Baking with Brussels Sprouts

I promised to share the recipe for Brussels Sprouts cupcakes, and true to my word here it is to delight and amaze your friends and family with at Christmas.

Cupcakes
2 eggs
125g Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon
100 ml vegetable oil
125g Self raising flour
125g carrots
125g sprouts
35g Walnuts
20g raisins
40g dried coconut (I used some wonderful coconut flakes I got in Marks and Spencer -they're FAB)
1 tsp fresh ginger grated (I didn't use fresh)
1/2tsp vanilla essence

Preheat your oven to 180°C, I have a fan oven so it's about 160ish. Line your cupcake baking tray with 12 cupcake cases.

Beat the eggs, sugar and oil for a couple of minutes, add the flour, cinnamon, ginger and vanilla essence and carry on mixing for a minute.

Fold in the grated carrots, sprouts walnuts, raisins and dried coconut. Divide your mix into your cupcakes cases. I use an ice cream scoop for this but you could use a tablespoon.Cook in your preheated oven for 20-22mins, (until a cake proddy thing like this inserted into a cupcake comes out dry).

Naked sprouts cupcake

I topped them with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

Frosting
40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
100g full fat cream cheese
250g sifted icing sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)

Cream the butter and cream cheese together for a couple of minutes. Add the icing sugar (I do this bit by bit to minimise icing sugar covering my entire kitchen) and beat for about 2 minutes until smooth.

So far people I've made these for have either loved or hated them. They are definitely something worth making if you want to make something different.

If you do make them please let me know what people thought!

What's your favourite?

Quality Street are synonymous with Christmas and I know in our house the fight was always over two sweets. The green triangle (mums favourite) and the purple one (my favourite) - we used to watch other family members like hawks making sure they didn't take our favourite. Hardly the festive spirit I know but I'm sure most families are the same.

So, when I was trying to think of festive Christmas cupcakes for Cupcake Club, organised by Kelly from An American Cupcake in London, one of my first ideas was, the purple one. For those who don't know the purple one is a caramel filled chocolate with a hazelnut inside.

The cake is Mary Berry's Devils Food Cake in cupcake form, which I've made several times before and is one of the easiest and tastiest chocolate cakes I've found to make.

I then took a chunk out of the cooled cupcakes with my trusty apple corer, and filled it with dulce de leche and a roasted hazelnut. I nearly set fire to the house making the dulce de leche as I forgot about the tin and it very nearly boiled dry. I'm doubtful my lovely Lakeland milk pan will never recover but it tastes divine so was (kinda) worth it.

Now I could've taken the obvious route and just covered them in lashings of gorgeous caramel frosting, but I wanted to make the frosting something festive also. And what is more festive than my favourite Winter tipple, Baileys! So the frosting is basically butter, icing sugar and lashings, and lashings of Baileys. I have a feeling one of these cupcakes will put you over the limit for driving so if you're coming to Cupcake Club be warned!
Also I only got 7 purple ones in a whole tin of Quality Street so if you want one topped with a sweetie you'd better be quick. If not you'll have to make do with a glitter one!

Topped with some festive glitter

My second cupcake for the evening is my winning cupcake from Cupcake Camp in October - the sprout cupcake.

Fresh out of the oven

I slightly altered the recipe from last time, adding more cinnamon, a bit less raisins and more coconut and walnuts as I prefer those. If anyone wants the recipe I shall post it up.

The cupcake that is one of your five a day

I then topped it with a cream cheese and cinnamon frosting and a sprout for decoration. Don't worry it was just for the photos - I wont force anyone to eat a raw sprout. Nor will I force anyone to eat the sprout cupcake. I'm only bringing 4-6 along with me, solely for those who want to try it!

The sprout cake in all its naked glory