Eid is fast approaching, where did the time go? Eid is a pretty special time with lots of yummy food and treats, and of course we’d like to display them in an appealing way. Dessert tables are all the rage at the moment so Siddiqa (from Cupcakes with Siddiqa) and I decided to put together a dessert table for ideas and inspiration.

Here’s some of my tips for creating a perfect dessert table at home:

• Colour scheme – when choosing a theme, consider the colours of treats you usually make as well as any serving ware and decorative items you may already have
• Is there enough? – for a dessert table to look appealing it’s necessary to have a few items displayed 5/6 is a good place to start but be sure not to overcrowd your table
• Vary the items on the table – having a range of items ensures there’ll be something for everyone to enjoy
• Commercial foods – Don’t be afraid to have store bought items on your table, marshmallows, lollies, chocolates all make great additions to dessert tables and take some pressure of you as well
• Decorations – Use anything you have around the house, old scarves, flowers and even decorative home wares. These can add texture to the table and help liven it up
• Height – If you have a focus item, make it pop by giving it some height. You can do this easily by putting plates above upside down bowls for a make shift cake stand or even using boxes wrapped in themed paper
• Move things – Play around with different placement of items,  just ensure you don’t leave to much blank space on the table as it will look empty. Choose to go symmetrical or asymmetrical, keep in mind with symmetrical placements you’ll have to have two sets of everything whereas asymmetrical allows for more freedom of placement.

Here’s the list of treats we featured on our table:

Cake Pops by Siddiqa

Date Biscuits (recipe here)

Decorated biscuits by Siddiqa

Berry berry Punch

Chocolate decorated Strawberries by Siddiqa

Rose and Cardamon Macarons

And last but certainly not least… The piece de resistance…

Cupcakes with Burfee Frosting!!

Yes, I did say ‘burfee’ frosting!

Cupcakes decorated by Siddiqa

The Burfee frosting was a little invention I had been working on and I am so glad it turned out the way it did, it was exactly what I was hoping for. I can’t wait to get this recipe up for all of you!

Hope these posts help you bring a little pizazz to your Eid day this year.

Peanut butter and nutella is an amazing combination. The best thing since sliced bread, or the best thing on sliced bread rather! Apart from putting together the frosting I also experimented with my own chocolate cupcake recipe. It turned out pretty well, I do think it would work better as a cake or mini cake recipe though. The recipe turned out light, moist fluffy cakes, so light and fluffy in fact that they came away from the cupcake liners, still tasty though so I’m not complaining, and definitely a good attempt for a first try at complete recipe development.

Also, you’ll notice the title of this post is nutella, peanut butter ‘frosting’. We call it icing here, but I think ‘frosting’ sounds so much better.

To get the 2 tone frosting effect I put each frosting in separate disposable bags and then into a cotton piping bag. You can of course put both frostings in 1 bag on 2 different sides, I didn’t do this for 2 reasons, I wanted the 2 frostings fairly defined and I wanted to be able to store each of the left over frostings separately. You’ll notice the nozzle above is round, I did end up changing it as I wanted something frillier.

Chocolate Cupcake recipe

125 g butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup plain flour

1/4 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup buttermilk (1/4 cup milk + 1/4 cup yogurt)

Pre heat oven to 180C. In a mixer beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla essence. Add flour, baking and cocoa powder. While combining, slowly add buttermilk till completely combined. Using a spoon fill into a cupcake pan 3/4 of the way up. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Peanut Butter Nutella Frosting

100g butter

2 cups icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup nutella

Beat butter sugar and vanilla on a low speed at first so you don’t have any flying icing sugar. Then move to a high speed until light and fluffy. If your buttercream feels a little stiff, add in 1-2 tblsp hot water. Separate into 2 equal batches. Mix in peanut butter to 1 batch and nutella into the other. Fill a piping bag and decorate as you wish.

One of my favourite flavour combinations, peanut butter and nutella works so well together, if you’re a fan too, give this frosting a try!

PS. I was meant to post this a while ago but haven’t had a chance, so just wanted to say sorry to all those people fasting at the moment.

This has been an extremely interesting weekend for me. I attended a cupcake class and bought a bird. THAT’S RIGHT A BIRD! I’m not a very big pet person, but myself and hubby have both previously owned cockatiels and thought it might be a nice idea to get one for our little boy. He loves the bird, however, it is terrified of him, no surprise there!

Anyway, back to baking. I attended the cupcake class with Siddiqa from Cupcakes with Siddiqa (go over and check out her blog, some great ideas for cupcake decorating). The class was run by Sumayya from Mio Cupcakes. I’ve had a few orders by them before, their work is amazing, so I was very eager to attend a class with them.

The class is a great experience for beginners. Sumayya shares some simple tips on how to work fondant  for decorations and using buttercream. My personal favourites were the fondant bow and pleated ribbon rose (photo above). After 2 & 1/2 hours of hands on work, we all left with 6 very pretty cupcakes. Check out some more photos below.

I made these for a family get together. They were a hit. They’re very simple, especially if you already have a cupcake recipe you love, but they’re different and very tasty.

What you’ll need

1/2 cup crushed pistachios per 12 cupcakes*

1/2 cup icing (I used buttercream and tinted it a light green)

Plus 1 tablespoon for garnish

I used my no mixer cupcake recipe.

*The next time I make these I’ll probably roast the nuts first. It brings out the flavour in the nuts and the crispier texture would go better in the cupcakes

After making your cupcake mixture, fold in half a cup of crushed pistachios. Fill and bake cupcakes as normal. I made these cupcakes with a plain buttercream but I think a white chocolate ganache would go nicely as well. Pipe on your icing and sprinkle with more nuts.

The pistachios add a wonderful texture while still keeping the cupcakes moist and fluffy. If you love pistachios, try my pistachio macaron recipe.