Cinnamon Churro Cupcakes for Cinco de Mayo

Today is Cinco de Mayo, a day of celebration for Mexicans worldwide and I decided to celebrate with a churro cupcake.

Instead of just making a cupcake and shoving a churro on top, I decided to try and recreate the flavour of a churro in cupcake form.

I used my favourite vanilla recipe and substituted the usual caster sugar with a the cinnamon sugar I picked up in Waitrose. I also added some more fairtrade cinnamon to taste as I wanted it to be quite cinnamon'y.

I then topped them with some sugar frosting, inspired by something I read in my Who you Calling Cupcake book. Basically normal frosting with some sugar folded into it. I opted to use the cinnamon sugar again and it was actually quite nice but incredibly sweet.

Now as you know churros are only good when you dunk them into a load of chocolate (or if you're lucky and in Wahaca a tequilla chocolate shot - yum), so I drizzled them with some lovely Green and Blacks melted chocolate and behold..churro cupcakes.

So how were they? One word sums them up - sweet!! Two words is even better - too sweet. Manny really enjoyed the cake part, and it was nice and moist, but a little too sweet for me. Also while the sugar gave the frosting a good crunchy effect of biting into a churro, it was also a little too sweet, although this was offset by the bitterness of dark chocolate. Not a cupcake I'd make again, but it was worth an experiment and great if you have a sweet tooth - Manny ate two!  Next time I'll stick to a Mexican hot chocolate cupcake!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo!

A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise

The Love Bakery book is fast becoming my favourite cupcake book. If I fancy baking something different it is definitely my go to book at the moment. The recipes are incredibly easy to follow, don't require lots of strange ingredients (well buttermilk but I don't consider that strange anymore) and the cakes I've made from it have all been a success, which I can't say for many other cookbooks I have!

I first made these cupcakes last week on a whim after work when I'd had a bit of a shitty day and needed cheering up. They were very tasty, however not quite right as I was missing one vital ingredient, honey for the frosting, so decided to re-bake them yesterday to see how they tasted when made properly. There is only once word to describe them - DELICIOUS.

All pretty in it's gingham case (from Sainsburys)

gasp...naked! 

The cake is a pretty basic cupcake with two apples (peeled and grated) added to the batter, which makes the cake incredibly moist. I used some plump Pink Lady apples as they're my favourite but you could use any apple you like. It also has a generous amount of cinnamon and this really brings out the apple in the cake.

I'm not a great fan of honey (even though my husband insists I should be because I love Winnie the Pooh so much) so when I tried the honey cinnamon frosting yesterday I was a little disappointed in it as it tasted a bit too honey-ish for me (go figure - it had 2 x tbsp of honey in it!) and had decided that if I were to make these again, I'd frost with custard frosting instead. However, when I came back from work today I had one with a cup of tea and the honey-taste had mellowed a bit and was much nicer. Or maybe I'm just growing to like it? In fact I much preferred this, the proper frosting, to my vanilla version I did it with the first time. Also the cake is still very fresh and moist. This recipe is definitely one I'd recommend -  an all round fabulous cupcake for the colder months of the year.

 First attempt with a vanilla frosting

naked vanilla frosted cupcake

You can get the Love Bakery book from The Book People for the bargain price of £4.99. 

As wonderful as these cupcakes are, before you bake a batch and sit down with a pot of tea to scoff them all remember the wise words of Pooh “When having a smackerel of something with a friend, don't eat so much that you get stuck in the doorway trying to get out.”