Introducing the Lemmy

This is a cupcake for beer drinkers and hellraisers, for fans of rock and roll, and more importantly, Lemmy and Jack Daniels.

I once presented Lemmy with a Jack Daniels cake and a giant bottle of JD on his birthday following another legendary gig at Hammersmith Odeon so it seemed fitting that I name a cupcake featuring his favourite tipple in his honour.

I have made some JD and coke cupcakes before following a recipe in a book where lounging on a set looking like Little Red Riding Hood appears to have been more important than recipes that resulted in flavoursome cupcakes so this time I went with a coca cola cake from Nigella, tweaked slightly and a chocolate and Jack Daniels frosting using my favourite chocolate frosting recipe. The Lemmy - aka the Jack Daniels and coke cupcake was born.

Then came a little twist.

I've been thinking of ways to ensure alcoholic cupcakes retain that boozy element. All too often they are disappointing.  If you bake it into the cake it bakes away. Make a sugar syrup with alcohol and it burns off, too much in the frosting can react badly with the sugar. My plan was instead to inject it into the sponge, but instead of injecting it in pre-frosting which can result in a soggy bottom, I decided instead to use a pipette featuring a shot of JD which you can inject into the base when you're about to eat it - giving the cupcake a good boozy kick and ensuring no soggy bottoms!

While the cake tasted fab with the JD shot in it I wasn't impressed with the coke cake by itself - it was rather bland, so next time I shall use my own recipe. Then again it wouldn't be a Lemmy cupcake without the Jack Daniels now would it?
Turn the stereo to 11, put on the Ace of Spades and enjoy \m/

Lemmy photographed at the Sheraton Park Tower,London, November 2010 Photograph: Levon Biss

Turn the stereo up to 11, bung on the Ace of Spades and enjoy \m/

Make mine a double

As soon as the Iron Cupcake challenge for June was announced "celebration", the three main things I like to celebrate with went through my mind.

1. Manowar - I wasn't what kind of cupcake I could make to signify a sweaty, leather clad, metal band, nor if such a cupcake would appeal to all,

2. Cupcakes - obviously! Birthdays, wedding anniversary's, Christmas, Easter, valentines, weekends, wet days, sunny days, basically any excuse for a celebration = a good excuse for a cupcake. However cupcakes are kind of a given as its Iron Cupcake so, again no,

3.Booze - and lashings of it. Preferably in a frozen cocktail concoction or involving hard liquor!

So I began some boozy cupcake trials. Not all of them successful.

First up - Jack Daniels and Coke cupcakes as pilfered from the Eat Me! book by Xanthe Milton. Although pilfered I did change it slightly and add a touch more Jack Daniels.

This was quite a tasty cake, although I found the cupcake base itself a little boring - I should've bunged a bit of JD in there or some chocolate chips to make it a bit more chocolaty. The frosting was basically melted choc, icing sugar, coke and JD. I added a bit more than suggested here as I tried it and it was a v.faint JD taste. In the end I may have gone a tad overboard as they had quite a kick and I may have got a friend slightly tipsy on the one she had! All in all they were quite tasty, boozy cupcakes but nothing special, and now I've learned how to pipe in a pretty(ish) fashion I like to do that rather than just the old method of slap it on which I had to do with these.

Finally the recipe calls for you to add black food colouring to turn the chocolate frosting black - I'm really not sure why as that is just quite absurd isn't it? Anyhow I didn't - I have black food colour but to me a chocolate frosting should be chocolate coloured.

If you're a fan of JD I would recommend these cakes but perhaps add a shot of JD to the base to give it a bit of a kick!