Cupcakes ate my Soul: Jelly Babies

A Gingerbread House that is...incase you thought I'd suddenly abandoned the art of Cakeage to become a house...builderer (It's a job)

This was my 12 hour labour of love.

And it all began with the creaming of some butter and sugar...

(I literally took step by step pictures in case you had trouble imagining what the creaming of butter looked like...)

Add a lovely mound of dark sugar...

Creamy creamy...(don't eaty eaty...)

Then you add the syrup of Satan...Treacle. The most sickliest, thickest, gloopiest substance known to man kind.

Nice arty shot of treacle for your viewing pleasure...

Then mix this into your butter and sugar...

Image of the actual mixing process...just so you can check you're er, doing it right...

LOADS of ground ginger! Yes it will make people choke when they eat your fiery, gingery gingerbread, but all that means is your gingerbread will be tasty and entertaining...and mildly life threatening...

Again, you may need reminding of what mixing looks like...(Ok I admit I got a little carried away photographing things...)

Then we add flourery peaks of flour!

Tip that lot into your buttery, sugary, gingery, treacly mix with a couple o' tablespoons of water and mix until it resembles something resembling what you would imagine gingerbread dough looks like! (Kinda stiff...brown thing, see below)

Above is the dough after getting a little chilly in the frige for half an hour in a coat of clingfilm

Then! I rolled it to about a 1/4 inch thick. But if you're going for a winter friendly house and thus want thermo insulated walls, make it about an inch thick to keep the warmth in.

Then! Mark out your walls and roofage.

Side walls: W-5 inches, H-3 inches

Roofage: W-6 inches, H-6 inches

Back and frontage: W-5 1/2 inches, H-6 1/2 inches at the peak!

And go mental with your cookie cutter...

Cook your house for about 15 mins...Don't worry that it feels strangely squidgy when you take it out the oven; resist the urge to poke and let it harden up!

Then let rip with with the royal icing! A recipe for which you can find here

Outlines of things make it look prettyful...

I baked a huge gingerbread cookie in a pan as the base for my house and did a nice swirly pattern around it!

And lined all my little jelly men on top of house...they're not suicidal about to jump off...they're just admiring the view...

So you basically want to buy bucketfuls of pick n' mix and throw the stuff all over your gingerbread house! In a tasteful, artful and considered way of course...

Tudaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

The recipient (My Brother) was 'speechless' upon receiving it as a christmas present, so get making! And render everyone you know speechless!

(No jelly babies were harmed in the making of my house so please don't report me to the Care, Protection and Misuse of Jelly Babies authorities...)

Love is a universal feeling. Between humans, rabbits and even Jelly Babies. And so I present to you dear readers the story of love between one Jelly Baby and another. It is an epic tale between two star crossed Jelly Babies, battling against the world to be together, finally united by the Cupcake. This tale is a tale of love, creation and consuming a cake within about 10 minutes of it being baked. We begin, with the Cupcake.

I travelled far and wide to gather my ingredients for this ancient recipe rumoured to be named 'The Vanilla Cupcake'. Upon my sturdy bicycle I climbed, the pedals I pushed, and the faces I pulled as I braced myself against the Northern winds intent to keep me from my treachourous journey to the glowing orange beacon that is the magical temple I can only refer to as 'Sainsbury's'.

And what a sight it was. As I wiped the rain from my brow, apologised to elderly people I narrowly missed as I sped towards my goal, I could almost hear the ingredients calling to me. I nervously approached the temple as the giant glass doors parted and a warm rush of air embraced my cold, trembling body and pulled me inside. But my journey had not ended. As I stepped inside the Super market far from my journey ending, it had just begun. Ferocious beings came running at me with giant metal contraptions on wheels, I heard people screaming 'But they're 2 for 1! I'm SAVING money!' and I witnessed children charging at their parents with arms full of chocolate and sweets only to be banished to the metal cages and strapped in. I was horrified readers. I knew my ingredients had to be rescued from this nightmare.

So through these people I ran, ignoring bright red signs intent on stopping me from my goal with offers of 'Savings' and money off. I was not blinded by these so called savings intent on deterring me from my righteous path. I would succeed where others had fallen prey to these evil signs. So to the Home Baking aisles I ventured. And to the eggs, flour, butter and sugar I trekked, crawling through giants to pluck them from their holding places I heard referred to as 'Shelves'. It was a cruel sight. And as I left I saw the most horrendous sight. For as I looked to the horizon, I saw a looming glass cabinet headed with a blinding sign, 'Cakes and Bakes'. My friends, I can only describe this place as Cake Prison. Behind the bullet proof glass were captured cakes being tortured and suffocated in plastic boxes, brown wrappers and worst of all, being sold off for cake labour at 4 for £1. As I wiped the tears from my eyes, I saluted these brave cake victims, and hastily fled the battle field of crazed shoppers brain washed by the beautiful orange glow of their Lord Sainsbury's clutching my ingredients.

Back at the safety of my trusty bike, I quickly flung my precious ingredients over my handle bars and sped off into the night, swearing to my cakey lord that I would bring justice to those cakes caught in battle, and I would bake the best cakes I could with my rescued ingredients. And this my friends, is the result of my journey.

Vanilla Cupcakes

(6 big ones...I don't know why you'd want to make little ones so I'm not telling you how many little ones this mixture makes, and if you are sane, you won't find out, you'll just make 6 big ones! Or 1 big one...even better)

2 Eggs (weigh these and ye shall discover the weight of all your other ingredients!)

Salted Butter (Unsalted butter is just...no)

Caster Sugar

Self-Raising Flower

The Holy Grail: 1 tsp Vanilla Extract. NOT Vanilla Flavouring! There are some evil doers out there who will convince you that vanilla flavouring is better, more delicious, and more cake friendly than Vanilla Extract. But they lie my friends. Vanilla flavouring is poison by another name, and to buy such a product would be like hugging the cake devil himself: The Fat Free Cupcake. We do not speak of him, but he endevours to obstruct pure cakey goodness wherever he can. Do not give in to the FFC, for he despises tasty quality cakes with all the goodness of proper ingredients and love.

Put all these glorious ingredients into your bowl/KitchenAid/bucket and mix like there's no tomorrow.

Do not fear and exclaim 'that looks DISGUSTING!' as you churn away, for granted half way through mixing you do start to wonder what kind of cake monstrosity you have created...

But bear with it and before your eyes a glossy, beautiful (and very tasty) cake mixture will appear before your very eyes!

Eat this as it is/Spoon it into cupcake cases.

Bake in your Hot Box (oven) at 160 dungarees for about 15 minutes or until you simply can't wait any longer to eat your cakes and eat/cool/decorate. Tudaah!

So that was the creation of The Cupcake. But my cupcakes were lonely. I've always thought Jelly Babies have a rough time of it being shut off from the world in a bag. They never really get to live, meet other Jelly Babies, and make their own Jelly Babies. So in a bid to protest against Jelly Baby rights, I plucked two lonely young Jelly Babies from their packaged lives and showed them what it was like to love. In three simple cupcakes I give you: Love - The Jelly Baby way.