Hmmm cupcakes..........

Welcome to a rather damp and windy Tuesday, certainly not good for inspiring new ideas for cupcake recipes. Let's face it I'd rather be curled up in front of the fire eating them, than in the kitchen baking them! In fact as my muffin top has been expanding ever more, over the waisband of my jeans, I've had to give up my weekday liking for the odd glass of wine just so that I can continue to eat cake - and that's a huge sacrifice (as any mother of two small boys will know).
I'm currently trying to concoct something chocolately, but not too sweet, that will be a departure from my normal creations. The only problem is that in doing so I have developed a love of Willie's Peruvian Cacao and now can't bring myself to "waste" it in a cake! Oh well I guess it's back to normal 70% dark chocolate then........ ooh and maybe some fresh cream......
My lovely neighbour has just given me an article from her Sunday paper that says that house prices in areas where there are cupcake emporiums are on the rise. Now if I can persuade the good people of Inkpen to contribute to me setting up my own emporium surely it will benefit them all in the long term (and maybe a free cupcake every week would keep them happy too).
Anyway enough rambling from me, I'm off to collect the small person and then back into the kitchen............
Keep smiling :-)

Hooray the snow has gone!

Well it's the first of February and you may think that I have been lazy - not posting for ages - but we have had Christmas, snow, more snow and then a rather tragic computer malfunction!!! Happily I can see the first signs of spring and school has been open every day for two weeks in a row, so life is returning to normal.
In the cake world I have been experimenting with different flavours - sticky chocolate orange and cranberry & orange cupcakes to name just two. I have also been busy making hearts and roses to adorn the vanilla cupcakes in their beautiful new cases - all in an attempt to persuade the gentlemen folk of Inkpen and Woolton Hill that they would be an ideal gift for Valentines day. The problem is that I don't believe men think that far ahead - it's usually a last minute dash to the supermarket (if you're lucky) which results in a box of Ferrero Rocher and some carnations! At the Woolton Hill village market last Saturday, I even watched a lady expressly telling her rather bemused husband what he should be buying, but short of actually ordering them herself what more could she do??
I'm off now for a walk in the glorious sunshine and to retrieve Euan from the mud in the garden before we have to do the school run. When I can find a way of hooking my camera up to this borrowed laptop I will post some pics of my cakes. In the meantime any requests for recipe experiments please let me know - I've just found a recipe for petit pois cupcakes - random!!