Cupcake Wars - Tangled Cupcake Tower

So yesterday I shared with you the cupcakes that my Mum and I made in our 'war' last week. Today I am going to show you how I made the Tangled Tower Cupcake Stand, in case anyone fancies having a go themselves! I didn't take too many photos as I was making it but hopefully the ones I did take will allow you to follow how to make it! If you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Materials

Pringles tube (empty of course!)

Cylindrical tub

(I used an 'Oat so Simple' tub)

Wooden Skewers

Two cardboard circles 

(I used two tiers from a store bought cupcake stand)

Grey Paint

Green Tissue Paper

A4 sheet of Grey Card

1. Draw round the pringles tube in the centre of the cardboard circles, cut the circle out of the middle. You should now have a cardboard ring. Make sure it fits over the top of the tube. 

2. With a pen, mark around the tube where you would like the shelves to sit. My bottom tier was 4 cm from the base. Using a nail and a hammer, make 4 holes on each line (try to match them up so you have too pairs that are in line - think like you are marking 12, 3, 6 and 9 on a clock). 

I placed the nail in place and gently hammered it to create the hole.

3. Poke the skewers through the holes so you have 4 supports at each level. I poked one skewer in whole and had to cut the other in half poking one half through each hole - this will depend on your holes so play around until you get it to work. 

5. Now your structure is complete, it is time to decorate.

 Cover the tiers in green tissue papers strips, making sure to cover the whole surface. Paint the pringles tube and the cylinder container with grey paint. Mine took 3 coats. Using a darker grey, paint brick lines all the way up the tower, including a window in the top cylinder.

6. Insert the bottom skewers and add the bottom shelf. I sellotaped the skewers to the bottom of the shelf for extra support. Repeat with the second shelf.

7. Next assemble the tower. I used a glue gun to attach the top of the tower to the pringles tube. Cut a circle out of the grey card and cut a slit to the centre. Curve it round to form a cone and sellotape. Affix to the top of the tower.

8. Add your cupcakes!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Love Rebecca

Cupcake Wars - Home Edition

Have you ever seen 'Cupcake Wars' - it is on food network at 6am here in England and my Mum and I watch it every morning over breakfast (on the plus 1 channel - we are not up at 6am!). If you have never seen it, the basic idea is that there are four participants and three rounds. Each episode has a different event that the participants are baking cupcakes for. The first round is 'taste' where the participants are given certain ingredients to include in a cupcake, the second is taste and presentation (three cupcakes this time) and in the final round the contestants (now just two of them) must bake 1000 cupcakes complete with a display worthy of the event.

So my Mum and I decided that it would be fun to have our own, adapted, Cupcake War.

Our rules...15-20 cupcakes each, two different varieties and a stand to hold them all. We set ourselves the theme of Disney and set forth for a day of baking, laughs and yummy cupcakes! Here is the result of our baking day...

We started off with a shopping trip to get all the ingredients - I swear our table nearly buckled under the weight of all our lovely cupcake ingredients!

Then we set about baking! I really enjoyed it, our kitchen is nice and big and my Mum and I often cook in there together so we are used to each other and don't get in each others way :)

 In the spirit of the TV show, both of us will walk you through our cupcakes and displays so I am happy to welcome my lovely Mum and excellent cook Diane...

I chose the oldest and one of my all time favourite films - Snow White.
 My first cake was the apple cake. It was my plain cupcake recipe with a surprise (but not poisonous)  bramley apple filling. I decorated it with red glitter sugar.

My second cup cake was my Happy cup cake which just had to be chocolate. I used the recipe from Georgetown Cupcakes. The decoration was a bit scary but was supposed to depict a Happy face!!

I chose a green cupcake stand to represent the woodland grass and added yellow flowers to complete the look!

(Back to me) 

For my cakes, I chose Tangled, one of the most recent Disney movies - it is definitely one of my favourite Disney films - I love the songs and the characters!

For my first cupcake, I took inspiration from Pascal the chameleon who befriends Rapunzel. I made a Key Lime cupcake frosted with lime buttercream icing and topped with an icing chameleon face. The recipe I used is from Sprinkles Cupcakes. 

For my second cupcake, I decided to take another attempt at the funfetti cupcake from Sally's Baking Addiction, and although I still couldn't get sprinkles that worked, it still tasted yummy! This is my 'See the Light' cupcake, and is topped with buttercream icing, star sprinkles and an icing plait.

For my display, I decided to depict Rapunzel's tower. For a tutorial on how to make your very own Tangled Tower Cupcake Stand, check out this post.

The fruity flavours (apple and lime) were the most popular but from what I heard they all went down well at my Dad's work where we sent them the next day!

How do you think we did?

Which flavour tickles your fancy?

Love Rebecca

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter!

I hope you are all having a truly lovely day! I have actually done some sewing today as well as some uni work so I am feeling happy! Happy enough to eat some of this carrot cake I made yesterday!

I was feeling creative, and Easter-y and this combination led to my...

'Down the Rabbit Hole Easter Cake'

And to cap the day off....the sun is shining! Actually cut out my fabric in the conservatory today! 

Hopefully it will stick around for a while, I am fed up of coats and jumpers!

Love Rebecca

Bread Board Gift Set

We are all big Jamie Oliver fans in my kitchen and we love Jamie's Italian restaurants -
I am so happy that there is one in York and one in Cheltenham! We love getting bread as a starter and dipping it in balsamic vinegar and olive oil.

Have you ever visited? Well there is a shop as well that sells these wooden antipasti boards. They come in varying sizes from extra small to extra large (and by that they mean MASSIVE!)

Well, for Mother's Day this year I decided to treat my Mum to one of those boards (the small one!) and a cute little dipping bowl. But this is me we are talking about and I wanted to add a little homemade element. So.. I baked a Pain D'Epi  (wheat stalk bread) from Lorraine Pascale's cookbook.

It looks quite effective although I am sure that I didn't do the shaping quite right!

I packaged the bread up on the board and gave it to my Mum with a bottle of Balsamic Vinegar!

This would also make a good Teacher Gift, Neighbour present or housewarming present.

Have a great day!

Love Rebecca

Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Crumble Bars

I have been having cravings lately. Cravings for peanut butter and jam. The classic combination that is just comfort food all over! So when my Mum told me she had baked these peanut butter oatmeal bars from Sally's Baking Addiction, I decided that I wanted to get creative, I used that recipe as a base and developed by own Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Crumble Bars - made with real strawberries!

So I played around topping ideas and decided to top the oatmeal bars with a layer of fresh strawberries and jam, topped with a crumble topping

My housemates - both not peanut butter fans - raved about these so I think it is safe to say they were a hit. And the certainly satisfied my PB and J cravings!

Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jam Crumble Bars

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bar Base

adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Cup Peanut Butter

2tsp Vanilla Extract

1 Cup Plain Flour

1 Cup Oats

1 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Cup Milk

1 Cup Sultanas 

Topping

250g Fresh Strawberries, chopped

100g Strawberry Jam

Crumble

40g Butter

40g Brown Sugar

90g Flour

1. Line a 7x11" baking tray with baking parchment, preheat the oven to 170C

2. Mix the peanut butter and brown sugar with an electric hand whisk for about three minutes until light coloured and fluffy

3. Add vanilla, mix. Add flour, oats, baking soda and mix together. Slowly add the milk until the mixture forms a dough. Fold in sultanas.

4. Press the peanut butter bar mixture into the lined dish making sure to get it into all the corners.

5. In a bowl, mix the strawberries and jam and spread on top of the base, covering it all

6. Rub together the crumble ingredients until you have a powdery crumble mixture, cover the strawberries with crumble

7. Bake for 30-35 minutes until the crumble is browned. Leave to cool completely before cutting into pieces.

 Makes about 14

Peanut Butter ...Love or hate?

Love Rebecca

DIY Cupcake Kit

Its finally starting to feel like spring round here, the sun has shown itself several times and hopefully, we have seen the last of the snow for this season!

A couple of days ago, I shared with you the cupcakes I made for my friend Tori's birthday and today I thought I would share the present I put together for her...

Knowing Tori's love of baking, cuteness and pink, I decided to put together a little kit that would be perfect for adding some fun to her next batch of cupcakes!

First I found a really cute tin... I recommend a square tin if you want to fit your sprinkles etc. in - circle tins leave a lot of unusable space (thanks Mum for pointing this out!)

Next, line your tin with tissue paper and fill with cupcake making goodies

Here is a breakdown of the fun things I included in Tori's Kit...

Assorted Sprinkles, glitter, curls and pearls

Chocolate hearts

Cute cupcake cases (featuring strawberries and hearts)

Cupcake napkins

Heart Shaped Measuring Spoons (from Paperchase)

I also included this adorable badge from Kath Cooper - she has to be one of my favourite local artists and also sells these badges (and variations for sewing and knitting) online!

Once you have gathered all of your supplies, fold the tissue paper over and place the lid on top.

And that's it! I really enjoyed looking out for cutest cupcake cases I could find, and going to Morrisons just to buy sprinkles! And...I have already been lucky enough to try some of Tori's latest cupcakes...so cute and very delicious!

If you missed the cupcake I made Tori, check out these...

Hope you are having a good week!

Love Rebecca