Secret Ingredient St Patrick's day cupcakes

I was thinking about what to bake for St Patrick's day for a long time - I've done all the stout/Bailey's combo's already and while they're very tasty I wanted to do something different. So what's Irish, can go in a cupcake and I'd not done before?.....the clue is in the video below.

POTATO.

I'd been thinking about making these since they appeared in Sainsbury's magazine when Delia had her How to Cheat show on tv and everyone was getting excited about tinned mince and Aunt Bessie's frozen mash.

God the frozen mash. I went to Asda to buy it and felt shame in doing so. Surely life isn't that hectic that you cannot make mash? Well maybe it is if you have kids etc so maybe I shouldn't judge. What I can judge is the use of frozen mash in cake. And I say NO. I repeat frozen mash has NO PLACE in cake.

The recipe itself was pretty easy to make - melt chocolate and condensed milk together - which seized the first time and the second time wasn't too great either so if you make the recipe be warned. If I was to make it again (which I won't unless someone asks me to) then I'd melt the chocolate separately. Then you mix everything, including the defrosted mash discs and bung it in the oven. The only thing I changed in the recipe was that I halved it, left out the Chinese five spice and added a splosh of vanilla in it's place.

Usually cakes leave a lovely smell throughout the house when they're baking - these did not which immediately set off warning bells with me.

I left them to cool and set about making the frosting. I really didn't like the sound of Delia's 'frosting' - condensed milk, melted chocolate and butter (boak), so I made some of my favourite Bailey's frosting which kept in with the Irish theme and I hoped would help me forget that within these cakes lay potato.

Alas even with a lot of Baileys in the frosting it did not detract from the potato. They were quite chocolate'y but I could still sense potato in there - there was a smell like Smash about them and I just couldn't eat a whole one as each bite left a bit of a taste. I ate the frosting though - why let booze go to waste? Manny ate two cakes and said he quite enjoyed them. He couldn't taste potato but thought they tasted 'peppery'. Numpty.

So if you're feeling adventurous for St Patrick's on Saturday you could make these, or you could instead get some good Irish Stout (there are so many better ones than Guinness) and make Nigella's Guinness and chocolate cake instead - they can easily be made into cupcakes.

I couldn't resist a final photo with the little leprechaun card my (hot dog obsessed) friend from Chicago sent me today as it seemed kinda appropriate. I reckon hot dog cupcakes would taste better than potato.

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig for Saturday.

Birthday rum and coconut cupcakes

I baked these cakes in memory of my Auntie Kate whose birthday is tomorrow.

My auntie Kate was my second mum and I miss her every day, more so around times like birthdays and holidays. She was one of the people who taught me how to bake - I used to stay with her in the holidays and we'd get out some cook books and decide what delicious cake we were going to make. One of my favourite memories is making a steamed apple pudding in the microwave with her - we'd never baked in a microwave before and we were so happy it turned out perfectly. 

Although she struggled with eating disorders she was a born feeder - I still remember Manny's face the first time we popped to hers for a 'snack' when visiting and she'd laid on a banquet of home made baked treats. 

She loved to party and dance and I always remember her and my mum showing Manny how to dance properly to Status Quo. 

As you can imagine drink was often involved in our lives (once I was old enough obviously!), so I decided to make a nice boozy cupcake to toast the wonderful life she led that was taken from us far too soon. 

The cake recipe is adapted from a Screwdriver cupcake recipe in Booze Cakes

3 eggs

174g unsalted butter softened

1.5 cups caster sugar

2 tsp orange zest

2.5 cups plain flour

2.5 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup orange juice

1/2 cup bacardi (or any rum)

1 cup sweetened flaked coconut

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. 

Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Beat eggs and then add to the mixture with the orange zest. 

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl. In a separate bowl or jug mix the orange juice and vodka. I used freshly squeezed orange juice and added some of the pulp as well. 

Add flour and vodka mixtures alternately to the butter/egg mixture. Fold in the coconut and bake for 21 or so minutes. 

Let cool before frosting. 

The frosting recipe in the book made a soup consistency of frosting, so my recipe is a little vague. 

85g unsalted butter, softened

1/5 tsp vanilla

3 tbs orange juice

1/2 cup double cream

3 tablespoons rum (I may have added extra)

icing sugar

The book states 2 cups of icing sugar but I used way more than that but didn't measure how much I used. Start with two then add until you have a good piping consistency. 

To make the frosting you cream the butter and sugar for about 5 mins. Then add the vanilla, orange juice and cream. Mix again. Add more sugar if necessary and then add the rum. 

Top with some orange zest and more shredded coconut if you wish. 

These cakes were delicious - light and moist with a nice hit of boozy'ness. The shredded coconut kept the cakes moist for days. I'm starting a campaign to have it available here - why isn't it? 

Happy Birthday Auntie Kate - I raise a cupcake to you x

Chicken and Waffles Cupcakes

This weekend is the 46th NFL Superbowl featuring New York Giant and New England Patriots.

There you go that is my entire knowledge of the Superbowl in one sentence - mainly gleaned from Google.

The Giants appearance gave me the perfect excuse to make some cupcakes I've been planning to make for just over a year, when I first read about them on Blondie and Brownie's blog - my own version of New York bakers Robicelli's Chicken and Waffles cupcakes. Also any excuse to take pics of my gorgeous Statue of Liberty Hello Kitty.

Robicelli's cupcake is a waffle flavoured cupcake covered in vanilla buttercream topped with a pie of maple glazed fried chicken - mine is slightly different.

I went with a buttermilk cupcake - adapted slightly from a recipe in Nigella's How to be a Domestic Goddess. I added quite a lot of vanilla to this and omitted the lemon. This cake is perfect to make cupcakes, giant cakes, bundts etc as it's quite sturdy.

It's topped with some absolutely delicious maple syrup frosting. I was lucky enough to get some 100% pure maple syrup from my friend Dennis in Ann Arbor - how cute is this. And it tastes amazing.

The recipe is from Lola's - honestly you won't regret making it - but maybe make double, this doesn't make much.

65g unsalted butter softened
3 tablespoons pure maple syrup
65g light muscovado sugar
150g cream cheese at room temp

Mix the butter, syrup and sugar until light and creamy. Add the cream cheese and mix until just smooth. I can not explain how great this frosting tastes - honestly make it and see!

The fried chicken I made myself - just like regular fried chicken. You need buttermilk, plain flour and some paprika. Dunk the chicken in the flour, then the buttermilk, then the flour/spice mix and fry.

The waffles I'm afraid I bought in a fancy coffee shop as I don't have a waffle maker and thought buying one just to make some cupcakes a little extravagant.

Once the cupcakes were assembled we drizzled over some more of the amazing maple syrup and then tucked in. At first I wasn't sure but then I took a bit of everything at once and it worked. Honestly. The chicken got a lovely sweet taste from the maple, and the frosting brought everything together. Manny loved them and ate two (I only made 5) in one sitting!

I saw today that Robicelli's are doing a variation for the Superbowl - the original Buffalo Chicken cupcake, a carrot and celery root cake, Point Reyes blue cheese buttercream, citrus tinged Buffalo fried chicken. Not sure about the blue cheese frosting but I do love the sound of the Buffalo chicken on top - maybe next time!

Finally for those of you who can't stomach the thought of chicken on your cupcakes, the leftover mix was made into cute little bundt cakes which I filled with the leftover frosting!

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