they were quite the hit. Well, I’m guessing they were, as there were none left at the end! If you follow my blog, you will know I am the number one lover of all things salted caramel, and these cupcakes did nothing to change my opinion. They were yum. Really yum.

I’m happy I made the wise decision to make them minis, though. They were the perfect size. Not too big, and not too small. Just enough to pop them in your mouth all at once, to close your eyes and go to heaven for a few seconds. If I could have, I would have popped and definitely not stopped. I really am a shocker. As I sit here, I have a fresh tub of the biggest Nutella (one of my many other loves) you can get at the supermarket, right next to me, and a spoon clumsily hanging from my mouth. I may have slightly freaked out about the prospect of a worldwide Nutella shortage. Anyway, back on track…

Salted Caramel Cupcakes: (from Gourmet Getaways) Makes approx. 60 mini cupcakes

190g butter, chopped and softened
150g white chocolate, chopped
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup golden syrup
1 cup milk
2 1/2 cups plain (all-purpose) flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 170c. Line cupcakes trays with cases. In a large saucepan, combine butter, white chocolate, brown sugar and golden syrup, and place over a medium heat, stirring with a metal spoon until combined and melted, and the sugar is dissolved.

Remove from the heat, add the milk, and let cool for 10 minutes. Stir through the flour and baking powder until combined. Add eggs, one at a time and stir until combined. Fill cupcakes evenly, and bake for approximately 18 minutes, or until a skewer comes out of the cakes clean. Cool in tins for 5-10 minutes, and let cool on wire racks.

Caramel Maison: (this recipe is on page 245 of Adriano Zumbo’s cookbook)

220g pouring (whipping) cream
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped (I used 1 tsp vanilla bean paste)
120g water (this is just under 1 cup)
300g caster (white) sugar
60g liquid glucose (available at most supermarkets)

Place the cream and vanilla in a small saucepan over a medium heat and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, and remove the vanilla bean if you are using one. In the meantime, place the water, sugar and glucose in a larger saucepan over a low-medium heat and cook until the glucose and sugar are fully dissolved, stirring occasionally. Zumbo says to use a clean pastry brush dipped in water to clean the sides of the saucepan in order to avoid crystalisation, however you can also just place the saucepan in really hot water with suds just after use and the sugar will melt off really easily. Increase the heat to medium, and cook the sugar mixture until it reaches a dark amber colour. This does take quite a while, and I was getting worried that mine would not work, but persistence is key here, it will eventually darken after 10-12 minutes. Very carefully stir the cream mixture into the sugar mixture slowly – be very careful because it spits and releases lot of heat. I found the best way to do this was with a spoon with a very long handle, as you want to keep your face as far away from the saucepan whilst it is spitting. If you don’t have a spoon with a super long handle, just add the cream really slowly and try to stir as best you can! Keep stirring as much as you can until the caramel settles down, then stir until completely smooth. Transfer to a bowl, let it cool to room temperature, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.

Caramel Buttercream: (this recipe is on page 42 of Zumbo’s cookbook)

150g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
caramel maison (prepared earlier. Leave 2 tbs for the sauce to drizzle on top of cupcakes)
approx. 2 tsp sea salt

Place the butter in a bowl, and beat until light and fluffy. Warm the caramel maison in the microwave until it reaches a pouring consistency (mine needed 1 min, 20 seconds on high as it was in the fridge overnight), however, just warm it in stages to prevent burning the caramel. With the beater running slowly, add the caramel maison to the butter and continue mixing until thick. Once I had added about half of my caramel, I got a bit worried because it looked like it was curdling, however as I kept adding the caramel, it began to thicken up. Once you have added all of the caramel, fold in the salt. I did not measure my salt, as I used a shaker. So if you too are using a shaker, you can salt to taste.

Assembly:

Place your preferred piping nozzle in your piping bag, and fill with caramel buttercream. Pipe swirls/rounds onto cupcakes. For the sauce, take the 2 tbs of caramel maison left, warm in microwave until it is an almost liquid like consistency. Pour into a sauce bottle or similar, and drizzle over each cupcake. To store, place cupcakes in airtight containers, and leave at room temperature, in a dry area.

Cupcake Madness!

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

The vast majority of my time in the past week has been spent making over 100 cupcakes, and a heck of a lot of buttercream! 100 may not seem like much, but when you have never done that many before, it is certainly a challenge. But lots of fun too!

I had to make three different flavours for a 21st order – chocolate, vanilla bean and red velvet. The chocolate ones had the yellow buttercream, the red velvet ones had the bright orange buttercream and the vanilla bean ones had the bright red buttercream, and all cakes were sprinkled with gold glitter.

I was really happy with how all the cakes turned out, and the colours of the buttercream were really effective. The vanilla bean with the red icing was my favourite to look at because it was so bright and the gold glitter looked great on it.

I’m not going to write out the recipes for this one, but here are the links for the Red Velvet and the Chocolate cupcakes. I used a different recipe for the vanilla bean, and I will post that up when I make them again soon 🙂

TIP – when you want to make bright red buttercream, you need to use soooooooooo much colouring gel to make it intense. If you are doubling or tripling the recipe, colour it in batches and then mix them because it is a lot easier to control the colour that way. I tripled my recipe, and needed a good 3 1/2 tubs of Wilton’s gel (Rojo red I think it was). I was really unhappy with mine at first, but weirdly enough overnight in the fridge it brightened from a crimson red to an intense red! This is what it was like first:

And after:

And these were just some circusy-themed ones I made for my sister and her friends 🙂

The Rainbow Cake

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Well, what can I say about this cake?! 7 layers of delicious vanilla bean cake and buttercream, it probably could of fed about 100 people, no joke. This mountain was made for my beautiful little sister’s 8th birthday, and it certainly got the reaction I was after! The gasp from my sister and her little friends (and the adults too!) was priceless, and it’s what makes the hours of slaving away in the kitchen well worth it! I hope you enjoy the gif too, it’s not the best, but I think this epic cake deserves it.

Whilst this cake took a long time to finish, it wasn’t very difficult at all. The cake is quite a basic vanilla butter cake, and the recipe I used was huge, and on it’s own made 4 and 1/2 layers. I must say, I am quite proud of this creation 🙂

Vanilla Butter Cake: (I made this quantity, which made 4 1/2 layers, and another half quantity, which finished the layers and also made 8 medium sized cupcakes too)

I found this recipe from my bible website, Taste.com.au. Even though I have posted the link, I am going to write out this recipe as well because I have a few notes and helpful hints that will make life a little easier.

3 cups self-raising flour
1 cup plain flour
2 cups caster (white, superfine) sugar
300g butter, chopped, at room temperature
1 ¼ cups milk
6 eggs, at room temperature
3 tsp vanilla extract (I used 2 tsp vanilla bean paste)
Food colouring gel – I used Wilton’s as they are very concentrated and achieve an amazingly bright colour. I buy mine from West’s.

Note: I know the recipe on Taste says to combine everything in the one bowl, then beat, but I found this quite difficult. My bowl was so full I was worried it would topple over, and it took me forever to get the little buttery lumps out. Here is my method:

Preheat the oven to 140C. Grease and line two 22cm springform tins with baking paper (obviously, if you only have 1 tin, it will take you a lot longer to make the cake. For this recipe, the more tins, the better! I had 2 and that worked perfectly. You can usually pick them up from Coles for under $10). Place butter and sugar in a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, and cream until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs, one a time, beating well after each addition. Once combined add the flour and the milk, and mix with a wooden spoon until a smooth batter forms. Carefully weigh the batter into batches of 300g. Stir in the colouring gel until you achieve the desired shade, and pour into cake tin. Smooth mixture with the back of a spoon until mixture is evenly spread throughout the tin. Place in preheated oven, and bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave in tin for 10 minutes or until cooled. Remove from tin and wrap individual layers tightly, in cling wrap. Repeat process with 6 other layers. Until you have this…

If you are not icing the cake straight away, refrigerate them. I made my cakes 2 days in advance and it was perfect. Just make sure to remove cakes from fridge 1-2 hours before decorating.

Vanilla Bean Buttercream:

700g salted butter, chopped, at room temperature
3-4 cups icing sugar (I prefer to use icing sugar mixture, a plus is that you do not have to sift it)
2 tsp vanilla bean paste/vanilla extract – NO imitation vanilla allowed!! It is full of chemicals and artifical flavours.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or if you don’t have a stand mixer, a very large bowl, beat butter until pale and creamy, about 5-7 minutes. Gradually add the icing sugar and vanilla to taste (I used between 3-4 cups – I actually can’t remember the exact amount! Although you want it to be nice and sweet, you also still want that slightly salty hit that comes from the butter). Beat on high for about 8-10 minutes.

If you are not icing the cake straight away, place buttercream into an airtight container, in the fridge. Buttercream keeps really well, up to 2 weeks in the fridge, and 6 months in the freezer. Just make sure that you take the buttercream out of the fridge or freezer the night before you ice the cake, so it can come down to room temperature. I had mine in the fridge, and the next morning it still needed 10 seconds in the microwave. TIP – when putting buttercream in microwave, do it in small bursts as you do not want it to become runny. You want it to be pliable, but still have its thickness and creamy texture.

Assembly:

Once cakes have come down to room temperature, you can start building. You will need a round-edged knife, and a small bowl of hot water to smooth the icing. Unfortunately, our round-edged knife is broken, so I had to use really small cheese knives! Place the bottom layer of cake on the stand, and top with about 2 tablespoons of buttercream. With the knife dipped in hot water, smooth out the icing until it covers the circumference of the cake, and is about 1-2cm thick. Repeat the process with the remaining 6 cakes.

To ice the outside, make sure you keep dipping the knife in hot water, to cover the whole cake with buttercream. For now, don’t worry about smoothing out the icing, you just want to get the cake covered first.

To clean up the icing, ensure the knife is dipped in the hot water regularly. Carefully smooth the icing with the round-edged knife.

As the cake was so colourful and intense in the middle, I wanted to keep the decoration on the outside to a minimum. I had bought these brightly coloured sprinkles from Baking Pleasures, and they had every colour I wanted to have in the layers, so I decided I would completely cover the top of the cake in these sprinkles, and leave the rest of the cake. I was pretty happy with how it looked.

There are many ways you could decorate a cake such as this. I love these gorgeous Rainbow Cakes from Sweetapolita and Whisk Kid.

Strawberry Milk Fudge Shots

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

I LOVE fudge! It has always been one of my favourite sweets, and I always bought a piece at the various craft markets I went to when a was younger (and still do today!). This time, I decided to combine the goodness of fudge with some nostalgia – Strawberry Nesquik!

We had these cute little white and pink straws left over from my little sister’s Mary Poppins party last year, so they were the beginning of my idea. I firstly was going to put the fudge in mini cupcake cases with the straws, but when I got to the shops and saw the mini shot cups, I just thought they would look gorgeous with a mini pink straw and pink fudge. Whilst they do look pretty cute in the photos, unfortunately I burnt the fudge and it split 😦 I was SO close to getting it perfect, but left it for that moment too long 😦 Boo. BUT, on the plus, the flavour was pretty awesome (if you are a fan of strawberry Quik), so I thought I would still post it. Amongst the many triumphs in the kitchen one may have, there will always be a failure (for some it’s the other way around :P). So, I guess this is (one of) my failure(s)!

I’m looking forward to trying this recipe again one day, because it really did taste great and it is very strawberry-y. I adapted the recipe from this natural strawberry website, here, where you can find some other great recipes using fresh strawberries.

Strawberry Milk Fudge Shots: (you will need a thermometer to make fudge)

1 1/2 cups castor (white) sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup Strawberry Nesquik
1 can (185ml) evaporated milk (I used the light version)
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
6 straws, cut into thirds (I’m not sure where we got ours from, but I would suggest looking at boutique party shops and websites)
20 shot cups/glasses

Place straws in shot glasses. Place sugar, Nesquik, butter and evaporated milk in a medium saucepan. Boil over a low-medium heat, and whilst at the boil, add the lemon juice and vanilla bean paste. Stirring constantly, heat the mixture to 112c (235f). You can use the soft ball method here – when the mixture is heated, drop a little into a glass of water and if it flattens in your fingers or on a flat surface when you remove it from the water, it’s ready. Quickly pour fudge mixture into a glass or bowl with a spout. Fill each shot cup. Place each shot cup on an oven tray and let set in the fridge. Yum!

By the way, if you do not know what Stawberry Nesquik is, it is basically a strawberry flavoured powder which you put into milk to flavour and colour it. It also comes in Chocolate and Banana, most kids love it. I am sure there is something similar, if not the same in the United States, and probably the UK, too. And probably the rest of the world, too!

Have a great weekend, and Happy Baking! X

Vanilla Bean and Musk Funfetti Cupcakes

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

Everyone seems to be getting on the funfetti at the moment (see Raspberri Cupcakes, MiniBaker101 and Sweetapolita), so I thought I’d give them a whirl, too. I made these super pretty cupcakes for my little sister’s school fete’s cake stall, so the more colour and sugar, the better, hey!?

I used the same Vanilla Bean Cupcakes recipe as used in My First Order, which is from Taste.com, however I halved the recipe this time, and it made 15 cupcakes. This recipe is certainly a winner, they turn out perfectly every time! The pink buttercream is musk (clearly my favourite), and white buttercream is vanilla bean. Yum!

I put about 3/4 of a cup of funfetti hearts in the cake mixture, too. It may be sad to admit but I find it kind of exciting biting into the cake and seeing a kaleidoscope of different colours…or maybe I just love cake waaay to much! I think so.

I almost loved boxing these delights up as much as making them. They look so cute!! Mmm…I think I do love cake a little too much! But I guess if you’re reading this post, chances are you probably do too 😛

Have a great weekend and eat lot’s of cake! X

My First Order – Choc and Vanilla Cupcake Tower + Layered Musk Cake

Posted by whiskitforabiscuit

I was a bit nervous about doing this! It was my friend Nikki’s 21st Birthday Party, so even more reason not to stuff up. My time management skills are close to non-existant, so it took a lot of careful planning and timing over 3 days for this to eventuate. Anyhow, we got there. And I was so happy with the end result, as was Nikki. I can’t believe I actually produced this!

Nikki wanted 70 cupcakes, half chocolate and half vanilla bean with pink and purple icing and white fondant hearts. It was also decided that I would make the Musk Layered Cake for the top layer, too. I was excited and up for the challenge! This is the first time I’ve ever properly done a cake for a party, and I really enjoyed it. Everything came together nicely and ran smoothly, with minimal disasters (there were still a couple!). The one thing I really wanted to nail were the cakes themselves. So many times at parties, the cakes, in particular cupcakes, whilst looking amazing, are often horribly dry, tasteless and crumbly to eat. I desperately wanted to achieve a tasty and fluffy cupcake as well as perfectly swirled buttercream icing. I was lucky I found 2 fantastic recipes that worked beautifully, and the cupcakes were so delish!

I used recipes from Taste.com (best website ever!) for both the vanilla cupcakes, and the chocolate cupcakes. I made another half of the vanilla cupcake recipe, and doubled the chocolate one, and they both made around 38 cupcakes each. A tip for the vanilla cupcakes – don’t substitute vanilla bean paste for extract or essence, or god forbid imitation essence!! I think the paste really made the cupcakes, plus I love the little flecks of vanilla bean, too.

For the fondant hearts, I simply used a small heart cutter from West’s, an amazing cake supplier in Burwood, Victoria. All you have to do is roll the fondant with a rolling pin between two sheets of baking paper until it is about 1cm thick, then cut away. I brushed a tiny amount of edible glitter on each heart, which I also got from West’s. Oh, and my fondant supplier, who also made the ’21’ on top of the Musk Cake, is amazing, check out her awesome cakes here!

For the buttercream, I just beat 350g of softened, salted butter until pale and creamy, and slowly added 5 cups of icing sugar mixture. Once all that is combined, then add your colouring/flavouring. I ended up making 2 batches of pink buttercream for the vanilla cakes, and another half of the recipe for the purple icing for the chocolate cakes. For the musk buttercream, I just added 3 drops of musk essence, and 4 rolls of crushed Musk Lifesavers. If you leave the buttercream in the fridge overnight like I did, make sure you take it out for it to come down to room temp about 2-3 hours before. Although, you can always buzz it in the microwave for 20 seconds.

I really enjoyed piping the cupcakes, and they weren’t as difficult as I expected them to be. Because I was SO over washing dishes, this time I just used the Multix disposable piping bags, which are available at most supermarkets, and come in a bright orange box in the baking aisle. However, I used a good quality large star nozzle, which worked perfectly. When you are piping a swirl, the key is to overlap the previous layer by about half, otherwise you will end up with big gaps and it will be uneven 😦

I can’t wait to make these cupcakes again, and if you ever want/need to make them, PLEASE use these Taste recipes. You won’t regret it I promise!!

Happy Birthday Nikki!

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