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!

Nollaig Shona Daoibh

Christmas is the time for Baileys, well in our house anyhow- so how about this boozy cupcake as featured on the Irish Central website featuring a triple whammy of Irish booze :)

Combining Jameson’s Irish Whiskey, Bailey’s Cream Liquor and Guinness, could there be a more authentic or tempting Irish dessert? These indulgent little beauties will knock your socks off, we can promise you that.

The recipe can be found using the link above.

Thanks to Irish Central for use of the pic of the yummy cupcakes.

The title of this post means "You have a happy Christmas" according to here in Irish.

Sea Monster cupcakes

From the fab sounding Ghoulish Goodies, this cthulhu-esque sea monster cupcake is bound to make anyone's Halloween :)

You can get the recipe here - thanks to Readers Digest.

Photo used with thanks to Kevin Kenefick

And so has Sainsbury's Magazine!

After my cupcake-tastic trip to Lakeland I had to pop into Sainsbury's and lo and behold they've also gone a bit cupcake mad - the cover of their in-house magazine has a special cupcake feature written by Peggy Porschen. 

The article looks great (haven't read it fully yet) and features recipes,  tips on how to frost cupcake and ideas of where to buy cupcake cases etc. I'm going to make some cupcakes tomorrow and am wondering should I give Peggy's recipe a go?

I do think the pics of the frosting in bowls looks exceptionally similar to the Martha Stewart cupcake issue layout - will post pics tomorrow, and an update on the article, so you can decide! For now, some pics to entice you - all courtesy of Georgia Glynn Smith @Sainsbury's Magazine

Allergy friendly cupcakes!

This weeks trawl through Google News for cupcake fun led me to the Telegraph and a recipe for BabyCakes wheat free cupcakes. Erin McKenna offers her customers a choice of 100 per cent wheat free or spelt cupcakes. Because the fava and garbanzo bean flours that she uses are unavailable in Britain, all three recipes here use spelt flour, an ancient form of wheat, which is more easily digestible and which many people with allergies can tolerate.

The recipe for butter, sugar and wheat free carrot cupcakes can be found here. I'm very interested in using Agave nectar in cupcakes, something I know Babycakes have been publicising for some time, not sure how it'd work in my normal recipe though- next time I go to NY I shall definitely have to try some of Babycakes cupcakes as we didn't make it this time!

Photo: Ditte Isager

Hmmmmmmmm cupcakes....drool

Although still showing a release date of March 12th on Amazon, my Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook arrived yesterday and I cannot stop drooling over it - it is GORGEOUS! Seriously it is perhaps the most gorgeous cookbook I've ever seen! Honest!

There are tonnes of cupcake recipes, including their fabulous red velvet and green tea (and the usual suspects, vanilla, chocolate and Manny's fave - black bottom!). But it's not all cupcakes, there are recipes for layer cakes, including Hummingbird and a Brooklyn Blackout cake that I think if Manny spots the pic will have him licking the page! There are muffins, savoury and sweet, cookies and brownies, including their frosted version.

I'm hoping to get some time this weekend to make the vanilla cupcakes as the book is just too gorgeous not to!

Go buy the book now!! Available on Amazon and in Hummingbird Bakeries!

Oh and Gwyneth Paltow endorses the book on the front but please don't let that put you off!

Living with cupcakes

Yesterday I finally got my hands on Martha Stewart's Living magazine - the cupcake special! The cover is so cute and I've barely looked inside - except to take a few pictures for here, as I want to savour my food porn in peace and I've not had a chance since buying it! I shall leave work early on Monday, go sit in a coffee shop, or perhaps Primrose Bakery with a cupcake, and oogle the gorgeousness within!

Yes I'm sad.

You can preview the magazine here, where you will also find the recipes for some of these beautiful looking cupcakes!

Britain needs bakers!

So says a rather fab article in the Times about the growth of the cake industry in the UK.

Britain is in the grip of cake mania. Last week the Women's Institute, spiritual home of the iced occasion fruitcake, reported that interest in its baking courses was up 60 per cent; one online retailer said it was selling a cookie cutter every 15 minutes; and on Monday the nation is to be galvanised into action with the start of National Baking Week.

You can read the rest of the article here, with recipies for cakes by Konditor and Cook and Cake-boy (which I'm visiting next month), and some very yummy looking mint choc chip cupcakes from Crumbs and Doilies!

Yummy...trick or treat

I noticed this magazine in my local supermarket a few weeks ago and finally remembered to Google it! I've never seen it before but then I do tend to notice things more when they're festooned with cupcakes!

From reading what's in it this month it seems to be mainly cakes and puddings so maybe I should buy it as I live in a house of pudding lovers!

I'm sure those are the cupcake cases I bought in Lakeland a few weeks ago!