Jam Donut Cupcakes, Bake 'N' Take and Cupcake Dome

It has been a while since my last post, having to work in Bendigo means I have limited access to Internet after work but I've now got my Telstra wireless card, yay. What would I do without the W.W.W! Ok let's get down to the cupcake talk shall we? On the weekend it was my good old friend's birthday and I have been wanting to bake these Jam Donut cupcakes for ages. I didn't exactly follow any recipe, I just used a basic Vanilla Cupcake recipe and some yummy Cottee's Strawberry and Raspberry Jam. In my head, I thought this would work... so off to experiment I went!

So I prepared the vanilla cupcake batter and I got some jam. I must say, I prefer Raspberry jam - I've always been more of a raspberry kinda girl. Like the raspberry twists, raspberry split ice creams, raspberry fizzy drinks.. Strawberry just doesn't have that extra kick to it, if you know what I mean. So anyhow I filled one tray with the Strawberry and the other with the Raspberry. I simply put a third of the batter in the cupcake papers first and half a teaspoon of jam, then topped it off with some more cupcake batter to cover it. Make sure you cover the jam, you don't want any poking out when they bake.
I then popped them into the oven to bake. They sunk a little at first like I was afraid they would since I've never really tried this before and wasn't sure how they would turn out. But alas, they rose into a beautiful dome.

Out come the Jam Donut cupcakes... using my new awesome Cupcake Mitt with extra grip at the fingertips. No more accidental burns using the crappy silicone gloves that hardly cover my hand. My mum actually picked this up for me at the shops...I love it.

At this point I must add that I also love my size 16 ice cream scoop. It is the perfect measurement for baking the perfect sized cupcakes and it took me ages to find one and how funny that I stumbled across it in an Asian kitchenware shop in Springvale..out of all places! I was going to House, Bamix, Wheelbarrow, General Trader and none of them stocked it.

So to decorate like true Jam Donut style I decided on glace icing. Cinnamon glace icing and Chocolate glace icing. Now if you don't know what glace icing is, it is simply icing sugar with a bit of butter and a little hot water. You need to stir it in a bowl over boiling water so the butter melts and you get the right consistency. The butter makes it softer so you can cut through the icing and not shatter it. It's quite sweet though but it's the sort of icing you usually get on your donuts, so I thought this was fitting.

As the icing sets quite quickly, I needed my boyfriend to help me decorate them after I put the icing on with a flat spatula...I think he did a really great job! We used Jelly Belly jelly beans & colourful round sprinkles on top of the Cinnamon iced ones and Lindt Dark Coffee Intense chocolate & silver cachous on the choc iced ones.

We then popped them into a large gift box as a birthday gift for my friend, whom was having his birthday at a bar.

And here are the cupcakes with lit candles! The tissue paper on the left got caught on fire though argh.. but we put it out quickly enough before the whole box went up in flames. I especially like the "Girl" candle in the front. Of course my friend whom is a HE didn't find that amusing.

Before I go, I just wanted to show you a few other cupcake related stuff I recently got. And yes, they are darn sweet. So I was at Coles supermarket late one night and had to get a few things, as I walked down the aisle towards the counter, out of the corner of my right eye I saw a display of CUPCAKE CARRIERS piled to my neck height. Yeap I turned around to my bf behind me and said OMFG LOOooOK *squeal*! Bf was thinking "w..t..f" as I ran to the display of cupcake towers on sale (i already had them) and beside them the amazing BAKE 'N' Take. Not only have I been wanting a Cupcake courier for ages (I couldn't justify spending the $59.95 for it and was waiting for it to go on sale) but this fantastically awesome Bake 'N' Take doubles as a cupcake carrier and a freakin' cupcake baking tray. I couldn't contain my excitement. Wait it gets better...it only cost 15 bucks! holy shit. Yeah it was mine alright. It sure made my night. My bf was happy too, he picked up one of those new Colgate toothbrushes that vibrate to get more crap out from between your teeth. Coles is awesome.

And I also got this clear glass [cup]cake plate dome, thought it was mighty cute. It's actually raised up on a stand but you can't really tell from this angle.