Cake Stall

So it's been longer between blogs than I would have liked, unfortunately work took over my life for a week! I had to write 19 reports, not exactly my preferred activity for the weekend but they weren't going to do themselves. In any case they're done and I now have time to blog. ^_^

It's a good thing I haven't set myself a time limit for this challenge of mine because I didn't even end up using a recipe from the 500 Cupcakes book for the Cake Stall! Instead I went for classics that I knew would sell well and that is the point of a cake stall after all, to raise money, in this case it was to help fund a trip for the nursery I'm working at.

The cupcakes I made were:

Victoria Cupcakes

Fresh out of the oven. . .mmm! I was really pleased with how these came out!

Filling the cupcakes: basically, you cut a cone shape out of the top of the cupcake put the filling inside, I used a teaspoon of jam and piped some whipped cream on top.

I put some fresh strawberries on the cream and then placed the section I had cut out of the cupcake on top or created 'butterfly wings'. Finally, I dusted them with icing sugar.

The recipe I used for the cupcakes can be found in the book Cupcake Heaven.

Chocolate Caramel Cupcakes

You'll notice that the three rows on the left are different from the two on the right, that's because I have a memory like a sieve! For the caramel aspect of these cupcakes I used Cadbury Caramel Nibbles and had intended to mix them into the batter, unfortunately I forgot to put them into the first 12 I made! Instead I quickly shoved some into the cupcakes about five minutes before they finished cooking (when I remembered that I had forgotten them). They all still tasted nice from what I heard. ^_^

The cupcakes topped with Chocolate Fudge Frosting.

One happy customer told me that this cupcake was, "the perfect fix for a chocolate craving"!

To make them just a little more fun I chopped some Nibbles in half and stuck them in the frosting, along with a milkyway star. Doesn't hurt to add just a little more chocolate either! ~_^

The base recipe I used came from the website Joy of Baking.com. This is a fantastic website for all kinds of sweet recipes! There's a little bit of history behind the recipes, they're easy to follow and the recipes I've used so far have been really yummy!

The modifications I made to the recipe were: to include the Caramel Nibbles in the cake and I substituted half the dark chocolate in the frosting for milk chocolate. I contemplated making some caramel frosting but to be perfectly honest, I was too lazy! Haha!

Lemon Coconut Slice

The biscuity base for the slice.

My partner thinks it tastes like a Flapjack, which I had never even heard of until he mentioned them and then I saw them in Tesco (I've never seen them in Australia), I can't say I much care for the taste of Flapjacks either. 

On goes the lemon icing and then it's into the fridge to set before it gets cut into slices.

Sliced and put on the presentation plate.

Everytime I've made this slice I've had at least one person ask for the recipe however, I don't give it out very often and do not intend to put it on my blog as that isn't really the purpose of it.

All of the cupcakes and the slice I made were sold, as was everything else that was made by the other people I work with. We raised just over 80 pounds (Australian computer, no pound sign for me) but the day was spoiled in the end, as some horrible person stole the bag of notes we had with the change. We don't exactly know how much money was in the bag of notes so we're not entirely sure how much more we might have raised. Oh well, at least we made the 80 pounds, that's not too bad.

My next blog will see me back on track as I will have cooked my first cupcake from the 500 Cupcakes book. ^_^

Happy baking. . .