Fundamental Baking Basics

I am often surprised by how many people don't know to make a basic buttercream or victoria sandwich. This is not me being judgemental at all, I just can't imagine not knowing how to make these easy, gorgeous things around which my life pretty much revolves! They are such tremendously easy things to make and are so versatile, they can be adapted to make sooo many recipes! A victoria sponge can be filled with fresh fruit and cream for a delicious simple, summery cake OR covered with beautiful icing and stacked up high for a stunning, striking wedding cake. Buttercream similarly can be flavored with nearly anything and used as a simple filling or can be used for my all-time-favourite... Piping on cupcakes! Honestly, I could go on all day - the possibilities for the two, and the combination of the two are truly endless. So while I am away in Mexico and am unable to bake, I will enlighten those of you who do not know by sharing my favourite victoria sandwich/vanilla sponge recipe and a basic buttercream that all aspiring bakers should have in their repertoire! Better still - neither of these require a mixer. I have no doubt a mixer would help, but I do not own one and don't use one for any of my recipes that I make at home. Feel free to use a mixer if you have one but they are definitely not required!

Victoria Sandwich
Ingredients:

200g self raising flour, sifted

200g caster sugar

200g unsalted butter

4 medium eggs

1 heaped tsp vanilla bean paste (or 1 tablespoon of liquid extract)

1 tsp baking power

1 tbsp whole milk

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c and prepare 2 x 8 inch cake tins with butter and flour.

2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy - a wooden spoon is best for this. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time then add the vanilla. Both the eggs and the butter should be room temperature before cooking.

3. Add the baking powder and flour bit by bit and fold in gently. If you beat the mixture vigorously at this point it will not be as light and fluffy once cooked.  Once the batter is smooth, stir in the milk.

4. Divide evenly between the 2 cake tins and bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool before decorating.

And that is literally it! Nothing fancy, nothing hard - just a simple, moist and fluffy cake!

Basic Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients:

100g butter, soften

200g icing sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp milk, optional

As a general rule -  you should have twice as much icing sugar as butter (e.g 250g butter to 500g icing sugar).

Method:

1. Beat the butter until pale and soft before adding the icing sugar. This step is especially important if your butter is not room temperature.

2. Gradually add in the icing sugar and mix until fully combined. You can adjust the amount of icing sugar for the consistency of buttercream you want: add more for stiffer buttercream for piping intricate details like frills, or less for slightly softer buttercream for crumbcoating or filling a cake.

3. Add milk if it gets too stiff. I like to add milk to mine as I feel it allows easier piping. Add the vanilla and any food colouring at this point, too.

Again, the easiest recipe ever! So easy to adapt by adding in jam for a fruity flavour, a blob of peanut butter or nutella for a fancier icing or substituting some of the icing sugar for cocoa powder for a simple chocolate buttercream.

I hope you find these recipes helpful and get as much use out of them as I do! Happy baking :)

Teri x

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Holiday Time!

I am in a very good mood writing this post becaaauuuseee.... I am going on holiday today! I am going to Mexico with my family for 2 weeks before I go back to university, I am sooo excited! I went a few years ago and absolutely loved it: the weather, the people, the scenery, the food!!! I don't imagine I'll be eating many cupcakes while I'm away, and I certainly won't be baking (boohoo) but I am aiming to get some flavour inspiration while I am there. I just love all mexican food; I love their flavour combinations, the spices they use and the beautiful fresh fruit and vegetables. When I last went I was a vegetarian so I feel that I wasn't fully able to appreciate all that was on offer but now, after 9 years I am eating chicken again (for health reasons, I'm still struggling with the ethics behind it all...) so I will get a whole new experience! And I am definitely going to come back a few pounds heavier... Oh no!

So in my absence, unfortunately I will be unable to bake and share my recipes for you. However I have prepared 2 posts to go out while I am away (only 1 a week unfortunately, getting ready for holiday meant I was unable to do much more than that). So sorry for the inconsistencies in posting as I do try to be as consistent as possible but I hope you enjoy what I have prepared and enjoy the next two weeks! Check back on wednesdays for new posts (one brand new cupcake idea that I think you will all love... *hint hint - twix cupcakes*).

I will surely do a little holiday post when I get back to let you know I am back and to share my adventures and a few photos. Goodbye for now!

Teri x

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Rainbow Sprinkle Cake!

Warning: This is a slightly long post/tutorial but completely worth it as the end product is amazing! Please read on!!
 
I feel like I've been slacking on my baking recently,I've been so busy I haven't had the time to bake nearly as much as I would have like and certainly not anything worth sharing at the moment! A few recipes are works in progress... So rather than post something less than perfect I thought I would share my favourite cake I have ever made! It is the cake that gets by far the most compliments and the cake that people ask me about the most, even now 4 months later (surprisingly simple... I almost don't want to ruin the illusion) and it is a special cake as it is the cake that I made for Martin's birthday back in May! It's just such a wow-cake I couldn't not share it with you!!
I will warn you, however, that this was a pre-blog cake from  before I cared about what my cake pictures looked like (look at my first post and you'll see what I mean!) so they are not spectacular photographically but hopefully you will still love it, despite the wonky pictures!

 
It is a rainbow-sprinkle-smartie-sweetie cake (basically everything I love in life on a cake) with four layers made from a double-batter of classic vanilla Victoria sponge filled with a thin layer of buttercream and strawberry Jam. As this cake had so much going on already with the sprinkles and the smarties, I didn't opt for thick, piped buttercream between each cake layer - even though it would have resulted in a taller cake; which I love - I thought the texture and the flavour of the cake as a whole would benefit from a thinner layer but this ultimately is down to your own personal preference! Each layer of cake was coloured a different bright colour with Wilton gels (if you don't have these - go get them now, they are amazing!) which I think perfectly complimented the rainbow exterior with all the sprinkles! A shallow-ish hole was carved out of the top: NOT DOWN INTO THE CAKE, and filled with smarties and your favourite cakes on thick-gauge flower wires! I hope these instructions are good enough to compensate for the severe lack of photos!!

Total time: Approximately 3 hours (45 minutes to prepare/bake the cakes), 2 hours decorating time not including cooling/refrigerating times.
Difficulty: Medium
You will need: 2 x cake box/double cake batter, 4 x food colouring, approx 300-400g buttercream, a few heaped tablespoons of jam, A LOT of sprinkles (I used 3 whole tubes), approx 150g smarties, 15-20 smallish sweets (e.g. dolly mixtures/liquorice allsorts), relatively thick gauge flower wires, large serrated knife, offset spatula, large spoon.

My First Cake Pops

Bitesize cake pieces on a stick. Enough said.

I feel that as a self-confessed baking enthusiast it is pretty shameful to say that I have never attempted to make cake pops; until last night! They just never really appealed to me for some reason but all of a sudden I had the urge to give them a go and I'm so glad I did!
As I baked them on a whim I didn't have a lot to decorate them with but I think the sprinkes look soo cute and give a slightly different texture with a bit of a crunch. And I just love sprinkes...

They were a bit more fiddly than I had anticipated but they are not particularly hard or messy once you get in a sort of routine. Another great thing about them is that it is completely okay to cheat and use a box of cake mix. I didn't just because I love baking so much but if baking isn't really your thing but you want to give these a go, cheat away!! My first attempt at covering the cake pop in the candy melts was a bit of a disaster to be honest but I ate it anyway then just learned from my mistakes! For me, dipping and twirling in a shallow dish worked far better than submerging in a deep dish, I then used a spoon to cover the slightly bare bits. I'm not going to lie, my cake pops were not evenly covered and were kind of bumpy but I imagine perfection will come with practice! I just wanted to share my first ever attempt with you all. I hate when you find a blog and try a recipe or a tutorial on there and it just ends up nothing like theirs, you feel so defeated so sharing a mediocre attempt at something can only be a good thing, surely?!

Decorating time: approximately 2-3 minutes per cake pop
Difficulty: Easy-Medium
You will need: Cake mix, Icing, cakepop/lollipop sticks, candy melts, sprinkles (or other decoration), tall glasses or polystyrene for drying.

"Best Ever" Smarties Cookies

These may be my favourite cookies ever: chewy and gooey with the perfect chocolatey "crunch" and burst of colour from the smarties!

I was debating whether or not to post the recipe for these but Martin said they were the best cookies ever (hence the "best ever" smarties cookies...) and I really enjoyed them so I decided to share this wonderful recipe with you all! After a few batches and trying different things to make them as perfect as possible for you all, these were definitely my favourite!

Naturally the type of ingredients used in a recipe affect the way the finished product will turn out. The recipe calls for sugar and butter, but which sugar and butter will give you the type of cookie you want? Granulated only will see your cookies spread much more giving a thinner and crunchier bake, whereas brown sugar will give a much chewier cookie (this recipe uses a combination of both!). Melted butter also gives a much chewier texture than creamed butter which a lot of cookie recipes and most of my cake recipes call for. The use of cornflour in this recipe also adds to the gooey-chewiness of these cookies. So clearly everything in this recipe is chosen to make these cookies as moist and deliciously chewy as possible, and I would say it worked! They are sooo chewy and moist with just the right amount of buttery sweetness, and who doesn't love smarties?! No one, that's who... 

New Blog Name

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Some of you may have noticed that my blog has had a complete revamp this evening... Including a new name! This blog is newly named "Teri's Baking Cupboard" instead of lovecrumbs. I thought long and hard before I changed my name because it is potentially a reeeally stupid decision to make when you're still trying to get your blog up and running, but hopefully this wont affect me too much (aahh!!). I initially thought I would have the first few weeks to experiment and play around without anyone noticing, I never thought I would have such a good reaction and my blog would have grown so quickly so thank you thank you thank you!

I thought I would explain the reason behind my name in case anyone happened to wonder... I feel that Teri's Baking Cupboard more accurately reflects what this blog is about: this is a baking blog first and foremost and it is my own experimentation and experiences in the kitchen being posted! Lovecrumbs did not feel very "me". I also discovered that lovecrumbs is actually a gorgeous little cakeshop in Edinburgh, Scotland and I do not want anyone to think I am affiliated with them, or vice versa!

So hopefully my little blog will continue to grow as successfully it has been and my name change will not confuse anyone that has chosen to revisit my blog and wonders where lovecrumbs has gone!! 

Thanks for your support everyone, and hope you like the new look :)

Teri x

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Marshmallow Flower Tutorial

Hello everyone! 
Rather than a recipe share today I thought I would do something different and share a tutorial: marshmallow flowers! Such an easy way to make mini cupcakes look especially pretty and give them the wow factor! When I made these a few weeks ago everyone asked me how I made them and were really impressed by them! As tempting as it is to let people think that these were really difficult so you are obviously a cake decorating genius, I will share this not-so-secret, super-easy method! You don't have to though of course...

Decorating Time: Approximately 15 minutes to decorate 20 mini cupcakes
Difficulty: Easy! 
You will need: coloured sugar, marshmallows, scissors, chopping board.

Strawberries and Cream Cupcakes

I am now back in Wales and back in my own kitchen, and what better way to celebrate than by baking some cupcakes! Shame that I have returned home to what can only be described as some kind of monsoon!! I've started to become quite depressed by this "summer" that is now mostly cold, rainy and stormy. Where are the barbecues and days at the beach?!  I decided to try and bring a little bit of summer into my household by baking these cupcakes. My family love strawberries and cream, desserts based around those two ingredients dominate our dinner table so they had no complaints about these!

When I think of summer food I think of fruit; particularly berries. Is there anything better than a fruit salad packed with strawberries and grapes (not a berry but I just love grapes!) on a hot summers day?! Especially topped with a mountain of cream - that was my inspiration for these cupcakes! I really liked the contrast of the velvety-soft whipped cream icing with the perfectly sweet strawberry and the perfect bit of bite and the fluffy, soft cupcake! I decided to put the strawberry into the cupcake after they had been baked because I wanted to keep the fresh texture and keep the juices in: a warm, soft strawberry was not what I had in mind for these cupcakes. I also chose whipped cream icing over my usual buttercream as it is less sweet and much lighter on an already sweet cupcake. I very nearly left the cupcakes with plain piped whipped cream but I decided at the last minute to add a little quartered strawberry into the side - how cute do they look?!

The Great British Bake Off is Back!!

Finally! After months of deprivation and eagerly counting down to the return of one of my favourite (and undoubtedly the rest of the British population) t.v programme: THE GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF!!  Whether you are even remotely interested in baking or not, I highly suspect that not many people can say they haven't watched at least one episode... And secretly enjoyed it. I love the way it has given ordinary homebakers with extraordinary talent the chance to showcase it to all, showing the incredible art and the science behind baking! It has captivated the heart of British people and inspired so many more people to just give baking a try!

I consider myself to be a good baker when it comes to cakes and cupcakes. But when GBBO comes back on and I once again salivate over and admire the (mostly!) incredible work of the bakers, I can't help but let out a little sigh. Why don't I make 60 fancy flavoured, evenly sized and baked crackers? Why don't I create a 5ft fall gingerbread house? But then I realise, I dont want to! There are enough people in the world to make croissants and breadsticks for the massess. I am more than happy to just bring my cakes to the party and enjoy watching others make the rest: laughing and gossiping, feeling embarassingly tense and shaking my head in dispair at some of the bakes. Not to mention taking lots of flavour inspiration from those amazingly talented bakers. So rather than judge yourself against them, why not just enjoy the show and be grateful to not be under the scrutiny and watchful eyes of Mary and Paul!
These are my top 5 highlights from the first episode... Cake week!

Cinnamon Swirl Cupcakes

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Greetings from Scotland, everybody! 
I am currently not in my usual location of beautiful, sunny Wales as I am visiting my boyfriend Martin's family all the way in Edinburgh in Scotland. It is such a gorgeous city (shame it is even rainier than Wales!) and I am having such a nice time, BUT I have been having some serious baking withdrawal symptoms!! Despite this blog still being so young and me being so new to this, I have been so excited to be able to get in the kitchen to bake up a storm and share it with you!

Last night I was very grateful to Martin's mother for letting me take over her kitchen to bake them all some lovely cinnamon swirl cupcakes! I think in America you would call something like these "snickerdoodle" flavoured cupcakes judging by some of the recipes I have previously drooled over on Pinterest. I have never been fortunate enough to experience a snickerdoodle however, and these taste exactly like delicious, sweet-but-spicy cinnamon swirls but in a perfect moist, light and fluffy cupcake so cinnamon swirl cupcakes they shall be called! I topped each cupcake with another new recipe that I had not tried before: whipped brown sugar buttercream. The texture of this buttercream was absolutely divine, sort of like whipped cream and melted in your mouth but with the sweet, rich caramel-like flavour that comes from brown sugar. I was so impressed with how easy it was to make and how well it piped and held its shape on top of the cupcakes. Unlike whipped cream icing (which I love) that has a tendency to slightly melt and ruin any lovely pipework you have done if not kept in the fridge and, I dont know about you, but I reeeeeeallllyyy dont like refridgerated cake!!! But anyway, If you love cinnamon (and even if you dont, trust me) I highly suggest you make these right now!! For you cinnamon haters: the taste is not too overpowering but gives a subtle perfect hint of sweetness and flavour, I promise you will not be disappointed!

Oreo Buttercream Cupcakes

As my blog is only just starting out, I want to make sure that anyone who happens to come across my blog has something to read so excuse a potential high volume of posts over the next week or so! I decided to share my favourite cupcakes I have ever made; they're nothing fancy so if you're looking to make a wow impression, they may not be for this occasion.They are, however, absolutely delicious which is what really matters in a cupcake! So if you are just looking for a recipe to make a batch of cupcakes that are sure to be gone in about ten minutes, then look no further!

Beautiful Oreo Cupcakes!

I was so bored of making endless vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. As lovely as they are (if I say so myself!), I was eager to try something a bit different. I started with a batch of standard chocolate chip cupcakes, although if you were to try these cupcakes you could use your own favourite chocolate cupcake recipe.

Best Chocolate Cake

Everyone loves chocolate cake. I think I can honestly say I have never met someone who doesn't at least like some form of chocolate cake. Anyone who follows me on instagram or knows the kind of cakes I make will know that I generally make pretty girly cakes. So when I was asked to bake a cake for my grandpa's birthday a week or so ago I just panicked. What kind of cake do you make a 79 year old man who has zero interest in flowers or pretty buttercream swirls? But I had a brainwave in the midst of my breakdown on the morning of his birthday. I have seen absolutely loads of these nest type cakes with chocolate fingers or kitkats around the outside of the cake, filled with some kind of confectionery or small chocolates (maltesers, minstrels, smarties etc.). So I decided this cake would be the perfect cake for my grandpa!   

My family absolutely adore the Betty Crocker Devil's Food cake mixture and is always their cake of choice when it comes to chocolate cakes. To be completely honest, as cake mixes go it is absolutely delicious but I did a bit of research and merged a few recipes together in a way that I felt, in my experience, would work well to create a cake to rival this! Everyone enjoyed the cake and it was well worth all the blood, sweat and tears (literally!!) that were shed!

Excuse the messy board and utensils, what a chaotic experience!!