Sinfully Sweet Honey Cupcakes

So sweet and sticky! These cupcakes are quite rich, but taste so good! They're easy to through together and take no time to bake. The taste is so unique; the honey flavour is clearly there, but isn't too strong. These little sugar-packed delights are perfect for those with a sweet tooth!

Ingredients

• 125g clear honey
• 125g unsalted butter
• 75g light soft brown sugar
• 175g self raising flour
• 2 eggs, beaten

 Method
1) Preheat the oven to 180°C and prepare a cupcake tray with cupcakes cases.
2) In a small pan, weigh out the sugar, honey and butter. Place this on a low heat and stir until melted. Make sure to stir often, otherwise the mixture will stick to the bottom of the pan. When melted, take off the heat and leave to cool.

3) Next you can either pour the mixture into a medium bowl or leave in the pan. Add the remaining ingredients and beat until combined.

4) Pour the batter into the cupcake cases and bake in the oven for 7-9 minutes. You can prepare the icing/decoration in this time. Remember to stick a skewer in the center to check if they are done; if it comes out clean, they are baked.  The cakes should be golden brown.

5) Take them out of the oven and leave in the tray for several minutes. Then place them onto a cooling rack to cool completely.
6) When cool, you can ice or decorate them as you please! I iced mine with buttercream- my favourite- and drizzled honey on top. However I would advise you to not put the honey on, it made them quite rich!

A little too sweet for me, but my friends loved them! Sinfully sweet and rather rich, sweet tooths will love these! 4/5

Happy baking!

Simply Sweet Buttercream!

Shown above on our Rainbow Cupcakes. Click here to see the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 250g icing sugar, sifted
• 80g unsalted butter, softened
• 25ml whole milk
• a couple of drops of vanilla extract (optional)

Simply mix together the icing sugar and softened butter until combined. Next, add the milk in small measures until you reach your desired texture and a smooth consistency. Finally, add the reccomended amount of vanilla extract (optional). In the picture we have used, we coloured the icing with a small amount of blue food colouring.

Rainbow Cupcakes!

Rosa and I have been wanting to try these for a while, so were excited about how these pretty cakes would turn out. We weren't let down! Using a simple vanilla cupcake recipe and several food dyes, we have created the perfect party treat.  We are looking forward to sitting down with this tasty treat and a Harry Potter movie later on this evening!

Ingredients

• 120g plain flour
• 140g caster sugar
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 120ml whole milk
• 1 egg
• ¼tsp vanilla extract
• 1 quantity vanilla frosting
• hundreds and thousands or other edible sprinkles, to decorate
• a 12-hole cupcake tray, lined with paper cases
•  Food colourings of your choice

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3 and prepare a cupcake tray with cases.

2. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a bowl and beat until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined. Gradually pour in half the milk and beat until the milk is just incorporated.

3. Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk together in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated (scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula). Continue mixing for a couple more minutes until the mixture is smooth. Do not overmix.

4. Seperate the mixture into several bowls and add a small amount of food colouring to each bowl (each bowl a different colour). Mix until all dye is combined.

5. Add a spoonful of each coloured batter to each case one after another, in layers.

6.Leave in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

7. When cooled, decorate as you please.

Moist, soft, sweet, and definitely vibrant, the vivid colours would cheer up anyones' day! They taste amazing but a lot of effort is involved for such simple cakes. Overall, I would reccomend these; 4/5.

Happy baking!

Jaffa Cakes

I heard about this recipe from a friend, she made a video tutorial on how to make them. Click here to see it.
These are amazing! I thought shop-bought Jaffa Cakes were good, but these are better.  The dark chocolate compliments the zesty orange filling so nicely. They take a while to make, but it's worth it.

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 50g/2oz caster sugar
• 50g/2oz plain flour, sieved
• 1x135g packet of orange jelly, chopped
• 1tblsp orange marmalade
• 125ml boiling water
• 200g/7oz dark chocolate

Method
1) Make the jelly first. To do this, chop up the packet of jelly into cubes and put in a medium-sized bowl with the marmalade. Then, add the boiling water. Stir until the jelly dissolves.
2) Line a shallow baking tray with cling-film and pour the dissolved jelly into it. Put in the fridge to set overnight.
3) The next day, when the jelly has set, prepare a bain-marie (fill a pot half-way with water and place a small bowl on top) on the stove, on a low heat so that the water starts to simmer. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Photograph source: afoodieabroad.blogspot.co.uk

3) The recipe says that when the water is simmering to add the eggs and sugar to the bowl on top and whisk until it light and creamy. However, when I did this the egg started to cook. So, I took the bowl off the stove and then whisked  it until combined. Then, I heated the mixture -back in the pot- until it became creamy.

4) Take this off the stove and sift in the flour. Do not mix in the flour, but fold it in.

5) Grease a cupcake tray and fill each section half-way with the batter. Put in the oven and cook for 8-10 minutes.

6) While that's in the oven, break the chocolate into blocks and use the bain-marie (wash it first!) at a low temperature to slowly melt it. Also, take the jelly out of the fridge and the cling-film.

7) When the cakes are out of the oven and cooled, cut circles out of the jelly with a cookie cutter (make sure the circle fits each cake!). Place a circle onto each cake.

8) When that's done, cover each cake with the melted chocolate and put in the fridge to set.

These are very rich and very orangey, so if you find normal Jaffa Cakes too much I wouldn't recommend these. However if you love a good tasty, zingy treat please try these! 4/5

Happy Baking

No better place to start than with cupcakes!

Blueberry Cupcakes

Not the classic blueberry muffins, but blueberry cupcakes!  Daring, I know.  With these cakes, you will get a surprising glimpse of bursting berry-ness with every bite.  At first, you may think: "Oh, nice.  Some more vanilla cupcakes- that's OK."  But, delve deeper and you will discover more satisfyingly sweet flavour of blueberries and butter-cream.

Recipe

 Ingredients

• 150g Self Raising flour, sifted
• 150g margarine
• 150g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tbl vanilla extract
• 20 blueberries, cut into quarters or halves

 Butter-cream Icing

• 300g icing sugar
• 250g butter, soft
• 1 - 2 tbls whole milk 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Food colouring (optional)

 Method

1. Firstly, preheat the oven to 150°C.  We used the all-in-one method for this recipe.  So, we simply weighed and measured our ingredients and threw them all together on a large bowl.  We then mixed the ingredients together using an electric whisk.
2. Secondly, we placed 15 cupcake cases into a baking tray and poured our mixed into each case.  Tip: Don't fill each case too high, this gives the cakes a flat surface and therefore makes them easier to ice (and you'll get more cakes!).
3. When your oven has heated up, put the tray(s) inside; preferably as close to the center of the oven as you can.  Put the timer on for about 20-25 minutes.  While they cook, you can make the icing!
4.  Measure out the icing sugar and butter (make sure it is very soft!) and whisk them together in a bowl until light and fluffy.  Add milk if the mixture is not fluffy enough.  Finally, add the vanilla and food colouring (we used a few drops of red so that it became a pastel-pink colour).
5. When ready, place the cakes onto a cooling rack to cool. Make sure that the cakes have cooled completely before icing, because if they are too warm the icing will melt.

We found these cupcakes very fun to make and delicious to eat! The icing stood out to us especially.  4/5

Happy baking!

Credits to: http://uktv.co.uk/goodfood/homepage/sid/566