It's been a seriously long week, do you not think or is it just me?

It's been a much better week, I'm feeling tonnes better, (or I was till today), and I even bought a dress a size smaller than I thought I would and the other one I bought is a bit on the big side! Do you know how amazing that feels?

I've worked 6 days this week and looking back on it I can't even think of what to share! Typical!

It was my Mum and Sister's birthday yesterday, (yes my sister was born on my mums birthday), so I made them a cake (naturally) and I'm pretty proud of this!

I also made brownies to take into work, they were gone in a matter of minutes.

I finally have a bit more time off this week to get caught up on everything so I will hopefully have more to share with you!

Basic Cupcakes

Day 9: Teach us a Tutorial

I do a lot of recipe tutorials so I'm going back to basics on what I know best - cupcakes!

To make 12 vanilla cupcakes, you will need: 

6 oz self raising flour

6 oz unsalted butter

6 oz sugar 

3 eggs

A few drops of vanilla essence

I've said before that it is easiest if you have an electric mixer but not everyone will!

Preheat the oven to 160C, it needs to be lower or the cakes will burn on top and not cook. 

Using a handheld whisk, beat the butter and sugar together, at this stage you need to trap in lots of air as this will help the cake to rise, and make it light and fluffy (technical terms here...). 

Then you need to whisk in the egg followed by folding in the flour and vanilla essence. 

Now at this stage it is crucial to be very careful when you fold in the flour because if you are too harsh then you will knock all of the air out and be left with pancakes. 

By now the oven should have warmed up nicely, so spoon the cake mixture into cupcake cases and pop in the oven. 

I will often stay in the kitchen and watch them like a hawk to get them perfectly right. It should take around 20 minutes. 

Transfer them to a cooling rack and decorate in any way you wish! Here are a few ideas to get you going

Chocolate Cupcakes with Buttercream Icing

'Healthy' Cupcakes

Neapolitan Cupcakes

I found this on pinterest and loved how the layers looked so I had to make some!

I used a basic cake recipe and added strawberry flavouring and pink colouring for the icing.

Ingredients:

Cupcakes -

4 oz self raising flour

4 oz butter

4 oz sugar

2 eggs

½ oz cocoa powder

A splash of vanilla essence

Icing –

5 oz butter

10 oz icing sugar

1 – 2 tbsp milk

Pink food colouring

Strawberry flavouring

Start by making the basic cake recipe, if you have a mixer you can chuck all the ingredients together. Having just started my job, I’m yet to be able to afford such equipment.

So for you all in similar situations, cream the sugar and butter together. Followed by beating in the eggs then folding in the flour.

Halve the mixture, to one half add some vanilla essence and to the other half add the cocoa powder.

In each cupcake case, put a layer of chocolate mixture and smooth it down so the top is even. Then put a layer of vanilla mixture and smooth it down evenly again.

Don’t forget that you only have half the mixture that you need to divide evenly between 12 cases.

Bake in the oven at 170C for 15 – 20 minutes. Then allow to cool.

While they are cooking, make the icing to this recipe, replacing the blue colouring with pink and adding some strawberry flavouring.

I love the layers in this cupcake, it makes it really different to any that I’ve made before and as with the ice cream, the flavours all work together.

What’s your favourite flavour cupcake you’ve made or tried?

Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Blue Buttercream Icing

Ingredients:

Cupcakes -

4 oz self raising flour

4 oz butter

4 oz sugar

2 eggs

½ oz cocoa powder

1 pack of chocolate chips (typically 100g)

Icing –

5 oz butter

10 oz icing sugar

1 – 2 tbsp milk

Blue food colouring

Methods:

Start by making the cupcakes. Cream together the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy. Add in the eggs and mix together well. Fold in the flour and cocoa powder to the mixture then do the same with the chocolate chips.

Spoon the mixture out into 12 cupcake cases and put in a preheated oven at 160C for roughly 20 minutes.

It is always best to cook cakes on a low heat so that you get an even bake and you don’t burn the tops. When it is coming to the end of the cooking time, keep a close eye on them and keep checking by either sticking a knife in and seeing if it comes out clean or pressing lightly on the top and seeing if it springs back.

Take the cakes out of the oven and leave them to cool.

In the meantime, make the blue icing. Obviously you can make them any colour but I wanted to do something a bit different instead of my typical pink!

First cream the butter till it is smooth, and then slowly adds in the icing sugar making sure that it is all blended together. Then add in the milk and food colouring. Whisk it all together until it is thoroughly blended together then pour into a piping bag to pipe onto the cakes.

B... is for Baking

I love making cakes, with pink icing of course! I haven’t been baking as much recently as they aren’t healthy but I will always love it. Here’s some cakes I’ve made before!

I recently made a cake in a soup tin (I washed it first don’t worry) and it actually worked! It wasn’t the prettiest cake I’ve ever made but it was still cool to make.

It was also my sister’s birthday at the beginning of the week so I also made her birthday cake. Pretty normal looking huh?

And as if by magic, there are malteasers inside!

Until next time.