“My cupcakes bring all the boys to the yard”
I don’t have this tshirt yet, but I think I might need it! Buy it here from Sugadeaux.
Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan
The Wilton Giant Cupcake Pan is back in stock at Peter’s of Kensington in Sydney. They deliver, yay!. Mine arrived last Monday!
Also available from Amazon.
Now just need an excuse to use it…
Cupcake Tour of America - San Diego part 2
I’d all but given up on finding a cupcake shop in San Diego (I’m sure they exist, we just didn’t have the time), until on our last night I spied red velvet cupcake on the menu of the restaurant we were at - Claim Jumper. Yay! I ordered one to take home. The container squashed the pretty icing, but who was I to complain!
I tucked into the cupcake late that night, but I was sadly disappointed. It was dense and oily, without much flavour. The red wasn’t as brilliant as the artificially-coloured recipe I use, which would have been OK if the texture was “velvety”. If that cupcake had been my introduction to red velvet I would have decided I didn’t like it, and probably never tried to bake it myself. Lucky that wasn’t the case!
Katie’s cupcake tour of America rating - 1/5
Cupcake Tour of America - San Diego
We spent a week in San Diego so hubby and his friend Dave could hang out with Tiger and Rocco. My time there was spent with Dave’s wife Jackie and their two adorable kids. Jackie showed me the sights of San Diego including Balboa Park and San Diego Zoo. But of course what I was interested in was cupcakes!
Jackie didn’t know of a bakery specialising in cupcakes in the area, but she did take me somewhere just as good - Extraordinary Desserts.Quite simply, this is the way dessert should be done - rich, fancy, decadent and pretty! Of course that comes at a price, cake by the piece is about $8. The slices did not disappoint. Four-year-old Samantha give her stamp of approval to the Au Chocolat, I chose Extraordinary Carrot Cake which was more like hummingbird but very good and Jackie chose a pretty looking cake featuring guava. View a PDF menu here.
Katie’s cupcake tour of America rating - 4/5
Cupcakes in the USA
I’m on the look out for cupcakes and delicious things while I’m here, I will post my finds when I get back in July!
Cupcakes gone wrong
Yes, sometimes baking goes wrong in Katie’s Kitchen. Sometimes, for reasons unknown! My mission was to make gluten-free cupcakes and regular cupcakes for my cupcake-themed 27th birthday party. In attempt one at these gluten-free vanilla cupcakes, I forgot to add the baking powder. I ended up with an un-risen mess of half-baked cupcakes.
In attempt two, all was going well, or so I thought, until I went to get them from the oven and found the cupcakes again were an un-risen mess! I knew I had added all the ingredients this time so I was baffled. I gave up on making gluten-free cupcakes, my gluten-intolerant friend Leonie would have to have store-bought gluten-free chocolate biscuits instead.
I tried making another batch of the cupcakes, this time with self-raising wheat flour. Still no good! The cupcakes didn’t rise properly and some spilt over the edge of the pan. Off to the store I went to get fresh eggs, baking powder and self-raising flour, with three hours to go until my guests were to arrive.
No more trying to make vanilla cupcakes this time, I went straight to my trusty Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook and made white chocolate cupcakes. Success! No disasters this time, they all rose well. I didn’t halve the ingredients this time, I made the full recipe - and ended up with about 40 cupcakes.
Some of the cakes were used in a cupcake decorating contest at my birthday party, some cupcakes were eaten at my good friend Michelle’s baby shower, and some cupcakes are now iced in pink buttercream frosting, ready to be taken to my co-workers tomorrow.
The aftermath of the cupcake decorating contest at my 27th birthday party
(yes it was a cupcake-themed party)
This is Michelle’s niece stealing the Jaffas and M&Ms from the tops of the white chocolate cupcakes at the baby shower
Pink buttercream frosting on top of the white chocolate cakes for my co-workers.
Cupcake Week
Thursday: I need to bake 50 - 70 cupcakes for a charity fundraiser
Saturday: 20 - 30 cupcakes for my birthday party
Sunday: 30 - 50 cupcakes for a baby shower
Heart’s Delight
A cute Mother’s Day cupcake from Gloria Jeans. It wasn’t too sugary, but it was fairly dry. I shouldn’t have bothered.
Wholemeal Banana Muffins
Anytime you can pack some extra goodness and fibre into a sweet treat, without affecting the taste too much I say hooray! These are Banana Crumb Muffins without the crumb topping, made with wholemeal plain flour. As always, I added some cinnamon to the batter. The wholemeal flour changed the taste and texture of the muffin only very slightly. I used four small-medium overripe bananas.
