Christmas Baking

For several years now Bubbles & I have been doing baked goods as Christmas presents for the extended family & friends. Some years we cook/bake a variety of cookies, or slices, or cupcakes.
This year it was cupcakes.
I wanted to try a few new recipes and decorations this year, so in early December I did a few ‘trial’ bakes of different recipes, most of which worked out well and were taste tested by some of the doctors at work and also everyone at swimming competitions.
So, for the Christmas presents I went with:

Oreo Cupcakes, with mini Oreo on top

These were made using a buttermilk recipe that I have adapted from a Lemon Buttermilk cupcake recipe. I used about 2 box's of Oreos inside the cupcake.


With the cookies, I first halved about a dozen of the cookies, placing the half with most of the cream on the bottom of the cupcake paper (cream side up), the other half and left over cookies went in the food processor and were cut up and then put in the cupcake batter.


The kids (and adults) at swimming loved this cupcake when I first made it, especially when they found the Oreo at the bottom.


For the decoration, I made a buttercream icing (from the Crabapple bakery recipe book), swirled it on to and added a mini Oreo.

Gluten free chocolate Cupcake, with chocolate ganash

I love this recipe (and so does ‘The Teacher’, Bubbles mum). The recipe is from the Crabapple Bakery recipe book and almost sends Bubbles into a diabetic coma when he helps to make it!


For decoration, I made Chocolate Ganash, again from the Crapapple bakery book, and added broken up Peppermint crisp on top

Caramel mud cake cupcake
This recipe was from the Women's Weekly Cupcake book and was something new for me, but wasn’t difficult to make, unlike some other caramel cakes can be.

I just dusted the top of the cupcake with some icing sugar, and stuck a gingerbread man on top using some buttercream icing from the other cupcakes. I got the handmade gingerbread men in a container of 20 from a seller at our local Sunday market.

Sponge cupcake

I was a bit let down by this cupcake. Almost all the cupcakes sunk, so after the first group came out of the oven and sunk, i made sure to turn the cupcakes from the second tray upside down on the cooling rack so they wouldn't sink on the top.

The cupcakes themselves were ok, although i don't think i will make them again.

I had great fun doing the butterfly's on top for the decoration though! I followed the directions from the "Hello cupcake" book. I made the Butterfly's the day before i baked the cupcakes.

Low sugar Berry Cupcakes

These little lovelies were a last minute addition as i realised i hadn't made anything Bubbles could happily eat, and therefore needed something also for a set of Aunt & Uncle.
 

 

 
So, after they were all made and decorated, i put them into these lovely boxes that i had ordered weeks back when we had chosen to do cupcakes this year.
 

Everyone loved the boxes, and the cupcakes were eaten up quickly