The baking blog world has pretty much been on a sugar high
from all the baking opportunities the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee has created. Street
parties with a bunch of neighbours you never normally speak to bring everyone
together through a love of food and partying. Our little road was no exception.
My mum and I donated the baked goodies I’m writing about here, got very merry
on some homemade cider and chatted absolute nonsense to neighbours we probably
won’t talk to again until the next Jubilee. What a wonderful way to spend a
Sunday afternoon, Eh?
Jubilee Cupcakes
I entered these into our street party’s cupcake competition
for a laugh, fully excepting to be competing against a few ten year olds. The
cupcake that won was actually really impressive! They’d made a little picnic
out of icing including a checked blanket and teapot. I should have known really
that there would be fierce competition down a decidedly middle-class street
full of housewives (and students) with too much time on their hands. Still, all
my cupcakes were eaten so that’s a success in my eyes!
Ingredients (Makes 24)
6 large free-range eggs
10 oz self-raising flour
10 oz caster sugar
10 oz butter
2 ½ tsp baking powder
Splash of milk
Scraping vanilla bean paste
For Icing
Large knob of butter
Spoonful of cream cheese
Lots of icing sugar
Few splashes of milk
Blue food gel
For decorations
Edible silver glitter
Red, white and blue royal icing
Preheat the oven to 180⁰C/ Gas Mark 5. Line two muffin
trays with Jubilee cake papers- these ones are from Lakeland but they do a
pretty range at Sainsbury’s.
This is a really easy all-in-one method so combine all the cupcake
ingredients into a large mixing bowl using an electric whisk until smooth.
Use a desert spoon to fill the cases ¾ full. Bake in the
oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown on top and springy in the middle.
Cool on a wire rack.
The next thing to do is to make the royal icing decorations.
You can make any shape you fancy really; I’ve seen crowns, flags, faces-
whatever. I went with hearts, mainly because we had the cutters. Roll out the
icing onto a surface lightly dusted with icing sugar and leave to harden and
dry on a piece of baking parchment. You need the decorations to dry for at
least an hour or more so that they stick up properly in the buttercream. To layer them up like I’ve done, mix a very
small bowl of icing sugar and water to make a kind of glue and paint a little
blob in between the shapes to help them stick.
To make the icing, first cream together the butter and cream
cheese. Sift icing sugar in small amounts, mixing as you go. If the mixture
becomes too stiff add a splash of milk. When you’ve made enough icing to cover
all your cakes (I made a huuuuge amount) add the blue colouring a very tiny
amount at a time until the mixture is the colour you want. I was originally
going for light blue but because of the yellow colour of the butter it looked a
kind of sickly green, so I had to go for a darker blue. If you wanted a really
light blue I’d suggest using a marshmallow buttercream mix where you use egg
whites.
I then used a piping bag with a star nozzle to swirl on a
generous helping of icing. Sprinkle the edible glitter and stick a decoration
into the side of the icing. Display them on a stand and as per usual, enjoy
with a cup of Great British tea!
Fruity Flag Traybake
My mum made this for the party using the recipe in June’s
Good Food magazine. It was delish if I do say so myself and a tasty traybake
you could make for any occasion.
Ingredients
100g/4oz butter
175g/6oz self-raising flour
50g/2oz ground almonds
2 tsp baking powder
4 large eggs
225g/8oz caster sugar
125ml/4fl oz full-fat Greek yoghurt
Zest 2 lemons
For icing and decoration
175g/6oz butter
350g/12oz icing sugar
300g/11oz raspberries
175g/6oz blueberries
Heat the oven to 160⁰C/Gas Mark 4. Butter and line a 30 x
20cm traybake tin with baking parchment.
Combine all the cake ingredients into a large mixing bowl
using an electric whisk. Pour into the tin and use a spatula to level the
surface. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly golden and springy in the
middle. Lift the cake out of the tin and cool on a wire rack.
To make the icing, first beat the butter until fluffy. Sift
the icing sugar a little bit at a time mixing until completely combined. When
the cake is completely cooled spread the icing all over the cake. To make the
flag place a double row of raspberries across the middle to make a cross, with
a single line connecting to each corner. Fill in the gaps with blueberries et voilà !
This is a picture of the desert table at our street’s party.
I think it’s fair to say everyone put on a few pounds this weekend in cake
alone…
Happy Jubilee Queenie!
