My Dad was born on the First of September, 1965, and every year since I was about 10, I’ve made him a cake. And it never rains on the first day of Spring, because it’s his birthday (or so he’s been telling me for almost 21 years).

This year was no different. 

Today I just mad basic vanilla cupcakes, because we were out of cocoa powder.

Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 200g butter, softened
• 1 3/4 cups (370g) caster sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 4 eggs
• 2 3/4 cups (405g) self-raising flour
• 1 cup (250ml) milk

• Frosting
  200g butter, softened
  6 cups (900g) icing sugar mixture
  1/2 cup (125ml) milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 180°C. Line 24 1/3 cup (80ml) muffin pans with patty cases.

Cream the butter, sugar and vanilla bean paste with an electric mixer. Add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until just combined. Add the flour and milk in alternate batches and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.

Spoon mixture evenly among the patty cases. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the frosting, use an electric mixer to beat the butter until very pale. Gradually add the icing sugar while beating. Add the milk and beat until well combined.

Divide frosting into small bowls and colour. Use a small palette knife or round-bladed knife to spread the icing.

We’ll probably end up decorating them with other things too, because my Mum bought a whole heap of Freddos and Cachous.

________________

Happy Birthday Dad! 

Well didn’t we have fun…

We made standard vanilla, and banana cupcakes with vanilla, and banana icing, and nutella.

It’s that time of the month when it’s too cold to do anything but sit inside and watch movies and bake. So that’s exactly what my friends and I are doing today.

First we made fairy bread for lunch:

And then we sorted out all our bits and bobs for decorating:

The first batch came out of the oven looking kind of perfect, so now we’re waiting for those to cool while the rest bake away. Then it’s time for decorating.

Expect maybe 2 or 3 parts :)

I used to bake a lot when I was younger. My granny would always have boxes of cake mix in her cupboard and whenever I was there I’d be serving tea and cake all day to the people who wondered in and out of the house.

A couple of years ago I was invited to an 18th birthday party for one of my close friends, and I decided to make him a cake.

My friend Kelly and I ended up baking this:

I think this is the cake that really started my obsession with baking.

Ever since, I just haven’t stopped.

Kelly was a great decorator, too. I would be the one to make the cakes taste good, and she was responsible for making them look awesome.

We made these for Halloween 09, which we took to a Halloween party.

I’ve always been keen to bake for my friends. It’s not unusual for us to organise cupcake parties and just spend the entire day baking away. It’s fun to be able to sit around a table full of cupcakes and waste the afternoon decorating them.

In fact, I’ll be hosting a cupcake party in two weeks, so expect a lot of pictures.

I just thought I’d share some of my past cakes. I haven’t seen Kelly for a while so I’ve lost my artist - but sometimes it’s not about how they look, especially if you’ve got friends around. 

Cupcakes are what I do best.

I’m not very good at decorating them, but I’ve baked enough of them in my lifetime to be able to make them taste wonderful.

I don’t really have a secret, it just takes a lot of practice, and a lot of time to become confident in your own abilities.

Today I was bored so I decided to use the bag of cake mix I had sitting in my bake box.

I often use cake mix instead of cupcake mix (if you’re buying boxed mix, that is) because it usually makes more, and you can get a wider variety of flavours.

I find that if I want basic butter/vanilla cupcakes, using the home brand bag 70c cake mix (I get mine from Coles) is just as good as using the $4+ brands - the only thing is you have to make your own icing, but that’s easy.

The trick to your cupcakes (or cakes in general) not being dry is to not follow the directions on the back of the box.

They give you the approximate time it takes for the cake to be fully and completely cooked, but if you have the time, keep a close eye on the cake(s) while they’re in the oven, and judge for yourself when it’s ready.

You’ll know the cake is ready when a) you can put a skewer all the way through and have it come out clean, and b) when, if you press the top of the cake lightly, it bounces back.

Use the time directions on the back of the box as a guide to let you know how long it should take, but check it about 5-10 minutes beforehand, just to make sure.

It takes some practice, and a lot of cake-baking to really be comfortable with not following the instructions word for word, but if you’re a serious cake baker, you’ll pick it up in no time.

When it comes to simple, homemade icing, all you need is icing sugar and butter.

Mixing a cup of icing sugar with a couple of tablespoons of butter will give you a thick, spreadable icing (you can substitue the butter for a couple of teaspoons of milk to have a glaze icing that will dry hard) - if you want to add colour to either of these, make the mixture a little bit dry, to counter the liquid from the dye.

I had a little issue with the making of my purple icing - I didn’t have any purple dye left so I had to make it using blue and red, but it turned out a little too light for my liking. I thought the shade of blue I made was stunning though.

Here they are (like I said, I am no master decorator)

Okay, maybe they weren’t that bad, but I certainly wouldn’t make them again without first tweaking the recipe a little.

The recipe (click here) was from taste.com and usually I don’t have any issues with their recipes but this one was a bit of a disaster.

I found it strange that the recipe didn’t ask for anything to help the dough rise (self-raising flour, baking soda, etc.) but seeing as I didn’t have any of that stuff in the first place, I thought it would be okay.

It wasn’t.

First of all the dough turned out to be more like thick pancake batter, rather than dough, and when the cookies came out of the oven they were flat and, and stuck to the baking parchment.

Taste wise, they were beyond average. The only real taste coming from the chocolate chips - the dough itself was floury and tasteless. 

1/5 for this recipe.

I’ll post some more edible recipes soon.