Easy Pokemon Poke Ball Cupcakes

I always aim to please when it comes to my children and with my Pokemon-mad son’s 10th birthday last week I decided to try my hand at making easy Pokemon Poke Ball Cupcakes.

I stopped making cupcakes for my kid’s to take to their class a few years ago now. There was no sense in it. Maybe when they started school, thinking that’s what everyone else was doing so felt I had to but decided to do something special for his this birthday because he was turning 10, double digits. My children don’t like most of the kids in their class so why would they want to celebrate their birthday with them? That’s how they feel and I do too.

Pokemon Poke Ball Cupcakes

I’ve been making cakes since I was about 8 years old but after all these years, I decided to try my hand at rolling fondant to decorate the cupcakes, something I never tried before. I don’t know why. I just thought it looked really complicated and was for expert cake makers. It really was very easy. If you can roll out dough, it’s exactly the same. A bit like playing with playdoh. Most of the supermarkets now have the primary colours of fondant icing in stock.

I’d made my cupcakes a few days earlier just to help being a little more organised. I used a homebrand box cake mix for 80 cents because most of the time the kids eat the icing and throw the cake away. From being in the fridge, they were a little sticky on top so didn’t have to cover them with jam or anything to make the fondant stick.

I found a round cookie cutter that was the same size of the top of the cupcake and set about kneading the fondant until it was soft, exactly the same texture as playdoh. I worked in small quantities. Use a baking sheet to roll on so it doesn’t stick to your work surface.

Roll the Fondant

For 24 cupcakes, you need 12 red and 12 white fondant circles.

Cut each circle in half.

Place one half of the red and one half of the red on the cupcake. Smooth the edges together to join http://www.startupvalley.com/member/bensstiv each half. You can press down on the outside of the cupcake to make sure the fondant is sticking.

Set the cupcakes aside.

It gets easier from here

And if that part wasn’t easy enough, this part is even easier. I couldn’t be bothered with carefully piping black lines and white circles on the cupcake to represent the Poké Ball so I picked up licorice straps for the black line. Using the diameter of the cookie cutter you used to cut out the fondant, cut lengths of licorice.

Using the ridges in the licorice strap, cut them again into strips. (You’ll note there’s still a slight bend in the licorice. I did want to unroll it and press between two heavy objects the night before just to make sure it would sit flat on the cupcake but forgot. Some did ‘pop up’ on the cupcakes but the kids didn’t notice.)

Make a mixture of icing sugar and water to the consistency of glue and put in a piping bag with a small nozzle. This will be used to stick the licorice and the white ball to the cupcakes.

Run a line of the white icing glue in the centre of the fondant and stick on the licorice.

I found these white M&Ms in a mint mix. There were dark and light green and white M&Ms in the pack and I thought they were perfect. Pop a small dab of icing glue onto the centre of the licorice and stick on the white M&M.

And that’s it. I’m not usually one for buying special candy just for a recipe rather opting to make do with things I already have but for the price of about $10 for the fondant, cake mix and candy I got 24 cupcakes. I did price online Pokemon cupcake toppers and they were about $24 for 12. Ummm, no thanks. My son was very impressed and loved them. Don’t be put off by using fondant. It really is easy and your Pokemon fan will be very happy with your effort.

What You’ll Need

• 24 cupcakes
• quantity of red fondant
• quantity of white fondant
• licorice straps
• white M&Ms
• quantity of glue like consistency icing sugar/water mixture

 

 

Beach themed teddy bear cookie cupcakes

After 9 years of birthdays and birthday cakes, I’ve finally decided to keep it simple and save myself a lot of stress and worry. I guess I wasn’t worried about producing a cake for the kid’s birthdays but was more worried about baking 30-odd cupcakes for their class on a day close to their actual birthday, a cake for their actual birthday and THE birthday cake for the party. I doubted my abilities and would always stress when it came time to icing THE party birthday cake but managed to pull it off (to my standards). At the end of the day, it didn’t matter if I produced a cake with the stress or without the stress. The kids still loved it all the same. Its taken me 9 years to realise its all about them, not about me.

I first saw this idea on Pinterest and thought they were pretty cute. My daughter wasn’t having a birthday party this year as her actual birthday coincided with her Dad’s work Christmas party. She decided to have two girls from her class accompany her, her brother and I to the local swimming pool (which was a disaster because one girl turned out to be really mean to my daughter and ignore her – never again). We had these cupcakes on our return from the pool.

They are so easy to put together. I made 6 large cupcakes (using a *cough cough* packet cake mix) and a small round cake which I iced with blue icing. I was going to make ‘sand’ using biscuit crumbs but I had leftover yellow coloured coconut which I used up. The ‘teddy’ cookies just so happened to have a chocolate bottom which I actually zapped in the microwave for about 20 seconds to slightly melt the chocolate so they would adhere to the sour candy strips which I cut up for the towel. A paper umbrella poked into the sour candy strip to make sure it stayed and that was that. My kids loved them.

There was of course the obligatory actual day birthday cake which needle candles for blowing out and the small round cake I made with the leftover batter was just enough for two teddy cookies, a boy and a girl just like my two. One down, one to go and his birthday is this Sunday. It will be easy too.

Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes

I don’t know why but we didn’t have a lot of banana cake/bread growing up. I don’t know if it is a relatively ‘new’ recipe (that is, more recent than the 1960’s and 1970’s) or we just didn’t leave bananas around long enough to go brown. We always had a lot of homemade biscuits and tarts growing up and if it was cake it was something like a date and walnut loaf.

Since I’ve had kids I’ve been making a lot of banana cake and to tell you the truth, I’m a little sick of them and I think the kids are too. That ‘old’ mushy banana flavour isn’t quite the same as a ripe, fresh banana and I think its hard to replicate in a cake. If I was going to have a piece of regular banana cake I think I would prefer it lightly toasted with a little butter. That was up until today.

I had some fresh cream in the fridge and when I do I always think I’m rich. It needs to be used up in a decadent way (even though its only less than $2 for 300ml but its full of fat and something I don’t really need a lot of). I had a piece (or two) of Banana Cream Pie when I was in the States years ago and it tastes nothing like banana cake but I thought I’d have a go at combining the two.

The cake was light and sponge-like and the cream, fresh banana and drizzle of caramel just topped it off. Not sure its anywhere near a Banana Cream Pie but it’s the next best thing. I’m not the first one to come up with the idea either. Seems like many others before me love that fresh cream and fresh banana taste in a cupcake too. This is just a simple banana cupcake with the addition of fresh whipped cream and a slice of banana with a drizzle of caramel, if desired (homemade or store bought).

Banana Cream Pie Cupcakes

• 1 and half cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 overripe banana, mashed
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• half teaspoon salt

Chantilly Cream:

• 1 cup pouring cream
• 1 tbs icing sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• fresh banana slices and caramel (melt equal quantities of brown sugar and butter and add a little cream or use bottled caramel sauce) to garnish

1. Turn
   oven to 180 C (375 F).
2. Prepare cupcake liners. (This recipe made 12 large Texas sized muffins.) 
3. Put
   the flour, cinnamon, sugar, and water in a bowl.
4. Add
   banana, vanilla, vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt. Mix with beaters until smooth.
   (Mixture is runny.)
5. Pour
   into the cupcake papers.
6. Bake
   40 minutes or until cooked through.
7. When cool, whip cream with icing sugar and vanilla and pipe or spoon onto cupcakes.
8. Decorate with banana slices and a drizzle of caramel to serve.

ANZAC Cupcakes (or Golden Syrup & Oat Cupcakes)

I know, I know. I’m nearly a week late. ANZAC Day, Australia’s national day of remembering our past and present military personnel since World War I was on Thursday, 25th April and I really had intended on making ANZAC biscuits but we just got too busy. When I was discussing the possibility of making some ANZAC biscuits, my son suggested we make an ANZAC cake. Really? What did he know? He’s only 6. He explained in great detail that we could have a nice soft cake with coconut and golden syrup and iced with icing and coconut. Sounded pretty good to me.

This was my basic No Fuss Fudge Cake recipe. You know the no fail, no fuss recipe I use for just about every cake. I added 1/2 cup of oats, 1/2 cup of coconut and 1/4 cup of golden syrup (you could use maple syrup or honey if you don’t have golden syrup). I iced with a simple buttercream which had a tablespoon of golden syrup added. AND I finally got around to trying a quick way to ice cupcakes. I used a small ‘melon ball’ sized ice cream scoop to scoop out the icing, ‘blob’ (that’s a new technical term) it on to the centre top of the cupcake and press http://myuda.com/profile/Brobby/ down into the coconut which is in a small bowl. I then just spread by lightly pressing down on the icing with a knife. Turned out perfectly round on the cupcake.

These weren’t so ‘cake like’ but more ‘muffin like’ because of the oats but ‘delicious’ (as judged by the boy) nonetheless. I’m sorry I’m late but I guess we all make ANZAC biscuits all year round. I reckon we could make these anytime of the year too.

ANZAC Cupcakes (or Golden Syrup & Oat Cupcakes)

• 1 and half cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 1/2 cup rolled oats
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• half teaspoon salt

Golden Syrup icing:

• 2 cups icing sugar
• 2 tbs butter, softened
• 1 tbs golden syrup
• milk (approx 1 tbs at a time until a stiff, spreadable consistency)
• Coconut to sprinkle

1. Turn oven to 180 C (375 F). 
2. Mix the flour, coconut, oats, sugar and water in a bowl. 
3. Add golden syrup, vanilla, vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt. 
4. Mix with beaters until smooth. (Mixture is runny.) 
5. Pour into cupcake papers. Bake approx 20 minutes. 
6. Ice when cooled. 
7. Mix all ingredients together for icing and sprinkle with coconut.

{Bounty} Coconut Chocolate Cupcakes

You’ve heard that saying “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”? Well, that’s what my photography is like. A food photographer, I am not. If I bake something, it could take a day and a half before I get the final product and then I’ve got to try and take a photo, usually around 10:00pm at night and usually with children trying to stall going to bed. I’ve got no idea about lighting, aperture (is that the word?) or whatever. I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it that it tastes nice and is worth making.

I’m not sure how I came about this idea for a cupcake (probably watching too much “Cupcake Wars”) but I was inspired by one of my favourite candy bars, the “Bounty”. Its very similar to the American “Almond Joy” but without the almond.

I decided to do my ‘old faithful’ cake recipe with coconut added and then topped the cake batter with an amount of coconut macaroon mixture and then finished with a chocolate ganache. The cake turned out lovely and dense and although I can feel the texture of coconut, a bit of coconut essence or even coconut milk may have made for a more intense coconut flavour (or even a shot of Malibu coconut rum if you’re that way inclined).

It’s a simple cake with an extra layer of coconut goodness and a rich chocolate ganache topping. I hope you give them a go and don’t rely on my photos for inspiration. I really need to do some kind of photography course or finish off my baking at a respectable hour.

{Bounty} Coconut Chocolate Cupcakes

• 1 and half cups plain flour
• 1 cup coconut
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• half teaspoon salt

Macaroon mixture:

• 1 egg white
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup coconut

Chocolate ganache:

• 100gm dark chocolate (or milk chocolate if desired)
• 125ml thickened cream

1. Preheat oven to 180 C (375 F). 
2. Combine flour, sugar, coconut and water in a bowl. 
3. Add vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt. 
4. Mix with beaters until smooth.
5. Fill cupcake papers to 3/4.
6. For macaroon mixture, beat egg whites until white. Slowly add sugar, one teaspoon at a time until thick, white and glossy. Slowly fold coconut through and spoon teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the cupcake batter.
7. Bake 35 to 40 minutes or until golden.
8. For ganache, place broken up chocolate and cream in a microwave proof bowl and heat at 30 second intervals until chocolate has melted (for this quantity I did it twice for 1 minute).
9. Allow to cool. Before mixture hardens too much, you can dip the cupcakes straight into the ganache or wait until it cools even more and the ganache could be piped onto cupcakes.

This recipe made 12 Texas sized muffin tin cupcakes and 8 mini cupcakes.

3 ingredient Peaches & Cream cupcakes

Cook books, menu plans? Meh! Who needs them? I’ve just got to look into my overstocked pantry to dictate to me what I’ll be cooking. I’ll happily accept my sister’s pantry clean outs but boy, doesn’t it make a mess of my basic ingredient stocked pantry. I’ve got so many things that need using up. I’ve still got about 3 packets of cake mix (which is from November, the birthday month) and I don’t fancy having them sitting there until November this year!

Sometimes I wish my kids were like other kids with their eating habits and ate these packaged things. These tubs of diced peaches were just annoying me, falling out all over the place. I’m afraid my son would prefer to eat a real peach instead of these packaged ones so besides the usual cordials, muffins or icy poles, I decided to make these Peaches and Cream cupcakes. (I’m a little bit addicted to “Cupcake Wars” on TV so love coming up with different flavour combinations.)

I don’t advocate using cake box mixes. I don’t personally like them. I usually only get them for the kid’s birthday cakes but for a quick alternative, I think they’re great. But I do advocate using things up. I’d rather use what I have than have to run down to the shops for one or two things. I’d also rather use up a cake mix and 1 egg rather than flour, eggs, milk and butter to make a cake.

There’s just 3 ingredients in this recipe folks. Yes, that’s right. Three. The cake mix, one cup of the pureed peaches and an egg. They turned out really nice. This was a plain, no name brand cake mix.  You could top with fresh whipped cream that was flavoured with a little vanilla and icing sugar but I decided to top them with mock cream. It’s been so hot here I think fresh cream would curdle if it was out of the fridge for a minute longer than it should be. I used this simple recipe from Best Recipes and its not as hard as the recipe sounds. It does look a little ‘caramel’ in colour but that’s just from the vanilla.

Give this one a go and try it with any tinned or tubs of fruit. I think mango would be nice, pineapple, pears, apricots. Why not even use fresh stone fruit that might be starting to turn. Just remove the skin and seed and puree the flesh.

3 Ingredient Peaches & Cream Cupcakes

1 vanilla cake mix
1 cup pureed tinned (tub) peaches
1 egg

1 quantity mock cream (or fresh cream sweeted flavoured with icing sugar and vanilla)

1. Mix cake ingredients together with pureed peaches and beaten egg.
2. Spoon mixture into cupcake papers and bake for approx 20 mins in a 180 deg C oven or until golden.
3. Allow to cool and top with mock or fresh cream.

 

 

PS Please excuse the photos. You wouldn’t believe that I left the memory card out of the phone while I was snapping away at the making of these cupcakes yesterday. Lucky there were a couple left to take some pictures last night!

Rocky Road Cupcakes

Instead of going to bed early, I sometimes stay up and watch a cooking show from the US called “Cupcake Wars”. It does nothing to inspire me other then crave eating a cupcake. And what’s the deal with the judges eating the cupcake with a fork? I’ve never seen such a thing. Anyway, whatever is in my pantry usually dictates what I’ll be baking and with 4 marshmallows, a few chocolate buttons and some peanuts, I decided to throw them into my old favourite No Fuss Fudge Cake recipe for a Rocky Road Cupcake.

They were fudgey, crunchy from the peanuts, gooey from the marshmallow and chocolate and just the ticket for afternoon tea.

It satisfied my craving for cupcakes. I’m not sure watching “Cupcake Wars” is satisfying my desire for quality http://blorner.com/ReniL/ television program viewing but I’ve just got to be strong and turn it off and get to bed.

Rocky Road Cupcakes

• 1 and half cups plain flour
• 3 tablespoons cocoa
• marshmallows, chopped
• 1/2 cup choc chips or melts
• 1/2 cup coconut
• 1/2 cup peanuts, chopped
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• half teaspoon salt

1 quantity Chocolate Buttercream

1. Turn oven to 180 C (375 F).
2. Put the flour,
   sugar, cocoa and water in a bowl.
3. Add chopped nuts, marshmallows and choc chips.
4. Add vanilla, vinegar, oil, baking soda and
   salt.
5. Mix with beaters until smooth. (Mixture is runny.)
6. Pour into cupcake papers.
7. Bake
   for approx 20 minutes.
8. Top with chocolate buttercream.

My chief taste tester approved.

Rainbow Fish Cupcakes

It’s my daughter’s 7th birthday and the usual cupcakes for school so instead of the usual icing and sprinkles, I decided on creating Rainbow Fish Cupcakes. It’s dead easy and a fun way to decorate cupcakes for all ages.

What you’ll need

•  Cupcakes (Note: I don’t use cupcake papers for school – it’s one less thing they have to worry about and I also use the mini muffin pan)
• Quantity of icing/frosting
• Smarties or M&M’s
• Xtreme Sour Straps (cut into triangle pieces)
• Black icing writing pen
   
  Method:

1. Ice cupcakes.
2. Arrange Smarties/M&M’s on one half of the cupcake, vertically.
3. Place piece of sour strap on back of cupcake for fish tail.
4. Using icing writing pen, mark spot for an eye.

These cupcakes would make a great addition for an underwater themed party. For a different effect, match coloured icing with colour of Smartie/M&M, ie all pink, green, yellow etc.

Butterfly Cupcakes

Who would’ve thought cupcakes would’ve become so popular?  My poor old Nanna would be rolling over in her grave. In my day (and hers) we called them ‘patty cakes’ here in Australia and they were very common.  I felt like baking some cakes to take to my Mother’s for morning tea and instead of using my usual recipe from my high school Home Economics text book “Day to Day Cookery”, I used a recipe for “patty cakes” from “Classic Country Collection” by Flo Bjielke Petersen, wife of Queensland’s longest serving Premier, Joh. It’s a wonderful collection of old fashioned baking, recipes for quick, frugal, tasty meals and home hints. I really should cook more from it.

So, the verdict? One of the best cupcake recipes I’ve ever tasted. (I had to taste test, didn’t I?) I made them into Butterfly Cakes. Always a nice way to decorate and enjoy. I hope you will too.

Butterfly Cupcakes
(from “Classic Country Collection” Patty Cakes recipe)

3/4 cup castor sugar
pinch salt
2 cups self raising flour
125g butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs, beaten

To decorate:
1/2 cup cream, whipped to stiff peaks
sliced strawberries
strawberry jam
icing sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg C.
2. Sift all ingredients into bowl.
3. Add remaining ingredients and beat for 3 minutes.
4. Spoon mixture into paper patty cases within cupcake pan.
5. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes.
6. To decorate, once cakes have cooled, slice off top of cake and reserve.
7. Spoon a small amount of strawberry jam into the cavity of the cake and top with whipped cream.
8. Cut top piec of cake in half and place on top of cake to resemble butterfly wings.
9. Insert a small slice of strawberry and dust with icing sugar.

Jaffa Cupcakes

I’d bought 3kg of small Navel oranges a couple weeks back and thought I would have gone through them quicker than I had so they needed using up. I just made my old favourte “No Fuss Fudge Cake” recipe with chocolate orange flavours.  I was going to do choc orange icing but used up the last of my cocoa in the cake so thought it was a bit of fun to top with Darrell Lea “Choc Orange Balls” (similar to “Jaffas” but bigger).

Jaffa Cupcakes

1 and half cups plain flour

3 tablespoons cocoa

1 cup freshly

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squeezed orange juice

grated rind of 1 orange

1 tsp vanilla

1 tablespoon white vinegar

6 tablespoons oil (I use canola)

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

half teaspoon salt

Icing:
1.5 cups icing sugar
1 tbs butter melted in 2 tbs orange juice

1. Turn oven to 180 C. 
2. Put the flour, sugar, cocoa and orange juicein a bowl.
3. Add vanilla, orange rind, vinegar, oil, baking soda and salt.
4. Mix with beaters until smooth. (Mixture is runny.)
5. Pour into the cupcake papers.
6. Bake 20 mins approx.
7. Cool for 10 minutes then take out of tin.
8. Ice with your favourite icing.

Lemon Buttercream Cupcakes

If you’re wondering what the “NFFC” stands for, it stands for No Fuss Fudge Cake, which I blogged about early this year. To me, it’s the easiest, most versatile, adjustable, nicest tasting cake recipe I’ve ever come across. I got the recipe from a forum I belonged to a while ago and I have made it into so many different combinations. I’ve made cupcakes, muffins, bar cakes, ring cakes, sheet cake and even a Swiss Roll once. You can chop and change ingredients to make it into just about anything. In my original post, I had made it into a Black Forest Cherry Cake.

I was actually challenged by a girlfriend of mine, after I mentioned to her that I was craving a Lemon Meringue Cupcake. She suggested the good old NFFC and she’d know as she’s made just as many, if not more, different combinations than I have. I thought about the lemon meringue and remembered my husband doesn’t like it and I don’t think the kids would eat the lemon butter. I also am on the last of my apples that I got from the farmer a few months back. I made up some Spicy Apple & Walnut Muffins the other day and they

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turned out lovely and moist from the use of the apple puree so I decided to use apple puree again in the NFFC in place of the oil that’s in the cake.

Here’s the original recipe with my adjustments.

No Fuss Fudge Cake

1 and half cups plain flour

3 tablespoons cocoa (omitted)

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon vanilla (replaced with 1 tsp lemon essence)

1 tablespoon white vinegar

6 tablespoons oil (6 tbs apple puree/sauce) 

1 teaspoon bicarb soda

half teaspoon salt

zest of 1 lemon

 

Lemon Buttercream:

2 cups icing sugar

100gm butter, softened

juice of 1 lemon

 

For cake, heat oven to 180 deg C. Mix all ingredients together well and bake for approx 15-20 mins. For buttercream, mix ingredients together and spread or pipe on cakes.

 

Don’t get me wrong. I love traditional cake recipes, creaming butter and sugar together etc etc but when you’re time poor (as I always claim to be), this is such an unforgiving, quick, great recipe.

 

I’m linking up with Rhonda from over at Down to Earth today for her regular Friday feature, “On My Mind”. These cupcakes are on my mind today and I have enjoyed one for morning tea and lunch. Only made 12 so I’ve got to get in quick while I can!