☺ RSPCA Cupcake Day ☺

Hey all, I am back after a short break, had to recover from a dreaded winter cold! The same cold which caused me to be a little late on the RSPCA's Cupcake Day... but better late than never hey?

I was very excited to participate in the RSPCA's Cupcake Day, as it has combined my love for animals and cupcakes! I made my favourite recipe for vanilla cupcakes from Magnolia Bakery, and frosted them with vanilla cream cheese frosting. Decorating them with a fondant paw print inspired by the RSPCA's logo.

I was able to raise $112 for an extremely good cause!

I love reading about other peoples pets on blogs, and I was thinking to myself that I haven't really introduced you all to my pets yet... so I surmise to rectify that! Starting off with my beloved chickens!

We only have 3 at the moment, and all are reaching over 4 years old, which is old age for a chook! They no longer lay eggs, and spend their days wondering around our yard, eating bugs and scratching around the plants. In Autumn and Winter, our olive tree gives a bounty of olives, and these 3 girls love making a morning pilgrimage to the tree to see what has fallen. Nothing makes me happier than to look out the window with a cup of tea and watch the chickens in the yard, I don't think words can describe the joy they bring me.

The latest thing my chickens love doing is looking into our lounge room window. They have a fascination with us, and I adore their interest! My indoor cat Týr loves to have staring competitions with them, I must remember to photograph this next time it happens!

Ok, I am off to start on another cupcake order, 12 cupcakes, 3 different flavours! What fun! Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!

Chocolate Pineapple Cupcakes

I recently made some cupcakes for a work colleagues Birthday. We'd had some lolly banana's given to us at work, and had a discussion on good they would taste in a chocolate cupcake... I set out to make them, but sadly after searching two supermarkets I could not find a single pack of lolly bananas! So instead I bought a pack of Pineapple Lumps, apparently a NZ candy, and used them instead. They tasted great!!

I used the same chocolate cupcake recipe as I did for the previous posts Choc Chip cupcakes, except this time I added chopped up Pineapple Lumps into the batter. I loved how as they cooked the lumps bubbled and oozed, and made a 'caramel like' texture in some parts of the cupcakes! I frosted the cupcakes with yellow cream cheese frosting with a tiny dash of coconut essence in it, then topped the cupcakes with chocolate sprinkles, al la NZ Cupcake Queen does with her 'Perky Nana Cupcakes'.

nom nom nom

Chocolate Pineapple Cupcakes - Recipe adapted from Women's Weekly Cupcake Cookbook
Makes 15 Cupcakes

Ingredients

1 1/2 Cup (225g) self-raising flour
1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
3/4 cup (165g) caster sugar
185g softened butter
3 eggs
1/2 cup (125mls) milk
2/3 cup of Pineapple Lumps cut into small cubes

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180C/ 160C fan forced. Line holes of muffin pans with cupcake liners.
2. Sift dry ingredients into large bowl, add remaining ingredients, except the lump cubes; beat with electric mixer on low until speed until ingredients are combined. Increase speed to medium; beat until mixture is smooth and has changed to paler colour.
3. Now add the Pineapple lump cubes, gently fold through the batter.
4. Drop 1/4 cup of mixture into cases. Bake for about 20 mins. Stand cakes for 5 minutes before turning onto rack to cool.
5. Frost as desired. Enjoy!

I have had several people ask me for tips with using cream cheese frosting, honestly, my number one tip is to keep the cream cheese in the fridge right up until you use it! It tends to hold its shape much better this way. The only other tip I can give is test the consistency of the frosting in the bowl by using a spoon and seeing if it will hold a peak first, if it wont hold in its shape there, it ain't gunna hold its shape coming out the piping bag! If it is looking too runny, you can either add more icing sugar, or you can give it some time in the fridge then come back to it later. Hope that is somewhat helpful!

Here is the photo I promised of the beautiful things Chelsea Ann of Itty Bitty Birdy sent me! Isn't she the most amazing crafter/artist!? I love the beautifully hand crafted 'Cupcake Queen' wreath she made me, and the yo-yo headband is SO sweet!, it will look so good with my wigs.
I also adore her incredible illustrative skills, she remembered which prints I loved most of hers from her print shop, and added them to the package! I cannot wait to find frames fitting for these beauties, and will proudly hang them in my future dream studio/craft room. I am so lucky to have met such a beautiful, sweet, kind and generous girl. This swap has really reaffirmed my love of the blogging world, I am so lucky to be connected with such wonderful people!

I am going to finish up by showing off pictures of the tote bag I made for Chelsea Ann in return. I hand embroidered the felt centre of the bag, using a free vintage embroidery pattern on Flickr as a guide. I so loved the colour combination of yellow, orange, red and pink.

Swing Girl Tote Bag


Yo-yo necklace

Felt decorated Compact Mirror

Hopefully one day soon I will be able to open my dream Etsy store and my bags and accessories will be available for you all to buy!

Jam Doughnut and Choc Chip Cupcakes

Hello all! I have been a busy little bee of late!

I have to say that my self imposed time limit on how long I spend on the internet each day has resulted in procrastination levels decreasing, and productivity levels rising! I have also been spending much more time with my family, and it has been wonderful. Last night we had a family game of Monopoly, something we haven't done in years! I lost, but I didn't mind :)

Unfortunately it does mean I am being a bit slow on replying to emails, comments etc and I do sincerely apologise. I am also missing out on talking frequently to my friends online too, and I do miss you guys, but I think I need to keep this up for myself to maintain a healthier mind at the moment, I honestly think I was a little bit too addicted, and am now feeling much freer!

Last week my boss asked me to make her some cupcakes for her twin daughters 15th Birthday, the only requirement was they had to be pink and purple, the flavours I could have free reign over, I happily obliged.
After racking my brain for a few days I decided upon Jam Doughnut, and Choc Chip Cupcakes. I slightly changed some basic recipes from my new Woman's Weekly Cupcake cookbook, and both turned out perfectly.

After 'injecting' the Jam Doughnut ones with strawberry jam, they were frosted with pink cream cheese frosting, and covered with coloured sugar. The Chocolate Chip ones I frosted with purple butter cream frosting and popped silver cashous on top.
The fondant frangipani's were made with my new Flexi-Craft moulds I got from a craft fair, they were good fun to use, and were super easy once I got the hang of it.
My boss was very delighted with these cupcakes, and I was pleased to be doing another order!

Jam Doughnut Cupcakes - Adapted from Vanilla Butter Cake recipe from Australian Woman's Weekly

Ingredients

1 cup (150g) Self Raising Flour
90g Softened Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 cup (110g) Caster Sugar
2 Eggs
2 tablespoons Milk
1 teaspoon Cinnamon
1/4 cup Strawberry/Raspberry Jam for filling

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180/160 fan forced. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.
2. Cream butter and caster sugar together in bowl until light and fluffy, add eggs and vanilla extract beat until combined.
3. Add in sifted flour, cinnamon and milk. Mix on medium until mixture combined.
4. Drop 1/4 cup of mixture into cases. Bake for 20 minutes. Stand cakes for 5 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool.
5. Put jam into bowl and microwave for 10 seconds, or until jam is a thinner consistency. Inject using piping bag/syringe into centre of cool cupcakes.
6. Frost as desired, then sprinkle with castor/powdered sugar!


I was so excited by a visit from the postman this week, as I received a package from Chelsea Ann from Itty Bitty Birdy from our arranged swap! I will blog about it properly later in the week, when I get a chance to take photos of each exquisitely crafted item, but I couldn't resist showing you a sneak peek. I am beyond tickled pink with everything she made for me, I am so lucky to have met such sweet generous girl - Thank you Chelsea Ann ♥ !

I can't wait to show you the tote bag I made for her too!

I am off now for some more quality family time, my cousin is over from Canberra and we are going to go have lunch with our Grandparents! Hope you all have had a great weekend too! <3

Once I caught a fish alive...

During my week off work, which seems like an eternity ago, I finally finished the tote bag I promised Mum for her Birthday present. When I asked her what she would like on her bag, she replied that she wanted a cat. So I showed her some pictures on the internet, and when she saw a cat designed by Cathy, she said "that one!!". So I made her a tote bag totally inspired by this gorgeous blue cat. With Cathy's full permission I can show you some pictures of what I came up with:

Thank you so much for letting me post pictures Cathy!
You should go check out her Etsy shop, its got some really cute things in it!

I am really loving the colours blue and orange together. You can't see properly in these photos, but the inner fabric has tiny little blue fishes on it.

I also made some fishy cupcakes to go with the bag! I have seen fish cupcakes done often now over the blogosphere, but my original inspiration for these cupcakes was from Kitchen Doughdough's blog. We don't have Goldfish shaped crackers here in Australia, so I was pretty happy when I found these ideal fish candies!

I decided on salted caramel for the flavour of the cupcakes, and used a recipe from ever trusty 'How to Eat A Cupcake's' blog. I loved the caramel flavour of this recipe, my only advice is don't over fill the cupcake liners, as these babies rise a great deal!

Now I also promised you some pictures from AVCon, and well to be honest, I was stupid I didn't take my camera out of my bag, so I don't have many to show! Here is a very small sample:

Kelly and I - she made both of these outfits!


This guy was the coolest, and had the best costume in my opinion. He stayed in character the entire weekend, and was ever obliging to pose for photos!


The second best costumes where these girls, the Pac-Man ghosts (Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde), the red one played the Pac-Man music!

Kelly did really well with her stall, we pretty much sold everything by the second day! I learnt a lot about anime and cosplay, and look forward to watching a whole bunch and going back next year! Hope you all have had a nice weekend, I am going to go sit in the sunshine and continue reading Middlesex for Indy Grrrls book club! <3