Jam Filled Vanilla Cupcakes

Friday was my last day working at Frucor. Traditionally in R&D the team does a big morning tea & farewell for people when they leave, but I decided to bake too.

I baked some vanilla mini cupcakes & filled them with raspberry jam for a tasty surprise.

  I baked my usual vanilla cupcakes, then once the cupcakes were cool I used a squeezy bottle with a small round tip filled with jam. To fill them I pushed the tip into each cupcake & squeezed some jam into each cupcake.

Then I iced each cupcake with the 1M Wilton tip with pale pink buttercream & added homemade purple fondant flowers.

Vanilla Cupcakes:

125g butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 t baking powder
125mL milk
3 eggs
1 t vanilla essence

Cream the butter & sugar, add the remaining ingredients & beat with an electric mixer at low speed for 1 minute. The batter should be smooth & light.
Half fill paper cases (my mini cases use about 1T batter) & bake at 180C for about 13-15 minutes.
Remove from oven & cool on a wire rack.


Makes about 40 mini cupcakes.

Buttercream Frosting (from the Wilton decorating course I completed earlier this year):

190g vegetable shortening (I use Kremelta or Sno Creme from Milly's Kitchen)
1/2 t clear vanilla flavour (Wilton)
1/2 t clear butter flavour (Wilton)
7-8 t milk or water (I use water)
450g icing sugar, sifted
1T Wilton Meringue powder

Cream the shortening (you may need to soften in the microwave 1st), flavours & water.
Add the dry ingredients & mix on medium with an electric mixer. Once all mixed it will be quite dry.
Mix on high speed for another minute until light & fluffy.
Add more liqud until desired consistency & mix well. Note: I use Wilton gel colours so they don't water down the iciing, if using liquid colours you will need less liquid in the icing to start with.

YUM!

Boot Stuffers

A couple of weeks ago I bought some new black boots....
I was looking for some boot stuffers for them & also my other pair of brown boots. I hate how boots always end up flopping over & getting all creased so I wanted to keep my new boots nice & stop my old boots getting any worse.
I found this post by Craft Apple which inspired me... Happy Boots
I used an old pink dressing gown that didn't fit anymore & an old pair of Gus's jeans to create 2 pairs of boot stuffers.

Now they all stand up nice & straight & pretty. Love my boots!

2nd sewing project

After successfully making the aprons, my next sewing project was to make a tunic for me to wear.
Off I went to find a pattern & fabric at spotlight & I bought a simple pattern & some teal georgette.
1 weekend later & it was done. I had a few issues gathering the fabric for the neckline, but if you don't look too closely it looks pretty good! Here I am wearing it in March when Mum & I had a birthday dinner.

My first attempt at sewing....

Way back in February when Mum & Dad were on holiday I had Mum's sewing machine at home.... I decided while Mum wasn't around to just make whatever I needed, I'd have a go myself...

1st project: new aprons
I decided that making a couple of fun coloureful aprons would be a simple 1st project as I could use another apron as the pattern & just have a go. So I went to spotlight & bought some bright pink & green gingham & set about cutting out & sewing 2 full aprons.
It went pretty well & I'm happy with the finished result, especially since I hadn't sewn in about 18 years!

There was plenty of fabric left over so I made a couple of half aprons too, ready for gifts for other people. Olivia has already been the recipient of the pink half apron for her baby shower last month.