Yummy gingerbread cranberry muffins. Mix, mix just as fast as you can.

You better run, run just as fast as you can if you want to get some of these gingerbread and cranberry muffins. 'Cause they smell pretty delicious while they're baking and I like to eat them when they come out of the oven and are still warm.

But seriously don't stress, they are so easy that you can whip up another batch in no time so if they all get snaffled up.

I made up these gingerbread and cranberry muffins for the kids lunch treats yesterday and then I decorated the left overs for afternoon tea.

At this time of year it's easy to go into sugar overload and my kids diet has not been as great as I would like it. They have been having way more fast food than I would choose for them when they are out at other activities. We normally eat pretty well with lots of vegetables and I've noticed they are pretty tired and cranky at the moment.

But y'know sometimes I want to give them a treat and although I did decorate a couple super fancy for the photo's the actual muffin are wholemeal and have fruit in them so I didn't feel too guilty when I served them up.

Gingerbread Muffin (makes 12) recipe adapted from Sweets on a Stick
I send these to school unfrosted but for special occasions you can add the simple cream cheese, butter frosting (recipe below). Gingerbread decorations and sprinkles are optional, make your own or see the links before for easy pre-made versions (see aff. links at end of recipe).

2 1/4 cups wholemeal self raising flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp allspice
1/2 cup olive oil (I use light which means light flavour not lo-fat)
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1/3 cup treacle
1/4 cup brown sugar lightly packed
1 1/2 cups dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 160C (325F) and line 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases.

Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and mix by hand until combined.

Spoon mixture into paper cases.

Pop in oven for around 23 minutes they are done when a skewer comes out clean.

Allow to cool on wire track.

You can eat while still warm

Simple Cream Cheese Butter Icing

30g cream cheese
30g unsalted butter
3/4 cup icing sugar, sifted

Mix together all ingredients until light and fluffy.



Linda Vandermeer is a blogger, baker, maker and author of the Children's cookbook Sweets on a Stick: More Than 150 Kid-Friendly Recipes for Cakes, Candies, Cookies, and Pies on the Go! Published in the USA in 2011 the book is still available at Amazon and many online bookstores.

Affiliate links may earn me money and contribute to supporting this blog.

Original ideas, photography and recipes Linda Vandermeer please do not reuse without permission except for non commercial purposes where you may use 1 image, give credit and link back to original post.

Tahlin's Safari party, Safari Cupcakes and making black fondant

 
One of the best things about doing what I do is some of the amazing people I have met.

I have been really lucky through my work to meet a bunch of other party and sweet minded people who I have worked with on various projects and I can honestly say that to date I have yet to meet anyone I didn't like and quite a few of them have become friends I've worked with many times.

Like Daneve from Ah-Tissue who is genuinely lovely, and oh my goodness so super talented and inspirational.
A little while back I made some cookies and cupcakes for her son's Safari party. The designs were created by Daneve and her partner to work in with the theme.

The whole party was totally amazing! If you haven't seen it yet you should pop on over to her blog to see all the shots.

Here is the link to Tahlin's party on the Ah Tissue Blog.

and the photo's used in this blog post (apart from the one in the cupcake instruction section) are by Katie takes a picture.

How I made the cupcakes

The cupcakes were inspired by the beautiful invitations and were giraffe and zebra print disks of ready made fondant.

As you want them to be firm enough to hold their shape, plan to make these a few days before the party. In ideal conditions they will firm up in a day but with humidity or rain you might need a little bit longer.

Knead the fondant until pliable and add any colours then place them in a airtight container. For my safari toppers I used white background with black stripes and the giraffe was a mixture of ivory and light brown background and brown spots. Dark colours need to be made a day or so before to allow the colors to settle. (see end for black and brown fondant).

Dust your workbench with a little cornflour(cornstarch) and using a small plastic rolling pin roll out the fondant until it is a few mm thick (1/8 inch). Cut out a round shape in the size you would like the cupcake toppers to be, mine were around 6.5cm (2.6"). If you don't have a suitable round cutter you can always use the rim of a glass or cup.

Place the round cut shapes onto a parchment paper lined tray.

Now roll out the black fondant and cut out another round shape and using a sharp knife hand cut stripes. Make them messy not just straight up and down. If you are working along the circle the stripes should kinda fit into each other like mine do. When you have enough to cover the white circle (you will not use the whole black circle) arrange them onto the white disk, if needed use a really tiny amount of water* and then roll on with the plastic rolling pin very gently so you do not ruin the circle, although if you do you could just reuse your circle cutter to even it up. Cut any excess black overhang off with a knife.

*I dip my clean, for fondant use only paintbrush in the water and then dry most of it off with a paper/absorbent towel. especially when using black, red or other strong colors that easily bleed.

 (this photo by Darren Frankish - thanks Darren)

For the Giraffe print toppers, cut out a round of the ivory colored fondant, place it flat onto the parchment paper. Cut out the round of brown fondant and hand cut the spots, make them uneven and work in together. If you do not mind if the sides are not so sharply defined you could just pinch off pieces of the brown fondant and shape them into the spot shapes with your fingers which is much much faster.Adhere the spots with a small amount of water and gently press on using a plastic rolling pin.

Yup really that's how I made them and it does take a long long time. Alternately you could paint on the stripes with edible black paint or food colour.

Then I made up a batch of vanilla cupcakes and baked them in brown paper cases and topped them with vanilla buttercream piped in a swirl with a 1M tip. It was a flat swirl starting in the middle and working out to the edge. Toppers can be pushed carefully onto the top just before serving.

Colouring Fondant Black

I'm going to share a little trick with you on how I colour my ready made fondant black.

Start with chocolate fondant, yup they make chocolate fondant which I think tastes great (I use the Bakels brand), knead until pliable and then add Americolor superblack food colour until you reach the desired color. Store at least overnight to allow the colors to set.

I like this method for 2 reasons. Well technically one reason which has 2 benefits.

You use less colour which means:
1. the fondant will not get sticky (if it does get sticky you may need to add a little cornflour to the mixture and knead it in); and
2. There is less risk of a bitter food color taste.

Don't get me wrong it's still a messy process but you will use way less color and I think the fondant tastes waaaay better.

Here are a couple of places you can buy the Bakels chocolate fondant in Australia online:

Baking Pleasures

Cakes around town

and in the US I noticed that Michaels sells Wilton chocolate fondant and you can get Chocolate Satin Ice online from Sugarcraft



Oh and you know if your totally sensible and your using a lot of fondant you could just buy ready made black cause they sell that as well........but then it wouldn't taste like chocolate.

Easter Egg Nests with Rose Fairy Floss Cupcake Toppers

My lovely friend Sandy surprised me the other day with a packet of super cute striped cupcake papers, some rosewater and beautiful rose persian fairy floss.

Oooohhh I thought to myself, what a lovely bunch of cakey things I'll have to make something special with them, and so I did.

They inspired me to make these very sweet Easter Egg nest Cupcake Toppers.

I am in love with the rose Persian Fairy Floss, it is so silky and stringy looking, it has a different texture to normal fairy floss. However sadly just like real floss it does not last long once out of it's packet and after a few hours my toppers had melted into a soggy nest. They still looked ok just not as spectacularly fluffy as when I originally made them. I would say make them just before your about to pop them out on display.

Also the Robert Gordon Paper Cups.....soooooo cute, however they do look a bit greasy when baked with a high butter content vanilla cupcake (and really do you want any other sort?) I just popped another one over the top and it looked fine. They are a significant improvement on the older, yet still super pretty ones.  I'm wondering if the Australian regulations limit the amount of plastic/waxish coating they can use I remember reading somewhere an issue with the Wilton nut cups in the US.

They do make cute containers regardless, see them with the mini Easter eggs.

Tutorial for Easter Egg Nest Cupcake Toppers

Ingredients
Cupcakes topped with a buttercream swirl
Fondant in various pastel colours
Persian Fairy Floss ( www.pariya.com)
mini Easter eggs - these ones were from Big W in Australia

Using a blossom cutter cut out fondant in the desired colour. My Blossom cutter was 6cm and I used a variety of pastel colours. Place the cut out shapes onto parchment paper and allow to set for a few days.

Make cucpakes and decorate with a swirl of buttercream.

Top each cupcake with a fondant disk.

Pull out small sections of the fairy floss ensuring your hands are clean and very dry. Shape the floss into small nests to fit on top of the fondant blossom disks.

Finally place a couple of small Easter eggs into the nests.

Cupcake pom picks from Ah Tissue Loving them

 

Thought I would share some pictures of these cute new Australian hand made cupcake pom picks from Ah-Tissue,
how gorgeous are they...... look how effortlessly they add height and colour to the cupcakes.

I was lucky enough to be able to make up the cupcakes and fondant toppers to help showcase this new product.

I sooooo love it when someone who actually knows what they are doing with a camera takes photo's of my treats they always look 100% nicer.

Cute Christmas cupcakes


sweet little ladybird topper

 Baby boy and girl perfect for a baby shower.....


and it goes without saying that I love the pink cupcake pom pick, but I think this one below is my favourite


It makes me think of a delicious neapolitan ice-cream.

Cupcake pom picks - Loving them!

Ah Tissue has a wide range of pom pom products available which are perfect for dressing up your party table


Cupcake pom pics from Ah-Tissue

Cupcakes and fondant edible toppers Bubble and Sweet

Cupcake wrappers by The Cupcake Wrapper Co

All images belong to Ah Tissue and used with permission.

♥ ♥ ♥ Heart cookie cupcake toppers ♥ ♥ ♥ - oh I ♥ them

Wheee look at these super gorgeous cupcake wrappers I got from The Cupcake Wrapper Co

Aren't they just the sweetest thing - Love Birds - Awwhhhhh.

Although I have another project planned with these super cute wrappers. I just had to do something with them straight away so I made these little heart cookie cupcake toppers with some cookie dough I had left in the freezer from the lollipop cookies (click here for cookie recipe)

 Turns out they were too delicious to resist.

"Help, no not me, eat my delicious friend next to me .... "

"Aaaargh no I'm too buttery, I'm no good for you, stop it."

Oooops


I shaped the uncoloured dough into a long heart shaped log by rolling a log, squashing out a point for the bottom of the heart and using a knife to indent the top and then wrapped around the pink

Pop the dough back into the fridge to cool and after at least an hour take out and slice to make cute little cookies.

Pop a long food safe pick into the bottom of the cookie and bake at 165 C (330 F) for approx 10 mins or until cooked.

Heart cookie cupcake toppers, decorative and edible.

♥  ♥  ♥

Yum.