Delicious Halloween Pumpkin Cakes!

I don't usually like eating pumpkin but these pumpkin cakes are delicious and they're perfect for Halloween!  This batch was baked yesterday based on a family recipe, I've decorated them with a fun spiders web pattern and some of my Halloween printable papers.
 

To make the cake you will need:
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon (I also add a little ground nutmeg and mixed spice)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup pumpkin, cooked and cooled

For the topping:
icing sugar
milk or water
orange food colouring

Heat the oven to 180C / 350F / gas mark 4

The recipe I was given says to mix all ingredients together and pour into a floured tin.  I usually mix the dry ingredients together first, then add the beaten eggs, then the oil and finally stir in the cooked pumpkin.

I find the easiest way to cook the pumpkin is to heat it in the microwave for a few minutes until soft.  If the cooked pumpkin is very wet drain some of the liquid away before adding to the cake mixture to stop the cake from being too moist.  This recipe only uses a little pumpkin - if you're not making anything else with it the spare pumpkin (raw) can be cut into cubes and stored in the freezer, ready for baking another time. 

 

Pour the mixture into a tin or individual cupcake cases and cook for 25 minutes.

When the cakes are cooled they're ready to decorate!  Make some glace icing with icing sugar and milk or water.  Take some of the icing and colour for the spider web pattern, leaving the rest white.  (I gradually added a little yellow and red colouring until the colour looked right.)

Spread white icing onto a cake then pipe orange rings onto the white icing.  Using a cocktail stick draw lines through the icing, from the centre to the edge of the cake to create the spider web effect.  It's best to decorate one cake at a time rather than ice them all in white first.

I think the cakes look great with just this iced pattern on, but to finish these ones off I have also used some of my Halloween printables.

The designs were printed onto card, then cut out by hand.  The cupcake toppers can also be cut with a 2 inch circle punch.  For the circles, sandwich a cocktail stick between two circles of card and glue together.  I also used some of my new Halloween flags - for these simply fold in half with a cocktail stick glued in the centre fold.

Jubilee Party!

There were quite a lot of fish on the blog last week so I thought it was time for something a bit different with some inspiration for parties celebrating the Queen's Diamond Jubilee...


I love the bright colours of these cupcakes :) They're really easy to make - I used this recipe to make strawberry flavoured cakes.  Half the cakes were iced in blue glace icing and half were iced in red.  I left the icing to set before piping white glace icing on top - that stopped the white from sinking into the colour underneath.


I finished off the cakes by making some toppers with my Rule Britannia printables.  I made the toppers by sandwiching a cocktail stick between two circles.  Some of the circles were hand cut with scissors and some were cut with a 2 inch scalloped circle punch.

I also made some bunting with my Rule Britannia scrapbooking paper - you can print this template and use it to make your own bunting.  Plain red, white and blue papers would look good too.

Some royal facts...

• The Queen is the second longest serving monarch - only Victoria has reigned for longer at 63 years.
• There have been 12 Prime Ministers over the Queen's reign.
• The Queen has owned more than 30 corgis during her reign - she currently has 3; Monty, Willow and Holly.
• In an average year the Queen will host more than 50,000 people at banquets, lunches, dinners, receptions and Garden Parties at Buckingham Palace.

For more facts on the Queen take a look at this website: http://www.thediamondjubilee.org



21st Birthday Makes

It was my sister's 21st birthday recently and I thought I would share some pictures of things I made for her...

I made a card using some of my Cupcakes and Roses papers along with some other papers and embellishments from my crafty stash.

I also made a little brooch (my sister loves cupcakes!) from felt.

Cupcakes and Roses – Cupcake Toppers

I’ve been torturing myself with the mouth-watering scent of cupcakes this morning :)  I can’t eat them yet though – they have to be photographed first!  I made them for the launch of my final Cupcakes and Roses product; cupcake toppers…

These printable cupcake toppers come as a high resolution 300dpi file for you to print and make yourself.  The sheet measures 8.5 x 11 inches (approx. A4) and each circle is a little over 2 inches in diameter, so you can either hand cut them or use a 2 inch circle punch without leaving a white border.

The toppers are perfect for making cakes look pretty quickly.  They are really simple to make – just cut two circles and glue them together with a cocktail stick in the middle!  These circles could also be made into gift tags or used in scrapbooking and cardmaking.

I used a 2 inch scalloped circle punch for the topper in the photograph on strawberry flavoured cupcakes.  If you would like to try baking some yourself here’s the recipe…

6oz soft butter
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
6oz self-raising flour
pink food colouring
1tsp strawberry flavouring
makes 11 cupcakes

Cream the butter and sugar.  Beat in the eggs then stir in the flour.  Add the strawberry flavouring and enough pink food colouring to make the colour you like.

Spoon into 11 cupcake cases and bake at 180°C for 20 minutes – until golden and when a skewer is inserted it comes out clean.

I decorated the cakes by piping buttercream with a star nozzle.  To make the icing cream 3oz soft butter with 6oz icing sugar and add pink food colouring.

 

The printable cupcake toppers are available to buy from my Etsy shop and Folksy shop.

Cupcakes and Roses part 3

For day 3 of my Cupcakes and Roses launch I have 2 new printable products...


Each of these cute printable gift boxes measures 2.5 x 3.5 x 2 inches when made up.  They're really easy to make and are great for giving small gifts in a unique way!  You can customise the boxes you make too - I finished the one in the photo with some stranded cotton thread and a little paper flower.










See a tutorial on how to make the gift boxes here: http://hazelfishercreations.blogspot.com/2011/08/printable-gift-box-tutorial.html

You can purchase a set of 2 of these printable gift boxes from my Etsy shop or my Folksy shop.

These pretty labels are also new today...

The set comes as 2 printable sheets, each with 8 designs featuring roses and cupcakes.  Each label measures 2.4 x 3.5 inches.  One sheet has 'To...' and 'From...' text added and the other sheet is without text.  They can be used as gift tags, journaling spots in scrapbooking, cardmaking and more!
These labels are also available to buy from my Etsy shop and Folksy shop.

Cupcakes and Roses part 2

Day 2 of my Cupcakes and Roses release is for this set of printable scrapbooking papers...

It includes some of the designs from the cardmaking kit and some new ones too...

I have designed a mixture of detailed rose and cupcake patterns along with simple spotty ones - they would be great for cards, scrapbooks, collage and more!

The set is available to buy from my craft supplies shop here.  You will receive 8 digital files; each sheet comes as a high resolution 300dpi file and measures 12 x 12 inches.

There's still more to come - the next products will be released tomorrow! :)

Another nice surprise!

Treasuries on Etsy seem to be like buses at the moment - you wait for ages for one to come along and three come at once! Today I found out that my 'Teatime Cupcakes' greetings card is featured in a treasury with lots of other great cake related items. You can see the treasury, which was put together by Etsy member Marmalady, here.

The 'Teatime Cupcakes' card was made with a print of my photograph of some cakes I decorated myself. I also used coloured papers, scrapbooking paper, ribbon and beads to decorate the card. There is a space left at the bottom of the card for a personalised message to be added. You can see this card and others in my Etsy shop.