Home » Posts tagged "Cupcakes"

Rachel’s

May 3, 2012

Helena

On Tuesday, I handed in my final year project report and today, the poster and website to go with it! After months of work it feels weird that it’s all done (and scary, it’s worth quite a lot of my degree!). You’d think I’d be out celebrating but no, I’ve got more coursework due in tomorrow! I’ve literally had no time recently to buy/use/review anything exciting but a few weeks ago I was sent a load of products from Rachel’s to try out, so even if I didn’t have time to shop, I did have time to eat!
There was way too much for me to eat on my own so the girls I live with helped me out and we’re all in agreement, we love Rachel’s! I’m not going to review each product separately as there’s only so much you can say about yogurt but we were really surprised by lots of the flavours. I wasn’t at all sure about the coconut yogurts but they actually have a perfect balance of coconut and fruit so are really tasty. The breakfast yogurts are good for mornings when you are in a rush and they are also quite filling because of the granola.

The big tubs are a good size for sharing but seeing as we had so much, and I had a cake craving, I decided to attempt to make yogurt cupcakes. They turned out quite well but I haven’t got any photos because I didn’t ice them (no time!) so they didn’t look like anything special. I used the Apple and Elderflower yogurt which gave the cakes a sweet, delicate flavour. I reckon they are also much better for you than normal cake as there is hardly any butter and the yogurt is low fat. You could use any of the yogurt flavours (I might try some blackcurrant ones with the leftover blackcurrant yogurt next, I love the colour!) and some of them are fat free so would be even healthier! Here’s the recipe in case you want to try them….
Ingredients

250g self raising flour
200g caster sugar
225ml Rachel’s Apple and Elderflower Yoghurt
50 g butter
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Mix the butter and sugar to a breadcrumb consistency. Beat in the yogurt. Then fold in the flour and bicarbonate of soda. Split into cupcake cases and bake for around 15 minutes. (I ended up with loads of cakes – 11 normal sized ones and about 12 mini ones).

Out of all the products I was sent, my favourite would have to be the rice puddings. They are the nicest, creamiest, non homemade rice puddings I’ve ever had in the world!

Rachel’s products are all made using locally sourced organic ingredients and are available in supermarkets throughout the country.

Banana & Nutella Cupcakes

February 20, 2012

Helena

1 comment

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.

Strawberry Icing

February 6, 2012

Helena

1 comment

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.

Cranberry & Orange Cupcakes

November 2, 2011

Helena

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.

Purple Cupcakes

October 30, 2011

Helena

Yummy chocolate cakes with purple icing!

Chocolate, Vanilla & Black Pepper Cupcakes

October 11, 2011

Helena

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!

Multicoloured Cupcakes

September 24, 2011

Helena

3 comments

Friday was my last day in work so I made some colourful cupcakes inspired by Jennie.

Cupcakes & Cocktails!

September 23, 2011

Helena

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?