Calculating The Cost of a Cake

Cost Calculator (opens on same page)

I've written a spreadsheet with the common ingredients that I buy; it's saved on Google Docs, so if you click the Cost Calculator link above, you can use it too.

Basically you add the weight of your ingredient in grams ( or if it's something like eggs and muffin cases, just type the number needed) and it will work out a rough price for you.

Cupcakes I Want to Try

What with making boxes and coming up with ideas for cupcake variations I have decided to put together a cupcake box (hopefully 12, but I'm not sure how many will fit in my box)

My cupcake box will hold:

Chocolate Orange Cupcakes
Banana Cupcakes
Lemon Cupcakes
Orange Cupcakes
Caramelised Banana & Cinnamon Cupcakes
Toffee Crunch

I want to try:

Filling cakes
Crunchy Lemon Topping
Royal Icing Piping
Chocolate Ganache
3D Butterflies

Home Made Cake Wrappers and Boxes

I just did a little eBay search for cake wrappers.

 

These cost about £8.00 for 12, even plain ones were about £5.00 for 12.  I think I paid about £2.00 in my local cake shop for some printed ones.

Here is one I made myself with a bit of card, a silver pen and a gold pen.

 

Cupcakes boxes are also useful but a bit expensive. This one holds 6 cupcakes, is available online and costs £3.16 for two (including VAT) 

This is one that I have made out home out for a cardboard box.

I just need to cover it with pretty paper and line it with greaseproof paper.

I also love this idea.

Fillings

I really want to try this.

Cakes are generally filled with butter cream and jam, but this is personal choice, you may prefer butter cream and real strawberries, or lemon curd.  Maybe you’d like a chocolate cake with real whipped cream filling or orange marshmallow filling.

Cupcakes can be filled too, either by cutting of the top and making butterfly cakes or by piping the filling into the cake (chocolate, strawberry butter cream, jam).  In theory, like the one shown here.

Cake Covering

There a few different types of icing that I can use.

Butter cream made by mixing butter and icing sugar with some flavouring and colouring.

Swiss meringue butter cream made with caster sugar melted in egg white with butter then beaten in.  It makes a very melt in the mouth version of the standard butter cream

Fondant icing hardens, but doesn’t go completed hard.  It is used to cover cakes and can also be used on cupcakes.  You can colour fondant or paint it with food colourings.

Royal icing goes really hard (think wedding cakes) and is for any features that need to be strong 3D shapes.

Cream cheese frosting is not one I fancy, but it’s made with cream cheese, icing sugar and lemon juice so this is a lower fat version.

Chocolate ganache is made by mixing cream and melted chocolate. 

Toffee topping made with butter, condensed milk, caster sugar and golden syrup.

Lemon crunch is made by sprinkling sugar over the cakes when they are fresh from the oven and then sprinkling on some lemon juice.

Ideas with Fondant & Royal Icing

Fondant can be used in several ways, coloured, painted, shaped. For example you could have the England flag painted on a white piece on fondant, or have a cross made out of red fondant and white fondant.

You can make simple flowers, animal faces, hearts, numbers etc, which can personalise the cupcakes to the receiver (birthday, Christmas etc)

Royal icing goes hard and isn’t that nice to eat (in my opinion it tastes like a hard chunk of sugar) but it’s ideal for making decorations that can be removed from the cake. 

For example:

Flowers (not the simple kind)

3D Butterflies

Simple shapes (hearts, dice, and numbers)

Chocolate, marzipan and sugar paste are also options for making shapes out of, but I’m not that brave yet.

Colours

You can have coloured butter icing and coloured fondant.

You can even have cupcakes with multiple coloured toppings

 

Or made up to look like animals

Flavours

These’s a few flavour generally available:

Vanilla made with extract or vanilla pods

Lemon made with flavouring or fresh fruit

Orange made with flavouring or fresh fruit

Chocolate made with cocoa powder

But you can just use your imagination really:

Chocolate Orange

Coffee

Apple and Cinnamon

Banana

Raspberry and White Chocolate

Coffee and Cream

Coconut

Chocolate and Lemon

Baileys

Toffee Crunch

With something like chocolate orange, there are several ways it could be made:

Chocolate cakes with orange flavoured topping

Orange flavour cakes with chocolate topping

Chocolate cakes with tiny bits of chocolate orange mixed in

Could be topped with:

Piece of chocolate orange

Chocolate curls

Chocolate buttons (40 pence for a bag from Tesco)

Grated Orange Rind

I could even attempt:

Chocolate Roses

Marzipan Oranges

Things I Have Learnt

I'm pretty much upto date now, but with lots more cakes planned.  So here is the stuff I have learnt so far (some of it may seem obvious, but I am a beginner)

If you want to bake a cake with a flat top, wrap a wet towel around the tin as it cooks.  This prevents the cake from cooking faster at the sides than in the middle, but you need to cook a little longer than usual.

When the cake is cooked, leave it in the tin until the tin has cooked enough to handle.  The cake will contract and be easier to remove from the tin.  Also grease and flour the tin, or add a lining so that the cake does not stick to the tin on remval.

When removing cupcakes papers from the stack (i.e. the box you buy them in) remove the papers from the bottom of the stack.  This stops them getting stretched or pulled out of shape.

There are several reasons that a cake doesn't rise, the most common being that the cake tin is too big.

Let each stage of the cake decorating cool before carrying on to the next part.  If you don't you'll make a mess.

To transfer a simple picture to fondant icing, simple draw it on baking paper and using a pin, make the outline through the paper on to the cake.

To use food colouring to paint fondant, the fondant needs to dry and the colouring needs to be mixed with water. 

When colouring anything, use a cocktail stick and add a tiny bit of colour at a time.

A little lemon flavouring in a sponge is rather yummy

Check the size of cake tins being sold from China on ebay and measure this.  I bought a 3" cake tin without even stopping to convert this to cm.

Don't try and make too many cupcakes from one mix

Don't add too much fondant to a cake

Experiment with recipies for cake and butter icing until you find one that suits you.  There are lots of different varieties that call for different ingredients, such as vinegar, salt, baking powder, corn flour and custard powder.  You just have to find what suits you the best.

It's much easier to paint fondant after it has been shaped, rather than colour it first.

To test if a cake is ready, puch gently on the top.  If it springs back into place it is ready.  This is better than using a cocktail stick as they leave holes in your cake.

Don't add food colouring to shortbread.  It does something funny to the fix and makes it hard to knead and cut.

To make the large swirls on top of cupcakes like they get in a shop you need a large piping nozzle.  This is larger than any of the ones that come in the sets that you can buy in Tesco, Asda etc.

Don't try writing on fondant with the edible pens until the fondant has been in the fridge a while.

Cupcakes

Here are the cupcakes that I have made.

I used a purple colour for the icing, but it game out quite greyish

My little fondant stars

Birthday cupcakes for Emma.  This is a meringue butter icing and it is really really nice.  The fives I made by melting chocolate and piping it out onto greaseproof paper.