Hearts and Flowers Wedding Cake

I was asked to do a wedding cake for a couple that got married in St Lucia and then had a party when they got home. There theme was yellow and white with flowers and hearts, and the bride loves lilys so wanted the top cake to have lilys cascading down. I made 180 plain sponge cupcakes, 90 with vanilla buttercream and 90 decorated with sugarpaste with a 6 inch traditional victoria sponge centre piece for the top.

I was so proud of myself when i saw the finished tower all set up at the reception, my first Wedding Cake, two full days of baking and it looked amazing, i couldn't help but cry a little bit! The feedback i got from people at the reception was fantastic, everybody thought my top cake was beautiful  and the cupcakes went down a treat. I think cupcake towers are going to become very popular as wedding cakes, they look great and with no cutting up to do you can just grab a cupcake and carry on with the party!

Malteaser Hot Chocolate Cups

The winter frost is finally upon us and i thought my Malteaser Hot Chocolate Cups were quite appropriate for the January weather.

I have used my Classic Victoria Sponge recipe but i have substituted 1oz of self raising flour for 1oz of cocoa powder to make them extra chocolatey. You will also need a small bag of malteasers for the topping or you can use another chocolate bar of your choice, Cadburys flakes are a great as they crumble up really well and you can halve them and put halve stood up in the buttercream so it looks like a 99 icecream.

For the buttercream i used...

125g butter, at room temperature
250g icing sugar
15ml whole milk
1tsp vanilla extract

Beat the butter until it is smooth and creamy, add the milk and continue to beat. At this stage the more you beat the butter the lighter your buttercream will be. Add the sugar a spoonful at a time until it is blended in and then add the vanilla. Put the finished buttercream in a piping bag and carefully add swirls to your chocolate cups. Finish off with choosen chocolate bar.