Baking in purple and gold

MISSION: vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, gluten/dairy free cupcakes. Buttercream frosting and marshmallow frosting. 84 in total.

Holy moley. That's all I'm going to say about these cupcakes. I'm not going to lie - I had a mini breakdown towards the end AND I had to enlist a bit of help from my husband, but I got there in the end.

Tuesday night I made a LOT of buttercream. Half mint, half strawberry. And just for fun, I coloured the strawberry purple. My sister had said that she wanted everything purple and gold!!! Note: boring old food colour did NOT cut it in the colour stakes. It looked foul. Lucky for me, I had some Wilton purple in my decorating bag of tricks, so I used that - you'll see how awesome it came out later...

Yay artificial colour!!

I was going to keep the mint white, but it stubbornly remained yellow (even after a lot of whipping), so I gave up and made it a pale green. Personally, I find it hard to 'taste' the minty-ness of the buttercream unless it's green...you really do eat with your eyes!

I popped it in the fridge to save for Friday (when I had planned to decorate).

So, come Thursday night I started baking. And what a LOT of baking it was!

A late addition to this story would be the fact that at the last minute, I was asked to bake gluten free AND dairy free cupcakes as well as everything else. So, I bought a packet mix earlier in the week. These would be the cupcakes that I would start with. So, off I went! Luckily, the mix was super easy and while the cupcakes were baking, I was able to get started on the vanilla cupcakes.

I had a moment of brilliance/stupidity and decided that I was going to colour the batter purple. Yay purple! Did I mention that I made 4 packs of cake mix at once?

MEGA BATTER!

I must show you the patty pans, because they are awesome. And, to make it even better, I got them at 25% off from Spotlight. Woo!

Flash forward and I finish baking all the vanilla cupcakes. There were a crapload! But they looked so sweet...all purple and golden brown :)

So, now it's on to the chocolate mud cakes, right? I had planned on using two packet mixes and each packet required three eggs. So, I go to the fridge and this is what I saw:

Bup bow!

Yes, that's five eggs. And by now, I'm sure you've done the maths and have worked out that I'm an egg short. I've talked about having a plan B, so this is where the internet comes in handy. 

I've heard and read about egg-less cooking, but haven't tried it. I've seen a lot of pinterest tips fail, though, so I'm quite a skeptic. Anyway, it's about 9.30pm at this point in time, so I'm willing to give anything a try. I consulted about 3 websites and they all suggested banana as a substitute for egg. Luckily, I have pureed banana (thanks, Destructor!), so I pop in a quarter of a cup to make up for the lack of egg, say a few Hail Marys and give it a good whizz.

Baby food - not just for babies anymore!

The cupcakes come out of the oven looking just like they normally do, so I'm feeling a little less worried about the whole banana-instead-of-egg experiment. I would totally eat one at this point, but I need all of them. Looks like the general public will once again be my guinea pigs!

Meanwhile, all my vanilla cupcakes are cool, so I have a really crazy idea - since I'm up and on a roll, why not frost all the strawberry ones?

So, my bowl of buttercream comes out of the fridge and goes into the microwave. I take it out, give it a stir and watch it split. As Ren would say, "You eeeeeeeediot, Stimpy!" Plan B (which I've had to carry out a few times) is to pop it into the fridge. A little while later, it comes out of the fridge all cooled down and I give it a quick whizz - BAM! It's back to normal. Phew! 

So, off I go, frosting like a crazy lady. The heart sprinkles go on next, accompanied by little bit of gold glitter. They are perfect! Hooray! I send a pic to my sister and she too is happy.

Next, I hurry up my chocolate cupcakes (by chucking them in the fridge to cool) and very carefully (because I've learned my lesson!) microwave the mint buttercream. 

10 minutes later, they're done. I did a rose on the top and added gold sprinkles. Yum!

I'm wrecked at this point, so decide that I'll to go bed (after doing the dishes of course!) I also realise that I'm going to have to hit the shops the following morning as I am going to need some eggs for the marshmallow frosting. But that's okay - I'll get to the shops early (while my husband is home to feed Destructor breakfast) and then I'll be ready to frost at 10.30am (during nap time).

So, Friday dawns. I race to the shops and buy 15 eggs and get back in time for my husband to go to work. Destructor and I go to the park, have a play (read: sit on the swing for half an hour) and then it's nap time.

First thing I do is inject 20 or so cupcakes with lemon curd (from a jar at the supermarket). I bought this nifty little doo-dad for $2 on Wednesday - I'm hoping it'll save me even more time. The alternative method is cutting a bit out of each cupcake, spooning in lemon curd, putting the top back on. It takes AGES.

Time saver!

So, I fill up the syringe with lemon curd and off I go. I can't see exactly what's happening with each cupcake, but I assume I'm putting in enough. The syringe is soon empty, so I go to refill. However, what I don't count on is that the plunger in the syringe allows lemon curd so sneak back into the main chamber, so when I pull it out, lemon curd (about 3 tablespoons of the stuff) comes out with it. Mess made, lesson learned. However, I am filling these cupcakes a LOT quicker. Since I don't have x-ray vision, I plan on asking for feedback when people eat them to gauge whether or not there's enough curd.

Cupcakes filled, I start the marshmallow frosting. I'm going to use it on the gluten/dairy free cupcakes as well, so I need to make more than initially anticipated. But that's okay. 

Frosting finished, I go to put it in the piping bag. It's not like it usually is, so I'm a little suspicious. I pipe it out and it looks HORRIBLE. And I'm not just saying that, it looked like white poop. Being the perfectionist that I am, I simply can't let it go. So, I scrape it off and start again.

Round two also looks like a mess. I'm starting to get stressed at this point, as I know my time is very limited. So, off I go to make round three. Guess what? It's also crap. My husband comes home from work at this point in time, only to see his wife both crazy with rage and on the verge of tears. At this point, I've started ranting. I've also thrown the piping bag onto the ground, meringue flying in all directions. Did I mention that I'm also out of eggs?!?! I can't substitute banana this time! I also have no idea what I'm doing wrong, which is what is the most frustrating part of all this. I've made it before, so I know I can do it! Argh!

It is at this point that my husband reminds me why I married him by racing down the street to buy me another dozen eggs. What a gem! Meanwhile, I clean up the mess from my tantrum and hop online to see what I'm doing wrong. From what I can gather, I'm over beating the eggs. Der!

My new eggs arrive and I start separating. Of course, I manage to get the tiniest bit of yolk into my whites, don't I? But I'm determined now, so, I grab a spoon and fish it out (swallowing my tears at the same time). Once my hot whites hit the mixmaster, I grab a teaspoon of Cream of Tartar and add it to the mix (I read online that this can save your meringue from certain doom). And do you know what? It works! I do a mini dance around the kitchen and start frosting. Much to my relief, it's perfect. Smooth, shiny and delicious. 

I decorate the vanilla/lemon curd cupcakes with a LOT of glitter and a love heart on the top. The gluten/dairy free ones get cocoa lightly sprinkled on top (well, that was the plan, except I mucked it up and they ended up COATED in cocoa) and a bit of glitter for good measure.

I stand back, and have to say, I'm pretty pleased.

Chocolate mint

Vanilla strawberry

vanilla, lemon, marshmallow

So, there you have it. One massive order of cupcakes, one minor meltdown and one hell of a ride!

Post script: The chocolate cupcakes tasted fine. No banana flavour at all. The texture was also spot on. Would do the banana thing again if in the same situation.

There was just the right amount of lemon injected into the cupcakes, so my syringe was a success. 

Planning for my sister's engagement party

So, I've taken on a rather huge task - making 75 cupcakes for my sister's engagement party this weekend. Not that I don't want to do it - I love baking! She asked me a month ago, so I've had time to think about it and plan it out.

Any mammoth baking job requires careful planning and preparation - especially when Destructor is only getting cheekier by the day! So, this post is going to focus on all the prep needed for when you want to do a big-arse batch of cupcakes.

Firstly, you need to work out exactly what you're making. How many, the flavours (cake and frosting) and decoration. For my sister's cakes, she wants a purple and gold theme, so I sat down and did some sketches and plans:

I started off with the cake flavours and frostings

Then, I worked out how many batches of each that I'd need to bake (based on how many cupcakes a packet of cake mix would make):

After that, it was the quantities of frosting:

And finally, how I'm going to decorate them:

Be kind - I'm really not great at drawing...

You'll see that I've gone into detail with each cupcake, right down to the glitter! I managed to get purple and gold patty pans on sale, so I'll be using those :)

Next, I worked out a timeline - when would I get stuff done and in what order. My list looked like this:
1. Decorations
2. Ingredients
3. Make buttercream
4. Bake cakes
5. Make marshmallow frosting/decorate

I went with getting the decorations first as I needed something very specific (edible purple hearts) and knew that I'd need to buy them online if I couldn't get them in-store. And of course, ordering anything takes time, as does the delivery. So, I didn't want to leave that til the last minute!

Luckily, the cake decorating shop that I go to (CW Cakes in Malvern) had a little pack of coloured hearts that included purple, so I was off the hook. They also had gold sprinkles (although technically they're gold mini sugar balls) and gold glitter (the non holographic kind).

Yay! No running around for me!!

It's really important to have your ingredients nice and early as well -it means that if you happen to find yourself with a spare hour, you can get stuff started....like the buttercream!

Tonight, I'll be tackling buttercream. It keeps beautifully in the fridge for aaaaages. Love it! This way, all I need to do is pop it out on the bench on the morning I'll be decorating, and it's ready to go by Destructor's nap time.

Baking can't really be done until a couple of days beforehand, as you don't want to be decorating stale cakes. For me, this means I'll be baking on Thursday night, in preparation for decorating on Friday. Once the cakes are decorated, they'll be fine for a couple of days (though in this case I'll be serving them Saturday night). The buttercream keeps the cake nice and moist, provided you cover the whole top of the cupcake in buttercream.

The marshmallow frosting is also something that I'll be doing last. While it still tastes great after being refrigerated, it doesn't pipe so well. It comes out all gross without a lovely shine, which is fine if you're serving people who don't eat with their eyes (or your family/friends who love you enough to overlook it)!

While doing all this planning, I made sure I looked at my calendar. Some days I have enough time to make buttercream/bake during the day, but others, I just don't. And even then, some nights I know I'll be buggered, so doing anything then will be out of the question.

It's so important to look at the week before your cakes are 'due'. If you can't 'borrow' enough time during the days/nights, you may have to cheat even further (like using pre-made frosting from the supermarket) or simply admit defeat (and buy a cake).

Personally, I can get about 4 batches of cupcakes baked in an hour and a half. Decorating that many cakes (provided I've made the frosting) would only take about half an hour....an hour if I wanted to really take my time. So, it's totally possible to do over three days, or one day and two evenings.

Wish me luck! I'll keep you posted with how everything goes...

Who doesn't love licking the beaters?

Banana cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Banana....one of everybody's favourites!

So, every Sunday night we have a family dinner at my parents' place. When I say 'we', I mean my husband and myself, Destructor, my younger sister and her fiance, and my mum and dad. It's something I look forward to as it's a really lovely way to end the week. We all have a good ol' chat, inevitably end up eating way too much (my mum is Italian and couldn't bear the thought of us going hungry, so we get overfed instead) and then roll home and into bed.

This week, I decided I was going to make cupcakes for dessert. And I decided I'd go with banana as it's my dad's favourite flavour. Rather than doing a buttercream, I thought I'd do cream cheese icing. It's pretty easy and very, very delicious. I'd say it's my favourite kind of topping after the marshmallow frosting. Om nom nom.

So, Destructor hits the hay and I'm off baking. Before I pop the cake mix in the bowl I grab two ripe bananas (about as ripe as the bananas above) and mash them. THEN I pop in everything else and give it a good stir.

Into the patty pans they go. A little fuller than usual, but I'm not worried. There's a little extra because of the bananas.

2/3rds full, as usual!

And, because these are banana flavoured, I'm using bright yellow patty pans. How fun!

These are so sweet! Unfortunately, Destructor got to the leftover patty pans and ate/smooshed them. Oh well! 

So, into the oven, and I rotate them after 7 minutes. I had the timer on for 12, but realistically, they got 16.

Meanwhile, I'm all over the cream cheese icing. I've made it a few times before, so I'm feeling pretty confident. That turns out to be my big downfall. Instead of measuring my ingredients, I just chuck in the cream cheese (two blocks) a bit of butter (no measuring, but probably 30g or so) and start whipping in the mix master. Then I start pouring in the icing mixture. It's about this point that I realise that things are NOT going to go to plan. So, I need to up the stakes. In goes some vanilla and some mixed spice. If the texture isn't going to be perfect, it needs to taste good at the very least.

5 minutes later and it's horrible. Thick and goopy. Not holding any semblance of a shape. And in terms of taste, it's only okay. There's this weird floury after taste and my teeth feel gritty. I hang my head and go check a recipe. To my smallest relief I was supposed to use icing mixture (as opposed to pure icing sugar), but that still doesn't stop the little voice in my head saying 'it still tastes a little like cornflour...'

Okay, so I need a plan b. You always need a plan b. In my Religion classes (because in my non-baking life I teach Religious Education in a Catholic school...don't worry, I'm not about to get preachy!), I tell the kids that plan b in the bible always seems to be murder. King David can't get Uriah to sleep with Bathsheba to cover up his adultery? Has him killed. Solomon can't get two women to stop arguing over a baby? Kill the baby. Sodom and Gomorrah full of sin and won't listen to angels? Kill them all! So you see my point. You need a plan b. However, when it comes to baking, you can't really kill anybody unless they're the one that ruined your recipe. And since I'm the idiot who screwed it up, I'm not about to kill myself. The price of our family honour isn't that high. So plan b is sticking it in the fridge. The whole, huge, hideous bowl of it.

I only have myself to blame for this....

So, about 10 tense minutes later I grab it out. It's thickened up, but not enough to be piped with. Damn. So I put in more (yes, you read that correctly...more) icing mixture and shove it back in the fridge.

More time goes past and out it comes. It's actually workable now. And the taste has somewhat developed...more mixed spice, less cornflour. If nothing else can be said for this frosting, it's that it's silky smooth. So I decide to go ahead with it.

I bought a new piping tip this week (a Wilton 1M) so I'm going to give it a crack. Apparently, the icing comes out like soft serve! Sounds like a bit of fun to me!

The icing does come out like soft serve, however, the texture isn't great. It's okay. But, they look cute. I top them with a little candy banana, some silver sanding sugar and voila!

So cute that a family of monkeys turned up shortly after this photo was taken...

Something else I was aching to try out were the cupcake boxes that I bought a couple of months ago. Lucky for me, a friend of mine was popping in later in the day and I could give them the gift of cupcakes! Hooray! This is how they looked all boxed:

Nawrrrr!

So, all in all, not the most successful session. However, I did learn some stuff:
1. You can add banana to the vanilla cake mix and it will work. 2 bananas is perfect.
2. Follow the recipe for cream cheese icing or you'll regret it.

Time: Had I followed the damn icing recipe, I would have knocked this over in less than hour.

Post Script: My husband ate one in the afternoon and loved it, but didn't want another after dinner...said they were too rich. The friends who I gave the box of cupcakes to loved them. My sister ate one, which, while it doesn't sound like much, actually is, as she's on a diet (and is doing great!). I ate one and didn't hate it. Mum ate half of one and didn't say anything, which means she didn't love it, but didn't hate it either. Dad said the icing was too soft, but went for a second one, so the cake was clearly a winner.

Lesson learned - will not try to make cream cheese icing without the recipe!!

Lemonade scones - 20 minute recipe!

Today's theme ingredient

So, I also made scones for the Bachelorette Party. But not just any old scones...Lemonade scones.

Generally, I suck when it comes to pastry...I just can't seem to get it right. Probably because one of my life philosophies is 'close enough is good enough'. That's fine when it comes to most things, but not pastry, apparently!

Anyway, my wonderful mum got me on to this recipe. So easy and impossible to screw up. Plus, its super quick...my kinda recipe!

Basically, it's self raising flour, cream, sugar, salt and....lemonade! The actual recipe is here. You'd have to be, well, illiterate to screw it up.

See - five ingredients and two steps!

So, I put Destructor to sleep and off I go! I put the oven on 240C and get a-mixing! I sift the flour into a bowl, then add the salt, sugar, cream and lemonade. Mix it all together and bam! I have dough!

I take it out of the bowl and stick on a floured bench, giving it a quick knead - 30 seconds really. It's only enough to make sure it's all combined properly. I push it down til it's about 2 cms thick all over.

Then, I whip out my super nifty Tupperware cutter (two sided - big AND little!) and off I go, cutting scones like I've been baking professionally for years.

A freebie from a Tupperware party. One of my better prizes!

Onto a tray lined with baking paper and into the oven. You'll have noticed that I haven't properly pre-heated the oven OR brushed milk on the top. Well, I'm a woman on a mission with limited time, aren't I? Those things aren't essential for this recipe!

Okay, so this batch I brushed with milk, but to be honest, there was NO difference, just more mess to clean up.

12 minutes later and they're almost there, so I rotate the tray and give them another 2 minutes to brown up a little more. I find I usually have to do a rotate because my oven is crapola and bakes unevenly.

Anyway, 2 minutes later, out they come and they're gorgeous! Normally there would be a picture, but I was in such a hurry, I forgot to take one. Great work, me!

I wrapped them in a tea towel (still hot) and popped them in a little basket. Sweet!

Anyway, if you really want to make this a quick and impressive afternoon tea, pick up a can of spray cream and a jar of jam and BAM! You're in business.

One tip: use full fat cream - you need the fat as part of the food chemistry. Not sure of the specifics, but trust me on this one.

Time: 20 minutes TOTAL! I told you - best recipe ever!

Cupcakes for a Bachelorette Party

So, today I had quite a challenge - four different flavoured cupcakes!

My best friend is having her Bachelorette Party tomorrow afternoon and I said I'd make some cupcakes. I'm also matron of honour, so I felt a bit of pressure to not only provide a bit of variety, but to make them look all pretty.

But, no fear, I had the essentials!

Firstly, packet mix...

My two favourite cake mixes.

And no ordinary packet mix, Aldi packet mix. This stuff is the shizz. Cheap (79c for the vanilla, $1.79ish for the chocolate) and so, so tasty. I always get compliments - no word of a lie. And another thing, these are cake mixes, not cupcake mixes. Add the word 'cupcake' to a box and the price goes up another dollar. Screw that! These work just as well if you adjust the cooking time (which I'll explain when we get there).

Secondly, I wrote down exactly what I was going to make, what flavour and how I was going to decorate them. This way, if my brain decides to cut out in the time frenzy that is nap time, I have a guide!

Not glamorous, but hey, it works!

In case you can't read my writing, that translates to:
vanilla - lemon/marshmallow - yellow glitter
            - strawberry - love hearts
choc - marshmallow - choc dust
         - mint - choc sprinkles

1x marshmallow (this is the marshmallow frosting - I need one batch)
   
1x 1/2 mint - light green
     1/2 strawberry (this is the buttercream - I need one batch and will be halving it and flavouring accordingly)

So, normally, in the spirit of this blog, I'd be doing all this while my little boy, Destructor (not his real name!!!), is asleep. However, today, it's not just one batch of cupcakes, it's two. And, in case you didn't read the list, I'm making marshmallow frosting...from scratch. Since that requires a bit of extra time, I need to find time.

Lucky for me, this morning, Destructor is feeling quite happy and is content to play by himself (read: make a mess everywhere). So, I take advantage of this and start making my first lot of cupcakes - the vanilla. Why vanilla? Because if I have to abandon ship due to Destructor's neediness, the cake mix will be fine. The chocolate wouldn't, as it's got melted chocolate in it, and it tends to harden up as time goes on (and then is harder to deal with etc.)

So, looking at the box, I need eggs, butter and milk. Easy!

Off I go, mixing it all together, blah blah. It's very straightforward. I add a bit of red food colouring to make it pink (because us girls like pink) and it's ready for my really cute patty pans. I bought some super cute ones last weekend and have been itching to use them.

Yup, those are my slippered feet. Look at the patty pans, dammit!

So, I fill them 2/3 and pop them in the oven at 180C for 12 minutes.

I know it's hard to see, but trust me...they're 2/3 full

Meanwhile, Destructor is living up to his name and has created a pretty impressive mess! But, he's still happy playing on the couch with Thomas the Tank Engine, so I give him a quick hug and kiss (while he squirms) and I hop back in the kitchen.

Mess: the price you pay for having time to get stuff done!

While the cupcakes are baking, I measure out the ingredients for the chocolate cupcakes and separate the eggs for the marshmallow frosting.

Next thing I know, the timer for the cupcakes has gone off. So, I check them and they need a little more time. I rotate them and stick them in for another 5 minutes (bringing the total time up to 17 minutes)

Meanwhile, Destructor is tiring of his alone time and starts clawing at my leg. He's also kinda tired, so it's bed time...but not before I wait for the timer and take the cupcakes out to cool. His face lit up like a Christmas tree when he saw all the cupcakes and he started pointing at them and making his 'gimme one of them' noise. But, alas, my little boy, no cake as it's too hot and I don't have any screw ups that you can eat. Boring old bed instead.

So, three stories and a song later, Destructor is in bed and I'm back in the kitchen. The oven gets turned down to 150C and I'm whipping up the chocolate batter.

Muuuud caaaake....drooooool...

Now, these instructions are a pain the arse. So, here are my tips!

1. Melt the butter and chocolate in the microwave. Stuff the double boiler. Do it in 30 sec increments and stir in between. You'll see it melt together nicely.

2. Use more chocolate chips than it tells you to. Chocolate is awesome, therefore, more chocolate increases how awesome something is. I keep putting the choc chips in until there are this many left in the packet:

I'd confess to eating these, but that would be really embarrassing....

So, mixture mixed and in the patty pans. These, I fill a bit more than 2/3, only because they don't rise as much as the vanilla. Into the oven for 15 minutes (they take longer because the cake is denser).

Meanwhile, it dawns on me that I don't have any lemon curd for my vanilla cupcakes. Oh crap. I don't have any time to go to the shops. So, plan B. Jam? No, too sweet. Cream? Nope, too rich. I open the cupboard and there it is...the answer:

I love this stuff. Skippy is my personal favourite!

Now, I do have regular peanut butter. However, there's already a lot of sugar in the cupcake and especially enough sugar in the marshmallow, so I figure this will be a nice contrast. Kinda like a fluffernutter.

I need to keep moving, so I get out a 500g block of butter for the buttercream and start whipping it up (after I microwaved it a bit to soften it up). The timer goes off, so I check the cupcakes, but they're not done, so another five minutes it is (making it a total of 20 minutes).

On I go with the buttercream until the timer beeps again. The cupcakes are perfect! Hooray!

They join their vanilla friends and the baking is done!!!

Right now, my husband is singing 'Ebony and Ivory'. He's such a dag...

With that done, I crack on with the buttercream. When I'm happy, I halve it and flavour it/colour it accordingly. Then, cut open half the vanilla cupcakes and pop in a teaspoon of peanut butter. Next, I decorate the lucky little chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream.

Now it's time I embark on the marshmallow frosting. I know that I've said that doing stuff from scratch is for people who have too much time, but this you simply must do from scratch. And that being said, you can't make this in advance either. Bummer, huh? I tried once, and ended up with a consistency that was way less than flattering. So, lesson learned, I only make this right before I'm going to use it.

The recipe is easy...you can find it here. It does involve a bit of time - say 10 minutes or so - but well worth it. It is sooo yummy. It's worth noting that you need to make sure that all the utensils that come into contact with the egg whites are totally clean of any egg yolk, butter or oil. If not, you'll end up with slop (which a bit of cream of tartare should fix). I use a bit of paper towel to just give everything a quick wipe. Seems to work.

Anyway, the marshmallow is perfect, so I pipe it on. Looks great!

Out come the sprinkles, glitter, love hearts and drinking chocolate - time for details! They look great, and my little one is still snoozing. Meanwhile, I'm covered in so much sugar and butter that I could kill a diabetic at 10 metres!

Finished product:

Vanilla cake, strawberry buttercream, love hearts:

Chocolate mud cake, marshmallow frosting, drinking chocolate:

Chocolate mud cake, mint buttercream, chocolate sprinkles:

Vanilla cake, peanut butter filling, marshmallow frosting, pale purple glitter:

I stick them in my nifty travel cases and they're ready for tomorrow. Hooray!

Total number of cupcakes: 34. 14 vanilla, 20 chocolate.
Time: Less than 2 hours - 20 mins while Destructor was up, 1hr 20 while was asleep.

I sat down to have lunch after this effort (and after I'd done most of the dishes) and the minute my bum hit the chair, guess who was up?! So, we had lunch together. Kinda nice, really :)

Strawberry cupcakes with gingerbread buttercream

Strawberry cupcake with gingerbread buttercream

Okay, so today, I have a play date with one of my friends from Mums' Group. I should say "Parents' Group", but only the mums have gone thus far...except for my hubby, who braved the estrogen onslaught one week...but that doesn't count.

But I digress. So, I don't like going empty handed when I visit friends. Partly cos I feel bad rocking up and eating other people's food (the Italian mindset I had instilled by my mother) and partly because it's nice to bring something pretty.

Now, first thing you need to know about my baking style - I rarely do things from scratch. Scratch is for those who have too much time and for those who are anal. Oh, and for the odd think you just can't buy. Damn.

So, I look in my magical baking cupboard and lo and behold, there's a packet mix. Hooray! And it's cute and girly...even better! I haven't used Coles brand before, so I'm keen to give them a go.

I have a look at the back, and sure enough, I have all the ingredients required - an egg, butter and milk.

Now, here's an important bit of info: always have eggs, butter and milk on hand. You can make just about any packed mix with these ingredients. The milk can be powdered or long life as well, as long as it's milk. Margarine/olive spread/spreadable butter can be used if you don't have a stick of butter. You're just about screwed if you don't have eggs. It's at that point that you pull out the random box of chocs you keep in the cupboard 'just in case' and sadly realise that you have to take them instead of cake.

I also have a look in the fridge for any buttercream I have got stashed away. Sure enough, I have the choice of gingerbread, vanilla or chocolate buttercream. Gingerbread it is! So, I get it out and pop it on the bench, giving it a chance to soften up (multi-tasking!)

Yum yum yum! This stuff keeps for AGES! Love it. 

While I'm using buttercream, I should mention that this packet mix does come with its own icing mixture. However, if you want it to look like the box, you'll have a hard time! I stashed the icing away for another day when I run out of icing mixure and need just a little more.

Okay, so I mix everything together with a whisk (I only use a mix master or a hand mixer if I'm doing a double batch or something really intense) and I notice that it's a cream colour. My problem is that it's strawberry flavoured, and so should therefore be pink. So in goes the food colouring!

To hell with natural food colouring! Bring on the dead bug bits! 

I pop the patty pans in my mega muffin tins (I don't have the storage for a bajillion different cupcake tins!) and in goes the cupcake mix. I'll be honest, I wasn't comfortable with the amount of mix I was popping in the patty pans. Normally, I only fill them up two thirds of the way, but the amount of mix I had, I was really packing it in. Having not made this packet mix before, I shut up my little OCD voice and go with it. No tweaking the first time (food colouring doesn't count)! 

Please ignore my grotty tins. If I had time to scrub the damned things after each time I baked, I wouldn't be using packet mix!

So, into the oven they go. 13 minutes at 160 C. In the meantime, I grab all the dirty dishes and shove them in the sink for a wash. I also grab all my decorating stuff!

I have lovely little butterflies that came with the packet mix. You can also buy them at the shops. They're very sweet (figuratively...literally, they taste a bit like chalk).

Nawwrrr...

I'm also using coloured sugar (which I don't have a photo of), but you can get it at the supermarket in lots of colours. 

I then grab my piping tip (today I'm using a Wilton 2D, but I also like to use the plain 'ol round ones) and, my secret weapon...disposable piping bags from Daiso!!

Oooh baby! So good!

I do have a proper piping bag...honest, I do! But I hate washing the damned thing. And no matter how well I wash it, it still smells like rancid butter. And the worst part is that apparently you can't get rid of that smell, no matter how you try (I talked to a couple of pros). So, I saw these babies one day in Daiso (the Japanese $2.80 shop) and thought I'd give them a go. Talk about a life saver! You chop off the tip, stick in your piping tip, fill with whatever you're using (buttercream etc.) and off you go. Then, when you're done, retrieve your tip and CHUCK THE BAG AWAY. All you have to do is wash your tip. Mega time saver. Not so great for the environment, but if you make other efforts in other places, you can assuage your guilt.

Also, these are sooo much cheaper than the ones in the supermarket...a mere $2.80 for 12!! In the supermarket, they want almost $5 for 5. Up yours, Coles and Woolworths!

Meantime, the oven timer has gone off and the cupcakes are done. They look good; puffy and pink. I need them to cool quick smart, so into my freezing cold laundry on a cooling rack they go. I even open the external door to make it quicker. 

5-10 minutes later they're cool enough to ice. Meanwhile, they've gone all wrinkly on the top. But who cares? I'm going to cover that with buttercream!

I fill my piping back with buttercream and do a quick practice squeeze but alas, the buttercream is too hard, and there's a breach :( So, buttercream goes into a bowl, and into the microwave. But, 10 seconds is too much (arrgghh!) and it's too soft. So, that goes into the fridge. 

While I'm waiting for it to cool, I grab my cupcake carrier. $15 at Spotlight and a great investment. Even better when they're on sale at half price!!

Love these babies!

Okay, so I go to the fridge and the buttercream is ready to go. Piping bag number two is ready and waiting (no washing, see?) and off we go. One swirl, a bit of coloured sugar and a healthy smattering of butterflies. Totally gorgeous.

You so pretty!

Meanwhile, my darling little boy was still asleep and it had only been about an hour. Yay me!

The verdict:

A great packet mix, although my only criticism was that the cake started to come away from the patty pans almost straight after they came out of the oven. Not sure if it was the cake or the patty pans, but will find out in future trials.

Flavour and texture was great, as was the pairing with the gingerbread buttercream. I think I'll make them regular size next time, as the mini ones were a little too small. I'll just use my own patty pans.