Baking – Page 17 – Cupcakes & Couscous

Almond tart

Published on November 30, 2016March 22, 2025 by Teresa Ulyate15 Comments

Making these cookies is rather like going back in time for me! This is one of my mother’s recipes that my family have enjoyed for as long as I can remember. (Even now, if you were to have a peek in her biscuit tin there is a good chance you would find some of these inside.) There was often a block of almond tart tucked in my lunchbox or gobbled up as an afternoon treat after school.

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Lemon tart

Published on November 16, 2016June 8, 2019 by Teresa Ulyate3 Comments

This is a classic dessert and comes from one of my favourite cookbooks, “The Food of France”. I have made this lemon tart many times and it always goes down well with a crowd! I love citrus puddings and bakes, and tarte au citron is one of my absolute favourites. The sweet pastry used in this recipe is also lovely to work with and can be used in all sorts of sweet tarts.

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A Train Party

Published on November 10, 2016August 26, 2017 by Teresa Ulyate12 Comments

Train cake with buttercream icing and fondant.

October was a rather hectic but very exciting month here at Cupcakes and Couscous HQ. Chaos continued to reign on the home front as renovations went on (we are starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, hooray!), my sister visited us from the U.K (double hooray!) and we had a couple of special family birthdays – my Dad, and my youngest James who turned two. He is completely obsessed with all things train related and so it was a no brainer as to what his party theme would be. I thought that this week I would share a few snaps from the day, perhaps they will give you a few ideas if you have a train party coming up.

The decor was heavily inspired by a couple of pics I saw on good old Pinterest. There were tons of train party related pins as you can imagine, such fantastic ideas that I probably would not have thought of myself. I went for a blue and green colour scheme and chose the following ideas:

the snacks were served in a train. I painted disposable foil oven trays with blue and green craft paint, stuck black paper circles on the sides for wheels and strung them together with twine. I then used old cardboard boxes to make a train to go at the front (decorated in blue and green of course), lined the carriages with blue and green tissue paper and filled them up with delicious eats.
a cardboard “birthday crossing” sign with paper lights underneath, and another sign that said “Platform 2”.
“Thanks for chugging by” party packs displayed in an open suitcase marked “Baggage Claim”.
the children played pass-the-parcel with train songs as the music.
A train craft where the children could glue their own train pictures using shapes that I had pre-cut and cotton wool. (Apologies for the terrible photo!)

For the food I served a selection of nibbles – fruit and bran muffins, pretzels, crudités, train shaped sugar cookies, fresh fruit, cheese and train crossing biscuits made out of wafer biscuits. It looked rather sweet served up in the train carriages.

The main event of course, was the cake. I decided to make a simple round cake decorated with fondant cut outs and topped with a fondant train cake topper. It worked out great as I was able to make all of the fondant goodies a few days ahead of the party (less stress on the day!). I baked the cakes the day before the party, then on the morning of the big day I simply whipped up a batch of icing, iced the cake and popped all the decorations on.

How to make a fondant train cake topper.

Here are a few more details on how I put the cake together:

I baked two 22cm vanilla cakes. I levelled off the bottom cake to make it easier to stack the other on on top, but I left the top one rounded to give it a “hilly” appearance.
The cake was iced with a thin layer of pale blue buttercream icing.
When it came to making the fondant train I referred to this easy tutorial, adding my own touches here and there.
I also used fondant to make the train tracks (I used a sharp knife to score lines into them to give them a more woody look), clouds, “tunnels” with rocks around them, apple trees and hills.
I finished the cake off by piping a little bit of green buttercream icing around the base to look like grass.

If you have a train party planned for your little one then hopefully this has given you a bit of inspiration. If you have hosted a train party lately I would love to hear about it!

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Chocolate meringue pie

Published on October 26, 2016October 22, 2017 by Teresa Ulyate4 Comments

A month or two ago I was given a large bag of home grown lemons. My husband immediately requested a home made lemon meringue tart, and as it is also one of my favourites I happily obliged. While I was whisking up the meringue and lost in my own thoughts a wave of inspiration hit me – if I could make a lemon meringue pie, why not make a chocolate meringue pie? (I often have chocolate on the brain, so this sudden idea should not be too surprising.)

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Brown butter cupcake brownies

Published on October 12, 2016November 6, 2017 by Teresa Ulyate7 Comments

Cupcake brownies with pecan nuts and chocolate chips

I have a lovely cousin in the U.K. (hi Jules!) and every so often she sends me scrumptious recipes that she finds on the web. A few weeks ago she sent me this link and frankly, if you are going to put the words cupcake and brownie in the same sentence then you are guaranteed to get my attention…I had to try the recipe immediately! It was so darn delicious that I simply had to share it with all of you too.

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Fruity wholewheat loaf cake

Published on October 5, 2016September 25, 2017 by Teresa Ulyate7 Comments

I have been on a clearing out mission lately. I started in the kitchen, and was happy to get rid of a big box of utensils and bits and bobs that I no longer needed. As for the rest of the house… the clearing out process has been going much, much slower than I would prefer. I am talking one shelf a day slow. Still, it is better than nothing I suppose. As part of “project declutter” I have also been delving into the deep freezer, cautiously prying open tupperwares from the depths and playing “guest the contents” with various unlabelled ziplock bags.

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Spiced apple pie with creamy caramel custard

Published on September 13, 2016September 26, 2017 by Teresa Ulyate5 Comments

Spring has sprung, and in typical Cape Town fashion the weather has gotten itself all confused. It is getting lighter in the mornings (always a good sign), but you usually still need a jacket for the early mornings, short sleeves for when the sun is blazing at midday, and an umbrella on stand-by for any afternoon downpours. Basically you need to make like a scout and be prepared – for anything!

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A photo of a stack of chocolate and vanilla almond butter cookies

Vanilla and chocolate almond butter cookies

Published on September 6, 2016March 31, 2025 by Teresa Ulyate7 Comments

If you are a regular Cupcakes and Couscous reader then you: a.) are awesome and b.) will probably know that I love a good cookie recipe. These cookies came about when the recipe I was actually trying to make went slightly off track, but luckily in a good way!

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