Kathryn's Cupcakes Easter Designs 2016 - Cute Chic

Hello lovely cupcake lovers,

I've had what I like to think of as an exciting and successful week that I hope will bring lots of positive projects in the future. My website is now completely finished and I finally got round to buying my own domain name! YAY! No longer am I ... *insert name here*.com/kathryncupcakes, you can now officially find me and my cupcakes at http://www.kathrynscupcakes.co.uk 

Now onto the yummy, scrummy chocolate Easter cupcakes for 2016!

These Easter cupcake chick designs are so cute and fun to make. I used my dairy free chocolate sponge recipe along with a dairy free chocolate buttercream of course and decorated the rest with some sprinkles.

Another reason I am excited is that I have finally found my signature cupcake design, yup the simple swirl and sprinkles along with some fondant to bring character to the cupcakes.

Have a lovely weekend and Easter!

Kathryn x

Creme Egg Cupcakes/Dairy Free Alternative

Happy Good Friday everyone! 

Yesterday I decided to bake some Creme Egg cupcakes. Although the photo does have a creme egg on top, I replaced some with some dairy free buttons to ensure they are fit for all us lactose intolerant people out there :) Photos for them are below. 

You will need:

For the Sponge 

3 Medium sized eggs (mine together weighed 204g)

204g Caster Sugar

204g Pure Margarine (or butter) 

160 grams Self Raising Flour

40 grams Cocoa Powder

50 grams dark chocolate chips

Vanilla Essence

Creme Egg Fondant Filling

170g golden syrup

60g butter (stork in foil block- contains no milk!)

375g Icing Sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

dash of salt

Yellow Food colouring (preferably the gel colouring rather than liquid) 

Butter Cream

This was my plain vanilla recipe which I don't actually measure... So ideally found a basic recipe and replace with STORK again for a dairy free alternative :) (sorryyy) 

Mini creme eggs or dairy free buttons! 

Method

1. Pre heat oven 160C Fan /180C and line a 12 cupcake cases
2. In a bowl mix together the sugar and butter
3. Add vanilla extract and one egg at a time and mix
4.  Slowly sift together the flour and cocoa butter and fold into the mixture
5. Add the chocolate chips
6. BAKE! For around 20-25 mins. If you are unsure you can tap lightly on the sponge and see if its springy or looks 'done', or stick a skewer in the middle. If it comes out clean they are ready :) 

Take out and leave to cool.... 

In the mean time

Fondant Filling!

1. Mix together the butter, syrup and vanilla in a bowl and whisk! I highly suggest an electric mix for this ha
2. Gradually add the icing sugar
3. Take about 1/4 of this and in another bowl mix with some yellow food colouring
4. Add the yellow to the other mixture and use a fork to stir it in, only slightly. 

Once your cakes are cooled, use a cupcake core (or just a knife and cut around) to scoop the centre of the cupcakes

Fill with the fondant!

Use your favourite Butter cream recipe (ideally just some butter and icing sugar, dash of vanilla until it tastes good) and pip a circle ring 

You should ideally have some fondant left, add more yellow to this if needed and use a piping bag to fill the center of the butter cream ring.

Top with a chocolate and voila!! 

Mmmmmm!! Enjoy :) Have a lovely Easter y'all 

Kathryn xx

Easter at Lush!

I love Lush however since going to university I never really have baths to use my favourite products. I needed motivation to run and knew that if I bought some bath bombs they would make me want to exercise and relax afterwards. Off I went into Lush and came out with two of the Easter edition bath products. The first; the Golden Egg and the second; the Fluffy Egg. 

So far I have just used the Golden Egg. 

What they say:

 'A glistening golden bath melt and bath bomb rolled into one. Because of its luxurious bath melt outer layer, when you first drop this into the bath it will sink down, then bob back to the top as the bath bomb centre begins to fizz away, filling your bath water with its sumptuous honey-toffee fragrance.' 

It is sooo glittery! Not so much in the bath (thankgod) but touching it you will find yourself covered in gold glitter! It smells like lovely cocoa butter and toffee, mmm. I placed it into the bath (with jets) and the bomb went crazy, fizzing away and making my bath a scrummy yellow colour (not that appealing at first ha). There isn't loads of glitter like you would imagine but took quite a while to dissolve, which is great!

The bath felt so soothing and the cocoa butter left my skin feeling soft. I wish there was a little more glitter though in the bath and a strong smell.

Over all though, it was a pretty lovely bath bomb. Not sure I would purchase it again though, now just to wait till the Fluffy Egg! :) 

Kathryn x