"Cup" Cakes

I have had a highly exciting weekend!! I entered a local bake off. Yes, that's right people, little old moi put her work out there to be judged and it was brilliant. I managed to enter 2 entries. A white cocolate and cardamom cake that I have posted earlier and a batch of three cup cakes.

The criteria was that we were to display the cakes on a cake stand or plate and there should be no more than three on the plate if they were biscuits or cup cakes. So i began to think. WHat could I make that would be a little bt different? I hit the local village for some inspiration. Whilst trawling the charity shops looking for old glass wear or cake stands (this is one of my favourite things to do whilst J is in nursery), I became distracted by a trio of tea vintage tea cups and a milk jug on sale. I was uming and ahing about what I could do with such gorgeous things, when it hit me. I could make "cup" cakes!!!

I have read somewhere that you can bake these beauties in quite a hot oven and they will take the heat quite well, even though you cannot dishwash them or use them in the microwave. I paid my £2 for them and skipped off home to let the alchemy begin.

I first of all made a devils food cake mix and poured about 2 level ice cream scoops of batter into each cup. Then placing them in a muffin tin so that they were supported in the oven and not touching each other, I placed them into an oven pre heated at 170C and baked the cakes for about 12 mins. I literally sat in front of the oven on a chair, watching for any signs of breakages or explosions! Then they emerged in all of their vintage, edible glory:

The idea was to make them look like little cups of tea and have them displayed on a platter:

Here's the finished, displayed product:

And the chocolate cake:

So after a 2hr wait whilst the three judges delberated, the results were announced. I did not earn a place, but we found out that I was only 1.5pts behind the overall winner, with a score of 32.5 out of 40 (the winner got 34). Not bad for a first attempt!

I am now well and truly hooked and am looking for another bake off to enter. So watch this space!!