Posts Tagged ‘cupcakes’

Following on from the success of the first Sky Leeds Bake Off, we held another to raise money for Sports Relief. In the end, we raised £275, which feels like a good effort. I blogged about my preparation last week.

Here was my final creation:

The beach was made of gingerbread. The sea was made from buttercream frosting, with a chocolate finger jetty. The sea cupcakes were blueberry with lemonade frosting. The beach cupcakes were brown sugar with a salted caramel centre and salted caramel frosting.

Alas, the judging was changed from the Great British Bake Off-style present all twelve as a piece, to one cupcake from each batch being selected and given to the judges. While mine were tasty, they were not tasty enough to sway the judges on that alone. However, all was not lost. Gaz did Editorial Ops proud with a 3rd place.

Later this month Sky at Leeds Dock are holding their second bake off. The first was an open cake competition; this one is a cupcake challenge. Last time, Dave won it with a cake baked by his wife. This is dubious enough, even before you discover he made her get up at 4am, despite being heavily pregnant, to finish it. I’m not bitter about the whole experience, but I do want to up my game a little this time.

I made loads of variants: different cupcakes and different toppings on the cupcakes. In the end, these two won out.

The Sainsbury’s salted caramel cupcake boxset actually produces a really nice cupcake that is light and airy. However, my homemade golden caster sugar cupcakes with salted caramel frosting eventually bested them in the taste test. It produces a denser cupcake that is easier to eat.

This is a prototype of the blueberry cupcake. The actual ones will be different however. They will be more blue in colour, and use lemonade flavoured frosting that is a lighter blue, rather than the turquoise shade of this fudge-based frosting.

This stuff should be illegal. It is a jar of salted caramel that you would eat with a spoon. If heroin is banned, this definitely should be.