Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes

My favorite flavour combination is and always has been Mint Choc Chip, I can't get enough of it.  I love mints and I love chocolate, so the two together is just heaven to me.  I'm not a big ice cream eater but I could eat Mint Choc Chip ice cream by the bucket full.  I found a little ice cream parlour near the edge of Lake Windermere (Lake District, Cumbria) one holiday a few years back which did the most amazing Mint Choc Chip ice cream, I've never found anywhere thats come close.

Anyway, enough rambling about ice cream and onto the cupcakes.  I've been meaning to make these for a while but kept forgetting or not having the time when I did remember.  Then someone else made some and it reminded me. 

I had the recipe in mind, I was going to use my favourite victoria sandwich recipe but with cocoa powder and chocolate chunks and then my favorite buttercream but adapted to be mint chocolate.  Pretty simple I thought.  I made the cakes no problem but then came the time to make the buttercream, I had the butter and half the icing sugar mixed nicley when my whisk suddenly stopped.

Thinking it may have just got a little hot I turned it off and unplugged it for a few minutes.  Then I plugged it back in and tried again, this time it made a painful whirring sound and tried its best to work.  No such luck.  There was no way it was about to work.  So my only option was to finish it by hand, I know, I know, nothing wrong with that, unless you have problems with your muscles like I do.  To cut a long story short I eventually finished the buttercream, it took me probably 30 minutes longer than it does with the whisk.  As for the taste?  Its without a doubt the nicest buttercream I've ever made.  So creamy, soft and fluffy, I had to add milk to make it a little easier to beat, which I never usually do and the taste was so much better for it. 

Verdict?  Having very painful, dead arms for over 4 days afterwards was totally worth it.

Mint Choc Chip Cupcakes - My own recipe

For the chocolate chip cupcakes:

100g caster sugar

100g margarine

75g self raising flour

25g cocoa powder

2 eggs

100g milk chocolate, roughly chopped

1 or 2 tbsp milk (its upto you how much, but generally if the mix is quite thick then add a spoonful or two)

For the mint chocolate buttercream:

75g margarine

150g icing sugar

40g cocoa powder

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp peppermint essence (roughly)

1.  Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffly.

2.  Add one egg and a spoonful of flour, beat until just combined.  Repeat with the second egg.

3.  Fold in the rest of the flour and cocoa powder, one spoonful at a time until you have a little bit of flour left.

4.  Fold in the milk and finally the last of the flour until it has just combined.

5.  Add in the chocolate chucks and stir as little as possible to mix them in.

6.  Spoon the mixture into muffin cases until 3/4 full.

7.  Cook on 180c for about 15 to 20 minutes until a cocktail stick inserted comes out clean (bar any melted chocolate).  Put on wire rack to cool.

8.  Now to make the buttercream.  Beat the butter until it is nice and soft and fluffy, then slowly add the icing sugar.

9.  Add about half the cocoa powder and beat, then put in a spoonful of milk and mix.  Repeat with the remaining cocoa powder and milk.

10.  Add the peppermint essence a few drops at a time.  Keep tasting until you are happy with the flavour.

11.  Pipe the buttercream onto your cupcakes or spread with a knife.
Next time I need some After Eight mints to decorate them with!

Coconut Cherry Cupcakes

Mmm cherries and chocolate, my 2 favorite things to find in a cake!

I'm such a bad blogger at the moment, sorry!  I had a busy week or so sorting out an exciting new work/business thing (sadly not food related), and then I was ill yet again.  I know, I know, thats all I've said lately and I promise it won't be said at all in my next post! 

So, moving on to the food.  I've made a few new recipes lately, all of which I promise to upload over the next week or two.  The first of which was these coconut cherry cupcakes with added chocolate chunks, complete with milk chocolate ganache and white chocolate decorations.  Why I've never made chocolate ganache before I have no idea but it is amazing, I am converted.  Then I made iced marshmallow coconut cookies, which were a bit of a disaster looks wise but tasted great.  Then a few days ago I finally got round to making brownies, from a recipe I found on the BBCs website which had great reviews, and it definatly lived up to its hype. 

Finally today I've made more lemon cupcakes, I had to make sure my finished recipe was still good and not just a first time fluke.  I scooped out the middle and added a dollop of lemon curd and then topped with lemon buttercream and decorated with lemon zest.  Well if you're going to go lemon then you might as well use as much as possible!

As well as it being my first time making a ganache, it was also the first time I've ever piped chocolate.  I've kind of avoided it before, thinking it would be too fiddly and messy, that the chocolate would cool and harden before I'd even done anything.  My hands can also go quite shakey when I'm trying to do anything that requires a steady hand!  But it was surprisingly easy and the chocolate stayed melted in the bag.  I'll be the first to admit that the decorations aren't anything special but I'm pretty pleased for my first try.

Coconut Cherry Cupcakes from The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies

For the cake:

125g butter, softened

1/2 tsp coconut essence

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

80ml milk

40g desiccated coconut

70g glace cherries, roughly chopped

50g dark chocolate, roughly chopped
150g self raising flour
35g plain flour

For the ganache:
60ml cream
100g milk chocolate, roughly chopped

For the decorations:
150g white chocolate buttons
Desiccated coconut to sprinkle

1. Preheat your oven to 180c (160c fan forced) and line a muffin pan with paper cases.  I got 12 cupcakes out of this recipe using muffin size cases.
2.  Beat butter, essence, sugar and eggs in a small bowl until combined.
3.  Stir in the milk, coconut, cherries and chocolate.  Then stir in the sifted flours.
4.  Divide amongst cases, smoothing the surface of each.  Bake for about 25 minutes or until a cocktail stick inserted into the cake comes out clean (bar any melted chocolate).
5.  Make the ganache.  Bring the cream to the boil in a small pan, then pour oven the chopped chocolate in a small bowl.  Stir until smooth.  Cover the bowl and allow to stand at room temperature until it is of a spreadable consistency.
6.  Melt the white chocolate (either in the microwave at 10 second bursts, or in a bowl over a pan of simmering water) and spoon into a piping bag.
7.  Pipe different sized hearts (or any other shape you want) onto a tray covered with a sheet of baking paper.  Pop the tray into the fridge until the chocolate has set.
8.  Spread each cupcake with ganache and decorate with your chocolate hearts, sprinkle with a little coconut.

Coconut Cherry Cupcakes



Lemon Drizzle Cake

 

Lemon Drizzle Cake



Sorry for the lack of updates, I meant to post this sooner but I've been pretty ill the past week.

Anyways, Lemon Drizzle cake has got to be one of my all time favourite cakes.  A good one is delicously moist, has a lovely lemon flavour that isn't too tangy or barely there and has the most amazing hard lemon sugar topping.  So why on earth I've never tried making one before is beyond me.  A quick search on the internet a couple of weeks ago found me a recipe that looked pretty simple, and a few extra ingredients on the supermarket shopping list a couple of days later got me everything that I needed.  And so all that was left to do was bake it.

The recipe that I've used was literally the first entry from my google search, its from the BBC's Good Food website and is by Tana Ramsay.  I'll definately be using it again, in fact I've already had requests to make it for other people.  The sponge is incredibly moist and the lemon flavour certainly comes through.  Though next time I might be tempted to add a little more zest to the mixture and possible a teaspoon or two of lemon juice.

You need a loaf tin to make drizzle cake (though I'm sure you could use a normal round cake tin if you don't have one), the recipe says to use a 8x21cm tin however I don't have a tin that size.  I ended up using a tin about 12x19cm which was a good size for the amount of mix.  Don't forget it will rise up a fair bit whilst cooking.  This tin made a good sized cake but next time I will probably use two smaller (9x19cm) tins. 

As you'll see in a minute, my drizzle topping didn't exactly turn out according to plan.  I think I made a couple of mistakes!  Firstly I probably put about 10 too many holes in the top of my cake, and secondly I doubled the amount of lemon juice for the drizzle without bothering to double the sugar too.  Therefore it was runnier (is that a word!? Oh well it is now!) than what it should have been, also the sugar had more liquid to dissolve into. 

Oh well at least I know what to do for next time!  You never know if you don't try right.

So the recipe, as I said, you can find it here at the BBC's Good Food website.  The cake itself will keep pretty well in an airtight container, it will stay fresh for about 4 days or so.  But we still had some left after 8 days and although you could tell it wasn't fresh it was still moist and tasted good too.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Coconut Slices

I have grown up eating these Chocolate Coconut slices, its one of the things I can always remember my Mum baking. The recipe comes from my Grandma (my Mum's Mum) who I sadly never got to meet but judging by the recipe book of hers that this came out of she knew how to make some amazing things.

Chocolate Coconut Slices

8oz coconut
6oz sugar
2 eggs (well beaten)
4oz margarine
4oz chopped cherries
5 – 8oz cooking chocolate

1. Line a swiss roll tin with greaseproof paper
2. Melt chocolate and pour into tin, leave to set (use more chocolate if you want a thicker layer)
3. Beat margarine, coconut, sugar and eggs until combined
4. Stir in cherries
5. Spread mix over chocolate
6. Bake in moderate oven, Gas mark 3/ 160c until set and golden brown. This takes roughly 30 minutes depending on the oven

7. When cool cut into slices

Top Five: Cake stands

My new stand from Tesco

Having just got myself a new cake stand (or rather after my lovely Mum bought me one) I can't stop myself looking for more. There's something charming and homely about cake stands that I just can't help but love. However until I have a place of my own or my bedroom miraculously triples in size I have no free space to store them.

So if you like this is my little wish list.

Victoria and Albert two tier cake stand

I love this, its so fancy and proper. It looks like it should only be brought out at very fancy dinner parties.

Wire Cupcake tree
Now these are amazing, I think they are great and such fun. If I had one of these I'd want it permanently on show filled with cupcakes...that actually sounds like a good life!

Time for Tea cake stand

When I chose the stand above it was a toss between that and this Time for Tea stand, I love both but the Poppy stand won.

Retro Spot stand

I love all things spotty and retro, and red just happens to be my all time favourite colour therefore this stand couldn't be any more perfect!

Vintage 3 tier basket stand

This wire basket stand is incredible, I've not seen anything like it before. The vintage charmit has would be great for a tea party.

Cheesecake Brownies

Sorry for not posting this sooner, I had planned to share this recipe at the start of the week but I’ve been quite unwell this past week.

I’ve only ever made cheesecake about 3 times in my life, despite having eaten a hell of a lot of it! The first time I made it, it tasted amazing but collapsed the second it came out of the tin. The second seemed to have great potential but just didn’t live up to it. And the third was incredible. Quite honestly one of the tastiest cheesecakes I’ve ever eaten, and I’m not just saying that because I made it! My family loved it, my Mum and I were quite disappointed when it came to an end! And the best bit about it? It’s so very simple. I’ve read recipes for cheesecakes that have had hundreds of steps, you have to do this followed by that and then a bit more of this, they can be never-ending.

I’m definitely going to be making these again, when they are so quick and easy it would be a shame not to. Though I might have to make double the recipe as an attempt to make it last longer!

Cheesecake Brownies - from The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecake and Cookies

For the brownie base:
125g butter, chopped
150g dark eating chocolate, roughly chopped
1 egg
150g caster sugar
110g plain flour
35g self raising flour

For the cheesecake topping:
250g cream cheese, softened
1tsp vanilla extract
75g caster sugar
1 egg
125ml cream

1. Preheat the oven to 180c.
2. Grease a deep 19cm square cake tin and line with baking paper.
3. Combine the butter and chocolate in a small pan, stir over a low heat until smooth. Allow to cool.
4. Beat the egg and sugar in a small bowl with electric mixer until thick and creamy.
5. Stir in chocolate mixture and sifted flours.
6. Spread mixture into pan and bake for 10 minutes.
Whilst that is cooking you can the cheesecake topping:
7. Beat the cheese, vanilla extract, sugar and egg in a small bowl until smooth. Then beat in the cream.
8. Pour the topping mix over the brownie base and return to the oven for about 15 minutes.
9. Leave in the oven to cool, with door ajar.

10. Once cool refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

They suggest serving with fresh raspberries but I didn't have any, so I served with fresh strawberries and grated dark chocolate.

Top Five: Recipe Books

I've decided to try and do a regular feature, something to keep me occupied and to give me something useful to search for on the internet. Also something to make me remember to keep updating! Therefore every other Saturday I will try and post up a Top Five list, a list of things I want, things I read or just simply things I find interesting or inspiring.

The first list today is Recipe books, personally I love them. From simply flicking through one and staring at the photographs to finding that one recipe that really tickles your taste buds. I think they are great. So here are five recipe books that I've had my eye on lately.

Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery

The Primrose Bakery has such a reputation for amazing cakes that it would hard not to want to try some. Yet since I live so far away I guess making my own is the closest I'm going to get for the time being.

How to be a Domestic Goddess

Ahh Nigella, the queen of cookery programmes and books. I've heard great things about this book, so surely Nigella can do no wrong?

Bake

Theres something about Rachel Allen that makes me watch and listen. I've watched her cookery programmes for a while now and I love the Bake series.

Cupcakes

Any book solely dedicated to cupcakes has to be good, right!

Cakes to Inspire and Desire

As I've mentioned before, decorating cakes has always been my weak point. Therefore cakes like these inspire me so much, I only wish I could create a cake half as good as some of the examples in this book. I could spend ages staring at this book wishing I was able to do that.

Since I probably won't be getting any of these anytime soon I will have to stick with the ones I've got and the internet for inspiration.

Oh and for a little sneak preview, the next recipe I'll be sharing is for Cheesecake Brownies!