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

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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