Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // August 15, 2014 // 65 Comments

Do these Ferrero Rocher cupcakes even need an introduction? These are the kind of cupcakes that walk into a party and everybody turns their head to stare! They’re the A-Lister of cupcakes, I mean look at them! Moist, rich chocolate cake filled with chocolate hazelnut ganache and topped with chocolate hazelnut swiss meringue buttercream – who doesn’t love chocolate and hazelnut together? They’re the classic couple, the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of food pairings! What I’m trying to say is these cupcakes are to die for, if you like Ferrero Rocher these cupcakes are for you!

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Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Frosting

by Michelle @ A Tipsy Giraffe // August 5, 2014 // 10 Comments

Yep, you heard me right. This mint chocolate chip ice cream frosting tastes exactly like mint choc chip ice cream, it is amazing! This is the kind of frosting that you can just eat straight out of the bowl, it doesn’t even need a cake to go with it! It’s so light and fluffy and extremely creamy! The key is the high butter to sugar ratio (which makes it’s extremely creamy and not overly sweet) and to whip up the butter for a minimum of 10 minutes (which makes it so light and fluffy), it also has cream in it to give it that ice cream taste. Now, I know you’re probably thinking it can’t taste that much like ice cream but you’re wrong! You have to try it to believe it!

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Whipped Vanilla Frosting

by giraffescanbake // May 9, 2014 // 18 Comments

Incredibly light and creamy whipped vanilla frosting, perfect on any cake!

This frosting is so simple but the results are amazing! It’s no secret that I’m a great lover of swiss meringue buttercream, I prefer it to regular buttercream as it’s much less sweet. But oh, this frosting. It’s so sweet but so yummy, I can’t imagine any cake it wouldn’t go well with.

I originally made this frosting to go with a cake I made for the company I work for’s 3rd birthday, which was back in February. I’ve been waiting to post this recipe until I had the perfect white vanilla cake for it to go with, however I’m still working on perfecting that and I can’t wait any longer to share this recipe! This whipped vanilla frosting recipe made even the slightly lacking vanilla giant number 3 cake I made taste like it was made by angels, and made the hours of putting M&Ms on a cake worth it!

The secret to the lightness of this frosting is whipping the butter for several minutes, I whipped it for 10 minutes total. This turns it white and fluffy and makes it the perfect frosting base.

If I didn’t know that was just butter I want to lick it off!

Then the remaining ingredients are whipped in for a few more minutes to create a wonderful creamy frosting that feels so light but tastes so good. Anybody who says vanilla is boring hasn’t been eating the right vanilla goods!

It’s fun to make a post for a recipe I made a few months ago as I can really see how much my photography has progressed in just a few short months! I wish I was able to remake this recipe to take better photos for the blog, but unfortunately my budget doesn’t allow me to make frosting just to take photos of it (especially since a trip to the vet this week put my cat on a very expensive diet!)

This frosting is the perfect accompaniment to any birthday cake or party treat, so it’s only fitting I am bringing this along to my first Fiesta Friday! I can’t wait! Thank you so much to Jhuls for inviting me!

[recipe title=”Whipped Vanilla Frosting”]

Ingredients:

400g unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into cubes
500g icing sugar, sifted
50ml milk
1.5 tsp pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt

Method

Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, whip the butter for 8-10 minutes on medium speed until pale and creamy
Add the remaining ingredients and whip on a low speed for a minute, then increase to medium and beat for 5 more minutes until very light and fluffy.

Notes

Best used right away
Makes enough frosting for a 2 layer 8″ round cake

[/recipe]

Pistachio Macarons

by giraffescanbake // April 5, 2014 // 2 Comments

I have a baker’s confession to make; I have lived in the south east of England for the majority of my life and I have never once been to Paris. It’s shameful, I know. I’m just a train ride away from so many beautiful and classic baked delicacies and I’ve never taken advantage of it. I don’t know how I live with myself to be quite honest (Note: I have been to France, once, but not Paris). It’s okay, I understand if you want to publicly shame me for this, you can do so in the comments!

My second confession as a baker is I’m not a huge fan of macarons. You can argue with me about the correct spelling, but in England a macaroon is a coconut cookie (see here). Okay, back to the French cookie, I don’t dislike them but they’ll never be my first choice and I don’t really get what all the fuss is about. Yet, I still made it my mission to make successful macarons – just to prove I could. Baking is kind of a competition to me, where I’m competing with my own self doubt. And when my self doubt wins, well I tend to throw a little tantrum and refuse to attempt it again for years! The first time I tried to make macarons it was a bit of a disaster, that was about 3 years ago. Fast forward to 2014 and here I am, a successful macaron baker! Yay me!

Okay, so they’re definitely not the prettiest macarons but they ARE macarons. These pistachio macarons are light and fluffy, they have feet and they’re super tasty (according to the macaron lovers I had taste test them!). My biggest issues in making this were trying to grind the pistachios in a mini food processor (I definitely didn’t have a smooth enough batter) and my oven temperature in Atlanta is a bit wonky so baking time was a guessing game! Overall though, I’m very pleased with how they came out. I had planned to never make them again after I got them right, but I think a couple people may have something to say about that unfortunately! Oh well, I bake to please!

Before making these I did lots of internet research to find tips on how to make them successfully and found an excellent post from Food Nouveau. That post is definitely your one stop shop on the world of making macarons, it has everything you need to know with really clear instructions! They also have a link to a bunch of different flavour recipes too! One of the tips they give is to make plain macarons your first time out, of course I didn’t listen! I really like pistachio and I thought this was going to be my only time making them. I’m a rebel, what can I say! That being said, if this is your first time making macarons, I implore you to read that whole post before attempting this recipe as I won’t be able to go into as much detail as they did.

Another rule I didn’t follow is the ageing of the egg whites. I’m an impatient fool and I wanted to make them right then! Honestly I don’t think it’s entirely necessary (but who knows, maybe I would have had a smoother batter if I’d aged them). What I did was place the whole eggs in warm water for about 3 minutes before separating them. One tip that is important to follow though is exact measurements for the cookies, you need a scale rather than cups to be as accurate as possible.

[recipe title=”Pistachio Macarons”]
Ingredients

For the cookies:

3 egg whites, room temperature
205 g icing sugar
125 g powdered almonds (almond flour/meal)
20 g unsalted and shelled pistachios
30 g caster sugar
Green gel food colouring

For the buttercream:

45 g unsalted and shelled pistachios
1 cup icing sugar
6 tbsp butter, unsalted
½ tsp vanilla extract

Method

To make the cookies:

Finely grind the pistachios in a food processor. Add the icing sugar and powdered almond and grind for a few minutes. Sift the mixture into a large bowl to ensure no larger lumps remain, throw away anything that doesn’t make it through the sieve. Set aside.
Whisk the egg whites on a medium/high speed in a stand mixer for a couple of minutes, then add a tablespoon of the caster sugar. Continue to beat while you slowly add the remaining sugar. Beat until the egg whites are stiff and creamy.
Fold in the food colouring gently with a rubber spatula, add a few drops at a time until you get your desired colour.
Very delicately fold in the nut and icing sugar mixture in a few additions. Make sure no pockets of dry ingredients remain but do not beat!
Prepare your baking sheet by lining with parchment paper. I also slipped a template underneath to get my cookies evenly sized (this is the template I used), just make sure to slide the template out before placing the baking sheet in the oven
Spoon your batter into a piping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip and pipe rounds of batter, evenly spaced. They can be close together as they won’t expand much.
Let your macarons rest on the baking sheet for a minimum of 20 minutes, I left mine for about 45 minutes. Make sure a skin has formed before baking. Preheat the oven to 300F/150C.
Bake macarons for about 15 minutes. You can test them by gently tapping the top, they are ready when they are firm on their feet.
Leave the cool while you make the buttercream

To make the buttercream:

Finely grind the pistachios in the food processor. Add the icing sugar and grind some more.
Cream this mixture with the softened butter until you reach a buttercream like consistency.
Blend in the vanilla extract. If the mixture is too thick, add a little bit of cream or milk until you get the right consistency (and vice versa)
Pipe the buttercream onto the flat side of one cookie and sandwich with another, repeat for all cookies
Store at room temperature in an air tight container. They’ll taste even better the next day!

[/recipe]

Happy Birthday to Me!

by giraffescanbake // March 29, 2014 // 1 Comment

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!