21st Birthday Cupcake Tower

So last week was my twenty-first Birthday (I know, old or what?) and to celebrate, I decided to make my very fist cupcake tower yay!
Originally I'd wanted to order some cakes from Oh Crumbs but unfortunately they've ceased trading for the time being, so into the kitchen I went, and here are the results...






Soo what do you think? To be honest, I'm pretty impressed with the results since they actually turned out okayish - One might even say that they look semi-professional! (or is that taking it a bit too far!)

They were actually a lot easier to make than I'd expected and once I got going I managed to have them all baked and decorated in no time. In total, I made 45 cakes (using the regular recipe, which I'll paste below!) and it cost around £50 (including stand!) - So all in all, I saved around £70, which helps a lot when you're a poor student!

The recipe for four cakes is...
(Just multiply to the quantity you want!)

Ingredients

55g (2oz) Margarine
28g (1oz) Caster Sugar
55g (2oz) Self Raising Flour
1 egg
1stp Baking Powder
2tsp Vanilla Essence

Recipe

1. Mix the flour, sugar, egg and margarine together in a large mixing bowl for two to three minutes until fully combined.

2. To this mixture add the Vanilla essence and Baking powder and stir again until completely mixed.

3. Fill the muffin cases to just over half way.

4. Put in the oven for 15-20 minutes at 190C (180C Fan) Gas 5 until springy and a light golden colour.

I'm usually quite ambiguous when it comes to icing repipes and I'm going to remain that way. However, I will say that milk and vanilla extract really help to create the perfect buttercream, so just add a splash of those to your mix and you should be good to go!

What do you think of my first tower? Let me know.

Check back soon for more baking advantures!

Happy Baking,

X

It's a Baking Disaster Darling...

Well not quite.

A few weeks ago, I made Cupcakes for my Friend's 21st Birthday, which in themselves were delicious, I'm sure... but this page wasn't called 'Cupcakes and Disasters' for nothing and it would seem that fate thought it was high time, that the disaster part be fulfilled.
Oh dear... Life certainly does pick its moments.

So before I start, I want to show you what the cupcakes looked like, because they really were very pretty!


As was the lovely pink box I packed them in...


So before I get to the disaster, I'd firstly like to bullet point a few things that I learnt whilst making these cakes...

As we all know, you can do something perfectly a hundred times or more, but when it comes to the crunch, everything falls to pieces - this is what happened and I can only think that it was the pressure!

So what I learnt...

1. Who knew baking with butter was so difficult? Certainly not me!

Having never baked with actual butter before, I was foolish enough to think that it would be as easy as using margarine. As it turns out, unless the butter is massively soft, it takes ages to combine into the mixture. As proof to this theory, I ended up with little buttery lumps dotted throughout my mixture, which took ages to mix in. (Also butter is extremely difficult to use to make butter cream, go figure!)

2. Don't think that Red and Pink food colouring are the same - They really aren't!

After getting over the butter hurdles I decided to make the icing pink, because after all 'pink's just light red' isn't it? No, apparently in the world of food colouring, it's not - it's orange :(

3. Check and double check your ingredients and allow for mistakes

I didn't and had to rush out to the shop mid morning, for extra icing sugar, so be warned!

So the Disaster...

Well to cut a not-so-long story short: After giving the cakes to my friend, I proceeded to destroy them all one at a time by placing them upside down on a bench. Devastation was not the word, Ahh.

LESSON OF THE DAY: Don't tip cakes upside down, they don't like it!