Red Velvet Cupcakes

Ah, so parts of Auckland have been without power for a few days now, driving everyone insane...me included. But after getting our power back we went round to my Aunt and Uncles house and I made some cupcakes for my cousins birthday. 

They are my infamous red velvet cupcakes--an American classic, but who doesn't love a good one. This recipe is tried and true, and has never let me down. Will always be a crowd favourite!

Red Velvet cupcakes with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting 

Banana Salted Caramel Cake

It is my grandparents birthdays this week and since I am down at Lake Rotoiti for the weekend, I decided to make a birthday cake for them. It is a banana cake with salted caramel and cream cheese frosting filling with a brown sugar swiss meringue buttercream.

So Happy Birthday Nana and Pop (Pasty and Buzz)!

Raspberry White Chocolate Cupcakes

These are a moist vanilla cake with white chocolate ganache filling and a raspberry swiss meringue buttercream. New Zealand white chocolate is superb and has an excellent mouth feel compared to American white chocolate, making it a must do in the cupcake scene. 

Anzac Cupcakes

Well its that time of the year again and exams are looming in the near future. So what does one do when they have jammed their head with as much information as possible for that period of time? Bake of course! Aka the perfect study break.

So I turned to my little notebook I keep by my bed for the crazy flavour combinations I come up with at 3 am to find one that would suffice. I came across some real Kiwiana flavours like lamington, banoffee, or Anzac so after about 5 minutes of strict deliberation, I decided to make the Anzac cupcakes.

Any other flavour suggestions for the future? :)

They are a golden syrup cake with coconut and golden syrup caramel filling, golden syrup frosting and topped with toasted coconut and an Anzac biscuit.

Lemon and Marscapone Cake

It was my wonderful godmothers birthday yesterday, so I turned to the trusty pages of my Bluebells Cakery cookbook and decided on making a vanilla bean cake with lemon curd and marscapone filling, topped with pink rosettes of vanilla bean buttercream.

This recipe uses a unique way of mixing the batter, by adding butter to the dry ingredients until it turns into breadcrumb sized pieces, then adding the wet ingredients. But despite this unique way of mixing, it is a foolproof, delicious recipe that is sure to win over the hearts of anyone who has any slight resemblance of a sweet tooth.

Boredom Leads to Making Cupcakes

I was home alone all day yesterday and after spending the majority of the day doing homework and eating dinner at 5pm followed by way too many lollies, I switched on the TV to watch cupcake wars. This inspired me to bake some cupcakes with whatever we had in the fridge and pantry, all homemade as always!
 I decided to use the leftover caramel from Becca's birthday cake last week to make a triple caramel cupcake and a vanilla, raspberry and chocolate cupcake. 

So I made them, using my favourite old recipe that has never let me down and began to bake.

The Triple Caramel Cupcake is a caramel cake, filled with salted caramel, with caramel buttercream and a caramel drizzle topped with an almond brittle.

The Vanilla, Raspberry and Chocolate Cupcake is a vanilla bean cake with raspberry filling and chocolate buttercream.

Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes

This weekend has been a lovely relaxing five-day weekend for me after a hectic week of exams. Had a fantastic weekend away to my grandparents lake house at the gorgeous Lake Rotoiti and got back yesterday afternoon. Today was so lovely and warm here--where did winter go? No complaints from me though! So, I had a great ride on my sweet Remy this morning, followed by an afternoon of cupcake baking! Could it get any better?

So after doing some research last night, I took inspiration from my previous salted caramel cake and the 'Fleur de Sel' cupcake at Kara's Cupcakes in California to come up with this one.

It is a chocolate cake with salted caramel filling, vanilla bean swiss meringue buttercream and salted caramel drizzle with fleur de sel sprinkled on top.

Maple Apple Cupcakes

I was recently surprised by one of my classmates at school with a cupcake from a bakery in Ponsonby as a thank you/inspiration for all the cupcakes that I bring into school for everyone. I was so surprised and delighted, completely made my day! Anyway the cupcake inspired me to make these cupcakes. Perfect for this cold fall (autumn) week here in Auckland. 

They are a cinnamon cake with cinnamon apple filling and maple cream cheese buttercream.

Chai Cupcakes and Samoa Cupcakes

I have been so busy lately riding my horse and doing heaps of school work preparing for the upcoming exams next week, so I haven't had a ton of time to bake recently. Anyway, this afternoon I set some time aside to do what I love and bake until my heart was content. So, me being me I got ambitious and decided to make two flavours today. I made a chai cupcake and a samoa cupcake.

Chai Cupcake: Chai cake with cinnamon sugar crust and a chai swiss meringue buttercream, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. 

Chai Cupcake

Samoa Cupcake: Coconut cake with chocolate ganache filling, caramel swiss meringue butter cream and topped with toasted coconut.

Samoa Cupcake

Samoa Cupcakes

Perfectly accompanied by coffee.

On another note, I made this cake for my godmothers partners birthday. He is really into sailing, so I made him this cake. It is a red velvet cake with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Ganache Cupcakes

Over the past few times I have tried to make chocolate cupcakes, I have had somewhat of a fail and they haven't risen the way they should, they sunk in the middle, or they were dry and crumbly. So I have decided to discard/dispose of all other chocolate cake recipes now and have found the perfect chocolate cake recipe thanks to the utter perfection of my Little and Friday cookbook. This has now become my bible (along with Magnolia Bakery's cookbook) and my favourite recipes.

My cupcakes are inspired by the Little and Friday cake transforming it into a dark chocolate cupcake with raspberry marscapone filling and covered in chocolate ganache. These are rich and decadent, fulfilling the chocolate desire of anyone.

Chocolate Hazelnut Caramel Slice

Over the past few weeks I have been introduced into the most mouth-watering, crave-worthy cafe here in Auckland called Little and Friday. So after much anticipation, we made our way down the backstreets of Newmarket to find the little hole in the wall beauty that was Little and Friday. It is quite unique in the sense that their little cafe is located inside a fabric store which gives it a bit of a homey feel. Mom and I ordered our cappuccino and just had to try the orange almond rosewater cake...my god...that was the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth. How could one little bite of cake be that gobsmackingly good? Well without further question, it was that good. So we just had to get both of the cookbooks so I could attempt to make those perfect little creations myself.

So after sitting down and marking everything that I could possibly want to make, I decided to make the caramel slice. It was a chocolate base with creamy caramel filling, studded with roasted hazelnuts and smothered in chocolate ganache. What more could you want from a caramel slice? This was the perfect caramel slice and my new recipe! I can't wait to try making the chocolate cake today! :)

Chocolate Chip Cookies

This morning I woke up to the loud claps of thunder ringing around the lake followed by and endless amount of rain. So I decided to spend my afternoon attempting to make homemade hot cross buns...lets just say they ended up like beautiful little mounds of glazed, uncooked, dough balls. NOT the puffy, chewy and cinnamony ones that you buy in every bakery and grocery store at the moment. So they ended up being binned. Might try making some more tomorrow (Easter Sunday).

So by the end of the night, I realised that I needed to lift my spirits a bit and made my fool-proof recipe of chocolate chip cookies. I left the dough in the fridge to rest overnight and set about reading The Fault in Our Stars (I ended up in tears and had to put it down for the night, too many emotions for little me).

So when I woke up in the morning, I popped them in the oven and when they were finished, I went for a sail on the boat with my brother, Oscar. They turned out just the way they always do, soft and chewy, warm and gooey. The epitome of the classic American chocolate chip cookie.

Cheese and herb scones my Nana made

Easter Cupcakes

My school tutor group (a group of mixed year levels that gets together a few times a week) decided to have a shared morning tea on the last day of term one today. I am tutor group leader, so I decided to make Easter cupcakes. I will bring a few of the leftovers down to my nana and pop this weekend too :)

I woke up at 3am yesterday morning and decided that I would be a bit ambitious and make two different types of cupcakes to bring. After contemplating and having an internal debate about what flavours to make, I decided (with the help of my wonderful Mom) to make chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel filling and salted caramel Swiss meringue buttercream and coconut cupcakes with lemon curd filling and lemon Swiss meringue buttercream. Wow that’s a mouthful to say!

To top the cupcakes I decided to make fondant bunny and egg cut-outs that I hand painted with gel food colouring. 

Coconut Cake with Lemon Curd Filling and Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream Topped with Toasted Coconut

Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Filling

Salted Caramel Filling

Vanilla Bean Cupcakes with Raspberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream

This week two of my friends at school have their 17^th birthdays, so in order to celebrate, I decided to bake them some cupcakes. After getting inspired by flavour combinations on Pinterest (my secret obsession), I decided I would make my signature vanilla bean cake, filled with homemade vanilla bean pastry cream and topped with raspberry Swiss meringue buttercream.

So I started by making the pastry cream and considering it was my first attempt, I was thrilled with the way it turned out! Nice and thick, just like it should be with heaps of vanilla beans and no lumps.

Then I made the raspberry coulis that I would then add to the buttercream. Since I live in NZ and raspberries are now out of season, I had to settle for frozen berries but it turned out just as I wanted as well. So far so good!

After completing my favourite vanilla bean cake recipe and baking the cupcakes, it was on to the frosting…the traditional Swiss meringue buttercream. This requires whipping egg whites and adding a sugar syrup followed by adding butter piece by piece…quite the gruelling process, but completely worth it!

Now the cupcakes were ready to assemble, filling piping bags and decorating them with hand-piped chocolate ganache hearts.

Hope the girls like the final result! J

Caramelitas

Today while doing my daily Pinterest check, I came across a recipe for caramelitas. What is a caramelita? I soon found out it is an oaty slice with chocolate chips and caramel laced through them. I HAD to make them!  The recipe called for chewy caramels that are typically found in the candy section of the grocery store, but while looking today I realised that they don't sell them here in NZ! So I had to settle for some other caramels filled with chocolate and some caramel chips.

After making and baking the caramelitas, I let them cool for about 30 minutes, got sick of waiting and decided to cut them up...BIGGEST MISTAKE. The baking paper that I used ended up completely sticking to the bottom and sides of the slice, so I had a complete meltdown and pretty much gave up.

After letting it cool properly, I finally was able to cut it and take a few photos. Overall, I was happy with how they turned out and will definitely be making them again.

Recipe:

• 32 chewy caramels 
• ½ cup heavy cream
• ¾ cup butter, melted
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 cup flour
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 oz dark chocolate chips
• 3 oz milk chocolate chips

Combine caramels and cream in a small saucepan until smooth, set aside. In a separate bowl, combine melted butter, brown sugar, flour, oats and baking soda. Press ½ of the oat mixture onto the bottom of an 8x8" pan lined with NONSTICK baking paper. Bake at 350 degrees (180 celsius) 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle over the chocolate chips and caramel mixture. Crumble remaining oat mix over the caramel and chocolate chips and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely before slicing. :)

Miscellaneous Baking Adventures

These are a few of my baking adventures before I started this blog. They are a few different cupcakes I have made semi-recently.

The first is a S'mores cupcake. Just like a s'more you eat while sitting around the campfire on a summers evening, burning your eyes with smoke, but never the less loving the s'more. I have tried this recipe a few times, and I have had different results. Because I live in NZ it is hard to buy graham crackers (VERY AMERICAN) and so I had to use malt biscuits instead, which wasn't quite the same. It is a chocolate buttermilk cake, with malt biscuit crust, covered in chocolate ganache and italian meringue.

The second cupcake is my take on a salted caramel cake. It is one of my staples and a go-to recipe for me. So many people are always amazed with this cupcake--a showstopper for sure. This is my signature cupcake. It is a brown sugar cake, filled with salted caramel, vanilla bean buttercream, drizzled with salted caramel and chocolate ganache, sprinkled with fleur de sel and hard-crack sugar.  

Gluten Free Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

This week was my boyfriends moms birthday, so I decided it would be nice to bring her some cupcakes. She is gluten free, so she often can only have a bite (or two) of whatever I bake, so I decided to branch out of my mould and make some gluten free cupcakes. After much research, I came across a chocolate cake recipe that apparently didn't taste gluten free at all! So I got gluten free flour and made the recipe. I was very skeptical at first, however I was so thrilled at how they turned out. My personal taste-tester (Mom) was a bit skeptical as well, however she said they were delicious and tasted great...such a relief!

So it is a gluten free chocolate cupcake, filled with raspberry jam and pink vanilla buttercream. 

Salted Caramel Cake

So I was told about a cake competition that required me to make a celebration cake and take a picture of it. Easy enough, right? So I thought, well I might as well give it a shot as I have nothing to lose. After much contemplation about what kind of cake I should make that would be the most visually appealing considering it was a photo competition only. I came to the conclusion that I should turn my signature salted caramel cupcake into a full sized cake. So I did...

It is a brown sugar cake, filled with salted caramel and chocolate ganache, vanilla bean buttercream and smothered in salted caramel sauce and fleur de sel. Oh and did I mention it is 100% homemade?

This was the end result...

Hi!

My name is Liv and I am a teenager who has found a love for baking over the years. None of my family members, such as my Nana or my Mom, have ever found a real passion for baking, so I guess I can accredit my love for baking (and cooking, I guess) to watching the Food Network when I was younger in the US. I used to get up on Saturday morning and have to wait until the real food shows would come on at 7am. I would watch the steaming soups, bubbling sauces, and endless knife techniques, dutifully studying what ingredients went together and what did not. 

From a young age, my friends and I would make chocolate chip cookies from pre made dough (eating half of it as we went) to learning to make the dough ourselves and realising they were SO much better when they were home made. When I was about 5, I remember going over to my friends house and having a cook off, creating something that consisted of butter, sugar and cinnamon--lets just say we weren't aware of the sugar high that was about to overcome us. Then we realised on another playdate, that if you put lettuce in a pan with butter, salt and pepper, the lettuce will wilt down to nothing, which completely fascinated us. 

Over time I started creating cookies with the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag, cupcakes/cake with store-bought icing, and pies. However as the years went by, my addiction to baking grew and grew. I started making everything from scratch and found the best recipes that I could count on. Soon I started baking every chance I got, being inspired by Cupcake Wars and trying different cupcake flavour combinations. By the time I was 13, I started making cakes for friends birthdays trying to out-do myself at every opportunity. I swear I used to get more excited for my family and friends birthdays then themselves, just because it was an excuse to bake a cake or cupcakes. When I was 15, I decided to take the Wilton Cake Decorating course that really helped me to improve my basic understanding and knowledge of cake decorating. 

I had dreams of going to culinary school and becoming a professional cake decorator/baker however I soon realised these dreams would be very hard to achieve and still make a profit, so I made it my hobby to bake for the people around me. To be quite honest, I don't even really like the taste of cake, which everyone always questions, however it is the reaction of people trying my baking that makes me so happy and makes me want to work harder at it. So for now, I am forced to just baking in my spare time as I am in my final year at high school in New Zealand now and focusing on applying for University. 

I am genuinely so proud of my creations and there is nothing more rewarding than a room full of people devouring my work and having grins from ear to ear. I still have the desire to do something involving baking in my life, what that is, only the future knows. 

So this is going to be a blog about my baking adventures and everything that goes with them. Please enjoy! 

Liv xx