Sugar and Crumbs

One of my new year resolutions was too do more in the kitchen by way of more cooking and more baking. This has been helped by a company named Sugar and Crumbs who have kindly offered to send me over a variety of baking and cake decorating products throughout the year and with suggestions of themes on what to make.
For my first little project I have been sent over some packs of Natural flavoured icing sugars.

These icing sugars come in many unique flavours and in pink 250g packs. When mixed with butter it gives a fair bit of butter cream, certainly enough for a family sized cake. The packs are also resealable, meaning it can be stored if not all of it gets used.
My 3 flavours are coconut, Key lime and Sugar & Spice. I had no idea that flavoured icing sugars such as these existed. I always assumed I would have to flavour it myself.

The theme for this month is Celebrating Valentines with Meringues. I was very happy with this theme as meringue is my favourite cake although I have to admit I have never made meringue and to be honest I have no idea how to. The meringues are shop bought this time, but the buttercream filling is proudly made by me.

To start with i measured out the butter- 125g is needed with the full pack.

For this particular cake making expedition I am using the coconut icing sugar which I added half to the beaten butter and mixed/beaten in.

I think my bowl may have been too small as when I started beating the sugar and butter, the sugar went everywhere and I mean everywhere. The cupboards, floor, sink and my shoes got covered and now the inside of my Hoover is white ha.
The beating bit took a fair while as I don’t yet own an electric whisker so it’s all by hand, the old fashioned way which kills the arms.
Once one half of the sugar was all mixed in, in went the other half along with some milk and more thorough mixing. I have not made buttercream before so I found it hard to tell just how much beating it needed. Once it looked a little fluffy I stopped. I then added a few drops of pink food colouring to fit in with the Valentine theme (pink is also my favourite colour)

These are my mini meringue shells which are shop bought. There are 20 in the packet.

Then all I did was fill the meringues with cream, add some strawberries and chocolate hearts and here’s my finished masterpiece!

I think a plate like this would make a great dessert for a romantic valentines meal in. The buttercream tastes good, I’m quite proud of it for my first attempt. The meringues with the cream are very very sweet so it’s a good job they are only small.

I made ten of these in total and still had quite a bit of the buttercream left over.
My children certainly enjoyed them and have asked me when I am making them again. I think they believe I made the actual meringue too, oh well.

I will be putting my other icing sugars to use very soon too but I am definitely investing in an electric whisk first as my arm is aching.

Visit Sugar and Crumbs for more information on the icing sugars available.