Sunday 20 December 2009

Mince Pie Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery

I bought a copy of BBC Good Food magazine a few weeks ago and they had a recipe for some lovely mince pie cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery. But they're not in the Primrose Bakery book. So the recipe follows for those of you who would like to try them. I love mince pies and this year I was surprised that the best mince pie I've had was from Gregg’s bakery. Please try them if you can. The best thing is, you can buy them in singles rather than a pack of 6, if you're inclined to eat all of them in one go like I want to do!

I took these cupcakes into work and gave them out instead of Christmas cards, because you can't eat a Christmas card, well I suppose you could if you wanted to...


Mince Pie Cupcakes

225g butter
225g sugar
4 eggs
250g good quality mince (I just used Robinson's traditional)
200g self raising flour
25g cornflour
1tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one at a time until mixed thoroughly before adding the next.
Stir in the mincemeat.
Fold in the dry ingredients.
Fill the cupcake papers 2/3rds full and bake for 17-18 minutes until golden brown on top and a skewer inserted into the cake comes out mostly dry. They will still be quite moist cakes.
Makes 18

Just a couple of notes on the recipe:
I use muffin papers rather than dainty cupcake papers, mainly so there's more cake.
I felt they needed spices so I added some but feel free to leave them out if you want.
I found the 25 minutes cooking time given by Primrose far too much and my first batch nearly burnt after 21 minutes. I think 17 minutes should be fine for most.

The magazine suggests topping with a brandy flavoured buttercream but I simply brushed mine with apricot jam and topped them with cut out rounds of icing. I also used apricot jam as glue to stick the decorations on.


Happy Christmas!

Thursday 3 December 2009

Celebrity cupcake?

I've previously posted how difficult I find it to come up with names for cupcakes well I'd like to introduce two new ones:

Belle de Jour, a dark chocolate cupcake with dark chocolate frosting complete with a red heart dragee and red glitter.

Jane, a vanilla cupcake with vanilla frosting topped with a fondant flower and matching glitter - this one just happens to be blue. This cupcake is named after my mum.

I know I don't have a Twitter link here but I am active on Twitter. In fact I would probably go so far as to say that I am a little addicted.

A couple of months ago I began following a certain Belle de Jour, the author of The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl on Twitter. A few weeks later she outed herself to the media. So in honour of this brave act I have named a cupcake after her. I really enjoyed the blog, book and the television adaptation. Over the years I've really warmed to Belle and I've often thought that she is the type of person I'd love to be friends with.

So, anyway, I twittered her to let her know that I was dedicating a cupcake to her and she twittered back. I was absolutely made up! It's not exactly an endorsement but it made my day. Maybe I should send her some...

Friday 20 November 2009

Chocolate and vanilla...

It's always chocolate and vanilla or vanilla and chocolate or chocolate and chocolate or vanilla or vanilla. Well I guess these are popular flavours but it does get a little boring after a while. It helps me though, I usually only have to make up two different types of frosting.

Chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and a Galaxy Minstrel

Vanilla cake with chocolate frosting and a white chocolate Malteaser

Cholcate cake with vanilla buttercream and a giant Cadbury's button
Vanilla cake with vanilla buttercream and a blue fondant flower

Chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream topped with a heart shaped brownie

Wednesday 11 November 2009

Oreo Monster

My newest creation! Cookies and cream cupcake but it's a serious cookie overload. I had one last week and it was too much for me. There's an oreo cookie at the bottom topped with oreo cookie sponge (vanilla sponge with crumbled oreos). Finished off with vanilla frosting and an oreo cookie. I wonder what it would be like with chocolate and cookie sponge with chocolate sponge? Sounds too much for me....

Friday 30 October 2009

Jack O'Lantern Cupcakes



Happy Hallowe'en.
So for Hallowe'en I thought I'd try a nice comforting ginger and cinnamon cake with ginger frosting. They smelt lovely while they were baking actually they made my house smell quite Christmassy!

Monday 19 October 2009

Flower cupcakes


Excuse the poor photography. These are just posted for being pretty. Could do with a sprinkle of glitter though!

Sunday 27 September 2009

Nomenclature....

Naming cupcakes is really hard. So far I only have two named:

Chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting - Mrs G
Coffee cake with chocolate frosting - Trix Regis

Can anyone help me out? There's cupcakes in it for you...

Chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. A picture for no reason, just because it was pretty.

Friday 25 September 2009

National Cupcake week - an update.

Thank you to the people who bought cupcakes for the national cupcake week promotion - orders are still coming. I decided to donate money to The British Heart Foundation and to Cancer Research.

I've had quite a few orders and it's been successful so I'll be doing it again in November. However, please feel free to order whenever you like...


For Petee - coffee cake/choc frosting, cookies and cream and the good ol' butterfly




For Mark - lemon, double choc and butterfly

For Aunty Vi - lemon, butterfly, cookies and cream, double choc, choc cake/peanut butter frosting and coffee cake/choc frosting


For Jon - Choc cake/vanilla frosting, butterfly, double choc, lemon, cookies and cream and coffee cake/choc frosting



For Big Mike - coffee cake/choc frosting, vanilla cake/choc frosting, choc cake/vanilla frosting, cookies and cream and lemon

For Jane - I tried out the Hummingbird Bakery ginger cupcakes. I didn't like the recipe but the cupcakes were absolutely delicious, if a little expensive. I was disappointed to only get 10 small cupcakes out of the recipe instead of the suggested 12 though.

Sunday 20 September 2009

Another Christening...

1oo cupcakes for a little boy called Oscar. All vanilla, 50 with white buttercream and blue Os and 50 with blue buttercream and white Os.



The blue didn't come out too badly but it wasn't as pale as I wanted it to be. I must remeber that butter is yellow and adding blue to yellow just makes green. Hmmm... must keep practicing



Saturday 12 September 2009

Red birthday

I have red hands. Last night I baked a 13th birthday cake with cupcakes to match. I was really nervous about it. I don't make big cakes - there's too much to go wrong. Like getting the red dye all over my hands! Well I'll have to see how the birthday boy likes it. Fingers crossed! Haziq did ask for a Liverpool Football Club cake but red and white is the closest I could get. I tried to get a Steven Gerrard football figure yesterday to put on the cake but I came up with a blank. It's hard to buy Liverpool themed stuff in Manchester!

It's vanilla sponge with white chocolate chips, a layer of vanilla and white chocolate frosting in the middle and red frosting on the top and sides. The cupcakes are either vanilla or chocolate with white chocolate chips and red or white vanilla frosting.




The smaller cupcakes with the yellow cases are lemon diabetic cupcakes. Wish I could get hold of some diabetic/artificial icing sugar. Then I could make better frosting. I used Candarel for the sugar substitute in the cake and frosting, I found it quite weird to cook with - I use the same recipe for all my cupcakes but the texture came out different, slightly heavier. This is the second batch of diabetic cupcakes - the first were a bit scone like. I think I'll try Splenda as a sugar substitute next time and see how that goes.

Monday 7 September 2009

Bought to you today by the letter C...

Sunny days, sweeping our cares away,
On our way to where the air is clear,
Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street?

There comes a time in every bakers life when they have to do character cakes.
It's not a chore but seems to be a rite of passage!
Well so far we've got:
Cookie monster - check out the googly eyes!
Elmo loves you!

They look a little strange. I mean you can recognise the characters but they look like muppet imposters. I'm going to try this again. I ideally wanted to use choc-chip cookies but I thought the oreos would look ok. I really hope the young child that I made them for likes them.

Wednesday 2 September 2009

There's a national cupcake week?

National cupcake week is the holiday that I want to celebrate the most. A whole week devoted to cupcakes, it's too good to be true! Cupcake week this year begins on the 14th September - seven days of cupcake fun.

During cupcake week a box of nine cupcakes will cost £10.00 and each individual cupcake will cost £1.50. Please contact me if you would like to make an order. Oh! and by the way each box/individual cupcake sold will include a donation to charity.

Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla and chocolate frosting with red and white icing roses and glitter.

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting and Reese's Pieces.
Chocolate cupcakes with vanilla, chocolate and peanut butter frosting with M &Ms.

Chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter cupcakes and slices of Snickers.

Saturday 15 August 2009

Congratulations! to Nadia and Andy Gubba

So remember all those un-iced cakes? Well...

Chocolate and vanilla cakes with contrasting buttercream. The roses were supplied by Richard's Cakes in Urmston. The mini cupcakes are the same but they have contrasting colour M & Ms on. Check out the American M & Ms website for different colours.




Check out the glitter on these bad boys!

Thursday 13 August 2009

The day of many cakes...


This is a small fraction of the cakes for my friend's wedding.
Four double quantities of buttercream and 246 cupcakes.

Friday 24 July 2009

Butterfly cakes

Here is my nephew Jack on his 1st birthday.

Plain old butterfly cakes, actually they're a family favourite. Vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream and a little something extra in the middle.

I don't think Jack is emjoying that as much as we thought. Jack was the only one to get a plain one.

The filling is black cherry conserve.
I also made some with rhubarb and ginger jam, lime curd and then Nutella in the middle.

Friday 5 June 2009

Vanilla Confetti Cupcakes


Plain old vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. Look carefully and you'll see the sugar confetti just hiding under the buttercream. These cakes are multicoloured inside. Yet another time when I should've made a cross section view photo of the cupcake.

Sunday 31 May 2009

1-up


I've not been baking as much recently but it's my bro's birthday so I had to. JJ loves computer games, especially Mario. In my head these cupcakes looked amazing. They didn't come out too bad but not as good as I hoped. They tasted really nice though! In case you're wondering they're supposed to be the mushrooms from the Super Mario games.

1-up mushroom cupcakes


There's a not-quite-right Elmo creeping in there amongst the mushrooms.


And then because I had so much buttercream left over...