LEMON DRIZZLE BUNS

For a friend's birthday I gave her a pretty tin of eight home made lemon drizzle buns.  She and her husband are not regular consumers of cake so lemon drizzle seemed like a safe option.  They could have a bun each for birthday tea and freeze the rest to be enjoyed later.

The fashion for cupcakes seems to have passed but these could easily be called cupcakes, or fairy cakes, and decorated with buttercream or icing and sprinkles if you like.  When I was a little girl my mum often made things like this and they were always called "buns".  She rarely had a lemon in the house, except at Christmas, so would have added a few chopped glacé cherries or currants - in which case they would have been called cherry buns or currant buns (sometimes called Queen cakes).  Even more occasionally she would have swirled some simple icing on the top and maybe a few hundreds and thousands left over from the Christmas trifle, especially if aunts and uncles (and assorted cousins) were coming to tea which would have warranted something a bit more fancy than usual.

My mixture actually made nine buns so one served as "quality control" and consequently I can confirm that they were lovely.  My friend sent me a message the next day to say she and her husband really enjoyed them and none of them made it to the freezer!

Simple buns never go out of fashion.

Ingredients

For the buns

115g baking spread or softened butter

115g caster sugar

2 eggs

115g self raising flour

½ tsp baking powder

zest of 1 lemon

For the drizzle 

juice of 1 lemon

2 tblsp granulated sugar

Method

Put 10 paper cake cases into a muffin tin.  Preheat the oven to 200° C / 180° fan / gas mk 6.

Put all of the cake ingredients into a medium sized bowl and beat well with a hand held electric whisk, or a wooden spoon, until well blended.

Divide the mixture evenly between the bun cases filling each one to about two thirds full.  Using an ice cream scoop with a lever action can help to make them all about the same.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown and springy.  While they are in the oven make the drizzle by mixing the sugar and lemon juice together.

While the buns are still warm, prick holes in the top and spoon the drizzle over.  Remove from the tin to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Makes 8-10 buns.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CHRISTMAS CUPCAKE KIT

I spotted this recipe recently on the Good Food website and thought it was a great idea for an extra little Christmas present for an enthusiastic young baker in the family.

I managed to get everything into the jar apart from the bar of milk chocolate for the topping.  In order to keep the cake ingredients in the bottom of the jar and to prevent them from messing up the other bits and pieces I cut a circle of baking paper which was placed on top before putting in the cases and the rest of the kit.

I amended the ingredients very slightly by only putting in 100g white chocolate chips as 200g sounded like an awful lot.  I added a tiny pinch of ground cinnamon for a little extra touch of Christmas as well as sugar snowflake decorations.

Naturally I felt obliged to bake a batch for myself just to be sure the kit would work.  The cupcakes were delicious, very chocolaty and moist.

I hope they go down well with the person the gift is intended for.  I did something similar and gave away quite a few Christmas Muffin kits a few years ago.  They were very well received and you can read about them here.

I am entering this into this month’s Tea Time Treats Challenge, which is for Festive Foodie Gifts.  This month is organised by Kate of What Kate Baked and this is her final Tea Time Treat.  Looking at the number of posts already linked to the challenge she is certainly going out on a high!  Her co-host is Karen of Lavender and Lovage and you can read all about the challenge, and dip into some of the marvellous ideas already submitted, by clicking here.

For the kit you will need:

A suitable jar with a screw top or clip, about the size of a large pickle jar.

In the bottom put 100g caster sugar, 100g self-raising flour, 2 tblsp cocoa powder and a small pinch of cinnamon.

Next cut a circle of baking paper the same size as the jar and place it on top of the ingredients to keep them in the bottom of the jar.

Next add 12 cupcake cases and a few sprinkles tied in a twist of cellophane.  Then put 100g white chocolate chips enclosed in another twist of cellophane and close the lid.

Tie a wooden spoon to the jar and place it in a gift bag along with a 100g bar of milk chocolate and a card with these instructions handwritten on it:

“Heat the oven to 180°C/160°fan/gas mk 4.  Put the cupcake cases in a muffin tin.

Beat together 100g very soft butter, or spreadable butter such as Lurpak, or Stork tub margarine, with 2 eggs and the cupcake ingredients.  Add a little milk if the mixture is very stiff and mix in the white chocolate chips.

Divide between the cases and bake for 15-20 minutes.

When the cakes are cool, melt the milk chocolate in the microwave in 20-second bursts, stirring after each burst.  Spoon a little over each cupcake and decorate with the sprinkles.”

Makes 12 cupcakes.

CHOCOLATE CUPCAKES

Quite a while ago, what seems like eons in fact, and on some other planet, I opted to take part in an ingredient swap organised by Ruth at Makey Cakey.

I was paired with Sarah, of the lovely blog, The Cupcake Architect.

I sent Sarah some mystery ingredients and at about the same time a little parcel of mystery ingredients plopped through my letterbox from her.

There was some organic cinnamon flavoured chocolate, a little packet of crystallised rose petals and a packet of mini love hearts.  Now what on earth should I make out of them ??

Cupcakes of course !!

Then things got busy at home and at work and my poor scrambled brain could not get to grips with mystery ingredients.  So I brought them on holiday with me to France - hoping for the time and lack of distractions I needed to bake something a bit special.

And that is where I am as I write this now, sitting outside on our little terrace which overlooks the rooftops of the village.  The church bells have chimed their last chime for the evening at ten o’clock and all is quiet.  The swifts and swallows have long since finished swirling overhead and the bat formation team has gone to bed too.  The only things which break the silence are the occasional hoot of an owl and the murmur of a distant harvester as the farmers work late in the fields.  The night air is pleasantly cool and we will no doubt still be sitting here for another hour, finishing our wine and enjoying the peace and quiet and the view of the roofs and chimney pots of our neighbours. 

This is what I mean about another planet.

To make the cupcakes I used Stork Baking Liquid, adapting my strawberry cupcakes recipe, but only put in a little cocoa powder so that the delicate flavour of the cinnamon milk chocolate in the icing would not be overpowered.  They were yummy – the rose crystals added a lovely crunch and unusual flavour to the topping.

I baked them in the afternoon when it was gloriously sunny but the light was fading by the time they were finished, so I took them down to the cellar where it was cooler, to cover them up and leave them until the morning to take their pictures.  But they looked so pretty on our brand new cellar shelves that I photographed them there and then.

Before long these shelves will be covered with cobwebs and all the stuff that we keep in the cellar……..

Here’s my recipe for chocolate cupcakes, decorated with cinnamon chocolate, crystallised rose petals and love hearts.  And a huge thank you to Sarah for sending me such lovely ingredients and inspiring me to bake something I wouldn’t usually bake.

Ingredients

For the cakes

115g Stork Baking Liquid (or margarine or butter, softened)

115g caster sugar

2 eggs

140g self raising flour

½tsp baking powder

30g cocoa powder

For the icing

100g cinnamon flavoured milk chocolate (or any milk chocolate)

100g unsalted butter

125g icing sugar

your own choice of decorations or sprinkles

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/165°fan/gas mk 4.  Put 10 cupcake cases into a muffin tin.

Put the Stork liquid, sugar and eggs into a large bowl.  Sift in the flour, baking powder and cocoa and beat until smooth and creamy.

Divide between the cupcake cases and bake for 25 minutes until firm to the touch.   Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, break the chocolate into squares and put into a heatproof bowl.  Place the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water,  and leave until the chocolate is melted, stirring once or twice.  Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.

(A good tip here is that it is important to make sure the inside of the bowl is dry and no water gets into the chocolate or it will spoil.)

Put the butter in another bowl and sift in the icing sugar.  Beat until light and fluffy.  Add the cooled chocolate and beat again until smooth.

Pipe or spread a swirl of the chocolate icing onto each cake, sprinkle with the rose crystals and dot a few love hearts here and there.  There are no rules about what you should do with the remaining love hearts if you don’t use the whole packet………..

Makes 10 cupcakes.

ROSE AND STRAWBERRY CUPCAKES

I saw this product on the shelf in the supermarket a while ago and couldn’t resist it – Stork baking liquid.

According to the information on the pack you can use this liquid Stork in any recipe where you would use Stork or butter in your cakes and muffins.

I am quite happy to use margarine in baking.  In fact my mother never baked with butter – she considered it far too extravagant.  Cakes were made with margarine and pastry with lard, so I am used to the different flavour – I wouldn’t consider it inferior to butter, just different.

Nowadays, I bake with butter most of the time because I can afford to, but do use soft margarine in cakes when it’s appropriate, especially for a large batch for a cake sale when it saves a little time in the mixing.  But a liquid……..?

Anyway, the bottle had been lurking in the fridge for a while and I was just waiting for the right moment and the right recipe to try it.  Then Nick announced that they were having a charity cake sale at work so could I “rustle up some cakes”? – no problem !!

I decided to look on the Stork website and chose a recipe for strawberry cupcakes.  You can see the original recipe here.  Curiously, there is a tablespoon of jam in the ingredients but it’s not exactly clear from the recipe what you should do with it.  I assumed you should put it in the cake mixture with the other ingredients, so that’s what I did.

Adding the liquid to the bowl as I weighed out the ingredients was tricky – I soon realised that each small squirt weighed quite a lot so I was careful not to squirt too strongly and overdo it.

The cakes turned out beautifully and without a doubt, the liquid Stork made them incredibly easy to “rustle up”.  The mixture only stretched to eleven, though.

When it came to icing them, I decided to use butter icing.  On the Stork website there was a recipe for coffee cake where you make butter icing using the Stork liquid.  So I used that but adapted it by adding rosewater essence instead of coffee.

I had been trying to think how I could make something for Teatime Treats baking challenge, hosted by What Kate Baked and Lavender and Lovage.  This month the theme is for something floral hosted by Karen, so my rose and strawberry cupcakes should hopefully fit the bill.

The butter icing was very yellow in colour but the rose flavour came through just enough to realise it was there so I was pleased.

Here’s my adaptation of the recipe for rose and strawberry cupcakes using Stork liquid:

Ingredients

For the cakes:

140g self raising flour

½tsp baking powder

115g caster sugar

115g Stork baking liquid

2 eggs

1tblsp strawberry jam

55g fresh strawberries

For the icing:

225g icing sugar

55g Stork liquid

1-2 tblsp rosewater essence

extra strawberries or pink strawberry chocolate buttons for decorating.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°fan/gas mk 4.  Put 11 (or 12) cupcake cases in a muffin tin.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl.  Add all the other cake ingredients, except for the strawberries, and beat together until smooth. 

Wash, dry and hull the strawberries and chop each one into about 6 pieces.  Fold into the cake mixture.  Fill the cake cases as evenly as possible.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden and risen and firm to the touch.  Remove from the tin and leave to cool on a wire rack.

While the cakes are cooling you can make the butter icing.  Sift the icing sugar into a large bowl and weigh in the Stork liquid.  Add one tablespoon of rosewater essence and beat until smooth and fluffy.  If it seems a little too stiff, add more rosewater a little at a time.

Pipe swirls of icing on each cake and decorate with small whole strawberries or those cute little pink strawberry flavoured chocolate buttons that come in little packs for cake decorating.  You could of course let your imagination run riot and use flowers, glitter, hundreds and thousands or coloured sugar instead – the world is your oyster in cake decorations these days !!

Makes 11 cupcakes, or 12 if you’re very careful.

LITTLE GUINNESS CUPCAKES

A while ago I spotted an idea on a lovely blog called “I HEART CUPCAKES”.

The writer had made a chocolate Guinness cake using Nigella Lawson’s recipe and decided to use some of the mixture to make cupcakes.

What a great idea! I have made Nigella’s cake many times with great success and it is always well admired.  So, armed with my brand new Kenwood Chef, I was itching to have a go at cupcakes.

The daft thing is, you don’t need a food mixer at all to do the Chocolate Guinness Cake recipe. You melt the butter in a large saucepan with the Guinness and then add all the remaining ingredients to the pan – it’s so easy.

But I was determined to use my new toy, so I melted the butter in a small saucepan and then transferred everything to the bowl of my Kenwood Chef to do the rest of the mixing.

The results were excellent. Nigella’s recipe is quite expensive to make but it produced 24 cupcakes with some mixture left over, so it probably would have made 30 cupcakes.

The quantity of topping would probably have to be increased to give all the cakes a good dollop of icing. (I only iced 24 of the cakes and baked the remaining mixture as a small plain cake.)

Here is my version of the recipe for LITTLE GUINNESS CUPCAKES

Ingredients

For the cake

250ml Guinness (save the bottle cap for decoration if you like)

250g unsalted butter, cut into cubes

400g caster sugar

75g cocoa powder

1 x 142 ml pot soured cream

2 eggs

1 tablespoon real vanilla extract

275g plain flour

2½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda

For the topping

300g Philadelphia cream cheese

150g icing sugar

125ml double cream

Method

Preheat oven to 180ºC.

Put 30 cake cases into muffin tins.

Pour the Guinness into a large saucepan. Add the butter and heat gently until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat.

Add the cocoa powder and sugar to the pan and whisk in.

In a separate bowl, beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla essence. Add to the saucepan and mix in.

Whisk in the flour and bicarb. Mix well then pour the mixture evenly into the cake cases.

Bake for 15-20 minutes until the cakes are cooked, using normal methods to test for whether they are done. Remember that the cakes turn out a very dark colour.

Cool in the tin for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before decorating.

To make the topping, put the icing sugar in a food processor and whiz briefly to remove any lumps.

Beat in the cheese until smooth. Then beat in the double cream until thick. (You may like to add a little more sifted icing sugar to get the consistency you like for piping on the cakes.)

Makes approx 30 cupcakes.