Best ever chocolate cupcake

It was Manny's birthday on Wednesday and I offered to make some cupcakes for him to take into work for his colleagues for the "bring cakes to work for your birthday" tradition. I made the chocolate cupcakes from the Cupcakes from Primrose Bakery cookbook with their chocolate frosting.

As I mentioned when I made them before the cupcakes are a bit off a faff to make - you need to melt choc, then mix butter and sugar in one bowl, then whip egg yolks in another bowl, while mixing milk and vanilla in a jug and flour and baking powder in yet another bowl. Once all that is mixed together you whip egg whites to a soft peak and fold them in. It's a lot of washing up but its very much worth it. The cakes are moist and very flavoursome.

The only word to describe the frosting is divine. I rarely get excited about chocolate frosting but this frosting excites me - I had to stop myself from piping it straight into my mouth and leaving the cupcakes naked! It's that good! The secret is the large amount of melted Green and Blacks 82% chocolate that's in the frosting -it really makes it uber chocolaty and very very moreish.

The cupcakes were transported in the cupcake carrier to my husbands office today and they were all gone very quickly. His manager even sent me an email to thank me for the cakes and tell me how fabulous they were which was lovely to hear - it's always nice to hear your cupcakes are liked.

Nice cuppa tea and a sit down

As soon as I received my fabulous Teacupcake silicone moulds I knew that I had to make some tea based cupcakes in them! At first I toyed with matcha cupcakes, but as these moulds screamed out 'afternoon tea' and 'English-ness' to me I decided to go with the Earl Grey cupcakes from my Primrose Bakery book.

The recipe was fairly easy to make and the only extra ingredients I had to buy were Earl Grey teabags (I'm more of a Twinnings English Breakfast gal), and some almond extract, which was a bit costly, but was an optional ingredient. I'm glad I bought it, it added a lovely aroma and flavour to the cake.

I halved the mixture and ended up with four teacups and cupcake in a normal cupcake cake. I sat the moulds in a pyrex dish lid so they were easy to get in and out of the oven and helped them retain their shape slightly.



The cupcakes were topped, as suggested, with vanilla frosting (again I halved the recipe), coloured purple with Sugarflair grape violet paste colour. After tweeting about how best to get a nice lilac colour I opted for paste and was lucky enough to find it quite centrally in Islington at the Make Lounge. I also picked up a large piping star and as you can see tried my hand at piping and I am quite proud of how cute they came out for my first proper try at piping. I used some disposable piping bags from Lakeland and I highly recommend them - even I managed to use them without making a mess.

The cupcakes tasted delicious - a hint of flowery Earl Grey-ness to the lovely moist cupcake and as usual the Primrose frosting was very moreish! I'd definitely recommend making them and would make them again. Next time its Matcha cupcakes in the teacups!

Oh, and with disposable bags you can pipe the leftover frosting straight into your mouth when you're finished piping :)

"Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. And whoever this "Earl Grey" fellow is, I'd like to have a word with him... " Captain Picard, Star Trek

Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig

I think I have found one of the easiest cupcake recipes in the world. And I have to thank Not Quite Nigella for making it even easier!

As I mentioned in a previous post, my plan for St Patrick's day was to make some cupcakes using (the real) Nigella's Chocolate Guinness cake recipe. I decided to half the recipe after reading that half was enough for approx 12 cakes, however I have a tendency to be a bit blonde and was worried that I might muck it up somehow. I had a quick peruse online and discovered one of my fave bloggers Not Quite Nigella had made these cupcakes two years ago and posted the half quantity recipe online..hurrah!

As I said, the recipe is very easy and takes minutes to make. Mine rose a little unevenly, mainly because I had a bit of a "moment" putting them in the oven and managed to trip over my feet so my lovely smooth and level cupcakes went in a bit messy. However as I'm of the 'slap the frosting on and cover any mistakes' school of cupcake decorating it didn't really matter how they looked naked, I was going to slather on some Bailey's frosting and hide any baking sins!

Nigella's recipe called for cream cheese frosting but I opted to try and make some Baileys frosting - just to make them a little more Irish, and, of course, yummy. I used the vanilla frosting recipe from the Primrose Bakery Cupcakes book, halving it as it makes a HUGE amount of frosting if not, and replacing the milk for Baileys.

55g unsalted butter

250g icing sugar

30ml Baileys (although I added more to taste!)

In a large bowl beat the butter and Baileys and some of the icing sugar till smooth (recipe says half but I add it a little at a time or I end up with a icing sugar everywhere!). Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.

I had planned to colour the frosting with some white food colouring I bought from Squires, but it smelt, and tasted a little and I didn't want to detract from the flavour of the frosting and it was a very light colour frosting anyways.

So how did they taste? GORGEOUS! The base was very moist and flavoursome, and was still moist three days later. The frosting was totally yummy and went very well with the cake - in fact I think Baileys frosting will now be a permanent feature on my cupcakes!

The top two photos show the 'naked' Guinness cupcake in all its dark and brooding glory. In the other three pics the cake is encased in some of the most fabulous cupcake cases ever, purchased from The Gourmet Cupcake Company. I have some in cerise, lilcac and black and they don't lose their colour in the oven - definitely worth investing in some if you like to bake cupcakes!

Finally, I couldn't resist a photo with my Irish gifts - guess whose husband did a gig in Dublin a couple of years ago and forgot to get me a gift until he was on the ferry home ;)

Primrose Bakery Chocolate cupcakes = home baked heaven

Firstly, I apologise for the pics, the light and my camera were working against me.

So last weekend, I finally got round to making the chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting from my Primrose Bakery book that I'd been planning since October.

Making the base used pretty much every bowl in my house -there was chocolate to melt, egg yolks to beat, sugar and butter to cream, egg whites to peak - then there was sifting, mixing and folding - all of which took ages. But once they were in the oven all my hard work seemed to be paying off as the smell of chocolate wafting through my house was making my mouth water. The frosting was also a first for me - when I've made chocolate frosting before it's called for cocoa powder, however this recipe called for lashings of freshly melted dark chocolate, which I had to stop Manny from drinking out of the pyrex jug I'd melted it in!

I could barely get them frosted quickly enough for Manny who was hovering round the kitchen waiting to lick the frosting bowl clean. No Maison Cupcake left-over frosting issues in my kitchen! I could use Manny standing eagerly waiting for me to finish as an excuse for my slap-dash approach to cupcake decorating but I really prefer them to look home-made rather than fancy, which is just as well as my attempts at fancy haven't really worked! Next time though I'd just leave them plain without sprinkles or use the chocolate sprinkles as I think the colour sprinkles look a bit odd on the chocolate frosting! The silver balls are for Manny as he loves them for some reason - I find they just hurt my teeth!

So, the important part - how did they taste? Firstly I'm not a fan of chocolate frosting (much to Manny's horror) and I found this frosting to be one of the nicest I've ever tasted. It was almost like a thick chocolate mousse and not too sweet (maybe due to the dark chocolate in it?). The base was really soft and very chocolaty - the denseness of the chocolate reminded me of a chocolate brownie, but the sponge was lighter. All in all one of the nicest cupcakes I've ever baked. If you're a fan of chocolate cupcakes, or know someone who is, I highly recommend the Primrose recipe - these would be perfect to give to friends or neighbours as a gift - especially if your decorating skills are better than mine!

Oh and I also highly recommend the Squires cupcake cases I bought some time ago - this is the second time I used them and they are by far the best.

Testing the Primrose Bakery book

Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery arrived on Thursday am at work and it was SOOO beautiful I left as early as possible to test out the vanilla cupcake recipe!

The recipe was quite different to the usual Hummingbird one I use - using self raising and plain flour and more eggs but apart from that it was the usual suspects of the cupcake recipe. I was quite concerned that the recipe kept telling me to mix lots as I'm used to not over-mixing being the norm for my cupcake baking. It was all quite easy except I was a bit worried when I went to fill my cupcake cases and there seemed to be LOADS of mixture! I divided it between the 12 cases recommended and put them in the oven to bake.

Firstly can I say the smell was heavenly - cakes baking always smell good but these ones wafted a gorgeous smell throughout my house. I had a peek half way through cooking time (through the glass door, don't worry!) and they seemed to be doing well, 5 minutes later I looked again and they were rising into MONSTERS!! When they were fully cooked they were HUGE!

I left them to cool and started to make the frosting. It was only then I realised the frosting recipe was for 15-20 cupcakes - which I find quite annoying when the recipes are for 12 cupcakes. What am I going to do with the extra frosting? I know I could eat it but I eat enough frosting without making extra for goodness sake! So I halved the ingredients and thought if there wasn't enough I'd deal with the consequences later. As it turned out there was just enough to cover all the cakes - I think they could've used a smidge more frosting but then that's just because the frosting was TO DIE FOR! Seriously - it was FAB. Very tasty and very much like you get in their shops :)

When it came to frosting them they were quite difficult as they were a bit bumpy on top (and I can never bring myself to cut off the extra cake on top to make a flat surface as I've read some people do!). Next time I'll follow their easy (looking) guide on how to frost a cupcake the Primrose way which calls for lots of frosting!

So the frosting was gorge - the cakes were a little dense, which I think was to do with the over-mixing - next time I'll be a bit more conscious of the mixing. Also I'd have added a wee bit more vanilla to the base - maybe fresh rather than the good quality extract I use. I was a little disappointed on the day with their dense texture however the next day they tasted really good - still a little dense but still much better than some I've had by professionals so I was quite chuffed.

The book is full of really gorgeous sounding recipes including the lovely rose cupcakes I like so much from Primrose - and lots of festive and seasonal cupcakes - I may try out their Halloween suggestions. As well as cupcakes it features a few of their layer cake recipes but none of their yummy biscuits which is a shame. The book photography is pure food porn - just looking at it makes you want to slap on a pinny and get baking - or pop to one of their shops if you don't fancy baking!

Finally as you can see in the pics they're not the prettiest looking cupcakes ever - a bit lumpy and bumpy but the lovely cases do help them look prettier I think. They're from Squires Kitchen and I highly recommend them - the best cupcake cases I've used!