Vanilla Frappuccino Cupcakes

Vanilla Frappuccino Cupcakes. I know YUM how super delicious do they look.

I'm going to share something which seeings as I love sweets so much you might think is weird, but I don't like real cream. 

Buttercream I am totally into, certain types of that super fake mock cream I really like (hello jam and cream donuts) but real cream from a cow just does not do it for me.

But I love the look of it, I always want to say yes to spiraling swirls of cream when I pick up my fancy coffees but I never do and end up with flat looking although still delicious decaf treats (Ummm decaf yes :( yet another weird thing).

So to make myself feel a bit special I made up these super dooper swirly Vanilla Frappuccino cupcakes.

and then I popped them into my favourite cup.


OK so I'm going to have to show off this cup because it is my favourite and I love it. It's a Spode lidded chocolate cup, so that your hot chocolate stays warm of course......ha like mine ever lasts long enough to go cold.

Truthfully I didn't come up with the cupcake in a cup idea, totally stole it after seeing some inspiring pictures from the lovely Penny's facebook page at P.S. I love you.

But the cupcake is totally mine.

To make the cupcakes pipe coffee vanilla buttercream (recipe below) onto vanilla cupcakes using a Wilton #1M tip swirling around like your making a soft serve icecream. Practice a couple of times on the workbench if you like before you start on the cupcakes.


Sprinkle a little cocoa powder or drinking chocolate onto the top of the cupcake. I use a tea strainer to do stuff like this as it is easy to control. Just pop the cocoa into the strainer hold over the top of the cupcake and gently tap against your other hand.

Finish off with a mini straw wafer cookie, the ones in the picture are mini corinthian ones you can pick up at Woolies, but any brand will do. Make sure you pop the cookie straws in just before serving as they get soggy if you leave them in.

Coffee Vanilla Buttercream

228g unsalted butter (8 oz or 2 sticks) at room temperature
60ml milk (1/4 cup)
6 cups sifted icing sugar (confectioners sugar)
2 tsp vanilla extract
3tsp instant coffee mixed with a small amount of hot water, just enough to melt it.

Pop the unsalted butter, milk and 4 cups of icing sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix at high speed until light and fluffy about 5-6 minutes. Scrape down sides as required. Add the remaining sugar one cup at a time mixing for 2-3 minutes between additions. Add the vanilla and coffee and mix well.

If the buttercream is not the correct consistency add extra milk 10mls at a time (I didn't add any extra to this one).


Any cupcake will do the Vanilla cupcake I used is the Magnolia recipe, I don't post other people's recipes here on my blog but I am sure you could find it if you searched.

C & J's wedding

I have been a bit of a poor blogger at the moment. Life has been a bit crazy as life is.

One of the things I have been busy with is making the cake, figurines and cupcakes for my cousin's wedding.

It's not really something I do for people, or am particularly great at, but the bride is adorable and was the flower girl at my wedding years ago.

Plus she is the total opposite of a bridzilla, more of a sweeterella and wanted a really relaxed yet elegant looking cupcake tower.

The tower was 80 vanilla cupcakes and with a one tier chocolate mudcake topped with figurines I made myself out of ready roll fondant. In the darkish reception it looked pretty good.

C & J wishing you a lifetime of joy, happiness, health and sweetness ♥
 

Toadstool and Dragonfly cookies for Polkadot Prints Down in the Garden Party

You must pop on over and check out the lovely Down in the Garden Party created by Jordan of Polkadot Prints that has been featured on Hostess with the Mostess.


The cute little toadstools and dragonflies were made by little ole me.


The pictures there are oh so cute and the styling is so very cool and check out the printables and packaging which is all available at Polkadot prints.

I had a bit of fun working on this as I really like toadstools, I may have driven Jordan kinda a bit crazy emailing her different designs.


See here is an example of the craziness, want to know how many cookies will fit in your treat bag, I'll send you a picture of a few different cookies next to a ruler.

Oh and Besser nice work on that ruler I got in a sample bag like 15 years ago at the Ekka (fair), advertising is still paying off ;)

Toadstool Cookies

The toadstool cookies were hand cut chocolate sugar cookie decorated with hand cut rolled fondant and the white dots were a icing sugar glaze. Well actually just water and icing sugar mixed up to the consistency I wanted.

(The test cookies were all rolled fondant)

Dragonfly Cookies

The dragonflies were made using a cookie cutter from Details Details and decorated with fondant, silver cashous, white glaze, silver luster dust and the bodies were a mixture of cocoa and icing sugar, the same recipe I used for the cross on the hot cross muffins I made CLICK here for link. The chocolate glaze was not the best for piping but I was really loving the taste at the time. I just piped it in one big thick line up the middle.

Here is one of the reject dragonfly samples, he was too cute, sometime life is like that :(

Credits

Top 4 photos by Polkadot Prints
Party styling printables treat bags etc by Polkadot Prints