Mary Berry, you better watch out there's a new kid on the block! Er, well, not really, it's a long time since I was a kid and yesterday was the first time in years I've been near this much icing sugar and food colouring! But, I am SO very happy to report that I completed the cupcake task. I hadn't really realised what I was letting myself in for with this, which is probably just as well - 5 hours in the kitchen is not what I'd predicted. But, armed with two recipes and a ledgeful of ingredients I very enthusiastically began my task. I even tried to look professional with an apron longer than me and a baseball cap as the nearest thing to a chef's hat.
The slogan on the apron very much sums up my reputation for cooking - it's no wonder I'm generally banned from the kitchen. 'If you can't smell burning it's salad for tea' is pretty much correct. I even once said on a TV programme that I could burn a salad. But, this time, 24 hours after the task I'm actually pretty pleased with the results. I'm not going to pretend, or even try and come over all knowledgeable and professional by sharing the two recipes I used - I hadn't even heard of some of the ingredients - instead I'll show you in the easiest way possible (for me) what I did. So first of all - red velvet cupcakes:
Then, next up, after a couple of breaks and a tinnie of Pimms, came the lemon drizzle cakes:
Have to admit that part way through I did have to send a 'please save me' email to my husband as my icing was way too runny and I didn't know what to do, thankfully he brought me another box of icing sugar and it thickened up. I also had a problem trying to open the wee bottle of natural food colouring but stabbing the top with a kitchen knife worked pretty well. So anyway I ended up with 50 cupcakes! If you notice there are two missing in the photo below - we did do a taste test - had to really - but I'd made just over 50 anyways. Today I took half in to my work and Stewart took the other 25 in for his colleagues and I am so exceedingly happy to report that people seem to have liked them - or were too polite to say otherwise - but also, through their kindness I can report that I have a grand total of £25 received in donations that I can send on to the Brainwave charity. This has very much exceeded expectations. Happy days!
By the way, please don't laugh at the random, sometimes overflowing, shapes these cakes ended up - they weren't burnt and they weren't hard as bricks so I'm happy1
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