Vanilla and Strawberry Cupcakes

Having iced the thirteen mini birthday cakes for Gramps, I had fourteen vanilla cupcakes left over.  I made some more butter cream icing using the recipe from Love Food: The Cupcake, adding three teaspoons of strawberry jam and mixing well.  I smoothed this onto the cakes and rolled out a small lump of fondant icing.  Using a small sharp knife I cut little hearts out of the fondant and stuck them gently on the cakes.  They still tasted light and fluffy even after a few days, and the butter cream and strawberry icing worked nicely.  Waste not want not, I suppose; you cannot have too much of some good things.

Mini Birthday Cakes

My next cake project was for my grandad’s eightieth birthday.  Birthday cakes for me have a very specific taste – soft vanilla sponge with a strawberry jam and buttercream filling and topped with beautifully sickly fondant icing.  I decided to try and emulate this specific taste in the miniature form of a cupcake.  Since birthdays are supposed to be extra happy days, I wanted to make them standout; with this in mind, I decided to try and make 3D icing balloons coming out of the cakes.

For the sponge, I used the vanilla cupcake recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days.  For some reason the recipe uses double the amount of all the ingredients in the same bakery’s vanilla cupcake recipe in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook while claiming to produce the same amount.  I decided to try out the new one and ended up with twenty seven, rather more than I needed for Gramps.  Luckily, Grandma was making dinner for everyone on Thursday, in two days time, so I put the rest safely away and kept thirteen to write ‘Happy Birthday’ on.  Despite a new oven, the cakes came out looking generally unscathed, although a few were a bit brown on top.  While they cooled, I got on with making the balloons.

I made three balloons in green, pink and blue, and four in yellow.  I washed thirteen coloured paperclips in washing up liquid, rinsing and drying them well before straightening them out.  I bent a curve into the middle of each one, with a straight bit at the top.  At the bottom I doubled the paperclip over to stop it toppling over once the balloon was on top.  To make the balloons I used small lumps of fondant icing dyed with food colouring.  I took a small lump of the coloured icing, a couple of centimetres in diameter, and rolled this into a ball.  For the knot of the balloon I took a small bit from the coloured icing and pushed it to form a point.  I stuck this under the balloon, pushing gently until it stuck on.  I put the balloon down on a clean surface to dry, as I would need to wait until I was at Gramps’ house to assemble them. 

Meanwhile the cakes had cooled so I added a teaspoon of strawberry jam to the top of each cake and smoothed it over.  Using butter cream icing from Love Food: The Cupcake I put this on top of the jam and smoothed it down with a spoon.  Although it got a bit mixed up with the jam, this did not really matter as the taste would be the same.  I rolled out white fondant icing and used a cookie cutter to cut wavy circles large enough to cover the top of each cupcake and gently put each one on top of the jam and butter cream.  I had initially wanted to spell out ‘Happy Birthday’ on the cakes in blue fondant icing, but I did not have any cutters and was running out of time.  Instead, I used spare butter cream to stick small blue circles in the centre of each cake, and went to Gramps’ to construct the cakes.

A few of the paperclips needed bending again to make them look more like balloon strings, and I think that the ‘Happy Birthday’ message would have looked better.  The idea did not quite work as I had hoped.  However, the vanilla sponges were very light, and were proclaimed by Mum to be ‘the best we’ve had yet’, which was a nice compliment.  They really tasted just like little birthday cakes, even if the balloons left me a little deflated.

Merry Christmas Gingerbread Cupcakes

As the Uni term drew to a rather early close, my course mates and I found ourselves so overwhelmed by festive cheer and goodwill that some kind of course Christmas fest seemed inevitable.  Sure enough, in stepped domestic goddess Sarah and the elf to her Mrs Santa, Olivia, and suggested a Christmas dinner.  Knowing that my cooking skills are limited, I thought the best I could offer would be a dessert.  For Christmas inspiration I turned to The Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days, my new birthday book, and found Gingerbread cupcakes.  Although they sounded a bit strange, the prospect of two desserts in one was an offer I could not refuse and seemed in-keeping with Christmas generosity.  It is, after all, the thought that counts.

It turned out that these cupcakes require a lot of ingredients, including three types of spice, golden syrup and black treacle.  The kitchen smelt like a gingerbread house, which was delicious.  Once they had cooled, I mixed some cream cheese icing and waited for the Christmas muse to drop by and explain to me how to use the load of red, gold and silver edible glitter I had at my disposal.  I tried a few experiments, but the glitter was hard to control and I had no clear idea of what I was trying to do.  In the end, I mixed half of the gold into the icing and added a lot of red food dye.  Just as I set down the bottle of food dye and surveyed the 'happy red' icing, the Christmas muse suggested making snowy white snowman faces.  Sigh.  I carried on regardless, icing them with the red icing and my shiny new pallet knife (such an unappreciated tool unless one is without it), before melting some white chocolate and carefully spelling out ‘Merry Christmas’.  On closer inspection, the glitter had disappeared into the icing, suggesting that further work on the use of edible glitter may be a future project.  I put them on a tray and braved the cold and embarrassment of carrying a tray of cupcakes round the chilly streets.

Like fairies in a pantomime, Sarah and Olivia produced a delicious Christmas dinner, including four kinds of meat, homemade Yorkshire puddings (unheard of where I’m from), potato in three different forms and enough vegetables to supply a family of rabbits throughout the festive season.  With everyone full to bursting, it seemed that just as at my family birthday party the desserts would go unloved.  However, students are hungrier people than proper grown-ups, and gradually the cakes began to dwindle in numbers.  They did taste like gingerbread and the cream cheese and chocolate added a bit of sweetness.  Although the food colouring meant the icing was not as tasty as that which the Hummingbird recipe usually produces, it was not particularly noticeable.  I even managed to convince people to take them home, suggesting that the unusual combination of biscuit and cake was a success.

If you are looking for an original idea for a Christmas dessert, these work really well.  Just make sure you consult the Christmas muse about your decoration well in advance of adding any red food dye.

Flavour of the Month - December 2011

As the sound of advent calendars being opened for the first time could be heard across the country, everyone braced themselves for the official start of Christmas.  Although seasonal offerings have been sneakily popping into shops, radios and cinemas since about mid-October, we could now start enjoying the build up to the most wonderful time of the year.  Tree up, presents wrapped and cards written, the next job is what to make for dessert.  To help you with this important process, here are some of my favourite festive accessories to help you create your Christmas masterpieces.

Festive Cupcake Cases

Cheerful Christmas-themed cases are a necessity for any seasonal cupcake.  While cheerful snowmen may not be the most traditional aspect of Christmas, the light blue background and tumbling snowflakes go well with snowy white icing and add a touch of brightness to the red, green and gold of Christmas.

Buy the snowmen cases here.

Edible glitter

Vital in the creation of any mini Winter Wonderland, this edible glitter will add a touch of sparkle to your cupcakes and give the impression of snow.  It is also widely available in other colours, including red, gold and silver.

Buy the Snow White Magic Sparkles here and search the site for other colours.

Christmas cupcake toppers

Aside from all the fun, mince pies and general merriment, Christmas is one of the busiest times of year.  If you are just too busy searching for that perfect Christmas jumper for grandad and the ideal bubble bath for mum, invest in some ready-made cupcake toppers to polish off your Christmas treats.  These adorable penguins would go well with the snowman cases and snowy icing, but there are lots of different choices to go with.

Buy the penguins and search for others here.

Kenwood mixer

As much as I love snow, it is not a white Christmas I will be dreaming of this year.  If you have been a very good baker in 2011, you might be hoping Santa will slip one of these into your socking.  Looking hot in raspberry red, it even co-ordinates with the festive season.  Say goodbye to arm ache and showers of icing sugar and hello to elegantly waiting for your gorgeous gadget to do the hard work for you.

Check out this and other colours here.

Cupcake t shirt

If you want to share your love of cupcakes with the wider world you can be a proud ambassador in this colourful t shirt.  A must-have on any baker’s Christmas list, it won’t make your cakes taste better but you will look cool.

Buy it here.

Amazing Christmas cupcakes

Finally, for a real treat have a look at these beautiful Christmas-themed cupcakes.  Although I don’t think I could bear to eat the little cat or the slightly gormless but adorable penguin, let alone make them, they definitely inject some festive joy and provide some truly seasonal inspiration.  

View them in all their glory here.

Have a very Merry cake-filled Christmas!

Birthday Brownies

After the last red paper cup had been thrown away and the last crisp swept up, my attention turned to my family celebrations.  Grandma was throwing a big family party and I had promised to provide what would be one of many desserts.  I picked the ultimate indulgent treat: the king of over-eating and the master of buckling belts, the humble yet mighty chocolate brownie.

I love making brownies.  Anything with that amount of chocolate cannot possibly go wrong, and the slightly crisp outside with the gooey centre takes this important credential and produces the chocoholic’s dream.  I have a failsafe recipe for brownies; it involves melting dangerous amounts of chocolate and mixing in chunks of chocolate, so you know it means serious business.  True to form, it did not let me down, and everyone stuffed themselves full of deliciousness.  The problem was that this was before dessert.  Sitting beside two birthday cakes, the cakes were chosen only by my very loyal boyfriend and my cousin’s new boyfriend, Richard, who earned some serious brownie points, not only for eating my cakes but by coping very well when faced with my family dressed in accordance with the theme ‘What I want to be when I grow up’.

While it is safe to say that the brownies did not tempt everyone to test the belts on their fancy dress, they did not go unwanted; when the last streamer from the party canons had been cleared away and the last crumb wiped from the table, I could think of no better way to relieve the bitter realisation of a year-long wait for my next birthday than by returning to the best baked friend a girl could have, the faithful chocolate brownie.

American Flag Cake

As I mentioned in November’s Flavour of the Month post, I recently celebrated my twenty first birthday with an American themed party.  Besides red frat party cups, a patriotic tablecloth and hundred-dollar bill napkins, I of course wanted to provide some kind of American-themed cake.  While researching my top American-inspired cakes, I stumbled across a possible candidate:

Presented with this beautiful example, I found myself asking the fatal question: how hard could it be?

It turned out to be pretty tricky.  For the red and white cakes, I used Mary Berry’s Victoria sponge recipe, placing half of the mixture into one cake tin before gently mixing strawberry flavouring and red food colouring into the other half, until it tasted sufficiently of strawberry and was red enough to shame a particularly scarlet parrot.  So far so good, but then came the bake.  Despite a sincere plea to the God of Cake, both refused to rise, and the red cake turned a puzzling and infuriating shade of orange.  To cut a long story short, I had to make two more the next day, the white half of which came out of the oven raw while the red part was only half baked.  I used the excess vanilla sponge from the first white layer, trying to hide the chunk I had already cut out of it to taste.

 For the blue layer, I used Next’s Simply Chocolate white chocolate cake, mixing in blue food dye at the end.  I also added white chocolate stars, but these melted in the mixture, which involves melted chocolate.  This also refused to cook properly in the middle, although this did not matter as I was only using the outside.  I wanted to cover the whole thing in a perfect, white coating of cream cheese icing, but in a finally act of malice from the God of Cake, crumbs stuck, cake crumbled and icing stubbornly refused to do what it was told.  Having glued all the layers together with icing, I turned desperately to my supply of spare fondant icing from the Halloween ghosts.  Although I did not quite manage to roll out enough to fit over the cake in one go, I sort of patched it together.  In a last ditch attempt to beautify what I know saw as sugary, messy lump, I made a glue from icing sugar and water and stuck little red, white and blue balls of icing in the shape ‘USA’.

 When it came time for the great reveal and I was a curious combination of anxious and mortified.  I was supposed to be good at baking, and now all my friends would be given proof to the contrary.  I took my shiny, purple knife and sliced through the layers of icing and wrecked cake and found... that it had worked: to my astonishment, there was, in fact, a passable representation of the Stars and Stripes peering out from beneath the layers of icing.  

It was not perfect, by any stretch of even the kindest person’s imagination; there was a slit down the middle, the layers were wonky and two stripes were more orange than red.  However, everyone seemed fairly impressed and managed to eat it while looking convincingly happy.  Not quite the American Dream, but not a nightmare either.

Shortbread Hearts

Apparently I had hearts on the brain; my next baking project was a large batch of heart-shaped shortbreads.  The second week of November had breezed in to find me feeling a little unwell and in need of some T.LC.  Shortbread seemed the obvious choice; containing only three ingredients, thus rendering the quest for ingredients unnecessary, and cheerfully sweet, they are fairly easy to make and go well with my favourite cure – a nice cup of tea.

I used a recipe from BBC Recipes, which can be found here.  Rather than cut them out into sober, adult rectangles, I stubbornly stuck to my guns and managed to get about twenty five little heart biscuits.  I must confess that I forgot to put them in the fridge, as the recipe suggests, but I don’t think that this minor slip affected the taste.  The fact that I rolled them out too thin and overcooked a few, however, meant that they did not produce that beautiful, melt-in-the-mouth sensation required from shortbread. 

Although they fell short of the shortbread ideal, they were a compatible partner for a warm drink and a healthy dose of therapeutic television.  Whether it is a cold, headache or broken heart, these biscuits are an easy, tasty pick me up, especially when you take the instructions to heart.

Victoria Sponge Cake

Aside from the few lecture hours, late starts and lack of a definite answer to most questions, one of the perks of being an arts student is Reading Week.  This sees a week-long hiatus from the lectures that we do have, in order that we may pursue scholarly activities such as musing on the nature of life, going clubbing and, unsurprisingly, reading.  As such, we all stayed in bed, caught up on television and went home.  A trip home also meant a trip to see Grandma and the opportunity to bake for my family again.  Having exhausted my reserves of television shows, I was introduced to Junior Bake-Off by my mum.  In the quarter finals, four mini contestants battle it out in the kitchen to produce various baked goods, which are presented to fastidious judges Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood for careful inspection.  The first episode saw the bakers take on Mary Berry’s own recipe for Victoria sponge.  A light bulb moment and trip to Tesco later, I was tackling it myself.

I have never had much luck with Victoria sponges; despite pleas, threats and folding flour in a manner so gentle it made the mixture purr, they never seem to rise properly.  This time I followed Mary Berry’s all-in-one method, and it worked a treat; the only real problem was convincing it to come out of the heart-shaped tin intact (it refused, and the golden brown edges stubbornly stayed put).

Besides being even lighter and fluffier than a first year essay, it left a considerably sweeter aftertaste and was eagerly received.  There was also more jam involved, which is always a bonus.  Who knows if it would have made the grade on Mary and Paul’s bake off; it rose properly, and for me that’s a first.

Flavour of the Month - November 2011

November traditionally sees the leaves fall off the trees, the temperature outside drop a further ten degrees and a flood of premature Christmas merchandise flood the shops.  On the nineteenth, it also sees my brother, sister and I jump excitedly out of our beds, plough through our presents and blow out the candles on our birthday cake.  This year will be our twenty first birthday, and to celebrate I chose to honour my University course in English and American Literature by being English and having an American-themed party.  In order to get into to the spirit, I have donned my cowgirl hat, dug out my flaming torch of progress and found four American dream cakes:

1.      Surprise Stars and Stripes Cake

Besides the cheerfully patriotic banner, from the outside this cake looks fairly modest.  Cut into it and we discover the hidden secret – a beautiful stars and stripes cake!  The picture is from an incredibly creative event planner’s website, which you can access by clicking on the image below.  For details on how to make the cake, visit this website which has written instructions and a link to a very helpful video.  Hands over your hearts, everyone.

2.      Two Tiered Flag Cake

A second appearance for the famous flag, this cake is a little more over the top than the previous one.  Although the, er, stars and stripes should have made it obvious, the highly informative stars bursting out of the top leave us in no doubt as to the nationality of this cake.  Follow the link on the picture for this and a host of other very creative Independence Day-themed cakes, although be prepared; if you have an aversion to red, white and blue, give it a miss.

3.      Barack Obama Cake

Can we find a cake in the shape of Barack Obama?  Yes, we can.  In an original but slightly terrifying take on dessert, here is the President presented in cake form.  Although one can only hope that Obama spends his time as deep in thought as this cake’s pensive expression suggests, he might be slightly bemused by this caricature.  Grab some red, white and blue balloons, add a few candles and you have a potential present for the man who has everything: Happy birthday, Mr President!

4.      New York City Three Tiered Cake

Last but by no means least is my personal favourite.  While I generally believe in keeping fruit and cake firmly apart, this representation of the Big Apple is stunning.  From the skyline to the Statue of Liberty, the details make you want to look and look, and I love the cute yellow taxis.  The apple on top even looks good enough to pick up, shine and take a bit out of – assuming it is chocolate, of course.

Eerily Endearing Halloween Ghost Cupcakes

Although the main focus of Halloween is the important task of warding off evil spirits, we all know that its real purpose is to dress up and eat silly amounts of sweets.  And biscuits.  And, of course, cakes.  I had a real trick up my sleeve for this year, thanks to my shiny new cupcake book; super spooky, frighteningly fearsome, eerily enticing ghost cupcakes!

I used the Hummingbird Bakery’s chocolate cupcake recipe, purely because this makes the richest and most mouthwateringly moist cupcakes known to man.  In order to make six ghosts, I made twelve large cupcakes and five smaller ones; this slightly strange numbering came about because, despite my pleading and coaxing, the mixture stubbornly refused to make one more small cupcake.  While I waited for them to cool down completely, I mixed up a quarter of the usual amount of the Hummingbird Bakery’s vanilla icing, adding a few drops of green food colouring for a Halloween effect. 

Then came the construction.  Using one of the large cupcakes that had behaved itself and stayed in its case, I smoothed a layer of icing thick enough to act as glue on the top.  After taking one of the naughtier large cupcakes out of its wrapper, I placed this upside down on the icing.  I put another layer of icing on the upside down cupcake and placed small cupcake, also upside down, on the top.  I then cut a small slice from my block of readymade fondant icing and rolled it out between two sheets of clingfilm until it vaguely resembled a sheet.  Although my Love Food: The Cupcake book suggested smearing icing all over the tower of chocolate cake goodness, I felt this was a bit risky, so I draped the sheet over the tower, and pinched it together slightly to give it more shape.  Using melted chocolate, I carefully drew two eyes and a wiggly mouth on each sheet.

The ghosts did not look particularly scary, but then again it is quite difficult to make something formed mostly of sugar and chocolate look more blood curdling than cuddly.  They were not perfect; a few people thought that the mouths were moustaches, and some of them – the cakes – were rather oddly-shaped.  Still, they were sweet spectres, and devilishly tasty at that.

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

The world has seen many classic couples; Romeo and Juliet, fish and chips, Ben and Jerry, chocolate and chocolate.  This week I decided to explore one such dynamic duo, specifically, one inspired by the culinary geniuses of America: peanut butter and jam.  Such perfect flavouring deserves a perfect medium through which to express its greatness, and what better than the small but mighty cupcake?  

I used the peanut butter cupcake recipe in my tasty new book, Love Food: The Cupcake.  This was supposed to yield sixteen lovely, golden, peanutty cupcakes, but I ended up with fifteen.  I suppose mine were extra large lovely, golden, peanutty cupcakes.  They were extra large, anyway.  Once they had cooled down, I cut a small cone-shaped chunk out of the top and filled the space with as much strawberry preserve as I could jam in before replacing the wedge of cake.

 For the icing, I used the Hummingbird Bakery’s vanilla icing, with two heaped teaspoons of strawberry jam mixed in with a spoon at the end.  As I am currently without a pallet knife (they are on my birthday wish list, the first time any cooking accessory has featured) I piled this on with a spoon and smoothed it out, leaving it a little rough.  I would like to pretend that this was because it looks nice with the big brown peanuts, but it was actually because spoons are not as effective at smoothing out icing as pallet knifes.  I filled a bowl with peanuts and dipped the top of the cakes in them, leaving them with an unhealthily healthy topping.

The famous flavour team did not fail.  The cupcakes tasted very strongly of peanuts, so they are a miss if you don’t really like them that much – but then, if you do not like peanuts very much, you probably will not choose to make these.  The jam in the middle was, I am told, a tasty surprise; the sweetness worked well with the peanuts, and the jam-flavoured icing was sweet without being overpowering.

This delicious double act has joined forces with the humble cupcake to form a tasty new take on an old favourite.  It seems that while some good things result from a perfect pairing, really good things undeniably come in threes. 

Pink Cupcakes for the Blues

With the weekend’s chocolate chip muffins reduced to a few crumbs and an extra layer of insulation, a long and cake-less day loomed before me.  In the four and a half hour gap between lectures, I had to cram in writing an article, reading the text for the lecture, making and eating lunch and some mindless procrastination. Time was not on my side, but my need for cake overpowered my ability to think clearly. I scavenged through my fridge and baking box and found that I had the ingredients for The Hummingbird Bakery’s mouth-wateringly sweet vanilla cupcakes.

I also found a new toy, purchased on Friday and yet to be unleashed on unsuspecting cakes: food colouring.  Bright pink and bright blue kid-in-a-candy-store food colouring.  The bottle, rather handily, came with a sensible lid which allowed only one drop at a time to prevent any pink and blue colour explosions happening.  I mixed six drops of hot pink colouring with the mixture, paused, and added some more.  I was determined that this time these cakes would be undeniably, definitely and positively pink inside.

The picture does not do the pinkness justice; the colour would have made a Barbie convention look shamefully pasty.  The colour did, however, cause a bit of confusion; on biting into it, one found oneself  thinking two things: ‘Mmm, vanilla’ and ‘Why is this cake pink but does not taste like strawberry?’ I like the colour; it was girly and fun just as I had planned. Next time, however, I think I will go for a strawberry-flavoured pink cake, because sometimes expectations are too ingrained and sensible to deny.

The other colourful fun was the blue icing. This did not go quite to plan. It is difficult to mix icing sugar in a bowl without covering the kitchen in a thin but persistent coating of fine, snow-like sweetness, which is tasty and decorative but not universally appreciated. As such, the butter and sugar were not blended as well as they should have been. Also, I threw milk in without checking the amount, because sometimes when you are making icing, your rebellious spirit kicks in and tells you ‘to hell with this need for exactness’. Turns out that although the rebellious spirit knows how to make delicious blue goo, it does not know how to make icing which is not incredibly runny when piped. The piping itself needs work, but the addition of a special pink (purple) Smartie hid this rather well, or at least distracted from it.

Sadly the cakes were not finished in time for me to take them to my last lectures. I had to make do with a massive, overpriced blueberry muffin.  However, I am pleased with the way these turned out; sweet, fun and topped with a special Smartie, they appeal to the inner child that sometimes need appeasing with cake, chocolate and confusing food colouring.

Chocolate Muffins

It got to Friday last week and I realised that I had severely let the team down; I had gone all week without producing any baked goods.  Worse still, all my housemates were going away for the weekend or, in the case of my lovely model Miriam, a whole week.  What if they found someone else to cook for them?  What if they – no, whisper it – bought a cake from a shop?  This is a slightly melodramatic recreation of the situation; they buy things all the time.  Actual, official products which are of a high enough quality that they can be exchanged for real money.  Still, I have a certain pride in my cooking and I felt this lack of baking was remiss of me.  I therefore decided to make something which would be a comfort on their journeys.  Chocolate was of course the solution there, but it also needed to be something sturdy, something that did not require icing and which meant business.  The answer was the classic chocolate muffin; big and strong in its manly muffin case, but still moist and delicious on consumption.

I used the ever-reliable Hummingbird Bakery recipe and they turned out to be a rich, moist and soul-filling delight.  I am still getting to grips with the oven.  We have squabbles over its penchant for cooking cakes at the back left more than the others.  However, with the muffins it was well-behaved, not burning a single one.  The Sainsbury’s own-brand chocolate chunks and Tesco own-brand cocoa powder also go to show that chocolate cake is brand-blind and always willing to please.

Have my housemates been faithful to my baking?  Luckily for Fox biscuits, no, and who can blame them?  They were, however, very grateful for the send off, although most of the cakes did not survive long enough to fuel the actual journeys.  If, as seems to be the case, the path to forgiveness is made of chocolate muffins, I may have to visit it more often.

Triple Chocolate Flake Cupcakes

A bizarre and slightly alarming habit has formed with me since I have taken up baking.  I have found myself buying books.  This in itself is not a personal revolution; as an English and American Literature student, it is a positively encouraged personal trait.  The new and unusual part of this phenomena is that they are baking books.  Where once I perused the fiction section for hours, I now find myself devouring cookbooks before I go to sleep.  I wake up surrounded by books about doughnuts and sponges.  The latest addition to my growing collection is dedicated solely to the delicate and widely variable treats that are cupcakes.

The first recipe I tried was a chocolate cupcake with a melted chocolate centre.  I felt this reflected my motto that adding chocolate to chocolate can never be a bad thing, and, also, I like chocolate.  Instead of using the plain chocolate suggested by the recipe, however, I chopped up a Cadbury’s flake and scattered the crumbs on top of the Hummingbird Bakery’s chocolate icing.

So far so good.  As it turned out, there was only one problem; the chocolate didn’t melt.  Or rather, it may have done, but because I was desperate to ice the cakes I let them cool down and the chocolate solidify.  The mixture also did not quite spread to the recipe’s eight, and I ended up with six instead.  As it happened this was perfect, leaving one cupcake for everyone and enough fridge space for everyone else.  The piping of the icing did not go quite as smoothly as I had envisioned, despite the useful tips in my new book.

Although my basic chocolate logic was correct, the application was problematic. However, this book has proved to be a lovely addition and a source of inspiration for a few upcoming cupcake escapades.

Mississippi Mud Pie

Cupcakes, muffins and doughnuts are all very well, but I felt it was time to attempt something a bit trickier in order to gain favour with my housemates.  As such, I returned to my old nemesis: the Hummingbird Bakery’s Mississippi Mud Pie.

With a glaringly obvious crack down the middle, it was not the most photogenic of pies, but it stood, brave and bare without its cream topping, just a sprinkling of cocoa powder between its crisp surface and complete nakedness. 

Pastry always requires a stern word with the dough and a little prayer to the God of Pastry before it goes in the oven.  Thankfully this time it seemed to work, as it came out short and golden brownish.  The middle involved a mixture of chocolate and golden syrup so that was less of a worry, although next time a small sacrifice to the God of the Top of Pies might make it more even.  Or, failing that, something scientifically accurate.

So was it pie-fect or pie-tiful?  It was described by one housemate as sex in a cake, so this perhaps suggests it is closer to the former.  It was also responsible for a mini fight and a bit of friendly bullying, which is always the response bakers are looking for.  As such, it seems that the mighty Mississippi Mud Pie has at last been mastered.  Let’s hope that it is a permanent victory and that future attempts do not see me eating humble pie.

Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes and Mini Sponges

A few happy coincidences occurred to bring these into existence.  Firstly, I found out that my housemates like cake; but then again, in all honesty, who doesn’t.  Perhaps less predictably, they also like strawberries.  In the final happy twist of fate, the farmers market on campus is selling these sweet, juicy, big red strawberries that taste like heaven in fruit form.  These were all the excuses I needed to whip out The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and make these old favourites again.

There was a slight glitch.  When the cupcakes came out of the oven, they also came out of the cases.  It might have been something to do with the new cases - cheerful colours with white polka dots – but the faithful old white ones also let me down.  This suggests that it was the mixture itself.  The strawberries were extra ripe and a bit squishy, which could have made the cases slip off.  In any case, while some behaved themselves and stayed put it was clear that a rescue mission was in order.

I had never iced cupcakes in that pretty, delicate, swirly way; I usually just slap mounds of it on until there’s a satisfactory cake to icing ratio.  The first few cupcakes were a bit of an experiment, with lopsided results, and the last few were not much better, but with a coating of forgiving digestive biscuits and two well-placed strawberry quarters, they almost looked refined.  Now for the rescue operation.  I decided to make them look like mini strawberry sponge cakes.  I turned them out of the cases so the strawberries were on the top and then covered these in piped icing, digestives and strawberry quarters.  They almost looked deliberate; delicate treats for garden parties, picnics and chilly October days.

So how do you show your supremely supportive, downright delightful and entirely excellent housemates your appreciation?  While others may choose some form of interpretive dance, for me the solution is a piece of cake.  Or maybe just a strawberry.

For Grace, Jonny, Miriam and Tom

Flavour of the Month - October 2011

Everyone knows that the most important part of October is at the end, and that it is just an excuse to dress up, eat treats and generally have a great time.  Halloween will soon be upon us, and there are a couple of goodies I've got my eye on.

Halloween Cupcake Cases

Accessorize, £2.50 for 20

They contain cake, are apparently encased in a bat and are covered in frightfully cheerful-looking skulls: what's not to love about these lovely Halloween cupcake cases? With these in your kitchen, everyone will be wanting a treat.
Buy them here.

Haunted House Cupcake Stand

Accessorize, £10

It's no trick, this clever and kitsch novelty cake stand will set your cupcakes off in fiendishly fun style.  An almost scarily cool centrepiece for any Halloween party.
Buy it here.

Doughnuts

Ah, October; the gentle introduction to winter, the month of mild, crisp mornings and chilly, grey evenings.  The time when you find yourself getting reacquainted with the coat you said goodbye to in March, and thinking about how you quite fancy a pair of those sweet little mitten-gloves, with the Fair Isle pattern that whispers coaxing promises of softness and warmth whenever you pass Accessorize.

At least, that is what October is meant to be like.  Although you wouldn’t think it to look at me (after two weeks in Corfu I’m still so deathly pale that I frighten ghosts), I love sunshine and basking in a belated summery glow as much as the next person; but this is going too far.  So, turning an angry back to the weather, I decided to make a fried dessert, designed to provide slovenly policemen, hungry theme park goers and a particular cartoon character with a healthy layer of winter fat.  All together: mmmm, doughnuts...

In reality, that came out sounding more like: er, doughnuts?  I used the recipe from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes for ‘Bunce’s Doughnuts’, and while they were definitely not revolting, they were also not very much like doughnuts.  A weird mixture between bread and bagels, maybe, but not the irresistible, sugar-drenched, custard-oozing feat of pure, deadly joy that is American doughnuts.  In fairness, it would have been difficult to fit the oozing part in, as the middle was rather taken up with being a hole, but the point still stands that if you are expecting those amazing, melting buns of wild hedonistic delight, this recipe is not for you.  That said, they came out tasting nicely of cinnamon and the texture, although it was different, was still tasty. 

I should probably mentions that there were two separate altercations with two different fire alarms during the frying process, and that from this I have learnt that frying large batches of doughnuts will result in sore eyes, a vexed housemate and a newfound respect for hot oil as a powerful and dangerous enemy.  If you make these and burn yourself on the oil, it may not hurt at the time; it will, so run it under the tap for ten minutes (or some minutes, anyway; I don’t entirely believe anyone has ever held a burnt limb under a cold tap for more than six minutes and seven seconds without getting bored), dry it and put washing up liquid on, as this cools it down.  I also learnt that the better doughnuts were the ones that were rolled the thinnest.  I’m not very good at rolling out dough (I’m way too impatient to wait for it to bend to my will) but I eventually learnt the knack and the extra effort was worth it.

So the doughnuts, like the weather, turned out to be very nice, but still a disappointment for someone expecting something else.  In fairness to the recipe, these are tasty, but a cookbook devoted purely to dangerously unhealthy doughnuts is on its way at the moment.  Sorry to all the super-tanned summer fans out there, but I’ll also be hoping that those sunny, cold, real autumn days are on their way too.

White Chocolate and Strawberry Jam Muffins

I’m told that it is socially acceptable to eat muffins for breakfast, even if they contain very breakfast-unfriendly things.  My love for chocolate is well-documented, and while I approve of chocolate mixed into breakfast things – Coco Pops, Nutella, Coco Pops Munchers – I cannot reconcile lumps of it for breakfast.  However, I decided to put my personal feelings aside and make something that people could eat at breakfast, lunch or dinner.  Or even brunch.  So I settled on muffins; but what kind?  Chocolate seemed obvious (at least to me) and something healthy.  OK, so jam is not that healthy, but it contains fruit and gives lovely gooey centre.

I used the Hummingbird bakery’s recipe for blueberry muffins, then mixed in about half a jar of jam and folded in 200g of chopped up white chocolate.  I spooned the mixture into cases then added a teaspoonful of jam to each one, and popped them in the oven.

They did taste of strawberry jam, so that much was a success.  The problem was that the jam and chocolate chunks sunk to the bottom of the muffins and stubbornly remained there while the rest of the cake obediently left the case.  In fairness, a combination of jam and chocolate doesn’t taste bad, but a combination of jam, chocolate and cake tastes better.  Next time, I will add the jam after the cakes have cooked, in order to guarantee gooey goodness at the centre.  

So they were a miss in terms of the ingredients staying in the cake, but the flavours worked well, turning it into something a bit like a glorified jam sandwich.  And they’re socially acceptable at whatever time of day; right?

Cream Cakes

It was my last dinner at Grandma’s this week, as on Sunday, in a whirlwind of books, bags and baking equipment, I return to university.  I wanted to go out with a flourish, but I couldn’t think what to make.  For days I wavered between an enormous mouth-watering chocolate cake, strawberries and cream pie and a brownie with a layer of cheesecake topped with some kind of yummy raspberry goo.  Sitting in Tom’s kitchen with a mountain of his mum’s recipe books, it came to me: Cream Cakes.  The kind of cakes coated in chocolate which ooze cream in a way that say ‘You know you can’t resist...’  And for this I would need to apply my deeply amateur hand to the dreaded Choux Pastry.

 

I decided to make two batches of these, as the recipe only served eight to ten.  Also this meant I got two chances to get it right.  I put the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off on in the background for a bit of moral support; the remaining fabulous baker girls were each creating a breath-taking croquembouche.  It might have worked because the first batch of pastry turned out to be a surprising success.  My little cakes rose; they were brown, but not burnt; they were not too dry or too wet on the inside; they didn’t sink when I cut into them.  The second batch, it has to be said, were less enthusiastic risers.  They tried valiantly but remained disappointingly flat.  I think the curse of the Spreading, so often seen in my cookies, had struck again because they were suspiciously wide.  Overall, the pastry actually worked.

The delight of success did not last very long, however, as next came the Great Cream Catastrophe.  I was using quite an old recipe which demanded a filling made of double cream, egg whites and sugar.  I had never whipped egg whites before, so in my sad little world that was quite fun.  I folded them into the cream and sugar and waited patiently for the magic to happen.  It didn’t.  The cream would not thicken up and I was left with a delicious disastrous mess to fill the cakes with.  And time was running out.  Luckily, as often happens, Mum came to the rescue.  We grabbed the cakes, chocolate, and Plastic Icing Thing which Tom bought me in Corfu and drove to Grandma’s by way of Sainsbury’s, where we bought emergency whipping cream.

Once disaster had been averted, everyone seemed quite impressed with the little cream cakes.  Hopefully the success was a sign of progress rather beginner’s luck; I suppose the only way to find out is to make them again, although next time I will try to make them look a little less like Elvis...

Mish Mash Cookies

No dessert last week; I was getting my recommended yearly allowance of sun in baking Corfu.  I landed at five in the morning, after a sleepless flight through a lightning storm, arrived home at six and promised my dad that I would make him cookies to take to Cirencester.  After a shower, I watched The Great British Bake Off for a bit of inspiration, and then searched through a couple of recipe books.  I soon realised, however, that there was a problem, and it was a truly severe one.  I had no energy to put on shoes, open the door, lock it, walk for five minutes and actually read food labels, so whatever I used had to be in the house.  Armed with a basic chocolate cookie recipe from Next’s Simply Chocolate recipe book, I hunted through the cupboards and produced: some shrivelled raisins, quite a few slightly dry mini marshmallows, a half-full bag of white chocolate chips and a handful of milk chocolate chips.  I made the mixture and impulsively chucked the lot in and cooked them.

 I don’t have much luck with cookies.  They always seem to spread out into a monster cookie, determined to engulf the baking tray and then The World, or they go crunchy, as in overcooked, and these were no exception.  Luckily they didn’t try for world domination, but unless the photographer was setting them next to a small bucket of coffee, they were definitely bigger than the ones in the book .  When I gave them a prod (with my squeaky clean hands), they were very soft so I put them back in the oven for a bit, until they were firm, and left them to cool, during which time they went very crunchy.  Despite these slight hiccups, the mish mash of ingredients tasted pretty good together; the marshmallows returned to a tasty gooey state, the raisins loosened up a bit, and chocolate chips in chocolate cookies cannot go wrong, even when left in the hands of a sleep-deprived amateur.

Besides all this, Dad liked them; I asked him how they went down and was informed that “I scoffed the lot”.  It seems, therefore, that much like ketchup on toast (don’t knock it until you’ve tried it) and Captain America, this was one experiment that worked out well in the end.

Clown Cake

Originally this was supposed to be Brooklyn Blackout Cake.  You know, that chocolate cake coated in crumbs with the dark, seductive chocolate custard peeking through?  Clearly I was aiming for a broody classic; also quite clearly, it didn’t quite end up like that.  A brief warning: if this is the first post you’ve seen, I would just like to apologise for the poor welcome, and promise that this is the messiest cake on the site (even including the Mississippi Mud Pie.  No, that was definitely worse.)

The recipe for the icing used corn flour, and as this was a spontaneous outburst of cake making I thought that running out to Tesco would ruin my creative flow.  In other words, I didn’t fancy going out in the rain.  Besides this was the first time in a while that I was making a cake that had no specific recipients; I only had to please myself, and that meant that Mum wasn’t there to protest against bright colours.  As such I turned into a child and covered the whole thing with yellow vanilla icing and pink stripes.  I made the vanilla icing with the Hummingbird recipe, but I have to confess that I cheated with the pink.  Tom’s mum, knowing that I love pink and I love baking, bought me some pink ready-made icing.  And I hadn’t used it: until today.  Gone was my enticing chocolate vision, replaced with a colourful, fun-filled mess.  I based the colours on those Party Ring biscuits that appeared at every party you went to when you were about seven, the ones that scream ‘EAT ME BECAUSE I’M FUN!’  It looks like a seven year old decorated it; I’m willing to claim that this was the intention.

The layers of chocolate cake came out moist and crumbly, and they tasted better than I had thought they would with the vanilla icing.  There are supposed to be three layers to this cake; I was using 21cm tins instead of the recipe’s 20cm, and the mixture didn’t spread as far as I thought it would.  This didn’t make too much difference, although it would have looked cooler.

So the piping needs work and the yellow is a bit anaemic; it tasted good and my inner child was delighted.

Maltesers Cupcakes

As I mentioned in my previous post, I made two lots of cakes this week.  Coconut is a rather divisive subject in my family; much like marzipan, carrots and those little green gherkins in McDonald’s burgers, everyone has strong views on it.  In order to please everyone, I decided to give them two options.  I had been itching to try the coconut cakes, but I didn’t want the poor, deluded coconut haters to feel neglected.  With this in mind, I decided to take something tasty – the classic chocolate cupcake – and mix it with another treat; the long-term snack-time favourites that are the mighty Maltesers

In truth, I was in a bit of puzzle over which flavour base would fully show off that taste which is unique to Maltesers.  I initially thought of vanilla, which would give them a chance to show off their chocolate malty flavour, but in the end I decided that the only flavour which can truly support chocolate is chocolate.  With this in mind, I used the Hummingbird bakery’s Hazelnut and Chocolate Cupcakes recipe to create the chocolate base, but instead of adding Nutella to the middle, I blended about 110g of Maltesers until they were roughly the size of chocolate chips and folded them in just before spooning the mixture into cases.  I also mixed half a teaspoon of vanilla essence with the milk, just for a bit of extra Maltesers flavour.

The results were interesting.  I was imagining crunchy little lumps of Maltesers.  In reality, the chocolate and malt melted in the mixture.  While this was not quite what I was aiming for, it did give them quite a unique taste.  The icing, again from the every trustworthy Hummingbird bakery, was just more chocolate, which my inner child tells me can only be a good thing.  Next time I would probably add a white chocolate swirl to the top of the icing, just for a contrast, but I think these successfully promise the Maltesers feast they were created to be.  

Don't like coconut?  It's not your fault.  These chocolate treats will unite both nutters and notters; just don't let us eat them all.

Coconutters Cupcakes

As everyone is uncomfortably aware, September has well and truly shoved what is known as summer out of the way in order to drench us all with rain, chill us to the bone and then promptly blow us away.  In order to inject some last summer joy into proceedings, I went with the Hummingbird bakery’s coconut-flavoured cupcakes this week.  It perhaps says something about the English summer that to remind everyone of sunshine, I chose a fruit which cannot grow in England.

This week, Tom and I decided to be adventurous; rather than use coconut milk from a tin, we bought two real live furry coconuts and proceeded to dismantle them with nothing but our determination, wits and bare hands.  Well, sort of.  We had to use YouTube to look up the proper way to make holes in the coconut and how to break it in two (see the links at the bottom of the post), which is actually disappointingly simple.  The recipe called for 120ml of coconut milk, which we got out of one coconut, with a little extra left over.  The other one is sitting rather nervously by the sink, having watched its friend being stabbed through the eyes with a screwdriver, drained of its milk and then hammered until it split into two and had its innards gouged out.  I ended up using all the milk, as the mixture didn’t really taste particularly coconutty, but even this didn’t give it much flavour.  Elsewhere in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook there is a recipe for a large coconut cake, which explains how to grate coconut.  I cooked the two halves at 170 degrees for fifteen minutes, then spent ages attempting to grate the flesh.  In the end I gave up on the adventurous way, and used desiccated coconut from a bag.  The cakes didn’t taste overwhelmingly of coconut, but at least the desiccated coconut gave it the familiar texture.

For the topping I used, predictably, the Hummingbird bakery’s chocolate icing and more desiccated coconut.  When I had thought about which flavour to go for, I remembered Bounty bars, which was probably the first food I ate which contained coconut, and opted for chocolate.  The recipe calls for a lot of icing sugar; 300g for one batch of twelve cakes.  As I was making two loads of cakes (see the Maltesers Cupcakes) I thought I would be stingy and make one and three quarters worth of the icing to divide between both.  I started with three quarters of the original recipe, and this spread to enough for both batches of cakes.  I love their icings; this one had a lip-lickingly delicious chocolate taste, which worked well with the understated sweetness of the cakes. 

These cakes turned out to be somewhat lacking in the summery coconut punch I wanted, a bit like the weather.  Next time I will leave the coconut, screwdriver and hammer to one side, and use tinned coconut milk instead.  (Tin openers are quite adventurous, aren’t they?  The way you pull them apart, that confident, scissor-action, could almost be reminiscent of a Swiss Army knife, plus you have to avoid cutting your fingers on the edge of the lid when you throw it away.)  The desiccated coconut did give the cakes texture, and they were nice and light.  The chocolate worked well with the flavouring, and I quite like the colours together.  The original recipe used pineapple rings, which maybe would have given it more flavour, but that’s an exotic twist for another time.

If you fancy a glimpse of summer, these cakes will add a ray of sunshine to a gloomy day; just don’t get too adventurous.

If you still want to live on the edge and use milk straight from the coconut, find out how to drain a coconut here, on a website with the most self-explanatory domain name ever.

If having drained the coconut you want to break it in half and eat its insides (or clap the two halves together to make horse sounds), find out how to do this here.