Bye Bye Australia Cupcakes

Dear blog,

It's been a while. A really long while. But since I lasted posted I have moved to Japan, so I'm hoping you'll cut me some slack.

These are the cupcakes I made for our farewell party.

The pink ones had Turkish delight chunks and rosewater icing. The green ones were melon flavoured with gold glitter (because lovely friends had given me melon oil and edible glitter and I wanted to try it all out before I left the country!).

I also made gluten and dairy free chocolate and strawberry cupcakes. Because they're still awesome.

I have been baking in Japan, but you'll have to wait until next time for that. Let's face it - this is progress!

Banana Cake with Chocolate Ganache

Getting ready to move house is not hugely conducive to blogging. Or baking for that matter. But I did recently make banana cake with chocolate ganache - I had some very ripe bananas and some fresh cream that I wanted to use up!

This is the moment when you start to question whether your food processor can actually deal with a double batch of banana cake batter...

Thankfully, it turns out, mine can.

The other half of this batch went into cupcakes but I didn't get any photos as they were a bit messy once I'd scooped out the middles and dolloped in the delightful chocolate mixture.

Something I've learned about chocolate ganache (which is made by melting chocolate into just-boiled cream): if you try to make it and use it in a hurry it's almost certainly going to be very runny. This time I got smart and refrigerated the ganache overnight, which made it nice and firm, without being too hard to spread. Definitely the way to go!

Choc Mint Oreo Cupcakes

I've made these before, but I thought they looked especially cute this time.

Partly because they were accompanied by a playing child. And then partly because I put some into a cupcake box.

I think it's extra hard to make cupcakes look bad when they're packaged in white. (Hence the fact that these now appear at the header of this blog!)

I'm concentrating on presentation here, but just in case you actually want to make these: make a chocolate cake batter, distribute in cupcake wells, stick an Oreo (or similar) in the top of each cupcake before baking, top with a little piped peppermint butter cream. Devour.

When it's cold

Winter is the season for sneaky mug cake. It's not pretty. But it is warm. And chocolatey.

Tuck some apples into a bed of cake. All snug and tasty, and warm, once you get to the oven part.

Bacon and Peanut Butter Cookies

We had a bakeoff at work recently and we were supposed to make something savoury. Not really my area of expertise. So I opted for another one of Joy the Baker's novel combination recipes. 

There's the bacon...

...and the peanuts...

Mix it all together and what've you got? Bacon and peanut butter cookies of course. Recipe here <-<- and also in the very enjoyable Joy the Baker Cookbook: 100 Simple and Comforting Recipes.

Somehow the little chunks of meat sticking out of the cookies look a bit disturbing, don't they?

They're rolled in a little sugar, but I maintain that these count as a savoury item. Plenty of salty bacon. And a little bit of molasses - the first time I've actually used it. Turns out it's nothing like golden syrup as I'd thought. Molasses is potent stuff; dark and sticky.

I didn't win the bakeoff. But I did win the weekly team award for "the bravest biscuits ever," and they were rather a talking point. One guy told me they'd be good dipped in chocolate, but I think that would just add another layer of crazy. Your biggest challenge in making them may be resisting the lure of the bacon when it comes out of the oven all baked and crispy and inviting. If you're not careful your bacon and peanut butter cookies may stall at the delicious snack of bacon stage. But be strong. The cookies are worth a try!

Pretty Banana Cupcakes (Gluten & Dairy Free)

I love this photo. And I didn't even take it! I was busily preparing to host an afternoon tea and Jess went to work with the camera.

I got the recipe for these out of a book, but I wouldn't say it was particularly good. I had already started when I realised it needed dairy free milk... but I didn't have any on hand so just used water instead. They were still quite edible, but a bit denser than I would've liked. I used cinnamon icing which helped them along.

Anyway, it was worth it if only for the pretty photos. Afternoon tea is a lovely thing indeed.

Chocolate and Strawberry Cupcakes

Don’t make these unless you want to eat the most awesome thing ever. I’m warning you now.

Apart from the fact that they’re utterly fantastic, these can quite easily be made gluten and/or dairy free. Also egg free, so they’re vegan-friendly. Also, no electric mixer required. Like I said – fantastic (with or without gluten - I've tried both versions and they're equally delectable).

I got the cake recipe from Group Recipes (ßsee post here). I’ve added my tweaks below (doesn’t necessarily improve it, that’s just the way I did it!).

Ingredients (makes a neat 12)

1.5 cup plain flour OR gluten-free plain flour

1 cup brown sugar

Generous 1/4 cup cocoa powder (usually gluten free but check if making GF)

1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup canola oil OR olive oil (either works)

teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon vinegar (I just used white vinegar because that’s what I had!)

1 cup water

1.     Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line 12 cup muffin/cupcake pan.

2.     Sift together the dry ingredients.

3.     Add the oil, vanilla, vinegar, and water. Mix together till smooth.

4.     Pour into lined muffin cups. Bake about 25 minutes (test to see if a skewer comes out clean).

5.       When the cupcakes are cool, I suggest scooping a chunk out of the centre of each one and spooning in some strawberry jam (about a teaspoon-ish), then replacing the cake chunk. The jam will kind of soak in, and it doesn’t matter if the surface looks messy if you’re icing over the top anyway.

6.       Use whatever kind of chocolate icing that suits you. But if it needs to be dairy free, try mixing together the following…

• 65 grams of Nuttelex
• 1.5-2 cups of icing sugar
• 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• A little hot or boiling water as needed to achieve good texture (the heat makes it easier to incorporate the Nuttelex)

7.       Pipe or spread the icing onto the cupcakes. Then decorate with slivers or chunks of fresh strawberry.

  

 Try not to eat them all by yourself… unless that was your plan all along.