Flossie Crums' Honey Cupcakes

One of the joys of baking with small children is their enthusiasm.  My little girl loves 'helping' me bake and she particularly enjoys planning in advance.  At the moment we are planning a half term 'flower fairy play date', and of course, the event that completely eclipses  the Jubilee celebrations,  her birthday party at the end of June.

I do have a selection of child friendly cookery books which we are beginning to explore, and hopefully over the next few years she'll expand her repertoire from cake baking to a range of exciting sweet and savoury dishes.

At the moment two of our favourite books are by Helen Nathan with illustrations by Catherine Black:

The Fairies Cupcake Ball and The Enchanted Cookie Tree.

They feature stories with Flossie having  adventures with  garden fairies and the books include recipes that my daughter certainly enjoys trying.

I first made these cakes when she had a mini-beast themed party fourth birthday party (nearly two years ago, Before Blogging!)  She decided, in preparation for the 'flower fairy play date' to bake them again.  The recipe in the book was clear and easy to follow, and in my daughter's opinion the fact that the cakes were to be  decorated with honeycomb (broken up Crunchie bars to you and me) was, not to put too fine a point on it, The Icing On The Cake!!

To remove temptation,  she took this batch into school to share with all her friends, (I can't have the whole class for a play date!)

As I wanted you to have a chance to bake these delicious cakes, I googled Flossie Crums and discovered a website.  I've put a direct link to this recipe, which was only published a few weeks ago on 'Flossie's blog',  here, so do click through and see what you think!

We used some primrose edible glitter to make the cakes
really flower like, (the cake cases helped!)

Checking the recipe in the book

As these cake cases were deep I used muffin tins for them

This icing should carry a dental health warning!

Crunching up Crunchies is great fun!

Lots of beautiful flowers for the bees to settle on

The glitter and the crunchies just look perfect together

So Pretty

We baked them with the elderflower cupcakes
which I felt are a more adult taste,
so they went into school for the teachers!

A Castle - Fit for the Queen, our Jubilee Bake

Well, I've done it, I have succumbed to  Jubilee Baking Fever!

I am making 100 cupcakes for my daughter's school Jubilee Picnic next Friday, and I had  thought to myself, 'That will be enough.'  But of course, looking at other blogs as I do, I have seem so much wonderful baking,  I just felt I had to join in.

Recently I  saw a wonderful Vanilla Bundt Cake here, at Fuss Free Flavours, and felt inspired to  start using my Bundt tins a little more often.  I went to the garage, (where the tins are stored) and saw the castle tin.  Perfect for a Jubilee bake!

I usually use Nigella's recipes for my Bundt cakes, but decided this time to use a classic Victoria Sponge, which I think is the same as a Pound Cake in America.

Classic Victoria Sponge

10 oz butter
10 oz sugar
10 oz self raising flour
  5 eggs (beaten)
Flavouring (I used 1 tsp Vanilla and 1 tsp Rose Water)

The five cake mixture is perfect for this size Bundt tin, (I had had to trim cake away from the base last time I used this tin as I had made a 6 egg mixture and it was too much!)

I creamed the butter and sugar, then gradually added the beaten egg and the flavours, lastly I sieved and folded the flour into the batter.

I greased the tin and made sure all the nooks and crannies had some Cake Release on them (in them?), as the impact of the castle would have been ruined had I left half  the cake behind in the tin!

I put the batter in the tin and baked in the oven for about 30/40 minutes at 180.

[When the cake is removed from the oven give the tin a good bang on the work surface, this releases it from the side, do not turn it up straight away but let it rest in the tin for about 10 - 15 minutes.

Then, keeping your fingers crossed, turn the tin up on a cooling rack, and all being well the cake will appear in one piece. Phew!]

Bundt cakes do not really require much in the way of icing, but my little girl wanted to use some red, white and blue.   We made some buttercream, added some red and blue food colouring  and used it to add  accents to the cake.  We  gave it a royal touch with gold leaf on the top of the gate and for a handle!

We decorated the turrets with fluttering flags  and positioned two guards at the gate, to keep out the Riff-Raff!

Some friends came round for Sunday lunch and the cake made a  delicious pudding  with some Summer Fruits and a scoop of homemade Vanilla Ice-cream.

I am going to link this to  Homemade by Fleur's, Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition,  you can find the details here.  The competition  is being sponsored by Appliances Online (here) with a super prize, so why not enter yourself, I'm sure you'll be doing some Jubilee Baking too!

Changing Guard at Buckingham Palace!

Planning stages, I wasn't too sure what we might use

Eggs with crowns, Of Course!

I use this on Bundt tins, as it does what it says on the bottle

A pastry brush helps to reach all the nooks and crannies

Add the mixture to the tin

Check it is baked through
don't forget to bang it on the counter top

Once it had cooled in the pan
turn it up onto a cooling rack

Keep your fingers crossed

Perfect

(I use the pastry brush to help clean the pan too)

I keep my colours, glitters and gold leaf in an old work box

My daughter selected red, blue, some silver glitter and gold!

Mixing the colours

Perfect

We just used a little icing, some gold leaf on the roof of the
gate and sprinkled the castle with edible silver glitter

The guards came from the cupcake set

I think he looks rather splendid

We couldn't resist the red, white and blue m&ms
So popped them along the front

I hope it's not too garish, for such a regal occasion!

And it made a perfect pudding

Lovely with fruit and ice-cream

Brownies - with Chocolate Cream Cheese!

When I saw Fiona at London Unattached's post for Cream Cheese Brownies (which you can read, here,)  I thought they looked and sounded so delicious that  I just had to bake them... but with one slight change.

Rather then using pure cream cheese, I decided to bake them with chocolate cream cheese!  Yes, I kept the cheese, while upping the chocolate content!

Although my brownies were  less visually stunning then Fiona's beautiful cakes, they were still completely and utterly scrumptious.

They disappeared very quickly.

I used the same  recipe that  Fiona had used,  a  David Lebovitz recipe which  you can find here, but  I substituted  a tub of chocolate cream cheese.  It  did need topping up with conventional cream cheese, to complete the cream cheese layer of the brownies.

It's a wonderful recipe and I do hope you'll follow the links both to Fiona's super blog and David Lebovitz's recipe.

Of course I needed two with my coffee!

Lots of very (un)healthy ingredients

Mixing the scrumptious chocolate cream cheese layer

It's really tempting just to eat it now!

Swirling the cream cheese into the brownie mixture

Out of the oven

It smells gorgeous

Cut it up quickly

Make some coffee while it cools

Yum! 

Yum!

YUM!

I wrote this post a week or so ago.  Before I had time  to publish it, my son requested a batch of  Brownies.  He had looked through the wonderful suggestions on my Anzac post for other baked goods I could make and  send him, and thought brownies sounded great.

He loves a crunch in his brownies, so I added some pecan nuts and slightly reduced the quantity of chocolate chips.  As the Jubilee is fast approaching and he will  be in Afghanistan I added a little Jubilee decoration to the brownies.  I hope it makes him laugh!

I baked the brownies yesterday morning and sent them off in the afternoon with some other goodies, including shortbread from Fortnum and Mason, and some Heston Nuts from Waitrose.

He'll let me know how they survived the journey.

And a huge thank you for all the suggestions, both of us thought they were super. I have a few baking projects ahead of me over the next few weeks!

Flags and crowns for the Jubilee

(Adding Pecan nuts, I'm sure they will be a superb extra)