Red Velvet Cupcakes!

It’s freezing here! Not snowing, because sadly the salt in the air stops that from happening, but freezing all the same. It’s the kind of cold that has your fingers screaming for mercy the second you leave the house and your stomach constantly growling for more food! So in the midst of this cold weather I decided that the perfect antidote would be a rich cupcake that, though Christmas is officially over, would keep some of the spirit alive. Hmmm, what jumps out? A RED VELVET CUPCAKE of course!!!

These little beauties are rich, moist and best of all… Drumroll please! CHOCOLATEY! And what’s even better about them? Nobody has to know that you’re really eating a cupcake filled with the best quality dark cocoa. For all they know it could be strawberry. 🙂

Now these cupcakes don’t necessarily have to be Christmassy. If you’re one of those people who, on the 6th of January when the decorations come down doesn’t want to have to think about, in my opinion, what is the best time of year until next December, you can always omit the sprinkles. These cupcakes are just as good without them!

Charmingly naked, you see?

I love chocolate. That’s a fact of life. And normally for me any part of a dessert that contains chocolate would be the star of the show for me. Well, that was until I met this frosting. It’s a little cloud of heaven just perched on top of a cupcake! My usual problem with cream cheese frosting is that it doesn’t hold it’s shape. I’m all for a thin icing on occasion, but usually I want my thick, pretty swirl on top of a cupcake. That was a problem, until I found a blog post from a genius at justataste! The secret: Heavy cream! Look at my cream cheese frosting, isn’t it just perfect! Here’s the link:http://www.justataste.com/2014/01/red-velvet-cupcakes-piped-cream-cheese-frosting-recipe/ 

So here’s the link to the recipe I used for the cupcakes themselves. I just know you’re going to love them! They were a massive hit here.

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/10/29/red-velvet-cupcakes/

xxx

Happy Baking!

Banana Nut Muffins with a Cinnamon Streusel Topping!

Have you ever thrown a house party for no particular reason? Well, if you have you’ll know that having 50 people ’round Isn’t an easy undertaking. Between the mountain of food the needs to be cooked, the house that needs to be tidied and the entertainment to be organised it’s a hell of a lot of work.

So these were one of the only foods that I managed to photograph (they were out of the oven first) while the light was good. I know I’ve done a lot of muffins and cupcakes, but they really are my favourite things! And these ones are especially good.

The excessive amount of brown sugar makes these muffins almost caramelly! There’s barely any granulated in this recipe at all. And brown sugar is a bit healthier, right?

Weirdly enough I don’t find many people who get as excited over a muffin as I do. There’s just something about the warm spongey cake studded with chocolate chips (always necessary) and hidden under the disguise of ‘a fairly healthy breakfast option’  that’s just so comforting! So these muffins are for anyone who joins me in the muffin fan club, they’ve even got a brown sugar cinnamon streusel on top! 🙂

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/02/18/master-muffin-mix/ This is the link to the original recipe. All credit goes to Sally.

These high rise muffins have to most glorious crispy crust on top. It’s the initial high baking temperature that makes them rise so high and form that amazing crust. The brown sugar in the streusel also gave them a caramel sheen.  I think that these muffin tops would be worthy of Lorelai any day. If she were around I’d be making a muffin bottom pie for sure! (Sorry about that ‘Gilmore Girls’ reference there!)

These muffins were gobbled up in no time. They were devoured even before the Avoca Carrot Cake, which is a sure fire favourite around here. It must have been that they were freshly baked and still steaming with the melted chocolate chips still warm in their centres and the aroma of cinnamon just drifting…… Sorry, I got a bit carried away there! All I meant to say was that these muffins are divine. And an amazing Autumnal treat. Perfect for the changing of the season.

Well, happy baking guys! Hope you’ve had a good first month back to school.

xxxxx

And so my affair with Frosting began!

As you can probably tell from almost everything I’ve posted so far, I’ve been veering away from frosting. The sky high towers of sweet,buttery, creamy heaven haven’t had much of a show on this blog so far. This is mainly because I know that once I’d taken a single bite off the top of a ‘Vanilla Buttercream Frosted Fudge Chocolate Cupcake’ I’d never go back! And now I have, and I don’t think that I will.

          

These chocolate cupcakes are SO moist! It’s almost unreal. They definitely deserve a picture to themselves. I almost felt bad putting icing on top of them. But then I didn’t!

Is it just me or do these look like whippy ice-creams on a cupcake? I almost feel as though I should have put little flakes sticking out of the top! Maybe I’ll do that next time!

          

There is actually no chocolate in these cupcakes. It’s the cocoa that give them they’re perfect chocolaty taste and texture. Sometimes I find that putting chocolate in cupcakes or brownies can give them a slightly greasy texture. Try and use a good brand of preferably dutch processed cocoa such as Bourneville for best results. Drinking chocolate (Cadburys etc.) is usually about 50% sugar which will really change the taste and colour of your cupcakes. So basically, Emergencies Only!

This picture here is a great example of ‘The End of the Piping Bag Conundrum’.

That was a mouthful!

What I mean by this is: With any icing I’ve piped from a piping bag I’ve always found that the last cupcake, or whatever you’re using the bit of icing at the bottom of the bag for comes out wonky. I reckon it’s that there just isn’t enough icing left to pull it off smoothly. And that would be perfectly fine if every time I took the nozzle out of the piping bag there wasn’t a good spoonful of icing just sitting there. It’s infuriating!

I usually just decorate the cupcake with something to take your eye off of the blobby mess underneath, chocolate chips in this case. Any comments or solutions would be appreciated!

    

So here’s the link to the original recipe: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/06/03/classic-chocolate-cupcakes-with-vanilla-frosting/ 

Happy Baking!

xxxxx

The Missing Link: The Classic Victoria Sponge.

This has been long due. I didn’t feel that I had the right to call myself a baker (or bakress, if you’re a feminist) until I’d proved to you all that yes, I can bake a victoria sponge, and I can get it to rise!

 

I made this recently for a host of guests that we had staying over. It seemed the perfect choice, who doesn’t like a victoria sponge? I thought that everybody did, that was one rule that I thought there was no exception to. Until……. I had an 8 year old boy come up to me and tell me that he didn’t like jam, he didn’t like jam! I’m still flabbergasted, sugary berryey goodness! What’s not to like? So I commissioned a special slice without cream for him. The problem was finding it once the second layer was on top!

However, all in all, this cake went down well, scrap that, it went down amazingly! Screw modesty! So why was I polite and took the smallest slice? When I went back for seconds it was all gone. 😦

This is possibly one of the simplest recipes out there, and it’s foolproof, even if you only have one baking dish of the right size. ‘Looks down embarassedly’. Ok, I admit to it, I did have to bake the cake twice. I only have one 9 inch baking dish so I cut the recipe in half and did it again. Silly, but what could I do? (I really am in a rhetorical question mood tonight.)

 The strawberries in the middle of the cake give it a summery zing that you just don’t get from the jam. And the buttons on the top are a kind of family tradition, my Mom’s been putting them on top of my birthday cakes since I was about 5.

And for the leftovers.

I’m going to write the recipe up because I’m not 100% sure where it came from, I’ve known it forever you see!

 

Classic Victoria sponge Recipe:

For an incredibly moist, spongey and summery treat.

Serves 10. (8 if you want leftovers)

Ingredients:

For the cake:

300g caster sugar

300g butter

6 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

300g self-raising flour

1.5 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons of milk

For the filling:

250g strawberries

A tub of single cream

Berry jam

And chocolate buttons (optional but advised)

 

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 190C/ 170F/ Gas mark 5.
2. Grease 2 9 inch silicone cake tins.
3. cream together the butter and sugar.
4. Add in the eggs and vanilla essence and mix until well combined.
5. Mix in the flour and baking powder, do not overmix. This will knock any air out of you cake mix and will make it less light and airy.
6. Then stir in the milk to thin out. Your batter should be smooth and creamy.
7. Pour into your prepared cake tins and level with a spatula. (I got a new rubber one recently)
8. Pop into the oven bake for about 20 – 25 mins or until the cake springs back when you poke it and a knife comes out with only a few small crumbs attached.
9. Cool on a wire rack until your cakes reach room temperature.
10. Then spread with jam, cover with sliced strawberries and dollop your cream on before dropping your second layer of cake on top and covering with you (optional) chocolate buttons!

Souffle, harder than it looks!

I did say when I started this blog that I would put up the good, the bad and the ugly of what I baked. So far I’ve been veering clear of the less successful of my experiments because, well, why would you want to read about an almighty flop of a tart or an explosion of a muffin? But today I’ve decided to keep at least partially to my word and tell you about how not easy souffle is to make!

 

I’m not talking about the making of the batter here, that’s incredibly easy. Whip up a few egg whites add flour chocolate etc. Easy peasy! (If you have an electric whisk, which I don’t.) 🙂

It’s the timing that’s the killer, you want to get them out of the oven just before the centre hardens up, which I didn’t in the ones above! And just after they get past the ‘I’m still a blob of batter in a muffin tin’ stage!

I’m making this post a quick one so you’re not burdened with my many failings as a baker and a human being for any longer than you have to be!

So maybe you’ve learned something today, and maybe you haven’t! But at least you got to see me make a mess of a souffle! 🙂

xxxxx

Strawberry Strawberry Cupcakes!

Summer… Fruit… STRAWBERRIES!!!

These are the perfect summer party cupcakes. Enjoyable for people of almost any age and best heaped with sprinkles! 

Being the amateur baker that I am I hadn’t actually iced cupcakes before. Ever. Shock horror, I know. It’s unacceptable. So please excuse the lopsidedness of the icing on my cupcakes.

You wouldn’t believe how fun it is though! I got a bit carried away and used almost EVERY single head in the the bag. The amount of wash up was absolutely humongous but 100% worth it. My hands were covered in icing, I had used up almost every single spoon in the house, there was icing on the floor, on my new leather boots (a lot of talcom powder was in order for that one) and there was even some in my hair! But by the end of my icing session those cupcakes were darn freezing! :p

And being the food nerd that I am I of course went as far as to make little chocolate decorations for the tops of the cakes. Using a plastic bag to pipe! (We didn’t have a nozzle big enough!).

 

These cupcakes were sweet as icing sugar! And had the most amazing strawberry pieces scattered the whole way through the cupcake. They are possibly the moistest baked goods I have ever eaten aside from my favourite carrot cake! Which is a given, seeing as they’re from… drumroll please….. SALLY’S BAKING ADDICTION! (And just so you know, I don’t always bake off SBA. Just yesterday I made Brown Eyed Baker’s Mocha Cupcakes with Espresso Buttercream Frosting. They were incredible. So incredible even that I didn’t have a chance to take a picture of a single one!)

Here’s the link: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/01/26/fresh-strawberry-cupcakes/

And my favourite part…. Wait for it…. : They are completely naturally coloured. The pink icing on the top is all freshly squeezed strawberry juice!

The recipe I used was this one:

 http://addapinch.com/cooking/2013/06/20/strawberry-buttercream-frosting-recipe/

I replaced the syrup with the strawberry juice and used normal milk, not cream. It’s fattening enough as it is!

So in conclusion. For a summer snack, tea, dessert, party or almost anything else. Bake them. Bake them I tell you!

Hope you’re enjoying the summer.

xxxxx

 

CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!!!!!

These completely 100% deserve those capital letters!

Chocolate chip cookies are one of the most used and loved inventions in the whole of the baking world. And because of this they are also one of the most difficult. Not difficult to bake, not difficult to bake AT ALL! They are in fact some of the easiest and most forgiving baked goods out there. What is difficult is finding the right recipe. Some people are lucky, they have their great-great-great grandmother’s recipe that has been passed down through the centuries and is usually unrivaled by any other cookie recipe! However, not all of us are that lucky. Most of us have to scour cookbooks and the internet for that recipe.

And guess what?!? I’ve found it!!!!!

I’ve tried many cookie recipes in the last while, ones that call for cooking directly from the bowl to ones that call for refrigerating for almost a full week! (Insane I know, there was barely any dough left to bake by the end of it !) And even in these cases I found that I ate more of Sally’s dough in the 1 hour period than I did in nearly a week! So of all the cookies I’ve tried so far this one has to be the best, I’ve still got a couple to try so if I find anything on a par to Sally’s one I’ll send it on out! 

And on that note, I was thinking a couple of nights ago: ‘I cook so much off Sally’s Baking Addiction that I might as well just stop writing this blog and send you over to hers instead’, so I went to one of the many trusted recipe books on our shelf and rustled up two batches of muffins for our guests. A triple chocolate batch and a lemon and blueberry chocolate chip batch. 

The verdict: ‘Nah!’ They were dry, the lemon was overpowering, and there WASN’T ENOUGH CHOCOLATE! So, my guilty feelings appeased for the time being I went back to my trusted baking adviser and made these cookies.

And they were good. ALMOST as good as the dough. Which is saying something! They were moist and fluffy and soft and chewy with the perfect chocolate to dough ratio (though I did use chopped up chocolate chinks instead of the chips as I had none on hand).

I do believe that they were perfect. 

As far as I’m aware it’s the cornstarch that gives them their amazing texture. This, I believe, is what seperates the men from the boys, or in this case the good cookies from the not so good!

So now that I’m done tooting these cookie’s horns I think I’ll leave you this evening with an apology for the time between this post and the last and yet another photo of these cookies!

🙂

(And also the link) 

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2012/08/06/the-chocolate-chip-cookie/

 

My First Go at Baking in our New House!

It  was a very nerve wracking day for me. I hadn’t baked in a gas oven for over half a year! Can you believe it? I know I certainly can’t. But for those of you who’ve been converted to either one or the other for the whole of your life I’ll just verify, it’s a very different experience.

So I decided to try something very easy, scones.

Scones for me are the constant of the baking world. They’re hearty, delicious and always remind me of my grandmother. But as they do not contain chocolate there’s always a slight reluctance in me to choose them over, let’s say, chocolate muffins. But  every time I eat them I remember why they are worshipped all over the world.                                                 They’re delicious. They’re scrumptious. They’re yum-diddly-umptious!

And what’s even better is that yesterday I happened to find an especially amazing recipe. The cookbooks aren’t yet unpacked and that includes our Avoca one within which lies my go to recipe for scones. The recipe contains cream, which always bodes well. However, yesterday, as I wasn’t about to go rummaging through boxes I resorted to the internet. BBC GoodFood to be precise. And the scones were magnificent.

 

And what’s even better than all of that is that they only use basic store-cupboard ingredients. The only one I had to pop down to the shop for was a lemon, but that’s only because that’s not the kind of food you carry with you while moving.

These scones are also  very quick and easy to make, they only take about 30 minutes altogether. For me they took a bit longer than stated in the recipe but not an awful lot, about 5 or 10 minutes. They were so worth the wait though. Fresh out of the oven… Yum!

I wonder where that one went????? 😀

I added raisins to the scones that you see here. I really think that they give the scones a little bit more ‘oomph’! As I call it. Just a little something extra.

These scones were the perfect texture, they were moist and soft. Not too heavy but they weren’t about to float away on you either. Especially not with the amount of Jam and cream that I bogged them down with! (Absolutely necessary in my opinion).

 

These scones were polished off in a matter of hours.  As scone recipes go, this was one of the easiest and the best I’ve tried.

Here’s the link:

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4622/classic-scones-with-jam-and-clotted-cream

Hope you try them,                                                                                                                                                               They’re really good.

xxxxx

 

 

Apologies, a birthday cake shortlist and also a smoothie?!?!

I’m so sorry! I just realised that I forgot to put up the link to the original recipe for the ‘Belated Mothers Day Cake! It was (of course) on Sally’s website originally. I was just so busy on Saturday between a 1500 word essay and everything else that my mind was a bit scattered!

So anyway, here’s the link:

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/02/09/lemon-blueberry-layer-cake/

And plus I want to say congrats to Sally on her TV appearance!!!!!!!!!!! You really should check out her blog.

Ooh, and also, I just made a lovely smoothie! Banana, peanut butter and natural yoghurt with a splash of vanilla essence really is the only way to start off a Monday morning.

And (I know you’re sick of hearing my ands by now but please persevere, it’s about to get interesting) today’s the big day! I’ve compiled a list of about 10 cakes 7 cakes (I edited in the process, my tastes seem to have changed significantly since yesterday) that are all possibilities for the birthday. I of course have some preferences but I can’t make a decision for my life so I’d love any help I can get. 🙂 It’s not often that I get the chance to bake a full out whatever I want cake without feeling guilty in the slightest. But here’s my chance, and I’m taking it very seriously!

So (drumroll please) cake number 1:                                                                                                                        This is SprinkleBakes Chocolate Quake Cake. It looks divine!                                                                   And yes, there is a double layer chocolate cake with frosting under all of that!

                                                        And the link:   http://www.sprinklebakes.com/2011/11/chocolate-quake-cake.html

 

Cake number 2.                                                                                                                                                                    This is a CHOCOLATE PEANUT BUTTER TORTE. Please just sit and take that in for a minute, really absorb those words. Pretty mind blowing, right? And just wait until you see the picture. :p

This is a Brown Eyed Baker recipe. I believe that she has the same tastes as I do!                          Link:   http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2009/04/15/chocolate-peanut-butter-torte/

 

Cake 3:                                                                                                                                                                                        There is a high likelihood that this will be the only non chocolate cake on this list! But it does look amazing. Brown Eyed Baker again. This woman does good cakes. 🙂

Link:     http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2013/07/15/blueberry-buckle-recipe/

 

Number 4:                                                                                                                                                                                 Holy sugar. I am positively drooling over this one. Peanut butter and chocolate in bulk in cake form, all in the one place. Have I died and gone to heaven? Hold your eyes in for this next one, they may just fall out of your head.

This is from Bakerella’s food blog. Look at how moist the chocolate cake is!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here’s the link to her site and the recipe:  http://www.bakerella.com/got-milk-i-hope-so%E2%80%A6/  Also, if I’m cooking this, instead of Devils food Cake mix I’m going to use the recipe from this site: http://www.food.com/recipe/the-only-chocolate-cake-recipe-youll-ever-need-devils-food-26370

 

And now for Cake Number 5:                                                                                                                                         I couldn’t not have one from Sally’s blog on my list so I chose this one, it looks so good. But because of this I have to go back on my word. It isn’t entirely chocolate. So it turns out that the the Blueberry Buckle isn’t the only non chocolate cake on this list. This is her Raspberry Chocolate Chip Layer Cake.

And the link to her site: http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/2014/03/28/raspberry-chocolate-chip-layer-cake/

 

Cake Number 6:                                                                                                                                                                      This cake here is Brown Eyed Baker’s Snickers cake.

Link:  http://www.browneyedbaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/snickers-cake-28-600.jpg

 

And the final one, Cake Number 7.                                                                                                                             This has fudge brownie in a vanilla cheesecake on top of an Oreo crust with a chocolate coating. Need I say any more?

Link:   http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2008/10/11/brownie-mosaic-cheesecake/

 

Did you know that when I started writing this it was meant to be a 2-3 line post apologising for the lack of a link in Saturday’s post? Well, it was! But I got caught up in the addictive world of blogging and cakes and just couldn’t pull myself away. And now we’re late for the boat of course! So please have a look at these cakes if at all possible and comment if you have a preference or inclination. I’d love to know what the rest of the world thinks about these lovely cakes. I’ll let you know as soon as I do which one I’m going to bake (and then conseqentially eat)!

Have a lovely Monday (and rest of the week).

xxxxx

 

Special (belated) Mothers Day post. Blueberry Lemon 3 Tier Cake.

I know it’s about a week late but it’s been really busy around here for the last week. Moving house really does take up your entire life. Between shuttling stuff between the houses and trying to find enough boxes to pack all our stuff in (I can’t believe how much we fitted into our cottage, we’ve accumulated quite a lot) we’ve been pretty busy. Everything else has gone on the back burner. But now I’m back. And I hope you haven’t missed me too much!

This is a really special recipe. I know you must be sick of hearing about Sally by now and I promise that at some point soon I’ll cook something that’s not off her blog but I just couldn’t resist this one. I saw it and thought how perfect this would be for my mom. And guess what? It was! Lucky that Mothers Day was coming up.

I’m not usually a fan of any cake that doesn’t have the word chocolate in the title but this one broke the streak. It was gorgeous. It was airy and light melt in your mouth icing with popping blueberries and a slight tang of lemon all mixed together with a bit of love a lot of sugar and some vanilla essence! And yes, I did say all of that in one breath. It was gone within 24 hours of being made. With a little bit of help from 4 or 5 friends of course! And then we made it again for an event the next weekend. A big hit.

The cooking process took a little longer than expected. Between the cooling time (which I never listen to unless icing is involved) and all the other minor complications by 10 ‘o clock that night me and Jay were sitting at the kitchen table darting frequent looks at the fridge and clock just waiting for those final 45 minutes to tick by. The reason for this is that I only had one cake tin of the right size. And there was no way it was going to be a 2 tier cake, because that’s just not impressive, it had to be 3 tiers (silly me). So with a 4 ‘o clock start, no electric mixer and one cake tin I began to bake.

So we now know that complication:

1. Was the cake tin conundrum

2. Was the absence of an electric mixer

And of course, as the saying goes, ‘What happens twice always happens 3 times’. So now number:

3. There weren’t enough blueberries at the shop. So we had to make do with some strawberries.

And oddly enough, these were what made the cake so nice. I’d advise you if you’re cooking it to put in half strawberries half blueberries. Their sweetness goes really well with the overall tanginess of the lemon in the cake. Plus, they look extra pretty on the top.

I wasn’t sure how to arrange them so I had to do a first draft. This is it! However, the top of the cake wasn’t quite this big so I had to cut it a bit short.

Oh yes! How silly of me, I forgot to tell you about complication no.

4.  ( It seems that what happens twice doesn’t happen only three times, but 4!) In the recipe it tells you to toss the blueberries in tablespoon of flour before putting them in the cake to stop them from exploding. This I did. And it worked very well. I had unexploded blueberries in my cake. But when tossing them I forgot to account for the blueberries that I’d have to put on the top of the cake. Oops! So as a result of this I spent about 10 minutes hand-washing and towel (or tissue) drying every single blueberry on top of this cake. Here’s a picture of me in action:

These were squeaky clean blueberries by the end of it.

As you can see, this became quite a hectic day. So by the time I got around to icing the cake it was already a little late. And I was already more than a little tired. So icing made I set out to begin the icing process. And hungry as I was I ate the majority of it before it went on the cake. But never mind, I made the rest of it stretch.

I got to this point without too many hiccups. Not looking too shabby, eh? But when I got to here I paused and took a deep breath. It was time to begin icing the sides. Here’s about the point where you begin listening to the Jaws Theme Tune and looking away in fright. As you can see from my pics of the finished product it obviously didn’t turn out too badly but there was a bit of a waterfall effect. I still haven’t figured out how to stop the icing from running down the side of the cake and pooling on the plate!  Am I making the icing too thin? Is there a special utensil that’s needed to ice a cake?  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  🙂 However by the end of a few minutes wrestling with the knife and icing I managed to coat the sides in an even layer of icing.

And then it had to go in the fridge.

And we waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

It felt like hours.

So after 25 minutes we took it out of the fridge!

And it didn’t crumble. The first slice came out perfectly formed.

 

And so did the second.

 

And the third as a matter of fact.

This was one nice cake. The perfect springtime treat.

This evening is taken up with compiling a shortlist of possibilities for………… MY BIRTHDAY CAKE! Yay! And you can be assured that this will be no lemon cake. I have a sneaky suspicion that the word chocolate might be included in the title. I don’t think that even the nicest non-chocolate cake in the world could sway my loyalty to chocolate!

I’ll post this shortlist soon.

xxx