Gin and Tonic cupcakes, mmmmm!

So I've been looking forward to making these for quite some time (well pretty much as long as I've known where the recipe was) as have certain other people (not mentioning any names, Sarah at EADS Astrium). I got the recipe off www.yumsugar.com (link - originally from Gorgeous Cakes by Annie Bell). Unfortunately, it's all american in measurement (cups.. EUGH), and I personally felt some of it needed altering... e.g. the icing - who wants cheese in cake icing?!.

Now this recipe is for a 'white cake' or more commonly referred to as 'Angel food cake' or 'Foam cake'. This means it has little, or no, fat in it, and uses egg whites (or similar) to provide the shape; like a meringue. Having never tried to make white cake before, I decided to do some test runs, to make sure I could make it perfect for when my dad took some to work for his beleagured colleages. Firstly, heres the recipe (with some conversions into proper measurements!):

Cake - makes 12
2 Medium Egg whites
pinch salt
0.25 tsp Cream of Tartar
0.5 cup Icing sugar (roughly 64g - I used 65g, get me!), sifted
0.25 cup Plain flour (32g, use 35g if you can't measure that accurately), sifted
1.5 tbsp Tonic water (I used Tonic water 'with a twist of Lime/Lemon' which added a good bit of lime/lemon flavour)


Icing - Original
0.5 cup Mascarpone (120g)
1 tbsp Gin (add more!!)
2 tbsp Glucose syrup
Green food colouring
Lime slices covered in sugar or Jellied lime


Icing - Mine
Enough Icing sugar to make a not-too-runny paste
25ml Gin (1 shot or 1 tbsp, 2 tsp)
roughyl 5ml (1 tsp) Lime Juice (or Lemon)

Method

1.  Preheat the oven to 160*C. With an electric beater (essential, unless you like lots of hard work) beat the egg whites and cream of tartar until they are risen.
2. Beat in the sugar a few tbsp at a time, sprinkling it over the egg whites and beating for 20 sec after each addition (give it a quick stir first, so the sugar doesn't go everywhere! - also sifting not essential here)
3. FOLD in the flour (sifting important) with a metal spoon in 3 stages, then stir in the tonic water in the same way.
4. Bake for 15 mins or until lightly golden and still springy to the touch 
5. Remove and cool
6. Icing - Original Spoon the mascarpone into a bowl and beat in the gin, then syrup and tint the palest colour green. Pipe onto the cool cakes.
7. Decorate with jellied limes or lime slices covered in sugar; with a cocktail stick through them. Lime slices covered in sugar should be added just before serving otherwise the lime juice goes everywhere
8. Icing - Mine Put some icing sugar in a bowl (few oz), add the gin and mix until combined (paste, liquid or lumpy).
9. Add the lime juice to taste, and then add icing sugar and mix until it forms a spreadable paste. This should be just enough icing to cover 12 cakes.

First attempt - the cake was really really flat and chewy :(. I originally thought this was because i'd used the wrong type of flour, as the original recipe isn't particularly clear, hence why I tried again using Self Raising flour - Attempt 2. What it actually meant is that I'd cooked it too long (and as i discovered on attempt no. 3, had destroyed the egg white foam). I made the icing this time round too. I doubled the amount of gin in the mix (I like gin if you hadn't already realised). It did make the icing pretty runny, so I had to add icing sugar to compensate. It was ok as an icing, but the mild cheesiness wasn't for me, even if it was rather overpowered by gin.


Second attempt - this time I used self raising flour. Although the cakes were a bit lighter, and less chewy, they still didn't rise properly. They tasted nice though, here's a picture of what your cakes shouldn't look like.

So on my third attempt, my mother deigned to inform me that when making foam cake, as she called it, you needed to just fold in the flour, rather than whisk it in - you learn something new everyday! If you do whisk it in, it breaks down the egg white structure so the cakes just flatten. Hence these cakes came out brilliantly - they rose and everything! I decided to ice them with my own, home-designed icing annd lime slices. Here is the finished product:

(yes the icing is very pale green, I think my camera killed the colour!)

I hope you enjoy making these too, after all the kerfuffle I went through, they weren't particularly refreshing; but next time, they will be perfect! My next post should be from Durham :)


MMFC