Chocolate Rudolph the Reindeer Cupcakes

Pure chocolate fun, these cupcake can make use of those leftover sweets you have lying around at this time year. Everyone gets given a box of matchmakers right?!

I used my basic chocolate cupcake mix, piped some chocolate butter cream for the frosting and topped with mint chocolate sticks for antlers, red jelly tots or red smarties for rudolph noses (the smarties worked best – the red jelly tots weren’t really bright enough) and some black sugar paste with white pearls for eyes.

Here’s the cupcake recipe:

150g Self raising flour

175g Castor sugar

30g Cocoa powder

175g Butter

3 large eggs

2 tbsp of milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients with a hand mixer or by hand. Bake at Gas Mark 3 or 170c for approx 20 mins.

Christmas Fayre Successes?

After visiting the Crafts for Christmas exhibition at the Birmingham NEC this year and stocking up with supplies, I was really excited to have a stall all of my own at a few Christmas Fayres on the run up to the festive season.  I’ve done two so far and have some pics below of my stall.

There are quite a few learns I took away with me after doing just these two but am really interested in your Christmas Fayre experiences, tips, pitfalls etc. I found that:

– Anything edible seems to go well – chocolate christmas pudding cupcakes sold out within about 20 mins

– People do not take huge amounts of money to Christmas Fayres (especially school ones) so have lots of cheaper items

– It is a good way to network and get possible future orders

– Make sure you have a good float with lots of change

– Oh and make sure you take sticky tape, blue tack, a pen, some bags for peoples purchases

– You can negotiate on stall prices (sometimes)

Would love to hear from others who have braved the Christmas Fayres this year and how you found it…… get in touch

 

Christmas pudding cupcakes

I guess these are child friendly Christmas pudding cupcakes as they are not actually Christmas pudding flavour or anything like it. They are chocolate. And last time I checked chocolate is generally more popular with the younger generations that Christmas pudding…. Well in my house anyway.

For these cupcakes you will need:

Buttercream
12 chocolate cupcakes cooled
White sugarpaste & small amounts of green & red sugarpaste
Small round scalloped or fluted cookie cutter
Small amout of white royal icing or writing icing

Roll out the white sugarpaste to approx 2-3mm thick. Cut out 12 rounds using your cookie cutter. With the red sugar paste make 36 small balls for the holly berries – 3 for each cake. To make the holly leaves, take a small amount of green sugarpaste and roll into a ball. Squish it into an oval shape and then make 5 or 6 pinches to make the points on the leaves. Repeat until you have 24 leaves – 2 for each cake. Stick the holly leaves and berries on to your white rounds using a small amount of piped royal icing.

Top each cupcake with a swirl of piped buttercream and a holly topper and your done!

Star Christmas cupcakes

Some sparkly cupcakes for the holiday season! I took these to my sons school Christmas fayre yesterday and the went down a treat!

You will need:

12 or 24 cupcakes – I used 12 vanilla and 12 chocolate
Buttercream
Fondant or sugarpaste icing in pale blue & white & edible glitter.

Roll out the sugarpaste to approx 3mm and cut out 12 or 24 stars. Pipe the butter cream in swirls with a large nozzle onto each cupcake, top with a cut out star and sprinkle with a bit of Xmas spirit….er I mean edible glitter!