Bonfire Night

The chances are on Bonfire Night, most of us will either go to someone’s house to watch the fireworks, or have everyone round to ours for the night. There are also the hordes of people who go to nearby firework displays. No matter what you’re doing that night, here are a couple of delicious recipes that you can whip up for everyone to enjoy!

Toffee Apples

Ingredients

• 8 apples (we use Granny Smith)
• 400g golden caster sugar
• 1tsp vinegar
• 4tbsp golden syrup

Method

1. Place the apples in a large bowl, then cover with boiling water (you may have to do this in 2 batches). This removes the wax coating and helps the toffee to stick. Dry thoroughly and twist off any stalks. Push a wooden skewer or lolly stick into the stalk end of each apple.
2. Lay out a sheet of baking parchment and lightly grease it. Place the apples on this, close to your stovetop.
3. Tip the sugar into a pan along with 100ml water and set over a medium heat. Cook for 5 minutes until the sugar dissolves, then stir in the vinegar and syrup. Set a sugar thermometer in the pan and boil to 140C or ‘hard crack’ stage (If you don’t have a thermometer you can test the toffee by pouring a little into a bowl of cold water. It should harden instantly and, when removed, be brittle and easy to break. If you can still squish the toffee, continue to boil it).
4. Working quickly and carefully, dip and twist each apple in the hot toffee until covered, let any excess drip away, then place on the baking parchment to harden. You may have to heat the toffee a little if the temperature drops and it starts to feel thick and viscous.
5. Leave the toffee to cool before eating. These can be made up to 2 days in advance and stored in a dry place.

Tip

If you want blood red toffee like the picture above, simply add red food colouring into your sugar along with the vinegar and syrup. A tablespoon should do but add more if needed.

 Marshmallow Campfire Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 140g light muscovado sugar
• 100g self-raising flour
• 50g cocoa powder
• 1tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs
• 125ml vegetable oil
• 3tbsp milk
• 50g milk chocolate chips
• 30g pack mini marshmallows

Method

1. Heat oven to 180C/160C Fan/Gas 4. Tip the sugar, flour, cocoa and baking powder into a large bowl.
2. Whisk together the eggs, vegetable oil and milk, then stir together with the dry ingredients until well combined. Add the milk chocolate chips and mix together.
3. Place cupcake cases into a 12-hole bun tin. Divide the mixture between the cases, then bake for about 20 minutes until risen and cooked through. Leave to cool. At this stage, once completely cool, these can be stored for up to 2 days in an airtight container.
4. Just before serving, arrange marshmallows over the tops of the cakes. Heat grill to medium and pop the cakes under it for about 30 seconds (keeping an eye on them!) just until the marshmallows are lightly browned. Remove and eat straight away.

We hope you enjoy these recipes and have a safe Guy Fawkes Night everyone!

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