Bake It! Vegan Oreo Cookies & Cream Cupcakes

It's a beautiful sunny day here in Merseyside, and I've spent a few hours eating my way around Liverpool Food & Drink Festival. I've added more restaurants to the list of places my partner and I absolutely must visit, with The Button Street Smokehouse being top of the list!

Back in my kitchen this weekend, and I'd offered to bake to contribute to a Free Cakes For Kids table top bake sale. Having a child with multiple food allergies, and a mother-in-love (we're not married, so there's no law involved) who avoids gluten, I'm very aware that potential buyers with special dietary requirements are all too often overlooked at these kind of events, so I decided to fix that, atleast for this bake sale. 

I've found that with my son being allergic to both cow's milk protein and eggs, that it is easier to search for vegan recipes when I'm looking to bake for him. This bake therefore, as well as being vegan, is free from dairy, eggs, soya and nuts. It's my own recipe adapted from ones that I've used over the years. 

These yummy cupcakes are a chocolate & Oreo sponge bases, with vanilla & Oreo frosting, topped with 1/2 an Oreo cookie.

I find that vegan cupcakes are more prone to coming away from the case than regular sponges, so I prefer to bake in a more rigid cardboard case. These ones are square, and slightly larger than a regular muffin case. 

Ingredients (Makes 12)

200ml (3/4cup + 1tbsp) chocolate coconut milk (can use oat, rice or soya)

20ml (4tsp) cider vinegar

200g (1+3/4cups) self raising flour

200g (1 cup) caster sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)

1/4 tsp baking powder

85ml (1/3cup) light rapeseed or sunflower oil

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 packet Oreo cookies, crushed

Method

1) In a small bowl or jug, mix together the chocolate milk and the cider vinegar, and leave to stand for 10 minutes. Meanwhile follow steps 2 & 3.

2) Preheat the oven to 180c/350f/GM4, and line a 12 hole muffin tray with cases. If using cardboard baking cups stand them on a baking tray.

3) In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, salt, soda and baking powder. 

4) Add the milk mixture, oil and vanilla and quickly mix together until the ingredients are just combined. 

5) Fold in the crushed Oreo cookies.

6) Spoon the mixture into the cases, filling each one half way full. 

7) Tap the tray on the work surface a few times to pop any bubbles in the mixture.

8) Bake in the centre of the oven for 15-20 minutes, until a skewer/cocktail stick inserted in the centre comes out clean. Depending on your oven this could take longer, so start with 15 minutes, give the tray a gentle shake and if there's any wobble in the cake check again 5 minutes later, once the wobble has gone start checking with a skewer. 

9) Remove from the oven, put the tray on a cooling rack for 10 minutes, and then transfer the cakes to the rack to cool completely. 

Oreo Frosting Ingredients 

250g (9oz) Trex (vegetable shortening)

500g (1lb2oz) Icing sugar (confectioners sugar)

1tsp vanilla extract

1 pack Oreo cookies, crushed

Coconut Milk (quantity as needed) can use soya, oat or rice milk if preferred

Method

In a mixing bowl, use and electric mixer to combine the Trex, sugar and vanilla, gradually adding milk 1tbsp at a time until a piping consistency is reached. 

Personally, I find that the mix stops gathering up inside and around the mixer arms once it's at the right consistency. 

Fold in the Oreo crumbs with a spatula ensuring an even distribution. 

To pipe, choose your nozzle and fit it in your bag. I used a 1M large open star nozzle for the cakes pictured. I piped by starting with a small peak in the centre, then spiralling from one corner round the outside and upwards over the initial peak. I piped in a wave pattern to add texture, but you could use any piping technique, or just use a spatula to spread frosting on top. 

Once the frosting is done, take another pack of Oreo cookies and gently cut them in half. Press one half into the frosting on top of each cake, and you're done!

Variations

You can swap the Oreos for any other biscuit you'd like to use. 

Swap the chocolate milk for regular milk for a plain vanilla base. 

Add 2-3tsp in stand coffee granules to the milk for a mocha or coffee flavour base. 

Just experiment! My favourite way is to make a recipe the way it's written the first time, then fiddle with it the second. 

Enjoy! 

Bake It - Iggle Piggle Cake Tutorial

This week saw a new opportunity for me, I was given free reign on a cake! I've had a bake scheduled for this week for a few months now with Free Cakes For Kids, an awesome charity here in England that provides home baked cakes for children who wouldn't get one otherwise. Mostly they are children living in poverty, referred by Health Visitors or Social Workers, sometimes they are teens in supported living or in care. For most mums, it's hard to imagine celebrating your child's birthday without a cake, but for some of these children, the cakes they get from FCFK are the first birthday cakes they've ever had. 

Each area has a co-ordinator, who recruits volunteer bakers. When she receives a referral, she sends out an email asking if anyone can bake it. Then the baker gets in touch with the family to discuss a theme and cake flavour, bakes the cake and drops it off. The baker either donates the ingredients and materials, or the co-ordinator helps out with the costs if necessary. Being a regular baker I always have a full cupboard of baking goodies so I'm happy to donate my time and ingredients.

For this bake, I spoke to the parents a week before the birthday to find out if the birthday boy likes any particular shows, sports, colours etc. What flavour cake they prefer, any allergies/dietary needs to consider. The remit was 'he likes In The Night Garden and Thomas The Tank Engine, everything else we don't mind - you choose!'

I've baked two Thomas the Tank Engine cakes for FCFK already, but I've never baked In The Night Garden, so that was one decision made. I looked online at other bakers cakes and found gorgeous cakes, very elaborate with fondant figures and a lot of detail. I was tempted to go down this route, but after a family holiday my energy levels are low and my health problems are flaring up, so I needed something that wasn't going to be tough on my hands. 

I saw these cupcakes on Pinterest...

...and thought why don't I make a big cake like that? I've not tried cake carving yet, it would give me the chance to try, so the idea was born.

I used a standard Victoria sponge recipe to make two 10" round sponge cakes. Then I made a batch of vanilla buttercream (200g butter, 400g icing sugar, 1tsp vanilla, enough milk to achieve the right consistency).

Oooh, did I mention this little beauty?

My old mixer was very cheap, and straining under the effort of mixing endless bowls of buttercream! I saved up my Nielsen points and got this stunner. I love it. In a slightly unhealthy way. 

Anyway, back to the tute.

I sandwiched the layers with buttercream and strawberry jam.

Then it was time to start carving. There's a few ways of doing this. 

- You can draw your shape on paper or card and put it on top of your cake as a template.

- You can draw your design on the top of your cake with a skewer.

- You can do it by eye with a great big knife and hope it's right. 

If you've read previous posts then you can probably guess my method. I loaded up a picture of Iggle Piggle on my phone and got a good sharp serated knife out. 

My round cake only needed two cuts. Firstly, trim the right side to make the head thinner but still rounded, like this - 

Secondly, the left side needs a more complicated 'S' shape cut to get the head shape right like this - 

If you have a partner or kids around, make them happy by giving them the off cuts. Or eat them yourself. I'm not a cake fan, so my partner kindly ate mine for me.  You should now have a cake shaped like this -

Use the rest of the buttercream to crumb coat the top and sides, and leave to harden. I left mine overnight, as I tend to bake one day and decorate the next.

Because I was leaving the cake overnight, I made the 'hair' for Iggle next to give it time to harden. These are really simple, they are bright red fondant, about 150g, split into four pieces by eye. I rolled each piece into a sausage about 1&1/2" long, and inserted a cocktail stick into one end. These need time to harden so that once we put them into the cake they hold their shape.

Get your fondant ready, you're going to need a good size ball of the lighter blue to cover most of the cake. 

This fondant is mostly sky blue, with a bit of ice blue to tone down the turquoise. This is about 500g of fondant. I also used about 200g of fondant coloured with the ice blue. I had small amounts of white and black on hand for the eyes. 

To make sure the fondant has something to adhere to, warm up some smooth jam and paint it on with a pastry brush.

Firstly, roll out the lighter blue so that is will cover most of the cake. 

Pick it up with your rolling pin and lay it over the cake.

Trim the top where the darker fondant will sit, and do a first trim around the base. 

Then, use your hands to mould the fondant to the shape of the cake. The warmth of your hands will help the fondant to sit properly. After this you can use a smoothing tool to rub over it, and neaten up the bottom edge. 

Roll out the darker blue, and fit that to the cake in the same way. You'll need to fit it to the seam of the light blue icing. I did this by overlaying it slightly, and then using a very sharp knife to cut the straight edge. I worked it together with my fingertips, then used a wet paintbrush to seal it. 

Finish up the bottom edge of the fondant, where it meets the cake board, firstly with the smoother and then with a sharp knife. I also use the sharp knife to gently scrape off any buttercream or icing sugar that is visible. Wipe off the board with a piece of paper towel. 

If there are any cracks or marks in the fondant, rub your finger gently in circles over them and they will fade and disappear. Be patient!

Roll a ball of the lighter blue fondant for Iggle's nose and stick it down with a dab of water. Roll out some white icing and cut two circles for eyes, stick down with water. 

Roll out some black icing for the pupils and cut out smaller circles, sticking them in place with water. 

Using a sharp knife or modelling tool, draw a smile, making sure to brush away any crumbs. 

Take the red hair pieces, and insert the cocktail sticks into the cake on a 45 degree angle near the top edge. 

Now all it needs is a dust off, and a blast of shimmer spray. 

Sew It - Bothy's Cut Through Rocket Cross Stitch

Over a year ago my youngest son asked me to sew him a cross stitch picture for his bedroom. He's seen me sew many for other people and wanted one of his own. I wanted one that would appeal to him now, and as he grew up. The cut through rocket ship from Bothy definitely fits the bill!

This is a big project. It's worked on 16 count navy blue aida which can be hard on your eyes, you need good light. There are 9 A4 pages of chart, and 2 cards of pre-sorted threads. 

I managed to stitch the base fairly quickly, over 4-6 weeks. The back stitching though, that's a whole different kettle of fish. It's so intricate! There's no straight lines, no following the path of base colours, every stitch has to be mapped from the chart. Consequently, it took me a while to complete. 

I got about halfway through the back stitching, and had to take a break. I had other projects that needed prioritising, and I'd lost the love for this one. It sat for a good 6 months untouched. 

I picked it up again on Sunday. 

I had a lot of me time over the bank holiday weekend, and I hit it hard. This morning, I finished the back stitching, and added the star sequins. 

The piece is now complete and ready for framing. There's going to be another small delay on framing as I'm going to get it done professionally. I want it to be a picture my son can keep forever.

Sew It - Tooth Monster Pocket Pillow

My youngest is 5 and a half now, so the tooth fairy will be visiting him soon. My Aunt used to make and sell tooth fairy pillows when I was young and I loved the idea. 

I've looked around at different ideas and patterns and found that most seem to be aimed at girls, or are giant teeth which don't really appeal to me. 

My pillow is a hybrid of a few different designs I've seen, combined with what materials I had to hand today (I rarely plan ahead!) and what wouldn't need a pattern.

For my tooth monster pocket pillow, I cut 2 squares of green felt which were about 10.5cm. I cut 2 strips of green felt the same width to the height I wanted the pocket to be; roughly 5cm.

Then, from white felt I cut 4 triangles for the teeth and 2 circles for the eyes.

I stitched two triangles together using a simple running stitch around the edges, and repeated this to make the two teeth. Stitching two pieces together makes them stronger and hopefully will prevent them from coming apart and losing their shape over time. 

Once both were stitched, I pinned them to one long side of one piece of the pocket.

Then, I pinned the second piece of the pocket on top.

Using white cotton, I blanket stitched along the top edge, joining the two pieces together and securing the teeth in place. When I reached each tooth, I switched to a tight back stitch, and then went back to whip stitch the edges. Again, using two pieces of felt stitched together for the pocket gives it a more solid structure that should stand up will to little hands rummaging inside. 

Next, I pinned the white felt eyes in place on one of the large squares and whip-stitched them securely in place. I cut small circles of blue felt and stitched them onto the white eyes.

I cut a 20cm length of ribbon, and secured it to the back of the same square of felt as a hanging loop.

Now for the final assembly. I put the two large pieces of felt together, with the eyes on top, then the pocket piece lined up on top of these. I pinned them together, and blanket stitched around the edges. When there was around an inch left to be stitched, I filled the pillow with toy stuffing.

Once it was filled I finished the blanket stitching. 

There he is, ready for Charlie to pop a tooth in. Then he can hang him on his door handle, or his bed post, for the tooth fairy to collect. 

Sew It - Pattern-less Oven Mitts Tutorial

My oven mitts have been on their last legs for a while now, so I decided I wanted to make my own new ones instead of buying some. Mostly because I had some gorgeous elephant fabric from Pink Scissors Fabric.

I'm sure I've got a pattern for mitts like these on my Pinterest wall somewhere, but I was feeling lazy and it seemed like a simple thing to do without a pattern. It was!

I used my original mitts as my guide, lay them on my fabric and used a ruler to draw the straight lines, adding a generous seam allowance. I followed the curve of the mitts and my guide was done. 

From that piece, I cut an identical piece of fabric, a piece of Insul-Bright heat proof lining, a piece of lightweight interlining, and a piece of 2oz batting. These layers would make up the long length of the mitts.

I then used the guide piece again to create the end pocket pieces, working out how deep I wanted them to be (and as my partner has pretty big man hands, I want them to be large). I need 2 fabric pieces and a 2oz batting piece for each end. 

These are the end pocket pieces.

Assembling each pocket piece one at a time, with right sides facing out I sandwiched the batting between the two fabric pieces, and pinned round the edges, before adding a strip of bias binding to the straight edge. 

With the long main piece, I assembled these in the following order - fabric : insulated lining : interfacing : batting : fabric - like this - 

I then whizzed round the edges of all 3 pieces in navy cotton thread on the sewing machine, and then added stripes of stitching approximately 2" apart to secure the layers in place on all 3 layers. 

I switched to white cotton and secured the binding on the pocket pieces, and then trimmed all the edges to 2-3mm from the stitch line.

Next, I pinned the binding open to the side of the main piece with the insulated lining at the top. This will be the part that comes into contact with hot dishes, so the pocket pieces go on the other side. 

Once this was stitched, I turned it over, laid the pocket pieces in place, and pinned the binding over the top edge. 

This proved very fiddly. Bias binding is a skill I am still learning, which is evident if you look closely! 

I stitched it in place, but I didn't do a great job. I decided to go round the inside of the binding with a zigzag stitch to secure the joins. 

All finished, and aside from not being perfect, they turned out very cute!

Sew It - Cupcake Appliqué Toddler T-Shirt

This weeks a special little lady turns 2, my cousin's daughter Lorena. They live too far away for me to see much of them, but I want to sent something special in the post. 

My cousin appreciates unique, hand made clothing. She often buys dresses for Lorena from independent sellers online, and of course she looks gorgeous modelling them. I loved how the last appliqué tshirt turned out so I decided to do another one.

When I think of Lorena, I think of cupcakes, so that's the first thing I thought to appliqué on to the shirt. I did some Pinterest searching, and came up with this design -

Now, I can't be doing with all the faff of printing out templates and cutting and pinning. I got my bag of felt, chose the colours, and started to draw! 

Starting with beige felt for the cupcake base and a wash out fabric pen, I used a ruler to draw the top and after marking the edge points of the bottom, draw the sides. I then curved the corners, and drew the base of the cake. Time to cut!

Next, the first icing, for me in purple. I lay my cake base on top to make sure I drew it wide enough to sit nicely on top, and marked the top edges of my cake. I drew the base first, then a tall curved top. Time to cut again!

For the top icing, in white, I lay the purple icing on top and traced the top curve down to where the bottom frills start to fan out. Then I took the purple fel away, and drew the bottom frills. Last cut!

When you stack them, they should look like this -

Now for the lettering. Again, I like to do this free hand, but you can use a stencil if you prefer. It's hand made, and unique, and I like that to show. I like chunky letters with curved edges. I used the ruler to make sure they all stayed the same height as I drew them. 

All cut out, but getting the middle out of the A was fun! I fold the letter in half so I can snip a small gap in the section you're trying to cut out, then slide the scissors in to cut round it. That's simple in a letter like O, but tricky in an A! 

Time for placement! I'm using a Fruit of the Loom tshirt in age 2-3 from Amazon, they aren't overly expensive but wash really well. I've pinned the cake base first -

I whip stitch the border of this in a brown cotton, then draw 3 lines in my washout pen and do a very close running stitch up these to add detail. Next, I pin the purple icing, and whip stitch the border in a lilac cotton. 

I know that the white icing is going to be stitched in pretty much the same place along the top border, so it may seem like I'm creating extra work for myself. This shirt needs to be toddler proof, so the extra layer of stitching seems worth it to me. 

I had popped down to one of my local fabric shops in the morning to get some cotton thread, and while I was there I spotted this cute strawberry button which I thought would be perfect to finish off the cupcake. Some of my felt is from there too, as I'm often popping in. They're online at Calico Laine.

I pinned on the lettering, and whip stitched the borders using purple cotton. 

Once it was all done, a quick wash and a good iron and it was complete. Ready to post to the birthday girl.

Happy birthday Lorena!