The Alphabet of Abbie - C is for... Cupcakes!

CUPCAKES!

I love cupcakes! It's something about their versatility in flavour and appearance, their cute size, the icing and the prettiness of it all! When it comes to cupcakes, what's not to love!? I came across something rather brilliant the other day... the Iron Cupcake competition. Originally a monthly bake-off in the USA where like-minded baking enthusiasts came together with their mutual love of cupcakes and battled for the coveted 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes for best cupcake. Each month there is a theme or ingredient as a starting point for the cupcake bakers. I recently discovered that the concept has travelled across to pond to us in Britain and a monthly Iron Cupcake competition in held in Leeds. Below are some of the yummy looking entrants to the last Leeds-based Iron Cupcake contest!

1st prize - Raspberry Fizz Cupcakes
Raspberry and champagne cupcakes with white chocolate and coconut, dulche de leche ganache and a vanilla bean topping.

2nd prize - Mixed Summer Berries Cupcake
This delightful looking cupcake had a raspberry ripple style cake base, with a mixed fruit coulis centre, topped with fresh currants, strawberries and a drizzle of summer berry juice. Delish!

3rd prize - Summer Fruit Basket
Strawberry and almond sponge cake, with marshmallow icing topping and summer berries, all sat in a sugar syrup basket.

Twirly Swirly Berry Bun
Vanilla and raspberry sponge filled with coulis with a vanilla topping finished with a chocolate covered strawberry and a sprinkling of pretty edible gold glitter.

Tayberry and Raspberry cupcakes
Tayberry and raspberry flavoured sponge cake base, with a tayberry and white chocolate mousse, drizzled with chocolate and topped with a rasberry.

Starwberry pavlova cupcakes
Strawberry and meringue sponge with strawberry buttercream and a cute little sprinkling of meringue to finish it all off.

Berry and white chocolate cupcakes
Berry and white chocolate sponge cake base with marhsmallow buttercream and topped with a strawberry.

Very berry good cupcakes
Strawberry sponge cake, topped with strawberry icing, a fresh chocolate dipped strawberry and an adorable teeny tiny meringue!

Eton mess cupcake
Vanilla and strawberry puree sponge cake base, topped with buttercream, finished with meringue pieces and a huge juicy fresh strawberry.

Strawberry Fields
Chocolate sponge with strawberry cream mousse, chocolate fudge ganache and a strawberry buttercream icing.

Black forest cupcake
Chocolate and brandy sponge base, filled with a cherry conserve, topped with a morello cherry buttercream, cherry and white chocolate heart.

The Alternative Village Fete - Frozen Yoghurt, Music, Cupcakes and Creativity

Last weekend I attended the Alternative Village Fete on Southbank in London, a "sideways slant" on the traditional family day out. The programme for the weekend included performances by dancing troupes and live music, Morris dancing, make-do-and-mend, the British Gent stall, tea and cake, 20's style workouts, gentlemen's grooming and etiquette, hill billy barn dancing and yummy and scrummy treats! Everything a vintage-loving lady or gent could possibly need!

There were come gorgeous knitted (and polka dotted) things for sale on the many stalls.

Love this cute little mini tea set!

All over the square that the event was held in there were people getting creative with needle and thread, material, buttons and bows! I loved how everyone got really involved with all the creative activities.

The Pictotronic was a huge cardboard box that "magically" drew pictures for you: if you put a suggestion into the Pictotronic, after a short wait the illustrators living inside the cardboard house drew your picture! I've never seen anything quite like it before, it's brilliant!

Naturally I gravitated towards these delicious looking cupcakes! But I resisted... if you peek at the picture below you will realise why...

My new obsession is frozen yoghurt! I love the tartness of the flavour, and how well it goes with raspberries, one of my favourite fruits. At the Alternative Village Fete the very first thing I stumbled across was a little frozen yoghurt van. It was incredibly yummy! I went for my natural choice of rasberry fro yo, and Jenny went for blueberry. The fruit was blitzed in a blender then added to the frozen yoghurt machine and the flavour was amazing.

The raspberry frozen yoghurt

The wonderful Hot Potato Syncopators I thoroughly enjoyed the set by these dapper, utterly charming and amusing chaps! They played tunes straight from the 20's, 30's and 40's and the act comprised of ukeles, a tea-chest bass, musical saw, comedy moments, stage theatricals, acts of ear and eye defying balancing, bang bells, hooters and pop guns. The act was brilliant, thoroughly entertaining, and had the whole audience laughing. I enjoyed them so much I bought their CD that came with a fantastic little book with a "history of the band" and various bits and bobs in the Chap magazine style.... speaking of which...

...One stall was selling Chap Magazine

Overall, it was a totally enjoyable event, and if it is all repeated next year I will definitely be attending for some retro fun, and I suggest you all do the same!

Cute Mini Cupcakes in Camden!

On a recent visit to Camden Horse Market I stumbled across a delightful little stand selling the most amazing little mini cupcakes. They were really reasonably priced and very cute. I was so caught up in choosing which ones I wanted that I neglected to note down the name of the cupcake stand, but if you are visiting the Horse market any time soon, keep an eye out for pretty little cupcakes...

They sold three different flavours of cupcakes: lemon, vanilla, and chocolate. We bought four different mini cupcakes and they were popped into a lovely little egg box for us to take away and enjoy.

Vanilla flavoured cupcakes

Chocolate flavoured cupcakes

Lemon flavoured cupcakes

Yummy Birthday Cards... Designed By Me!

It was a good friend's (who just so happens to also be a work colleague of mine) birthday the other day and I was entrusted with the task of creating a huge birthday card from everyone at work. It inspired me to start getting creative again and make a few little delights for my Etsy shop! I have combined two of my favourite things in these two birthday cards... polka dots and cake! Both cards are made with a variety of material, including polka dot ribbon, brown paper, and some little hand drawn sketches by my fair hands... check them out in my Etsy Shop - All About Abbie.

Strawberries and Cream Cake Birthday Card - $3.75 (£2.49)

Cute Strawberry Cupcake Birthday Card - $3.75 (£2.49)

Let me know what you all think of my little creations... I'm going to delve deep into my creative supplies soon and make some more! I've started something now....

Pre-Wedding Garden Party - Halloumi Kebabs and Cupcakes!

Just got back from a lovely little garden party! It was all in aid of a friend's upcoming wedding. I donned my new polka dot dress (Primark... £5! Absolute bargain!) some pearls, and a matching polka dot bow in my hair. I had a lovely evening, filled with pimms, gorgeous food, and much laughter! Its great to see and catch up with friends that I just don't see often enough! The weather was brilliant too, very lucky, seeing as it was forecast to rain.

A lovely little welcome message on the kitchen blackboard.

Anna, Daniella and my younger sister, Fay.

The food was absolutely lovely! All the classic BBQ components, burgers, sausages, chicken legs, jacket potatoes and coleslaw, with some other delights, like ratatouille and some delicious halloumi and vegetable kebabs. It has inspired me to try out a halloumi and portabello mushroom recipe out... yum! My friend's mum also made some lovely cupcakes: (above) vanilla cupcakes with strawberry icing and a fresh strawberry on top, and (below) chocolate cupcake and icing with a caramel heart on top! They were yummy!

She Draws - Cute and Quirky Jewellery

Laura Figiel, AKA She Draws, is someone I have recently discovered on Twitter, and I'm so very glad I did! After visiting her She Draws Etsy Shop I have fallen in love with her creations. She makes stationary, t-shirts, and accessories, but above all I love her jewellery. I genuinely want every piece! It's really cute, quirky and distinctive.

Vintage Phone Charm Pendant

Tea Set Charm Pendant

British Biscuit Earring Studs

Tea Set Earring Studs

Cupcake Earring Studs

Polaroid Cities Charm Necklace

Travel Charm Necklace

Tea Party Charm Necklace

I Love Sewing Charm Necklace

Tea Party Brooch

Carrot, Orange and Walnut cupcakes!

I had the day off work so I decided to bake a few cupcakes! I absolutely adore carrot cake but I have never actually ventured to make it myself, so I thought I's take the plunge and make some carrot, orange and walnut cupcakes... (I also bought ingredients to make strawberries and cream layered cupcakes, but that's for another day and another blog!)

Ingredients

2 large eggs

175g golden caster sugar

150g sunflower oil

200g sifted self-raising flour

3 tsp mixed spice

2 carrots, coarsely grated

1 tsp vanilla extract

finely grated zest of 2 oranges

2 handfuls of walnuts

100g soft cheese

icing sugar

Method

1. preheat the oven to 180 degrees, or gas mark 4. Get your cake cases all ready to go: the recipe makes 12 large muffins or 24 small cupcakes.

2. Beat together the eggs, sugar and oil until they are light and fluffy. It's best to use an electric whisk, but to beef up your biceps then beat by hand.

3. Gently fold in the flour, carrot, spices, vanilla extract, walnuts and half the orange zest until it is all thoroughly combined.

4. distribute the cake mix into the cake cases, place in the oven for 20-25 mins until well-risen and golden. Put the cakes on a cooling rack for 10-15 mins before icing...

Icing

1. Place the 100g of soft cheese into a bowl and add icing sugar until it is the desired thickness and sweetness.

2. Use the remaining orange zest to garnish your cupcakes

And finally.... ENJOY! If you make them let me know how they go, you can also change the recipe adding raisins, sultanas, or chopped nuts.