I’m actually in love with this week’s cupcakes. They weren’t actually something I was going to blog about but after I made them I decided I would because of how colourful they turned out. I think they’re also quite fitting for Pride month throughout June. I made these cupcakes as soon as I got a baking delivery I was waiting for. I treated myself to some new gel food colourings to test them out and a few other bits and bobs that you’ll see over the coming weeks. I couldn’t wait to make these cupcakes and at the start I was only going to do rainbow buttercream, then I got a bit too excited and wanted to make the cupcakes rainbow as well.
Making the cupcakes was really fun especially when my scales were giving different measurements each time, but I somehow made it work. For the cupcakes I used my normal recipe of 175g self raising flour, sugar, butter, 3 eggs and 1 teaspoon of baking powder. I was going to try using a different butter but kept with the trusty Stork instead. I used a new flavouring this week from Foodie Flavours, honeycomb. It’s safe to say I think I’ve found my new favourite flavour to use, it was such an accurate flavour. Once the cake batter was all mixed together I tried to evenly separate the mixture into 6 bowls. I used PME food colourings in the shades Maroon red, Lily orange, Sunny yellow, Pea green, Ocean blue and I mixed the Plum pink and Mauve together. These food colourings are amazing I used a small amount using a toothpick and it didn’t take much to get a strong colour. I highly recommend PME food colourings. When I came to making the rainbow cakes I added each colour gradually some in random orders and some to try and gain lines of colour. The mixture filled the cases nicely and I baked the cupcakes for 20 minutes at 175 degrees. Unlike other colours I’ve used they kept their colour even after baking.
I left the cakes to cool, when I made them as I’ve got used to late night baking, I left it until the next day to make the buttercream. I have no shame in admitting I set an alarm in the morning to take the butter out of the fridge to soften then went back to bed for an hour. I personally thought I was being quite resourceful. For the buttercream I whisked the 250g of butter before I added any icing sugar to soften it a little more. I then added 500g of icing sugar in two intervals, with a dash of milk. I loved the honeycomb flavouring that much that’s what I went with for the buttercream. I then did the same as I did for the cupcakes and separated it out into 6 bowls roughly trying to get the same in each one. I used the same colours for the cakes and coloured each bowl of buttercream a different colour. Then to get it evenly in the piping bag I tried using clingfilm. I’ve watched a few videos on this but didn’t think it would work that well, I was wrong. I lay some clingfilm on the table and then spooned each buttercream in a row. I went in a rainbow order and tried to evenly line the clingfilm with all the colours. Once I had all the colours I then rolled up the buttercream and twisted the clingfilm, then snipped the end. I put a star nozzle in the piping bag and slotted in the clingfilmed roll of buttercream. As you can see the technique worked really effectively with most of the colours coming out evenly.
I had the perfect colourful sprinkles that I added to a few of the cupcakes that really helped finish them. I was absolutely chuffed with how they turned out and even when you bite into them it’s a surprise to see all the vibrant colours. I was so happy with how the photos turned out for these cupcakes. I’ve loved how my Instagram has been so bright and colourful with a lot of bakers using Pride for inspiration. I think these are the perfect cakes to make to celebrate this month. Anyone can bake, you could even take this week to be your chance and bake for Cupcake Day and raise money for Alzheimer’s Society. Cakes just make everything better and the world a happier place in my opinion. One of my friends, finally got to try one of my cakes this week and she loved it, which made me happy. No matter what your ability is do something you love that makes you happy. Have a caketastic week!
Lots of love,
Hannah x
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