Red velvet cupcakes with pink jasmine decoration

We used to have a lovely lady at work who made cupcakes for our social get-togethers, but as she moved to Perth a few months ago someone had to pick up where she left off. And a recent farewell for yet another work collegue was a great opportunity for me to have some fun with making pretty cupcakes.

I used the red velvet cupcake recipe from issue 41 of Donna Hay (Oct/Nov 2008). I've used it before and it always impresses. The colour comes from red food colouring, but the delicate flavour comes from only 1/4 cup of cocoa. The small amount of cocoa gives it more of a subtle spiced flavour, rather than a chocolate flavour, which goes beautifully with the cream cheese frosting. I do usually find though I have to add a bit more icing sugar than Donna uses in the frosting. Like three times as much, otherwise the frosting won't hold its shape on the cupcake.

I piped on the frosting with a star tip in a piping bag. The last time I used this piping tip was three Christmases ago using white chocolate ganache, and the results were so disasterous i ended up smoothing the icing over with a knife so noone would see how much I sucked at piping. This time though, I seem to have gotten it right. My piped frosting looked really cute, but still showed off the red colour of the cake, and made a great backdrop for my pink flowers.

The pink flowers I made myself using fondant I had coloured pink, and a small jasmine flower cutter. I placed the flowers onto sponges I had dusted with icing sugar, used a ball tool to press them into shape, then left them to dry for a few hours before piping the centres with glace icing. For the record, I should have used royal icing because it would have lookd better and been easier to pipe, but I don't have any mix and I didn't want to fuss about with beating egg whites and whatnot for the sake of some tiny white dots. I attached the flowers to the cakes by simply pressing them gently onto the cream cheese frosting while it was freshly piped, and therefore still very moist and clingy.

Thoughts - OMG I have to make red velvet cupcakes more often! They really do have the most divine flavour, my co-workers were all very impressed. And I must say I'm very proud of my piping efforts, they really have improved dramatically. That said, my flowers still need work. I don;t expect to get good at them overnight, I will need more practice. I've already gotten some tips from some fellow decorators at the Planet Cake forum, and from a friend who is a pastry chef, so I'll get there :)

Chocolate Caramel Slice - second attempt

I decided to have another go at chocolate caramel slice, this time though I worked off a recipe by the ever-inspiring Donna Hay.

It called for a thinner base, twice as much condensed milk in the filling, and vegetable oil in the chocolate layer, rather than copha. All of this appealed to me. The caramel is after all the best part of a caramel slice so I liked the idea of having more of it. And the vegetable oil seems easier to work than copha... it always seemed a waste to buy a whole block then only use 50g, because once the bblock is opened it just dries out and gets ruined and winds up in the bin. But vegetable oil I can use one teaspoon and put the rest in the cupboard to use later.

Unfortunately I forgot a few of the basics I learnt in science class. A lack of space in my main fridge meant I had to cool the slice in the drinks fridge, and I placed it on a glass shelf not realising that the hot slice would cause the cold glass to crack. My clumsiness knows no limits....

Thoughts - we ate the first pieces before the chocolate had fully set, and before the caramel had completely cooled, and we weren't impressed. By the next day however, all the ingredients had time to settle in and it tasted so much better. I was really impressed, except that I felt the base was too buttery and as a result too greasy.