Rising Stars: Baking Ideas & Inspiration for Kids

Mini Bake Off

More time at home means more time to bake. Don’t let your kids creative cooking skills go to waste. Get revved up for World Baking Day on the 17^th May 2020.

Why not organise a Mini Bake Off for your family? Ready, set, go! Challenge all the family members in your home (leaving one to be the judge) to create and bake something wonderful. It’s not just about taste, presentation is key too. Our talented Meri Meri studio have therefore designed fabulous cake toppers, to print and color, for you to use.

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Cheerful cake toppers

Make cupcakes and cakes look amazing with our downloadable cake toppers. Print onto card (or onto paper then stick onto card), color, attach to wooden cocktail sticks or skewers, and place on your cakes. Will you choose a large bright rainbow, smiling sun, spectacular shooting star, small rainbow peeping out from behind a cloud, tasty ice cream cone, shining star or love hearts?

Cupcake inspiration

Have you got a tried and tested family recipe for cupcakes that you know is prize worthy? Or do you need inspiration? Here at Meri Meri we adore the classic cookbook 'The Joy Of Cooking'. It has lots of brilliant baking tips and recipes.

Here are 5 of our favorite cupcake tips:

•You can transform nearly any cake batter into cupcakes by baking it in a muffin pan lined with cupcake cases. Some of the cake batter recipes that work really well as cupcakes are sponge cake, angel food cake, devil’s food cake, carrot cake or red velvet cake.
•Upgrade your cupcakes with complementary frosting. There are so many choices – with a sponge cake use plain or flavoured fluffy white frosting or powdered sugar, with an angel food cake use buttercream, for devil’s food cake try mocha frosting or chocolate butter icing, for carrot cake or red velvet cake use cream cheese frosting.

1. Rainbow Candle 2. Happy Weather Cupcake Kit 3. Weather Cookie Cutters 4. Bright Floral Cupcake Kit 5. Pastel Cupcake Cases 6. Shooting Star Cake Topper 7. Neon Confetti Flag Cupcake kit 8. Neon Acrylic Star Toppers 9. Tropical Bird Cupcake Kit

•Try out different toppings. For white frosting or powdered sugar try sprinkles or chocolate shavings, for buttercream top it with toasted coconut, for mocha frosting or chocolate butter icing add white chocolate curls or sprinkle, for cream cheese frosting sprinkle on toasted chopped walnuts or pecans.
•When baking your cupcakes make sure not to overcook them. Baking time is usually 15-20 minutes. Bake until the tops spring back when pressed and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pan for around 5 minutes before unmoulding.
•Instead of using cupcake cases you could bake your cupcakes in flat-bottom ice cream cones - kids love these! Simply set the cones inside the cup of a muffin tin before baking.

Yummy sponge cupcake recipe

This recipe is from 'The Joy of Cooking' and makes around 20 light sponge cupcakes.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (110g) cake flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 cup and 1 tbsp (205g) sugar
• 7 large eggs, divided into yolks and whites
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 tbsp (30g) orange juice or water
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ tsp cream of tartar

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F/175C.
2. Sift the cake flour and baking powder together.
3. In a large bowl, or a stand mixer with whisk attachment, beat 2/3 cup of sugar, the egg yolks and vanilla, on a high speed until thick and pale yellow. This takes around 2-3 minutes.
4. Beat in the orange juice or water and the salt. Sift the flour mixture over the top, but don’t mix it in.
5. In a large bowl, using clean beaters, beat the egg whites, 1 tbsp sugar and the cream of tartar, on a medium speed until soft peaks form. Gradually add 1/3 cup (65g) of sugar, beating on a high speed. Beat until the peaks are stiff but not dry.
6. Use a silicone spatula to fold a ¼ of the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture. Then continue to gently fold in the remaining whites.
7. Scrape the batter into the cupcake cases. Bake for 15-20 minutes until cooked.