berry chocolate cupcakes for birthday bunnies!

so, tomorrow is my birthday and i'm off out for the day to Co. Wicklow to visit the Powerscourt Estate - one of my favourite places to go - there are fabulous gardens, a great foody shop and of course a lovely restaurant to eat at so there'll be no baking for me on my birthday.
just recently i met someone - becs who shares my birthday with me 3rd March...my first time to meet someone born on the same day as me...i like that and the great thing was that the first time we met we had this instant connection (and didn't know at the time that we shared a birthday!) so can you imagine after finally meeting someone who shares the same birthday as me, i leave the place where they are living and traverse half the planet to set up home somewhere else...typical. anyway, i wanted to make something for becs, to let her know that i'll be thinking about her on our b-day. so honey...these are for you!

i have tried making black forest before a long time ago and wanted to experiment with a different recipe this time. this was also a chocolate based recipe (with a small addition of almond meal - which i didn't taste at all in the final result) and this time i added frozen mixed berried (as opposed to last time just plain black cherries) which consisted of black cherries, blackberries and black currants. nice and tangy...they hadn't been preserved in syrup and so weren't sweet. it created a nice balance with the sweetness of the chocolate. the recipe was pretty easy to follow however, when i added the frozen berried, the batter started getting really cold and clumpy...yikes...had to get them in the oven pronto!

smell in the oven was yummy-licious and they came out nicely shaped and looking good. i iced them with a cream cheese icing and smoothed over the top, decorating with sprinkles and a cherry for the true black forest 'look'.

the taste was very good. you enjoyed a mouthful of sweet, moist chocolate as well as soft, tangy berries, then rounded off with the creaminess of the cream cheese icing...what a taste explosion in the mouth...very good! my husband has been asking me to make these for ages so he tucked into a couple too. Happy Birthday to me and becs!

gourmet cupcakes - black forest and lemon meringue

so we had another get together of the 'sunday club' and i offered to do dessert...i wanted something a bit more gourmet and adult-like for the evening so i searched around and decided on black forest and lemon meringue cupcakes. i recently bought a crappy electric mixer (at sheng siong...i was desperate!) but it has been so helpful in preparing batters that i think without it i would have had blisters on my fingers! i'm secretly dreaming of owning a 'kitchen aid' they are truly an amazing mixer...but with a price tag to match so...ho hum, i might actually have to start selling cupcakes before i can get one of those! both batters were pretty easy to make. the lemon meringue involved a lot more post-baking work as you had to cut out the middle of the cupcake and fill it with lemon cream and then replace, top with the merinue and re-bake...but i love it...am finding the whole thing highly therapeutic! overall i was really happy with the taste of both. for the black forest cupcake, i used the recipe from an absolute fav blog of mine http://cupcakeblog.com/ and it was truly divine. i added black cherries to the batter and they just blended in so well. at first i wanted to top with fresh cream but living in Singapore has it's cons in that everything just melts...you whip cream and a few seconds later it's turned into liquid again...pointless! anyway they went down really well at the get-together and there were leftovers so i brought some back and took them to work today...very well received as well. i aim to please...what else can i say?