Strawberry Jam Cupcakes

I went to a family christening recently, for beautiful little girl Ava. I wanted to make some girly cupcakes to take along for the party so a combination of strawberries and pink seemed like the way to go.

I used Willow Bird Baking's Strawberry Jam Cupcakes recipe (<-- link here) almost exactly, just increasing the chopped fresh strawberries to a generous cupful. I liked the combination of fresh fruit in the batter and the jam as a filling, plumping up the flavour and the moisture.

Although I did use cream cheese icing, I opted for the version I've used previously (a half batch adapted from Bakerella) because I know how much it makes. I added a little red food colouring and about a tablespoon of Pavlova Magic to improve firmness. I also sprinkled over some girly little butterfly decorations to finish them.

This is what happens when I use food colouring. But thankfully it did wash out before too long.

The cupcakes were well received. My husband said they tasted like pikelets, which I imagine is down to the strawberry jam and batter combination.

I have had problems neatly extracting mini cupcakes from my non-mini cupcake holder wells, and this is my new "hi-tech" solution. I just cut a small strip of tin foil, double it over to make it stronger and position it under the cake so you can lift it out without wrecking the icing :)

Snickerdoodle cupcake duo

I know I've said this before, but this really IS my new favourite recipe. And once again it comes from Bakerella. The Snickerdoodle Duo (link to Bakerella's post here) is a delicious combination of cupcake and cinnamon cookie with frosting and cinnamon sugar to hold them together and decorate.

Snickerdoodle cookies were made known to me by my friends Rachael and Tim, and all the people who kept talking about Rach and Tim's Snickerdoodles. Amazingly this was the first time that I made them myself. They puff up really nicely and the texture is great.

The cupcakes pulled away from their cases a little (anyone know what causes that?) and they seemed a bit soft, so I thought maybe I under-cooked them, but they went perfectly with the cookies and icing.

Speaking of icing, Bakerella made a meringue icing, but didn't highly recommend it, and I have an aversion to recipes that use only parts of eggs. Seems like such a waste. So, using my growing knowledge of Australian ingredient equivalents (aka. baking nerd status), I fashioned a nice firm buttercream icing instead, using a magical ingredient... Pavlova Magic. The main ingredients are sugar and egg whites, and it seems you don't need much to get fantastic results :) (much cheaper than ordering purpose-made meringue powder from the US!)

This is my new, Australian-ified buttercream recipe that holds its shape beautifully. It makes enough to ice about 3 dozen cupcakes (or 6 dozen mini cupcakes). If you have some left over you can keep it refrigerated in an air-tight container and re-whip to use it later, but I'm not sure exactly how long it's good for (I used the last of mine within 5 days).

Semi-firm Buttercream Icing

(based on Cupcake Gal's recipe and an eHow post by Shelby Winchell)

125g unsalted butter, softened

125g cooking margarine, softened

6-8 cups icing sugar, sifted

1/2 cup of milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 tablespoon Pavlova Magic powder

1. Beat the butter and margarine in an electric mixer until smooth and creamy (roughly a few minutes).
2. Add 4 cups of icing sugar, the milk and vanilla. Mix on low speed until combined.
3. Add 2 more cups of icing sugar and mix until light and fluffy. Only add the last 2 cups of icing sugar if you need to.
4. Add the Pavlova powder and mix on low speed for a couple of minutes. You'll see it start to thicken.
5. Use without delay (or get it into an air-tight container to store).

My cupcakes didn't rise right to the top of the patty cases, but I like how the cookies looked kind of like muffin tops and they're kind of compact and neat like this. Also really delicious. Really.

See? So pretty.

Yum. Thanks Bakerella.

Apricot & cinnamon cupcakes with cream cheese & apricot icing

Cinnamon. Apricots. Cream cheese. Three things that are awesome. I hope that these cupcakes will prove to you that they can be awesome in partnership.

This recipe is adapted from one that a friend of my parents wrote on the back of an envelope for me. I'm sure there are similar versions around but I feel like I've played with this one enough to not reference further than the back of an envelope.

Lightly press a thin layer of batter onto the bottom of each patty case and top it with an apricot half. I think they look disturbingly like egg yolks here.

Then cover the apricot over with another layer of batter. I tend to press it down to make it smoother, but you don't really need to do this (see looser packed cakes on the right, below), especially if you're going to frost over it later anyway. You can put as much batter as you want on top really, but be aware that the cakes will rise and you don't want them spewing out over the rim (I've overloaded muffin tins with similar cake before and they looked rather ugly).

These came out just about the size I was aiming for :)

This cake tastes fine without icing. In fact, I think my dad would be horrified to learn that I heaped "sweet stuff" on top of this particular cake recipe. But we had a lot of cream cheese left over in the fridge and I didn't want it to be wasted. Thus, I decided on cream cheese icing.

I used the cream cheese frosting recipe that Bakerella posted with her Red Velvet Cake (which is also delicious), but only made half a batch, and also added 8 mashed up apricot halves (ie. equivalent of 4 apricots), mostly to see what would happen. It made the icing runnier, but I liked the little flecks of colour and texture. I think it made minimal difference to the taste, but I was happy enough with it.

Anyway, the cake recipe. I used to use 2 teaspoons each of baking powder, cinnamon, mixed spice and ground ginger, but decided to tone it down a bit, so went with one generous teaspoon of each (except the baking powder which I didn't dare alter, leaving it at 2).

Apricot & Cinnamon Cupcakes

Makes approximately 12 muffin sized cupcakes and 15 mini cupcakes

150g butter, melted

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups self-raising flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon ground ginger

2 teaspoons baking powder

Large tin of apricots (will have some left over from an 800g tin)

1. Prepare your tins and preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

2. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients (except apricots!).

3. Put a layer of batter on the bottom of each cupcake case (using about half the total amount of batter).

4. Lightly press an apricot half into each case of batter. Use a quarter of an apricot for mini cupcakes.

5. Use the rest of the batter to make another layer on top of the apricot.

6. Bake for 20-30 minutes (depending on your oven). Test with a skewer.

Cream Cheese Frosting (based on half batch of Bakerella's recipe)

Makes more icing than you'll need for these cakes!

125g cream cheese, room temperature

125g butter, room temperature

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

3 cups icing sugar, sifted

8 apricot halves, well mashed

1. Beat cream cheese and butter on high until creamy and add vanilla.

2. Add icing sugar a cup at a time and blend in.

3. Add apricot puree and mix until just combined.

4. Ice your cupcakes once they're cool.

This recipe is also great with apple instead of apricot, and, as mentioned, it's really not essential to add frosting. Also makes a lovely loaf cake.

Caramel Cookies

OK, so I've been slack with blogging. But not with baking. In fact, a few times I've thought about blogging and then decided to bake instead. Now it's time for some back-blogging.

I think Jersey Caramels (along with most things caramel) are fantastic. So when I saw Donna Hay's recipe for Caramel Cookies (<<- link) in a newspaper a couple of years ago I was slightly dismayed that I hadn't dreamt these up myself.

They're very simple and never fail. Seriously - I hideously overcooked them one time and they were still worth eating.

This is how the cookies begin their life, in a saucepan.

Cool and combine that with self-raising flour and you can make these...

...then add these...

... and bake, to end up with these. Delicious caramel goodness! And cute too.

This lot of cookies (a double batch) was for a fundraiser, so I put them into this handy jar for display.

Impatient caramel mud cake --> caramel mud cupcakes!

I really love caramel, so I wanted to try making a caramel mud cake. However, I didn't want to cook it for 2 hours, which, I found, is what many recipes call for.

All the recipes I found also say to let the melted butter and sugar mix cool for 15 or even 20 minutes. That's OK when you've got time to burn, but sometimes when you're in a hurry this kind of instruction is just annoying.

My slight cheat? Rather than just letting it sit there cooling ever so slowly, fill a larger saucepan (or something) with tap water and sit the saucepan containing the hot mixture in the water. The heat will dissipate into the water and you'll see steam rising up. Stir the mixture to help it cool evenly. (I don't suggest using water colder than from the tap just because it might cool the edges too quickly, but you can try it if you're game.)

I ended up using a recipe from Best Recipes that only called for 60 minutes baking... but my oven usually takes longer than any recipe stipulates and I only had about an hour and a half total available for this baking session. So I decided it would have to be cupcakes again, and a couple of little gingerbread men silicone molds for the excess - cute.

Another beauty of this recipe is that a.) it does not require an electric mixer and, b.) you only have to wash up a single saucepan when you're done :)

The cupcakes only needed about half an hour in the oven. It was more like 40 minutes for the gingerbread men, but partly because they were on the "cool" shelf of my oven. So I successfully got my mud cake baked before I had to go out!

Best Recipes suggested a simple dusting of icing sugar to finish, which would have been impatient-person-friendly. But I didn't actually need the cakes until the next day, so when I got home later I made some caramel icing, using a Women's Weekly recipe (I didn't use the cake part of the recipe because it was one of the ones that needed to bake for 2 hours). This icing, as you'd expect, is a lot runnier than any buttercream, but I thought I'd try piping it anyway to see what would happen.

I didn't feel like dealing with a piping bag, so I got out this child-friendly "Cookie and Cupcake Decorating Kit," which was less than $10. The one annoying thing about using a bottle is that you have to get the icing into it through quite a small opening, but if you can get past that it's nice and contained - no icing coming out the wrong end of a bag.

I was a bit worried the icing would be so runny that it would drip down the sides of the cakes so I ended up putting it in the fridge for just a little while. This helped to thicken it a little, but keep an eye on it - I don't know how much it will harden if you forget about it!

The results were pretty good. The icing was soft but not running everywhere. You could manipulate it a little bit, but anything 3D (like a swirl) was out of the question - it all settles out relatively flat.

I played around with some embellishments of jersey caramel pieces. It's not entirely necessary of course, but I like how it looks, and the addition of a little chewy texture. These tasted FANTASTIC. Caramel wins again.

I also found another use for the white candy sections of the jersey caramels.

Run, run, as fast as you can, you can't catch me, I'm the (caramel-mud-cake-) gingerbread man...

Cookies & cream cupcakes (+ education on shortening)

I got rather excited when I saw Bakerella's recent Cookies and Cream Cupcakes post and I had a baby shower to attend today which seemed like an excellent occasion to bake these for.

My husband insisted that there is no substitute for a real Oreo, so I used the genuine article this time around (a whole 300g box of them in fact!), but I believe that this would work just as well with cheaper supermarket brand biscuits. I'll report back once I've tried this myself. And believe me, these cakes are worth making more than once.

I took Bakerella's advice and made cakes both with broken and whole cookies as the starting point.

I actually got 12 large (ie. muffin-sized) cupcakes and 18 mini cupcakes out of one batch of this recipe.

I like to make a combination of large and small cupcakes for the following reasons:

1. Our gas oven heats unevenly, with the top shelf hotter than the bottom, so it actually works out quite well if I have smaller cakes on the bottom. They're usually ready at about the same time as the larger cakes on the top shelf.
2. A lot of people seem extremely daunted by a muffin sized cupcake with a big swirl of icing on the top. My friend Karen calls the mini cupcakes the "low fat version." They're also a more child-friendly size.
3. If I only make a dozen cupcakes I don't have anything to leave at home for my husband, who endures much mess in the kitchen for my sake. Having little "spare" cakes also means that I can taste test them before feeding them to friends and family.

Anyway, these cupcakes are super easy to make. No need for an electric mixer! They contain vegetable oil rather than butter so the batter is very runny, and the cakes come out lovely and moist. A note of WARNING though: test the cakes with a skewer to check if they're cooked rather than just judging by sight. They have a really glossy finish which is a bit deceiving (but also attractive).

Bakerella made her icing with shortening, which I've been meaning to try out myself (it's supposed to make your icing firmer and whiter, rather than off-white). I wasn't concerned about getting my icing really white, so I used a buttercream recipe from my friend Kara, who lives in the US, which uses a combination of butter and shortening. This is double the original recipe that she gave me. I only used 1 teaspoon of Vanilla Essence - I find that too much can be overwhelming/sickly sweet.

Kara's Buttercream Recipe

• 120g butter, softened (but not melted)
• 250g shortening (Crisco)***
• 4 cups icing sugar (add in a little at a time, especially for large batches)
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 2 tsp vanilla (real, not imitation)
• 2 pinches of salt (optional - if using salted butter use less or no salt)

1. Cream together shortening*** and butter.
2. Add other ingredients and mix until creamy.
3. Mix in food colouring if desired (or, in this case, cookie crumbs).

***MY NEWEST DISCOVERY

Australian "Copha" is NOT the same as American "shortening," despite the fact that the packet says "Vegetable Shortening." I softened my butter - all good. Then I got my Copha out of the fridge - it was rock solid. Neither Bakerella nor Kara said anything about softening the shortening, but I assumed that it couldn't just go straight into my mixer like that, so I microwaved it a little. It barely softened. So I decided to chop it up into pieces. It seemed to crumble a little when I cut into it, so I thought that maybe the mixer would be able to do this on a larger scale with the now smaller, more manageable pieces of this strange substance.

Well. The Copha was quickly coated in butter but it took ages, and a lot of hard work from the MixMaster to get it anywhere near an icing consistency. I was running late so I didn't stop to look it up and find out why. My icing ended up OK, but it was really thick and thus took a lot of effort to pipe out onto the cakes. This wasn't helped by the cookie crumbs which at one point blocked the tip up completely (I had not broken them down very finely), but we can't blame the Copha for that one.

My poor MixMaster would really not appreciate another battle like the one it had with that block of Copha, so when I got home from the party I thought I should really find out more about this Copha vs. shortening thing. As it turns out, American "shortening" or Crisco (brand name) is approximately the consistency of... margarine. NOT rock. MixMaster, I'm sorry. My scanning of a few forums suggests that Australian "Fairy Margarine" might be a suitable substitute for shortening. But not copha (although one person did suggest you could try melting it down and just beat it in like that).

The thickness of the icing and the occasional clogging of cookie crumbs in my icing tip meant that some of my decorating was less than beautiful, but the great thing about these cakes is that you can cover up any icing flaws with cookie pieces. I didn't have enough cookies left from my 300g Oreo packet to stick a whole one on top of each cake, but I quite like the rustic look of broken cookie pieces and crumbs anyway.

I will definitely be making these again. But not using copha!

Honey cupcakes with honey & cinnamon buttercream

I found a recipe for honey cupcakes on Oprah's website. I wouldn't have thought to look there for recipes but this one came up in a search and she got it from a White House pastry chef, so I thought it was worth a try. Which is somewhat ironic because I don't like honey by itself, but it's OK in tea, so I thought I'd give it a go in cake.

I got out my scales again to continue my cupcake weight experiment (OCD?). I made a few 25 gram mini cupcakes and they came out just the right size. Full, but not rising over the top :)

I also made 12 muffin-size cakes and tried them with slightly different weights - a row of 55g (far left), row of 60g, row of 65g and row of 70 grams (far right). As you can see none of them rose over the top, which was my main objective. The 55g cakes looks a little scant, but if you're going to be piping icing on top of them anyway I don't think it really matters - you'd still be getting quite a mouthful of cake if you got one of those!

Oprah's chef proposed a simple frosting of icing sugar, honey and lemon juice, which probably would have been fine. But I wanted something that I could pipe! So I decided to try a honey cinnamon buttercream which I found on Loves To Eat (...I remember the days when I could still afford bananas for baking...*sigh*). I'm a die-hard cinnamon fan so it seemed like a decent idea.

A word of advice: taste your icing before you pipe it all over your cakes. If I'd done this I think I would've added some more cinnamon... it just seems to be lacking something. Which makes me think that Oprah's version with the lemon juice might have been just right - a bit of a citrus kick. Next time.

I probably did too many of my beloved rosette swirls, but they're just so pretty. Also I was lazy and only used one tip - the smaller 22 star. As expected it looked a little small on the larger cakes.

I got a bit carried away with some of them, but I quite like how this one came out.

Overall I wasn't hugely impressed by the honey cake, but like I said, I'm not really a honey fan to begin with. They're not bad.

The cupcake army advances.