Chocolate Sundae Cupcakes

The chocolate sundae cupcake is meant to remind you of ice cream and chocolate sauce - a bit like Pizza Express's Chocolate Glory ice cream pudding. The cupcake works quite well with a real vanilla pod making the cake smell more vanillery than just essence would and the black specks feel a bit decadent. Vanilla things that look like they have grit in them are always good value.

The frosting was a chocolate fudge frosting and I think all foodstuffs should come covered in it. it is amazing, but does involve a lot of whipping and heating and whipping and cooling - in fact the hand mixer started to smell a bit burny. But that's probably my mixer rather than the amount of time you have to attend to it for. Saying that, it is worth it and is very amazing.

However it is difficult to decorate before it sets. I had wanted to put chopped nuts on top, but the frosting set too fast and they just scattered off so I just had to settle for a marshmallow plonked on top.

But I think that's a good look.

Hot Chocolate and Marshmallow Cupcakes

These ones are a lovely type of chocolate cupcake - I think the only reason they're given a hot chocolate tag is because there is a marshmallow on top. I was slightly disappointed because the marshmallows fell off really easily, and I had thought there would be a beautiful melding of cake and mallow, but no. *Le sigh*

I found the chocolate cake itself a little dry, but that could be a slight overlongcoooking by me (but I doubt it hugely). I made them in fairy cake size which might the reason they were a little on the dry side. Hmmmmmm ...

However these are good if you need to make something a bit fancy quickly and in a hurry. They look pretty good, especially if you wrap the tin in a towel between them coming out the cooker and going to someone's house, then they stay warm and lovely.

An OK cupcake.

Birthday Beauties

I made these little gems of cake for my friend Lorna's birthday in Cambridge and I think it would correct to say they went down well.

A birthday beauty is a vanilla sponge with strawberry chopped and added to the batter. They are pretty damn tasty. You can apparently make lemon and chocolate versions also.

However the real beauty in the birthday beauty is in the icing! I went to town and made some pretty vibrant fondant icings and put jelly sweets on top (conveniently forgetting that my oldest friend doesn't eat gelatine ... oops). So light sponge and a whole heap of sugar - too much possibly for a Thursday night!

One friend of Lorna's ate his third cake, got up for a fag, announcing he had to have one after "great sex and great food" - check that out Wagman!!!

Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Spread

What a long title for what could be said in three words - Nutella cake innit, but I suppose you can't use brand names, or something. Basically these little lovelies are a sponge mix, with a shed-load of nutella in them, with a bit more nutella on top. Maybe also a hazelnut. You could up the nuts and turn them into a ferrero rocher cake, which could be easily amazing, but these just don't quite hit the mark.

As the Daisy-o-meter said "a mediochre chocolate sponge with nutella on top - the nutella being the best bit".

However, Nicky and Erin, being boys, thought they were great. I'm not so convinced, myself. Maybe one to tinker with another day.

Yeti Cupcakes

So we're into the next section of Cupcakes Galore. This new section is entitles "KIDS CUPCAKES" - no more Grandma's Favorites, it's all about the children now. And to begin this new section of delights, we start with the Yeti Cupcake ...

"The Yeti, or Abominable Snowman, is a mythical creature. The only thing that everyone agrees on about Yeti is that he is snow white - and very cool. Thus, the Yeti Cupcake" - Wagman's introduction. I would like to point out that this cake is not snow white, unless the snow is a bit city-polluted and pissy, which I think undermines the description a bit.

The Yeti cupcake is basically a marshmallow cupcake, and it is SWEET. All the sugar, don't feed to diabetics and so on. You make a vanilla cake mix and add some marshmallows to it. What I wasn't expecting was for the marshmallows to float up to the top of the cake forming a pleasant chewy crust. Exciting. I used multi-coloured marshmallows because they are exciting.

The icing is a cooked one, where you put egg white and stuff in a bain marie. However, it was too runny, even thought I followed all the directions precisely. So I added a lot more sugar to stiffen it up. That made it better.

I also realised that what makes cupcakes look amazing is all the icing silly things you put on top, which were many in this case. The top picture is of the special one I made for my friend Laura, who had a birthday.

Rachel's reaction was that these "were her favourite in a long time". Daisy liked them. So, these are good tasting, but a little bit of a misnomer in my opinion!

Sunshine and Vitamin C Cupcakes

These ones are lovely lovely cupcakes. Basically a citrus sponge made of orange and lemon (St Clements I hear you cry, but no ...) and GRAPEFRUIT. Pretty exciting as I've never put grapefruit in a cake before. Both the rind and the juice. Yum yum. I used a normal white grapefruit, but I think a pink one would also be pretty exciting.

They rose nicely and have a light crumb. The topping is a citrus curd, made again from orange, lemon and grapefruit juice. This curd is TART (pun intended) and matches the sweet cakeyness really well. In fact the curd would be well nice on its own. Tip for Christmas present making next year.

I chose to top them with jelly slices, cos they're just a bit too cute. I also made some larger ones that are a good breakfast size.

Whether or not they actually have very much Vitamin C in them - I'm sure its made less good by cooking - these are pretty tasty, and the nice yellow colour means they are pretty cheerful. Thumbs UP.

Poppyseed and Lavender Honey Cupcakes

These were a cake I'd looked forward to, mostly because I love lavender. I put the oil on my pillow and have lotions and jam and it's great. A lavender liqueur would probably complete me.

However when I read the recipe, there's no actual lavender flavour in the cake, its honey made by bees that have fed on lavender. Lavender honey is hard to get in Leeds and well expensive online, boo. Oh. I thought. Oh dear. I am suddenly less excited. But honey and poppy seed is a lovely combination and all the poppy seeds made the cakes quite dense, and filling. And a bit eastern European.

As I made these just before Christmas, and according to Wagman, there's not meant to be an icing, I was all like whatever Wagman, I'm gonna invent a lavender icing to make the cakes even better.

Lucy's Lavender Icing. Get dried lavender flower heads, 2 tablespoons. Pour 100ml ish boiling water on top and steep over night. Sieve, so you have a jug of lavender water. Use said lavender water to make icing when mixed with icing sugar. I have no quantities for this, but you don't need all the lavender water. If you like you can make it lavender coloured by adding small amounts of red and blue food colouring, so it goes a nice purple. One drop of each I think I used.

At the front of the picture are some Florentines I also made. The scrum-bumbly cakes behind.