Hi from the UK

[Sticky]

Hi all :)

I am a cupcake virgin :) Well i love eating them obviously but i've never even attempted to bake anything in my life .......but i need a new hobby so i've decided to start making cupcakes so i was chuffed to find this forum.

For me, Operation Cupcake commences on saturday !

Wish me luck, im going to need it !

xx

[Princess Cupcake]

Excellent, another convert! Have you picked out flavors and your recipe? Got your sprinkles and decorations ready? Let us know how Operation Cupcake goes :)

[Sticky]

I'm just going to start off with basic vanilla cupcakes for my first attempt. I cant wait for the decorating, i bought some little sugarpaste hearts, sprinkles, glitter etc .

If these turn out okayish, i'll get more adventurous with the next lot xx

[Sticky]

Well my decorating kit never turned up so i just made vanilla cupcakes with some white choc chips and vanilla buttercream icing with pink and lilac toppers. I think they taste really good but im taking them to my mum and sisters today and they can do the taste test xx

[Laura]

I've had a lot more experience baking cakes of all kinds, both from mixes and from scratch. Cupcake forum (and by extension its administration and moderators) are based in the US...we're chuffed and a bit surprised to find all these people from accross the pond joining this site, and to find cupcakes seem to be nearly as popular and abundant in the UK as in the US!
I didn't expect this, given that when I took an international business & economics class in college, one of the case studies in the textbook said that when Duncan Hines (a US company that makes boxed powdered cake mixes) tried to market its product in the UK it failed miserably even though it is well-known that Brits love to eat sweets and are addicted to tea. The folks at Duncan Hines thought that logically, the Brits would just love to make cakes to go with all that tea. According to the textbook, in spite of having the tea habit, it seems that you folks don't eat "cake" baked in a pan in the oven, frosted with a coat of buttercream icing, and large enough to serve several individuals (e.g., an 8 or 9 inch pan), as people in the US do, but to you "cakes" are very small individual things, like scones, about the size and flavor of what we would call a biscuit in the US (soft, round, raised, and served with fried chicken as opposed to biscuit being the name for the hard, flat food we Yanks would call a "cookie").
Love the idea with the white chocolate chips...would you believe that even though I've been baking for years I've never tried 'em on or in cupcakes? did you put them on top of your cupcakes as something to put on the frosting on top, or did you bake them into your cupcakes as something incorporated into the batter?

[Sticky]

Cupcakes are so popular in the UK just now, there are loads of little cupcake shops popping up everywhere and its the new " in " thing to send a box of cupcakes instead of flowers. I know what i would prefer ;)

I wasn't really a cupcake fan until i went to New York on holiday back in 2005 and a work colleage told me that i MUST go to Magnolia Bakery..... so i did and that was me hooked.

I just mixed the white choc chips in with the batter so they were through the actual cupcake.

Good news is that my kit arrived today so i'm going to practise my swirls and frosting tomorrow,

xx