Lime and Coconut Cupcakes

Apologies for the slowness of posts lately, I don't always get the chance to take photo's when I'm baking.  Just lately I'm baking a lot with my little Nephew which is incredibly fun as he sings along when he's helping me but I don't get much chance to take photo's and when I do it's usually of him!

A few weeks ago I made these lime and coconut cupcakes, I had the idea because my Mum came home from work one day atfer discussing my baking with a friend and the friend told her how her boyfriend made the most amazing lime and coconut cake.  Lime and coconut is not a flavour that I've experimented with before, so I was up for giving it a go.

The cake mix is slightly adapted from my Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies book whilst the buttercream is of my own making.  At first bite I wasn't too impressed by them, I thought the cake a little on the dry side but after the next mouthfull and the next I couldn't get enough.  The more I ate the more I wanted, I think I definately ate more of them than anyone else in the house!

Lime and Coconut Cupcakes - Slightly adapted from The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies

125g margarine

1 tsp vanilla extract

Finely grated zest of 1 lime

145g caster sugar

2 eggs

80ml milk

60g desiccated coconut

188g self raising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180c and line your pan with cupcake cases.
2. Beat margarine, vanilla, zest, sugar and eggs until combined.
3. Stir in the milk and coconut. - I'm not going to lie, at this stage the mixture looked pretty gross so I was very surprised when it all came out ok!
4. Then stir in the sifted flour until combined.
5. Divide mixture amongst cases and cook for about 25 minutes.

Lime buttercream - my own recipe

75g margarine
150 - 200g sifted icing sugar
Finely grated zest of 1 lime
Juice of half to 1 lime
Green food colouring - I just added a little for a nice pastel green shade

1. Beat margarine until soft.

2. Add in a few tablespoons of icing sugar at a time and beat until combined, leaving about 50g icing sugar left.

3. Beat in zest and half of lime juice.

4. At this stage its completely upto you what you do next, try the buttercream and see if you like the lime taste.  Add more if you need to.  Also tip the bowl on its side, if the buttercream drops quickly then add more icing sugar and beat again until the consistency gets a bit thicker.  If you plan on just spreading the buttercream on top of the cupcakes with a knife like I have then it doesn't need to be as thick as it would if you were piping.

Lastly add the buttercream to the tops of your cupcakes and cover with more desiccated coconut.  To make this easier you can pour the coconut into a cup and just dunk each cupcake upside down into it and tap off any excess.

As it's Red Nose Day on Friday I have a few idea's which I'm rather excited about.  So pop back Friday and as long as I don't have any major disasters I should have something fun to share!

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



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!