Rippled Raspberry Cupcakes

I made these cakes the other day, using defrosted frozen raspberries. They tasted really really good. Very light and fluffy. The raspberry mix would probably have worked better if i'd swirled it round in the cakes, but as it was they were really really good.

Ingredients - makes 6 or 7 muffins, 12 cupcakes

125g (4 oz) butter
125g (4 oz) caster sugar plus 2 tsps
2 eggs
150g (5 oz) self raising flour
0.5 tsp baking powder
75g (3 oz) fresh raspberries (or defrosted frozen raspberries)
Icing sugar to dust

1. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin (or 6 hole muffin tin). Preheat the oven to 180*C.
2. Crush the raspberries with the 2 tsps of sugar so they are broken, but not a juicy mush.
3. Put the butter and sugar (minus the 2 tsps) in a bowl and beat until light and creamy.
4. Fold in the eggs, then the flour and baking powder. Half fill each case with the mixture. Spoon a small amount of the raspberry mush ontop of this. Then cover with the leftover mixture. Swirl the cakes gently with a spoon.
5. Bake for 20 minutes or until risen and just firm. Cool on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar.

 

I think these work better as muffins than as cupcakes. The size is essential. Also, the raspberries are likely to go off very quickly, so don't make lots of these in one big go.

MMFC

White Chocolate Chip cupcakes

I made these muffins a long while ago, and used some white fudge icing on top. They were pretty good. Unfortunately as it was such a long time ago I can't remember much else, anyway here is the recipe.

Ingredients - makes 12 muffins

125g (4.5 oz) butter
170g (6 oz) caster sugar
Eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g (9 oz) self-raising flour
125ml (4 fl oz) buttermilk
200g (7 oz) white chocolate chips


Icing

200g (7 oz) white chocolate
5 tbsp milk
175g (6 oz) icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 170*C, line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
2. Beat the sugar and butter together until pale and creamy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Then add the vanilla extract.
3. Fold in the flour alternately with the buttermilk and fold in the chocolate chips.
4. Divide the mixture among the cases until 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
5. Leave the cakes in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer onto a wire rack to cool.
6. Icing - Put the chocolate and milk in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water.
7. Leave until melted, then sift in the icing sugar until smooth. Leave to cool for a little bit before spreading on the top of the cool cakes.

 MMFC 

Gingerbread House

Another of my favourite things to make at Christmas time: Gingerbread.
Specifically, gingerbread houses.

This year, as last year, I made 2. One at university, one at home. They are so very very tasty, and good fun to make too!

Both were made from the same recipe, but with variations on decoration. The recipe for the gingerbread is from BBC Goodfood (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4900/simple-gingerbread-house), but after that I just make it up with whatever I fancy at the time.

Ingredients

250g (9 oz) butter

200g (7 oz) dark muscovado (or brown) sugar

7 tbsp golden syrup

600g (1lb 5 oz) plain flour

2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

4 tsp ground ginger

Few extra spices – cinnamon/nutmeg/mixed spice

Icing

1 kg ready roll icing

Small amount royal icing

Smarties

Choc drops

12 boiled sweets

Strawberry laces

Food colouring (red, green, black)

Chocolates for the centre of the house (2 standard boxes of Celebrations or similar)

Anything else you wish to decorate with e.g. chocolate buttons, silver balls etc

1. Cut out templates (cardboard is best) for front (and back) panel, roof and sides of the gingerbread house.
2. Melt the butter and golden syrup and sugar together.
3. Mix the flour with the bicarbonate of soda and spices. Then mix the melted butter etc into the flour until it forms a stiff dough. Leave to sit for about half an hour.
4. Roll the dough out on a floured surface to roughly 0.5 cm thickness. Cut out 2 front panels, 2 roof panels, 2 side panels and 4 windows out of the side panels. From one front panel cut out a door from the centre. Leave the other front panel whole.
5. Crush the 12 boiled sweets in plastic bags. If you have different flavours its best to keep them separate and do 3 of each - 4 different coloured windows. Pour roughly 3 sweets worth into each window hole.
6. Place each cut out template on a lined baking tray. Any excess dough can be rolled out to make trees or a chimney or other shapes. Keep the templates for later.
   
7. Bake in a preheated oven at 180*C for 12 minutes or until golden brown at the edges/firm to the touch.
   
8. Recut each panel to shape as you take it out of the oven and leave to cool on the baking parchment.
9. While cooling roll out about 3/4 of the ready roll icing large enough to fit the house on. Place it on foil on a tray (one with handles is best).
10. Once cool, softly mark the icing sugar with the sides, front/back panel and door. Put the side panels on the external side of the front/back panels.
11. (if wanted) Surround each window with a square of ready roll icing and stick smarties or similar into it.
    
12. Pipe or drizzle a line of royal icing on the marked lines. Softly put each of the panels into place, and support. Pipe icing on the inside of each corner. Leave until set.
13. Pour the chocolates into the centre of the house. Pipe royal icing onto the edges of the front/back panel and top of the side panels and attach the roof.
14. The house is now (virtually) complete. Decorate how you like, I've included pictures of my latest creations for inspiration. Use royal icing to attach any more gingerbread. Once finished decorating, gently shake icing sugar over the whole tray.

I hope you all enjoy making them as much as I do - They don't take hugely long, and the effect is amazing. If you are feeling adventurous try making it bigger or more intricate. Here are the pictures of my past successes. I'll put up a template too once I've scanned mine in.
 

 Templates: (one has measurements to draw your own, other is a print and copy version)

Reindeer Cupcakes

Merry Christmas everyone! To get in the festive spirit, I decided to make some festive cupcakes.

Hence these Reindeer Cupcakes:

As you can see I made a few of them (16 in the end for an apparently 12 cake recipe, though I did cook them in a slightly smaller shaped tin than normal) with lots of different styles/facial expressions :D. They were very fun to make, especially making the antlers and the eyes. The cakes aren't a particularly chocolately recipe, so maybe adding more cocoa powder would help, or using a richer chocolate cake recipe instead.

Ingredients - makes 12 ish, depending on size

150g (5 oz) butter
150g (5 oz)  caster sugar
160g (5.5 oz) self raising flour
3 eggs
15g (0.5 oz) cocoa powder

Icing

100g (4 oz)  Icing sugar
50g (2 oz) unsalted butter or margarine
1 tbsp cocoa powder
if using butter, 1 tbsp boiling water

half a glacé cherry for each cake
pack of M & Ms (or similar)
150g (5 oz) plain chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 180*C. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with paper cases.
2. Either process all ingredients together with electric beaters, or mix butter and sugar until light and creamy. Then fold in eggs. Then fold in flour and cocoa powder.
3. Divide among the cases, and bake for roughly 20 minutes, or until risen and firm.
4. Allow the cakes to cool completely. In the mean time, melt the plain chocolate in a double boiler. Pipe the melted chocolate onto baking paper or greasproof paper, ontop of a baking tray, in the shapes of antlers - make 2 per cake, and a few for breakages. Use the remaining chocolate to make pupils on the M & Ms for eyes. Put in the fridge to set.
5. Cream the butter and icing sugar and cocoa powder to make a buttercream.
6. Once the cakes are cool, for any that are too pointy, chop the tops off (and eat :D) to flatten them. Spread a very thin layer of buttercream over the top. Place half a cherry close to the edge of each cake. Place two eyes in the centre of each cake, above the cherry.
7. Once cool, the baking paper can be peeled from the antlers, and the antlers inserted into the top of the cakes just above the eyes.

I've also been making lots of sweetmeats (e.g. fudge, truffles, fondant etc) for people for christmas presents which have worked to varying degrees of success - the vanilla fudge doesn't seem to have a set, probably because it was boiling far too long to get to temperature. Still tastes great though. I won't say much more about the rest - they all worked fine (though I did end up making 90 odd truffles! :O)

Hope you all have a wonderful, and gluttonous christmas! I shall hopefully be producing some cakes for new year's too.



MMFC

Coconut, Ginger and Lime cupcakes

I made these a few weeks ago, so have kinda forgotten what they were like. Unfortunately between then and now I've had too much to do to write about them. They were tasty, though I think a bit less ginger in the cake would have been better. The coconut taste is very subtle. 

Ingredients - makes 36 mini muffins (18 or so normal sized ones)

150g (5.5 oz) unsalted butter 
170g (6 oz) caster sugar
2 tsp lime zest - about 1 lime's worth
2 eggs
55g (2oz) finely chopped glacé ginger (maybe use 1/2)
215g (7.5 oz) self raising flour
45g (1.5 oz) desiccated coconut
185ml milk

Icing

425g (4.5 oz) icing sugar
10g (0.25 oz) butter
1 tsp finely grated lime zest
2 tbsp lime juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180*C. Line a tin with appropriate baking cases
2. Beat the sugar, butter and lime zest until light and creamy. Add the eggs seperately, beating well after each addition. Add the chopped ginger.
3. Sift in the flour and coconut inalternately with the milk
4. Bake for 15 minutes (for mini muffins, slightly more for normal sized ones)
5. Icing - Combine all the ingredients, adding enough lime juice to make a runny-ish icing. Drizzle over the cakes when cool.

Fluffy Coconut cupcakes

I decided on (/was told to make) these cakes as one of my housemates was going away for the weekend, and she can't stand coconut. Personally, I thought they were very nice, and have a new love for coconut. The icing was particularly good. I left out the coconut essence (because I couldn't be bothered to buy it) and so they had a much mroe subtle coconut taste, which I think is better. Also, They work quite well in normal size cases, even though the recipe suggests using mini-muffin cases.

Fluffy Coconut Cupcakes - makes 36 mini (18 normal size)

250g (9 oz) self-raising flour
45g (1.5 oz) dessicated coconut
230g (8.5 oz) caster sugar
250ml (9 fl oz) buttermilk [If you can't find buttermilk in the shops,take some normal milk (250ml) and add 1 tsp lemon juice to it, then let it sit for half an hour]
2 eggs
1 tsp coconut extract (can be omitted)
125g (4.5 oz) unsalted butter, melted


Icing

280g (10 oz) icing sugar
135g (4.75 oz) desiccated coconut
75g (2.5 oz) unsalted butter
0.5 tsp coconut extract (can be omitted)
2 tbsp hot water
lightly toasted desiccated coconut to decorate.

1. Combine the flour, coconut and sugar in a bowl and make a well in the centre. Combine the buttermilk, eggs, coconut extract and butter. Then pour into the well and mix until well combined.
2. Divide evenly amongst the cases and bake for 12 minutes at 180*C (15 minutes for normal sized ones) or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
3. Icing - Combine the icing sugar and coconut in a bowl, add the butter (softened), coconut extract and enough water to make a spreadable icing. Spread each cake with a thick layer, and then sprinkle toasted coconut on top (or dip the cakes into the coconut)

These cakes were really tasty! The coconut on top gave a good simple decoration too. Not too difficult to make either. I think they will be much better without the coconut extract, so they have a more subtle coconut taste. You can toast the desiccated coconut very easily on a baking sheet and under the grill for a few minutes. Just don't forget to shake it up a bit so they don't burn.


MMFC

Mocha Cupcakes

More chocolately goodness! These cakes are sooooo good, though the recipe is a bit odd. I'm going to try them again, but with a bit more coffee granules in as really it just tasted of chocolate (not that that is a bad thing!). The icing was sooo good too, very gooey and chocolate-y :D.

Mocha Cupcakes - makes 12 muffins

250ml (8fl oz) water
250g (8 oz) caster sugar
125g (4 oz) butter
2 tbsp cocoa powder
0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tbsp coffee granules
225g (7.5 oz) self raising flour
2 eggs, beaten.


Icing

150g (5 oz) plain chocolate
150g (5 oz) butter (unsalted)
2 tbsp golden syrup
12 chocolate covered coffee beans to decorate

1. Line a muffin tin with 12 cases. Put the water and sugar in a saucepan and gently heat, while stirring, until the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the butter, cocoa powder, bicarb and coffee granules and bring to the boil. Simmer for 5 minutes.
2. Beat flour and eggs into the cooked chocolate mixture until smooth (use a whisk or sift the flour in). Divide into the cases. Bake for  20 minutes at 180*C until risen and firm.
3. Icing - Melt the chocolate, golden syrup and butter in a double boiler. Leave to cool and then chill. Once chilled and firm enough, spread on the top of the cool cakes. It softens quickly,so spread fast. Decorate with the coffee beans if wanted.

I'm definitely going to make these again, as they were soooo tasty. Though I think I'll make them normal sized cupcakes (so roughly double the number of cakes) so I can share out the goodness :). Also, I must remember to turn the oven on when I bake.... ;) error.



MMFC