How to: Giant Birthday Cupcake ♥

Hey lovelies,

So yesterday was my lovely mamas birthday and next week is my twin sisters birthday too, so as a little joint/early for my sisters treat I thought I'd make a giant cupcake birthday cake. I've seen them in lots of bakeries yet have never actually tried one but I found a mould in a catering shop so I thought I'd give it a try with my boyfriend. Finding recipes for a cupcake that big turned out to be quite difficult as each one seemed to say different amounts and the mould didn't have any instructions on it, so we ended up making it up a bit as we went along and working it out as best we could for ourselves, but luckily it worked and was deeeelish!

Unfortunately I haven't got pictures of every stage because some we got a bit ahead of ourselves and just carried on, but there are a few for you to check your progress :)

What you will need to make the cake we made:

A Giant Cupcake Mould 

250 grams of Self Raising Flour

250 grams of Unsalted Butter

250 grams of Caster Sugar

5 Eggs

4 tablespoons of Milk

1 teaspoon of Vanilla Extract

Buttercream fondant icing 

Pink (any colour of your choice) food colouring.

Cake decorations

Piping bag

Preheat oven to 200'c

Step 1: Cream the butter and caster sugar together until a smooth paste is formed

Step 2: Add one egg at a time with a little bit of flour and beat

Step 3: Add 1 tspn of Vanilla Extract and fold in the rest of the flour

Step 4: Add milk and continue to fold until the mixture is more smooth and liquid-y and easy to pour into moulds.

Step 5: Equally distribute the mixture into the top and bottom parts of the mould and place the bottom mould into the preheated oven first for 10 minutes, as this is slightly thicker and needs more time.

Step 6: After 10 minutes, place the top mould into the oven for 35 minutes.

Step 7: Icing - If you're cheating a little with the icing, like us, then pour the buttercream icing into a mixing bowl and add a few drops of food colouring, adding more when required in order to get the colour you desire.

Step 8: When the cake is ready, leave to cool before taking out of the moulds.

Step 9: Using a serrated knife, slice the bottom mould where it has risen, to make a flat surface for the top mould to sit on. Do this for the top mould as well, so that the top sits comfortably on the bottom.

Step 10: If you wish, you can add some of the buttercream icing to 'glue' the parts together like we did.

Step 11: Using a spatula, evenly coat the base of the cupcake in the buttercream icing so that all of it is covered.

Step 12: For the top, using icing in a different colour (or the same if you prefer), pour the icing into a piping bag and ice the top layer in whatever pattern you wish.

Step 13: Decorate the cake using flowers, hearts, sprinkles or whatever takes your fancy and carefully take off the messy icing plate to make it look neater(or just wipe the edges). Now share with the world and enjoy :)

         

Such a simple recipe for something that looks really complicated. I'd say the whole thing takes about two hours though with the decorating being so precise so quite a lot of time and effort is required. :) Happy Baking.

Have you ever made this before? Do you think you'll be attempting this yourself at home? 

x

New York New York ♥

Hello lovelies, 

Firstly, Happy New Year! (when is it socially unacceptable to keep saying that?) I know I'm 9 days late to be spreading new year love, but since this is my first chance since being back on english turf again I hope you all drank far too much and brought 2012 in in style! I'm counting on it being the best year yet as I have SO much to look forward to...I'll reveal more in another post soon :) This post is really about my adventures rather than beauty just to mix things up a little..and apologies for how long it is, just got lots to say after my lack of posts recently...

So if you've been reading my recent posts and tweets you'll be well aware that I've not been able to contain my excitement about going to the Big Apple for the first time to celebrate New Year and my 21st Birthday! Well now I'm home it's safe to say I had an AMAZING time just as expected, and I had the best birthday ever! I was actually gutted to have to come home and back to reality! 

There's so much too talk about so I'll try and keep it brief and point out some of my favourites and MUST SEE's!...

1. Soho for a few hours shopping! You are guaranteed to find some quirky things from the little boutique shops and if you're more of a fan of sticking to what you know, you can always hit Topshop or do the department style shopping in Bloomingdales! Definitely the place to visit for some little one offs that you wouldn't necessarily get at home.
2. Macy's! If for nothing else just the sheer size of the beauty section with all of the gorgeous make up and perfume. Hard not to spend all of your money really especially if the exchange rate is good and you can get things for good prices compared to home. The sales are amazing! An added bonus is that if you show some ID to prove you live outside of America you get an additional 10% off. Winner!
3. Empire State Building just to see the amazing views of the city, definitely a must see whilst you're there, it's just as good as everyone says it is! Some great photo opportunities there too!
4. Times Square! This has to be my favourite place on earth! It's always got so much going on and so busy yet still feels safe to be in. Especially when you stand in front of the billboards and get to see yourself on the big screen - Forever21 have their own billboard dedicated to people seeing themselves on the big screen! Times Square on NYE to bring in 2012 was one of my highlights even though it was essential to be there 6 hours early to get a good spot as there was around 1 million people there sharing the experience!  Wrap up warm though and eat a hearty meal before hand because once you're in, you're in! There are always some great celebrities there to bring in the new year, we had such amazing times watching Lady Gaga, Cee Lo Green, Pitbull and even Justin Beiber! 
5. Central park ice skating Just to make you feel young again and convince yourself you're a pro whilst skating around with people who really take it seriously and know what they're doing! The skyline surrounds you and you can just skate away until your heart's content. Follow this by a lovely relaxing walk around the rest of the park to unwind after the busy sightseeing everywhere else! Lovely times!
6. 5th Avenue Shopping! The Apple shop itself is a tourist attraction being just a glass cube with the shop below! There are some beautiful shops down this street, especially around christmas time when they're all decorated! It's so busy around this time of year though so be prepared to queue, we queued for half an hour to get into Abercrombie and Fitch from the minute it opened. The Hollister shop is another must see as they have a live feed of the surfers in California being displayed on the front of their shop, not something you see everyday! Definitely somewhere you can shop till you drop!

There's so much more that I did - even more of the typical touristy things (Statue of Liberty etc- all has to be done) but I won't write more of an essay, although one more tip is definitely go on a bus tour where you can hop on and hop off, makes sight seeing so much easier and you can cram so much into a day without getting tired! If you haven't already been you should really make it one of your life aims to get out there! Especially around Christmas or New Year to join in with all the festivities and see all of the beaut decorations! It's amazing. Such a great start to 2012!

I also had the best 21st Birthday! I had a lovely meal with my best girls who bought me lots of gorgeous things and I got totally spoilt by my family and boyfriend in New York...I'll do a separate post soon about my beautiful gifts, including my gorgeous Vivienne Westwood Jewellery and my new Mulberry purse and they'll definitely be featured a lot when I start doing OOTD's. My new years resolution is to get my blogging mojo back and get the confidence to start being more adventurous! Wish me luck!

What did you all do for New Year and do you have any new years resolutions? 

x

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