Short Black Cupcakes #2

My mixer survived... a set of replacement beaters and it was good to go again! I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I think it's great to have such a vintage piece of kitchen equipment, and on the other hand I was wanting to to get myself an up to date machine with all sorts of optional extras.

Cupcakes are my current baking staple, and today I thought to revisit the Short Black Cupcakes.
I (roughly) followed the Donna Hay version again, with the following tweaks.

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup natural yoghurt
100g dark chocolate, melted

Preheat the oven to 160C.
Cream butter and gradually add sugar.
Add eggs one at a time. Beat well.
Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Add to butter mix and combine well.
Mix in the milk, yoghurt and chocolate.
Spoon 70g of mixture into cupcake papers and place in a muffin tray.
Bake for 18 minutes.
Cool on wire racks.

I had another bash at the icing, and tried different proportions this time around.

125g butter
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
30mL cup milk
1 teaspoons instant coffee

Cream butter and gradually add sugar.
Dissolve coffee into milk.
Gradually add coffee mix into the butter and sugar, beat until well combined.

I was very happy with this recipe and combination and will definitely make it again!

I think it is terminal...

My mixmaster hiding on the right
I was trying to make butter cream icing today and I was having problems getting my beaters to click into my mixmaster. It worked okay last night when I made the cupcakes but for some reason today was not my day.

I wrestled a few times, getting more and more frustrated and eventually decided that they just were not going to click in! I finished off the icing on one beater but it was nowhere near as fluffy or full as usual and I ran out of icing - usually I have too much!

The mixmaster was inherited from a family member. I think it belonged to my grandmother but possibly it was my Aunt's. It has seen a good innings and if C cannot fix it then I shall have to replace it with something new and shiny and that will hopefully last just as long!

Chai cupcakes

Last weekend I gave the chai cupcake recipe another spin! One of my new workmates drinks chai latte in the office and every time I smelt it I told him that I would make him a chai cupcake to eat.

I found it easier to make the cupcakes in a single flavour rather than splitting it between vanilla and chai. I am not too sure what I did differently but the first time I tried the recipe I only had enough batter for ten cupcakes. This time around I had too much for twelve and should have made a spare thirteenth... or eaten the leftover batter.

At any rate I wanted to spice up the icing - rather than having just a plain vanilla - and KroissantK* suggested that cinnamon would complement the chai cupcake nicely. I added ground cinnamon to the icing recipe and also sprinkled the icing with the cinnamon. The spice in the icing was nice but I am not so sure about the sprinkle as the cinnamon has melted into the icing and made it look slightly diseased.

Still, the cupcakes were appreciated by C and the boys at work and that is all that matters!


The chai flavour in the cupcakes comes from chai latte powder. It is a quick and easy way to impart a pseudo chai flavour into the cupcakes. Even though it says "spice" on the tin, the ingredients list is a bit scary and I hesitated before I purchased the box. (Image)

* My mother and I visited KroissantK to meet her new baby. We were impressed that with a month old baby and a toddler she managed to make us beautiful croissants and pain au chocolat from scratch! In honour of that, and to differentiate all of the random letters that make up my friends, I have deemed her KroissantK.

Lime and coconut cupcakes

A few weekends ago I felt the urge to test the lime and coconut recipe that I received from the Cupcake Class. I had already tried the Vanilla and Chai recipes and decided to experiment with another flavour.

I had thought that the lime and coconut cupcakes that we tried at the class were lovely and lime flavoured but lacking in a coconut hit, so I played with the flavourings to see if I could bring it out more.

I was very happy with the icing. It was so lovely and smooth and had a great texture! I used coconut cream rather than coconut milk as that was all that was in my pantry, and in future will stick with that.

125g butter
220g caster sugar (1 cup)
2 eggs
113g self raising flour (3/4 cup)
94g plain flour (5/8 cup)
63mL coconut cream (1/4 cup)
63mL sour cream (1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon coconut essence
zest of four limes
juice of half a lime
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

Method here.

The mixture made twelve cupcakes. I used the Fox Run Cup Cake Baking Paper sized cupcake liners in my Analon Commercial Muffin Pan.

The original recipe called for 20 minutes in the oven at 170C. When I checked the cupcakes after 20 minutes I found that they were already overcooked! Next time I will start looking at 18 minutes and take it from there. The cakes were not too dehydrated but were lacking a bit of moistness and were slightly crumbly.

I was also only able to get the zest off three limes and this meant that the cakes did not have the zingy lime flavour that I was expecting. In future I will try to make sure that I use the zest of at least four limes.

I was very happy with the icing that I made. It was so light and fluffy and creamy and when piped it looked so much like soft serve ice cream!

125g butter
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon coconut essence
1/8 cup coconut cream

Beat butter to an inch of its life, until pale and fluffy.
Gradually add the icing sugar, beating well after each addition. Beat some more.
Add the essence and keep beating.
Finally, add the coconut cream.

There should be a lot of beating of the icing to get it nice and light and fluffy.

I finished off the cupcakes with some toasted shredded coconut. It was pretty easy to toast. I put some shredded coconut onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and put it in the oven for two minutes at 170C. It could probably do with only one and a half minutes however my oven timer only works in one minute increments, and I was too lazy to time it any other way.

Cupcake Icing tutorials

I have been trawling the depths of the internet, looking for alternative ways to decorate cupcakes! I am slightly ashamed of my plastic tips and I think that the next time I head to a kitchenware shop I will be adding to my collection of tips and piping bags.

Cupcake mania

A couple of weeks ago I thought that I would test out the new cupcake recipe that BakingN and I received from the cupcake class. It was fairly simple and I wanted to try some of the little tips that Brittany had passed on for myself.

Gather your ingredients. Make sure that you have everything that you need to cook.


Cream your butter and sugar. My butter had been out of the fridge for a couple of days and so was nice and softened by the time I was ready to bake! Start beating the butter first, then gradually add the sugar.


Mix in the vanilla extract and eggs. Add the eggs one at a time and incorporate each egg well before adding the next one. Brittany maintains that the reason why we do this is that it helps to prevent the mixture from splitting.


Mix in the sifted flours. Brittany's recommendation is to do it with a spatula, as beating it with the electric beaters can make the batter chewy.

Finally add in the wet ingredients and mix well with your trusty spatula.


The batter is now ready to either decant into cupcake liners or to add flavourings.


I was fairly conservative and made vanilla cupcakes and chai cupcakes. I wanted to see how the mixture went first before branching out!



If I make this recipe again before the lime season is over then I might just try the lime and coconut flavour.

The icing recipe was new for me, usually when I make buttercream icing I just use butter and icing sugar. This time around I added vanilla and milk as directed.

Beat your softened butter, then gradually add the sifted icing sugar. Add the vanilla and milk. Remove the beaters and mix further with your spatula.


I was a little more conservative with my icing and tried to pipe it flat onto the cakes, rather than swirling it to a peak. This meant that there was less icing and I found that the equivalent amount of butter (125g in the cupcakes and 125g in the icing) was the perfect proportion.

Berry and white chocolate muffins

Following my efforts with the baci semifreddo I found myself with a surplus of double cream and creme fraiche. I knew just the recipe and pulled out my Donna Hay simple essentials: chocolate cook book. Muffins are simple to make and easy to share with my work mates!

2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 cup chopped white chocolate


Preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the flour and sugar into a bowl and mix to combine.

Combine the sour cream, eggs, lemon rind and oil and whisk together.


Stir the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Fold through the raspberries and chocolate. I do not think that I mixed well enough before I added the berries and chocolate, if you look closely you can see a fair amount of flour in the batter.



Spoon the mixture into 8 texas muffin tins lined with paper patty cases.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.



Notes

• I made 12 muffins in cases in a 1/3 cup tray. Cook for approximately 20 minutes


• I made a few tweaks to the recipe, substituting wholemeal flour and using a combination of sour cream, creme fraiche and double cream, as well as lime rind instead of the lemon rind as we have an oversupply


• For vegetable oil I always use a light olive oil


• The berries that were in my freezer were mixed berries, and quite icy. I tried to pick out the ice as best I could


• For chocolate I had a combination of chocolate melts and white chocolate.