Easter Cupcakes

Spring is in the air! Not that you would know it here this weekend as we are being rained out of it!! Easter weekend has been a mixture of sunny spells and bucketing, window washing, rivers on every path style rain! Needless to say we have been hiding from it quite a bit, although we got drenched once!

None-the-less there is a sense of renewed life and new beginnings around the place as the country heats up and the flowers tentatively poke their heads out. Birds are singing in the trees and even between the downpours the sun shines brighter than before.

It has been a mixed week for me this week. I had a visit from a friend that moved away last year, which reminded me of things lost. I also had my final lecture in my doctorate; which feels like both an ending and a beginning. Finally we had Easter this weekend which is all about endings and beginnings. So everything seems distinctly meaningful, somehow.

In the presence of all these endings, it's not unusual to feel sad or perhaps at a loss as to what is coming next. I certainly feel excited about my future but there is an undeniable amount of uncertainty but I think that uncertainty can be a useful feeling to sit with, though daunting. I found myself processing these changes and struggling to write anything useful or insightful (not that my other blogs are always useful or insightful but still). So I thought I would show you the mini cupcake platter I prepared for my fellow doctoral candidates and show you how I put together the center piece.

The icing here is a swiss meringue buttercream to which I added 3-4 tablespoons of raspberry coulis for colour and flavour. All the surrounding roses are made using a star tip and a swirl but the central rose is a little more complicated. I assembled three cupcakes as shown below -

Then I used the rose piping technique demonstrated in this video from cakestyle - http://cake.style/2016/03/22/buttercream-rose-mini-cakes/

I really like her rose piping technique but I prefer the narrower base as I feel it gives a more dramatic effect. This piping technique is relatively easy given a little practice and a moderately steady hand (I was shaking like crazy when I piped these - too much emotion/adrenaline/caffeine). As you can see I finished these roses off with a dusting of edible gold leave but that is totally optional. Another possibility would be to add an extra stripe of coulis to your piping bag and give more depth to your colour. So if you want to do this I would say to play around and have fun!

So that's it, and then all you have to do it protect your masterpiece from thieves but this is more difficult than you might imagine ;)

The Low Fat, Low Calorie Cupcake to end all cupcakes

The title of this post is bold. I am very aware of that but I stand behind this cupcake. It is my baby and it took some making but it is for everyone I have every met, known and loved who like my baking but have to say no because they are trying to eat healthy. These said same people usually give out to me for making too many delicious goodies that they cannot resist but subsequently regret when face with a pair of skinny jeans.

 To be fair they are complimenting me and I do appreciate it but I feel bad too. As a fellow workout and health food fanatic (50% of the time) I understand how they feel and I want to ease any guilt associated with enjoying my creations and hence..... the 80kcal cupcake.

80kcals!! Frosting and all

There is no mad mystery to this cake though. It's a simple alteration to a recipe that Alton Brown actually uses in his cupcake episode of 'Good Eats,'- Chiffon. This is not the cake recipe that most people use,or that I would normally use but it is perfect for health conscious individuals as it contains less flour and butter than most cakes.

The frosting is a meringue frosting and again this is a favourite among healthy types for it's use of egg whites. I injected some of my homemade strawberry jam into the centre for a little extra flavour and moisture in the centre. The overall theme was strawberries and meringue as these were made for an 'End of Summer,' party.

Strawberry and Meringue guilt-free Cupcakes

• 150g flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 large eggs
• 5/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 75g Caster Sugar
• 10g Stevia
• 60ml cup water
• 60ml  melted butter
• 1.5 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Preheat your oven to 170F/325C/Gas Mark 4. Then sieve together your flour, baking powder and salt. Seperate your eggs carefully and then beat the yolks with the stevia and 50g of the sugar until it is light and ribbons. Add the butter, vanilla, flour mixture and water and beat until incorporated.

In a seperate clean bowl, whisk together the egg whites and cream of tartar until you have soft peaks. Slowly pour in the 25g of sugar until it has been fully dissolved. Then add this meringue mixture to the rest of the ingredients and fold in. Spoon into cupcake cases and bake for 20-30mins.

Meringue Frosting  

•  5 large egg whites
• 5/8 tsp cream of tartar
• 50g caster sugar
• 8g Stevia
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp strawberry flavouring
• 30ml water

Put all the ingredients in a heat-proof bowl and beat with an electric mixer. Heat a saucepan half full of water until it has reached a simmer. Submerge the bottom of your mixing bowl and continue to beat. Remove from the saucepan when all the sugar crystals have dissolved. Continue to beat for another 15 minutes until the mixture is light and smooth, like a normal meringue. Be careful not to over-beat (as you can see, I took it slightly slightly too far in this picture.)


Assembling your cupcakes and finishing touches

Once your cupcakes have cooled. Inject a small amount of home-made low sugar jam into each cupcake.

Almost there, resist the urge to dig in!

Then pipe a peak of meringue onto each cupcake and toast this using a blow-torch or even a carefully watched grill! Dust your cupcakes in a finally sprinkle of icing sugar and then stand-back and admire your......oh.......you're eating them already?! Fair enough ;)

Enjoy!

Nutritional Info - 1cupcake = approx. 80Kcals, 10g carbs, 2.5g protein & 100% awesome

Cupcake week - Roasted peaches and cream boutiques

Recently I have been working together with decidedlydelicious to experiment with different recipes and learn from one another. It has really been very enjoyable and educational too. This week was Cupcake Week UK and food network are celebrating it with lots of episodes of cupcake wars and .... a competition for..... a food processor? =/ Well it's ok they are promoting this amazing celebration/competition with the amazing and inspiration YOLO.......erm........? Sorry, sorry rant over, regardless I want to join in this celebration and therefore we offer these tiny celebratory cakes that would be very appropriate as little boutique wedding tokens or just tiny treats for any time.

Roasted Peaches and Creme Boutiques

(inspired by peaches and cream cupcakes from the Hummingbird Cafe)

6 Peaches chopped into cubes
2 table spoons vanilla caster sugar (or just ordinary caster sugar)
30g Butter
1 Cup/125g Sugar
1 cup/125g Flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
20ml Cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
100ml Milk

Preheat your oven to 200' F/400' C/ Gas Mark 6.  Sprinkle your vanilla caster sugar over your peaches and toss them before roasting for 30 minutes or until soft inside and caramelized outside. Reduce the oven to 180'F/350' C/Gas Mark 4

Line your cupcake tins and insert peaches into each case.

Beat together the flour, baking and soda powders, sugar and butter  until you have bread-crumb consistency. Slowly pour in the cream and then start beating. As you beat this add another 40ml of the milk until the mixture is creamy and smooth. 




Whisk together the rest of the milk with the egg and vanilla and then slowly (watch for splashes at this point) beat this into the dough. Once everything is incorporated scoop the mixture over the peaches and bake for 15-20 minutes on a middle shelf.

Once the cupcakes have cooled ice them with a fluffy vanilla buttercream in tiny rosettes patterns

 

This recipe as mentioned was inspired and adapted from the Hummingbird Peaches and Cream Cupcake. Their style of cupcake baking is very different and having attempted it I was surprised to see how light and fluffy my cake came out, even with our alterations.

For future attempts I would possibly put the peaches in half way through the cupcake as we found that the fruit sometimes detached from the cake and with these particular cupcakes, where we used the IKEA muffin tin to achieve the slender height of a boutique there was possibly too much cake between the fruit and the icing. That said however, these are delicious and were very well received in this house so please enjoy =)

Brown Bear Cupcakes

It has been a while since I have actually eaten chocolate, 12 days precisely. Therefore I must eat vicariously through my blog. A few weeks ago I wanted to make a cupcake for the Dr Oetker Cupcake competition. I slightly mis-interpreted the aims of the competition but I am still happy with what I achieved, so this is what I achieved using Dr Oetker products only, btw this is not sponsored or anything like that (I wish, right?) but it needed to be mentioned since the parameters were relevant to the process.

Brown Bear Cupcakes

These might better be described as snack-cakes. They are half-way between a cupcake and a brownie and they were inspired by my sweet and wonderful bf who was completely obsessed with the Bears in Berlin (Dr Oetker german connection, get it?!) and you likes chocolate but also likes to be able to have more than one without feeling greedy. Therefore these are smaller than normal cupcakes and lighter than normal brownies. However they do have a little fudge center, kinda - remember the parameters but they turned out more like little fudge chips, that were amazing delicious!!

 

Brown Bear Cupcakes

125g Butter

150g Caster Sugar

50ml yoghurt

1 whole Egg

2 Egg Yolks

200g Plain white cake flour

75g Cocao Powder

1 teaspoon Baking powder

20ml espresso

150g dark chocolate chips

100g mini fudge pieces

Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4. Beat together your butter and Sugar until light and fluffy. In seperate bowls sieve your dry ingredients together, adding the chocolate chips after sieving, and beat together your eggs, yoghurt and coffee. Then add the wet and dry ingredients and mix only enough to combine, the muffin method if you will.

Line your muffin tin with cupcake liners and spoon in your mixture. These cakes are designed to be snack cakes so only spoon in 1 tablespoon of mixture to each. Then place 4-5 fudge pieces into the center of each mixture and cover these with the mixture as shown below.

Bake for15-20 minutes or until a toothpick (NB - placed in the side) comes out clean. Turn them out to cool on a wire wrack. What you now have are delicious little brownie 2 bite cupcakes with a fudgie center and my bf says they are really good just as they are but I'm a perfectionist I need to decorate them.

 

To decorate these I used a range of Dr Oetker products including their easy swirl icing canister, silver simmer spray and golden balls. However to make them my own I also had to include this little wooden looking bear stamp.I made circles from fondant and stamped them with a bear stamp we bought in germany last Christmas. I let them dry and then, using a course brush, painted them with brown food colouring gel and water mixed. They came out quite well I think and added an interesting little touch. I would recommend you try this recipe and decorate whatever way you like. Enjoy.

One has been stolen already, trust me they go fast!