Birthday Baking

So as yesterday marked the start of a weekend where I had nothing planned I knew that meant one thing and one thing only! I had to bake...

Also because of the fact that it is my dear friend, (and fellow blogger) Alexs' birthday this coming Tuesday, my housemate and I thought it would be a cracking idea to make her some birthday cupcakes! (I mean who doesn't love cake on their birthday?)

As my housemate has rather more work to do than me at the moment, I waved her off to the library and eagerly awaited her return in the evening to let the cupcake creating commence.

In the meantime, another friend of mine came round so we could make some goodies of our own to enjoy. We went for Banana bread with the hidden surprise of warm gooey strawberries in as an extra treat. I hate to admit it but our first attempt was an absolute disaster (charcoal would have looked paler next to it)... but anyway we kept calm and carried on. The second was a bit of a beauty if I say so myself. Here is a picture of our very strawberry Banana Bread:

 Banana Bread decorated with icing sugar and strawberries... Delicious!



So gooey and scrumptious!!

If you want the recipe for this beauty it can be found on the following website: http://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2012/03/strawberry-banana-bread.html There are also tonnes of other recipes on here to get your mouth watering, so definitely give it a look if you want some bakespiration.

Now for the cupcakes... We had intended to do red velvet but our red food colouring was doing a very bad job of turning the sponge red. Anyway, our take on red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, flaked dark chocolate savings and twisted strawberries to decorate.

 I've had this cakestand for ages so it deserved its 15 minutes of fame...

The proof is in the pudding?

The recipe that we followed for this was really simple and can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.co.uk/recipes/red-velvet-cupcakes-1.html I would, however, recommend you search round for some good (gel) red food colouring because ours didn't really do its job properly.

Anyways Happy Birthday Alex. Enjoy your yummy birthday treats and many happy returns!

Happy Baking all!

Demi xo