Cottontails Baby

TGIF guys! I've been super super busy. Everyone seems to want cupcakes and the new business has been keeping me out of trouble and up until the wee hours. Good job I love it.

I'm currently trying to get votes to help get some funding for my new business. As long as I get 400 votes I get the £400. If you can it would be great if you could vote. It only takes one minute and you just need to put in your name and email. http://www.enterprisenation.com/funding-applications/pink-chilli-virtual-assistant/

Talking of things I love I wanted to do a quick post on my new favourite online shop.Cottontails Baby

Cottontails is run by Charlotte and more importantly Humphrey.

Now Charlotte is lovely and I'm so glad I met her through the power of social media but Humphrey is so cute.

Meet Humphrey

The hyperlink above will take you to Charlotte's website but you must check out and "like" her Facebook page too as there are so any gorgeous pictures on there. I have gone through all of them and there is not a single thing I don't like. So friends and family this site could prove very useful around my birthday and Christmas!

My lovely Package arrived today as I ordered a few bits with a couple of lovely extra's thrown in. 

The cards I will be framing and I think 2 will go in the kitchen and the rest in the spare room with my Beatrix Potter things. There is also a rabbit mini cutter (great as I run a Cupcake business) and a badge and some gorgeous parcel tags. 

So please go and check out the website and Facebook pages and tell Charlotte I said hi :)

Jess

Valentine's Day and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup and Happy Birthday Tom!

I love Valentine's Day. I know we don't need an excuse to tell someone we love them but for me it's an excuse to get balloons out!!! Yay.

We spent our Valentine's eating in as having to watch the pennies.  I made the table look a bit cheesy :)

And Phil left me a little note before he went to work :) This little board we always update with little messages. 

And for dinner we had Sweetcorn fritters with Mango & Avocado salsa (I made it vegan and will post he recipe soon). For main we had butternut squash, sage and pine nut pasta and for dessert strawberries dipped in dairy free dark chocolate- yummy. Oh and lots of wine.

Butternut squash is one of my favourite things to use in soup so here is a nice warming soup that's so easy and doesn't have loads of ingredients.

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup (Vegan)

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil

1 butternut squash peeled, seeds removed and cut into chunks

1/2 large onion chopped

1 pint vegetable stock

1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

1.2 tsp paprika

3 tbsp dairy free cream ( I use alpro soya cream and it's great)

salt and pepper to taste

Method

1. In a large pan heat the olive oil and place the onion and butternut squash in. Cook for about 5 minutes making sure to stir. Add the cayenne and paprika and coat the onion and squash.

2. Add the vegetable stock and simmer for 20 minutes until the squash is tender. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth. Mean while heat another small pan with oil and fry the sage leaves until crispy- about 2-3 minutes. Then transfer to some kitchen paper to soak up the oil. Set aside.

3. Add back to the pan and add in the cream and salt and pepper to taste. Serve into bowls and sprinkle with the crispy sage.

One last thing before I go. Just want to wish my baby brother a Happy Birthday. 

Here is his birthday cake I made

Here he is a few years back...

And here he is now, not so much a baby anymore.....

Happy Birthday Tom xx

30 Day Photography Challenge Day 4: Something Green

Ok day 4 is something green. This pictures combines two of my favourite things- coffee and Cath Kidston :)

I drink way too much coffee.

Yesterday we had Elliot's christening. Here is the post from when he was born :)

Catherine asked me to do cupcakes for the reception so here they are- I loved doing the Farm Animals. You can also follow my Jessica's Cupcakes Blog here and my Facebook page here.

I've had a lot going on with a lot of cake orders but also getting the new business off the ground. Please like me on my Facebook Page :)

Right I'm off to have dinner and watch Eastenders! And then a bit of business admin before bed :)

Bedtime Reading

137 Ways to Pamper yourself, Lift your spirits or recharge your life

Treasured finds

Hi everyone, have you been enjoying the Indian summer!? I can't believe they are forecasting snow in a few weeks!

One of my favourite past times is going to our local antique cellar. And I wanted to share a few things I have bought recently :)

Laundry sign for...well the Laundry room

Salt and Pepper set

 Some more bits to add to the Vintage China Hire collection

Soap dish and cute candle holder

Some birthday cards that I put in some cheap £2 frames from Tesco and put them up with my new cook sign- shown in 2nd picture :)

A good shopping spree!

Busy week this week with quite a few cupcake orders to get through.

I'll leave you with some Cupcakes I did for a Wedding at the weekend.

Jess xx

Cupcakes, Goals and Bowling

Hi guys, how is everyone?

Been busy over here. Doing the fulltime job with the commute and running the cake business is exhausting but my final day of my day job is 23^rd December so I can work for myself fulltime J

Last week me and Phil had a date night bowling! It was 70’s/80’s bowling. It was only £2 a game and was great to get out and spend time together away from the house. I won the 1^st game and Phil won the last 2 L but I did win Mario Kart J

I’ve been doing Chalene Johnsons’ 30 Day challenge. I’m loving it. I’m on day 19 at the moment. It’s making me much more organised.

It talks about identifying your priorities and push goal. And building up small tasks to get to your push goal. I’ll share some info with you once I have it all sorted! But it’s free to do so check it out.

At the weekend I had a cake class which went well. Here are some pics.

Phil cooked dinner Saturday night. Vegetable fritters to start and Black bean burgers with butternut squash fries for main. It was so good. The black bean burger recipe was from the Peas and Thank you cookbook. My favourite recipe book at the moment.

I’m looking forward to the weekend already. On Sunday evening me and Phil are off to see Lee Evans live at the NIA! Can’t wait J

I’ll be back with another post!

Jess xx

Recipe Post- Cake Pops

Cake pops are massive right now and  a lot more portable than a cupcake. This version isn't Vegan because I used candy melts but the cake and buttercream part you can use this Vegan cupcake recipe. So to make it totally vegan just use dairy free chocolate instead of the candy melts. You can use any cake recipe you want at all.

Cake Pops


Materials
Lolly pop sticks
Styrofoam block or florist foam
Variety of sprinkles

Ingredients
1 batch of cupcakes/cake. Any will do. If you have any cake trimmings keep them in the freezer to take out when making cake pops.
1/2 cup butter cream
1 bag of candy melts or 2 blocks of chocolate

Method


1. Place your cake into a large bowl or mixer and crumble into bread/cake crumbs.

2. Add the butter cream and mix until it forms a dough mixture.

3. Roll into balls and place on a baking sheet or baking paper. Place into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.

4. Place candy melts/chocolate into a double boiler and gently heat until it has all melted.

5. Dip the lolly pop sticks into the chocolate and push into the balls gently. Place into the fridge for 20 minutes.

6. Carefully dip the cake balls into the melted chocolate and tap very gently to remove excess chocolate. Then place some sprinkles on top. Stick the cake pops into your styrofoam block so they can dry. See example here (I forgot to take a picture!)

7. Once dry you can place them in a jar or jug to display and also wrap in lolly pop wrappers :-)

Some recent cakes from Jessica's Cupcakes Kitchen

Hi guys,

Just wanted to share some of the recent things that have come out of the Jessica's Cupcakes Kitchen.

I've been super busy with orders the past month which is one of the reasons I've been a bit slack with the blog.

These ladybug garden cupcakes were for a special little girl called Scarlet who turned 1. Happy Birthday Scarlet :-)

Top Cutting cake for a cupcake tower

Floral Cupcakes

Recipe Post- Vegan Maple and Walnut Cupcakes

One of my new purchases was Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World. Now as an owner of a Cupcake business I'm looking forward to trying lots of new recipes.



The first one I decided to do was Maple and Walnut Cupcakes. However I used my own recipe for the frosting.

I must say these cupcakes are lovely and are great with a cup of tea. Don't be put off that they are vegan as my other half who isn't vegan loves them!

This makes about 12 cupcakes.

Candied Walnuts

1 cup walnut halves

1/3 cup granulated sugar

3 tbsp maple syrup

a pinch of salt

a large pinch of ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 275F. Arrange walnut halves on a tray and toast walnuts for 10 minutes, until the are fragrant and golden brown. Leave to cool.

2. Line a baking tray with baking paper and lightly grease with oil.

3. In a large saucepan, combine sugar, maple syrup and salt. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. The sugar should melt and the mixture bubbling. This will take about 5 minutes. Continue to boil for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is a dark amber colour, thick and smells like caramel. Remove from heat and stir in walnuts and cinnamon. Coat nuts evenly with maple mixture.

4. Spread nuts out onto the lined baking sheet and make sure they are not in big lumps. Allow to cool.

5. Measure out 1/2 cup sugared walnuts and chop finely to use in recipe. Extra walnuts can be used as decoration after the cupcakes are frosted, eaten or stored in an airtight container and refrigerated.

Cupcakes

1/2 cup soy milk, at room temperature

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/3 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup canola oil (I used vegetable oil or you can use rapeseed oil)

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup candied walnuts, chopped finely

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together soy milk and vinegar. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 10 mins to allow milk to curdle.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutemg into a large bowl. Whisk together oil, maple syrup, vanilla and brown sugar into the soy milk mixture.

3. Make a well in the dry ingredients and whisk in the wet ingredients in two batches. Whisk just until no large lumps remain, a few small lumps are okay. Do not overmix. Fold in chopped candied walnuts.

4. Pour mixture evenly into liners, filling up to 2/3rds of the liners, and bake at 350F for 20-22 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting with the recipe below.

Maple Syrup Buttercream

¾ cup Vegan margarine (I use Pure)
3 cups Icing sugar
¼ cup Maple Syrup

1. Place margarine and sugar into a mixer and mix until combined.

2. Add Maple Syrup and mix

3. If the mix is to stiff add a little soya milk or if it is too runny add some more icing sugar

All things baby

Hola, Hope everyone is ok. Loving the weather at the moment. I'm praying it stays for the Bank Holidays.

Today was my best friends baby shower so I thought I'd share a couple of pictures. We played a couple of games: Guess the baby food, cut a piece of yarn to fit around the mum's tummy and where you have 2 bowls- one with cotton wool balls in, the person is blind folded and they have to transfer as many balls into the other bowl in 30 seconds.

Baby Mama

Baby food- trust me it was not nice!

This weekend I also did a few cupcakes

So I have had a busy weekend. Not done much off the To Do list to be honest! Especially with being ill last week it's all piled up.

I've joined a book club, my first meeting is this Wednesday and the book is Nigel Slater's Toast. Really enjoying it so far. It meets once a month which suits me as I couldn't fit in a weekly one.

Anyway I need to get on a sort dinner. Making Spanish Chicken with Chorizo and Potato 

Jess xx