Puppy dog cupcakes

Woof woof!

Random Recipes and Tea Time Treats have teamed up this month so the challenge was to assemble all of your recipe books that contain cakes, biscuits and other tea time treats, and pick something at random. I did just that, and the book that my hand fell upon (OK, poetic licence there - I actually went all high tech and used a random number generator!) was none other than Hello, Cupcake!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the behemoth that is Hello Cupcake, it's an American publishing sensation that encompasses books, a website, an app and even a calendar. They show you how to make cupcakes that look like animals, boxes of popcorn, shoes - they are known for their imaginative designs. They're not meant to be hard and use everyday items, usually sweets/candy, but one problem I've had is that this is an American book and they often list ingredients I've never heard of and can't get in the UK, so I have to substitute what I can. I have made some of their designs before - these ducks, penguins and werewolves - as they are really fun and have a huge impact when people see your creations. I'd been meaning to make something else from their book for a while and had stocked up on some goodies on a recent trip to America, so when I opened the book at random, I was hoping it would be something I could do....


As I knew this one would take a while, I decided to cheat slightly and use a packet cake mix. Has anyone used these before? I never have, and often think they are a bit pointless - you still need to add eggs and oil to the dry ingredients so it's not like it's all that much quicker. But I've tasted cakes made from this mix before and they are actually really nice, and I've been told it is a good standby to have in the cupboard if you do need to whip up cakes in a hurry. I've never exactly suffered from a cake emergency before but then, I don't have children or many visitors to my house, so who knows?

 

Stage one: Take your cake mix!

 

Mix according to instructions. As this is the first time I've used a packet mix, I'll do a little review... I found that mixing everything together in one go, rather than adding the ingredients gradually, made it a little hard to mix properly and there were a few lumps. Also, eggs are generally the one ingredient I don't have in the fridge so buying them to go with a cake mix isn't any quicker than buying them to make a cake from scratch, since I generally do have the other ingredients I need and it doesn't take all that long to make a cake. But I can see there are some advantages to having a packet mix in the cupboard just in case. In addition, the cakes taste amazing - really light and springy. So on that basis I might buy this again.

I don't have a photo of the finished cakes but they are essentially just chocolate cupcakes so you don't need a picture! I made a few trying to follow the instructions from Hello Cupcake - they tell you how to make different breeds of dog - and they looked horrible, like a cross between a goblin and a monster. In the end I found a method that worked, which was loosely based on the one given in the book but really I made it up as I went along, so I don't think I'll be breaking any copyright rules if I show you how I did it!

If you recall from this post, I bought a lot of baking supplies in America earlier this month. I bought a tub of Betty Crocker whipped vanilla frosting, purely as it looked a bit different and was something we can't get in the UK. It's pure white, and has the texture (and similar taste) of marshmallow fluff. I don't know how they make it and if there is a way to make buttercream that is actually white (maybe using Trex, but that would taste horrible!) so I might have to look into that. I was very glad to have it though, as I realised using chocolate icing for my dog cakes was making them look like the things that dogs leave behind.... so I went with the white icing instead.

First I covered a cupcake with some of the white frosting

Then I cut a piece of marshmallow into a triangle. I happened to have orange marshmallows (they were the pumpkin-shaped ones I bought in America), but in restrospect it would have been much better to use white marshmallows.

 

 

I covered the marshmallow with more frosting. It just looks like a big lump now but that's the angle of the photo - it does actually have a raised part which is going to form the dog's nose and mouth area.

 

Next I added two smaller pieces of marshmallow for the eyes...

...and covered these in frosting as well. The shape is better than it appears from this photo - though I have to admit it's not particularly neat! Patience is not one of my virtues.

Adding eyes and nose. Here's a random thing: the Hello Cupcake book frequently suggests using mini M&Ms for eyes, and I never knew what to do as we don't have those in the UK. I just used normal M&Ms and thought they worked and weren't too big. Now I know why - normal M&Ms in America seem to be much bigger than the ones we have here! Unless that was just the kind I bought - I got peanut butter M&Ms, which taste amazing! I used one for the nose, and mini M&Ms for the eyes. I think that our M&Ms are somewhere betweeen the two sizes.

The book also specifies Famous Chocolate Wafers for many of its recipes, another brand we don't have in the UK, but I was able to buy some of these over the internet. They are flat, round, fairly thin chocolate biscuits that remind me a little of Oreos (only thinner and without the filling).

Cut the biscuit to make the ears, and stick into the side of the cupcake like this. I also made a tongue from a small piece of a strawberry lace.

Here's a slightly better one... do you think they look like puppies? They didn't turn out much like the ones in the Hello Cupcake book after all, but I think they are cute!

Side view

This is a different one - I managed to make nine in the end, six of which I took into work for the Macmillan bake sale, and three I'm saving for my family when I see them this weekend.

A litter of puppies! The dots of orange you can see are from the marshmallow, so as I said I'm wishing I'd used white ones.

 

These went down pretty well at the bake sale! My favourite is the one in the middle of the bottom row, I think it actually does look quite canine!

 

Now comes the multi-challenge badges... first of all I made this for Random Recipes hosted by Dom at Belleau Kitchen and Tea Time Treats, which is co-hosted by Karen from Lavender and Lovage and Kate at What Kate Baked, as I chose this recipe at random from my collection of baking books. It was a great idea to combine the two challenges!

Next as I made cupcakes I am sending them to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Rachel of Dolly Bakes and Laura at Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is cupcakes.

I'm also sending it to Cupcake Tuesday, hosted by Hoosier Homemade

As this is a US recipe book and so many of my ingredients came from America, I am sending this to Cupcake Crazy Gem's United Bakes of America challenge. Gem has just moved from the UK to Vancouver so now has direct access to Wal-Mart, I'm so jealous!

And finally, since I'm hosting Alphabakes this month and have accepted a few late entries, I thought I'd slip in a late entry of my own. The letter this month is P and the title of this recipe in Hello Cupcake is Pup Cakes, though I prefer to call them Puppy dog cupcakes :-)

Cupcake werewolf

When I did my Halloween baking last year, I also made some werewolf cupcakes from the Hello, Cupcake! book. They were actually the first thing I tried from the book and not as fiddly as the penguins or ducks and I thought they looked really cool. I only have one photo though.

Essentially it's a cupcake that is slightly peaked (rather than flat). Take a piece of marshmallow and stick it on using buttercream to make a raised part that will become the wolf's muzzle. You have to cut a piece out of the marshmallow so it looks like the open jaw of the wolf. Then take a piece of a flat fruit chew - I found a Refresher bar worked really well. Use a pink or red one as it is going to be your wolf's tongue - fold it and place it inside the marshmallow, using a little buttercream to stick on. Then take the smallest piping nozzle you possess - or better still, cheat and use a tube of writing icing. Make sure it's white though - this is what you use to pipe tiny little teeth inside the wolf's mouth!

The final stages are to cover the whole thing in chocolate buttercream - my piping skills weren't good enough at this point to make it look like fur. Finally, place two smarties (ideally yellow) on top for the eyes, and using black writing icing put a dot on each to make the pupil.
Grrrrr!

I'm updating this for October 2012 to send to Calendar Cakes, hosted by Dolly Bakes and Laura Loves Cakes, as their theme this month is Halloween

As it's a cupcake I am also sharing it with Cupcake Tuesday at Hoosier Homemade

 And finally I'm sending it to Mom's Crazy Cooking "This Week's Cravings" linkup, as my werewolf is pretty crazy!

Cupcake Ducks

For some reason I really like making novelty cupcakes. After the success of the penguins, I decided to try something from the second Hello Cupcake book, called What's New, Cupcake - specifically the cute little ducks on the front cover!

I invited two friends, Ros and David, over to my house, and made a batch of cupcakes before they arrived. And yes, I am wearing a William McKinley High t-shirt..... we had a Glee marathon while we were baking!

I took photos of every part of the process but have made some changes to this post to remove some of them, to not give too much away otherwise you won't buy the book :-)  I did adapt it quite heavily anyway, as I couldn't get the exact ingredients required and I always make tweaks as I go along as well.

The basis for the duck is a cupcake- I used plain vanilla- and I made the head out of a mini chocolate-filled doughtnut from Asda (they come in a box of about 16 for £1 so there are plenty left over to eat!). Use buttercream to stick the doughtnut on as a head, and cut a marshmallow in half and stick that on to be the tail.

I've got all my ducks in a row! (sorry....)

As with the penguins, you need to coat the cupcakes in liquid icing. I used some Betty Crocker's ready-made buttercream and warmed it in the microwave until it was runny, and added some yellow food colouring. Take the duck and dip in the liquid icing - and watch out for any drips!

Ta-da!

Take a fruit chew - I used Fruitella - and use it to make the beak. This wasn't in the instructions but as I found the sweets a little hard, I put them in the microwave for a few seconds so they softened a little. I found one Fruitella was too large so I cut a sweet in half, and by folding it in half and moulding a little, I made a beak.

It's also worth mentioning here that a packet of Fruitella contains several different flavour (and colour) sweets so I went through about three packets before I found enough yellow ones. I also used yellow cake cases.

Using a tube of white piping icing and black writing icing, add some eyes to the duck.

I went a bit overboard with this one and got a chewy sweet shaped like a pair of lips for the mouth and used the writing icing to make some giant eyelashes. I call this one Jordan!

Cute!

I made this one a little hat from another Fruitella (and painted it with black food colouring) and gave it fangs with the white piping icing. I called him Count Duckula :-)

My cat Tilly doesn't seem too impressed!

This one has a little hat made from another Fruitella, and some slightly evil eyebrows.

I made this one a little bow to wear in her hair... I think she looks sweet.

David made this one - it's a computer geek duck with an iPad in front of him!

A whole pond full of little ducks!

These were definitely easier to make than the penguins and looked really cute!

I'm sending these to Tea Time Treats, hosted by Kate of What Kate Baked and Karen of Lavender and Lovage, as their theme this month is cupcakes and muffins.

 

Even nearly two years later I'm still really pleased with these cupcakes so I'm revisiting this post to add it to Treat Petite, a new blogging challenge run by Stuart at Cakeyboi and Kat at The Baking Explorer. They will have a different theme every month but to kick off the challenge they are welcoming anything small and bite-sized including cupcakes.

 

 

And cupcakes are the theme for this month's Calendar Cakes, as it is National Cupcake Week in September. The challenge is hosted by Laura of Laura Loves Cakes and Rachel of DollyBakes.

 

Cupcake Penguins

Last year I decided to treat myself to a new book - Hello, Cupcake! I came across it on the internet and was intrigued by the book's unusual designs for cupcakes. But they are not as easy to make as you might think!

I would say two main things about this book: firstly, it isn't a baking or recipe book - it is best described as a set of instructions for assembling novelty cupcakes. Secondly, a lot of the products are recommended by name, but they are all American brands. Sometimes I wasn't even sure what they were, and in most cases I found them impossible to buy in this country. However there are often substitutes you can use.

I decided to make penguin cupcakes, as they looked less fiddly than some designs, and I also thought they were really cute! But I'll save the finished cakes til the end of this post..

To begin with, you need to bake (or buy) a batch of cupcakes. I thought plain vanilla would be best but chocolate would probably have worked quite well here too.

The next photo, below, shows several stages at once. For this recipe, I needed a pack of mini ring doughnuts, and a pack of doughnut holes - basically mini doughnuts which in this case had a chocolate filling. The only place I could find that stocked these was Asda, and there wasn't a supermarket I could get to very easily as I don't drive. So my boyfriend - who at the time I had only just met - offered to pick me up from the train station on my way home after work and take me to pick up the stuff I needed. So that's how we came to spend our fourth date at Asda! That was more than a year ago now:-)

I have intentionally left out some of the parts of the process here to not give too much away.

The next step is colouring some more icing to make it black. I decided to use Betty Crocker's chocolate fudge frosting, thinking it wouldn't be too hard to turn brown icing black. Think again! I must have used about half a bottle of black food colouring.Coat the penguins - I'll leave you to work out how best to do it!

!

Then I added a white bib and some wings... can you guess what they are made of?

I used piping icing in white and then black to make the eyes, and half a Fruitella for the beak (which is not what the book recommends but my alternative suggestion). Unfortunately the beak was a little heavy and kept slipping down -and I didn't have a particularly steady hand when I was piping the eyes!

And that's it! Repeat on each cupcake.... obviously I was making more than one when I did each step :-) The black icing was pretty runny and they all look a little messy but I think that just adds to the charm. Be warned though, while the black icing will set a little, it's still quite sticky and these are really messy to eat!

A whole ice rink of penguins!