Introducing a new feature: Ink & Batter!

Hey guys! Welcome to the official introduction of what will be a regular (every other week, but I don't think I will manage to have it weekly) new feature in the blog!

Some of you might know of my love for baking and decorating cupcakes, and I've even made book inspired cupcakes before but it was not till Becca from Pivot Book Reviews saw them and completely started squealing and demanding I made more that I decided I needed to make it a regular feature on the blog!

I asked a few of my good blogger friends over Twitter for suggestions and Sam from Realm of Fiction sent me a huge list full of great ideas via e-mail! After pondering about all the suggestions and a few ideas of my own, I chose Ink & Batter (from Sam's list, thanks a lot for all the suggestions, Sam!).

Then it was just a question of getting a banner made (ain't it pretty) and I was all ready to debut the feature! This week I will be showing the first two proper examples of book inspired decorated cupcakes that I made, and hopefully for next Thursday or the one after I'll have some new book inspired cupcakes to show off!

The first inspired cupcakes were made for a contest on CJ Redwine's blog to win an ARC of Deception, and I was so inspired that I made Defiance inspired cupcakes and on a whim also made Incarnate & Asunder by Jodi Meadows inspired cupcakes!

DEFIANCE CUPCAKES

INCARNATE & ASUNDER CUPCAKES

Now I have a huge list of books that I'm super inspired to make decorated cupcakes about like Splintered & Unhinged by Anita G Howard, Deliverance by CJ Redwine, Infinite by Jodi Meadows, The 57 Lives of Alex Wayfare by M.G Buehrlen, The Ring & The Crown my Melissa de la Cruz, A Mad Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller, the Selection series by Kiera Cass ( I need to decorate cupcakes inspired by each of the dresses in the covers!)...

Do you guys have any suggestions? Let them in the comments, I'm always happy to add more books to my list!

Friday Photos: Defiance by CJ Redwine inspired cupcakes!!

Hi there again!

Remember the cupcakes I was thankful yesterday for being inspired to make? Well, here you can read all about half of them! ;)

This Friday Photos is the result of my brain wave & inspiration yesterday to take part on a contest!

What contest you may be wondering? Well, as it happens, CJ Redwine the author of one of my favourite books from last year, Defiance, is hosting a contest on her blog for the chance to win an annotated ARC of the next book in the series, Deception! Getting any ARC is super cool (Advance Reader Copy) since the book doesn't come out till August, but an annotated one? That's like 10 times cooler!

The contest called for us the readers to create something inspired by Defiance, be it a poem, photos, a cake... and even though I'm thinking of also trying to get some photography inspired by the book done, I just got the idea of baking some cupcakes!

I wasn't too sure of how to decorate them, so I decided to re-read the book last night and instantly started getting ideas! So this morning I was up bright and early with plenty of energy and super excited to start baking and decorating!

 Yeah, those are all the tools involved... a wee bit of a mess!

The cupcakes recipe is for lemon cake cupcakes, since lemon cake is Rachel's (the main character) favourite dessert, with a lemon buttercream, with fondant decorations.

And then it was time to start piping the frosting to then decide how to distribute all the fondant decorations I had made.

Celtic knots, ribbons with initials, sticky buns, a wrapped parcel and leaves from the forest, it all has a significance in the book. I wanted to include one of the "Cursed Ones" but my modelling abilities are not up to par for a wingless dragon creature yet!

The Celtic knots might be my favourite part, I love how they look and I love using the stencils with fondant!

 Don't they look cool? I love those designs! Also, I spent quite some time trying to get a fondant colour that would match the cover colour! Yay for gel colours! At one point my hands were looking as if an unicorn had barfed on them, so many colours! I think after all the hand washing and the dish washing I got rid of all of them...

So there you go! Those are half the cupcakes that kept me busy and happy yesterday. Whatcha think? They're not poetry, but I think they look quite awesome, even if I say so myself! Wish me luck on the contest!