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My baby boy turns 2 this week and we threw him a party. He is totally Thomas the Tank Engine mad and so it wasn’t hard to choose a theme. I went cupcake crazy and made 40 Thomas cupcakes which went down a storm with both children and adults! They were totally delicious partly due to the vanilla sugar and partly due to the sweet cream cheese topping. I made a mixture of vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with both plain cream cheese icing and cream cheese/chocolate icing. Now how to make cupcakes Thomas themed? Well, first I found some Thomas rice paper toppers on ebay so that was easy, but I wanted to do something more. Then I found Thomas silicone ice cube trays and was able to use these to make Thomas chocolate shapes to top the cakes! Here are the pictures and the recipe:

Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes

Ingredients:

Makes roughly 20 cupcakes

• 8oz unsalted butter
• 80z sifted vanilla caster sugar (make this by storing caster sugar for several days with a vanilla pod to infuse)
• 80z sifted self-rising flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 large free range eggs
• 2 tsp milk
• 1 tbsp coca powder
• 1 tbsp drinking chocolate powder

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°c.
2. Make sure butter is soft and, in a large bowl, mix well with caster sugar until smooth.
3. Add half the flour, all the baking powder, and 2 eggs to the bowl, fold in gradually and gently.
4. Add the rest of the flour, eggs and milk, fold in gently.
5. Test mixture, it should drop easily from your spoon, if it is sloppy add a tbsp more flour, if it is too thick add a tsp more milk.
6. Be gently with your mixture and fold gently this will keep air in the mixture.
7. Spoon half the mixture into cupcake cases, fill each case no more than half full or they will rise too high to ice easily.
8. Gently fold cocoa powder and drinking chocolate into remaining mixture and then spoon into remaining cases, again only fill cases half full.
9. Bake cakes for anywhere between 15-25 minutes this will depend on your oven*.

*A fan oven will cook cakes more evenly and quicker, but all ovens vary and you must check your cakes after 15 minutes. Try to check the cakes through the glass of the oven door (if you have a glass front) if you open the oven too early it will change the temperature and can effect how they rise. When you think the cakes have risen open the oven and test the cakes by pushing a skewer into one, if it comes out clean without any wet mixture then they should be ready – see the photograph below for the cakes straight out of the oven.

Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes

Icing:

Ingredients:

• 500g full fat cream cheese
• 12 oz sifted icing sugar
• 100g dark or milk chocolate

Method:

1. Mix cream cheese and icing sugar well**.
2. Pipe half the icing onto a variety of chocolate and vanilla cupcakes.
3. Melt chocolate and pour into remaining icing, mix well.
4. Pipe chocolate icing onto remaining cupcakes.

** Full fat cream cheese is needed as low fat will not keep its shape when piping.

Thomas Chocolate Shapes:

To make these shapes buy silicone Thomas ice cube trays available online. Melt chocolate and pour into moulds, cover the ice cube tray with cling film and place in the freeze over night. Pop out Thomas chocolates and make another batch. Place on top of the iced cupcakes.

Cupcake Stand:

Inspired by Annies-eats.com I made my own cupcake stand. It is really easy to make and you can read all the instructions on Annie’s blog, but I made it even easier by using some old cake board instead of starting from scratch.

My beautiful boy turns 2.

Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes

Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes

Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes Thomas the Tank cupcakes Thomas the Tank Cupcakes

Next week is my little boy’s 2nd birthday party and I’ve been planning to make some fancy cupcakes. However, I’ve never used a proper piping bag before and I’ve been watching youtube videos to teach myself how to pipe icing!
Here is one of the videos I found, great fun and helpful too:

Baby G and I had our first venture into the world of Mother and son cooking this week. We’ve done a little cooking as a family but now he’s a toddler I thought it was time that we started baking together!

We kept it really simple and made some fairy cakes and by the way how do fairy cakes differ from cup cakes? I was able to add my own little twist as I like to use Goats products and I used a soft plain goats cheese to make a sweet cream cheese topping just like a carrot cake topping. This made the cakes extra yummy!

The recipe I used is so simple:

Ingredients:

• 4 oz self raising flour
• 4 oz caster sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 4 oz butter (or goats butter) softened
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Sift flour, sugar and baking powder into large bowl.
2. Add butter and eggs to the bowl, slowly fold together until a smooth consistancy.
3. Mixture should drop easily from a spoon, add a little milk to achieve this if needed.

Cream Cheese Topping:

• 50g cream cheese
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 75g icing sugar

Method:

1. Sift icing sugar into cream cheese mix until a smooth consistency.
2. Add lemon juice, mix well.
3. Spread or drizzle onto fairy cakes.

Taste the icing, you may like it sweeter or more tart, add icing sugar or lemon juice accordingly.

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