Giant Vanilla Ice Cream Cupcake Recipe

Get a load of that in your cake hole. If it will fit, that is.

This giant cupcake was fun to bake and a joy to eat. My son requested this cake for his 7th birthday. Once we had the concept it was simply a case of  working out how to make it happen. Here is some guidance, followed by the recipe and detailed construction instructions.

To start with you will need a giant cupcake baking tin. Mine was just £5 from good old Aldi.

Once cooled, it's a good idea to cut the base in half so you can fit more jam and butter cream inside.

Re-assemble, sandwiching each layer with strawberry jam and vanilla butter cream.

Then stick ice cream wafers on the sides with (more) butter cream, to resemble a giant cone.

Swirl generously with vanilla butter cream, so you get a Mr. Whippy effect. Add sauce and sprinkles. More is more...

Then, of course, you need to add some flakes...

Look at all that awesome CAKE.

Can you manage a whole slice? Of course I did...

Giant Vanilla Ice Cream Cupcake

Vanilla Sponge Cake

Ingredients

375g Butter, at room temperature

375g Caster sugar

2 tsp Vanilla Extract

6 large Eggs

375g Self-Raising Flour
2 tbsp Milk, if required

Method

Spray your tin thoroughly with cake release spray (or grease it, old style). Cut a circle of grease proof paper or baking parchment and place it at the bottom of the base part of the tin.

Heat oven to 140 fan or gas mark 3.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and the sugar. I use a handheld electric whisk, although you could use a wooden spoon and plenty of elbow grease.

Add the vanilla extract and then whisk in the eggs, one at a time.

Fold in the flour, one heaped tablespoon at a time. Use a metal spoon for this. You are aiming to keep as much air in the mixture as possible. This is a big cake and you want the sponge to be light and fluffy.

If the mixture feels a bit heavy, carefully stir in some milk at this point.

Pour the batter into the two sides of the tin, leaving at least a couple of centimetres at the top to allow room for the cakes to rise.

Bake in the centre of the pre-heated oven for 75 minutes, until a metal skewer or cake tester comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the tins for a good ten minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Remove the circle of paper.


Vanilla Butter Cream

Ingredients

500g Butter, at room temperature
1kg Icing Sugar
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
2 tbsp Milk


Method

Carefully place all the ingredients into the bowl of your mixer (I use a Kenwood Prospero, with the K-beater). You could do this by hand, but you'll have stronger arm muscles than I do.

Top Tip: Before you even think about switching your mixer on, cover it with a damp tea towel. The icing sugar will try to escape and nobody wants a kitchen covered with icing sugar...

Mix for five minutes. Open the mixer and scrape the edges of the bowl with a spatula. Mix again for another minute.


Assembling your Giant Vanilla Ice Cream Cupcake

Once the cakes are cool, slice the base in half horizontally. I use a cake wire, but you can easily use a knife here. Top Tip: place cocktail sticks above and below where you are going to cut, so you can align the two pieces easily.

Starting with the bottom layer, spread generously with strawberry jam. Then dollop butter cream on top, spreading it almost to the edges. Repeat with the next layer.

Use butter cream to stick ice cream wafers around the outside of your cake.

Put the remaining butter cream into a piping bag. Top Tip: stand your bag in a pint glass, with the sides folded down over the glass to make it easier to fill. I use Lakeland disposable bags and a Wilton No.1 nozzle.

Now the tricky part, the icing. Start at the top of the wafers and slowly and steadily pipe butter cream in one massive swirl. Go round and round, with no gaps, until you get to the top. You should have plenty of butter cream left, so be generous.

Now decorate with strawberry sauce (I use Tate & Lyle) and large sprinkles (Aldi).

Finally stick a few Flakes in and your cake is finished.

And, ta-daa, here is your giant vanilla ice cream cupcake in all its glory. It's a showstopper and one that is guaranteed to get some ooh's and ah's of appreciation.

Ooh, ah, etc.





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Giant Vanilla Ice Cream Cupcake Recipe

Farm Animal Cake Toppers

If you're looking for a brilliant hand-made gift for your child's teacher, then farm animal cupcakes may be for you. You get to unleash your creative side and your child can also take pride in their handiwork.

You will need:

Renshaw Cool Coloured Sugardough
Renshaw Funky Flavoured Sugardough
Black sugardough
White sugardough
Cakes, iced with buttercream or white sugardough
Baby wipes or damp kitchen roll to clean your hands before changing colours

You may need:

Water and a clean paintbrush (to stick the different parts together)

Icing sugar (if the sugardough gets too sticky)
Plastic rolling pins (I borrowed the ones we use for playdough. Of course I washed them first)
Plastic modelling tools (I have a set of double-ended modelling tools, but you can use anything that will make a shape in the sugardough)
Black cake decorating pen (not essential, you can make pupils with black sugardough)
Cupcake boxes

Top tip:

To make a work surface, cover a table mat with greaseproof paper. Use tape to attach the paper at the back. Now you have a smooth surface to work on. If you cover a few mats before you start you will always have a clean area to work on.

Method:

Each animal is mostly made from simple rounded or flat shapes. Show you child one step at a time what to do. You can either make the whole animal and then help them. Or you can work together.
To make lighter colours you can mix sugardoughs together. For example, brown and white to make light brown.
Choose the best farm animals to use as cake toppers. One cupcake in a box and a hand made thank you card should be enough to let your child's teacher(s) know they are appreciated. All without breaking the bank.

I'm going to make these farm animal cake toppers for the boys' birthday party, to give the children on their cupcakes when they go home. The party is at a local open farm, so this will continue the theme perfectly. It also means the cupcakes can be made in advance and boxed up - no need for cake cutting and soggy cake-filled napkins on the day.

Our verdict on the Renshaw Sugardough:

It handles much better than I expected. I didn't need to use icing sugar at all. It's a quality product. The pink in particular smells amazing. The lemon tastes very good, but I wasn't keen on the chocolate - this was also the most dry of the sugardoughs (this is not uncommon, it just took a little extra moulding).



Disclosure:
We were given two packets of Renshaw Sugardough to review. Available at Lakeland, Cool Coloured Sugardough (red, yellow, green and blue) is £3.29 and Funky Flavoured Sugardough (chunky chocolate, orange pip, lemon sherbert and strawberry tart) is £2.49. 




Gallery:

My farm:

Sheep by me:

Sheep by Cash, aged 3:

Sheep by Presley, aged 4:

Cash's farm:

Presley's farm:

Cash's rabbit:

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Farm Animal Cake Toppers

Snowed in

This time last year we were snowed in. We live down a lane, down a hill. It's almost impossible to get the car out to the main road. After almost a month I was going stir crazy.

On Friday it snowed again.

A lot.

I hate that we get snowed in. I hate even more when we can get the car out and the roads are icy. Even though I pretty much hate the effects of the snow, I still watch it fall with child-like wide-eyed wonder. I'm excited by it. It's beautiful. If I wake up in the middle of the night I peek out of the curtains to see how much we've had.

The boys love it!

There's only so much time you can spend outside in the snow before you get too cold, although we've done our best.

Our snow is weird this year, it's a fine powder and not great for building snowmen.

It's deep enough to go over the top of little wellies.

And to coat woollen mittens.

So we came indoors to paint. I made the mistake of answering my phone and moving into the kitchen to chat in peace. This is what I came back to.

Andy took pity on me and bought back a packet cake mix from the local shops to entertain us.

This is what the cakes are supposed to like like.

There are Presley's.

There are Cash's.

I think they're wonderful AND they were edible.

I'll have to find some more activities for tomorrow or maybe we'll just snuggle up in front of the television.

It is nearly Christmas after all.


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Snowed in

Baking with Baby Baby

I'm not known for my baking.

I'm the first to admit that I prefer cooking savoury dishes. Add to that Presley's fear of the food mixer* and you'll understand why we don't do that much baking together.

*I used to make a thick gravy for the boys by whizzing cooked vegetables into stock with my handheld food mixer. Yeah, I know, I said I'd never hide vegetables either, but I said a lot of things before I became a parent. Presley freaks out the second he hears me plug the mixer in. Most days when I tell him what's for tea he replies 'no noisy gravy'. It's okay, I still have pasta sauce that I can hide vegetables in (without making a noise).

Biscuits, on the other hand, require no food mixer. The children can join in with measuring out the ingredients and mixing with wooden spoons or little hands. They can watch their creations cook through the glass in the oven door. Then - the best bit - they can decorate them, with melted chocolate or icing and hundreds and thousands.

The other day we made gingerbread men.

As you can see they haven't quite got the hang of where to put the buttons. Oh and the one with a foot missing was Cash pressing down with the cutter before I was ready!

When they had cooled down we got out the icing tubes and started decorating. This is one of mine. Those icing tubes aren't the easiest things to use.

This is another one of mine, celebrating summer!

It was a family affair. Here is Andy's effort. 

Nope, me neither. He was particularly proud of the stockings though.

Here are the finished gingerbread men from all of us.

I think the boys did really well with theirs!

What's that you say? English Mum's having a bake-off? Oh well, I'll have to enter with these fine fellows!

***

I wonder if there's a prize for the worst entry?

Yes, it's a cupcake.

Like I said, I'm not known for my baking!

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Baking with Baby Baby

The Baby Baby Baking Masterclass

I believe it was Delia Smith who said 'life's too short to make pastry' (probably), so yesterday I bought some ready-to-roll pastry to make a steak pie.

There was going to be plenty left over so this afternoon I decided to go all domesticated and bake some jam tarts with Presley.

He 'helped' flour the worktop and rolling pin (and his hands, hair, clothes, Jessie cat and his chair). We rolled out the pastry and cut out a dozen circles. We placed six of them on a baking tray. Next Presley painted the edges of the circles (mainly) with milk. We then cut smaller circles out of the remaining original circles.

Still with me?

We took the rings of pastry and laid them on the top of the milky circles on the baking tray. We then popped a blob of jam in each small circle - as seen on Big Cook Little Cook (oh how carefully I typed that)!

That's all there is to it. Presley and I sat and watched the oven expectantly.

We weren't expecting this:

Can you work out the flaw in my otherwise cunning culinary plan?

That's right. I used puff pastry. Oops!

Jam vol-au-vent anyone?

The Baby Baby Baking Masterclass