Birthday Cupcakes

Americans seem to love mixing sprinkles into cakes, so I thought I would give it a go. They call it funfetti but it just reminds me of birthday party food!

I love this, they look so fun and set up any table to look like a fun party. Got to love some hundreds and thousands. Note to self – buy some more sprinkles! I love the way they brighten up the simple icing, and I am going to start buying up some more variety.

I made these for my brother’s girlfriend’s birthday. She’s a big fan of Lilo and Stitch and so I made some cute cupcake toppers with Stitch stickers and toothpicks – Stich merchandise is niche so I didn’t expect to be able to find any ready made toppers. Really simple but really effective, I’ll be busting out my crafty side to do this again!

Banana Caramel Cake

It's the weekend and it's time for cake.

I love making cakes. Baking fads will come and go (cronuts, anyone?), but cakes are forever. They're comforting, they're sweet, and they can look damn impressive if you pretty them up a bit. You know what you're getting with a cake. 

I'm slowly getting into the swing of cake decorating, and buttercream rosettes are my absolute favourite thing to do these days, quick and easy and pretty! I suppose I could have gone all out and iced the sides too, but there's something I find quite nice about leaving the golden brown edges of the cake exposed, so you can just get hints of the filling within. I suppose these days you'd call it a "naked" cake, so I think my laziness is on trend.

Neapolitan Cake

This cake is SO. MUCH. FUN. Chocolate! Strawberry! Vanilla! Rosettes! Sprinkles!!

The nights are getting longer and colder, so I think we all need a little more cake in our lives in these dire times.

Neapolitan combines my favourite simple and sweet flavours, and I think the colours are absolutely classic together. I have been trying to up my cake decoration game lately, but I’m still quite cack-handed and impatient.  So I needed something which looked nice but was relatively simple. Enter, the buttercream rosette!

To make this, you just need buttercream icing, piping bag with star shaped nozzle, and a little bit of effort. To make the rosette, start in the centre with a blob of icing and then move the tip around the centre part, piping the entire time. I quickly youtubed it before having a go the first time.

You will have noted that this is a Neapolitan cake which is quite heavy on the chocolate. But I think that it looks quite impressive (if I do say so myself) and by decorating it all in chocolate on the outside, the inside becomes a complete surprise. I put some chocolate sprinkles on it because this is a lighthearted little cake, and I wanted to hint at the insides. Feel free to decorate however you like, but this was easy peasy!