real cupcakes

I am entertaining this week, two groups in two days. Thursday is my first "scrap and bitch". Its a group of friends I have set up similar to a stitch and bitch but for scrapbooking. I'm really excited about it. Then on Friday I have a mums and babies group coming. I love catching up and seeing all the beautiful bubbas. So, today I have been shopping, baking, cleaning, getting photos developed.....and of course its 5pm and I am nowhere near ready and havent even thought about dinner. Of course the cupcakes are ready though, I always do the fun things first! I made chocolate mud cupcakes with chocolate ganache, which are seriously rich, and carrot and pineapple cupcakes with cream cheese icing. The carrot cakes are bit healthier (if cupcakes can be healthy?). They have pinapple, carrot and olive oil in them. The mud cakes are calorific!!

My cake batter, lots of yummy carrot. These would be good for a kids birthday party as they hide fruit and veg.

The recipe asked for 40g almond meal and when I went to buy it I couldnt believe the price! So, a bit inspired by my mums Thermomix I decided to make my own, but I used the mortar and pestle, the old fashioned (she would say slow) way.

mmmm, yummy, yummy. I wanted to pipe the cream cheese icing on top but I must have lost all my piping bags at work. I improvised and used a ziplock bag. I just cut the corner out and put the nozzle in. It worked but was a but tricky.



mud cake batter




These are the cupcake for the scrap and bitch, I decorated the choocy ones with white chocolate flowers

And these ones are for the mums and bubs which I decorated with the babies names, even though they will be too young to eat them. You could do this instead of party bags at a kids bday, very cute. If anyone wants the recipes just post a comment and I wil put them up.