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.

Yoghurt Cupcakes

After the sadness and depression of the strawberryrhubarbgross, I was not excited by these cakes. Grrrr, I thought, I'm going to carry on but I am not going to enjoy it and i will do it because I decided I was going to, not for any other reason.

However. Yoghurt cupcakes are delicious and rose to heaven like what medieval angels would. They were vanilla yoghurt flavoured, but you cold use any flavour of yoghurt (and I really do want to try some of the crazy Activia yoghurt flavours, I think Kiwi Yoghurt Cupcakes could only be amazing).

No frosting, nothing fancy just a delicious cake.

I even took one with me as a present on a first date and it was later pronounced "the best cake ever". Fact. Ladies, take a cake, it served me well.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp Cupcakes.

Now, I know where I went wrong with these. Instead of using fresh rhubarb, or frozen (?!), I used tinned. FAUX PAS. Also an out of date tin. Oops. This made the mixture really runny, like really really runny, so the cakes didn't really bake. They sort of 'set' in the oven, if a cake can do that in a bad way.

The strawberry glaze was warm jam, and warm jam on a set custardy out of date produced cake, isn't ever going to be nice. Not even Carl liked them. And he has a very sweet tooth.

So I'm afraid, another EPIC FAIL.

It was at this point that I reached my nadir with the baking of the cakes. I wasn't excited any more. I couldn't bear to open Wagman. I had lost my baking mojo. These were dark days and there was a pause in the production while I took stock and tried to decide whether to give up or carry on. Dark times indeed ...

Persimmon Nut Harvest Treats

A persimmon is a sharon fruit. This is important to know. But it is what Americans call a big sharon fruit. Sharon fruit, are a fruit I always buy with optimism, then realise after one that a) they're not that delicious and b) I can't be bothered with them.

Another EPIC FAIL.

Tha cakes were gross, they didn't rise and were almost cheesey tasting - yet contained NO CHEESE. They sat in a tupperware for ages. About a month, no one liked them. The Daisy-o-meter didn't have the heart to give me a reaction.

Some of them, that escaped the tupperware fate, I put the recommended cream cheese frosting on. And that only made them more gross. No one ate them even then.

Strawberry-Filled Oatmeal Cupcakes

Well, oatmeal sounds healthy, so I am always less excited about these ones than the ones that are all fudge-a-berry gooey delight. Oatmeal, pah. And also, these were an EPIC FAIL.

The cakes were OK, but to make them "strawberry-filled" you put a dollop of jam in them, but jam fell to the bottom, so there was a burny, sticky, jammy layer at the bottom - not v nice.

There was also meant to be an oatmeal crunch topping. This sank as well, into the middle of the cake. It was gross. The cakes were gross. I followed the recipe to a T and Wagman let me down.

Dear Followers,

Sorry for the hiatus, I hadn't stopped baking, but had paused in posting due to theft of PC and subsequent terror of new PC that lurked in the lounge corner for 3 months. Am now back in the game, thanks for your patience xxx