Tag Archive | Honey & Pistachio Cupcakes

BBC Lifestyle Baking Mad Cupcake Competition

Honey & Her Cupcake

Honey & Her Cupcake

BBC Lifestyle launched a cupcake competition as they launched Eric Lanlard’s new show in South Africa, Baking Mad.  Every entrant had to enter a picture of themselves with their cupcake and their cupcake recipe.  Having just started baking again after being off my feet for 2 months I decided to enter this competition.  Being my usual undecided Leo self I got my friends to vote for the best cupcake between, Honey and Pistachio, Pink Pepper and Citrus, Orange Velvet and Amarula Cupcakes.  There was a mostly even vote for all these cupcakes with the votes for the Honey and Pistachio just topping the others so I went with photographing this cupcake.

Honey & Her Cupcake

Honey & Her Cupcake

Off I set with my cupcakes, camera and matching lime green jersey and arrived at the Memory Shed at Weltevereden Farm for Lisa Nadene to take some photos of me with my cupcakes.  As usual Lisa has a great eye for settings and she chose to shoot these photos of me behind the old car on the farm.  I must mention that I am not easy to photograph as everyone knows as mostly I am either talking too much or showing off way too many teeth in photos and then I get hugely self conscious and don’t know what to do with myself at all.  If I had been wearing a hat I would have had to take it off to Lisa that day for capturing such fun shots of me, looking actually quite good and my cupcakes looking absolutely brilliant.

Honey & Her Cupcake

Honey & Her Cupcake

Thanks to Lisa and her patience we had 90 photos to choose from and we picked the 7 odd best ones and then I chose from those the one to enter for the competition.  It still took me ages to put my entry through as I kept thinking what if I don’t make it to the 10 finalists?  Eventually I thought what do I have to lose by entering and I plucked up the courage and sent through my entry.  Ok I didn’t make it after all that to the top 10 which I would have loved to but what I learned from the experience was priceless.  I learned that my fans love my cupcakes as I had all the votes back within a couple of hours of sending out my question to them and they were all so supportive of my entry with their enthusiasm and impatience to know the outcome of the competition.  I overcame my fear of failure in other people’s eyes as I entered the competition knowing that hey my cupcake might not be chosen even though it looked and tasted delectably yummy.  To top it all I had such fun with Lisa as she painstakingly took these photos for me with as much attention to detail and pride to how they would turn out as I put into every cupcake creation.

Honey & Her Cupcake

Honey & Her Cupcake

The top 10 finalists can be seen on the BBC South Africa Website http://www.bbcsouthafrica.com/cupcake-competition and I look forward to seeing which recipe Eric Lanlard chooses to bake on his show.  Thanks again to everyone of you for your support and especially to Lisa for a photoshoot I will always remember and for such beautiful photos I will always treasure and blog of course!

Honey & Her Cupcake

Honey & Her Cupcake

Cupcakes (Lisa)

Photography ( Lisa Nadene)

Happy Anniversary Cupcakes2Delite!

Honey & Pistachio Cupcakes

Cupcakes2Delite is officially a year old today as it was exactly a year ago that Wendy and I sat together and launched my new blog.  As you know I had a foot op a week ago and have been off my feet since then so any baking, photography etc is strictly not allowed.  I have really been missing my baking and my blogging and took the time today to just go through old pics and posts only to realise by chance that May 19th, a year ago was the beginning of my new adventure into baking and blogging. I can’t believe how far I have come in a year as my creativity both in the ideas for the cupcakes and the photography has done an about turn right under my nose.  In a short time I have learned so much from so many creative and wonderful people that have ventured into my life in the past year, some of them I chat to daily and others I know only through their books or their brilliant blogs. What a creative adventure this has turned out to be and what a pleasure to have so many friends, fans and followers.

These Honey and Pistachio Cupcakes are a perfect way to celebrate a year of research, reading, questioning and laughing my way through new cupcake ideas. No I am not Superwoman and did not quickly make them today, but made them a few weeks ago for an incredible group of ladies who inspire me in so many ways on a weekly basis, my Wednesday scrapbooking gang!  I bought these exquisite Wilton’s Yellow Petal cupcake holders http://www.wilton.com/ from the Chocolate Den and I wanted a cupcake that would suit the dainty green, yellow and white colouring of these cases.  I made an experimental Honey & Pistachio Cupcake as being a bit colour obsessed I thought perfect match in colour with these flavours!  The creamy cream cheese icing and dainty yellow flower do the final justice to the cupcake holder and the cupcakes were drop dead delicious even if I say so myself (I wish I had one now)!

Honey & Pistachio Cupcakes

You would not be seeing my cupcakes in different ways each time I blog if it was not for Lisa Nadene, my scrapbook teacher, friend and photography guru.  She is the one who taught me that photography is not about just pointing a camera and hoping for the best but it is about a passionate relationship between the photographer, the camera and whoever or whatever is being photographed.  Of course Lisa adds in the extra nuance of the perfect backdrop to her subject matter.  I asked Lisa to take these photographs of my cupcakes and they are so perfect and inspirational for this anniversary blog. Lisa has captured everything I wanted to show off in these beautiful cupcakes.

Honey & Pistachio Cupcakes

Thank you to:

My wonderful husband Eddie, by far the best fan of my cupcakes, thanks to you for the brilliant camera and my Kitchenaid and allowing me to follow this adventure!

My 2 beautiful children, Teigh and Ceire, always willing tasters and pride and joy of my life!

My true friends who are my best critics, best fans and who provide the inspiration, gifts and laughter to get me through each challenge and project that comes my way!  So many to name here but you know exactly who you are!

My customers who inspire me with their themes and ideas and their attention to detail when ordering for special occasions!

Wendy – well without you there would be no blog and life would be really dull!

Lisa – again your passion and inspiring ways have translated into everything that is beautiful about my blog!

Russell and the makers of all the beautiful cupcake stands as what would a great cupcake be without a perfect stand to show it off on!

The creative and passionate shopkeepers who willingly share their ideas and creative tips with me and all the other bakers out there!

All those brilliant authors of books, magazines, blogs, facebook pages who share their ideas so selflessly with everyone thus inspiring me to learn new techniques and try out new ideas, you are the absolute gems of this industry!

Happy Anniversary Cupcakes2Delite!