Happy Halloween!

Halloween Pumpkin

Since it’s Halloween tomorrow, we thought we would do a pumpkin-related blog post. We’ve found a couple of great recipes to get rid of all those leftovers, so we hope you enjoy! x

Pumpkin Pie

For the pastry

• Sweet short crust pastry case (or, if you feel confident, make your own)

For the filling

• 450 g prepared weight pumpkin flesh, cut into 1in/2.5 cm chunks
• 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk
• 75g soft dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ level teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• ½ tsp ground allspice
• ½ tsp ground cloves
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• 275 ml double cream

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
2. Use a shop bought sweet crust pastry case, about 9 inch/23 cm diameter and 1½ inches/4 cm deep.
3. To make the filling, steam the pumpkin then place in a coarse sieve and press lightly to extract any excess water.
4. Then, lightly whisk the eggs and extra yolk together in a large bowl.
5. Place the sugar, spices and the cream in a pan, bring to simmering point, giving it a whisk to mix everything together. Pour it over the eggs and whisk it again briefly.
6. Now add the pumpkin pureé, still whisking to combine everything thoroughly.
7. Pour the filling into your pastry case and bake for 35-40 minutes, by which time it will puff up round the edges but still feel slightly wobbly in the centre.
8. Remove the pie from the oven and place the tin on a wire cooling rack. Serve chilled (store loosely covered in foil in the fridge) with créme fraïche.

Pumpkin Cake

Ingredients

For the cake

• 300g self-raising flour
• 300g light muscovado sugar
• 3 tsp mixed spice
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 175g sultanas
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 200g butter, melted
• zest 1 orange
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 500g (peeled weight) pumpkin or butternut squash flesh, grated

For drenching and frosting

• 200g pack soft cheese
• 85g butter, softened
• 100g icing sugar, sifted
• zest 1 orange and juice of half

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Butter and line a 30 x 20cm baking tin.
2. Put the flour, sugar, spice, bicarbonate of soda, sultanas and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine.
3. Beat the eggs into the melted butter, stir in the orange zest and juice. Mix with the dry ingredients until combined.
4. Stir in the pumpkin andour the batter into the tin. Bake for 30 mins, or until golden and springy to the touch.
5. To make the frosting, beat together the cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest and 1 tsp of the juice until smooth and creamy, then set aside in the fridge.
6. When the cake is done, leave it in the tin for 5 minutes, before turning onto a cooling rack. Prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the rest of the orange juice while still warm. Leave to cool completely.
7. Give the frosting a quick beat to loosen, then, using a palette knife, spread over the top of the cake.

Enjoy! x

Halloween Cupcakes

If you’ve been in a supermarket recently, you might have noticed Halloween stuff everywhere! Yep, it’s that time of year again. Here at Cake-Cetera, we’ve been thinking up great ideas for decorating Halloween cupcakes. We’ve included all the steps for each design, so they’re simple and easy to do. Enjoy everyone, and have a great Halloween!

Pumpkin Cupcakes

These adorable little cupcakes are so easy to make, they’re perfect for kids to help out. Once your cupcakes are baked, simply colour your buttercream orange and spread it onto the cupcakes.

If you want to add in the grooves of the pumpkin, leave the buttercream to harden a little and use the back of a knife to make the indents. To finish them off, simply add a chocolate stick to the top.

If you want to sprinkle the top of yours with orange sugar like the larger ones above, all you have to do is mix together some caster sugar with your orange food colouring. You can put the sugar and colour together in a ziplock bag and press them together with your hands until the sugar is completely covered, or you can add them to a jar, seal the lid tight and shake until the colour has mixed through.

Mummy Cupcakes

These cupcakes are better for people who prefer some sugarpaste (ready to roll icing/fondant) on their cakes and are still so easy to do! They can be made with or without buttercream, depending on your preference.

Once you’ve baked your cupcakes, apply a thin layer of buttercream (jam or a simple sugar syrup can also be used). You can then go ahead and roll out your sugarpaste until it’s really thin (a few millimetres is all you need). You then cut out strips of the sugarpaste and layer them over the cupcake, easy peasy! To finish, all you have to do is pipe on a little coloured buttercream for the eyes and you’re done!

Ghost Cupcakes

These ghost cupcakes are a favourite with many people every year, and no wonder why, they’re so cute! There are a few different ways you can do them, it’s all just down to personal taste.

Once your cupcakes are baked, pipe a simple layer of buttercream on top. This is when the different methods come in. Here are the two most popular:

1. You can take your buttercream and pipe a small mound in the middle of the cupcake. Whilst leaving this to firm up, you can roll out your sugarpaste until it’s quite thin. Then, using a cutter the same width as your cupcake, cut out a circle of your sugarpaste and drape it over the buttercream in the centre. This ghost in this method will not be as tall or sturdy as the following two, but it is preferred by most people because it is the simplest method and because of the taste.

2. As opposed to making the ghost structure with buttercream, you can roll a piece of sugarpaste into the same shape and place it in the middle of your cupcakes. You then roll out the rest of your sugarpaste and cut it into a circle and drape it over, as above. This method gives you a ghost that is sturdier and can stand taller than the buttercream version. To finish, simply pipe two eyes onto each ghost.

Witch Cupcakes

These cupcakes have to be my favourite! As someone who has grown up watching the Wizard of Oz about a thousand times, I love the reference to the Wicked Witch of the East (although where are the ruby slippers?!). To make the decoration for these cupcakes, all you have to do is make two legs and feet out of sugarpaste and then plonk an upside down cupcake on top! Piece of cake!

Witch’s Hat Cupcakes

Continuing on with the witch theme…

Every Halloween, loads of people make cupcake toppers to look like a witch’s hat. Sometimes they work out great…sometimes not so much. This cupcake is an easy cheat to getting the hat right, and since it uses cupcake cases instead of sugarpaste, it’s a doddle!

All you have to do is take a cupcake case, fold it in half and then fold it in half again until you have one quarter (image 1). Then, fold it in half again (image 2), a little piece of double sided tape will hold this together. Then, open up the case and place it on top of your iced cake. Then, to finish, take another case and quarter it. Cut of the point at the top, open it out (image 4), place it over the other case (image 5) and you’re done!

We hope you all have a great Halloween and let us know how you get on with your cupcakes! x

Happy Chocolate Cupcake Day!

Chocolate Cupcakes

Who doesn’t love a cupcake? Especially a chocolate cupcake! Since today is chocolate cupcake day, here at Cake-Cetera we’ve been looking up some yummy recipes for you all to use.

We’ve found a couple of recipes that are a little different to a basic chocolate cupcake, so we hope you enjoy them!

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

First up, we have chocolate orange cupcakes. These cupcakes are made with the juice of an orange, giving a slight fruity taste to the sponge. The buttercream is made with both white and orange chocolate, as well as orange zest. To us, this means it’s technically one of your five a day!

Ingredients

For the cupcakes

• 120g plain flour
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 40g unsalted butter
• 50g dark chocolate, melted
• 1 free-range egg
• 125ml milk
• 1 orange, juice only
• 3 tbsp granulated sugar

For the white chocolate and orange buttercream

• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 250g icing sugar
• 2-3 tbsp milk
• 50g white chocolate, melted
• 1 orange, zest only
• 100g orange chocolate

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 170C/325F/Gas 3. Line a 12-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
2. Mix the flour, sugar and baking powder together in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until combined.
3. Whisk the melted chocolate, egg and milk together in a jug.
4. Stir the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture until just combined.
5. Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until risen and golden-brown and a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 10 minutes.
6. Meanwhile, mix the orange juice and granulated sugar together in a bowl. Carefully pour the orange juice mixture over the warm cakes and set aside to cool completely.
7. For the white chocolate and orange buttercream, beat the butter until light and fluffy. Carefully stir in the icing sugar and continue to beat for five minutes. Beat in the milk, melted chocolate and orange zest.
8. Decorate the cupcakes with the buttercream. Use a sharp knife to make chocolate shavings from the orange chocolate and use them to decorate the cupcakes.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Up next is a cupcake that is extremely popular just now-red velvet. These chocolate cupcakes contain red food colouring which gives them a lovely colour that stays after baking. These cakes are very rich, so a cream cheese frosting is usually used as opposed to buttercream, yummy!

(These cupcakes have been decorated using cake crumbs from the sponge)

Ingredients

 

For the cupcakes:

• 60g unsalted butter, at room  temperature
• 150g caster sugar
• 1 egg
• 10g cocoa powder
• 20ml red food colouring
• ½tsp vanilla extract
• 120ml buttermilk
• 150g plain flour
• ½tsp salt
• ½tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1½tsp white wine  vinegar

For the cream cheese  frosting:

• 300g icing sugar, sifted
• 50g unsalted butter, at room  temperature
• 125g cream cheese,  cold

You’ll also  need:

• 12-hole cupcake tray, lined with  large cupcake cases

Method

1. Preheat the oven to  170°C/325°F/gas mark 3.
2. Put the butter and the  sugar in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy and  well mixed. Turn the mixer up to high speed, slowly add the egg and beat until everything is incorporated.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a  thick, dark paste. Add to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly until evenly  combined and coloured (scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl  with a rubber spatula).
4. Turn the mixer down to slow speed, slowly pour in half of the buttermilk and beat until well mixed. Then add half the flour, and beat until everything is incorporated. Repeat this process until all the buttermilk and flour has been added. Scrape down the side of the bowl again.
5. Turn the mixer up to high speed and beat until you have a smooth, even mixture.  Turn the mixer down to low speed and add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and  vinegar. Beat until well mixed, then turn up the speed again and beat for another couple of minutes.
6. Spoon the mixture into  the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes, or until the sponge bounces back when touched. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean.
7. Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
8. For the cream cheese frosting, beat the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding  electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together. Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed and continue beating until the frosting is light and  fluffy (at least 5 minutes). Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.
9. When the cupcakes are  cold, spoon over the cream cheese frosting on top.

We hope you enjoy

Secret Icing Techniques – National Cupcake Week

Decorating Cupcakes

Since it’s National Cupcake Week we thought we would upload some helpful tips and ideas for cupcake beginners.

The first thing to know about decorating cupcakes is finding the right piping nozzle. These pictures let you see how each nozzle changes the look of the buttercream icing/frosting.

Most cupcakes you see will be decorated with either an open star or a round tip, however the other tips are also used regularly.

Once you are confident with your piping skills, you can move on to adding little decorations. Most people like to add decorations made from sugarpaste (also called fondant/ready to roll icing) or flower paste/gumpaste, which is a tougher version of sugarpaste. A very popular option is sugar flowers, with roses being the most sought after. While some sugar roses are very intricate and difficult to do, this video shows how simple it can be to make one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDScsVtTQkA

If that doesn’t appeal to you, you can also buy rose moulds, where you simply push the paste into the mould, pop it out and you have a rose! These moulds are available in most cake decorating supply stores, or online.

If flowers aren’t your cup of tea, sugarpaste and flower paste/gumpaste can be used to make loads of decorations, from animals, to kids toys, to people.

We hope you enjoy your tips  x

Quit your job and make cakes – My journey so far!

We are really excited to launch nationwide delivery next month…Yay! After 2 years of hand delivering our cakes we can finally send by courier. It’s a brilliant feeling and feeling really chuffed with ourselves. Britain is still going baking mad and many of you will dream of quitting your job and making cakes or chasing your dream in other ways so I thought I’d share my journey with you so far:

I started making cupcake bouquets in July 2011 while working as a clothing designer/technologist at Trespass HQ in Glasgow. It was a big organisation with lots of staff so as word and cakes got around I ended up making 3 or 4 cupcake bouquets at night and attempting to deliver them around my working day.  Money & orders were rolling in so I was thinking I’m going to quit my job, get a website and be rich!  Woohooo…Simples!

In September 2011 I quit my job, sold my convertible and bought a second hand Fiat Doblo van. I then got my first website and started selling cakes online, making them in my dad’s kitchen.

The great thing about being in a workplace is you are surrounded by lots of people and prospective customers who you can sell to without spending on advertising so I now was beginning to struggle financially.  I had a huge clear out and sold all of my clothing and possessions on ebay biding some more time.

In December 2011 I had a really bright idea (not) that I would do a group on type deal! Let’s get lots of new customers and free advertising – Brilliant idea Pauline until you get 200 orders lol! That sure was an experience especially as 25% of them wanted them that week! I made cakes all night and delivered by van during day. Deliveries were all over the Glasgow and Lanarkshire area meaning covering over 120 miles and 7 hour of driving.  There’s no doubt about it was a hellish time but I fulfilled all the orders and got lots and lots of new customers and business started to grow – Result!

Here’s just  some of the disasters below:

1. Calamity Jane – We didn’t have a packaging solution at that stage so all cakes were hand delivered without packaging. During the winter months this meant balancing over ice and snow and yip lots of cakes volleyed in the air.

2. Recipient not home – Unlike flowers which come from a local depot and can be re-delivered, I was delivering to some houses approx 25 miles away so the goal was to get the cake delivered and order fulfilled. Most times I could leave with a neighbour but lots and lots of times there would be no one home in entire street meaning you had to return later in the day.

3. Cakes melting – Thankfully we have resolved this issue now but we had to re-make over 15 bouquets one day due to icing melting in the heat.

4. House Numbers – The amount of houses which don’t have a house number on them…….gggggrrrrrrrr!

4. Delivery driver –  Deciding to trial a delivery driver to drop off our cakes. Driving at 100 mile an hour and cake delivery defo doesn’t work! He was back in 20 minutes with 8 ruined cupcake bouquets.

4. Dogs – On arriving at recipient’s house and being attacked by dogs  – cake going flying!

All of the above ended in lots of tears but I can have a wee laugh at it now. I’m sure we will still have a lot more disasters as business grows but things are looking a little bit rosier for now.

Pauline x

Scottish Fashion Awards 2012

This time last year we were in the middle of creating over 600 cupcakes, 30 cupcake bouquets and building a cupcake dress for the Scottish Fashion Awards! The glitzy annual event was held in Glasgow’s SECC and we were delighted to be one of the sponsors!

We were briefed to tie in goodies with the fashion theme with the golden jubilee colours and through lots of blood, sweat and tears we created a cupcake dress! Nominees, Celebs and VIP’s including Alexa Chung indulged in our cupcakes and loved our unique creation.

The night was an amazing experience and we even got to meet David Gandy! Have a wee peek at our video from the night:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flo6OyMA-c8