Cupcakes Galore

Made beautiful, Sprinkle, Sweetie Topped Cupcakes for my niece's 1st birthday, they were a huge success and the children loved them, especially my son, Monroe who managed to eat far more than his fair share! For the adults I made Coconut and Lime Cupcakes with a delicious cream cheese frosting, I thought they matched the glorious Summers day.

Cupcakes are great fun to make and you can make them match the occasion by decorating them any which way. You can buy gorgeous decorations for them, little flowers, chocolate sprinkles, hundreds and thousands to name but a few. My children love getting all the toppings together and then fitting as much on as possible, can get a bit messy but its great fun and they all look...unique!

Sprinkle, Sweetie Topped Cupcakes

10oz Self Raising Flour

40z Caster Sugar

1 tube of Smarties

2oz Milk Chocolate drops

1 small cup of milk

1 egg

3oz melted butter

1 tsp Baking Powder

Decorate

3oz soft butter

80z Icing sugar

Few drops of Vanilla Extract

few drops of pink, blue or yellow food colouring

Lots of sprinkles, extra smarties

Put all ingredients except sweeties and chocolate drops in mixer, combine until just mixed and then fold in sweets. Drop mixture into 12 cupcake/muffin cases and bake for 20 mins at 180C.

The topping just beat all ingredients together using an electric hand mix and then swirl onto each cupcake.

Enjoy decorating with lots of sweeties XX.

Busy Coo!

Busy in the 'Coo' today and gorgeous weather. This inspired me to go and buy some plants for the pots I have sitting outside the Jammy Coo door. Bought some beautiful flowers, violas, petunias, fuchsias and some little white trailing ones that I can't remember the name of, all planted and they look great and should have a lovely smell as people pass by them.

Soup and Scones - Yummy!

Very busy in the Jammy Coo kitchen making Scones, Scones, Scones!! Cheese, Fruit or Plain, the cheese ones I serve with the special soup of the day...today, Spinach and Stilton.

Brand New Jammy Coo!

I'm so excited about my sparkly new website! It's brilliant, and all thanks to the talents of two gorgeous and very clever ladies...Vicki Gausden (illustrator extraordinaire!) and Holly Surplice (my illustrator sister!). Thank you, thank you, thank you!

So this is all pretty new to me, I'm not great with the old computer, but I do like having a bit of a chat and I am really looking forward to keeping everybody up to date with the goings on in the Jammy Coo and the Jammy Coo kitchen...

So today I've got the usual cakes and soups on the go, ready to go fresh out to the Jammy Coo counter. I've also got a Chocolate Torte to do for tonight, a cake to takeaway...it's delicious but extremely rich so I hope its for sharing!! The JC was pretty busy yesterday, we've had a new delivery of cards (always so exciting!) and myself and Kelsey (brilliant employee!) had great fun going through them and putting them out on display - they look great.

Tried a new combination of loaf cake yesterday! It has Pecans, Dates and Dark Chocolate Drops in it...of course I had to taste-test it, just to be sure! It's pretty good, so good that I'm going to have to make another one because there ain't much left, whoops...I feel an aerobic workout coming on!

If you'd like to try it and see for yourself, its very easy:

Preheat oven to 170 C

2 pint loaf tin

4oz Dates

1 ripe banana

4oz softened butter

4oz brown sugar

2 eggs

4oz ground almonds

6oz self-raising flour

1/4 pint of milk

2oz dark chocolate

3oz pecan nuts

Chuck all the ingredients in an electric mixer except the dates, pecans and chocolate and whizz everything all together until smoothish. Add the remaining items and whizz VERY briefly and then spoon into tin, sprinkle some pecans on top of mixture and bake for about an hour. Out the oven and turn onto a cooling rack. Once cool, sprinkle with icing sugar and ENJOY!

Do let me know how you get on with it!

Love Delia xx