Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes...

Monday was the Autumnal equinox and I took that as a sign it was acceptable to start making Halloween and Autumn themed bakes. I’d lost some motivation to write these blogs, it’s been nearly two months since the last time I wrote one, but certainly not that long since I baked. The start of Autumn seemed like a good time to reset the blogs. I’ve got new plans and I really want to work on updating my website which will happen when I’m back at uni but for now the blogs are back and there is a lot of recipes to share. It’s been hard having so much time deciding what I actually want to bake. I’ve spent a lot of time baking for others and forgot what I wanted to try myself. I’ve only got another week at home before I’m back at uni for my final year and I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone. I have to say the start of Autumn is one of my favourite times of the year even if I’m not a fan of the cold. The darker nights, it feels even more justified to have fairy lights all over and hot chocolate on an evening. I also love seeing the colour of the trees change and of course Halloween falls soon enough. I have a lot of Spooktacular ideas this year and this week’s blog was just a nice little catch up and quite a simple recipe, where I fell in love with a new flavour…. Pumpkin Spice. I know it just screams Autumn doesn’t it and I’ll just say now it didn’t disappoint. So I used Beau Flavouring Pumpkin Spice so if you wanted to try this recipe I would certainly recommend it.

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Ingredients

· 175g self raising flour

· 175g caster sugar

· 175g butter

· 3 eggs

· Pumpkin spice flavouring

· Cinnamon optional

· 250g unsalted butter softened

· 500g icing sugar

· Fondant

· Orange and brown food colouring

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The cupcakes were very simple add the flour, sugar, eggs, butter and 4-5 drops of the flavouring in a bowl and mix together until smooth. You can add a touch of cinnamon if you wanted. Once the cupcake batter was made I spooned the mix into some black cupcake cases and baked them in a preheated oven at 170degrees for 15 minutes. Since we got a new oven at the start of lockdown my cupcakes just haven’t wanted to work, I think I finally solved the problem now, thankfully. This is the pretty much the standard recipe I use for cupcakes and I wanted to focus more on describing how I made the fondant pumpkins.

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The pumpkins were pretty easy once I did the first one. So I started by colouring some fondant orange, I had a neon orange food colouring but they’ll all work. I rolled some of the orange fondant into a ball. Next was making the curves on the pumpkins. I tried using a knife but it just wasn’t working. In the end I ended up improvising by using a cheese knife as if had the perfect curve. I started from the bottom and rolled it upwards creating the lines around the pumpkin. I coloured a small amount of fondant brown for the stalk. A rolled the brown into small cones and placed it on top of the orange ball using some water. Using a knife add some texture to the stalk to make it look a little more realistic. You can make the pumpkins different sizes and adjust the stalks accordingly.

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After you’ve made the pumpkins the cupcakes should be cool and ready to be decorated. Beat the softened butter until light in colour and gradually add the icing sugar. Add a few drops of the flavouring and place into a piping bag I used a star nozzle. Pipe the buttercream on top of the cakes and place the pumpkins on. I just loved the smell and the taste of these cupcakes and I can’t believe I haven’t tried it until now. I just know my family will be sick of it soon enough.

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I still think it’s funny at the start of the year I wouldn’t go near fondant because I didn’t think I was creative enough to be able to use it. Now after lockdown the list of fondant toppers I’ve made has grown, I never thought I’d be making llamas, avocadoes, sloths and so many more. I’ve realised I need to give myself more credit when it comes to cakes. This year hasn’t been great for a lot of people and it's still uncertain, one thing that’s remained constant for me has been baking and I don’t think I would’ve wanted to spend my time doing anything else, especially after how much more confident I am now, especially when I can see a change in my bakes. I actually loved these cupcakes though, especially how the all-important photo came out, Pumpkin spice and everything nice just went perfectly with the fairy lights.

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Just want to finish this blog on a funny note because I really couldn’t help myself. If you haven’t seen Marks and Spencer have released cuddly Percy Pigs and I just couldn’t help myself from buying one. With that in mind I couldn’t stop myself from making pig inspired cupcakes. I made some strawberry flavoured cupcakes and topped them off with some pig fondant toppers. I can now add pigs to the list of animals I can make. I was very invested in this and they made me smile all day so just going to finish this blog off with those beautiful photos. I’m going to spend next week doing as much baking as I can before I need to contemplate the idea of packing for uni. I’ve got a few exciting ideas I want to try first, keep an eye out on my Instagram as well @bakesbyhannahuk. I’m so close to 6000 followers. Have a great week and I hope you enjoyed the blog.

Lots of love,

Hannah xx