butterscotch butterscotch cupcakes...yup that's right...double helping!

i love, love, love butterscotch but unfortunately here, in ireland, we seem to be rather deprived of those butterscotch chips that i see so many recipes using when butterscotch is called for. shame, shame! but not one to be deterred from a mission, i shall always seek out and explore with any alternative i can get my hands on.
some time ago i made banoffee cupcakes and in that recipe i used this amazing butterscotch spread for the filling of each cupcake. i really liked the taste of it...rich and creamy and very very devourable! so i figured i'd try this time just mixing it in with the batter to make some butterscotch cupcakes and then use some to add into the icing (many family members are also butterscotch fans so a double helping of the stuff might not seem so out of context if you know this!!!)
result...the cupcake smelled absolutely divine coming out of the oven...so much so, that the 13th cupcake i got out of the batter that i overfilled and spilled over, was used for an immediate taste test. it was so good warm. lovely butter-y taste with the caramel kick. soft, moist and speckled with dots of what i presume is the butterscotch (i didn't mix in the spread that much).
of course, while they were baking i tackled the icing. this was a tad more tricky. of course, the butterscotch is VERY sweet on it's own...add to this icing sugar and well, when i tasted it i worried that it was too much. so i cut back and tried to mix in as little as possible necessary to get to piping consistency. but so much for piping consistency...when i dolloped it all in the icing bag and actually started piping i noticed the icing started going a bit pear-shaped and looking like it was melting...gulp! i piped on, trying to get the stuff on as fast as possible. i think next time i'd need to re-think this...but on the other hand, the icing was so yummy...again that lovely butter-y taste and darn it! if only it didn't look so weird! not to worry...most probably won't notice as they gobble them down. so hurrah for that!

the recipe...

Butterscotch Cupcakes

1/2 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
3 eggs
2 c. flour
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
2/3 c. milk
1/2 jar butterscotch spread

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time until fully incorporated and mixture is light and creamy.
Sift flour, baking powder and salt together in a separate bowl and add to the creamed mix, alternating with the milk until fully incorporated.
Stir in butterscotch spread. do not overmix. it's nice if there are some butterscotch swirls in there.
Scoop into cupcake cases and bake for 25 mins at whatever your usual temperature is. Remove and let stand for about 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack.

i'm not going to post the icing recipe because i am not entirely satisfied with it and would need to re-do before i can finalise the quantities.

even Martha Stewart likes my cupcakes!

so, remember this lovely creation...? well now it has a claim to fame...it's loved by Martha Stewart! Yes, THE Martha Stewart. recently there was a competition on her website for the cutest cupcakes, so i entered my easter nest cupcake and just saw today that it made it to one of the finalists! i was so excited and thrilled and....and.... (ya, ok that's enough, i know!)
anyway please click here and check out some of the other amazing entries. i feel in very honoured company!

it's all about the chocolate...gooey chocolate cupcakes to die for!

so, do you remember that charming old-school bar of handmade dark couverture chocolate i posted about here? well i finally found THE perfect recipe for it's true test...yes, gooey chocolate cupcakes! i found the recipe while browsing many of the baking blogs that i frequently haunt as this is a recipe from dorie greenspan's book 'baking from my home to yours'. and there is a food blogging group out there called 'tuesdays with dorie' who are currently working their way through this book baking all the recipes and this was one of them. well, when i saw this...i just knew...this would be the perfect recipe and it was! my gosh, if you don't bake this recipe at LEAST once in your lifetime, you are truly missing out on one of life's pure joys. this was to die for!!!! the delicious irish chocolate completely lived up to its baking and taste test and rose to the occasion. the flavour of the chocolate is rich and smooth and velvety in the mouth and just perfect in this little cake (and i'm so proud to be using irish chocolate!). i was so pleased with the result that i would definitely buy the chocolate again and will certainly be making these cupcakes again. i couldn't get them out of the wrappers fast enough and into bowls for everyone in the house to eat. and there were groans and sighs as mouthful after mouthful was devoured and enjoyed!

i served them with some strawberries (important to get those designated servings of fruit into the menu!) and honeycomb ice-cream which i discovered by accident in the supermarket and thought would be fun to try. it was! it tasted like cadbury's crunchie!

i really cannot sing the praises of this recipe enough. it was SO easy to make, SO fast to bake and even faster to eat! by the time i got around to photographing the one remaining cupcake, the gooey middle had firmed up a little (i guess it continued to bake even after coming out of the oven!) but everyone elses had their chocolate just ooze out like a lovely molten flow of lava. unfortunately i was so busy serving everyone that i didn't get to capture this on camera.

and the recipe...

Gooey Chocolate Cake

Recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my home to yours

INGREDIENTS
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 oz bittersweet chocolate

– 4oz coarsely chopped

– 1oz very finely chopped

4 oz unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 large egg yolk, at room temperature

6 tablespoons of sugar

INSTRUCTIONS
Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Use 6 paper soufflé cups or buttered ramekins.
Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together.
Set a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, put the coarsely chopped chocolate and the butter in the bowl and stir occasionally over the simmering water just until they are melted. Remove the bowl from the pan of water.
In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and yolk until homogenous. Add the sugar and whisk until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add the dry ingredients and, still using the whisk, stir (don’t beat) them into the eggs. Little by little, and using a light hand, stir in the melted chocolate and butter. Divide the batter evenly among the cups and sprinkle the finely chopped chocolate over the batter.
Bake the cakes for 13 minutes. Transfer them, still on the baking sheet, to a rack to cool for 3 minutes. (There is no way to test that these cakes are properly baked, because the inside remains liquid.)
After the 3-minute rest, unmold the cakes onto a plate. Serve with ice-cream, strawberries or whatever takes your fancy!

the airy fairy gets her wings on a SOOPER delight from Blake Makes and McQuade's!

recently i signed up to be a part of the SOOPZ network on Blake Makes which as Blake himself describes it...

"I started SOOPZ as a way to give food bloggers free food. I, myself, am a food blogger, and I love getting free food. SOOPZ is a way for me to share the love. I like the fact that the idea is very simple: “Food bloggers get free food. Food companies get free publicity. Everyone’s happy."

this sounded perfect to me especially when i found out that anyone who signs up is called a "SOOPER HERO"...so cute! i love baking and have no problem trying something new out especially if it arrives at my door in a nicely wrapped package. no fuss but lots of fun tasting and experimenting!

anyway, on thursday, Blake had a giveaway planned for jars of McQuade's Celtic (Fig & Ginger) Chutney. you can read about the giveaway here. all you had to do was post a comment about what you wanted to make with the chutney. of course, i quickly put my baking cap on and came up with two suggestions involving both a sweet (ricotta and chutney) and savoury (goat's cheese and chutney) cupcake and guess what? it must have hit a tastebud with Blake because i was picked and shall be expecting a jar of the lovely stuff in the post sometime next week. you can read more about the other winners here and what they are going to cook up.

meanwhile, i shall be anxiously checking the post box every morning to make sure that the leprechuns don't steal away my SOOPER delight from me first!

cupcakes with a message go on film set again!

oh, god forgive me if i have committed some kind of insane sin by theming my precious cupcakes for a movie shoot about drugs...but what is one to do when one's younger brother asks for such a thing? so last week it was his movie shoot and this weekend it is one of his classmates. they are filming out in Co. Wicklow, in the middle of nowhere and because the cupcakes went down so well at the last shoot, he hinted wildly at the most welcome prospect of some for this weekend - to get that sugar kick and keep everyones energy up.

so, when he produced the script and i read a story about a drug dealer in an accident on a country road...i scratched my head. how to do something themed but still tasteful! the drugs involved in the story, heroin, were being transported in the dealers car in brick form (hence my three little bricks on one cupcake!) and involves the dealer being injured and getting out of the car and eventually leaving a trail of heroin behind him...hence the trail across the cupcakes. the one and only saving grace, i think, was the message to 'just say no'.

i used a caramel cupcake recipe for these ones, simply because they always turn out well and they are also my brothers favourite flavour. plus last week they all had chocolate ones so nice to have something different. iced them with vanilla buttercream. it's interesting because my brother specifically requested for the traditional cupcake cases, rather than the funky paper souffle cups that i have been using recently. he says the souffle ones are way to difficult to get the cupcake out of and make your fingers all messy with icing. so figuring where the crew will be i used traditional papers for ease of eating!

these are definitely the most 'interesting' theme i have ever had to work with, but hopefully, the crew will enjoy getting their hands on them out there in the midst of filming!

a surprising discovery - irish handmade dark couverture chocolate bar

i have just come back from the supermarket with a most surprising discovery...an irish handmade dark couverture chocolate bar! i'm sure most of you are probably wondering why this would be surprising...well, i do the rounds of dublin supermarkets looking for interesting ingredients to enhance and explore in my cupcakes and i have never seen this before in any of them. furthermore, in this day and age when most reputable chocolate comes from ghirardelli and valrhona, it was most encouraging to find a bar of couverture chocolate that was 'home' made here in Ireland (it's only available in Superquinn).
first and foremost let me say how impressed i am with the initial once over...the wrapping is absolutely lovely...a beige paper wrapper with brown writing that has an almost faded look and underneath this a gold foil wrapper covering the chocolate. it reminds me of what a bar of chocolate might have looked like 50 or 60 years ago. a real old-school feel to it. the bar itself is huge. very chunky and substantial so that you feel like 'hey, i'm gonna get a good few creations out of this!'
the company that make it, O'Conaill, are based in Co. Cork. no website that i could track down which again makes me feel like these guys like to kick it old-school style! brilliant, i love that concept...especially in this day and age where chocolate is all shiny-wrapped and comercialised to attract the customer by the way it looks on the outside with its fancy packaging. this bar definitely appeals to the traditional me.
nope, i'm not getting paid by them to blatantly promote their product - i'd never subject you all to that kind of treatment. i'm just so excited to be able to find irish chocolate that i just had to share it with you. and of course, i'm even more excited to start creating with it. hmmm, what shall i do first? maybe some good ol' fashioned chocolate cupcakes to really discover what irish chocolate tastes like.
stay tuned for taste-test, appearance-test and ultimately baking-test!

perfect party (cup)cake - my first 'daring bakers' challenge!

so this was my very first Daring Bakers challenge and the recipe was for the perfect party cake. the daring bakers are a group of bakers willing to challenge themselves to bake a recipe every month and post about their results on their food blogs. the group offers support and help throughout. definitely worth considering joining if you are interested in expanding your baking horizons.

so as this was my first challenge i wanted to do a good job. the recipe called for making a 'cake' but of course, me being me, wanted to make the recipe in cupcake form. wasn't sure if this would work so i really put myself to the challenge of being a true daring baker! i halved the recipe so as not to have gajillion cupcakes. initial results were interesting...the batter seemed very like my usual cupcake-type batter (there was no need for me to smooth it with a spatula) also the batter was a tad yellow for my liking. other photos i saw posted by other daring bakers showed a cake that was VERY white. i think this was due to the lemon rind. i might have added a tad too much and it turned the sugar very yellow. i'm bummed i didn't get that pristine white cake...shall definitely have to try again for that one! baked the cupcakes and took them out to cool. then removed the papers and let them cool some more. once they were cool enough. i sliced them up. this was a little tricky but definitely do-able.

then i attempted the icing. to be honest the last time i tried icing that involved egg whites, sugar and heat, it all ended a little disastrous. however, not to be deterred i began the process. things seemed to be going ok until it reached the point where i needed to beat the icing for 6-10 minutes. i was talking to my mum and then heard a strange clicking sound coming from the mixer. when i turned to look at the mixer there was smoke coming out. SERIOUS! i immediately switched it off and had to do the rest of the icing by hand. again, the final result was not a lovely pristine white buttercream icing (but then again i never seem to be able to achieve this with buttercream of any sort...could it be to do with the butter?) the icing tasted pretty lemon-y...so maybe i added too much lemon juice. but i soldiered on and iced the cupcakes and decorated them with the coconut and a fresh strawberry.

all who have tasted so far, said they really liked them (which is 4 willing candidates!) so that was good to hear. when i finished photographing, i tried the one i cut up for the photos. i cannot say it is the most delicious cake i have ever tasted and this makes me think that perhaps it wasn't made properly. i thought it was going to be really light and airy and actually it felt a little heavy and i was definitely more than satisfied with one cupcake. i think that my mixer dying in the midst of making the buttercream didn't help and mixing it by hand was quite a challenge. how intense...the first daring baker challenge challenged my mixer so much it died! now of course, i am without mixer...but the good news is that my mum just same into a little bit of money and has promised me that she is going to get me a kitchen aid...you cannot imagine the effect that the mere thought of this is having on me. i really am head over heels happy!

anyway, i am glad i gave this a go and put myself to the test. and i will definitely be looking forward to the next challenge. thanks to the daring bakers for this challenge though and the opportunity to bake outside my comfort zone!

PERFECT PARTY CAKE

For the Cake

2 ½ cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cups whole milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk with the lemon)

4 large egg whites

1 ½ cups sugar

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

1 stick (8 tablespoons or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream

1 cup sugar

4 large egg whites

3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing

2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves stirred vigorously or warmed gently

About 1 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut

To Make the Cake

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.

Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.

Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.

Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.

Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.

Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.

Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.

Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean.

Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.

Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up.

To Make the Buttercream

Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or another large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a plan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes.

The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream.

Remove the bowl from the heat.

Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes.

Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth.

Once all the butter is in, beat in the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6-10 minutes.

During this time the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again.

On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla.

You should have a shiny smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream.

Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake

Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper.

Spread it with one third of the preserves.

Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream.

Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with a third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream leftover).

Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top.

Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

lights, camera, action...devil's food cupcakes go to the movies

i am so tired that i can hardly keep my eyes open to post this. i have had such a hectic weekend but still managed to squeeze in some cupcakes...how do i do it??? if this isn't love then i don't know what is.

my reason for being so tired is because i have spent the weekend with my younger brother and his college classmates on a movie shoot. my brothers movie was chosen as one of the films to get made out of his class as part of his final year in his degree and in his script were two boys. and so, well, being a speech and drama teacher he thought i would be an ideal candidate to be their chaperone as well as coach them on the set to help them perform. so saturday and sunday, i have been with these two boys non-stop and taken care of them. however, it was great fun. the boys were fun and pretty easy to look after and they performed really well on both days. the shoot on saturday was at one of his classmates house, but today it was here.

so when i got home last night (despite starting to feel tired) i took out my mixer and thought i'd make some themed cupcakes to give all the crew and cast for lunch (along with an excellent chicken curry made by my hubby!) the cupcakes went down a treat and were just what the doctor ordered for a cold, long day of filming outdoors with the unpredictable irish weather - we had sun, rain, hail and wind! chocolate is so good for keeping energy levels up! and of course, i couldn't help but make them a little movie-themed with some sugar fondant and those famous words that seemed to be so associated with movies. i even had a part as an extra in a funeral scene!

i really admire all of the crew. they worked so hard and i really had the opportunity to see what really goes into making a movie and this was just a short movie...so imagine what the big guys have to do! and so, they were certainly deserving of some movie cupcakes. next stop the oscars...

black bottom cupcakes...are we being politically correct?

i've always thought 'black bottom cupcakes' were very interestingly named. i mean, why black bottom and not white top or heaven forbid, white breast? in this day and age of political correctness perhaps they are in need of a rename!

my personal reason for making these is much more rude and naughty...you see i'm married to a malay singaporean who comes from boyanese ancestry. the boyanese have their own language which my mother-in-law speaks fluently with her relatives. it's pretty different to regular malay and when i first met my husband i asked him to teach me some. well, boys being boys (or should i say boy-anese being boy-anese) he taught me the very things that one should never say to ones mother-in-law in their native language! the first thing he taught me was black bottom!!!!! (and yes, i still went ahead and married him) so the boyanese for black bottom is burik na celeng. well, we're going to chill out with some friends of ours later this evening and she is also singaporean (not boyanese though) anyway when i first told her that my husband was of boyanese descent...what did she say? but burik na celeng! amazing! it's like the ONE phrase that anyone who is not boyanese knows in boyanese. so, in my own deranged, weird sense of humour way, i have made burik na celeng cupcakes to bring over to her place! i'm sure she'll enjoy them because she has a great sense of humour.

ok, now down to the nitty-gritty of making them. i read a bit on the internet about black bottom cupcakes and the various disasters that can occur (always best to be prepared for the worst!) but actually they didn't really help that much. i made the recipe from vanilla garlic's blog as it was and divided up the cream cheese mix...adding blackberry jam to one half and white chocolate chips to the other. spooned the cream cheese on top of the chocolate cupcake batter and popped them in the oven. the cupcakes rose up nicely and then when i took them out depressed a little in the middle (which i was expecting) but overall i think that these are not the most attractive looking cupcakes that one can make - maybe i added too much cream cheese to the top of each one. but they sure make up for the lack of beauty in the taste department. chocolate and baked cheesecake is just so good together. really really good. my brother just polished off three straight, one after the other...i wish i had a high metabolic rate...some things are just not fair!

afternoon tea cupcakes with earl grey, raspberry jam and lemon cream...yummy!

don't know about you...but i simply LOVE earl grey tea and have done for years. i just love the distinct flavour of it explained by wikipedia :

Earl Grey tea is a tea blend with a distinctive flavour and aroma derived from the addition of oil extracted from the rind of the bergamot orange, a fragrant citrus fruit.

i also thought i'd check out the benefits of drinking earl grey tea and found some interesting ones :

Key health benefits of Earl Grey

· Bergamot has been documented as a useful and healing fruit in 12th century Europe

· The Italians used bergamot for treating fever and intestinal worms

· Bergamot's main properties are as a disinfectant and an antidepressant

· The esters and alcohols present in bergamot reduce anxiety by calming the nervous system

· The active components in bergamot are antiseptic, germicidal as well as relaxing

· The catechin and fluoride content of black tea prevent tooth decay, while the antiseptic properties of bergamot can alleviate halitosis and oral infections

· Contains beneficial amounts of caffeine that helps you to think clearly

· The bergamot content fights flu, fevers and colds

so seeing as i'm such a fan the thought of earl grey infused cupcakes would naturally appeal to me. once i thought about how i would like to infuse the earl grey tea into the cupcakes, then i had to think about what i would like to go with the flavour...and that's when it struck me...afternoon tea cupcakes with all the elements of a good afternoon tea encompassed in the cupcake itself! and this is the result...my afternoon tea cupcake consisting of an earl grey cake, raspberry jam filling and lemon buttercream icing! simply perfect!
i tried to use the middle bit to make the cupcakes more like butterfly cakes! this is an homage to my youth when i usually always had butterfly cakes for birthdays. somehow though, my butterfly wings seemed a tad more chunky than those of my youth (maybe due to the fact that i was being greedy and cut such a big cone out wanting to fill it up with lovely raspberry jam - that will teach me!)
i used my vanilla cupcake recipe which you can find here but infused the milk with the earl grey tea. i did this simply by warming up the milk, putting two earl grey tea bags into the milk and then leaving it aside for 10 minutes. two tea bags gave a subtle result, but next time i'd probably use three or four just because i love the flavour. then i made the recipe as written. the tea turned the batter a darker colour which i liked and i could smell the earl grey distinct aroma as they came out of the oven. this has been a great experiment for me because i think using this method, you can probably infuse the flavour of any of your favourite teas into a cupcake...the possibilities on this one are endless so i must get out there and buy some boxes of all those amazing tea flavours they now sell in supermarkets.
the rest was easy...leave them to cool, cut out your cone shape from the top of the cupcake, fill with a teaspoon of your favourite jam and top with lemon buttercream. don't forget to replace those wings!
lastly but most importantly...enjoy with a dainty little cup of your favourite tea. and so, at that, i'm off to stick the kettle on. earl grey anyone?

a return to the traditional - easter simnel cupcakes

so, i wanted to bake something traditional for easter and saw a segment on one of the morning tv shows on how to make simnel cake. when i delved a little bit further i found this about simnel cake on wikipedia...

Simnel cake is a light fruit cake, similar to a Christmas cake, covered in marzipan, and eaten at Easter in England and Ireland. A layer of marzipan or almond paste is also baked into the middle of the cake. On the top of the cake, around the edge, are eleven marzipan balls to represent the true apostles of Jesus; Judas is omitted. In some variations Christ is also represented, by a ball placed at the centre.

The cake is made from these ingredients: white flour, sugar, butter, eggs, fragrant spices, dried fruits, zest and candied peel.

Simnel cakes have been known since mediaeval times, and were originally a Mothering Sunday tradition, when young girls in service would make one to be taken home to their mothers on their day off. The word simnel probably derived from the Latin word simila, meaning fine, wheaten flour with which the cakes were made. A legend, however, attributes the cake's creation to the English pretender Lambert Simnel, who supposedly devised it during the time in which he was forced to work in Henry VII's kitchens.

this sounded perfect and i liked the idea that it was used traditionally for easter. my mum is a big fruitcake fan and she especially wanted some. i found a recipe from Odlums that looked good and set to work. the recipe was easy to follow and easy to make. once i'd made the batter i rolled out the marzipan and cut out shapes to put into the middle of the cupcake. divided up the batter, spooned in a tablespoon of batter, placed the rolled out marzipan and then another tablespoon on top. the cupcake case was pretty much full to the top at this point because these do not rise very much so make sure you fill them to where you want them to end up! this is what they looked like when thy came out of the oven....

they smelled so good, really rich and spicy and filled the whole house with their aroma. wonderful! i must admit that i was a bit worried about the baking time because it is hard to judge when these are done. i just went by their golden brown-ness on top because the toothpick test doesn't really apply here as the cake is so full of fruit. while they were cooling i rolled out the second batch of marzipan and placed these on top. then popped them back in the oven to bake the marzipan for about 5 minutes. it said in the recipe that you should bake them until the tops are brown but i didn't want the marzipan to be brown-looking. that didn't seem to appeal to me and i thought it wouldn't look so pretty. so i took them out just after 5 minutes to make sure.

once out of the oven i decorated them my style. again the original recipe said that you can make 11 marzipan balls to decorate the top, to represent the disciples and leave one empty for Judas, but i didn't wanna overkill on the marzipan, so i used chocolate eggs instead and added some little sugar decorations around the edge. it definitely made them more easter-like too.

we were supposed to save these for after easter lunch today but i went out for a walk and came back and was feeling a tad peckish, so in cahoots with my mum, we cut one up and tried it...oh, it was just delicious. oh, so, fruity and moist and just enough marzipan to enhance the whole flavour of the fruitcake. i loved it, but then i DO like fruitcake and yet i know that a lot of people are not big fans. but this, rather than tasting like rich christmas cake, reminded me more of christmas stollen - especially with that layer of marzipan in the middle. it was light fruitcake, not heavy and alcohol-laden. so good with a nice mug of tea and just delightfully fruuuuuuuuuity! Happy Easter!

Easter Simnel Cupcakes

Ingredients
150g/5oz Odlums Cream Plain Flour
125g/4oz Butter (room temperature)
125g/4oz Light Brown Sugar
3 Eggs (beaten)
1/2 teaspoon Mixed Spice
Grated Rind of a Lemon
1 tablespoon Brandy or Rum (optional)
500g packet Shamrock Luxury Fruit Mix (consisting of currants, raisins, candied peel, cherries)
2 tablespoons Apricot Jam to glaze cupcakes (i used marmalade and it was fine!)
2 x 250g packets of Almond Marzipan

Method
Preheat oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Line muffin tins with paper cases.
Cream butter and sugar together until smooth. Gradually beat in the eggs.
Add flour, lemon rind and mixed spice. Gently stir until well combined.
Finally mix in the fruit and brandy or rum.
Divide half the mixture into the paper cases. Take half the marzipan, roll out and cut into circles, place onto the fruit.
Top marzipan circles with remaining mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes until risen and golden brown.
Meanwhile, roll out other half of marzipan and cut out 12 circles and shape out 11 balls.

easter nest cupcakes - a celebration of all things spring!

so there are a number of easter baking challenges this month in the world of food blogs and i wanted to submit an entry....ta da! here it is...my easter nest cupcake. i had so much fun making this and hey, that's what it should all be about. plus it was so fun finding all those beautiful spring flowers to photograph it with too!

i'm entering this for Master Baker March Challenge, Easter Cake Bake and the Spring Funny Cuppy. Seems a lot but, what the heck, might as well max the little delight out seeing as it was so much fun to make.

now for the recipe...

Caramel Cupcakes

cupcake :
100g white chocolate
125g butter
2/3 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. golden syrup
2/3 c. milk
1 c. plain flour
1/3 c. self-raising flour
1 egg

preheat your oven to whatever usually works best for you. line your cupcake pan.
combine chocolate, butter, sugar, syrup and milk in a double boiler. stir untel melted and combined.
allow to cool.
sift flour and mix into caramel mixture.
stir in egg.
divide the mixture and bake for 30 mins.
makes 12 cupcakes.

icing :
4oz butter
1 t. vanilla extract
2 - 2 1/2 c. icing sugar, sifted
1/4 c. milk

in an electric mixer beat butter until soft. add vanilla essence. add in icing sugar gradually making sure it is properly combined, alternating with milk. add enough to reach a good spreading consistency.

decorations :
chocolate mini eggs
cadbury's flake
fondant roses and leaves

assembly :
spread a layer of icing on the cupcake. break up the flake and pile around the outside. use some icing to attach roses and leaves to edges of nest. put in the mini eggs and sprinkle remaining flake to cover any empty spots.

dare to devour! it's hard because it looks too pretty!

p.s. read what Baking Delights had to say about these cupcakes here! thanks for the special mention :)

that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet - easter cupcakes to go!

lo and behold, my little pink roses finally grace cupcakes. these were ordered by a friend for her easter sunday lunch tomorrow. i'm so happy with the way they turned out. i used a caramel cupcake recipe, vanilla buttercream icing and sugar fondant and chocolate eggs for the decorations.

i shall be meeting her later to pass them to her and hope she likes them! i'm still really enjoying the look of those pink roses...not bad for a first time using fondant, me thinks!