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!

In the press

I do apologise for abandoning the blog for so long. We have been extremely busy. Which is a good thing, only I really miss blogging so often and not getting a chance to read everyone else's blogs :(


The day before OPEN CUPCAKE we had a visit from Néna Dimitriou and Effie Paroútsa from “Kathimerini” (nationwide newspaper) and Stelios Parliaros' (pastry chef) “Glykes Istories” magazine (greek for ‘Sweet Stories’; nationwide publication).


We spent the morning photographing the café, the cupcakes and ourselves :o





The March issue came out two Mondays ago in Athens and we received our copy today last week.




Thanks again Nena for coming down and for writing about us. We had a lot of fun!



This month we were also featured in Glamour Magazine. In their 'agenda' section. Thanks Danai!


We were also mentioned in the Feb issue of Cosmopolitan, which we didn't know about until our customers kept mentioning that they'd seen us in Cosmo. Alex popped out to buy one and we found ourselves on their Cosmoscope page. Thanks to whoever it was who decided to include us there too :)


We've got so many things still to do to get the café the way we really want it. We realise it takes time; still sometimes we feel like there aren't enough hours in the day! One thing at a time is what I keep telling myself.

Liz Cupcakes

Feeling glamourous?

Our give-away is still on until Sunday night so don't forget to pop below to leave your comment. The gift this month is a cupcake recipe book and some silicone cases.

The May issue of Glamour is on sale and you are going to find some familiar faces in it! On page 214 there is a wonderful article on Greek food bloggers and we are featured among them! Many thanks to Glamour and Senior editor Danai Christopoulou for writing it.

Glamourous cupcakes!

There is also a recipe for Strawberries and Cream cupcakes. Vanilla cake filled with strawberry jam and topped with whipped cream and a strawberry. Perfect for spring!


Also featured are our blogging friends, Kiki of Mikri Kouzina and Vicky of TasteFULL. The Glamour girls. Ha-ha.

Danai calls me 'Liz cupcakes' at the top of the article. I use the name @lizcupcakes on twitter but I'm beginning to think I should change my name permanently! How cute would that be? Henceforth I shall be named Liz Cupcakes. Now let me go and practice my new signature...

Liz Cupcakes

P.S. It's true. In the article I confess to having another blog. This, ladies and gentlemen, is not my first blog; I also have an ex-blog. I've been a blogger since 2005, but I'm not telling you where my other blog is!

This one is better anyway.

Liz

Oreo cookie cupcakes ― recipe

I thought I'd upload the recipe we used for the OREO Cookie Cupcakes on the show for those of you who either don't understand Greek or didn't have your pencils handy! You can now also watch the video on Star.gr.

I made a simplified version for the show but on the internet you can find many other versions with different ingredients and methods.

Oreo cookie cupcakes
1 pckt Oreo cookies (or any other cream filled chocolate cookies)
75g self raising flour
25g good quality cocoa powder
100g light brown sugar
100g butter, room temperature
2 eggs (preferably free range or organic)

200ml whipping cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 packet of mini Oreo cookies


How to do it
Preheat the oven to 180°C (170°C with air).
Place 12 paper or silicone cases into your muffin tin.
Carefully twist each cookie to separate the top and bottom halves and place the half which has the creamy filling into the cupcake cases with the cream upwards. One reason I prefer Oreo cookies is because they can be pulled apart easily. This will give our cupcakes a yummy crispy base.
Reserve the other halves.

Sift the flour and the cocoa together.
Beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
Add the eggs one at a time with a spoon full of the flour/cocoa.
Fold in the remaining flour/cocoa with a spoon or spatula.
Divide the mixture between the cases.
Bake for about 14-17 minutes depending on your oven. Leave to cool.

Once cool, whip the cream with the icing sugar. Crush the reserved cookie halves and fold into the whipped cream. Pipe or spread onto the cupcakes and top with a mini Oreo.

If somehow you don't manage to eat them all at once (doesn't happen often) you can store the cakes in the refrigerator but let them come up to room temperature before eating.

Liz

Cupcakes craze sweeps across the nation!

I promised that exciting stuff would be coming along this month and the excitement starts here. This morning my humble little cupcakes became 'famous'! They were on TV!




A couple of months ago we got a call from Christianna Baxevani, the (producer; apologies, we're kinda star-struck and 'lost' Galánis Michópoulos!) editor-in-chief of the TV show Nistikoí Práktores ('Starving Special Agents', after a play on words in the Greek). You probably remember I mentioned them here back in February. Christianna asked us if we would like to bring along some cupcakes to the show and also demonstrate a recipe. After picking myself up off the floor where I fell in shock and saying over and over 'I don't really think I can do it', we decided that I really must go since it is obviously a very good way for people who don't already know about cupcakes to get to know about them! One of my 'missions' apart from opening my little café is to get everyone to know what a cupcake is and to get people to love them!

The day to film the show came around quickly and off we popped to the Star Channel Studio in Athens with a big box of cupcakes, some ingredients and the children in tow.



We really had a great time with everyone at the show. They were all so kind, polite and patient with us. Dína Nikoláou and Thanássis Pátras are really fun and also talented. The whole show is done without rehearsal and they just get right into it and the word 'cut' is hardly mentioned! Before I knew it, my microphone was being clipped on and it was time for my part demonstrating how to make Oreo cookie cupcakes. I was so worried about messing up with my Greek that I let Dina and Thanassis do most of the talking. They were so relaxed, though, that they helped me be a tiny bit less nervous.



The kids were so sweet and well behaved and got to visit the control room. Then they came back down in time to come on for the last few minutes of the show! They were so excited about that! I was a little bit nervous about it, especially when Dina started asking them questions! It was difficult not to laugh at the end when Dina asked them what other nice food does Mammy cook and Olivia piped up 'lentil soup'. It was a great moment for me and it's true: even though you might think we told her to say it, we didn't! She loves lentils! Imagine if she had said 'fish fingers'! (for the record, we have lentils about once every 10 days and fish fingers only in emergencies!)








All in all we had a really fun time and it was an interesting experience for us and the kids! We'd like to thank Dina, Thanassis, Christianna, Galanis and everyone else at Nistikoi Praktores and Star Channel who were a part of our day. We're looking forward to having you over for cupcakes when we open! And if Dina or Thanassis are coming on any 'missions' in our neighbourhood we can cook up another delicious cupcake recipe again!





Just in case you missed us you can watch the segment on Star.gr or here. We will provide it through the blog soon!

PS The day of the taping we had some guests visiting from Denmark. Hi Kamilla and Jannie! Thank you for being so gracious when we totally dumped you for the entire day! I hope the cupcake tasting made up for it slightly.

"TA NEA" Daily - Interview (updated)

Exciting news!

A couple of weeks ago we got contacted by Aggeliki Karageorgou, a reporter for the national daily TA NEA for an article on the rising popularity of cupcakes.

It came out today. It has my basic cupcake recipe in and ideas on how to make it less fattening! You can read it online here.

Taking the photos was quite a funny experience and needless to say Fin is extremely excited to be in the newspaper!


Lovely to see you, too, Niki!

UPDATE

I had totally missed the fact that our cupcakes feature on the front page of the paper, too! Right about half way through the page, just below the H1N1(!) story, horizontal strip in blue, our banner photo for the blog, rearranged, to the left of the strip advertising the column (compare with the top of this page).