Mint Aero Cupcakes

I just had to share these with you.  I made them with my Nephew the other week and they are just amazing.  The flavour is incredible.  I took my Nephew for a walk round to the local shop one morning in search of your normal-nothing-special mint chocolate bars to put into some cupcakes.  Yet I couldn't find any anywhere and just as we were about to head back I spotted the Aero's hiding on one of the shelves.  I grabbed a couple, not sure if they'd work or not and headed home.

Turns out that chopped up mint Aero's in a cupcake are one of the most amazing things ever.  It's rather strange how they cooked and I wish I'd taken a photo of the inside of one but the delicious bubbly inside of the Aero's completely disappeared.  All that was left was a tiny hole and a pale green colouring to the sponge where it had once been.  However the mint chocolate flavour had somehow infused through the whole cupcake.

A recipe really isn't needed here, just add a few chopped up mint Aero bars to your favourite vanilla cupcake mix and once cooked top with vanilla buttercream and a chunk of mint Aero.

Enjoy!

Red Nose Cake Balls

I'm really sorry for posting this late, I know its not Red Nose Day anymore but I still wanted to share these with you.  Yesterday ended up being far busier than I expected and I only had time to take the photo's.  So for anyone who doesn't know, it was Red Nose Day yesterday for Comic Relief where they try and raise as much money as possible for vulnerable people here in the UK and in Africa.  

I just so happened to be going to a little house warming party last night with my Mum and decided that some kind of Red Nose themed cake was needed.  So, inspired by the lovely Bakerella, I decided to make some cake balls since I didn't have any lollypop sticks needed for Cake Pops.  I wanted them to be roughly the same size as the actual red nose's that you buy in the shops, so they were pretty big. 

Anyways my idea didn't really go to plan as you can probably tell, they didn't end up like I wanted looks wise but they taste amazing.  Who knew that just by mixing sponge cake and buttercream together that you'd get such an incredible tasting cake!  I will definately be trying to make them again, my only problem is covering them with melted chocolate. 

Now, anytime I try and do anything with melted chocolate I end up in a right mess.  Chocolate everywhere, nothing looking how I wanted and the chocolate always starts to harden before I've had chance to do anything!  But I won't give in, I am going to master working with melted chocolate...one day...

For the chocolate cake and buttercream I used the same recipe as I did here for my Mint Choc Chip cupcakes just without the chocolate chunks and peppermint essence. 

They are really simple to make, just crumble up your chocolate cake into a bowl and add in the buttercream.  Give it a good stir to mix it all together and once combined you can take out spoonfuls and shape into balls.  Place the cake balls onto a tray covered with greaseproof paper and chill in the fridge for a few hours.  Finally you can cover them with melted chocolate (I used white chocolate with red food colouring) and decorate however you wish. 

My plan was to try and make them look just like the Red Nose's that I'd bought but after the mess I had with the melted chocolate I gave up and covered them in edible glitter instead!

Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cake

I'm pretty certain I've found my go-to brownie recipe.  I know only a while ago I was saying how I had yet to find that elusive perfect brownie recipe, and all the while the recipe was sat on my desk waiting for me to use it.  I had printed it out months ago and put it in my recipe book amongst all the other print outs that are waiting for me to stick in or throw out.  A friend had mentioned how great this recipe was and I made a mental note to hurry up and bake them, but I guess that mental note got lost, along with the things that I needed for the shop... 

Anywho a couple of weeks ago I realised I still had not made them so I went ahead and did it, and oh my, they are amazing.  A lovely crusty top, perfectly gooey in the middle and a deliciously chewy bottom.  Everything I ever wanted in a brownie.

The recipe itself comes straight from the BBC, only I added some left over clotted cream fudge that I had lying around.

Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cake - from the BBC

100g margarine

175g caster sugar
75g brown or muscovado sugar
125g chocolate (plain or milk)
1 tbsp golden syrup
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
100g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
2 tbsp cocoa powder
100g fudge - optional


1. Heat oven to 180c, grease and line a 20cm cake tin.
2. Gently melt the butter, sugars, chocolate and golden syrup in a pan until smooth.  Remove from the heat.
3. Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk until light and frothy.
4. Add the eggs and the remaining ingredients into the chocolate mix and stir well.
5. Pour the mixture into the tin and cook for about 30 minutes.

Enjoy!

Tiffin/Refridgerator Cake

 

Tiffin or Refridgerator Cake, whatever you want to call it, is one of those things that you can make quickly without too much hassle and without worrying about weighing everything perfectly.  All you need to do is chuck a load of things into some melted chocolate, butter and golden syrup and you're nearly done. 

This ease and no fuss style is represented by my Mums recipe for Tiffin, well if you can call it a recipe that is.  It's a small scrap of paper on which is written "biscuits, choc, golden syrup, sultana's, cherries, 2oz marg".  Thats it.  Only one actual measurement, no step by step instructions, no faffing about.  Just simple and straight to the point.

So when I decided to whip some up a few days ago, I combined this list with a recipe I found in Cupcakes, Muffins & More by Love Food.  My Mum got me this recipe book a few months ago and I've not got round to using it much yet.  The first thing I made from it was some melt in the middle chocolate cupcakes which you serve warm and they were very successful, apart from the fact that my camera broke whilst taking photo's of them!

When I made these I slightly underestimated how much chocolate I needed as I didn't really have a lot in the house, so I just went ahead anyway.  It wasn't a disaster but I did end up with one half of the tray not having any chocolate topping!  I also had a minor problem when I was melting some chocolate, I did it the way you are supposed to i.e. in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water.  Yet it did not turn out, I seem to be incapable of melting chocolate this way.  Which is why I tend to just stick the bowl in the microwave for 10 second bursts until its all melted! 

Mishaps aside, it turned out ok in the end, it even looked pretty good once I cut it all up.

Tiffin/Refridgerator Cake - Adapted from a few different recipes

75g margarine

3 tsbp golden syrup

350g chocolate, roughly chopped (I used a mix of milk and dark)

175g digestive biscuits, roughly broken

70g glace cherries

80g raisins

For the Topping:

35g margarine

250g milk chocolate

Decoration (optional):

50g white chocolate, melted

1.  Grease a cake tin of your choice, deep or shallow depending on how you thick you want your cake.  I used a tin that was about 27x18cm.

2.  Put the chocolate, margarine and golden syrup in a small pan and heat gently until melted. 

3.  Bash up the biscuits and add to the chocolate mix, along with the cherries and raisins.  Stir until combined.

4.  Pour into the tin and roughly level the surface.  Chill in the fridge for about an hour.

5.  Melt the milk chocolate and butter, then pour over the chilled mix.  Put back into the fridge until set.

6.  Melt the melt chocolate and roughly flick over the top of the cake with a spoon.  Put back in the fridge and let it set.

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



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

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.

Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cookies

The past week has been filled with baking, I don’t think I’ve ever baked so much in one week before. I started with chocolate cornflake buns on Saturday with the help of my 2 year old nephew JT, I wanted to bake but wasn’t feeling too good so needed something quick and easy, and that JT could help with. Turns out he’s not too fond of the hob so ran away to play with his train set, however he returned just in time to lick the pan clean. Something which he enjoyed quite a lot!

Then on Tuesday I made rock buns using my Mums old recipe she got from school. Rock buns, if you’ve never heard of them before, are a cross between cake and scone mix with a bit of cinnamon thrown in. They also, quite conveniently, come out of the oven looking like rocks!
Wednesday came the day I’ve been waiting for, I made warm chocolate melt in the middle cupcakes. I’ve been wanting to make these for a few weeks but as they really need to be eaten warm, I needed the whole family to be here to eat them. And so finally on Wednesday everyone was here, including JT and my Mums crazy friend C (who expects there to be fresh baked goods every time she comes round!) and I had my chance to make them. They were so so good, however in the middle of taking photos of them my camera broke. As someone who takes photo’s every single day and loves her camera to bits you can imagine how upset I am. However I do have a new camera on order, the Canon 550D, which should be here sometime in the next week. In the mean time I have to use a combination of my phone, my old Kodak compact and my mums little Panasonic, to try and get some passable pictures.
And so to finish off my baking week, I did some late night baking yesterday to try and ease my boredom. I made chocolate and vanilla marble cupcakes, which have been decorated today with a chocolate buttercream frosting and chunks of clotted cream fudge that I picked up a couple of weeks ago on my holiday to North Wales.

Onto today’s recipe, these cookies are completely delicious. I made them a couple of months back and have since handed the recipe out to quite a few people, all of whom agree that they are delicious. I’m a big fan of cookies and as far as I’m concerned the more chocolate the better. So when I came across this recipe in ‘The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies’ and saw it had 3 lots of chocolate in it, I knew it had to be good. I wasn’t disappointed.
The book calls them chocolate fudge brownie and to be honest I’m really not sure where the fudge brownie part comes in, aside from the chocolate and nuts. But I don’t really care what they call them especially as they are so tasty. I’m not a fan of nuts so I just left them out which worked fine.

Chocolate Fudge Brownie Cookies

250g butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

165g caster sugar

165g brown sugar

1 egg

300g plain flour

25g cocoa powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

45g finely chopped roasted hazelnuts

120g coarsely chopped dark eating chocolate

120g coarsely chopped milk eating chocolate

120g coarsely chopped white eating chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 180°c (160°c fan forced).

2. Grease baking trays, line with baking paper.

3. Beat butter and sugars in a small bowl, add extract and egg and beat until light and fluffy.

4. Transfer to large bowl.

5. Stir in sifted flour, cocoa and soda in two batches. Then stir in the nuts and chocolate.

6. Roll level tablespoons of dough into balls and place 5cm apart on baking trays.

7. Bake for about 12 minutes.

8. Leave to cool on trays.

They say you can make about 48 small cookies out of this mix, the first time I made them I got 25 large ones and then the second time I got about 35 medium sized ones.

A couple of tips with this recipe, firstly make sure you keep the dough balls well spaced out on your baking trays as they spread a lot. Secondly don’t be tempted to flatten your dough balls out a bit, I did this the first time I made them and because they spread out so much whilst cooking they became a bit too thin.Hope you enjoy them!

Oh and apologies for the rubbish photos, I don’t know if it was me, the camera or the cookies but I just couldn’t get a decent photograph of them. I’ll make them again once I get my new camera.

Rocky Road cupcakes

So I'm just going to admit to it straight away, I'm not a neat baker...and by that I mean I'm messy, I take up most of the work tops in the kitchen and I have been known to use every spoon in the house (like this recipe for example, we have a lot of teaspoons, and I mean a lot. But I ran out about half way through!). Just the other week when I was making buttercream I managed to cover most of the kitchen in icing sugar dust. I had to clean inside cups, around the kettle and the fronts of the cupboard doors. I know icing sugar can just erupt with dust, but never have I had to clean most of the kitchen before, everything was covered in what looked like a very fine layer of snow.

I guess the reason why I'm saying this is just to let you know, my photo's are not perfect, there will be lumps of dropped cake mix dotted around. You have been warned!
And so, back to the baking. For my birthday this year my great friend, F, bought me an amazing recipe book, its got some fantastic looking cupcakes in it and I couldn't wait to test them out. I can't actually find a link to it, but its called The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies.

I must have spent hours flicking through it admiring all the photographs, reading the recipes, seeing what ingredients I have and getting hungrier and hungrier as I flicked through each page. I decided to start with the Rocky Road cupcakes (as seen in my header), firstly because they looked so incredibly delicious and secondly, well I can't really refuse anything that involves chocolate.
The cupcake itself is a marble cake of 3 layers, vanilla, chocolate and pink vanilla. When I make them again I'm going to miss out the pink layer as it didn't really show through as much as the others, and it didn't really bring another flavour.

When beating together the cake mix, it looked as if it was about to separate and curdle, but don't worry as long as it doesn't actually curdle then once it's cooked it'll be fine. I wouldn't be surprised if this only happened with me though, it wouldn't be the first time!

I must say, despite a few worries along the way, was quite scrumptious. The cake was very tasty and I was impressed at how well the marble effect showed through. The topping was by far the best bit, generally I can't eat much rocky road mix as it can be incredibly sickly but this was just the perfect amount.

They will definately be made again.

And so to the recipe, as that is what you must be waiting for.

For the marble cake

125g butter, softened

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

185g self raising flour

80ml milk

Pink food colouring

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

2 teaspoons milk, extra

For the topping (you can double this if you want extra!)

35g unsalted roasted peanuts (these can be left out, as I did)

100g halved red glacé cherries

50g pink and white marshmallows, roughly chopped

25g flaked or dessicated coconut, toasted

100g milk chocolate, melted

Decoration

50g Cadbury dairy milk buttons, melted

1. Preheat your oven to 180°c and line a 12 hole muffin pan with paper cases (I used smaller 'fairy' cases as I didn't have any muffin cases)

2. Beat butter, extract, sugar and eggs in a small bowl until light and fluffy

3. Stir in sifted flour and milk in two batches

4. Divide the mixture equally into 3 bowls. Tint one bowl pink. Blend the sifted cocoa with the extra milk in a cup and then add to another bowl. Leave the third bowl plain.

5. Drop alternate spoonfuls of each mixture into the cases. Then pull a skewer or toothpick back and forth through the mixtures to create the marble effect. Smooth the surface.

6. Bake for about 20 minutes, or 30 if using large cases. To check if they are ready, insert a toothpick into the cake, if it comes out clean then its ready.

7. Leave on a wire rack to cool.

8. Put all the topping ingredients into a bowl and stir to combine. For decoration purposes you may want to hold back a small amount of each of the topping ingredients so that they can be added on top, as once they go in the bowl they will get covered in chocolate!

At this point you might want to cut the tops off some of your cupcakes to create a flatter surface for the rocky road mix. Feel free to eat the cut offs as you go along, you deserve it!

9. Place spoonfuls of the topping onto each cupcake. You may need to slightly pile it on to stop if from falling off, and add some of your held back topping so that you can actually tell what's in it!

10. Lastly drizzle each cupcake with the melted chocolate buttons.

Enjoy!