Bananas about butterscotch

Manny has occasionally accused me of buying too many bananas just so we have some left for baking banana bread. If I was American I'd say here that 'I plead the fifth', but I'm not so I won't.

Due to my occasional over buying of bananas I have baked a lot of banana bread - one of my favourites being to bake the bananas in the oven with some rum and sugar first before adding to the bread batter, however we may have found a new favourite. Even better than rum baked bananas?

I give you my new favourite baking ingredient - butterscotch morsels. I was given two packets a while back by an American friend and oh my they add a touch of deliciousness to everything. And are quite tasty straight from the packet too.

Banana bread isn't the prettiest is it? Butterscotch morsels make it taste great but don't do much for the look of it. It didn't help that my house has been completely dark for the last week due to massive mounds of earth outside due to Overground engineering works - so sorry for the incredibly dark pics.

The recipe I tarted up is from How to be a Domestic Goddess and is bake for this months Forever Nigella hosted by Maison Cupcake.

The recipe can be found here and to make my version all you do is take out the sultanas and replace with butterscotch chips. Butterscotch beats sultanas every time surely?

Oh and I may have overdone the walnuts a little - I like a lot of them in my banana bread - as you can probably see. Just follow the recipe if you don't like quite so many. I promise it makes a lovely banana bread - delicious with a cup of tea.

Btw does Nestle Tollhouse remind anyone else of the Friends episode with Nezle Tulhouze?

Poofy Woolly Biscuits

This morning I woke up to a spate of references to Lamington's on my Twitter and Facebook feed, as incase you didn't know, today is Australia Day. I don't really know what Australia Day involves but it seems to involve the eating of Lamington's and Anzacs. Or maybe that's just people I know who celebrate.

When I worked in an Aussie run cafe over the summer baking all their lovely cakes and biscuits I became sick to the back teeth of Anzacs - rolling 100's of syrup'y balls at 6am will do that to you, so I decided to make some Lamingtons to celebrate. Any excuse for cake. And I had been meaning to make them for ages - I badgered the owners of the cafe to let me make them but they said they were 'boring'. I notice now they have an Aussie baking person they're making them..tsk.

There are several accounts of where the name Lamington comes from but most agree it was named after Lord Lamington, who served as Governor of Queensland from 1896 to 1901. Ironically he is said to have hated the cake named in his honour and called them 'poofy woolly biscuits'. See I wasn't just being offensive with the title.

These are pretty simple to make. Bake a quite basic vanilla sponge. I used Dan Lepard's recipe, adding more vanilla, from his wonderful book Short & Sweet, which was turned out ok, except the cooking time was about 5 minutes less than stated. Then you section the cake, split each section in half and slather on some jam. Then it gets messy - the cakes are dunked into a chocolate/cocoa coating, then covered in coconut. I suggest being near a sink when doing this - I made a proper mess.

They're not really much to look at but they do taste good. Next time I may use a coconut sponge instead to give it a bit more ooomph.

Happy Australia Day everyone - I'm off to have a Lamington and a cup of tea.

Kicking off 2012 with a healthy(ish) cupcake..and some not so healthy

When I first saw that Lola's were introducing four healthier cupcakes this month made with all natural fruit I was slightly dubious as we've not done well with previous healthier cupcakes. Yes Petit Pois I'm looking at you and your crapcakes from hell.

However I found myself in Selfridges last week and thought I'd give them a try. And I'm glad I did. I opted for the passion fruit and it was incredibly nice. Really soft sponge with a passion fruit custard and topped with really tasty frosting. 

As well as passion fruit they have raspberry, blueberry and banana. I think they're only available till the end of January so be quick if you want to try them!

Also scoffed recently was this lovely cupcake from Lily Vanilli's new(ish) cafe just off Columbia Road. We visited on a Wednesday night before Christmas, but usually the cafe is only open on Sundays -it's worth travelling for. 

My gingerbread cupcake was fabulous - with a brandy buttercream frosting. I had a LV cupcake from Harrod's over a year ago and was not impressed, really dry and flavourless but this was totally removed from that - very fresh and bursting with flavour. In the background you can see perhaps the best sausage roll I've ever eaten - well I can't really say eaten - the tubby one whose sausage roll it was didn't share - I had a bite, but it was a good bite. Then again, can anything that comes surrounded in a duvet of lardon filled puff pastry be bad? I think not. 

As well as a sausage roll, Manny managed to scoff a brownie - and it was a slab of a brownie. Again I got a bite - melt in the mouth delicious. I would definitely go back just for the brownie. And maybe a sausage roll. And a cupcake. This is why I'm fat. 

The cafe looks pretty cool too - covered in a zombie style mural at the back to go with the theme of Lily's book. 

Also eaten recently, although not a cupcake I HAD to include this amazing Guinness cake I had from Bea's of Bloomsbury's Kings Road branch last week. I had popped to Jane Asher to stock up on edible glitter amid rumours that it's due to be taken from our shelves soon due to stupid people not understanding that you need to use EDIBLE glitter on cakes not just any random glitter (I call that Darwin's law - weeding out the stupid people) and needed coffee and a sit down and Bea's isn't too far away. 

The Guinness cake was very moist and the frosting was divine. Just sitting in the cafe was enough to tempt you to buy lots of cake - there was so much on offer, including cupcakes.

I enjoyed it so much I actually made this very cake from Bea's book last Saturday as a welcome home for Manny after he'd been to Germany to play a gig. The cake itself came out really well, but I followed the recipe for the frosting and it was a gloopy mess - it didn't seem to have enough icing sugar listed in the recipe. Luckily, I managed to save it and really liked the inclusion of golden syrup in the frosting although it meant it was very sweet. And I must learn, stop licking the syrup spoon, I was on a sugar high for hours. 

Sorry the pictures crap - it was about midnight when I finished making it - I find it hard to sleep when Manny's away. 

Finally, my final cupcake ever from Love Bakery. Just before Christmas I received a DM on Twitter from the lovely Rebecca to ask me had I heard that Love Bakery was closing down - I hadn't heard but checked out Sam's blog and discovered they were closing the very next day, 23rd December. Obviously I had to go one last time.

Sorry about the festiveness of the pics, I was meant to blog this ages ago. I've been a bit lax at blogging lately due to some issues with photo theft etc but aim to blog more in 2012.

Anyways, the cakes were really good, especially my rhubarb cheesecake one, and Love Bakery will definitely be missed from the London cupcake scene.

So there you go - I've eaten a few cupcakes lately and not a crap cake amongst them - a good end to 2011/beginning to 2012! 

I raise a Baileys cupcake to you all

 

2011 has been quite the year for me.

In February I got a Kitchenaid, and love it as much today as I did the day I brought it home squealing all the way from Chiswick to New Cross. I still often stand in the Kitchen stroking it in a way that isn't particularly normal for a girl and a stand mixer.

In March left a job that I for some time despised with a rousing chorus of so long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, adieu, adieu, adieu, to yieu and yieu and yieu. And yes I did sing it LOUDLY as I was leaving. Lots of Jägermeister may have been involved.

Then in April I buggered off to Madrid on a whim to see Manowar, visit twin baby pandas and eat cupcakes.

Then I started working in baking - first in a cafe in Brixton where I covered the bakery for two days a week while the other girl had time off. It was great while it lasted but alas I couldn't survive on just 5 or so hours of work a week and thankfully one of my favourite bakers in London was hiring and I was lucky enough to get the job. This led to months of baking, and learning, with someone I really admired. It also led to me getting more work with another fab baker. I can honestly say the time with these two has been the best time I've had at work in many years. I've learned lots - including NOT to turn a Kenwood to pulse just after adding the red colouring to red velvet batter or to turn it to pulse while only cream cheese is in the bowl. You will not look pretty afterwards. Mainly, don't pulse anything ever. And check the baking powder, bicarb each and every time - then recheck. Oh and don't pick up cake tins straight out of the oven with bare hands. This hurts. Lots.

I'm hoping 2012 leads to lots more baking and lots more good cake! Oh and can we hope that it's the year when some crapcake purveyors stop peddling their old tasteless poor excuses for cake please?

That shall be I Heart Cupcakes call for 2012:

What do we want?

Fresh n tasty cake!

When do we want it? 

NOW! please *  

Happy New Year everyone - may all your cupcake wishes for 2012 come true. 

Cheers, and thanks to everyone who continues to visit my blog!


* remember manners cost nothing

Christmas Presence - Nutella for everyone

Sarah aka Maison Cupcake has announced that Christmas Presence will be the last Forever Nigella in its current format so I had to post an entry. Luckily I'd already made something suitable as a Christmas gift for my lovely friend Kirsty. 

The Nutella Cheesecake recipe comes from Stylist magazine which Nigella recently guest edited. The cover was the talk of the town and the magazine featured other exclusive recipes including bacon brownies which I also made - I didn't eat any but Manny said they were tasty. I just can't get my head around bacon and chocolate. 

As well as the giant cheesecake the recipe was big enough to make a couple of mini ones for myself and Manny (I knew all those Gu glass pots I insist on keeping would come in handy) so we could taste test it just incase.  I can report that it was delicious, so much so that I had to stop Manny from sneaking Nigella style into the fridge late at night in his silk* robe to steal a huge slice!

This was so good I'm hoping to make another for our New Years eve dinner- complete with edible glitter of course! 

Happy New Year everyone, and thanks for reading!

*Manny doesn't really own a silk robe although he wants a red one with dragons on after watching too many bad Kung Fu movies -I've threatened divorce should he ever buy one

Penguin Snowball cupcakes

These cupcakes are perfect for the positively Arctic temperatures out there. Ok, not quite Arctic but blooming freezing nonetheless.

I was sent some lovely chilli penguins from Hotel Chocolat, part of their Christmas gift selection, and decided to use them as cupcake toppers.

I opted for a coconut cupcake topped with a coconut covered snowball of coconut frosting - what can I say I love coconut and thought it would go well with the slightly spicy chocolate.

The chocolate penguins went really well with the cakes, and would make a lovely stocking filler for a fan of chocolate with a little chilli kick. If they're not a fan of chilli chocolate the penguins also come in caramel! Yum

Finally, don't you just love my little penguin guarding the cupcake?

Making Marshmallow Hi Hats with Lola

I buy a LOT of cupcake books, but my favourite recent purchase is Making Cupcakes with Lola by the girls behind Lola's Cupcakes. 

I got the book about two weeks ago and baked these the next day - I HAD to bake something from it as it all looked so good. 

The book itself is really pretty, with a photo for each cupcake - something not all books have. The recipes are all pretty easy to follow and don't require lots of unusual ingredients - they include lots of Lola's favourites that you may have had from their stores including some boozy cocktail inspired cupcakes.

I couldn't resist the Hi Hat Marshmallow, co-incidentally Lola's flavour of the month in store now. Last months apple pie cupcake was one of the nicest cupcakes I've had recently - the candied pecan on top was delicious. 

For those of you who don't know a Hi Hat is basically a cupcake with some kind of topping which is then dipped into chocolate (or butterscotch or a similar topping). The Lola's recipe is a chocolate cake topped with Marshmallow then dipped into chocolate. 

The cake itself was a doddle to make and resulted in a nice moist, very chocolaty base. 

The marshmallow was a bit of a faff to make but really rather easy. I think there should've perhaps been a bit more though as we had to be a little mean when piping the marshmallow out, or maybe I just like a LOT of topping? Also it is very sticky -  I was covered in the stuff. 

I waited for Manny to come home from work so we could have a go at dipping them together. It was a lot of fun and the only disaster was some where I had dyed the marshmallow blue as a pre-Halloween experiment - they just kept falling off so we drizzled some chocolate on top and they looked kinda gruesome, especially in my Martha Poison cupcake wrappers. 

The 'normal' Hi Hats were a success - I'm not particularly fond of chocolate cake but this one was really good, and I loved the chocolate covered marshmallow. 

The book is full of stuff I want to bake, and shall be doing so in the next few weeks. They are having a launch tomorrow at Selfridges with free cakes, champagne and book signings - further details can be found on their Facebook page. I'm sure any fan of cupcakes would love to find a copy in their Christmas Stocking.