Viva! The Elvis

Yesterday would've been Elvis Presley's 76th birthday and I decided what better time for me to conquer my fear of baking with bacon and make The Elvis.

The Elvis cupcake is based on a sandwich which was a favourite of his, the peanut butter, banana and bacon.

It's a pretty simple cupcake to make; a moist banana cupcake base, covered in lots of crunchy peanut butter frosting, with a chunk of streaky bacon to decorate. When I went to Ginger Pig to buy a couple of rashers of streaky they were suspicious of me till I told them it was to decorate cupcakes.

The base recipe if from the Love Bakery cookbook, and while it's very nice it makes rather massive cupcakes. Mine overflowed slightly leading to a bit of an uneven topping to frost onto. The frosting is some vanilla frosting with peanut butter added to taste - quite a lot of peanut butter. It was rather thick and the first attempt at frosting was a disaster, so I had to thin it out slightly with some milk. It still wouldn't go through my favourite nozzle, the 1M, so I had to use the biggest one I have which I'm not so keen on and it didn't make a pretty topping, so in the end, after contemplating, What Would Elvis Do?, we decided just to slap it on, or if you prefer, rustically apply the frosting to the cupcake Elvis style! Not the prettiest cupcakes, but how did they taste?

I let Manny taste the first one, incase it was as disgusting as my previous taste of bacon cupcakes at Batch in New York, and I have to agree with his verdict, bacon goes much better with peanut butter than it does with chocolate. I actually managed to swallow, something I didn't with the bacon/chocolate combo. While it tasted okay I don't really think it added much to the cupcake and ate the rest without bacon, Manny however scoffed two, with extra bacon. Oink.

If you want to make some other Elvis inspired recipes check out Fit for a King, The Elvis Presley Cookbook.

Can you keep a secret?

Firstly let me apologise for my photos - I still haven't replaced my broken camera so am relying on a pretty crappy phone camera - sorry - I hope to get a new camera this weekend.

I was approached via email a couple of days ago by We are Social asking if I was interested to receive a cupcake with a mystery ingredient

Given your expertise, we’d like to put your taste buds to the test by sending you one of them to try out as soon as they arrive. Rest assured there are no nasty surprises in store!

I was intrigued so gave them my work address and waited patiently for my cupcake. It arrived today much to the delight of our reception girls -they were ever so excited by the little mysterious note on it. I took a pic of the cupcake all nicely wrapped on  the kitchen table at work -  I should've incorporated more of our view in the photo - we have a wonderful view from our office.

Here's the cupcake slightly squished from a bit of a horrific journey home on the bus. Sorry cupcake. Still quite a pretty looking cupcake - and it had glitter on (my camera picks up naff all but it was there I promise), and I do like a cupcake with glitter on.

I spent a while sniffing it before eating it. Mainly to check it wasn't anything gross. I meant to confirm with them there was no seafood in there just incase I nearly died after a bite but I forgot. After a good five minute sniff I decided it definitely wasn't seafood. I could however smell something a little unpleasant but difficult to place. Not something sweet. Not something that should be in a cupcake.

I unwrapped it and it was quite an orangey/red colour with flecks of red in it. I got a bit excited that it may be chilli. It wasn't. I took a little nibble. Not a lot of flavour if I'm honest. But a massive lingering after taste of something wrong. I gave it 10 minutes (could still taste something) and went back for some more. By now I'd pretty much decided on either tomato soup or tomato ketchup from the after taste. I actually tried to make some tomato cupcakes on Sunday using the recipe from Baked and there was a similar after taste, although my tomato cupcakes were incredibly tomato'y and bright red so the after effects were much worse.

I had a little bit of the frosting to see if there was anything secret in there but it seemed to be cream cheese frosting and nothing else - very sweet though.

All in all the cake wasn't very appetising. The base was quite dry and the top was too sweet. And the odd smell was a little off-putting.

I shall post back when I find out what the secret ingredient is and why we were chosen to test these cupcakes.

In the meantime - what's the weirdest thing you've had in a cupcake? Or the weirdest thing you'd like to try and bake with? I think mine is still the bacon cupcake from Batch...shudder.

Oh and thanks to We are Social for thinking of me!

Update 9th Oct: I got an email yesterday from We are Social - the secret ingredient was indeed tomato ketchup so I was (kind of) correct! It is part of Heinz's Secret Ingredient campaign and the recipe for the Tomato Ketchup Cake can be found here (it's for a cake rather than cupcakes but you can adapt if you wish).

Who you callin' cupcake?

I got this book last week, all the way from the US of A as Amazon UK kept mucking me about (after having it on pre-order for months) and it actually worked out cheaper to get it from Amazon.com, and only took a week or so to get to me!

I've not baked from it yet but had to let fellow cupcakers know that I've seen it for just over £7 on W.H Smith's website so grab it while you can.

The book is Michelle and Vinny Garcia owners of The Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago - the bakery they opened "with the mission of providing thought provoking pasty as delicious and beautiful as it is cutting edge."

The book is divided up into sections featuring approx 100 different variations in all.

Anarchy in the cupcake pan has all the basic cake and frosting recipes you'll need (lots are vegan but can be adapted accordingly if you'd rather use butter).

Happy Hour includes recipes for boozy cupcakes like Strawberry Daiquiri, Bloody Mary and the gorgeous sounding Chocolate Cherry Stout. I wish I'd had a chance to read it pre-Iron Cupcake as the recipe for lime tequila might've helped me! (If you check out the review at Tasting Table you can access an exclusive copy of this recipe).

Some of the more unusual cupcakes are featured in the World Tour section including Tandoori, Curry Cardamom and Oaxacan cupcakes.

There are also some meaty recipes in The Blue Plate Section including bacon peanut butter and bbq pork, and some non-meat with root beer float and mountain dew.

Farm to Table has strawberry shortcake and coconut mango and lots of other gorgeous fruity cupcake recipes.

Choc-o-Matic has (you guessed it) lots of choc-tastic recipes including one dedicated to Slash formerly of Guns 'n' Roses and one that looks and sounds right up Manny's street - chocolate decadence.

I want Candy has lots of American candy based cupcakes including the previously mentioned Chocolate Turtle, S'mores and Snickerdoodles.

The final chapter Shut your Pie Hole is dedicated to cupcakes based on pie recipes such as blueberry peach crumble and lemon meringue.

Lots of the cupcakes use the basic recipes from the first chapter but then talks you through additions needed for that particular recipe. As I said I've not baked from it yet but I do plan to this weekend and of course shall let you know how I get on. The recipes look fairly straightforward and easy to follow and even without baking from it I'd say this book is a must for any cupcake lover if only for the unusual recipes!

The Big Swap

Fair Trade Fortnight starts on Monday and if you've not already embraced Fair Trade why not start with The Big Swap. The website lists a vast amount of things you can swap to Fair Trade, from baking goods and cotton to real ale and wines, making it easy to choose Fair Trade instead of your usual :)

The Fairtrade mark is the only independent consumer label that ensures farmers in developing countries receive an agreed and stable price for the crops they grow that covers the cost of sustainable production... so it deserves support. And its so easy - brands like Tate and Lyle and Green and Blacks (my chocolate of choice for baking who have just announced they're going 100% Fair Trade) feature on there, and so do a wealth of other baking ingredients so its easy to make that little change, which won't cost you much but will make a world of difference to someone else.

To celebrate Tate and Lyle have allowed me to share a couple of recipes created by Lily Vanilli for them- if you make them please let me know, and send pics! I might give the Devil's Food cupcakes a go but as readers of my blog know I do not enjoy bacon on my cupcakes!

Lily Vanilli’s Fairtrade Bacon and Banana Cupcakes

4 rashers unsmoked organic back bacon

150g ripe Fairtrade bananas (approx 2 small)

60g Fairtrade honey

100g unsalted organic butter (at room temperature)

40g Tate & Lyle Fairtrade caster sugar

140g organic plain flour (sifted)

1/2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

2 large, free-range organic eggs (at room temperature)

Handful Fairtrade Brazil nuts (toasted & chopped)

1/2 tsp grated Fairtrade nutmeg

1/2 tsp Fairtrade ground cinnamon

12 paper cupcake cases

1. Lay rashers of bacon on a foil lined sheet and place in a cold oven with the temperature set to 200c for approx 20 mins or until crispy. Allow to cool

2. Turn heat down to 180c

3. Mash bananas with honey in a small bowl and set aside

4. Sift together all the dry ingredients into a large bowl - flour, sugar, baking powder, salt

5. Cut butter into small chunks and add to the dry ingredients, blend with an electric mixer on medium speed until evenly incorporated

6. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition

7. Mix in the banana/honey mixture, spices and Brazil nuts to taste

8. Spoon into cupcakes cases, filling almost to the top

9. Bake in preheated oven for 15 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean

10. Remove and leave to cool in the pans for approx 3 mins - then transfer to a cooling rack and leave to cool completely.

Frosting:

55g unsalted organic butter (at room temperature)

325g Tate & Lyle Fairtrade icing sugar

1/2 cup (4fl oz) organic double cream

2 tbsp Fairtrade honey

1. Beat the butter until smooth, then add half of the sugar, the double cream and the honey

2. Continue beating, slowly adding the rest of the sugar to achieve a smooth, even texture

3. Ice each cooled cupcake with a thick swirl of frosting and top with strips of cooled bacon and chopped Brazil nuts.

Fairtrade Devil's Food Ale Cupcakes

115g unsalted organic butter (at room temperature)

45g Divine Fairtrade cocoa

155g Fairtrade ale (Honey Ale)

170g organic plain flour (sifted)

Pinch of salt

2/3 tsp baking soda

225g Tate & Lyle Fairtrade caster sugar

1 large free-range, organic egg (at room temperature)

3 fl oz (3/8 cup) organic buttermilk

12 paper cupcake cases

Preheat the oven to 180c

1. Bring ale to the boil in a saucepan. Remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa. Leave to cool until it reaches room temperature

2. Sift together the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside

3. Cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixture until very light and fluffy (about 5 mins)

4. Add the egg and beat until just incorporated

5. Beat in the cooled ale/cocoa mixture

6. Add the sifted dry mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk in two parts - beginning and ending with the dry and beating after each addition

7. Spoon the batter into a baking tray lined with cupcake cases (2/3 of the way full)

8. Bake in preheated oven for 15 mins or until a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean

9. Cool briefly in the pans and then transfer to a wire rack until cooled completely.

Frosting:

85g/3 fl oz (3/8 cup) - Fairtrade honey ale

15g Fairtrade cocoa

115g Unsalted organic butter (at room temperature)

340g Tate & Lyle Fairtrade icing sugar

1/2 tsp Fairtrade vanilla essence

Small bar Fairtrade chocolate to decorate

Handful toasted Fairtrade Brazil nuts (optional)

1. Boil ale in a saucepan, remove from the heat and stir in the cocoa. Allow to cool completely - transfer to a bowl and place in the fridge if necessary

2. Beat the butter until smooth

3. Add the vanilla, ale/cocoa mixture and half the icing sugar and continue to beat. Gradually add all of the sugar - beating continuously until you reach a consistency you like

4. Spread onto cooled cupcakes and top with shavings of Fairtrade chocolate and Brazil nuts.

Butch it up, Buttercup

This weeks Time Out New York has an article on where to buy 167 different flavours of cupcakes in the City, and highlights 3 cupcake bakers who offer out-there flavour choices for NYC's cupcake lovers, two of which I'd not heard of before; Butch Bakery and Robicellis.

I couldn't resist using the tagline from Butch Bakery's website as this post's title - it sums up their manifesto rather well I'd say:

Our objective is simple. We're men, men who like cupcakes. Not the frilly pink frosted sprinkles and unicorns kind of cupcakes. We make manly cupcakes. For manly men.

Their cupcakes come in 12 flavours, all of which are booze soaked in some way and you can chose which pattern you'd like on top, including the very manly camouflage. These are available via mail order in New York only at the moment - they'd make a perfect manly gift for the man in your life I'd say (although my man doesn't object to frilly pink frosted sprinkles cupcakes!)

Robicelli's seem to be a typical cupcake company when you look at their Facebook page (their website is currently being redesigned), with yummy looking tiramisu (bottom pic), chocolate peanut butter and dulce de leche, however you soon run into their Elvis cupcake - banana base, with peanut butter frosting topped with brown sugar glazed bacon. These are the cupcakes that were meant to be sold deep fried at the Park Slope Chip Shop, in Brooklyn, leading to blogger/online media frenzy labelled cupcakegate. They also do a Harry Potter inspired Butterbeer flavour with butterscotch and sprinkled with edible gold dust (hope Warner Bros have given their approval!) and a vanilla waffle cake topped with maple syrup dipped buttermilk fried chicken. A fried chicken cupcake - not sure about that but next time we go to New York I might have to pop in and sample one just to say I have!

You can access the map featuring all the places to buy different flavoured cupcakes in NY here, and the artist who created the gorgeous word cloud of cupcake flavours' site here. I want a print of this for my cupcake kitchen - it's gorgeous!

If you want to read about the cupcakes we tried while in New York last year you can type New York into the search function or check out posts from March 09 (and maybe a couple in April) as that's when we visited and ate quite a few cupcakes :)

Thanks to Kurt M Crobert (wordcloud), Time Out (map), Butch Bakery(3rd pic down) and Robicellis (bottom pic) for use of the photos.

Batch...finally we try the bacon cupcake

On Sunday we were both feeling a bit hungover due to excess alcohol consumption at the Double Down Saloon (moto: you puke you clean...lol) so we decided to make good use of the sunshine and warmer climate to check out Shack Shack in Madison Square Park as this was one place I really didn't want to miss off our eating list! Not to go on about non-cupcake stuff too much but if you're in NY and you like burgers and milkshakes all I can say is go there! Its fab! And a great way to cure a hangover -their vanilla milkshake was so thick and creamy and scrumptious!

One of the cupcake shops I definitely wanted to try was Batch so we wandered around, looking in stores, including Williams Sonoma, sooooo overpriced but nice, and then popped into Batch to get some cupcakes for back at the B&C later. The store was really little and cute, with room for a few people to eat in and a really great range of cupcakes to choose from - I was restrained and only ordered 3 - a vanilla bean for me, a dragon devil's food for Manny and a caramel bacon cupcake to share. Yes, with real bacon!

The vanilla cupcake was really REALLY good. There were lots of specks of vanilla throughout the cake and frosting which I really like to see - its the sign of a good cupcake! Manny loved his devils food cupcake - even I was nearly swayed to have one as it looked simply gorgeous! The bacon however was a different story - I tried a small bit (with a bit of bacon sprinkle) and good god it was AWFUL, really salty and, well, bacony! The caramel was salted caramel, I think, or it may just have been the salitness of the bacon...and I hate salt caramel..yuk! Just WRONG. Manny, the human garbage can, ate it, but said afterwards he wouldn't eat another. I think bacon is best left to sandwiches with ketchup!

Just a thought - this should perhaps be renamed BLURGH ..finally we try the bacon cupcake!

58 days to go....

And I shall be in NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!!!! As you can tell I'm rather excited about it - and have been since I booked the trip :) Poor Manny's been putting up with my constant counting of the days and bombarding him with places to visit (mainly food/cupcake places I have admit!).

Blondie and Brownie's blog has been one of the many fantastic sources of great cupcake places in NY that I plan to visit. At the moment my list is nearing 40 cupcake places but I think we may have to chop that down a bit - we're only there for 8 days! This is where lists such as Blondie and Brownie's round up of the best cupcakes of 2008 REALLY helps me!

It's just a pity we can't taste some of their own baked cupcakes - I know Manny would love to taste the Elvis one (bottom pic) complete with bacon 'sprinkles' but thankfully Batch are serving some bacon ones at the moment so fingers crossed he'll get his bacon cupcake fix...shudder

The top pic is Crumbs' Baba Booey cupcake complete with peanut butter cream cheese, chocolate cake and frosting, and peanut butter chips.

Thanks to Blondie and Brownie for the pics!

Squeal like a pig for meaty cupcakes

Spotted on Cupcakes take the Cake another meaty cupcake, this time with bacon and a french toast base, made by Sweetkisses0530, with the full recipe available on her blog! They look rather nice, although I'm just not sure about the whole idea about savoury cupcakes! They're meant to be sweet, and preferably pink surely!