21st wedding anniversary cake!

It's that time of year again and this time I decided to make a super-duper cake. Not that we never get to eat cake or anything. I've been reading Gesine's blog for a long time now. I love the cakes and other goodies she makes. You can tell that so much love goes into them.

It took me a while to decide which cake I was going to be inspired by, well, if you've seen her blog you'll know why; so much deliciousness. I say inspired because I decided to follow the concept more than the actual recipe. Also, if I just say inspired then I can only blame myself if my brilliant ideas for change were not that brilliant. Which turned out to be the case.

Have a look at Gesine's.

I used my own recipes for the different elements. A simple fat-free sponge for the base and top and the chocolate spiral. I used ganache, cream and buttercream, like Gesine does in her recipe. My cake turned out a lot smaller, 6 inches, but that's fine. Just about right for the four of us to have a slice each.


I also cheated a little with the hearts on the side. I used my chocolate mold for those and finally I got Alex to write “Love” on top. I can't write neatly with a pencil never mind frosting!


When we cut the cake it was immediately obvious that 1) I should have put a thicker layer of cream on the rolled up cake, to get a more defined look; after all, the sensational thing about the cake was the upright ‘layers’ and 2) the sponge recipe I used was so spongy, it was difficult to get a clean cut. So, really, if you want it to turn out like Gesine's... follow her recipe!


We had some funny moments where the words ‘cake’ and ‘wrecks’ were mentioned, especially when HE was writing “Love” on the top and then, after I cut it, it didn't have the sharp effect I'd hoped for. Anyway, it was delicious and there's still half a bowl of ganache to eat later on!

Happy anniversary to us!


Liz Cupcakes

Thermometer give―away winners

The six thermometers go to:

1. Panayóta Kotsiopoúlou,
2. Rita Zikídou,
3. “Korina”,
4. “Timos Tetoros”,
5. “Didepux”, and
6. “Natasha” (blog comment entered Feb 15, 2012 01:26 PM)

Olivia helped us pick the winners. It was totally scientific.


Attention all winners: please contact us. Thanks for participating.

Watch out for more give―aways soon!

Liz's Cupcakes & iCandy ― Giveaway

Liz's Cupcakes and iCandy for all your sweet cravings!


For the next ten days we're showcasing an iCandy pram at Liz's Cupcakes! In our window we have an iCandy Peach and lots of baby cupcakes :D Perfect for boys or girls!


Mobo have offered some gifts for our customers which we never say no to! In-store we have a selection of the cutest soft pram toys which we'll be giving out to customers with babies.




We have also got 6 of these digital thermometers (worth €40) to give away.


Leave your details in store, or leave one comment per person, here or on our facebook page for a chance to receive one. Make sure we have a way of contacting you. We'll choose 6 recipients on Feb 16th. (we can only post the thermometers within Greece.



For more information on iCandy in Greece you can pass by or visit them online. iCandy is a British firm making extremely versatile prams. I love the one we have in the shop so much, I keep wanting to play dollies :D

Liz Cupcakes

One year!

On the 31st of December we celebrated one whole year since we opened doors! Of course those of you who have been following the blog all along know that we actually started planning the whole thing at the end of 2008 and blogging about it at the beginning of 2009.


It took a whole one more month to actually blog about it, but here it is: We'd like to say a HUGE thanks to all of our customers and those who may not have been able to visit in person but have been supporting us all along! You know who you are :) Goes without saying we couldn't keep it up without the continued support from our families. They support us in every way.

This first year has been a true roller-coaster and, even though there were clouds of recession on the horizon when we opened, we didn't know how bad things were going to get for the economy. When we opened, there were so many things we didn't know. We've learned a lot over the last year. We couldn't have opened at a more difficult time but we're so happy to say that we must be doing something right because we're still here.


I could describe this year as exhausting, depressing, worrying, stressful, challenging and nerve-wracking. All of that would be true, but I can also describe it as exciting, exhilarating, fun, and satisfying. I suppose I should just sum it up by saying it has been extremely hard work, but also worthwhile.


I won't deny that it has been a hard year on the kids. It was extremely hard for them to get used to our new routine but now,
even though they get bored from time to time, they really love that we have our cupcake shop and can't wait until they get old enough to help out (apart from shouting 'CU•STO•MERS' as someone walks through the door and also assigning themselves as watchmen who wave at the passengers on the local tourist train that drives by in order to attract their attention, both of which they are doing already...).


In 2012 we want to keep on growing our customer base. We're listening to your cries for us to open in Athens and we're trying to find a way for you to be able to get your cupcakes if you can't get to us. One of the biggest lessons this year was patience. Lots of it!

Thanks again!

Liz Cupcakes

Kourabiédes ― almond cookies

These days we've added kourabiédes (pronounced: koor•amb•yéth•es) to our menu. Have you ever made them? They're not too difficult at all and they are really delicious. If you can read Greek, Kiki's is a perfect recipe to follow over at Mikri Kouzina.


As Kiki explains in her post, this recipe makes a lot of kourabiedes, so you may want to halve the recipe if you just want to make a few as an experiment or just for yourselves at home.

What makes them special? They're full of almonds. They are REALLY delicious. Just ask our customers!


PS Your hands might ache after making these!

Glamour reader offer

Our friends over at Glamour magazine are celebrating their 10th anniversary! In the new issue of Glamour out today, you receive the Glamour Smart Shopping Card which entitles you to all sorts of discount and goodies.


We've created a special glamorous flavour for the occasion and cardholders will receive ONE FREE GLAMOUR cupcake when showing us their card. The offer starts today and lasts until the 1st of December.

What's the GLAMOUR cupcake? It's a delicious combination of Almond and Cherry. Almond cake, filled with cherry preserve and topped with our delicious cherry buttercream!


Looking forward to seeing all the glamourous girls (and boys).

Competition for November!

Send us a photo or photos of you and your favourite Liz's Cupcakes at competitions@cupcakes.gr for a chance to win a box of 9 cupcakes to be picked up the next time you come in. The photo can be taken anywhere at any time!

The rules: We have to be able to recognize the cupcakes as ours! So it either has to be here in the store, or a close-up, or have our box or business card on show!


Use your imagination!


We'll pick a winner at the end of November.

Note: At no time put yourselves or our cupcakes in danger :P

Day-trippers!

Last weekend we had a first. A coach-load of day-trippers decided to stop by for cupcakes! I've never seen such chaos in here before. But we survived!


Bring them on... We DO need some notice if you decide to come with a coach-load of your friends!

Greek inspiration ― Olive & Ouzo cupcake

When Cat asked me to do a guest post for Sugar Daze I thought it was a great opportunity to play around with a couple of ideas I'd been having for new cupcake flavours. I thought about Greek products that might go well in a cupcake and might go well together.


Some of the ingredients I had in mind were figs, olives, brandy and ouzo.


I've had this jar of sweet olive preserve for a while now and I've been thinking of a good way to get them into a cupcake. Here in Greece it's very common to make a sweet preserve of various fruits and vegetables even.



It's not jam, marmalade or jelly but fruit or veg that is sometimes blanched and then stored in a sugar syrup. Depending on the fruit it can be boiled in the syrup or separately. You can get all the popular fruits such as cherry and grape and also more unusual things, such as baby egg-plant, all in sweet preserve form. They are often served on a small saucer, just a spoonful and are considered a healthy treat. They are fat free but are full of sugar!

In the photo below we have sour cherry on the left and my olive preserve on the right:


The thing that I admire about the women who make 'spooned sweets' as they're often referred to here, is that it totally encompasses thriftiness. Not a thing goes to waste. The abundance of fruit and vegetables from the trees and gardens can be preserved in sweet form for months.

Sweet Olive preserve is not widely available in Greece, well not at the supermarkets anyway, you probably have to go to a shop that specialises in sweets and other Greek produce. I get mine from a wonderful local shop: Melokipos (Honey garden).

So anyway... I was thinking that olives and figs together would be a very unusual concept but in the end I realised that the cinnamon and clove that are in the preserved olive just wouldn't work together so well.


I'd already soaked some dried figs in brandy overnight so in the end I made a simple batch of plain cake adding the finely chopped olives to half of it and the finely chopped brandy soaked figs in the other half.


I often use the simple recipe of 100g flour, 100g sugar, 100g butter & 2 eggs recipe when I'm doing experimenting. I can tell afterwards if I need to change the recipe to get it more or less moist, it's a good starting point.

There was a delicious smell in the kitchen as they were baking! For the frosting I made a simple buttercream; for the olive cakes I added some ouzo and for the fig cupcakes I added some brandy.


Findings: The Olive & Ouzo cupcake was really good and I'm not even an olive fan! Alex thought it was a little dry and maybe it could have done with a slightly more moist cake. The ouzo in the frosting is very interesting. You can barely tell it's there and then right at the end you get the slight taste of aniseed.



The Brandy Fig cupcake was divine too. I'm partial to figs so I knew this one was going to be my favourite.


I can't wait to try something similar when the fresh figs are in season, towards the end of summer. I also think that some cocoa in this cupcake wouldn't go amiss. It won't be too painful to have to do some more experimenting!

Life & Style

This month Doya Karolini was kind enough to feature us in Life & Style magazine.


She also wrote a very nice post about us on her blog, “the 6 million dollar story”.


Thanks Doya!

Around Nafplio ― A day off

We've been closed on Wednesdays for a few weeks to give ourselves a much needed break from working 7 days a week. When you open a café and are working it without any employees it gets very tiring. Not only for us but also for the kids whose lives have changed dramatically since we opened doors.


So, back at the end of March, when we had a sunny afternoon and the kids got home from school we got a picnic ready and went to a nearby spring at Kefalari to enjoy the sunshine and the sound of running water. The sun was glorious and we didn't need our jackets. There was one fat duck who the kids gave half their food to! No wonder he was fat.





Apart from the water source, there is a church which has been carved out of caves above and several seventies style tavernas which make you feel like you are in an old black and white film. You totally expect to see the old film stars of Greece like Aliki Vouyouklaki filming or something.


It's only about 15 minutes from Nafplio old town and great for a couple of hours entertainment.


The next day we had torrential rain so we were pleased we had taken the opportunity.