Cupcake Crazy!

Bite Size Twix Banana Bread

2012-01-27T13:21:00.002Z

Do you have a favourite chocolate bar? I'm the youngest of 4 girls in my family. When all my older sisters had already started school, my mom and I used to get up to all kinds of fun without them! One of our favourite things to do was day trip it in London, which was only a 20 minute train ride away. We would go check out all the art galleries and museums - I'm pretty sure I was the only 3 and a half year old who knew my Monet from my Manet! (I'm not sure I could say the same these days...how was I more cultured as a child than a 25 year old?!) but you know what one of my favourite parts of our day was? even before we got to London? It was our little train station ritual. We would go to the little shop on the platform and my mom would buy me a Twix (because it was my favourite!). Without fail, every time this is how it went down.

Until one time when my mom had to go to South Africa because her dad was in hospital, and my aunt came to look after us. She took me to London one day so I thought I'd bring her up to speed with the Twix tradition. She was more than happy to oblige, and it was all going so well ...up until the point when she asked me if she could have half - I was pretty horrified. This was not how it was meant to go! I told her that my mom never asked for half my Twix and I don't remember how the rest of the story goes after that point - whether I did indeed share my Twix or whether I kept it to myself!

One thing I do know is that I'm older and wiser, and hopefully less bratty now and I'm more than ready to share Twix' all round! so here I am sharing this amazing Twix Banana Bread recipe with you after I saw it over at Jocelyn's blog. The little chopped up Twix bits add a crunchy and chewy surprise to the banana bread and the chocolate melts into it too. If I could make this any better, I'd probably add some kind of caramel glaze next time. Otherwise it's a quick and easy treat to whip up for when you have over ripe bananas, one quick run to the shop to get some chocolate and you're good to go!

Next time around I would think about making a caramel glaze to drizzle on top, it was what I had planned to do when I set out to bake them but the amazing smell in my kitchen was overwhelming and we had to tuck into them while they were still warm, foregoing any glaze making!

Twix Banana Bread:

Makes one regular loaf and 6 mini loaves

From Inside BruCrew Life

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup mashed banana (about 3)
1/2 cup sour cream
2 cup chopped Twix bars

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat again. Stir in the bicarbonate of soda and salt. Slowly add the flour to the mixture while the mixer is running. Do not over beat.

Fold in the bananas, sour cream and Twix bars by hand until incorporated. Pour into your loaf tins that have been sprayed with non stick spray or greased with butter. Bake at 180 degrees C for 1 hour and 5 minutes. Check with a sharp knife or toothpick to see if it is done...if not, bake another 5 minutes. Let cool for 10-15 minutes in the pan, then remove and cool on a wire rack.

P.S For those observant ones out there you may have noticed I said I made a big loaf and 6 mini loaves. Unfortunately the big loaf was not pretty enough to photograph because of the rubbish loaf pan I had bought! I had spotted a silicone orange loaf container in pound land and since I love colour co-ordinating so much I thought it would be fun to use a big orange pan alongside my little mini orange pans but the silicone wasn't sturdy enough and produced a very wonky looking loaf.

Moral of this story: don't purchase your bakeware in pound land! Many of you probably wouldn't even think to do that anyway, but remember I am stuck in North Wales and baking shops are thin on the ground so sometimes you have to take what you can get!

A Peanut Butter & Brownie 9 Layer Trifle!! and the end of exams!

2012-01-21T13:15:00.000Z

I am writing this blog post and it feels so good not be doing it sneakily! I'm officially allowed to look at cupcakes and my google reader and blog as much as I like because I am done with exams! Hooray (yes my husband does have to monitor my every internet move because if he didn't I would spend all day looking at cupcakes rather than looking at experimental validity!)

As a consequence of said exams and essays, I am wayyy behind in blogging, how inconvenient of them to get in the way right?! So I bring you the dessert that I made for our Christmas Day feast! In my family growing up, probably like most other English families, we had Trifle on Christmas Day - which is great if you like custard and cream but I don't! My mom used to make me my own special little trifle in a bowl sans custard and cream!

This year we spent Christmas Day at my mother-in-laws and I offered to make the dessert. I still wanted to keep it somewhat traditional so stuck with trifle...but as my husbands family are all peanut butter lovers and mine are not I decided it was my chance to unleash this 9 layer beast on them, courtesy of Paula Deen!

Although it seems like it should take alot of preparation, it really didn't. My husband helped me make it on Christmas Eve and between the two of us it had been whipped up and left to set in the fridge within an hour. Easy peasy...and for the delicious results it was definitely worth it. I had never tried Jell-o pudding mix before and was a little skeptical but once you whipped the peanut butter into it it became a creamy peanut butter flavoured dream! Combine that with moist fudgy brownie, bites of peanut butter cups covered in chocolate, a taste of peanut butter frosting and some sour cream and whipped cream to cut through the richness and you're talking about one mouth watering dessert!

This dish was a little pricey to make, I had been in London the day before to source the Jell-o vanilla pudding, peanut butter cups and peanut butter chips from Partridge's because you can't buy those ingredients at regular supermarkets here. So, unless you're happy to spend more on making a dessert than you would on a meal out, it might be best to save it for a special occasion! but if you live in America and those ingredients are freely available on your supermarket shelves then bake away!

Peanut Butter Chocolate Brownie Trifle
Makes 12-15 servings

From Cooking with Paula Deen

1 (17.6-ounce) package brownie mix,prepared according to package directions, and cut into small squares

2 (3.4-ounce) packages instantvanilla pudding mix

3 cups whole milk

1 2⁄3 cups creamy peanut butter,divided

1⁄2 cup butter, softened

2 cups icing sugar, divided

4 teaspoons vanilla extract, divided

1 1⁄2 cups sourcream

1⁄2 cup caster sugar

2 cups double cream

15 chocolate peanut butter cups, cutinto fourths

Garnish: chocolate peanut butter cupbells and peanut butter chips (melted)

For puddinglayer:

In a mediumbowl, combine pudding mix and milk, whisking until combined. Whisk in 2⁄3 cuppeanut butter; set aside.

For peanutbutter layer:

In a largebowl, combine remaining 1 cup peanut butter and butter. Beat at medium speedwith an electric mixer until smooth. Add 1 1⁄2 cups icing sugar and 21⁄2 teaspoons vanilla, beating until well blended; set aside.

For sourcream layer:

In a smallbowl, combine sour cream, 1⁄2 cup caster sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir untilwell combined; set aside.

For whippedcream layer:

In a largebowl, combine cream, remaining 1⁄2 cup icing sugar, and remaining 1⁄2teaspoon vanilla. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until soft peaksform. Set aside.

To assembletrifle:

In a trifledish, place 1⁄3 of brownies in bottom of dish. Spread 1⁄2 of pudding mixtureover brownies. Top with 1⁄3 of brownies. Spread peanut butter layer overbrownies. Sprinkle with peanut butter cups. Spread sour cream layer over peanutbutter cups. Top with remaining 1⁄3 of brownies. Spread remaining 1⁄2 ofpudding mixture over brownies. Top with whipped cream. Garnish with peanutbutter cups, if desired and drizzle with melted peanut butter chips.

As there were only 4 of us sharing this dessert on Christmas day we had tons left over! It is super rich so small portions are the key! So on boxing day I took the rest of it up to my family, remember the family who don't like peanut butter, and let's just say this dessert changed their mind! Now both sides of my family are peanut butter lovers!

Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes for Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club

2012-01-15T18:07:00.001Z

My Cupcakes by Martha Stewart is one of the very first Cupcake books I got waaay back in 2009 when I was just 'getting into' cupcakes (you can tell from the pure delight on my face in the picture below that I was pretty excited to receive it!) Recently I came across an awesome blog full of cupcake loving bakers who are baking their way through that very book - and it's called Martha Stewart's Cupcake Club - don't you just want to be a part of something that sounds so cool?! I know I did!

This month was the first recipe I've joined in with and how fitting that it is the recipe on the very page that has fallen out of my Martha book because I have used it that much. This brownie cupcake recipe is my go to recipe and I'd say I've baked with it at least 100 times over the past few years and that is not an exaggeration! Remember when I made a zillion mini's for a tea party, and my popping candy rainbow cupcakes for Iron Cupcake, and my patriotic USA stars and stripes cupcakes for a Miss Usa Murder Mystery party, and my double stuff Oreo cupcakes, and my mini festive cupcakes for my church Christmas party, and my red and white heart themed cupcakes for my friend's wedding, and my new baby cupcakes for Baby Elijah and even the peanut butter bauble cupcakes - you guessed it, they were all made using this very recipe! because who doesn't love a fudgy moist cupcake!

However, you may have noticed the title of the recipe is mint filled, and in all the times I've baked them I've neglected to make mine mint filled. Why you ask? because in England we don't get peppermint patties! but for this recipe I wanted to do it right...I was even going to buy some online from one of the American grocery websites at triple the price! but time ran away from me, so then I thought I'll make my own homemade peppermint patties as I found a great recipe but in the space of 5 days I've had 3 exams and a 3000 word essay to write so time wasn't on my side! so in the end I just bought some Tesco own brand peppermint fondants and hoped for the best!

Unfortunately the moral of this story is if you want something done right, do it the American way! When I got my cupcakes out the oven and cut into them, the peppermint fondant had full on disappeared! it had melted away completely and just left a chocolate-y goo behind! Not quite what Martha or I was going for! so if you live in the States and have access to peppermint patties I'd definitely advise going that route!

P.S I adapted mine slightly by adding peppermint frosting because as much as I value Martha's opinion, in my book a cupcake isn't a cupcake unless it is accompanied by frosting!

Mint Filled Brownie Cupcakes:
Makes 12
From Cupcakes by Martha Stewart

225g milk chocolate

1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

1 cup caster sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder

12 peppermint patties

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

Remove bowl from heat. Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine. Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Spoon 1 heaped tablespoon of batter into each cupcake case, place 1 peppermint patty on top, gently pressing into the batter. Top with remaining batter until 3/4 full, covering the patty completely.

Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres (above the mint patty), comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 25-30 minutes.

Peppermint Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From Cupcakes from The Primrose Bakery

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature

60ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

1/2 tsp good quality peppermint extract

500g icing sugar

Few drops of green food colour

In a free standing mixer, beat the butter, milk, peppermint extract and half the icing sugar until smooth - this can take up to 5 mins.

Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat again until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.

Taste the icing at this stage to see if you want to add more peppermint extract (if you are using standard mint extract that you get in a supermarket you may need to add slightly more than half a tsp).

Add a few drops of green food colouring and beat thoroughly. Check the colour, add more as needed.

I'm looking forward to next month when we get to bake my choice: the raspberry marble cheesecake cupcake! If you don't already own this book then what are you waiting for - it is an absolute must for any cupcake enthusiast! and if you do buy one you can start baking along with us too!

Magic Bars from the Loveless Cafe, Tennessee

2012-01-08T22:33:00.000Z

If I ever find myself in Nashville, Tennessee...I know exactly where I'm headed - The Loveless Cafe.

My sister got their amazing recipe book for Christmas and we spent many days paging through recipe after recipe of true Southern dessert deliciousness! It was just too hard to pick one recipe!

In the end we settled on these magic bars, and baked them together - isn't baking so much more fun with two!

These bars have been around forever, you may have seen them called 7 layer bars or Hello Dolly's but most commonly they are referred to as magic bars, and The Loveless Cafe call them by this name because they say they disappear off the plates so quick that they must be magic! and in our house when we made them the same thing happened!

We all know about my love of coconut, so in true obsessive style I had to make them over the top with coconut which included using romany creams for the biscuit base. They are a South African biscuit that is coconut flavour (I had received some in my stocking from Santa and decided they would provide added yumminess to our bars) and then instead of using just regular white chocolate chips I chopped up my last slab of Lindt white chocolate with coconut, and with the toasted shredded coconut it took the dessert to new heights of coconut deliciousness!

You can choose to go coconut crazy too, or you can just follow the standard recipe below - either way they will be a mouth watering treat enjoyed by all.

Magic Bars:

Makes Sixteen 2 inch bars

From Desserts from the Famous Loveless Cafe

2 cups cookie crumbs (I used coconut romany creams)

1 stick (4oz) plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter melted

1 cup walnut pieces

1 cup sweetened shredded coconut

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup white chocolate chips (I used Lindt white chocolate with coconut)

14oz can sweetened condensed milk

Pre heat oven to 180 degrees C.

Grease an 8" square baking dish.

In a bowl toss the cookie crumbs and butter together. Press the mix evenly over the bottom of the baking dish

Place the walnuts, coconut & chocolate chips in a bowl and toss to combine. Pour in the sweetened condensed milk and mix to combine. Scrape the mixture over the crumb crust. Press into an even layer.

Bake for 20 mins or until edges are slightly browned. Remove and let cool on a rack. When completely set cut into 2" squares with a sharp knife.

Baking tips: to intensify flavour toast the coconut and walnuts for 7-10 mins until lightly browned and leave to cool before proceeding with recipe.

Also be careful not to let bars darken excessively or they will be dry rather than gooey as they should be...and trust me, you want them gooey!

P.S You may have noticed me experimenting with some Christmas Tree Bokeh in the top picture! I was excited to try it after learning how from Kevin and Amanda - you can learn this cool photography trick by following their easy tutorial as well!

Chocolate & Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Frosting & Love Baking Magazine

2012-01-03T17:25:00.000Z

Last month I was contacted by a new baking magazine to see if I wanted to submit one of my cupcakes to be part of their bloggers gallery.

I was all ready to think up my most inventive and original Christmas cupcake when I was told that the issue I would be published in was actually going to be a Valentine's issue!! So right in the middle of all my Christmas baking, I whipped up these special Valentine's cupcakes!

If you're visiting my blog for the first time or if you found me through the magazine then welcome! and if you liked the look of my chocolate and coconut cupcakes then you will find the recipe below!

This is the first time I have baked from my Magnolia recipe book and I wasn't sure what to expect but I am pleased to tell you that these cupcakes were some of the fluffiest and most delicious I have baked in a while!

Chocolate &Coconut Cupcakes with Coconut Frosting:

Makes 14

Adapted from More from Magnolia

For the cupcakes:

185g plain flour

¾ tsp bicarbonate ofsoda

¾ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

90g unsalted butter,softened

125g light brownsugar

2 eggs, separated

125g plain chocolate,at least 60% cocoa solids

235ml coconut milk

¾ tsp vanilla extract

20g desiccatedcoconut

Preheat the oven to180 degrees c.

Line the baking panwith cupcakes cases.

Separate the eggswhen cold and then allow them to come to room temp before proceeding with therecipe.

Melt the chocolate ina double boiler or in 30 minute bursts in the microwave. Leave to cool for 10 minutes.

In a small bowl, sifttogether the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Set aside.

In a freestanding mixeron medium speed, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and beat for 3 minutes until fluffy.

In a separate bowlbeat the egg yolks for 2 minutes until thick. Add them to the mix and beat well. Add the chocolate, mixing until incorporated.

Add the dryingredients in three parts, alternating with the coconut milk and vanilla. Scrape down with a spatula in betweenadditions making sure everything is well blended.

In a separate bowl, beatthe egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. Gently fold them into the batter using awooden spoon. Stir in the desiccatedcoconut.

Fill cupcake cases2/3 full and bake for 15-20 minutes.

Cool in pans for 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

For the frosting:

Adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

375g icing sugar

120g unsalted butter,softened

40ml coconut milk

Beat the icing sugarand butter together in a freestanding mixer on medium speed until the mixturecomes together.

Add coconut milk andbeat until it has been incorporated.

Turn up to high speedand beat for 5 minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy

To decorate:

Melted plainchocolate

Shredded coconut

Large red heart sprinkles

Melt chocolate inmicrowave or in a double boiler. Leaveto cool. Drizzle over the top of the frosting and sprinkle with shreddedcoconut. Finish with a large heart sprinkle.

I was very excited to get my copy of the Love Baking Cupcakes & Sweet Treats magazine:

It is sold in WHSmith, Hobbycraft and most supermarkets and is in shops now. If you turn to page 8 you can see a picture of my cupcakes, along with lots of other yummy looking cupcakes from The Baking Addict, I heart cupcakes, Apple and Spice, American Cupcake in London, The Nom Bakery, American Chop Suey and The Caked Crusader:

and not only that but with each issue of the magazine you always get tons of good freebies. With this issue I got a free cupcake box, an individual heart cookie box, heart cupcake wrappers, and heart cookie cutters - all will come in handy when my official Valentine's baking begins!

Not only that, but the magazine comes packed with tons of yummy recipes. There are so many I want to try, and my favourite part of all is the awesome tab stickers you get! So as soon as I saw this coconut brownie recipe (being the coconut lover I am) I knew I wanted to bake it, and so I could peel off this little tab sticker and bookmark it for later! How cool!

They also do a good feature with each issue where they showcase some of the UK's best cupcakeries. I was interested to see in this issue that I had reviewed 3 of the same cupcakeries they had here on my blog. You can read about Dixie's Cupcakery in St.Albans, Sweet Tooth Cupcakery in Manchester and one of my all time favourites - Queenie's in Shropshire.

So what are you waiting for - if you're an avid baker or cupcake crazy like myself then pick up a copy, you won't be disappointed!

New Years Eve S'mores Cupcakes

2012-01-01T23:13:00.000Z

If you have never heard of s'mores before then allow me to educate you. They originate from America so I am aware there will be many of my English followers who are not familiar with them. They are a campfire dessert consisting of a graham cracker sandwich filled with toasted marshmallow and melted chocolate and they first appeared in a girl scout handbook published way back in 1927.

You may recall that I am a huge s'mores fan! In the past I've made s'mores brownies, s'mores cookie bars, s'mores pies and even s'mores milkshakes so you knew it was only a matter of time before I was going to turn them into a cupcake!

My whole prezzie from my sister was baking/cupcake themed. I also got cupcake pj's, an amazing toasted marshmallow philosophy set (how s'mores is that!) and some amazing KitchenAid earrings - they are the cutest things ever!

Luckily for me, I was spoilt with plenty of baking books and cupcake treats this Christmas. One present I received was Making Cupcakes with Lola. Not only is it an awesome cupcake book filled with tons of mouth watering recipes, but my sister who gave it to me had gone to their book signing in London before Christmas and even got the authors to hand write me a message in the front - how cool is that! They said they hoped it would provide me with some good inspiration for my blog, and how right they were!

I decided to make these for our New Years Eve party because last New Year's Eve we were toasting real s'mores by a bonfire on the beach in Turks and Caicos! and so I thought it would be a fun way to incorporate s'mores this year without the beautiful beach and bonfire!

My whole family decided it was a great idea too! and they were a party hit! With a graham cracker base, crushed up graham crackers in the brown sugar cupcake, marshmallow frosting and melted choc drizzled on top how could they not be?

S'mores Cupcakes:

Makes 12

From Making Cupcakes with Lola

120g crushed graham crackers (digestive biscuits if you can't get any grahams)

2 1/2 tbsp butter, melted

150g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

180g unsalted butter, cubed and soft

150g packed light brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs, at room temperature

150ml semi-skimmed milk

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Mix three quarters of the crushed graham crackers with the melted butter. Place 1 teaspoon of this into each cupcake case - enough to cover the base of the case.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the remaining cracker crumbs and mix well.

Put the cubed butter, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Stop occasionally to scrape down the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula, or your KitchenAid beater.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Pour in one third of the dry ingredients and beat on low speed, add half of the milk and beat well. Repeat this process, then finish with the last third of the dry ingredients.

Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases.

Bake for 25-30 minute or until well risen and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool in cupcake pan for 5 minutes before cooling them on a wire rack.

Marshmallow Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

180g caster sugar

1/4 tsp cream of tartar

100ml water

3 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the sugar, cream of tartar and 100ml of water in a saucepan and mix well with a wire whisk.

Heat until the sugar has dissolved and a sugar thermometer in the mixture reads 115 degrees C.

Meanwhile, in a separate grease free heatproof bowl, whisk the egg whites with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.

Pour a thin, slow stream of the sugar syrup into the egg whites whisking constantly, until the frosting stands in peaks. Make sure the syrup goes straight into the egg whites and doesn't hit the beaters otherwise sugar crystals will form (when I first read this instruction I thought it seemed impossible, but I just poured the stream of sugar down the inside of the KitchenAid bowl and that way it didn't touch the beaters even when they continued to whisk!) Stir in the vanilla with a spoon.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes in a covered bowl, or until firm enough to pipe.

To assemble:

3 or 4 crushed graham crackers

12 squares of milk chocolate

Additional milk chocolate for melting (about 15 squares)

Crush the graham crackers in a bowl (I did this using a rolling pin). Then, transfer them onto a small plate.

Melt about 15 square of chocolate in a bowl in the microwave in 30 second spurts, stirring in between.

Spoon the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip. Pipe a swirl of frosting on each cupcake.

Roll the edge of each cupcake in the plate of crumbs.

Put the cooled melted chocolate in a piping bag and cut off a very thin opening.

Drizzle each cupcake with the melted chocolate.

Finish, by topping each cupcake with an individual square of chocolate

The final step is to serve them up to the lucky people you baked them for and watch them enjoy how delicious they are! Happy baking!

I'm linking this up over at Hoosier Homemade for Cupcake Tuesday and at Sweet as Sugar Cookies for Sweets for a Saturday

Your tastiest treats of 2011!

2011-12-29T18:03:00.000Z

We are still recovering from the sugar overload at my parents house at the moment...between my sister and I we have been baking up tasty treats daily for all our family! My sister Mel may not be lucky enough to receive any of the treats going forward after the hair dying disaster she was involved in tonight - moral of the story: never let your sister dye your hair, no matter how much money it will save it won't be worth it!

As a result, I'm feeling sorry for myself so...

Let's take a look back at the recipes you enjoyed the most this year: as it's bound to cheer me up!

10. The London Cheesecake

I suspect the popularity of this post was down to the rarity of these treats. They are pretty hard to come by in shops and bakeries over here in England and so many of you are probably having to resort to making them yourself. It's a pretty easy recipe with ready rolled puff pastry but for a quick and delicious treat it's a winner.

9. Red Velvet & Brownie Cupcakes

This was my first venture into red velvet cupcakes, I balanced it out by baking my fail safe and most loved Martha Stewart brownie cupcakes too. They were for my friends wedding in the summer and the red, white and heart theme tied in well with the whole day.

8. Peppermint Crisp Fridge Tart

I am not proud of these pictures! Why would I leave the tart in the foil for the photo? Clearly I was too excited to eat these to worry about decent photography! but you didn't seem to mind! I'm guessing alot of you fellow South Africans were the bloggers upping the views on this post since peppermint crisps are a traditional South African chocolate bar.

7. Chocolate & Peanut Butter M&M Layer Cake

I'm surprised at this one! It was the first time I have ever used a box mix to make a cake! and I wasn't proud, I just prefer making everything from scratch. I definitely think the benefit of a more superior and delish taste makes all the effort worth it! However I was low on time to bake this for my brother in law so Betty Crocker came to the rescue, but the recipe for this from scratch peanut butter frosting must have been what attracted you all - and for good reason, if you like peanut butter you will LOVE this frosting!

6. Key Lime Pie Cupcakes

These need no explanation! zested lime cupcakes, filled with a homemade lime curd and topped with a meringue frosting (and my first foray into using a blow torch!) These went down an absolute treat for my Key Lime Pie loving mom's birthday.

5. Cadbury's Crunchie Cupcakes

For my Crunchie loving sister, I wanted a very 'Crunchie' cupcake. I wanted more than just a piece of Crunchie on top...so I made a chocolate sponge filled with chopped up honeycomb pieces and Dairy Milk Frosting to tie the cupcake in with the chocolate bar. They were a hit!

4. Mini Baked Vanilla & Choc Fudge Oreo Cheesecakes

My first cheesecakes I made for the blog, which is a bit shocking considering how many hundreds I made with my job over the summer! One thing I do know is that you followers love a good Oreo cookie so pair them with some chocolate fudge and vanilla baked cheesecakes and an Oreo crust and you're talking one yummy dish!

3. Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Who wouldn't love a choc chip studded sponge filled with a whole ball of raw cookie dough, topped with brown sugar frosting, some chocolate chips and a homemade mini cookie! They may sound a bit labour intensive with four different components...but they are worth every second invested in them! Hands down, some of the best cupcakes I have ever baked, and the many taste testers of these agreed too!

2. Double Stuff Oreo Brownie Cupcakes

So I know you all love Oreos so a double stuff brownie cupcake was always going to draw a serious amount of attention! but I wasn't actually too happy with these because I made a rookie error (I made these in our first few weeks of living in the Caribbean) of leaving the cream cheese frosting out the fridge for the short time before I as making the frosting. Of course the Turks and Caicos heat made the cream cheese far too soft and my frosting never recovered, so it wasn't stiff enough to pipe!! You didn't seem to mind, or perhaps you just couldn't get enough of that turquoise backdrop?

1. The Smarties & Kit Kat Double Layer Chocolate Cake

By far your favourite post of 2011 was this cake, which came as a bit of a surprise. Not because it's not delicious, because it definitely is! but because this cake has been around the block, there are tons of replicas of it on google or cakes in similar styles with different coloured m&m's or smarties so it's by no mean original! but it is a very simple cake to put together whilst looking impressive at the same time! so if you're ever in need of a show stopping cake that tastes the part too then look no further!

Hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane!
I'm hoping we could turn back the clock 1 day so in the morning I wake up with a head of hair that is not ginger but unfortunately I don't think that's going to happen!

Thanks for all the blog loving you've given me this year and for all the new friends I've made and the tasty treats you continue to fill my google reader with!

Here's to lots more yummy blogs in the future!

A Mad Hatters Afternoon Tea at The Sanderson Hotel, London

2011-12-24T20:56:00.001Z

Mara and I spent a festive day of fun in London on Wednesday.

We went to all our favourite spots, checked out the Christmas lights, had a few cupcakes along the way, shopped up a storm...and had the most wonderful Afternoon Tea!

Mara had booked it as a surprise. She had told me I would have to be brave as it was going to be slightly experimental, I'm a bit of a fussy eater so I was getting slightly worried...

but I needn't have worried because we had the most delicious feast that wasn't remotely scary (apart from the salmon sandwich for a non fish fan like myself)!

The Sanderson is a lavish boutique 5* hotel, and if you want to spend the night here it will typically set you back about £500! As we walked through the doors we were surrounded by fabric draping all the walls and there were quite a few cool seating areas in the foyer that we thought we'd test out! like these giant lips...

and this hanging pod!

Afterwards we were whisked through into the beautiful courtyard garden where our experience really began!

Here's a closer look at the menu, the rainbow coloured finger sandwiches sounded pretty inventive!

and all the little treats had been designed with Alice in Wonderland in mind.

We started off with some non alcholic cocktails - lychee lemonade for me...

and a cranberry and strawberry concoction for Mar. They were seriously tasty.

Next up, the rainbow platter arrived! and despite my earlier worries about how tasty spinach bread would be, you couldn't actually taste the flavourings they were just used to change the colour. The turkey and cranberry sandwich went down particularly well, especially due to the festive nature of it!

This was the platter in all it's glory! I love the little teacup at the top! That housed our praline ice cream pops covered in chocolate and popping candy! and the blueberry lollipop that was side coated in sugar. We were instructed to hold the sugar side of the lolly on our tongue for 1 minute and then when we switched sides you felt a difference between hot and cold - it was quite cool (literally) and very yummy too!

After that we delved into all the other sugary treats...

like this cute little chocolate cup that was filled with lime and ginger sorbet. I didn't quite eat mine quick enough and some had melted at the bottom so I was able to sip it up from my edible cup!

This 'Eat me' heart was a strawberries and cream mousse covered in white chocolate

and the mince pie with cinnamon cream cheese frosting was the only thing I passed on as I'm not a mince pie lover...but Mara said it was delish especially with the frosting addition of frosting.

I think our hands down favourite of the day was this tiny little bottle which was a trio of desserts! We were instructed to take it in 3 sips. On the first sip you tasted some passionfruit jelly, on the next sip some gorgeously silky coconut panacotta and on the last sip some exotic foam! It was very inventive!

We rounded our afternoon off with some peppermint tea, served in these lovely iron teapots...

accompanied by our mini scones with jam and clotted cream.

It was an absolute feast, and we had so much fun trying everything out. I would definitely recommend it out there as one of the more original Afternoon Tea's in London!

Thanks to my super generous sister to treating me to it!

and on this Christmas Eve here's wishing all my followers a very happy, and yummy, Christmas! May Santa be good to you this year!

Christmas Mint Oreo Truffles coated with Mint Aero Chocolate

2011-12-17T18:01:00.001Z

I know, I know - Oreo Truffles? you've heard it all before! These have been around the blogging world for about as long as I can remember...

but they are a timeless classic and delicious enough to be mentioned again!

Everyone knows I am a fan of the Mint Oreo and especially because it's nearly Christmas I thought it was more than appropriate to make some Mint Oreo Truffles to take to our Relief Society Christmas social at church.

I even coated them in Mint Aero chocolate just for fun, but I made sure I used half regular chocolate and half Mint Aero because despite the past 3 days featuring minty treats I do know where to draw the line when it comes to mint!

So, for those of you who are new to the Oreo Truffle - only 3 ingredients are required: Oreos, Cream Cheese and Chocolate! So what are you waiting for?

They are the perfect party treat!

Mint Oreo Truffles:

Makes about 30 (depending on how large you want them)

Adapted from Bakerella

450g Mint Oreo cookies

225g Cream cheese

200g Mint Aero chocolate

200g Milk chocolate

Sprinkles and sanding sugars to decorate

Finely crush the Oreo cookies in a food processor or in a ziploc bag with a rolling pin.

Stir in softened cream cheese. Use the back of a large spoon to help mash the two together completely.

Roll the mixture into 1″ balls and place on wax paper covered baking tray.

Place covered in the freezer for 30 minutes to help them retain shape when dipping in melted chocolate.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler or in 30 second intervals in the microwave.

Dip balls into chocolate (I use a teaspoon) tap off extra and set aside on wax paper covered cookie sheet to dry.

Sprinkle with green and red sanding sugar and festive Christmas tree sprinkles. Make sure to sprinkle the decorations on one at a time after each truffle has been dipped, if you try to do a few at a time the chocolate will set before you get the chance to stick them on.

Refrigerate for 30 minutes and then enjoy!

Christmas Mint Choc Chip Brownies

2011-12-17T18:00:00.000Z

I have dreamed about the day when a bag of these babies would make their way into my possession, I kid you not!

For years I have been left envying the many many blogs who would use them freely in their baking, longing for the day when I would be one of those bloggers!

So they finally came through my letterbox at the end of November thanks to The Stateside Candy Co. The wait was over...but I knew I needed to make something really spectacular to do them justice! When I've seen them around in the past, it has usually been in double chocolate cookies with their green faces peeping through. Cookies weren't going to cut it. I decided brownies would be kind of standard too...

until I came across this brownie for inspiration and I knew what I had to do!

So I began baking using this new brownie recipe, because trying out new brownie recipes never gets old for me. This one was really moist and fudgy, just what I was hoping for. I threw in the green mint baking chips at this stage.

Then, I whipped up a mint choc chip buttercream which really tasted like melted mint chop ice cream - you have got to try it!

The icing on the brownie was a layer of melted chocolate, and then I couldn't resist drizzling with that neon green chocolate, and adding a few Christmas tree sprinkles since I baked these brownies to aid us in putting up our Christmas tree on December 1st!

Mint Choc Chip Brownies:

Makes 12

From: Not Rachael Ray and Melissa Bakes

For the brownie layer:

1 cup butter

2 cups caster sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup plain flour

½ cup cocoa powder

½ teaspoon salt

230g mint baking chips

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.
Line a 9 x 13-inch pan with foil and lightly grease with cooking spray. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter. Remove from the heat and add the sugar, stirring well to combine. Whisk in the vanilla and then the eggs. Blend well.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix well.
Throw the mint chips in a bowl with some flour, make sure they are coated (this will ensure even distribution).
Gently stir in the mint baking chips.
Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 32-35 minutes, until the brownies are set in the middle but not over baked. You want some moist crumbs still remaining when you insert a knife. Let cool completely.

For the frosting layer:

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp peppermint extract

2 1/2 cups icing sugar

2 tbsp semi-skimmed milk

1/2 cup plain chocolate, chopped coarsely

a few drops of green food colouring

While the brownie is cooling make the frosting.

Using an electric mixer, cream together the butter, vanilla and peppermint extract.

Add in the icing sugar one cup at a time, and then add in the milk, one tablespoon at a time until frosting is smooth and desired consistency has been reached. It will be quite a soft frosting (not one that could be piped).

Stir in the food colouring (if desired) and then fold in the chocolate chips.

For the chocolate layer:

2 cups milk chocolate chips

1 tbsp vegetable oil

In a small bowl, combine 2 cups of chocolate chips with 1 tablespoon of oil.

Melt in microwave in 30 second intervals, or over a double boiler.

To Assemble:

Spread a generous layer of mint choc chip frosting over the cooled brownie with a palette knife. Try and ensure it is as even as possible. This will help with the overall presentation.

Once the melted chocolate has cooled for a minute pour it over the frosting layer.

Melt some of the green baking chips in a small bowl and drizzle over the chocolate layer.

Sprinkle with Christmas tree edibles and put in the fridge for the chocolate layer to harden.

Once it is hard, cut into squares and serve.

I am fully aware that over 50% of the brownies I have baked on this blog involve mint...occasionally double mint and sometimes even triple mint so maybe the mint brownie thing is getting old, but really can mint paired with chocolate and baked in a brownie ever get old? Not for me it can't!

Christmas Brownies with Mint Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream

2011-12-16T15:07:00.000Z

These are the final treats I baked for my Christmas Stall last week. The brownies were super moist and the light and fluffy swiss meringue buttercream was the perfect partner. The crushed candy canes brought out the hint of mint in the frosting and the mint drizzle added flavour and festive-ness!

Brownies:

Makes 12

From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

225g milk chocolate

1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

1 cup caster sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

Remove bowl from heat. Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine. Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Fill a pre greased brownie pan. Bake, until a knife inserted halfway into the middle comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, for about 20-25 minutes.

Mint Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

Makes enough to frost the above plus extra to eat!

From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

5 large egg whites

250g caster sugar

pinch of salt

450g unsalted butter

1 tsp peppermint extract

130g plain baking chocolate

Combine egg whites, sugar and salt in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water.

Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved.

Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low, gradually increase to medium-high and whisk until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl) about 10 minutes.

Add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all butter has been added, whisk in peppermint extract and melted chocolate.

Switch to the paddle attachment and continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2 minutes.

Scrape down sides of bowl with a flexible spatula, and continue beating until the frosting is completely smooth.

To Assemble:

3 candy canes

Mint baking chips, melted

Once brownies have cooled, frost with a generous layer of mint chocolate swiss meringue buttercream.

Put candy canes in a zip loc bag and crush with a rolling pin.

Sprinkle over the frosting.

Melt mint baking chips (or white chocolate tinted with green colour) and drizzle over the top.

Christmas Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and Gingerbread Men Toppers

2011-12-16T00:13:00.000Z

The final cupcakes I made for the Christmas stall were gingerbread flavour.

There's just something about gingerbread, and to me you can't do Christmas baking without it featuring!

The simplicity of the cream cheese frosting is the perfect combo with the spiciness of the cupcake, and what makes them super cute is the mini homemade gingerbread man on top.

Gingerbread Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular and 12 mini

From: Cupcake Creations

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs

180g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup semi-skimmed milk

4 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg into the bowl of a free standing mixer.

Add the remaining ingredients.

Beat in mixer until combined and lighter in colour (approx. 2 mins).

Divide mixture between cases.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Leave to cool in pans for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Makes enough to frost above

From: The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

300g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125 cream cheese, cold

Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment on medium slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.

Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated.

Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed.

Continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes.

Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.

Gingerbread Men Cookies:

Makes approx. 30-40 cookies depending on size or 12 large size gingerbread men

From: Net Mums

350g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g unsalted butter

175g soft light brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

Sift the flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.

Rub in the butter (or if you're lazy like me your KitchenAid can do this job pretty well too).

Add sugar and stir in the syrup and egg to make a firm dough.

Flour your work surface generously and flour the rolling pin, roll out to 5mm thick.

Flour your cookie cutter and cut out the men.

Space the cookies out on your baking sheet as they will spread out.

Bake at 190 degrees C for 10-15 minutes (Cut the baking time in half if you are making the mini size gingerbread men for cupcake toppers).

Leave to firm up on the baking tray for 5 minutes and then transfer them to a wire track to cool.

Once I had made enough mini gingerbread men for the cupcakes, I used the rest of the dough to make different festive shaped cookies. I whipped up a batch of very standard icing = icing sugar and water, and then piped an outline on the cookies, flooded the middle and decorated them with a variety of sprinkles.

For the mini versions of the cupcake I topped them with gingerbread men sprinkles which were very cute too as unfortunately they don't make a gingerbread man size cutter small enough to fit on top of a mini cupcake! I also used my gingerbread men cupcake cases, and you may just be able to see them peeking through if you look extra close in this pic!

Each egg box of mini's contained the three other festive flavours too: Candy Cane Red Velvet, Peanut Butter Brownie and Hot Chocolate.

Christmas Bauble Brownie Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

2011-12-14T17:34:00.001Z

I was recently lucky enough to be able to order two different long coveted baking goods from The Stateside Candy Co. One was some Guittard mint baking chips and the other was these awesome festive mini Reese's peanut butter cups (that's right my American readers - us deprived bakers in England cannot find either of those products on our supermarket shelves!) and I felt because it was Christmas I was more than justified to buy overpriced delights like these.

I also knew I wanted to create some bauble (Christmas ornament) cupcakes and that these Reese's cups would be the perfect decorating aid for the Christmas Market Stall these cupcakes made their debut at.

These were my favourite of the whole day. The brownie and peanut butter combo is pretty unbeatable, but I also loved the fun decoration too. They were rather time consuming, especially when I started off making the zig zag patterns out of individual jimmies. I realised it was going to be an even longer night than expected if I carried on like that so I moved on to making a fairly easy row of sprinkles and sugar pearls in the middle of the bauble with some zig zag patterns being more easily formed by melted chocolate either side of them.

Brownie Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular and 24 mini's

From: Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

450g milk chocolate

1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 cups caster sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon salt

6 large eggs

1 cup plain flour

1/2 cup sifted cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

Remove bowl from heat. Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine. Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Fill cupcake cases until 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres, comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached about 25-30 minutes (and 12-15 minutes for the mini's).

Peanut Butter Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From: Sweet Tooth

4 cups icing Sugar

1/2 cup semi-skimmed milk

1/2 cup unsalted organic unsalted butter

1 cup smooth organic peanut butter

2 tsp vanilla

Blend together the sugar, milk, buter and peanut butter until smooth. If you require a thicker consistency add more sugar, if you need it to be thinner add more milk.

To Assemble:

Using an ice cream scoop, scoop up a level scoop of frosting and put it on top of the cupcake.

I used the back of a teaspoon to help smooth it out so that it covered the whole surface of the cake. I tried to make sure I maintained a 'domed' shape with the mound of frosting.

Place a mini Reese's peanut butter cup at the top of the frosting.

Use sprinkles to create bauble type patterns on the frosting.

Melt some chocolate to pipe on zig zag patterns.

Christmas Hot Chocolate Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

2011-12-13T14:42:00.000Z

These hot chocolate cupcakes were so 'hot' they were flying off the stall faster than I could keep track of them. I'm not sure whether it was because everyone liked the look of that chocolate covered wafer peeping out the top, or because it was a rather chilly day here in Wales and maybe it was just what people needed to warm up!

Either way people 'oohed' and 'aahed' over them and one lady told me my cupcakes looked so perfect she didn't think they were real at first!

What makes these hot chocolate cupcakes special is that they have a mug of real hot chocolate blended into the batter, and paired with swiss meringue buttercream they are a delightfully decadent festive treat!

I know many people are terrified of making swiss meringue buttercream but I'm here to tell you that it is not scary at all. As long as you follow all the steps carefully and keep going beyond the stage where it looks like it's going to curdle, you will end up with some of the silkiest frosting ever that is my favourite kind of piping to frost with because it just looks so glossy and awesome once you're done!

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes:

Makes 12 Regular and 12 Mini's

From Half Baked: The Cake Blog

310g plain flour

450g caster sugar

115g cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

3 eggs

2 heaped tsp hot chocolate powder mixed with 180ml warm milk

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

In a free standing mixer, combine all dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.

Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients: eggs, hot chocolate/milk mixture, vegetable oil and vanilla extract.

Beat on medium speed until well combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

Fill cupcake cases 2/3 full with batter.

Bake for 16 minutes or until knife inserted in middle comes out clean.

Let cupcakes cool in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to finish cooling.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

Makes enough to frost the above

From Martha Stewart's Cupcakes

5 large egg whites

250g caster sugar

pinch of salt

450g unsalted butter

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine egg whites, sugar and salt in the heatproof bowl of a standing mixer set over a pan of simmering water.

Whisk constantly by hand until mixture is warm to the touch and sugar has dissolved.

Add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all butter has been added, whisk in vanilla.

Switch to the paddle attachment and continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2 minutes.

Scrape down sides of bowl with a flexible spatula, and continue beating until the frosting is completely smooth.

To assemble:

Pipe Swiss Meringue Buttercream onto the cupcakes using a narrow opening star nozzle to ensure that you get lovely ruffles to create the whipped cream effect.

Add 3 mini white marshmallows to the top of the frosting.

Lightly sprinkle some cocoa powder over the top using a sieve.

Stick your pre prepared wafer into the frosting at a diagonal angle. (The night before I melted some milk chocolate and dipped the ends of all the wafers in the chocolate and left them to dry on a sheet of parchment paper, and then transferred them into an airtight container.)

Christmas Candy Cane Cupcakes: Red Velvet with Peppermint Frosting

2011-12-12T20:46:00.000Z

Welcome to my week long Christmas recipe event! I will be sharing all the yummy recipes that I baked for the Christmas Cupcake Stall I ran last week.

I'm still not a red velvet fan myself, but I know for whatever reason (is it just for the fact that they are red?) that they are a crowd pleaser and so I felt like no candy cane cupcake would be complete without a splash of red! and of course the obligatory two tone red and white frosting. Traditionally, red velvet cupcakes are always paired with cream cheese frosting but just for something different I paired mine with peppermint frosting to match the candy cane flavour.

I've had a few people ask me how you create two tone frosting...it really is super easy. You just need to fill two disposable piping bags with the separate colours and then put both piping bags inside a third piping bag with the nozzle attached. I usually pipe out a small amount to start with before I pipe directly onto the cupcakes, because it takes a little while for the colours to blend properly. If you're still not sure, there is a fantastic tutorial with photos to help here.

Red Velvet Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular and 24 mini cupcakes

From Brown Eyed Baker

113g unsalted butter, at room temperature

335g caster sugar

2 large eggs

35g cocoa powder

6 tbsp red food colouring

1 tsp vanilla extract

242g buttermilk

280g plain flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

3 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

On medium-high speed, cream the butter and sugar for 3 minutes until light and fluffy. Turn the mixer to high and add the eggs. Scrape down the bowl, and beat until well incorporated.

In a separate small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a thick paste. Add to the batter and mix on medium speed until completely combined. You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl to ensure all batter gets the colour.

Reduce the mixer speed to slow and add half the buttermilk, add half of the flour and mix until combined. Scrape the bowl and repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk. Beat on high until smooth.

Reduce the mixer to slow to add the salt, soda and vinegar. Turn to high and beat for another few minutes until completely combined and smooth.

Divide the batter evenly between the cases and bake for 20 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Leave to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then place them on a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

Peppermint Frosting:

Makes enough to frost the above

From 'Cupcakes from The Primrose Bakery'

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature

60ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature

1/2 tsp good quality peppermint extract

500g icing sugar

Few drops of red food colouring (I used Red Extra)

In a free standing mixer, beat the butter, milk, peppermint extract and half the icing sugar until smooth - this can take up to 5 mins.

Gradually add the remainder of the icing sugar and beat again until the buttercream is smooth and creamy.

Add a few drops of red colouring and beat thoroughly. Check the colour, add more as needed.

To assemble:

Pipe a swirl of frosting onto each cupcake.

Use mini candy canes to decorate, or if only regular sized ones are available - cut them down to size with a very sharp knife (cutting a small amount off the bottom and off the top of the hook so they are in proportion). This is what I did.

Sprinkle with red sanding sugar to finish off.

A Christmas Cupcake Stall at Bangor's Christmas Market

2011-12-10T16:15:00.001Z

Yesterday was Bangor Uni's Christmas Market, which was run by the students. We got an email a while back asking if anyone was interested in running a stall so I jumped at the chance, not realising the market was the day after I had an essay due in! In hindsight, it wasn't the best timing! but it turned out pretty well in the end considering how little sleep I got (please excuse the bad pictures - the lighting in the hall was terrible!) Also, I am not claiming responsibility for the purple tablecloth or the tinsel - that was all down to the University setting up! but I must thank my mom for sending me the awesome gold and starry tablecloth and serviettes to make my stall a little bit prettier! Most people didn't worry with their stalls but I like things to look fancy!

Here's a little run down of everything I made, recipes will be following later in the week...

First up, I made some red velvet cupcakes with peppermint frosting. I made the frosting two tone to co-ordinate with the candy cane toppers.

The most popular of the day had to be these hot chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream. If you've never had swiss meringue buttercream before (no one seemed to know what it was who visited my stall!) it's a very silky light frosting made from a combination of heated egg whites, butter and sugar. It's less sweet then regular buttercream and was the perfect accompaniment to the rich chocolate cupcake. It also pipes on like a dream and as it's so light it helped to create the whipped cream look I was going for. I dusted some cocoa, sprinkled some marshmallows on and dipped a wafer in melted chocolate just to finish them off!

One of my favourite combos, especially for Christmas is gingerbread with cream cheese frosting. I made these cupcakes for the first time two years ago and then last year in the Caribbean I made them with my sister too, so they're definitely becoming a bit of a tradition!

Homemade gingerbread men as toppers always go down well. I'm really not a fan of fondant decorations and I believe cupcake toppings should always look good and be delicious.

My favourite cupcakes of the day were these brownie cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. They are all round a delicious flavour combo but also I was excited to make them so I could turn them into baubles! I ordered the mini Reese's peanut butter cups from one of my favourite websites - The Stateside Candy Co, and I knew as soon as I saw them that they would be perfect for looking like a bauble!

So I tried my best to mound my frosting into a circular shape and then did a few zig zag patterns over the frosting with melted chocolate. I put the reese's cup at the top to act as the hanging part of the bauble. They were time consuming but I think they were worth the effort! As a random side note, I discovered last year whilst in the Caribbean from my American colleagues that they didn't know what a bauble was! Apparently in America they are known simply as Christmas Ornaments so for all my American followers these were my 'Christmas Ornament' cupcakes!

I also baked 12 mini's of each flavour because these bite sized treats are always popular.

Did you know egg boxes are made for putting mini's in? I like to give them aways as presents in these by decorating the boxes and tying ribbon around them. I decorated these with some striped Christmas paper and a gift tag...

and put a random assortment of mini's inside - people fell in love with these and all the boxes were snapped up in the first 20 minutes! I must remember to make more for next time around...

I finished with a few treats for those out there who might not be as cupcake crazy as I am! I made some Christmas shaped gingerbread cookies, and these peppermint brownies. They were chocolate brownies frosted with chocolate-peppermint swiss meringue buttercream and finished off with some chopped up candy canes and a drizzle of mint chocolate . I made these in the last hour before we had to leave the house as an afterthought, but I was glad I did as they got some of the best compliments of the day!

I'm off to do my 25th load of washing up...no really! Baking for the masses without a dishwasher is no fun at all!

Happy National Cookie Day..let's celebrate with Chocolate Chunk & Peanut Butter Cookies!

2011-12-04T22:06:00.003Z

So technically it's not my national cookie day since my nation is England and sadly they don't have fun days dedicated to food like America do but since the majority of my followers are American I'm celebrating for you!

I made these cookies a few weeks ago. My husband had some Uni friends over for an afternoon of playstation-ing. The new COD game had just come out and paired with the arrival of a new big screen TV in our house made for a great way for them to test both out.

I decided only one thing could make their afternoon any more perfect and that would be baked goods, and I was keen to try out my new giant cookie sheet I'd bought since my kitchen came with the tiniest oven tray known to man. So I baked up some of these cookies after being inspired by Bakerella's recipe.

Unfortunately, it turns out my new cookie sheet was too good to be true and was clearly designed with American ovens in mind. No matter what way I turned it around it would not fit in my oven! Fail!

So I had to resort to the tiny tray meaning I could only bake 6 cookies at a time.

It was pretty funny though because each time a fresh batch came out the oven I would plate them up and put them in front of the gamers...and they'd have disappeared before the next batch was ready! So it was a continuous stream of freshly baked cookies all afternoon, I had forgotten how much teenage boys can eat!

I did manage to sneak one to test it out, and these were definitely the best cookies I have made in a very long time. They had a rich chocolate taste, with just a hint of peanut butter and the addition of chopped up dairy milk chunks of chocolate left oozing pockets of gooey melted chocolate - so tasty!

Chocolate Chunk & Peanut Butter Cookies:

Makes 24 Cookies

Adapted from Bakerella

185g or 1 1/2 cups plain flour
60g or 1/2 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
113g or 1/2 cup butter, slightly softened
335g or 1 1/2 cups caster sugar
130g or 1/2 cup crunchy peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
230g or 8 oz. milk chocolate chunks/chips

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

In a small bowl, mix flour, cocoa, bicarbonate of soda and salt using a wire whisk and set aside.

In a free standing mixer, cream butter and sugar with peanut butter until light and fluffy.

Add eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.

Add flour mixture into creamed mixture and mix until combined.

Stir in chocolate chunks.

Roll cookie dough into small balls.

Place on a prepared baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes.

Place them on a cookie rack to cool...but eat them quickly as they are best warm!

I finally got around to ordering some peanut butter cups from one of my fave American food websites so watch out for some more peanut butter recipes coming your way!

Food Bloggers Unplugged...learning about the baker behind the blog!

2011-11-28T13:23:00.001Z

I was tagged by Ros of The More Than Occasional Baker to answer a few questions about myself and my love of baking!

1. What, or who inspired you to start a blog?

I can definitely say cupcakes inspired me to start my blog (no surprises there!) I had just been on holiday to South Africa and it was the first time I had seen devoted cupcakeries that were decorated so beautifully and it got me thinking about all the cupcakes I had tried around the world on my travels at different times. I decided it would be fun to start a blog to document them all, and slowly baking recipes crept in to it too! and what was even better was that so many cute devoted cupcakeries started to pop up in England too! I still find myself basing future holidays/day trips around visiting cupcakeries!

2. Who is your foodie inspiration?

It has to be Martha Stewart. I received her 'Cupcakes' book as a birthday present 2 and a half years ago, and I didn't realise at the time it was the starting point in what is now a very huge baking/cupcake library of mine! She has been wowing the world of sweet toothers like myself for nearly 30 years with her cookbooks, tv shows and magazines, and she's still coming up with amazing and delish recipes! Plus she's an inspiration to me due to the fact that this past August she turned 70! I just about fell off my chair when I discovered earlier this year her actual age. She looks amazing for a 70 year old and so I'm hoping if I spend my life baking and devouring just as much sugar as her that I can look forward to looking that good when I'm 70 too!

3. Your greasiest, batter - splattered food/drink book is?

Definitely my Cupcakes by Martha book! In fact my most used recipe, the famous brownie cupcakes, has now fallen out of the book (due to overuse) so it's just as well I know it by heart now! I've also got more than my fair share of stuck on icing/butter smears in The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook because in the early days it was my go to for frostings. When we moved abroad last year, my sisters were eager to look after my baking books for me whilst we were gone! and I thought I had retrieved all of them until a few months ago when I was browsing through Hummingbird's book at my sisters flat and I told her I had a butter smear in the exact same place on the vanilla frosting page in my Hummingbird book, she promptly admitted she had never owned that recipe book herself and so in fact it was my book!

4. Tell us all about the best thing you have ever eaten in another country, where was it, what was it?

Wow, what a hard question! One of my very favourite things about travelling is all the new cuisine you get to try and I have eaten so many amazing things in so many different countries that it's hard to narrow it down. Of course our most recent travels to Turks and Caicos produced probably some of the most gourmet food I have ever eaten, many of the restaurants on that little tiny island are world class! So I'll share some of the things I ate there with you...as they're probably more exciting than me telling you that it was Root Beer ice cream in Georgia, an In-N-Out burger in California or a frulatta in South Africa (but all 3 of those are still pretty far up there!)

So I present to you Coyaba's Key Lime Pie....hands down the best Key Lime Pie I have ever eaten or ever will eat! I was slightly disappointed when it arrived that it didn't have cream or meringue on top as many other K.L.P's do, but my disappointment quickly faded away as I bit into it and realised it didn't need it! This was melt in your mouth, tongue tingling amazingness! and I'm only sorry that the restaurant we had it at was so far out of our price range that we couldn't go back for round 2!

The next best thing I ate whilst in the Caribbean was this huuuge slice of Coconut Cream Pie at Coco Bistro. Would you just look at that massive layer of silky coconut cream! It was the best...

Of course it wasn't all sweet things, we ate a whole lot of conch as well. We even attended the Annual Turks and Caicos Conch Festival! and while there I ate one of the best savoury things...it was a Conch Taco! and it was so delicious, we voted it best in show!

5. Another food bloggers table you'd like to eat at is?

What a great question! For the savoury side of things I would love to eat at Chef in Training's table because Nikki could whip me up tasty Mexican dishes like a cheesy enchilada stack or lime chicken tacos with a side of her mom's homemade refried beans! I would definitely have to head on over to Steph of Raspberri Cupcakes for dessert because a slice of s'mores cheesecake, mint chocolate Aero cake or kiwi fruit & pineapple upside down cake would go down a treat!

6. What is the one kitchen gadget you would ask Santa for this year (money no object of course)?

I have wanted an ice cream maker for quite some time now...and if money is no object then this is definitely the gadget of my affection! It's purple and it even has compartments especially for sprinkles...need I say more?

7. Who taught you how to cook?

My husband suggested I write back of the pizza box for this question, nice hey? but the truth of the matter is that he is really the one that taught me how to cook...but we both agree he's still better at it which is why I've answered the way I have on the question below!

8. I'm coming to you for dinner what's your signature dish?

You mean my husbands signature dish? you see in our house he's the chef and I'm the baker. So if you came to our house for dinner we (and I mean Byron) would most likely cook you up some Caribbean pork chops with mango gravy because pork chops are his thing!, and I'd bake you up dessert - Key Lime Pie maybe? and you could wash it all down with our homemade Oreo milkshakes! Yes we're not fine diners...but that's fine by me.

9. What is your guilty food pleasure?

Corn Dogs! and I didn't realise it had to be a guilty food pleasure until recently after mentioning them a few times in front of other Americans who've looked at me funny for getting so excited about 'the things on sticks you get at ball games'. I'm pretty certain if I track down anywhere in England that sells them, you can guarantee I'm going to do a song and dance about it, like the one time I found them at Costco (never to be found again) and the time they suddenly appeared on The Diner's menu in London...and the time I found them at our local supermarket in Turks and Caicos after weeks of being there - I may or may not have declared it my happiest day of our Caribbean living up until that moment!

Of course I had to take a picture to document my delight!

10. Reveal something about yourself that others would be surprised to learn?

When I was younger I was a very fussy eater, and only ate 18 foods...one of those being gherkins! which my friends were very surprised about! Fortunately I met Byron and he made me try all kinds of crazy things I would have never eaten before, and he has really expanded my palate! for which I'm ever so grateful because eating the same foods can get very boring after a while! I've still got some way to go, like on our honeymoon in Mauritius when we were meant to be having a fancy honeymoon lobster dinner at the snazzy hotel restaurant and Byron had to especially request that they served me chicken instead...but I've come a long way!

Finally...tag 5 other food bloggers with these questions...like a hot baked potato...pass it on!

1. Nikki from Chef in Training

2. Katie of Apple and Spice

3. Kasey from A Sparkley Silver Lining

4. Hayley from The Domestic Rebel

5. Kelly from Kell's Kitchen

If you have been tagged, please link up your entry here and if you tweet, use #foodbloggersunplugged on twitter.

Enjoy!

Mini Baked Vanilla & Choc Fudge Oreo Cheesecakes

2011-11-26T21:32:00.001Z

At my church a few weeks ago I was asked to go to a careers evening and speak to teenage girls about a career as a cheesecake maker! It was quite funny since obviously that's not what I'm trained to do, but just something I got the opportunity to do this summer thanks to my sister...who is trained to do that! but I'm always up for talking about baking so I was more than happy to do it!

and of course I couldn't turn up empty handed! So for the first time in a few months it was back to cheesecake making! I opted to make mini's since they always go down well! and for the first time I made a crushed Oreo base (as opposed to crushed digestives/hob nobs) and it was delish!

Ironically the recipe I used was from a book that I received as leaving present to thank me for my time at The English Cheesecake Company! That book was 'Tea with Bea' and is an amazing collection of yummy recipes ranging from bars and cookies to cheesecakes and pies and everything in between! It features some of my all time favourite desserts like key lime pie, coconut cream pie and hummingbird cake! and teaches you to whip up homemade delights such as raspberry meringues and marshmallows to give you a little taste of what lies in store when you actually visit their shop Bea's of Bloomsbury. It is my favourite place in London to grab an afternoon tea.

If you're all busy writing your Christmas lists then I'd strongly recommend asking Santa to bring you this book, you will not be disappointed!

Mini Oreo Cheesecakes:

Makes 24

Adapted from 'Tea with Bea's' Vanilla cheesecake with berries recipe

For the cheesecakes:

400g Oreo cookies

100g unsalted butter

800g cream cheese

225g caster sugar

2 eggs

50g cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 125 degrees c.

Crush the Oreo cookies in a food processor or with a rolling pin until they resemble fine crumbs. Add the melted butter a little at a time. Grab a bit of mixture and squeeze it in your hand to make it into a ball, then let go. The mixture should hold its shape but fall apart slightly when touched. If it doesn't hold its shape, add more butter. If it is too firm add more crushed cookies.

Press the mixture into the prepared cake tins, when I'm making mini's I use the back of a teaspoon to pat the mixture down so it's level.

Put the cream cheese and sugar in a bowl and beat until well mixed and the sugar has dissolved. Slowly incorporate the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly until combined before adding the next. Scrape down the bowl regularly.

Sift the cornflour into the mixture and stir until thoroughly combined. Pour the mixture into your pans (I measured about 90g of cheesecake mix into each of my mini pans).

Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour until the middle is slightly jiggly and the top doesn't look shiny or wet (if you decide to make one whole cheesecake the recipe recommends a baking time of 1 hour 20 minutes).

For the Fudge frosting:

From 'Tea with Bea'

250ml whipping cream

65g golden syrup

350g high quality dark chocolate (I used 60%)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

75g unsalted butter cut into cubes and chilled

Pour the cream and golden syrup in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil.

Put the chocolate in a large heatproof bowl. As soon as the cream mixture has come to a boil, pour it over the chocolate. Set aside for 1 minute.

Using a small whisk, stir with very small motions keeping to the middle of the bowl. Slowly add small amounts of cream to it. Do not incorporate air and don't be tempted to stir in larger motions as this will result in unwanted air bubbles and could result in a dull grainy texture.

Keep stirring in small motions. It will look like nothing is happening until eventually a very shiny, thick glossy mixture forms. Gradually stir in wider motions to incorporate more cream until it's fully combined.

Add the vanilla extract and butter and mix until well combined.

Set aside to let the chocolate stiffen to a firm consistency before using.

To assemble:

Get the cheesecakes out of their pans once cool.

Cover the surface with a tablespoon of fudge frosting and add broken up pieces of Oreo.

Refrigerate until serving.

Don't be put off with the lengthy recipe here! I baked up the cheesecakes the night before and made the frosting the next afternoon just before I was going to the event. They weren't as time consuming as I expected, and got plenty of compliments all round! You can top these with whatever takes your fancy, half of my batch were topped with Oreos and half were topped with Snickers. I also think topping with Toblerone chunks would be equally yummy!

A Thanksgiving Pie Bar

2011-11-21T19:11:00.001Z

It probably hasn't escaped your attention that I'm English...yet here I was celebrating Thanksgiving this past weekend (and in my patriotic tee and all). Confused? Maybe not. If you're an avid follower of my blog or know me well, you will know that pretty much every day I wake up thinking I should have been born in the good ol' U.S of A! so celebrating American holidays just goes along with my love of all things American! plus the fact my sister and I will both be spending Christmas day with our in laws so we wanted to have a Jones family get together this weekend and since we like celebrating with copious amounts of food - Thanksgiving seemed like the perfect occasion!

It was my sister who suggested the idea of a Thanksgiving feast but I was quick to suggest a Pie dessert bar...because we all know how much I love my sweet things! It was an idea that at first my sister was not too thrilled about because she has been trying to diet and she knew the pie bar would not help her waist line, so my other sister and I took it upon ourselves to go ahead and organise it anyway but keep things under the radar!! because after all what's Thanksgiving without pies!

Here is the table in all it's glory!

A shout out to my dad for making that awesome cake stand out of a log! and he also spray painted those buckets orange to tie in with the colour scheme! and not only that but on Saturday as we were shopping around he slipped me a sly £20 to help me get anything else I needed for the table. I was delighted when I came across this ceramic cake stand with polka dot ribbon trim in TK Maxx, I have been after one like this for ages! and with my dad's money in my pocket I knew I could actually buy it! So imagine how funny it was when as I approached the till, my mom came and told me that whilst I was browsing around my dad had said he just hoped I wouldn't spend that money on something stupid like a cake stand! so I bought it anyway and rather slyly got it home in my mom's handbag so he was none the wiser! Thanks Dad!

Everyone contributed a pie for the table. My mom made an amazing Key Lime Pie...it is her favourite kind of pie and turns out it was the favourite of the whole day, it was so quick to be devoured! She was also responsible for the orange gerberas on the table (my fave flowers!).

My sister, Mel, contributed these cute little pumpkin pies. I'll shock you now when I tell you it was my first time trying pumpkin pie! I've always been a little scared of it, but accompanied with some vanilla bean infused double cream on top it was delish and you certainly can't have Thanksgiving without some pumpkin pie!

My sister, Tamara, went with a banana and chocolate cream pie that she had seen in her Food Network magazine. It was so decadent and rich and I loved the chocolate she swirled through the cream...you can tell she does this as her day job can't you!

To keep my dieting sister happy, well sort of, I tried to keep my contributions bite size! So I went with these super cute apple pie pops!

...and these mini s'mores pies because nothing says America to me more than a s'more!

S'mores Pies:

Makes 20

From Dawn's Recipes

250g cinnamon Graham Cracker crumbs

68g caster sugar

113g unsalted butter, melted

150g dark chocolate (60%)

75g milk chocolate

240ml double cream

125g mini marshmallows

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c.

Grease 24 mini pie pans.

Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and melted butter. Stir until combined.

Press crumb mixture into bottoms and sides of tart pans. You’ll use just 1 1/2 tablespoons per pie.

Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes, then let cool until pans are cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile place chocolate pieces in large bowl.

Heat cream in microwave for 1 to 2 minutes or over low heat until just below boiling. Pour over chocolate pieces and let it sit for several minutes.

Stir cream/chocolate mixture until smooth. It will look pale and chunky at first, but keep stirring. It will smooth out and get very dark.

Spoon mixture into tart pans, using approximate 1 1/2 tablespoons per tart.

Before chocolate sets, top each tart with about 6 mini marshmallows.

Use a culinary torch set to low to very carefully brown the tops of the marshmallows. Be prepared to blow out any small flames as the marshmallows can ignite very easily. (I didn't have a blow torch and tried toasting them under the grill but it didn't really work so I went for the un-toasted option!)

Refrigerate tarts at least 4 hours or overnight and serve.

ALL the desserts went down so well, and I certainly think the dessert bar tradition in our family is here to stay judging by the popularity of this one!

Here's wishing all my Stateside followers a super yummy Thanksgiving this Thursday!

Chubby Hubbies Take 2....Triple Coconut & Chocolate Cookies

2011-11-11T16:24:00.001Z

You may remember a few months ago I made Chubby Hubbies for the first time after attending an awesome baking class with the Outsider Tart boys.

They were, and still are some of the best cookies I've ever tasted! They are known as XXX rated chocolate cookies by Outsider Tart because they contain three different kinds of chocolate. Last time I added some shredded coconut into the mix as well because I am obsessed with the stuff so they became known as my triple chocolate and coconut cookies. This time round I reversed things and was feeling in a coconutty mood (when am I not!) and so I devised these triple coconut and chocolate cookies.

I was able to do this with the help of my shredded coconut, coconut M&M's and White Choc & Coconut Lindt bar. I'm sorry to say none of these items are freely available in the UK but if you're feeling rich and want to recreate these cookies exactly you can buy the shredded coconut and M&M's here, and improvise with any kind of white chocolate for your chunks...or you can do as the OT boys advise and make them your own with whatever you feel like throwing in.

I love the cracked tops of these cookies. You can see some of the green coloured coconut M&M's peeking through in this shot. The ingredients I used gave a great variety of textures, there was the crunch of the M&M shell, the chew of the coconut thread and the liquid gooeyness of the melted white choc coconut chunks all enveloped in the moist rich chocolate cookie.

One of my favourite parts of a Chubby Hubby is just for moist and fudgy the cookies are. I'm not even going to tell you the rate at which these cookies disappeared, it was rather alarming!

If you want to make someone's day...bake these, I promise they will not be disappointed!

Chubby Hubbies II: Triple Coconut & Chocolate Cookies:

Makes 18 Cookies

75g Unsalted butter

230g Valrhona chocolate (68%)

2 Large eggs

150g Granulated sugar

3/4 tbs Vanilla bean paste

50g Plain flour

1/4 tsp Baking powder

A pinch of salt

75g White chocolate coconut Lindt, cut into chunks

75g Coconut M&M's

45g Shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Melt the butter in your pan first. Then add the Valrhona chocolate, stirring frequently to avoid it burning (or play it safe and melt the butter and chocolate together in a glass bowl sitting above a pan of simmering water). Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

With a paddle attachment on medium speed, beat together the eggs and sugar until light and fluffy (and ropey!). Add the vanilla and cooled chocolate mixture. Beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes until the dough is thick and glossy.

Add the flour, baking powder and salt - mixing until just incorporated. Stir in the chocolate chunks, M&M's and shredded coconut with a wooden spoon.

Let the dough rest for 15-20 minutes to facilitate scooping.

With a large ice cream scoop drop dough balls onto the lined baking sheets, keeping at least 2 inches between cookies.

There should be no more than 6 cookies per sheet, with wet fingers gently flatten each dough ball.

Bake for about 15 minutes until the tops crack and become glossy. To the touch they will seem underdone.

Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 mins before placing them on wire racks to cool completely.

Eat and enjoy when warm and delicious, trust me - it's the best way :)

Cookie Craziness! Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chunk & Banana Cookies

2011-11-09T21:47:00.001Z

I have been on a definite cookie kick lately! In the past two weeks alone I've whipped up four different kinds...along with brownies, cupcakes, rocky roads. I never fully realised the extent of mine and my husband's sweet tooth's until these past few weeks. Every night after dinner we wonder what yummy treat we can have...and usually I wonder over to the kitchen to see what I can make happen!

So when Byron requested cookies, I asked what kind - peanut butter and banana was his response. I googled some recipes to see what I could find and I finally settled on this one.

I decided the addition of some chocolate chunks would add an extra level of deliciousness and I was right, these were some seriously fat cakey oozing with gooey chocolate cookies! They were so easy to whip up, so quick to bake that I can see they are going to be repeated often in our household!

What is great about these cookies is that (due to having a really tiny baking sheet) I only baked 4 actual cookies on the night we were after some treats. I refrigerated the rest of the dough tightly wrapped up in clingfilm and for 3 days afterwards every time we came in from Uni we popped 4 more in the oven so the warm cookie goodness kept us going all through the week!

Here's my adapted recipe:

Peanut Butter, Chocolate Chunk and Banana Cookies:

Makes 24 cookies

1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup caster sugar

3/4 cup crunchy Peanut Butter

1 stick of unsalted butter (1/2 cup) at room temperature

1 over-ripe banana

1 tablespoon vanilla

1 egg

1 3/4 cups sifted plain flour

3/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup chopped up milk chocolate chunks

In a large mixing bowl cream the brown sugar, caster sugar and butter. Next, add peanut butter and continue to cream. Add vanilla and banana, salt and bicarbonate and the egg. Slowly add in flour to bring it all together. Stir in chopped up chocolate chunks. If making drop cookies simply spoon onto baking sheet.

To make formed cookies:

Refrigerate dough for at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Take a small amount of dough, about the size of ping-pong ball and shape into a ball. Place on a cookie sheet. You should be able to fit 12 on a large sheet. Bake for approximately 8 minutes. The cookies should be a light brown. Remove from oven, and allow to cool for 2-3 minutes and carefully transfer to a cooling rack.

Your cookies will be moist and delicious! If you prefer a crunchier cookie, bake a little bit longer.

Brownie cupcakes with Vanilla Bean Frosting to welcome Baby Elijah!

2011-11-03T20:18:00.001Z

There's nothing that says 'Welcome to the world Baby' than a batch of cupcakes...in my opinion! so when we heard some of our new friends from church had welcomed a new arrival I got into the kitchen to do some baking.

I made my favourite brownie cupcakes because the parents of the new baby had enjoyed them a few weeks before, so I figured they would enjoy them even more second time round. Plus the first time I had made them I was still getting to grips with our new oven and to my taste they were slightly burnt, no-one else seemed to mind, so this time I ensured they were baked to perfection.

Around a year ago I ordered a whole load of chocolate moulds from an American seller on eBay. They were practically giving them away they were so cheap...so although at the time I didn't know any pregnant people I knew they would come in handy! I also bought tons of Christmas moulds that I'm excited to getting around to use this year! So the moulds I used had baby bottles, rattles...

little sleeping bubbas...

and even praying toddlers! how cute is that! I thought it was apt since they were for friends from church!

I also wanted to personalise them a little so I got out the good old fondant, tinted it blue and really wanted to make perfectly round discs to sit on top of my cupcakes. I looked around my worktop to see what I could use and I saw my collection of piping nozzles. I used my biggest one and pressed the underneath of it into the fondant and it created the perfect sized circle!

I then used my letter stencils to spell out 'Baby Elijah' and after leaving them to air dry I placed them on top of the frosted cupcakes along with a few blue heart sprinkles for good measure!

I was pleased with how they turned out, as were Elijah's parents but the verdict is still out on what Elijah thought himself!

Brownie Cupcakes:

Makes 36 Mini's

Taken from Martha Stewart's 'Cupcakes' Book

225g/8oz milk chocolate

113g/ 1/2 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

225g/1 cup caster sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs

62g/ 1/2 cup plain flour

31g/ 1/4 cup sifted cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F.

Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir occasionally until just melted, about 4-5 mins.

Remove bowl from heat. Whisk in sugar and salt until mixture is smooth, whisk in eggs to combine. Gently whisk in flour and cocoa just until smooth (do not overmix).

Fill cupcake cases until 3/4 full. Bake, rotating tin halfway through, until a cake tester inserted halfway in centres, comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached, about 15-18mins (If you are baking regular sized cupcakes, bake for 25 mins).

Vanilla Bean Frosting:

Makes enough to frost 36 Mini's...plus some leftover for quality control :)

Taken from Cupcake Project

250g/2 cups icing sugar

225g/1 cup unsalted butter (at room temperature)

2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste

1 tablespoon milk

Mix together sugar and butter until they are blended and creamy. Add vanilla bean paste and milk and continue to beat for another minute. If desired, add more vanilla bean paste to taste, or more icing sugar to make a stiffer consistency.

Happy Halloween! Snickers & Oreo Rocky Road

2011-10-31T15:35:00.000Z

It's Halloween!! and thank goodness for the blogosphere getting all festive because it certainly doesn't feel like Halloween around these parts! Our Halloween party we were meant to be going to got cancelled, we couldn't go to the pumpkin patch to pick our pumpkin due to insufficient funds! and although we have our Halloween candy ready I'm betting that we won't get a single trick or treater. It's definitely at times like these I wish I lived in America - everything is more fun over there!

but...I did get very excited when I discovered these Halloween Oreos in Tesco (our local supermarket) a few weeks ago. It is the very first time I have ever seen them in the U.K, we're catching on slowly so it seems. I'm crossing my fingers that they'll surprise me with Mint Oreos any day too but I'm not sure that will ever happen! I also got excited when I saw these orange Silver Spoon buttons, like candy melts. So I snapped both of these up in the hopes of making a yummy Halloween treat.

However, despite all this thinking and planning weeks ago...Halloween definitely snuck up on me! and right now I am writing one of my first essays for my course (it is due on Wednesday) so last night I knew whatever I made needed to be quick so I settled on my favourite Snickers Rocky Road recipe.

Of course I decided the usual pink and white marshmallows wouldn't do, and in true Halloween spirit they would have to be orange. In England you can't buy orange marshmallows so that meant one thing - I would need to whip some up! So you can see this quick treat turned out being rather time consuming in the end....anything to get out of writing an essay!

I followed Smitten Kitchens rather excellent tutorial about how to make marshmallows and I just threw in some orange food colour right before I poured them in to the pan.

I chopped up my Snickers, got a cup full of rice krispies, 2 mini bags of Oreos and a handful of orange buttons. I chopped up the marshmallows and then I was ready to start melting some chocolate and mixing the whole lot together.

I melted another handful of the orange buttons and drizzled them over the top before refrigerating for around an hour.

and there you have it, the perfect no bake treat to bring some Halloween spirit to your neighbourhood! Give it a try! If you buy store bought marshmallows this whole treat can be whipped up in less than 10 minutes and then it's just a painful hour in the fridge while you wait for it to set!

Snickers & Oreo Rocky Road:

Makes 16 bars

50g mini Halloween Oreos

25g orange chocolate buttons

230g Snickers (4 standard size bars)

150g marshmallows

35g Rice Krispies

450g Your preferred choice of eating chocolate (I used Dairy Milk)

3 tsp vegetable oil

For decoration:

60g orange chocolate buttons

Break the Oreos and chocolate buttons in half. Chop Snickers bars into bite sized pieces. Chop up marshmallows. Measure out Rice Krispies and set everything aside.

Melt the eating chocolate and oil together in a glass bowl set above a pan of boiling water.

Once it is completely melted, set aside to cool for 10 minutes. Turn flame down to low and heat the pan of water gently.

Add all the other ingredients into the bowl of chocolate and mix together.

Transfer into a pre greased baking pan.

Put the 60g orange chocolate buttons into a bowl and return to the pan of water that should still be being heated, but not boiling. Melt buttons and transfer to a piping bag. Drizzle over the Rocky Road,

Refrigerate for one hour or until firm, cut and serve and enjoy.

Triple Mint Choc Chip Cookie Dough and Mint Oreo Brownies

2011-10-21T19:00:00.000+01:00

I'm going to start this post with some bad news. I feared it from the moment I baked my first batch of brownies in our new house...but I thought I'd wait and give our oven a few more chances to come around but there is no two ways about it - we have a bad oven!! It is WAY too hot and even if you drop the temp dramatically it still burns things on top and leaves them uncooked in the middle! but what do you do in this situation? It's hardly like at your initial viewing of a property you can pop in a quick batch of cupcakes to see if the oven is up to scratch is it! Although I wish I could have done that because I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have picked this house! seriously! dodgy ovens are my worst nightmare :( so if any of you have any tips on how I can improve my situation please share!

bad news aside, here's the good!

Remember when my sisters brought me back tons of amazing goodies from America! and I was saving my last packet of Mint Oreos for a super special recipe...well I think I just created that special recipe, with a little inspiration from this recipe!

This recipe has been circulating pinterest for a while now, it has been on my 'to bake' list but I kept thinking making cookie dough and brownies in one go would be time consuming, not so! This recipe was actually relatively easy to whip up! and since I make my brownies in the saucepan once I've removed them from the heat I didn't even have to wash out my KitchenAid bowl to re use it - bonus!

I decided to add some mint-spiration to this dish and instead of chocolate chips in the cookie dough I substituted them with Andes mint chips. I used my Mint Oreos for the Oreo layer and then I sprinkled up some Peppermint Crisp bars on top of the brownie layer before it went in the oven to create some triple mint yumminess! If you don't know...Peppermint Crisps are chocolate bars that originate in South Africa and are one of my very fave choc bars ever!

Mint Choc Chip Cookie Dough & Oreo Brownies

(Makes 9)

Cookie dough:

1 stick/113g unsalted butter (at room temp)

1/2 cup caster sugar
3/8 cup light brown sugar (a full 1/4 cup and then a half 1/4 cup is how I did it!)
1 large egg
1/2 tbsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cup plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup Andes Mint Chips
9 Mint Oreo cookies
Brownie mix:
112g milk chocolate
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 large eggs (or 90g)
1/4 cup plain flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 Peppermint Crisp bar

Preheat all your normal ovens out there to 180 degrees C.
Grease your baking dish with butter. I used an 8x8 dish.

For the cookie dough: Cream the butter and both sugars in an electric mixer for 3-5 mins. Add the egg and vanilla and mix well to thoroughly combine. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, soda and salt and slowly add it into the mixer until the flour is just combined. Stir in the mint chips.
Spread the dough in the bottom of your dish.

Layer it with 9 Mint Oreos or if you have unlimited access to Mint Oreos go ahead and use 16 - I could have fit that amount in but I wanted to use mine sparingly as once they're gone they're gone!

For the brownies: Melt milk chocolate with butter over heat. Remove from heat and whisk in the sugar and salt. Whisk in the eggs. Gently whisk in the flour and cocoa until just combined. Pour over the Oreo layer.

Sprinkled your crushed up peppermint crisp bar for just an extra hint of mint!
Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Make sure when you eat these you do so with copious amounts of ice cream! They are crazy rich but in a very good way! and I was surprised at how well the mint element worked, it wasn't overpowering at all but for all you mint lovers out there it was just right! chocolatey, gooey, minty deliciousness! Certainly not a dessert for the faint hearted but if it's a cold windy evening and you want to snuggle up with the one you love on the sofa and be kept warm by a yummy pudding then this is the one to make!

Chocolate Coconut Cream Pie

2011-10-18T15:57:00.000+01:00

So you may or may not have heard that last week was national chocolate week! We had been invited round for dinner by some new friends and I offered to bring dessert. I immediately thought of whipping up my coconut cream pie and then thought how amazing would a Chocolate Coconut Cream Pie be!

So I began as usual by baking up a biscuit base...

and then making the deliciously thick coconut cream filling...

and then I added some melted Valrhona...

and mixed in all that chocolatey goodness! I didn't add too much as I still wanted the coconut flavour to come through but it was just enough to get a burst of chocolate too...

and lots of desiccated coconut.

Then it gets poured into your pre baked base...

topped with a delicious coconut cream...

sprinkled with some toasted shredded coconut...

and finished off with a drizzle of chocolate!

Coconut Cream Pie is one of my new favourite desserts, but the addition of chocolate took it to new heights of tastiness!! If you don't believe me, there was a lactose intolerant guest at our meal who even helped himself to seconds!

I converted the recipe this time around into metric measurements for all my UK followers, but if you prefer using cups or are on the other side of the pond you can find those measurements the last time I baked Coconut Cream Pie.

Chocolate Coconut Cream Pie

Base:

300g Hobnobs/crushed biscuits

110g unsalted butter (melted)

Filling:

140g caster sugar

30g corn flour

240g coconut milk

240g whole milk

10g vanilla bean paste

30g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)

60g/3 egg yolks

60g/1 large egg

60g chocolate (I used 68% Valrhona)

50g desiccated coconut

Topping:

475g double cream

80g coconut milk

56g caster sugar

A handful of shredded coconut (toasted)

Melted chocolate for drizzle

Preheat oven to 150 degrees c.

Melt butter in a pan on the hob (or in microwave in short low heat bursts). Crush your biscuits up in a food processor (or like me in a zip loc bag with a rolling pin). Mix the butter into the biscuits and spread your biscuit base into your pan. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes.

Whilst that is baking, pre mix the caster sugar and the corn flour together with a whisk in a saucepan. Add the coconut milk, whole milk, vanilla bean paste, butter, egg yolks and whole egg into the pan as well. Heat all ingredients on a medium-high heat on the hob for 5 minutes, or until all of the butter has melted and all the ingredients are well mixed together. Mix for a further five minutes until the mixture thickens (the original method I followed instructed you to do figure of 8's with your whisk at this point, I'm not sure if it's actually necessary but I did it anyway!).

Remove your pan from the heat. In a separate pan or in the microwave melt the chocolate. Add it to the coconut cream filling which is still in the pan. Add the desiccated coconut and mix everything together.

Pour it into your biscuit base that you have removed from the oven. Leave it to firm up in the fridge for an hour, I left mine overnight.

Sprinkle a few handfuls of shredded coconut or however much you would like for your decoration on to a baking tray. Place it under the grill and watch it as it can burn very quickly! You want it so that it is lightly toasted, with some pieces brown but not necessarily all pieces. Approx 3-5mins. Take out the oven and leave to cool.

Add the double cream and coconut milk to your mixer. Whip on medium speed until it begins to thicken. Add the caster sugar a little at a time, increase the speed to high and whip until stiff.

Remove your pie from the fridge and top with the coconut cream.

Sprinkle the now cooled toasted coconut on top and finish off by melting chocolate, putting it in a piping bag and drizzling it over the top of the pie.

I'm sharing this over at The Tuesday Talent Show - go check out the other amazing things bloggers have been creating this week!

The Little Round Cake Company saves the day!

2011-10-08T18:56:00.003+01:00

It's official. I've been in Wales for 4 weeks now and there are still no cupcakes in sight anywhere! This is more than slightly worrying. So last weekend we went to Shropshire to visit my parents and I knew of exactly the place that could fill the cupcake sized hole in my stomach!

I have visited The Little Round Cake Company once before, it was in the first few weeks of coming back from the Caribbean when we were staying with my parents and exploring the cupcakes Shropshire had to offer. You may recall alot of the cupcakes we ate didn't get the best reviews and so The Little Round Cake Company came up trumps with their yummy flavour combos and edible decorations on top!

For me...I'm not a fan of fondant or random fussy decorations that don't add anything to the cupcake...if you've made a raspberry cupcake I expect a fresh raspberry on top and TLRCC definitely do this right!

I found out they were hosting a stall at a farmers market in Whitchurch the Saturday we were there so we made a special trip to the market just to get some of their delicious goodies!

Their stall was full to the brim with yummy treats! including 'Tweeners' which are essentially cupcakes cut in half and filled with more frosting! I think this is a great idea because have you ever thought the bottom half of your cupcake was lacking in frosting:cake ratio...I know I have! so these combat that problem! Since I knew we were going to buy a whole bag of treats we didn't get any of these this time, because unfortunately I do have to draw the line (calories wise) somewhere! but next time I want to try these for sure!

and look at those giant meringues! never have there been so many temptations packed into one little stall!

but I was definitely there for the cupcakes! so we went with a box of 4. Oreo, Blackberry and Vanilla, Rocky Road and Banoffee. All four cupcakes were delicious, and were enjoyed by the whole family (don't worry I share the calories around!) and all of the frostings were creamy and very moreish. They definitely helped me get my cupcake fix...if anything, being the frosting lover I am, I could have done with a little more frosting but otherwise they were great!

and being the brownie lovers we are we couldn't pass by this lovely looking white choc brownie. It was gooey and fudgy in the middle and crisp on top - just how brownies should be! and I even enjoyed mine with a few scoops of mint ice cream for pudding later that evening!!! but for me the star of the show was the beautifully presented white chocolate tart you see before you. I have never tried a white chocolate tart before and that little drizzle of raspberry was drawing me in so I had to snap one up. Once you cut inside there was a layer of jam underneath the white chocolate and it was the most dreamy yummy tart I've ever had...I wished as we drove back to Wales (and the land of NO yummy baked treats apparently) that I'd stocked up on enough of those babies to last me the whole week!

S'mores Milkshakes! The best brainwave I've had in a while!

2011-10-02T23:55:00.001+01:00

You may or may not have noticed that when I get excited about things I reeeeeally get excited about things! This often leads to me using the phrase 'I'm obsessed with' more frequently than most! I'm obsessed with America...I'm pretty sure you've heard that one before, I'm obsessed with polka dots (in a previous office job I had one summer a co-worked nicknamed me spot because every day I happened to wear something polka dot!) and I'm sure it hasn't escaped your attention that I'm obsessed with CUPCAKES!

So it brings me great pleasure to tell you about one of my latest obsessions...no, it's not the colour purple (although that is a valid one!) but it is in fact S'MORES! How I miss those s'mores toasting days back when we lived in the Caribbean!

Seriously s'mores are amazing! Why we don't have this little gem of an invention this side of the Atlantic is totally beyond me! I've even devoted a whole board on pinterest just to s'mores, how is that possible? is what my husband asked...oh it's possible! There are s'mores layer cakes, pizzas, cookies, whoopies, pops and so the list goes on! but you know what I have never come across anywhere on the internet or pinterest or blogging land?

A s'mores milkshake! and for those who know me well you will know I'm a huge milkshake lover! So when we were taking a beach stroll on an unusually sunny Welsh evening this week I had a brainwave. I have seen the toasted marshmallow milkshake doing the rounds lately, and I was keen on trying it out...but that just sounded a little too boring on it's own and that's when it hit me ...throw some chocolate in, and some graham crackers and surely we are talking s'mores heaven!

Now if you're the kind of person to be counting calories...back away from this recipe, it's just not for you! if like me, you appreciate the tasty treats in life and throw caution to the wind with the calorie count then please whip some of these up, you can thank me later :)

S'mores milkshakes

(Makes 2)

2 cups semi skimmed milk

8 generous scoops vanilla ice cream

18 marshmallows

2 graham crackers (if you're English you could substitute with hobnobs/digestives)

24 squares of dairy milk (approx 180g)

For decoration:

Duff S'mores sprinkles or

Crushed up graham crackers and a marshmallow

Let me say before I start I like my milkshakes thick, in my opinion it's the only way! but if you prefer yours thin maybe leave some of the ice cream above out!

1. Add 1 cup semi skimmed milk and 4 scoops of ice cream into your blender.

2. Add 9 marshmallows, 12 squares of dairy milk and 1 graham cracker

3. Blend everything together

4. Add the other cup of semi skimmed milk, 4 more scoops of ice cream and the remaining graham cracker, 12 squares of dairy milk and 9 marshmallows.

5. Keep blending until everything is completely mixed.

6. Pour into delightful milkshake glasses, and top with S'mores sprinkles, a single marshmallow and a piece of graham cracker.

7. Drink and enjoy!

I will say that I started out trying to toast my marshmallows, we don't have a garden so I couldn't strike up a bonfire and toasting them on the naked flame of our hob was getting a little bit sketchy so I gave up after a while but for that authentic s'mores taste I do think toasting is the way to go!

I added my chocolate in whole but I think next time I would melt the chocolate first before adding it to give it a richer chocolate taste.

Those two things aside, these were some amazing milkshakes! and accompanied with some homemade meatball hoagies it was certainly the best dinner I've had in a while!

p.s did you know I brought those milkshake glasses all the way back from the Caribbean?! Out of a set of 6 glasses we only had one casualty which, if you think about how badly your luggage gets thrown around at airports, isn't bad going at all!

I'm sharing this over at Chef in Training for Tuesday Talents.

Mint Oreo Brownies....just because!

2011-09-29T14:28:00.000+01:00

Remember how my sisters brought me back an amazing stash of goodies from California? Well, among everything was 2 whole packs of Mint Oreos which are my absolute fave! and we don't get them here in England. I've been debating for a while what I'm going to bake with them. I know it has to be SUPER special because when they're gone, they're gone! and I won't be getting anymore for a while! but it's taking me so long to dream up the perfect treat to use them with that I got desperate...I caved...

and I sneaked a few into these brownies! because I had to!

The brownie recipe came from my blissful brownies recipe book that I have shamefully never used before but now that we have moved and are back in our own house again, I have been reunited with all my baking books so I thought it was high time I used one of them!

Chocolate Mint Oreo Brownies

(Makes 12 brownie squares)

115g unsalted butter

115g plain chocolate

300g golden caster sugar

pinch of salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 large eggs

140g plain flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder

8 mint Oreo cookies

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c.

Melt butter and chocolate in a small heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water

Leave to cool slightly. Stir in the sugar, salt and vanilla extract.

Add the eggs, one at a time and beat until well blended.

Sift the flour and cocoa powder into the mix and beat until smooth.

Pour the mixture into your pre greased tin.

Break up Oreos on top of batter.

Bake in the oven for 35 minutes, or until a skewer comes out with just a few moist crumbs attached.

You must bake these...because they're delish! and if you're not lucky enough to live in the States and have easy access to Mint Oreos you can substitute with them with regular ones (and then feel sad about the fact English people aren't privileged enough to be blessed with such yumminess)

In other cupcake related news, don't ever think about moving to North Wales (like me) if you're cupcake crazy! My nearest proper cupcake fix is now more than an hour away, and don't get me started on the local bakeries here. I'll save that post for another day!

Red Velvet & Brownie Wedding Cupcakes...for a very special wedding!

2011-09-19T00:12:00.002+01:00

Shall I tell you every bakers worst nightmare, or let me rephrase that...every English bakers worst nightmare - 1. Red Velvets, 2. Red frosting!!

Guess what Laura wanted me to make for her wedding, red velvet cupcakes and brownie cupcakes with the dreaded red frosting!!! Already I was foreseeing stressful times ahead!

Let me explain why...baking up a red velvet if you live in America is easy peasy (and why you find them at every cupcakery/bakery from California to New York) because they just pop down to Wal Mart or wherever and pick up a bottle of red food colouring and follow their perfect little recipe. Job done.

In England it's not so easy! because some 'clever' (a.k.a stupid) person has decided artificial red food colouring can no longer be sold on our shelves and that everything needs to be natural.

So this is what happens when you bake a red velvet with natural food colour.

You get a red velvet that comes out brown!!! I tried four different kinds of red velvet recipes. I tried liquid red colour, gel red colour and either the colour didn't work or it worked so well that the mixture became inedible.

Do you know what saved the day in the end and produced this beautiful red hue you see below?

A bottle of cochineal, that I had bought at the supermarket like 2 years ago when I remember reading on a blog that it was good for making red frosting! Unfortunately that little bottle wasn't quite enough to make ALL the red velvets I needed too so I popped to Sainsburys...and then to Tesco...and then to Asda and apparently cochineal is too artificial these days too so they no longer sell that either!!!

Luckily I had a small bottle of red food colour that my fantastic sister had brought back for me from the States so I managed to finish my baking using that....but it was no mean feat baking up 75 red velvets and a giant cupcake too - I needed the help of ALL the red food colours in the picture below! and some were no help at all like stupid silver spoon food colouring with no artificial colours! psh!

The bride had requested red glitter and red m&m's so I made a special trip to m&m world to buy a giant bag of only red and white m&m's!

and of course there had to be lots of red hearts involved on top of the cream cheese frosting.

My red frosting actually turned out surprisingly great! thanks to my new favourite sugarflair colour - RED EXTRA! where have you been hiding all my life! when I have had red frosting baking fail after fail after fail..this little guy would have come in handy! but I've found it now and I'm passing on my little secret to all of you!

Some of the cupcakes got decorated with a few jimmies...

and there were also 75 minis just to add to the fun!

They got topped the same way as the regular sized cupcakes but I managed to get mini versions of the heart sprinkles and the m&m's just got chopped up smaller!

The brownie cupcakes were specially requested by the bride after she tried them here and here and fell in love with them! If you want to bake them yourself then go ahead and follow Martha's recipe, they're super fudgy and yummy!

The red frosting I whipped up was my fave flavour - vanilla bean.

I also made a giant cupcake for the occasion too.

Here are a few pics of the cupcakes that I managed to snap just after I set them all up at the wedding.

I liked the way it was a whole table filled with cupcakes dotted all over the place rather than the more traditional cupcake towers.

I'm really loving my new lens these days! Although Byron uses it much better than I do, so credit to him for taking all these!

The prettiness of this table summed up the whole of Mr & Mrs Brooker's amazing day!

I even managed to co-ordinate with the cupcakes without even planning it!

and here I am with the beautiful bride! After all the red related headaches, I was happy they turned out great in the end! and it was so fun to be able to make these cupcakes for Laur's special day!

I'm sharing these over at Hoosier Homemade for Cupcake Tuesday! Go check out all the other delicious cupcakes everyone has been baking up!

Final final Cupcaking days...for National Cupcake Week!

2011-09-14T16:03:00.000+01:00

So I thought I was done with eating cupcakes...but it's National Cupcake Week and if you can't eat tons of cupcakes now then when can you!

As it turns out I wasn't quite finished stuffing my face with London's cupcakes! A few weeks ago when I was up to my ears in red velvet baking fails I decided to pop by Love Bakery and see what they had to say on the matter. The staff were very friendly and assured me as long as I bought artifical red colour and I used their recipe I would be fine. Unfortunately Waitrose and Tesco had other plans for me...did you know they only stock natural food colouring these days. booo

Needless to say it was another baking fail! but I'm pleased to say their Red Velvet was very delicious, if only we could all ship our snazzy red food colour in from Italy like they do! I also loved their cute little shop, it was well worth the very long walk all the way up the Kings Rd!

A few days later I had a hair appointment on Chiswick High Rd, which I was rather excited about - not only because it meant I would soon be root free but because I knew I could stop off at Outsider Tart to pick up some of their delicious goodies!

I was overjoyed to see coconut cupcakes on offer, with mounds of frosting and shredded coconut on top. Coconut is possibly my favourite flavour ever! Unfortunately for me it was paired with my worst flavour ever - almond! I have a strange aversion to almond, I can't stand the taste of it and I can detect even the most minute amount in any baked item! so as soon as I picked up that hint of almond it was all downhill for me. Sad times...but my sister who enjoys almond thought it was a great cupcake!

Luckily for me they don't put almond in their peanut butter cheesecake brownies so I enjoyed them immensely they were fudgy and rich and generally yummy!

Has anyone seen the vast amounts of Streetcar ads popping up all over the tubes? One of them even has Crumbs and Doilies cupcakes in it! and if you snapped a picture of yourself with the ad they send you a vouched for a box of 12 mini cupcakes on the house!!

Never one to turn down free cupcakes we joined in the fun!

and this is me and my happy face picking them up on Saturday from their stall on Kings Rd!

We had a variety of Salted Caramel, Vanilla, Chocolate, Red Velvet and their special of the month Lavender Caramel which I'm afraid to say I was too scared to try! Lavender has never been a flavour that I've wanted to eat, I believe it should be confined to candles and soaps! but the rest of the flavours were all delicious, and I love bite size cupcakes more than anything!

After that we headed to the Mayor's festival down at the Thames. There were quite a few cupcakes to be tried down there! We came across Ms Cupcake first. A long time ago at an Iron Cupcake event i tried a strawberries and cream cupcake made by the lovely Ms Cupcake herself, it was amazing...even more amazing when I discovered the mounds of creamy and delicious frosting was indeed vegan! How she makes such tasty cupcakes and still manages for them to be vegan friendly I have no idea! She has since opened up her own cupcakery in Brixton which I haven't managed to get around to trying this summer sadly so I was excited when i saw her stall full of goodies!

We went for the Ferrero Rocher because I love different flavours! It was very tasty and tasted just like a Ferrero Rocher! but for my tastebuds the chocolate was a little 'too' dark - I'm not a dark chocolate fan, but my sister enjoyed it.

We also saw Yummy Boutique's stall. They were the main reason I headed to the festival, I had seen via their facebook they had been working on 20 new flavours! so I was very excited about that but from what I could see their flavours on offer were pretty standard and they didn't seem too new to me so we gave them a miss because there were other more exciting flavours at different stalls we wanted to try!

Like Peggy's cupcakes. Her stall was oh so pretty filled with gobstopper sized cake pops and beautifully frosted cupcakes in a whole array of flavours. We went for the banana cupcake with caramel frosting.

I couldn't possibly eat it that very same due to the vast amounts of cupcakes we had already consumed but I'm happy to report 3 days later it was still moist and delicious! The banana and caramel pairing was a good choice...

which brings me onto the final cupcake! Lola's special of the month was cookie dough, which is always a favourite in my book...so we just had to check it out. Unfortunately when we went they only had the mini's left...and I was pretty disappointed to find no cookie dough inside my cupcake!! Apparently only the regular sized ones are lucky enough to be filled with dough! which I think is a bit of a letdown, I regularly make mini's and if I can fill mine they should be able to fill their's!

The cookie frosting was super tasty, but I felt the cookie on top should have been a soft homebaked one. All in all not their best offering they've ever come up with.

So there you have it...my last London cupcake I will be eating for a very long time! so whilst you may not be seeing so many cupcake reviews on here in the next few months since I've told you previously Bangor is pretty much devoid of cupcakes, I will be back in my own house with my own kitchen and KitchenAid so I'm sure there will be lots more baking to make up for that!

Also, drop by next week to see an awesome guest post from my sister about all the AMAZING cupcakeries they visited in California...you will be amazed!

An Anniversary Twirl & Peanut Butter Chocolate Fudge Triple Layer Cake

2011-09-06T18:52:00.000+01:00

Last week I celebrated 4 years with my lovely sweet toothed husband! I had done some background research to discover Twirl was his favourite chocolate bar of the moment! So imagine my delight when I spotted these little beauties in my local supermarket. The idea for the rest of the cake began with these...

and grew into this....

Here's how it all started. Bake your chocolate cake into 3 separate tins. Once they are cooled, spread generous amounts of peanut butter frosting on top of each cake.

Smooth it out with a knife.

Crumble your mini Twirl bites to pieces and sprinkle them generously all over the frosting.

Sandwich your layers together.

Once the third layer has been added, side coat with more frosting.

Pour some chocolate fudge into the centre of your cake. Be ready to guide some of it over the edge and be ready to stop any over enthusiastic drips too! For this you need to make sure your fudge is slightly runny so that it will move around but not so runny that your whole cake gets drenched in fudge! It's a fine balance!

Load up your piping bad with excess peanut butter frosting and pipe little swirls evenly around the edge of the cake.

Adorn each swirl with a Twirl bite and a cut up Reece's Peanut Butter Cup respectively. Of course if you get to be lucky enough to live in America you can just adorn with a mini pb cup which would be super cute but I didn't have that option!

Then I cheated slightly by making the disc on top at work, but I could have had one of the professionals who pipe discs all day long to pipe my message and I chose not to. I wanted it to be a labour of love, higgledy piggledy letter piping and all - that is something I definitely have to work on!

Byron loved it anyway! and we enjoyed more than several slices of it on our anniversary staycation in between all the other crazy amounts of treats we consumed!

So if you're looking for a rather delicious combo of creamy peanut butter and fudgy chocolate with a bit of flaked chocolate thrown in then this is the cake for you!

Here is the recipe for the chocolate cake part taken from my United Cakes of America book.

I used a double batch of my peanut butter frosting that goes like this:

2 cups Icing Sugar

1/4 cup semi-skimmed milk

1/4 cup unsalted organic unsalted butter

1/2 cup smooth organic peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Blend everything together until smooth. If you require a thicker consistency add more sugar, if you need it to be thinner add more milk.

and finished off with some milk chocolate fudge. I can't tell you the recipe as it's a secret but I'm sure you can improvise with something you can find off of google!

Happy Baking!

P.S I'm sharing this over at Chef in Trainings blog along with tons of other yummy entries for Tuesday's Talents. I have been drooling over the root beer float fudge she posted about - how good does that sound!

Final cupcaking days in London Town!

2011-09-04T19:03:00.002+01:00

My London days are coming to an end all too soon so I've been cramming in as many cupcakes as possible! We checked out quite a few on our anniversary staycation last weekend. I stumbled across Mimi's Cupcakes in Camden market. She's situated in this cute little hut that is filled to the brim with cupcakes! There was a massive variety of flavours which I always love to see and they weren't just the boring old regular ones either! I went with a mint chocolate aero bubble which was pretty yummy! I would have liked to have tried more but had just eaten two enormous tacos from a Mexican food stall!

On a rare sunny afternoon we found ourselves down at the Southbank...okay I had planned to be there especially because they were having a village fete and I heard cupcakes were going to be involved! I'm always a bit worried when I hear about things vaguely that I could turn up and be presented with a really lame stall of the kind of cupcakes that mums produce at summer fetes so I was very pleasantly surprised to find this stall from The Riff Raff Cake Co. It was bursting at the seams with cupcakes! and yet again there were some great flavour combos.

I went for a chocolate and coconut and a banana and marshmallow! These were cupcakes as they should be...moist, flavoursome and delicious!

After that, we headed to the Outsider Tart stall because it would be criminal to be down at the South Bank without picking up some treats from my favourite bakery! We got the most amazing white chocolate chip fudge brownie spiced with cinnamon! and what made it even better...

was eating it with scoops of this toasted coconut ice cream from Sorbitium Ices! It was an insanely good combo.

For weeks I've been wanting to visit Netil Market after reading rave reviews about Lucky Chip burgers and of course seeing that Molly Bakes cupcakes has a stall there too. So on my only potential lie in day for weeks I woke up at 8am to head there, it take me one underground, two buses and wouldn't you know Lucky Chip hadn't even opened their stand by the time I had to leave the market and head on back to Milton Keynes. To say I was annoyed would be an understatement.

Luckily Molly Bakes decided to turn up! and so all was not lost!

All her cupcakes looked so delicious it was very hard to pick!

So we decided to go for 4! to make our trek to London fields worth it! Molly Bakes knows how to make good cakes that's for sure. The Lime & Coconut I had was the best ever! and the popcorn brownie was inventive and delish! The choc cupcakes was oh so moist and the little mini frangipani was too cute!

We ended our anniversary weekend with an awesome trip to Everyman cinemas in Hampstead. Have you ever seen a cinema that sells cupcakes??! no me neither! So I just had to take a picture!

We got to take the cupcake into the cinema and enjoy it on our amazing sofa while we watched One Day. The film was a disappointment, but our comfy sofa and cupcake certainly weren't!

Phew! That was a whole lot of eating! but there's a bleak cupcake future ahead of me in Bangor so I have to make the most of it while I can!

Cinnamon S'mores Cookie Bars

2011-08-24T12:29:00.000+01:00

This is what you make when your sisters get back from California and bring you this amazing stash of goodies:

Aren't they the greatest??! Mint Oreo's (my fave!) Coconut M&M's, Coconut & white choc Lindt, Graham crackers galore - cinnamon and honey flavour (I didn't even know cinnamon flavour existed until they landed in my hands!) jet puffed mallows (and I even got the rectangle variety that have been created just for s'mores - how cool is that!) key lime pie and mint choc chip chewing gum varieties! S'mores cupcake sprinkles, andes mint choc bits and A&W soda ice pops!

I also got tons of cool cupcake liners with little phrases on the bottom like this amazing one above - I think I need to create a canvas of that and hang it pride of place in my kitchen!

I also got these super cute cupcake earrings from Forever 21!

I started with these choc and vanilla swirl marshmallows! and chopped them up to turn them mini. The original recipe called for mini white marshmallows but I was too excited to use my new half and half kind!

I also got to use out my new square baking tray that I got for my birthday. I love how it makes them into individual portions for you so it saves you all the time slicing them up once they're baked! I had to slice an edge on both sides of the cracker to get it to fit perfectly in my tray.

Another change I made from the original recipe was I replaced the square of Hershey's chocolate on top with a square of Dairy Milk because we all know my feelings about Hershey's!

These were so amazing. The subtle cinnamon flavour from the cookie was really brought out by the addition of the cinnamon Graham cracker and the marshmallows melted to create chewy little pockets of deliciousness. We devoured these in less than 2 days and if you don't have time to rustle up a bonfire and toast up some real s'mores I'd say these will definitely hit the spot!

Lola's Chocolate Sundae Brownie Cupcake & an awesome husband!

2011-08-14T21:15:00.000+01:00

When Lola's announced that their cupcake special for the month of August was the Chocolate Sundae I knew I had to get to Selfridge's as fast as I could! infact I ventured there on the 3rd August but life has been so busy I've only just had a minute to blog about it now!! You see chocolate brownie cupcakes are just about one of my favourite cupcake flavours and when you pair it with vanilla pod buttercream - that to me is near perfection! and is actually one of my signature cupcake combos!

Apparently 'Sundaes' were invented to overcome the law against ice cream consumption on Sunday's in the 1800s...how crazy is that! As you may recall, before we left for the Caribbean we had started up a little family tradition of 'Sundae Sunday' where we made different flavoured Sundae's each week. That weekly event is on hold for now but rest assured in less than a months time when we move to Bangor and have our own happy little home again it will definitely be in full swing!

So back to the cupcake! this was hands down one of the best Lola's specials I've had in a while. The brownie cupcake itself was the perfect combo of a moist fudgy centre (as showcased in the photo above) with a crunchy outer layer. The vanilla pod frosting was delish and it was finished off with chocolate sauce, nuts and cherries. I'm not a glace cherry lover, I've never met many people who are but I understand the association with Sundae's so I get why they used it, however mine stayed on my plate.

It was a fun little cupcake pit stop I made at Selfridge's...made even more fun by some accompanying Kings of Leon tunes on my cupcake covered iPod!! Here's where the awesome husband part of this post comes in. A few weeks ago, I found myself at Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road. They always have a rather large sale section and there were tons of various cupcake items on offer! I spotted, and fell in love with this iPod cover so I snapped it up instantly! I had left my iPod back in Milton Keynes that particular week so the following weekend when I went back I pulled the cover out of my bag and excitedly showed it to Byron. He instantly dismissed it as he told me my iPod was too old and would not be compatible with the cover!! I was sooo disappointed! So the following weekend my awesome husband came to London to spend the weekend with me and he told me he was bringing a surprise...and what do you know he brought me a brand new iPod and not just any iPod this was a purple iPod!! and of course it meant it could fit my lovely new cupcake cover too!

so I thought I would share a little picture of it with all you cupcake lovers out there too...isn't it cute, and isn't my husband just the best for not only putting up with my cupcake obsession but feeding into it as well!

Bundt loving...Root Beer style!

2011-08-04T19:20:00.000+01:00

These pictures were not taken on my SLR which made me not even want to do this post! nor were any pretty cake stands involved and Bundts deserve to be displayed on beautiful cake stands! and yes, I'm pretty sure you can see a tube of facewash and a bag of coppers in one of the pictures - whoops! but you see I did decide to blog about in the end...and the reason is because it was the tastiest most delicious thing ever and I could not wait 10 seconds longer to take some facewash out of the background of the shot because my tastedbuds could not hang on any longer! the smell of baked root beer goodness was overwhelming and all blogging sense went out the window!!

So without further ado I present to you the Root Beer Bundt cake. For my birthday I received a bundt cake tin. It was the first bundt tin I've ever had and so I spent weeks deciding what type of bundt cake to make because it's maiden voyage had to be a special and delicious one! I had settled on an Oreo one but then in last month's Food Network Magazine we came across this recipe and there was no question in my mind...other than how soon can I get my hands on some root beer! so after work that night we popped to Outsider Tart to pick up a bottle and that settled it!

It was a good thing we bought such a large bottle because there was definitely more going into our mouths than into the bowl...and that says alot, because this recipe is packed with root beer! Once upon a time I made some root beer float cupcakes, at the time I fell in love with the vanilla bean frosting that tasted just like a melted dollop of ice cream but I remember wishing the root beer taste in the cupcake had been stronger. I certainly didn't have that problem this time around. There is root beer in the cake mix, when the cake comes out the oven you poke it and pour on yet more root beer and soak the cake completely in pure A&W heaven. Once you've done that you even add some to the glaze and then just for fun...and extreme tastiness we threw an extra teaspoon or root beer extract in as well!

The results were incredible! I know mine's not exactly aesthetically pleasing but it tasted delicous and it stayed moist for days afterwards. If you're a root beer lover then I'm telling you - you have to make this cake! If you're not a root beer lover then why not?! get involved!

RootBeer Bundt Cake:

From Food Network

1stick unsalted butter, plus more for the pan

2cups plain flour, plus more for dusting

21/2 cups root beer

1cup cocoa powder

2oz/56gplain chocolate, chopped

1cup granulated sugar

1/2cup packed dark brown sugar

11/4 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

1/2teaspoon ground allspice

1teaspoon salt, plus a pinch

3large eggs, beaten

21/2 cups icing sugar

1teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.

Butter and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan; tapout the excess flour.

Heat2 cups root beer, the cocoa powder, chocolate and 1 stick butter in a large saucepan overmedium heat until the butter melts. Add the granulated and brown sugars andwhisk until dissolved. Remove from the heat and let cool.

Combine2 cups flour, the bicarbonate of soda, allspice and 1 teaspoon salt in a bowl.Whisk the eggs into the root beer mixture, then gently fold in the dryingredients (the batter will be slightly lumpy).

Pourthe batter into the prepared pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into thecake comes out clean, 55 minutes to 1 hour, rotating the pan halfway through.Transfer to a rack. Gently poke the cake all over with a skewer and pour 1/4cup root beer over the cake; let cool in the pan for 20 minutes, then invertthe cake onto a serving plate and let cool completely.

Meanwhile,make the glaze: Whisk the remaining 1/4 cup root beer, a pinch of salt, theicing sugar and vanilla in a bowl until smooth. Drizzle over the cake.

Some tasty treats from Outsider Tart

2011-07-29T17:12:00.000+01:00

Last week some root beer was called for (for something you will get to see in my next blog post!) and so I could think of no better place than to go and get my fix than at Outsider Tart...because obviously I could buy ridunculous amounts of yummy treats to go with it!

When we got there I was delighted to find sooooo many goodies on display, it cemented the fact that it really is my favourite London bakery. There had to be at least 5 different brownies on offer alone! This treat caught my eye because of the lucky charms hidden inside...which are a fave of mine! It was a yummy marshmallow krispy treat, and it was huge...just check out the size of it! It certainly wasn't for the faint hearted and I could feel the sugar destroying my teeth as I devoured it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in my book!

Next up was the Snickers blondie, which was just amazing! Snickers is one of my favourite treats when you turn it into a baked delight and this blondie was packed full with choc, caramel and peanutty goodness!

I finally tried an Outsider Tart cupcake...and it was so good!! As if you couldn't tell by that delicious layer on top it was a lemon meringue, filled with a lovely lemon curd type filling....

and to finish, this was Mara's choice, and I can't exactly remember what they said it was but it was like a mini muffin covered in cinnamon and sugar and it really reminded me of a Churro so I was loving it!

All in all, it was a really good call to spend one of our evenings trekking out to Chiswick High Rd! and the icing on the cupcake was being able to have an ice cold glass of root beer when we got home!

An Alice in Wonderland cupcaking party....a success!

2011-07-23T20:07:00.000+01:00

So last weekend was one of my best friends hen-do's. She is a cupcake lover, and her sister who was in charge of organising the hen had asked me if I would do a cupcake class for all of the guests in attendance (25 in total!!). I had to think about it for a second, remember how badly my last cupcake party went. However I decided that since this time around all my guests were 25 plus that it might be calmer and go more smoothly! plus I can't say no!

I took the day off work because there was alot of getting ready to do! and whipped up 50 cupcakes, half of the hens favourite Martha Stewart Brownie Recipe and half were vanilla (using the recipe from The Primrose Bakery book). I also whipped up 8 different kinds of frosting, the three you can see above are rainbow coloured vanilla frosting, oreo cream cheese (which was a definite fave on the day) and chocolate.

I wanted there to be TONS of edible goodies on offer so that everyone had a big variety to choose from. So along with the standard jimmies, sanding sugars and sprinkles I also had marshmallows, shredded coconut, mini Oreos, Peanut Butter Cups, Reece's Pieces, M&M's, Maltesers, Cadbury's Buttons and chocolate chips to name a few!

I also set up a little fondant area for the more adventurous cupcake creators out there. I printed out some pictures of Alice in Wonderland style cupcakes I had found online as inspiration...

and I had a giant pack of white fondant along with all my different colour gels so everyone could get mixing, and then I pre bought the black and red because everyone knows those colours can be tricky to make for even the more experienced of us!

Then the guests started to arrive! and the excitement began!! All of us had been made these amazingly cute aprons, and our names had even been embroidered on!

After a brief demo of how to create perfect frosting swirls, everyone was let loose to create whichever kind of cupcake they wanted to!

Jade created these four beauties here...I was very impressed!

and even more impressive was the amount of people getting involved with fondant!

Rose created this fantastic Cheshire Cat cupcake that she even managed to colour co-ordinate with her outfit!

At the end of the decorating everyone got a little box to take one cupcake home in, and then everyone chose one cupcake that they were going to get to eat at our afternoon tea. Here is the tray with all the cupcakes people were going to eat!

Let's get a close up on all that deliciousness!

We headed out to the garden to commence all the yumminess! The marquee was decorated out beautifully with handmade polka dot bunting, and some were even in the shape of teapots! Here is the Hen herself (dressed up as Alice).

It was the most fun and definitely most delicious hen party I have ever been to! If you want to find out more about what else we did you can see my full round up here.