My favourite cocktail in a cupcake, what could be better than that?!
Cupcakes
Happy Birthday to Me!
Yep, today is my birthday. I’m a little upset about creeping closer and closer to the big 3-0, but it’s nothing a little cake can’t fix!
That’s right, I did make my own birthday cupcakes, but that’s okay. Really it’s just an extra treat for me! These are some beautiful fudgy devil’s food cake cupcakes, but the recipe I’ll be sharing with you today is the devilishly sweet frosting on top. It’s called white cloud frosting and it tastes like marshmallow in frosting form! I won’t lie to you, I’m definitely more of a buttercream girl but this is still a yummy one! If you like your sweets teeth achingly sweet, this is definitely the one for you!
The sweetness of the frosting is a great compliment on the deeply chocolatey devil’s food cake too. Don’t worry, I will be posting the cake recipe tomorrow. Two posts in one weekend, I’m going wild I know! But tomorrow is Mother’s Day here in the UK and I will be making my mum a special devil’s food cake with fresh whipped cream for the occasion! So you won’t have to wait long if you want to pair these two beauties together like I did!
This frosting doesn’t contain any butter or icing sugar, it’s sweetened with syrup and of course the meringue like texture comes from whipped egg whites. Most recipes you find online will call for corn syrup, that’s not something we have much of in the UK so I used golden syrup. You could also use maple syrup or liquid glucose. I used liquid glucose in my first batch, which failed miserably because I have a really terrible stand mixer (if anybody wants to donate me a kitchenaid or other decent stand mixer, please feel free!!) I used up all my glucose in the first lot, so the second batch I used golden syrup. I was worried I would lose the bright white colour you want with this frosting, but while it was slightly golden at first it went white once it was finished!
It’s nice and quick to whip up too, especially compared to my fave – swiss meringue buttercream. You beat egg whites until foamy and then slowly add a little caster sugar, beating until soft peaks form. Then you boil the syrup and pour into the egg whites and beat until stiff peaks form. The heat of the syrup will cook the egg whites enough so you don’t have to worry about raw eggs in your frosting! Then just stir in vanilla and you’re done! This recipe makes enough to frost about 12 cupcakes, it doesn’t keep very well so you want to use it all up! Don’t be shy with that frosting!
Today I don’t think I’ll do much else but eat cake and drink some wine. I think I’ll cook up some black bean and kale burgers too! I’m getting boring in my old age, I know!
[recipe title=”White Cloud Frosting”]
Ingredients
- 2 egg whites, at room temperature
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 3/4 cup golden syrup
- 1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
Method
- In a clean, dry bowl beat the egg whites and salt on a high speed until foamy. You’ll want to use a stand mixer if possible, but I used a hand mixer with my second batch and it works just fine (you just might get a bit of arm ache!)
- While the mixer is running, slowly add the sugar. Beat until it forms soft peaks.
- Put the syrup in a small saucepan and bring to the boil over a medium heat. Once its come to boil, remove from heat. While the mixer is running on high, slowly pour the syrup into the egg mixture (be careful, the last thing you want is boiling syrup on your skin – trust me!). Beat the mixture until stiff peaks form, this will take about 5 minutes.
- Add the vanilla and stir to combine.
- Use the frosting right away. Add sprinkles asap as a thin layer will form and your sprinkles won’t stick (and what’s a birthday cake without sprinkles?)
[/recipe]
Have a great day, I’ll see you all tomorrow!
Cadbury Chocolate Fingers Birthday Cake!
Cadbury fingers make the best kind of birthday cake!
A friend asked me to make a cake for her friend’s 40th birthday and after some discussion we decided on a cake covered with cadbury fingers. Naturally I was super excited to make it because I LOVE cadbury fingers. She also asked for it to be elegant, and what’s more elegant than roses am I right?! So with the party’s colour scheme in mind I set about creating this cake! It was actually a lot of fun to make and I’m really pleased with how it turned out
That cake itself is vanilla, filled with fresh whipped cream and strawberry jam. It’s then covered with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, surrounded by the all important cadbury fingers and decorated with fondant roses and flowers! I am sure you’ve seen similar designs many times before, it’s still one of my favourite ways to decorate a cake though! As soon as I can get my hands on a marble slab somehow, I will definitely make a similar cake with chocolate cigarellos. Cigarellos are no match to cadbury fingers in taste, but they definitely have a more dainty, elegant look!
I also made 60 cupcakes to match, Nasa obviously has a lot more friends than I do! They were all vanilla cake with vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, then decorated to match the colour theme of course. The cupcake toppers were definitely a labour of lover, but they were fun to make and they turned out pretty much how I wanted them too which is always a bonus!
As you may have noticed, this is another post without a recipe attached. I am sorry, I will get up the recipe for the ferrero rocher cupcakes soon, I just wanted to share this cake with you while I don’t have time to write up a recipe or do any baking (“don’t have time” in Michelle language normally translates to “don’t have the energy/am too sick”). I do have plans to bake some chocolate pudding cookies and macarons so maybe I’ll get those up soon too! In the meantime I do hope you enjoy these cakes even if the photos aren’t great!
Have a fab week y’all
Welcome to the World, Thing 1 and Thing 2
In the early hours of this morning my sister gave birth to twins! So I baked some cupcakes to celebrate (naturally).
And how could I bake anything other than Dr Seuss Thing 1 and Thing 2 cupcakes? I had the idea for these a while ago after seeing something similar on the internet and I’ve just been counting down the days until I could do it!
I had a bit of a struggle with these as I either needed red cake or red cases. And since I couldn’t find red cases for love nor money, it had to be red cake, which naturally means red velvet, my fave! The problem here being that I also didn’t have any red food colouring! For those of you experienced with red velvet you’ll know that the original red colour comes from the reaction between the cocoa powder and acidic ingredient (usually white vinegar of some kind), but to get a garishly bright red that most of us are used to when it comes to red velvet, you also need a ton of red food colouring. I somehow managed to get a nice good red colour from just the cocoa and vinegar plus some ruby sugarflair gel colouring (which is a dark pink) and a very tiny amount blue food colouring (thanks to my colour theory expert of a best friend for that tip!). While organising my cake decorating supplies later today I discovered I did have red food colouring after all, I guess that’s what I get for not organising that stuff sooner!
I’m not gonna give you the red velvet recipe today as I was on a bit of an improvisation with this one, I also made my own buttermilk, this was a strictly “only use what I already have in the house” project!. When I finally write up a red velvet recipe (and I will, it’s my favourite cake) I’ll let you know how to make your own buttermilk too, a quick google will help you out there in the meantime though.
But what is red velvet without cream cheese frosting, right? And that’s the recipe I’m going to give you today. I’m a huge fan of cream cheese frosting, it’s my absolute favourite and I pretty much love it however it comes. But sometimes I find it can be a bit heavy with too much sweetness and not enough tangyness (totally a word), which is why I love this recipe. It’s really light and creamy and the small amount of sugar really lets the cream cheese shine through! Plus it’s still stiff enough to pipe.
So, this one’s for you T1 and T2. This is your Aunty Michelle’s way of welcoming you into this crazy world
[recipe title=”Cream Cheese Frosting” servings=”” time=”15 mins”]
Ingredients
- 230g full fat cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 60g icing sugar, sifted
- 160ml cold double cream*
Method
- Beat the cream cheese until smooth
- Add vanilla and sugar and beat until combined and smooth
- Using a whisk attachment, add the cream a little at a time and whip until frosting is thick and ready to pipe
- Add more sugar or cream to adjust consistency if necessary
*Note – make sure you use a double cream with at least 35% fat content and one that you know whips well. If you’re not using a good whipping cream then your frosting will not thicken up properly.
[/recipe]
Sweet Potato & Cider Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting and Butter Toasted Salted Pecans
Inspired by bar food and just as yummy!
I made these a while ago now and I didn’t take a lot of photos so this will be a pretty wordy post. It’ll be worth it though because these are pretty amazing cupcakes.
The Vortex is an Atlanta institution and it serves pretty damn awesome bar food. Skipping past the burger with peanut butter and bananas that I always order, their sweet potato waffle fries that I get on the side are to die for. They serve them with marshmallow dip and the combination is awesome. When I was back home in the UK and longing for some Vortex food I thought “hey, why not make a cupcake version!” because that’s just how my brain works! And bar food is no good without a nice cold cider to go with it. And so this cupcake was born!
The actual cupcakes taste like autumn and would be great with Thanksgiving dessert, but I would eat these any time of the year. The salty pecans offset the sweetness of the marshmallow perfectly too. They’re a great cupcake and a little on the different side too, which I always love.
They’re a bit long winded to make, but it’ll be worth the effort. I didn’t make quite enough frosting so I’d recommend adding 50% or doubling the recipe below.
Caramel Cider Sauce
- 500ml apple cider
- 1 vanilla pod, split length ways
- 30g butter
- 50g light brown sugar
Put the cider in a pan and bring to the boil. Add the vanilla bean and simmer for about twenty minutes until reduced by half. Add the butter and sugar and simmer for ten more minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool completely.
Sweet Potato & Cider Cupcakes
- 115g unsalted butter, room temperature
- 225g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 225g mashed sweet potatoes, cold
- 120ml apple cider
- 1tsp vanilla extract
- 190g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp bicarbinate of soda
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 190C/375F and line a muffin tin with cases
Beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until incorporated.
Put the sweet potato, cider and vanilla extract in a food processor and whizz until smooth. Leave to one side.
Put the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix until combined. Add the flour mixture and the potato mixture into the butter mixture, alternating between the two, and beat until combined.
Fill the cupcake cases two thirds full and bake in the oven for about 18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and they’re springy to touch.
Remove from the pan. Saving 6 tbsp, drizzle the cider sauce over the warm cupcakes. Leave to cool.
Marshmallow Frosting
- 230g unsalted butter, room temp
- 6 tbsp cider sauce
- 212g jar of vanilla marshmallow fluff ((UK people can buy it here)
Beat the butter until smooth and creamy. Add 6 tablespoons of the cider sauce and beat until incorporated. Add the marshmallow fluff and fold in until fully incorporated.
Butter Toasted Salted Cupcakes
- Large handful of pecans, roughly chopped
- 1 tbsp butter
- 1/2 tsp salt
Preheat the oven to 190C/375F and line a baking tray with baking paper.
Melt the butter and stir in the pecans. Spread them out on a tray and roast in the oven for about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with salt and toss. Leave to cool. Sprinkle on top of frosted cupcakes then drizzle with any left over cider sauce.
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