Springtime with a cupcake

I woke up this morning with an ungovernable urge to do two things, (don’t panic this is not THAT kind of blog).

The first was to bake buns/cupcakes/fairy cakes or whatever I am supposed to call them now. The second was to get back to my old friend, my blog. I know it’s been inexcusable to stay away for so long but life has a habit of getting in the way of things sometimes. I do however have endless scraps of paper and bits in my notebook where I was developing ideas and working on my projects. It’s funny, once you say out loud ‘I write’ you’ve opened the floodgates and you just don’t stop!

The baking was a surprise this morning. I had made pancakes yesterday as bro and his son, the angel child were visiting and the two of them and dad like getting together over a treat. Cakes didn’t feature in today’s plan. It must have been the sunshine.

The days are showing signs of a ‘stretch in the evenings’ and certainly I am not groping around in the dark when I get up for work in the last week or so. My tulips are putting in an appearance, joining the daffodils and anemones who are already greeting passers by with their bright spring colours. Soon it will be time to prune the roses. An old gardener once told me to prune the roses after St. Patrick’s Day, March 17^th. I have stuck to that rule and the roses here at my window have had many a good year.

So the cakes are now happily sitting on the counter waiting to be eaten. I went a little experimental with them. Well I am in a good mood today. I decided to try a filling so I remembered I had a lovely organic cherry and berry spread so I put a spoon into the centre of each cake to see how it tasted. I just do the good old basic Madeira mixture, margarine, sugar, eggs, cream flour and baking powder. I placed a small spoonful into the paper case, dropped the jam into a well I made in the centre and covered the jam in with another spoonful of mixture. And miracle of miracles the jam stayed in the centre and didn’t run out the side or burst through the top. Happy days.

I just went the route of royal icing, icing sugar in boiling water. I am not a fan of butter cream icing at all. It just isn’t my bag. In a way I wish it was because you see all these lovely piped icing on cupcakes and they look so well finished. But I just aint a classy dame, so icing of the plain persuasion it has to be.

I am off now for a cup of tea and a bun. These creations aren’t going to make until tea time I think so it looks like the dog will be getting a long walk tonight. Or I might end up on the exercise bike if I can’t behave myself.

It’s fun to be back,especially as i cant load my photo the right way around!!!!!!

Keep smiling