I thought I’d show you some of the cakes I made with my sister for Easter. We made raspberry cupcakes with whipped dark chocolate ganache icing and some corn flake cakes. I was going to post the recipe for the cupcakes but they didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped which I think was because my dads oven is a bit useless, but might have been because I sort of made the recipe up as I went! I’ll try them again soon in a different oven before I post a recipe for you.
Here is the recipe for some cupcakes I made this weekend – banana cupcakes with Nutella icing. I wouldn’t normally have chosen to make banana cake but I had some left which had too many brown spots to eat so thought this would be a good way to use them up! I decided to use Nutella in the icing because I love Nutella and banana on toast so thought that it could taste even better in cake form!
Ingredients
For the cakes…..
115g self raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
115g margarine
60g golden caster sugar
60g caster sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 large banana, mashed
1tsp mixed spice
For the icing…..
100g butter
200g icing sugar
1 tbsp Nutella
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4 and put 6 muffin cases in a muffin tray.
2. Cream the margarine and sugar in a mixing bowl until fluffy.
3. Gradually add the eggs to the mixture, beating after each addition.
4. Mix in the mashed banana and spice.
5. Fold in the flour gently, with the baking powder.
6. Share out the mixture evenly into the cases and then bake for 20 to 25minutes.
7. To make the icing, cream the butter and then gradually mix in the icing sugar. Lastly add the Nutella.
8. Once the cakes are cool, pipe or dollop the icing on top.
Over the weekend I made cupcakes for the first time in months! I went with an old recipe I had for cranberry and orange cupcakes which you can see here and I topped the cakes with Renshaw’s Strawberry Simplymelt Buttons. These come in a plastic pouch which goes in the microwave for melting. Once that’s done, you just cut the corner off the pouch and pour onto your cakes. It’s a really quick and easy way to ice your cakes, although the strawberry flavour is quite strong so might go better with plain vanilla cakes. You can buy Simplymelt Buttons in a few different flavours at Lakelands – £1.59 for 200g.
I made these cupcakes over the weekend. They were a bit of an experiment because I wanted to try out some food colouring paste my housemate had leant me. I didn’t really have many of the ingredients for the actual Orange & Cranberry Cupcakes recipe I found so I made my own version…… They worked well though and Nick said they were the best I’ve made in a while! I’m definitely going to get some food colouring pastes – they are so much better than the liquid stuff!
Ingredients
For the cakes…..
115g self raising flour
½ tsp baking powder
115g margarine
115g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
Zest of one orange
100g dried cranberries
1 tsp ground cinnamon
For the icing…..
100g butter
200g icing sugar
Zest of ½ orange
Purple food colouring
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C / 350°F / Gas Mark 4 and put 6 muffin cases in a mufffin tray.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
3. Whisk the eggs together in a mug using a fork and then add gradually to the mixing bowl, beating after each addition.
5. Mix in the orange zest, cinnamon and cranberries.
6. Fold in the flour gently.
7. Share out the mixture evenly into the cases and then bake for 20 to 25minutes.
8. To make the icing, cream the butter and then gradually mix in the icing sugar. Finally mix in the orange zest.
9. Once the cakes are cool, pipe or dollop the icing on top.
These chocolate cupcakes are made using beetroot which gives them a really rich flavour. I found the recipe in my latest cookbook Prepped! I usually love using buttercream icing so I was a bit unsure about using cream instead but it actually made a nice change and tasted delicious.
This recipe makes 12 muffin sized cakes
Ingredients
For the cakes……
150g self raising flour
50g cocoa powder
190g caster sugar
1tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
100ml rapeseed oil
200g cooked beetroot
For the topping……
300ml double cream
3 tbsp icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Black pepper to taste
Method
1. Preheat oven to 170°C (Gas mark 3) and put 12 muffin cases in a tray
2. Mix dry ingredients in one bowl. Grate the beetroot and try and drain as much of the liquid as possible. In another bowl whisk the eggs and then add the oil and beetroot.
3. Mix both bowls together.
4. Add mixture to the muffin cases and bake for 25 minutes.
5. Once the muffins have cooked, leave them on a wire rack to cool while you make the topping.
6. Whip the double cream with the icing sugar and vanilla extract until thick. Also grind in some black pepper – the amount will depend on your tastes so just keep adding until you think it tastes ok.
7. The book suggests cutting the top of the cakes off, filling the hold with cream, cutting the detached cake in half and sticking the halves on top of the cream as wings. That is what I tried to do but my wings don’t look as good as the book! You could just use the cream as a topping but obviously that’s up to you.
8. Your cupcakes are ready to eat – I’m a little bit obsessed with edible glitter so I did add some red glitter before serving!
Last weekend, I went to London for the day with my friend Alice to go to a cupcake decorating course. Alice is getting married next year and is planning on making a cupcake wedding cake so we were hoping to get some ideas! After lunch and an afternoon of sightseeing, we made our way to The Thistle Hotel Westminster where the course was being held.
The course was run by The Cocoa Box which holds a few different cupcake and chocolate classes. Our course was called the Cupcake and Cocktails class so we were welcomed with a delicious cocktail! As we only had two hours, we didn’t actually bake any cupcakes, just decorated some which had been made for us. We tried various different icings, learnt how to use each type and were given recipes for both the cakes and icing.
What do you think of our cakes?
The course was great fun so if you want to learn how to do cupcakes then I’d definitely recommend it. I’d love to try the chocolate course too!
I adapted this recipe from my new recipe book Prepped.
I did have to improvise a bit as I didn’t have all of the ingredients but they still turned out ok, if lacking a bit in lavender flavour!
Two of our friends got engaged last week so me and Nick made them some engagement cupcakes……..
Congratulations Alice and Paul!!!
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