Post Mother's Day, Pre-Easter.

Dear Oh Dear Oh Dear! Can’t believe my last blog post was just after Valentine’s Day. Although, I have been a busy body since then so I’ll forgive myself for that!

Last week was a busy week with Mother’s Day orders coming out my ears! So, while Mr.Geek was living it up on a lavish all expenses paid holiday of a lifetime in Rio de Janiero, I was at home baking until my wee heart was content! It was probably a good thing I had the house to myself, there wasn’t a room in the house that was without a cupcake box, ribbon, icing sugar etc!

So while my own (and best!) mother got sent some cakepops and also a flight over to visit me, the majority of cupcakes I made for your lovely mother’s were all year round flavours which you can order from me at any time! These include –

SugarRush Cupcakes

Raspberry Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

Flower Cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Giant Cupcake Cake (decorated as you please)

I am going to write up a list of flavours that I have made in the past/ willing to make and post it onto my Facebook page so that will give you all a better idea of the wide variety of cakes and treats that are available to order.

My next big focus is on my first stall I will be having at the Gin in Teacups Vintage Market which is held in Chambre 69, Glasgow. This is from 12-6pm on Easter Saturday 7^th April so as you can imagine, all of my treats will be Easter themed. I will have quite a variety of cakes but a few not to be missed are my Crème Egg cupcakes, mini cake bites in decorated egg cartons and my Easter Bunny cakepops. I’m really looking forward to this and I must say Gin in Teacups is a great market to be holding my first stall at. For those of you who haven’t been before, it has previously been described as, 


“…think Camden Lock in a punked up bygone era, a mini scuzzy Berlin Tascheles, a parisian vintage flea market: Gin offers the best of Glasgow's arts/crafts/fashion and more vintage regalia than you can shake a stick at. Twenty-five stalls from independent sellers offering a diverse range of clothing, records, cakes, gifts, jewellery,hand printed t-shirts, a psychedelic shopping experience for those craving 'not on the high street' style with a cheap as chips price tag.” For those of you who have been before, you will know exactly what all the fuss it about!

Get the date in your diary….NOW –

Saturday 7^th April, Gin in Teacups Vintage Market, Chambre 69, Nelson Mandela Place, Glasgow, 12-6pm. I look forward to seeing your lovely faces there! Oh did I mention that I will have a sample tray (oh yeah, everyone loves a freebie!).

In the meantime, you can always contact me on -

thecupcakegeek@live.co.uk

www.facebook.com/thecupcakegeek

mob : 07702043238

*if you're placing an order please can I ask that you give me approx.1 weeks notice. I'm sure you'll appreciate this isn't my full time job, I'm pretty busy and I need to organise my time wisely!

I’ll leave you with a selection of treats from Mother’s Day…

Have a lovely weekend!

The Cupcake Geek x

Post-Valentine-Post

This week my cupcakes played cupid! I am so grateful to all of you who placed orders and I hope my goodies were enjoyed as much as I enjoyed baking them! This ranged from Jammy Biscuits, to Cake Pops to Carrot Cake Cupcakes. This is just a short and sweet blog post to express my thanks to you all and I'll leave you with a selection of photograghs from the last few days. Next up is Mother's Day on 19th March and I am open to take orders now! Until next time, The Cupcake Geek x

Birthday Cupcakes + Soirée Goodies

Phew! what a busy week I had last week. It was just one of those weeks where I needed to be somewhere/ do something everyday. One of the most exciting things about last week was that after what feels like a lifetime, I finally passed my driving test! Yipee! So I have been enjoying being out and about in our car and not having to pester anyone for a lift anymore or relying on public transport. I have also loved being able to take myself along to Hobbycraft and walk up and down every single aisle at my own pace..regardless if I'm planning to buy anything or not!...starting to think I am a bit addicted to that shop though! Last week I officially registered as a home baking business with my local council and an EHO officer came out to inspect our kitchen. So that's me through all the red tape now to start selling my home baked goodies. I have been doing a bit of research into setting up a cupcake stall at a few local markets so I will keep you all posted when I finally have a date! It's all very exciting!

Last week a colleague in work kindly asked me to make some cupcakes for her partner's birthday, as a gift from their kids. I made 24 vanilla cupcakes with alternate teal and dusky pink glittered buttercream icing, topped with coloured fondant stars spelling out 'Happy Birthday Daddy'. I was so happy to hear that they went down a treat! (...thanks Lou!)

At the weekend we went to my good friend Charlotte's flat for a wee soirée...any excuse to get my bake on. I wanted to perfect my jammie dodgers and I had bought some fondant during the week so I wanted to experiment a bit with that. I ended up making a batch of jammie dodgers only this time I added the zest of a lemon. It's not a strong taste of lemon in the biscuit, just gives them that extra something else. I also found some biscuit cutters with fluted edges in my cupboard so I think all in all this batch was tastier and looked prettier too. I have played about with fondant icing a few times before but I would really like to be able to do more with it. As much as i love that all my baking is completely self taught, I am very much looking forward to a cupcake decorating masterclass that I am going to next weekend. I think the main things I will be learning at the class are the techniques of fondant icing, embossing fondant and sugarpaste flowers. I cannot wait! So, as well as my jammie dodgers I also made some vanilla cupcakes topped with white fondant icing and then I made some fondant hearts and some fondant bows. I must admit the bows were a bit fiddly to make but totally worth it in the end, they look so pretty! I'm not sure if I have mentioned this before, but if you need to stick icing to a cake etc....golden syrup is great for this. I just spread the tiniest bit onto the bow and it stuck to the white fondant, pretty much just acts as an edible glue! Here's some pics of the goodies!

I hope you have all remembered that it is Valentine's  Day next week! I have a few baking treats up my sleeve but I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for Mr.Geek so you will just have to wait until next week until I blog about it!

Enjoy the rest of your week!

The Cupcake Geek x

Scottish themed cupcakes....

Tomorrow is Burn's Night and although I'm not Scottish, it's that one time of the year where I will have haggis, neeps and tatties for my dinner, washed down with a glass bottle of Irn Bru; it is imperative to this yearly feast that the Irn Bru comes in a glass bottle. I've been daydreaming about what kind of Scottish themed cupcakes I could make. Now, Mr.Geek will pretty much eat anything but when I suggested to him that I might try to make Haggis Cupcakes, I could tell by the look on his face straightaway that I was possibly thinking outside the box a bit too much and I had to reel myself back in. A few months back I made Irn Bru cupcakes with the main components being Irn Bru (surprise surprise....) and a small shaving of raw ginger to give them a bit of a kick.

Recently I've had the desire to incorporate edible rice paper into my baking somehow; there's something about it that brings out the big kid in me..I have memories of being younger and eating colourful sheets of fake money... pretending I was rich and I could eat paper! So, when I discovered edible tartan rice paper online I knew what my next Scottish themed cupcake experiment was to be! These fairy cakes are plain vanilla, topped with a circle of white fondant icing with a round sheet of tartan paper on top. I must admit, it does feel a bit strange when you first bite into the cake but the rice paper just melts away in your mouth. A wee tip to get the paper to stick to the fondant...use a dab of golden syrup, its perfect and it pretty much acts as an edible glue. I was a teeny bit disappointed though because I don't think I used quite enough golden syrup as the edges of the tartan rice paper have started to curl up at the sides :( So, here they are...my Tartan Army Cupcakes -

Oh..and I forgot to mention one thing..

Much the same as Irn Bru, my Tartan Fairy Cakes also contain a secret ingredient!

The Cupcake Geek x

“Some hae meat and canna eat, 

And some wad eat that want it, 

But we hae meat and we can eat, 

And sae the Lord be thankit.” 

― Robert Burns

Happy Birthday Mr.Barlow....

This blog post speaks for itself....

Can't wait to sink my teeth into one!!

The Cupcake Geek x

Well I promised myself I would blog at least once a week, but here we are almost mid January and this is my first post of the year. I don't know where the time goes to! Seems very late but Happy New Year to you all :) I hope your sticking to your New Years Resolutions!!! Mine was to stop dreaming about taking my baking further (which I'll mention later...) and to be a more tolerant person....well what can I say...I'm trying.

I've been baking bits and bobs, here and there over these past few weeks. I've had a baking disaster with an Apple and Cinnamon loaf, and I've had a baking triumph with some Jammie Dodger biscuits! I hope other budding bakers feel the same, when I have a bit of a baking boo-boo I try not to let it get to me. I think, right Ok so that didn't turn out as expected, backtrack, discover where I've gone wrong and try again. I tried to make an Apple and Cinnamon loaf, followed the recipe step-by-step...but no it came out all stogy and bricklike, you could probably even have knocked someone out with it. Before it went into the oven it looked deLISH, and even when it was baking the house smelt like Christmas all over again....

So when it came out of the oven a gooey mess....I was fairly disappointed. Not even a pretty plate and a flickering candle could make this look nice! It's ok to blog your not-so-perfect baking experiments isn't it?Anyways, onwards and upwards and all that. I WILL attempt to make it one of these days, soon, when the time is right....

All week my slightly better half has been leaving me some heavy hints that he would like me to make him some Jammie Dodger biscuits. Being the lovely fiance that I am, I made a batch last night and I'm not one to boast but yes, they were pretty tasty. They look pretty, they smell sweet and they taste delightful so this really did make up for my failure at making a sweet loaf earlier on in the week. They would make a lovely Valentine's treat and hopefully if according to plan, I may be selling some at a Cupcake Geek market stall very soon :) 

I've been busy researching the legalities into selling my home baked goodies and I feel like I am eventually getting somewhere. I have achieved my REHIS food hygiene certificate, I'm up to date and aware of the Safer Food, Better Business practice and all I need to wait for now is my local EHO officer to say "yes you Cupcake Geek you have a clean, hygienic kitchen, you can sell goods to the public". Hopefully that will be in the not too distant future. 

Instead of blogging about all of my past baking quests, I have made a photo album of a lot of goodies that I have made over the past year or so...for you to browse through at your own leisure. This can be found at - 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151157342870094.786288.584370093&type=1

The Cupcake Geek x 

Happy New Year to you all!

It's New Years Eve and I'm on a boat heading home to Northern Ireland for my Christmas part II. Before I blog about what I was baking last night I just feel the need to mention how amazing this ship is! Me and Mr.Geek are on the Stena Superfast ferry from Cairnryan to Belfast, which I think just launched in November this year. Wow. Ipads on the wall....cinematic screens pretty much everywhere....fish projected on the floor (which children are going mad for)....xbox Kinect... and there's even a spa with a glass front over looking the Irish Sea. Just like it says on the advert for it "its flipping brillant so it is, its like a big hotel". This is us just leaving Loch Ryan at Cairnryan, seems like we are in for a calm, peaceful crossing which is always good :)

So last night I baked some Christmas/ New Year cookies to bring home with me for my family and friends. For me, a must have ingredient in Christmas baking is cinnamon. I love it, it's just so warming and gives your baking such a nice, subtle spice. Also, when the smell is released throughout the house it is DE-lish! I decided I would make some cranberry, white chocolate and cinnamon cookies. I've made these a few times before and I've been lucky if they have still been around at the end of the day. 

Of course it's all about presentation as well, I got these little Christmas fabric bags in Hobbycraft (favorite shop ever). Lovely presentation bags and I'm sure they will get used again! I'm giving these as a gift but secretly I cannot wait to sink my teeth into one with a hot cuppa :)

The second part of my cookie baking last night was some star and heart shaped goodies for my fabulous friends Trudy, Jonny and Karen who I am going to see on Monday and I cannot wait. (miss you guys x). Trudes very kindly gifted me with some star shaped cookie cutters from Lakeland earlier on this year which are great! They make little bitesize cookies ....well I suppose that depends on how big your gub is. So last night I made some star vanilla cookies, dipped them in milk chocolate and covered in multi- coloured sprinkles. I also made some heart shaped vanilla cookies which I drizzled with vanilla candy melts topped off with some edible glitter. Of course there was some 'mis-shapes' left over and I had one and yum, they are tasty. What I like about the hearts with the glitter sprinkled on them is that there is no denying you have had one...it's a cert that your lips and fingers will end up covered in glitter. "Elaine, have you been eating cookies?", "No"....... with an expression like a kid who has just bedazzled himself. 

I really do hope my family and friends enjoy eating these as much as I've enjoyed baking them! 

Well, however you are seeing in the bells tonight I wish you all a very Happy New Year and hope you have a great night! I hope 2012 brings you everything you wish for!

Looking forward to getting more into this blogging in the New Year :)

The Cupcake Geek (who can now see Northern Ireland!!) x