Stuff and things!

We've had a busy few days here at Cutiepie HQ. First we decided to experiment with our new flavour 'Chai and Mighty' - a chai latte cake. We kept the cakes nice and moist using strong tea, walnuts and citrus.

Then, to flavour the frosting, we made some lovely Chai Tea Syrup. We bubbled this up on our stove using the following recipe:

3 cups sugar
3 cups water
10 x Chai Tea Bags

It took about 10 - 15 minutes boiling away to reduce and is totally yummy!You can use it in hot drinks and to make iced tea as well! Why not give it a try? You could use regular tea if you don't like chai. We store ours in a pretty glass bottle which can be re-sealed and kept in the fridge for freshness.

Cutiepie Cupcakes have also been out and about meeting their customers and had a fantastic sell out success at No Strings Burlesque and Cabaret Club in Norwich on Saturday night. We took along Truly Madly Chocolate and Marshmallow Clouds and they practically flew out of our hands.

Ellie - owner of Cutiepie's managed to squeeze her increasingly pregnant form into a little vintage style number and shimmied her way through the very dapper and glamorous audience at the Norwich Puppet Theatre. She had so much fun she will be at the No Strings Boogaloo which is taking place at the Norwich Arts Centre on 23rd October. See if you can spot her there!

Cutiepie Cupcakes out and about

Cutiepie Cupcakes like to get out an meet their customers from time to time (it's fun and just plain good manners!) so can be located at the following events over the next few days!

25th September - http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=108694155420&ref=ts No Strings Burlesque and Cabaret Club at Norwich Puppet Theatre 7pm til Midnight. We will be selling Truly Madly Chocolate and Marshmallow Clouds for the special price of £1.5o each or two for £2.50.

28th September - http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Norwich-United-Kingdom/Cherry-Cherry/54013377005?ref=ts Cupcake Decorating Workshop at Cherry Cherry in Norwich. Two hours of practising piping techniques and playing with fabulous sprinkles and edible glitter. You get 6 of your own cakes to take home and the whole event is topped off with a serving of afternoon tea. Yum! £20.00 per person. Email hello@cherrycherryshop.com to reserve your place!

Hope to see you there!

Yummy new flavours on the way!

It's the time of year to think about refreshing our range of flavours and (dreaded words) our Christmas range. Today we are baking Spiced Chai Latte cakes which we hope will be the flavour of the month for October. We have also come up with a few more ideas:

Banoffe Pie
Coconut and Pineapple with meringue topping
Apple, sultana and cinnamon with toffee frosting
Lime and basin with elderflower frosting
White chocolate and cranberry with vanilla frosting
Pumpkin pie with cream cheese frosting
Dark gingerbread with lemon frosting
Boozy fruitcake with marzipan icing
Black forest with fresh cream

Tell us what you think. Who knows, vote for your favourite and you could see it on the site soon!

Phew - a little breathing space at last!

It's been a busy old time here at Cutiepie HQ as we grappled with the height of Wedding Season. Over the August Bank Holiday weekend 274 cupcakes were baked, decorated and delivered. All arrived on time with no mishaps after which we treated ourselves to a slap up meal and a good sit down! Now that Autumn is creeping in (ah mellow fruitfulness and all that jazz....) and things are a little quieter we thought it was the perfect opportunity to look back at the good times we have had over the summer and look forward to some new and yummy flavours for those colder days which we know are on the way!

So first up, here is a little selection of our recent work. The quirkiest wedding we have ever done (and that's official) were the nuptials of Bradley and Jonathan whose Sci-fi and Disney themed day was one of the best we have ever baked for. Take a look at the cupcake tower we produced for them.

We combined a 'Disney' castle top tier with cakes in four flavours decorated with the Doctor Who and Rebel Alliance (Star Wars) symbols which we painstakingly painted by hand from templates we made ourselves. It was hard work but certainly worth it for such a lovely couple who went the extra mile to make sure everyone had a good time. They even had an old fashioned style 'pick n mix' which guests could help themselves to and finished the evening off with Light Sabre battles and an 80's Disco. Amazing!

And now for something a little more traditional! We delivered these cakes to a wedding which was taking place at the very luxurious Norfolk Mead Hotel (highly recommended for delicious food and cosy times by roaring open fires in the winter!). This order was small but perfectly formed with five flavours making up the tower. The theme was pink so we used light pink cases and loving glued fuschia pink ribbon around the centre of each cake.

We think they ended up looking pretty flippin' fantastic and the bride's mother called the next day to say how thrilled they were with everything. This order just goes to show that you can combine all the flavours that your little heart desires and it will still look lovely - you really can have your cake and eat it!

We know we promised you some news about new flavours in this post but we are running out of space and time - keep your eyes peeled and we will post more exciting cakey business tomorrow!

Cupcake Decorating Parties

Hello parents, are you stuck for ideas for your child's next birthday party? Want to find them something fun, creative and yummy to do? If the answer is yes then check out our Little Cuties Cupcake Decorating Parties. Best for kids between the ages of four and eight the parties run for two hours and take place in the venue of your choice. All materials are provided and you get a yummy tower of 12 cupcakes to have as the centrepiece to your birthday tea! Take a look and contact me for more details!

Marshmallow clouds and Girly Vanilla

We were asked to provide a special box of cakes for a 5th birthday. They weren't to be eaten by the kids mind you, they were a special treat for the mums as a reward for working hard at the party which 27 children had been invited to! As a special request we combined six of our delicious Marshmallow Clouds with six of our moist and tempting Pure Indulgence. They were a great success and we think that they looked the height of fluffy, girlie, gorgeousness!

Hello shiny new website!

Hurrah, our new website has been launched, accompanied by general squeals of excitement at Cutiepie HQ. With fantastic photography by Chris Hylton and site design by the marvellous Rob Sayles at Designory we couldn't be happier unless the powers that be suddenly decided that cake is, in fact, a health food and forms part of your 'five a day'!

Here it is in all its glory!

www.cutiepiecupcakes.co.uk

Enjoy and share it with your friends. Look out for competitions and promotions coming soon.....

Afternoon tea wedding tower

This order was for a lovely couple, Julie and Ian, who were having a traditional afternoon tea for their wedding breakfast and wanted to carry that theme into their evening celebrations. After lots of discussion we decided on a mixture of Raspberry Ripple and Lemon Zinger cakes to keep things fruity, fresh and summery.

Ellie wanted to make the Raspberry Ripple cakes extra delicious, so she flavoured and coloured the Buttercream frosting with fresh raspberry puree (made by pushing the fruit through a sieve). The Lemon Zinger cakes had their usual lemon curd centres, with fresh lemon zest and juice providing a subtle tang to the sponge and Buttercream.

Each Raspberry Ripple cake was decorated with a handmade, two tone sugar rose. Ellie made these in advance (to allow for drying time) and brushed them with edible lustre dust to give a little shimmer. We delivered and set the cakes up at the venue (part of our FREE event consultation and planning service - contact us for more details) and were relieved that the day had cooled down a bit - we have really been feeling the heat in Norwich and were worried about Buttercream disasters!

We were thrilled with the result and the bride called us the next day to say how much she loved the cakes and that they were throughly enjoyed by the guests. Mission accomplished!

Sparkly Heart Tower

This is a tower which we made for a wedding at the end of June. The reception was in a marquee and the weather was hot, hot, hot (which was a bit of a concern - Buttercream and heat don't mix after all!) but all was well - phew!!

The hearts are made out of sugar paste (Ellie had pink and purple marbled hands for days afterwards) which was then painted with edible glue and edible glitter. Which got us thinking....... perhaps we can solve the dilemma of all parents whose children won't eat their greens. Examine the following equation:

edible glitter + peas = irresistible 'magic' veg + no tears at dinner time

If you are unconvinced by our new theorem you could always try using edible glitter in your home baking instead - it's an inexpensive way to achieve an impressive effect. The glitters come in small tubs but last for ages. Go on, give them a try they come in all the colours of the rainbow!

It's a bake-a-thon!

Well, here at Cutiepie HQ we are very busy preparing for Boudicca's Feast this Sunday and a Little Cuties Cupcake Decorating Party this Saturday. 208 cupcakes to bake - we have made 66 so far and counting!

Come along to Boudicca's Feast for a special Cutiepie Cupcakes offer - four cupcakes for £6.00, a saving of 25%. The event is to help raise funds for Dragon Hall in Norwich. Come along and see us, we will have the following flavours available to taste - (hopefully they will tantalise your taste buds!) Truly Madly Chocolate, Pure Indulgence, Lemon Zinger and Nicely Spiced.

If you are interested in booking a cupcake decorating party for your son or daughter then please visit my website for more details. July weekends are fully booked but we have some weekday slots available and are taking bookings for August.

Goodbye old packaging, hello new!

As part of our website re-launch we decided to re-vamp our boxes so that they fit in nicely with our logo and branding. Our old packaging (right) gracefully gave way to our new packaging (left). As you can see, at Cutiepie Cupcakes, we understand that it's the whole package (and not just the cakes themselves) which matters so we like to go out of our way to make the whole cupcake experience luxurious and indulgent. Why not give a friend or relative some beautifully boxed cupcakes for a special occasion? Or how about taking some to a party as a gift for the host? We are sure that anyone would be thrilled to receive a box of our delicious delights! We only require 24 - 48 hours notice to produce small quantities of our standard range of cupcakes so why not give us a call?

Photo shoot preparations

We recently had a photo shoot because we are getting ready to launch our new website (it will be live at the end of July). Obviously this meant we had to get very busy baking every single type of cake we sell for their starring moment being photographed by Chris Hylton. We started off by making a few sugar paste decorations so they had time to dry before we wanted to decorate the cakes.

Next we whipped up loads of different cupcake batters, popped it into cases and then........waited..........and drank a nice cup of tea from our favourite cupcake themed mug (we love our tea at Cutiepie Cupcakes!) until they were cooked.

When the cakes had cooled we set to and decorated them taking extra care to have them looking picture perfect - the camera sees every imperfection and we don't like to be too reliant on photoshop! We think they turned out pretty well and you will be able to see the full results soon.

Happy things # 1

As promised, here is the first of the things (other than cupcakes) which make us happy. These are Ellie's fantastic new slippers which she thinks make her feet look rather like ladybirds - excellent, who wouldn't want their feet to look like nature's cheeriest insect?

Look out for the next installment of 'Happy things' which will feature a rather lovely 1950s vintage apron which we purchased at a fair in the gorgeous village of Heydon recently!

Busy times at Cutiepie HQ

We have been very busy here at Cutiepie HQ. Developing new flavours, designing new packaging, shooting photos for our new website - it's all been exciting and quite exhausting.

After running a competition for our Facebook group members to suggest a new 'flavour of the month' two winners were selected 'Chocolate and Cardamom' and 'Green Tea' so we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.

We got our trusty old fashioned scales out (we still measure in ounces!) and whipped up a batch of each. We were very excited by the Matcha green tea we ordered to make the frosting - pretty packaging! The cakes themselves were chocolate with green tea infused milk added to them - we put the tea bags in the milk overnight to get the right strength, here's the result.

We added a touch of chilli to the chocolate and cardamom cakes which worked really well and decided to top them with homemade chocolate ganache rather than buttercream for a slightly more sophisticated finish and topped them off with crushed pistachios. The cakes themselves turned out extra moist and yummy thanks to the addition of ground almonds.

Thanks to our Facebook fans for their fab suggestions - these two flavours will feature during May and June and a box of them is winging its way to the winners as a sign of our appreciation.

Welcome to our new blog!

That's right, Cutiepie Cupcakes have their own blog. We plan to use it to share our cupcake related adventures with you along with promotions, new flavours, competitions and other exciting stuff.

For us at Cutiepie, yummy cupcakes = happiness so we will have regular posts featuring all of the other things that make us happy.

Look out for our new website which is due to be launched at the end of July and be sure to find us on Facebook.