Ginger and Pumpkin Cupcakes

Dearest Readers,

It has been an age! I have been so busy I can't really describe, but now I am back...

And I'm baking!

Tomorrow eve there is a very exciting bake off happening. It's a Cigarette Burns Halloween special featuring an exclusive showing of every self-respecting indie girl's favourite Christian Slater film, and a lot of baking themed to afore-almost-mentioned film... I will report back with photographic evidence of the competition (!), but as a first post back, I just had to share my latest cupcake heaven discovery with you...

The Fabulous Dan Lepard's Ginger and Pumpkin Cupcakes.

Above you can see the fabulously autumnal looking ingredients; Below you can see the cakes as they come straight out of the oven...

YUM!

I thought I would give them a distinctly Halloween feel so went a bit...ummm...festive with the icing!

They are friendly skeleton pumpkins, don't worry!

Words can't describe the deliciously moist and subtly flavoured cakes this recipe produce; only eating them can do that!

The most super-ace part about it all is that you are left with a fabulous pumpkin to carve out in your favourite Jack O Lantern way. I was a bit inspired by Jack Skellington for mine. I can't wait for my SIBF to get in from work and sample my handiwork!

That's it for now but I will be back in a few days with tales of Slater...

Til then I will leave you with this;

"Are we were going to prom or hell..."

Silver Whimsy x

How to Make a Raspberry Milkshake Cake!

It all started on Sunday morning rather early.

Or rather, it all started on Sunday morning rather early after an epic trip to the Central Hornsey District Allotments and Horticultural Society annual show in an autumn wardrobe in blistering heat with the SIBF, but that's another story...

This story is about the World Famous Raspberry Milkshake Cake!

Whenever you need to bring a celebration cake out of the bag or the hat (or really actually a food blender would be a more appropriate object from which to extract the aforementioned cake but whatever), this has to be the ultimate cake to bake because apart from anything else you can have fun asking the question "Is it a milkshake or is it a cake?" and then answer it with "It's both! It's a Raspberry Milkshake Cake!" and quite frankly if that doesn't give you a kick nothing will!

The recipe comes from Dan Lepard in the Guardian but he hasn't provided fun step by step pictures so you might like reading about it here instead, although please accept my apologies in advance for the New Kids on the Block lyric references...

Step One ("We can have lot of fun"):

Put your milkshake ingredients in a 1950's looking blender!

Step Two ("There's so much we can do"):

Blitz up the milkshake!

Step Three ("It's just you and me" - ok, I know, that doesn't really work but if I'm going with the Step by Step lyrics I can't miss out Step Three, I mean that line was sung by Jordan!):

Add the milkshake to the whisked egg yolks and sugar and beat it in along with the flour and baking powder. It turns the mixture pink!

Step Four ("I can give you more" - fashion tips for instance);

Always wear accessories that are the same colour as your cake! This will help with your baking.

Step Five ("Don't you know that the time has arrived" - to take the Raspberry Milkshake Cake out of the oven???):

Take the cake out of the oven revealing the pink splendour of not just the cake, but your carefully colour-matched outfit!

And after a bit of tricky cutting, cream whisking and icing making there you have it! Your very own party favourite Raspberry Milkshake Cake. It can be seen below with a hello kitty sugar bowl. This is optional. (But preferable.)

The major difficulty with making a RMSC is one of transportation; it's a bit too tall to fit into tupperware. I was desperately trying to cover the cake in a little tin foil house without getting the foil stuck on the icing when my SIBF suggested I simply took the cake apart and put it in tupperware in two different layers. This was a very good idea but not one I would have come up with myself, so having de-constructed the complicated three-tiered construction of the triple layered cake, we finally made our way to the bus stop.

There is no Step Six in the New Kids' wonderful song, but if there was a Step Six it would be something along the lines of "Step Six: Don't try and take a structurally complicated cake on public transport when invariably there will be scary shouting and swearing old men and you'll only have to get off the bus and walk to your final destination anyway". So as you can probably imagine, it was in true to form Silver Whimsy Nervous Bakedown style that we made our way to the party on foot. Once we had arrived and re-constructed the RMSC, we happily set it on the table amongst the other beautiful cakes made by my amazing cousin and relished watching people eating and enjoying it. Hooray! It was quite a spread at the party as you can see below!

Until next time,

Cupcakes and Kisses,

Silver Whimsy x

PS Still no news of Mike deCuisine....

Oh Manchester, So Much To Answer For!

It all started with a trip to Manchester.

Or rather, it all started with a trip to Manchester in the rain in high heels with several bags and a great need for a cup of tea.

It was a bit like time travel. I felt as if I had fallen into Life on Mars except it was Life on Mars; The Britpop Years and starred me instead of John Simms. I was trawling through rails of vintage clothes at the Afflecks Palace in Manchester remembering the days of A Level English Seminar Day Trips with Sally, where we always got an hour or so off at lunch time and headed straight to Oldham Street. I thought I'd go to Cafe Pop and have a milkshake but when I got there it didn't feel the same as it used to and no-one even said 'Hello!' when I walked in so I thought I'd try and find somewhere else.

I wondered down Thomas Street Looking for the Light through the Pouring Rain and came across a glass fronted cavernous tea shop with it's door wide open and lots of tea sets in the window as if to say "Welcome Traveller! Have a cup of tea! Come inside and shelter from the rain." It would have been rude to refuse the invitation so in I went to CUP.

It's a super-cool cafe belonging to Mr. Scruff and was filled with pretty young things being modern on their apple mac lap tops but not in a remotely irritating way. I ordered some tea and malteser cake. I've generally stopped eating cake that hasn't been made by me but I couldn't resist on this occasion. A nice man brought my pot of tea over and informed me that this tea was Mr. Scruff's very own brew! He had become so sick of having a bad cup of tea that he went off on a quest to find his own. Very sensible indeed. You can tell that Mr. Scruff is a man who knows a thing or too about tea because look at the fabulous colour of this cuppa;

What's more, they even give you a little cartoon entitled 'how to make a proper brew' just in case you weren't sure. Sorry that this photo is so out of focus but ever since I dropped my camera my photography has been a bit hit and miss. You can find out all about Mr. Scruff's tea here; www.makeusabrew.com .

I didn't intend to write about other people's baking creations on this blog, and I have to say the cake was unexceptional (although it was PERFECT for what I needed at that moment - it reminded me of a homely tasting malty flavoured cake that you might purchase outside in the wet weather at a local historical monument that was having a charity fayre) but the tea was so stunning it commanded a new post.

I will be baking next week for my cousin's daughter's party (and you never know what might happen between now and then) so more adventures to follow!

Actually, my SIBF's still asleep...maybe I'll do some baking right now...

Until next time,

Cupcakes and Kisses,

Silver Whimsy x

Zombies eat Cakes!

It all started when Uncle Robin gave me some heart shaped cupcake tins. Or rather, it all started when Marc Price made a zombie movie. But that's another story...

This Bank Holiday Monday morning in the heart of London's Leicester Square, there was a strange stirring. The Zombies were out in force to celebrate Frightfest and have a special Zombie Sports Day. I can't remember exactly whose idea it was, but it seemed like I just had to bake some heart shaped cupcakes, go to Leicester Square, hand the cakes out to hungry Zombies and then, obviously, take photos of Zombies Eating Heart Shaped Cakes.

Clearly, if I was going to do this it was time to try out a recipe for Red Velvet Cake (I'm sick of hearing people go on about it) so that the hearts would look bloody all the way through...

Red Velvet Cake is a genuine mystery to me. It was a mystery before I made it and now, having made it, it remains utterly alien to my sense of what constitutes a good cake. Firstly, it has WEIRD ingredients in it. Secondly, it smells of chocolate but does not look chocolatey and thirdly it is RED which is just wrong. I must have read at least fifty recipes last night before I started making the mixture. I have to admit it was fun stirring in all the food colouring, but it wasn't fun enough to constitute ever making it again. SIBF was waiting for the football to come on the TV when I walked into the sitting room to make him sniff the bowl. In retrospect, this was a slightly odd thing to make someone do ("Hi honey, I know you're watching TV but will you just sniff this bowl?"), but I couldn't get over the CHOCOLATE scent and RED cake mixture. Super-weird.

The cakes went into the oven and the baking aroma started filling the flat, just I couldn't get over the chocolate/redness disparity. Half way through baking I opened the oven to turn the tray and... Eek... They had turned into Heart Shaped Cupcake Mountains. When they had finished cooking, they looked OK but a little less red. However, after a touch of icing, a sprinkle of red hearts and some silver balls they didn't look too bad;

The fun bit came when we headed down to Frightfest. How were the Zombies going to react? How many would be there? What would they look like? So many questions, so few answers.

The first Zombie I met was Organiser of the Undead Extraordinaire, Ed.

He runs Terror4fun - the UK's home for Zombie information! Wow! I had stumbled on the Zombie Leader without even knowing it! Ed hadn't had any breakfast, so what a perfect way for him to start his day.

Next up I met two very nice Zombies who were almost fighting over a heart shaped cupcake but in a very slow, Zombie-like manner.

Here is Team Zombie! I love the fact that two are going in for a bite, but the Everton supporting Zombie is just kind of standing there looking a bit glum. Cheer up Toffee Boy, Everton won yesterday!

Pirate Zombie! Aragggh me Heart-ies;

Finally, here is my favourite Zombie moment. True Love Zombies celebrating their Bloody Surgeon Union with a Red Velvet Heart Shaped Cupcake. Awww. You've got to love a Zombie with a Heart.

Until next time...

Cupcakes and Kisses,

Silver Whimsy x

PS If any of you are wondering what happened to my cake tins, I still have them all! Mike deCuisine is completely un-contactable and I haven't been able to send the tins back. Never shop at deCuisine.co.uk!!

Attack of the Killer Cake Tins. (Or,' I've got 99 Problems and the Cake Tins are one.')

It all started with hysterical laughter at 8.30 this morning.

Or rather, it all started with hysterical laughter at 8.30 this morning when the postman arrived with this box:

Which turned out to contain this...

...the dreaded '6' and '0' Cake Tins.

My SIBF awoke to the dulcet tones of my high pitched shrieking as I unwrapped the over-sized and un-wanted parcel that had come from Mike deCuisine's headquarters in Dorset. SIBF stumbled into the living room in his murky green t-shirt, ruffling his scruffy hair and rubbing his eyes, to discover me perilously arranging 6's and 0's on the bookshelves for an impromptu Cake Tin photo shoot...

It's possible to create a whole army of long numbers with my excessive cake tins and they really are rather good models - they're shiny, they're quiet and they don't complain about the awkward places in which you want to shoot them. Here are some examples of the numbers you can make if you too invest in over-priced hard to find cake tins;

Number Nine Thousand and Nine Hundred! (Modelled here with the help of Apple Jack, Gingerbread, Princess Sparkle, Baby Bow Tie et al...);

Number Six Hundred! (Styled here in an original Fritz Hanson Swan Chair and accessorised with one of my Grandma's avant-garde embroidered cushions...);

Number Six Thousand and Sixty! (Best seen with a simple background of striped tiles...);

By this point, SIBF decided he wanted to get involved in the modelling of the cake tins (the My Little Ponies were getting way too much attention), so he suggested he held the tins and I photographed him from the neck down. Here he is with Number Sixty Nine;

I think it could be a record cover or a better way of advertising American freeways. If there is an American Freeway 69. If there isn't, there really ought to be.

Anyway, an amusing morning was spent with the 6's 9's and 0's. An amusing morning, that is, up to the point it occurred to me that I now have to try and send the tins back. Every time I call Mike deCuisine he's engaged and he never replies to my emails. I can't believe that two weeks after the 6oth Birthday Party Phenomenon I now have another set of '60' cake tins...

If anyone needs a 'Cake for the Elderly' making please let me know!

Kisses and Cupcakes,

Silver Whimsy x

Silver Whimsy; Cakes for the Elderly

It all started with a cake tin. Or rather with two cake tins. ‘6’ and ‘0’ to be precise.

I thought I had it all sorted. I’d found a relatively reasonable cake tin supplier – decuisine.co.uk – and placed my order well in advance of the Friday baking deadline. There wasn’t very much more I could do. I had bought the shocking amount of butter required to make enough of Nigella’s Vanilla Shortbread to feed 90 people and been to the farmer’s market for the freshest, largest free range eggs. I just had to wait for the cake tins to arrive. My mobile rang. It was an ‘unknown’ number so I let them leave an answer phone message. To my surprise it was;

Mike from deCuisine. Just wondering when you need the tins by because I always check if it’s a number tin because it might be for a specific date.

I rang him back;

Hello!

Hello I recognise your voice. I’ve got to say you’ve got a very pretty name. You mustn’t get married because you’ll lose it.

This was when I made my mistake;

Actually if I married my current boyfriend…

I could feel my scruffy indie boyfriend (SIBF) freezing agog next to me as he heard me describe him as ‘my current boyfriend’. It had just sort of slipped out in the most innocent way possible, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed to forget about it for some time. Mike was busy telling me that he wouldn’t be able to get the tins by Friday but I only had ears for my SIBF’s outraged silence.

In the end, the tins came from Jane Asher’s over-priced Sugarcraft shop. My long-suffering sister went to buy them from the deepest darkest heart of Chelsea and came back laden down with flower shaped sprinkles, pink cake pens and edible paper hearts. My ‘current’ SIBF was still somewhat un-impressed with me and my sister was headed to a wedding the following day when the baking began.

The Jane Asher shop assistant had given my sister strict instructions on how to use the cake tins. Current SIBF and I followed them to the T. It was Friday and all the shortbread had been baked, all 60 fairy cakes were cooling in the living room and the ‘0’ of the ‘60’ was in the oven. There was nothing to do but wait.

The allotted baking time up, I opened the oven to discover the ‘0’ tin was oozing expensive free range organic cake mix out of the many joins in the metal contraption. I tried the ‘6’ and this worked so spectacularly that I had to re-make the ‘0’ to reach the same level of beautifully risen joy.

All cakes made and iced (thanks largely to a panicked icing SOS call to SIBF’s mother), we set off at 8.15 on Saturday morning to the North.

During the perilous transporting of cakes, fanzines, photographs, an 18^th century Hogarth print and other items universally acknowledged to be of great importance for a 60^th birthday party, I ridiculously insisted on purchasing coffee, a fact I would live to regret when, in a freak accident, I managed to pour the entire cup of strong boiling bubblingly dark coffee into the bag containing all of the aforementioned items. There is no scientific scale strong enough with which to catalogue my grief/shock/hysteria/disbelief/lack of functioning at this happening. No Kelvin, rankine, ampere, ohm could be referred to as a sufficient measurement to sum up the grief and pain thrown upon me by the coffee cup deluge. If it wasn’t for my SIBF I would still be sobbing in an Alice-like puddle of tears at Kings Cross Station. Happily, however, SIBF took the situation in hand and managed to get me, sodden items, my amazing cousin and her mother all on the train headed north AND somehow succeeded in rescuing everything from coffee stains, tear stains and wreckage at my hands.

In the end, all the cake was eaten and universally praised and we all lived happily ever after.

Unfortunately, however, I have just received an email from Mike at deCuisine letting me know that my ‘order has been despatched from our warehouse’ and contains another ‘6’ and another ‘0’ cake tin… I have seen enough of these cake tins to last a life time and there are two more in the post! Quelle expensive nightmare!

If you or anyone you know needs a 60^th, 90^th, 66^th, 99^th, 69^th or 96^th birthday cake made please let me know. I have started a special new range - Silver Whimsy; ‘Cakes for the Elderly’.

Cupcakes and kisses,

Silver Whimsy x

From Club Kid to Domestic Cookie Baker in Three Decades

It all started on a whim. 

Or rather, it all started on a Whimsy.

I had already been baking far more than it was conceivable for anyone to eat, s0 that when the tempting flyer advertising 'stall-holders needed' at the Jester Festival drifted through my letterbox like a feather-lite sign from on high I simply had to make the call and say;

I run 'The Silver Whimsy Cake Stall' and would adore to be part of the West Hampstead Jester Festival...

The answer I received was slightly less gushing; 

Be warned! We are rather over-subscribed on the cake stall front!

But they let me go ahead anyway. 

This was to be the cake stall of my dreams. This was to be "The Silver Whimsy Cake Stall".

I began writing endless lists;

Things I need to do

Make some Bunting

Make Labels

Work out how many Ingredients I need

Find a table

Source Roses for the Teapots

Get some more Tupperware

Find a Cupcake Carrier

Remember the My Little Ponies...

Cakes I ought to make

Vanilla Cupcakes with Raspberry Swirl Icing

Zingy Lemon Drizzle Loaf

My Boyfriend's Favourite Cookies

Good Old Fashioned Victoria Sponge

Is it a milkshake? Is it a cake? It's both! It's a Raspberry Milkshake Cake

Deeply Delicious Dark Chocolate Brownies...

Things I need to buy

Ribbon

Bags

Greaseproof Paper

Umbrellas 

Ice Bags

Cooking Tray

Float

Doilies

Glasses...

It went on and on and on and on... 

I ate, slept and drank Silver Whimsy. So did my scruffy indie boyfriend, my sister and her boyfriend. It all started getting a bit too much. The day before The Silver Whimsy Cake Stall (TSWCS) was a baking frenzy! No cake tin was left un-turned, no-one could move for the butter-icing mountains and Green&Blacks chocolate fountains. Everything came to a sudden and unforeseen halt, however, with the advent of an unexpected visitor...

She was mewing on the back stairs as I was obliviously lining up fairy cakes in the living room. My sister and my scruffy indie boyfriend found her. She was timid and starving and thoroughly exceptionally beautiful. All baking stopped. All everything stopped. We only had eyes for the kitten. We played and played and she was so happy and sweet. We knew action was the only way forward and organised a trip to the vets first thing the next morning (the day of TSWCS) to see if she was microchipped. I awoke at 5am to ice cakes/play with the kitten. TSWCS seemed unimportant compared to the fate of the now-named Bobbie. My scruffy indie boyfriend was going to a wedding so my sister and I took her to the vets and discovered she wasn't microchipped but the vet said we had to put her back outside where we'd found her because she clearly belonged to someone else and would find her way home! The heart-break/hysteria was instant and horrifying. It was with a leaden heart, little sleep and many tears that I went back to my 'pitch' to find all the abandoned cakes I had left there. 

BUT

Oh for the kindness of strangers! Ryzard and the gang from Whizzgo who were on the stall next to me had not only paid for the cab that I took to the site and then promptly abandoned owing to the plight of Bobbie, but had also put up my table and put all the cakes under it to make sure they didn't get too hot! They were genuine modern day knights in shining armour, rescuing a Hampstead Cake Baker in the middle of a Nervous Bakedown. So in spite of my lack of sleep and the ever brewing tears over Bobbie, I set up TSWCS.

I met the local police, St John's Ambulance Brigade, Firemen and many local folk. It was quite thrilling. I sold my Victoria Sponge before the stall was even properly set up. I did have some bankrupting problems relating to the fact that everything was organic and fair trade and I hadn't costed things properly but still... People were drawn to my portable record player that happily filled the Summer air with Blondie and Arcade Fire and many parents forced their children to look at this relic from the past! People were drawn to the essence of Silver Whimsy. They loved it! The 84 year old magician set up behind my stall, the Ham & High photographed me with my cakes and I had repeat customers in the same day!!

There were archery demonstrations, boxers, ballet students and weird cover bands and the festival was a true tour de force. I sold out of my under-priced delicious cakes before the afternoon was out which meant I had to start baking all over again for the day two as soon as I got home... Drained and exhausted Ryzard gave me a lift home with all my many tupperware boxes and imagine my joy when - yes oh yes, my oh my - Bobbie was waiting for us on the doorstep! I baked as she sat and watched. 

The second day of TSWCS dawned and I felt compelled to follow the vets instructions and put her outside again to let her find her way home. My amazing cousin helped me by making some chocolate muffins and giving me a lift to the site. 

As soon as we arrived there was a torrential downpour and all I could think of was the Bob-cat being just a poor tiny kitten out in the horrid rain, so hysteria set in and there was a lot of Holly Golightly style running around in the rain shouting "Cat! Where's the cat?" The cat was found, put inside out of the cold and I returned to TSWCS to discover once more how blessed I was as the beautiful Liza and Glen had been looking after the stall in my absence. I sold out of cakes again and once more got by purely through the help of my friends and the kindness of strangers... It would be too much to go into the heartbreak that ensued when, after a week with us, Bobbie was claimed by her owners and we had to give her back to her parents, but suffice to say I am still recovering from it... All in all, the weekend of TSWCS was quite eventful!

So, a rather long post to start off with but then where would we be without an introduction?

Welcome to my world, I hope you'll join me for the ride and bear with me bumps and all...

Until next time, 

Cupcakes and Kisses, 

Silver Whimsy x