Cookie Monster cupcakes!

As the challenge goes on I am starting to test out more and more cupcake experiments and last weekend I spent some making my first batch of Cookie Monster cupcakes. At the risk of sounding extremely arrogant I think you'll probably agree the finished product looks quite good!

They went down very well at work, along with some banoffee cupcakes I made with over-ripe bananas. I made a little salted caramel sauce to drizzle over the top and I have to admit I couldn't resist eating one myself, even though I'm trying to focus on fattening other people up for cash, rather than myself!

Last night I also made a large commission for mummy dearest to take into work. Her team are going through a really rough time at the moment and I think she wanted to cheer them up. It was fun to have an open brief so I experimented with lots of different decorations. Here are the finished products, happy viewing!

Chatting with my girl crush Nigella...just another day...

Very exciting news peeps: yesterday I got the chance to speak directly with none other than my heroine, girl crush and general demi-god Nigella Lawson online. I'd love to say it was because she heard about my charity challenge and thought she'd get in touch to give me a big virtual pat on the back, but the truth is slightly more dull than that. She was taking part in a web chat on Red magazine's website.

I was a bit flummoxed as to what to ask her - mainly because like the totally uncool person that I am the only thing I could really think to say was something like 'Omigod you're amazing I love you Nigella'. I thought she probably gets a lot of that though, so best to go for something original. Just before she appeared online I was chatting to some colleagues about a low back dress/bra dilemma I was having. In the course of the conversation it occurred to us that Nigella is quite a buxom lady so first I asked her for a recommendation....no response. Perhaps she felt that was a bit personal :-/

So next I told her about my charity challenge and asked her if she would be willing to donate a recipe to me or give me a twist on one of her originals that I could market as Nigella's own endorsement of my project. I guess she's saving all those kitchen secrets for another book though - why the hell would she divulge such a thing to little old me? All the same, I feel that I did my duty to the challenge by trying to shoe-horn it in there somehow and get some celeb backing...and I put it in twice just to prove my extra ballsy-approach!

Finally, as a foodie in genuine awe of her eating ability, I asked her if she really does ever cook the same thing twice as I'm genuinely intrigued as to how, in the same period of time I've managed to cook perhaps 30 or 40 of her recipes and others', she could have invented, written, tried and tested hundreds more many times, perfecting them along the way.

Finally she replied that yes indeed she does and that actually she not only eats the same thing for lunch or supper on a Sunday, she has the same breakfast ever day.

Call me a stalker but I think by that she means a boiled egg with Poilane soldiers. Ok, I think I'm edging dangerously close to the borderline between sane and crazy now so I'm going to sign off!

Hitting the 25% fundraising milestone through the medium of cake

When I signed up to this challenge I never expected for so much of my sponsorship money to be raised through cakes, but that's what's proving most popular! So cakes are fast becoming the backbone of this operation, so much so I've been getting a lot of encouragement from friends and colleagues to set myself up in business. I'm pretty sure it won't pay as well as press & parliamentary work, but I admit I haven't tired of baking yet and we are going through a restructure at work, so I may well do that!

So after last week's bake sale I hit an important milestone - 25% of my target raised to date! I'm really, really pleased with my progress as that's bang on target for where I wanted to be and based on hardly any just straightforward donations.

So to celebrate the 25% mark I thought I'd share some more photos of my recent bakes I've undertaken for commissions and work sales. I think my personal favourite is the Oreo cupcake, or maybe the brownies, or the macaroons......

Maiden voyage

As the title of this post suggests I have finally made it out on my bike for a my first practice run....although that is somewhat overstating the case considering that I actually only rode for 50 minutes, not the 8 hours I'm going to need to do in India each day! The weather was so beautiful yesterday that I decided to take my bike, Missy, out for a ride along the canal in Linslade up to the Three Locks in Stoke Hammond. The whole return trip, which I reckon is about 6.5 miles, took me about 50 mins to do at a fairly gentle pace. I couldn't go any faster if I wanted to because the speed limit set by British Waterways is 10mph! Anyway, I must say it was very pleasant and testing enough on the thighs for my first jaunt. I had to tackle two major hills in the course of my route which was pretty painful! The things I have learnt from my first trip are:

- I need a bell to deal with the proliferation of canalside walkers with tunnel vision / complete lack of awareness of other human beings
- I need to remember to put my gel saddle on my bike, as I now have one hell of a bruised bum!
- Cycle gloves aren't just a uniform for cycling fanatics to signal their belonging to others of a similar bent, they'd actually be quite useful to avoid blistering the heel of my hands.

Here is a deeply unflattering photo of me on my bike about to set off for your amusement.

Work bake sale raises £124!

I've been pretty lame at updating my blog recently but the reason is that for the last few days I've been baking like crazy! Firstly two commissions for friends, lemon raspberry muffins and Oreo cupcakes at the weekend and then for a big work bake sale. I was up until the small hours the last two nights baking and icing. In total I think I made about 100 cakes and cookies - Oreo, vanilla, raspberry & elderflower (gluten-free and low-ish fat/calories as they're made with courgette and ground almonds), brownies with nuts, brownies without nuts AND Smarties cookies. It went well anyway, I put a box on each floor at work and left an evelope for donations and in total raised £124. I'm chuffed with that boost to my proceeds, which takes me up to £693 now, and a milestone 25% towards my target!

Here are some pics of my desk pre-sale....please ignore the massive stack of papers and just look at the cake!!!

All quiet on the fundraising front

I'm feeling a bit guilty for not having managed to update the blog recently. It would be good to say that's because I've been busy planning my next events, which is partly true, but largely it's because I've had a long stint of drunken nights out followed by extreme, debilitating tiredness the next day!

Anyway, I've been sober for a few days so have finally managed to do something productive with my time. I've booked an Ethiopian dinner for Thursday 29th March in London, drummed up some interest for my Cupcakes & Cosmo's event and started pestering people for raffle prize donations for my next Madras for Cash on Saturday 31st March at Sizzler restaurant, Leighton Buzzard. I'm still working out the details but will, of course, post them soon on here and Facey/Twitter for info as well as emailing to my contacts. If you want to register your interest in the meantime you can message me via the blog or on Facebook/emcupcakes or Twitter @emcupcakes.

I've also had a couple of baking commissions recently, the latest being lemon & raspberry muffins which I got up at 6am to make for my gorgeous & lovely friend Emma to take to a Hen Do. She's been very supportive of all my efforts so far so I didn't mind getting out of bed so early (for me at least)! It was difficult to resists the temptation to eat one on my way to work this morning though!

I'm also really chuffed that in the last week I've managed to work out how to put a Paypal button on my blog so that people can make donations directly to me (which I will then pay into Justgiving) and also book places on my events, cutting out the need for me to act as banker/accounts ledger etc., particularly helpful when drunk & disorderly and trying to run an event! This whole charity challenge/blogging thing is such a great learning curve!