Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

I mentioned in my last blog post that I was intending to bake some cupcakes for the MacMillan Coffee morning at work a few weeks ago, and never got round to blogging about it!

I always get excited by our work's MacMillan Coffee morning, I remember the first one I went to back when I was still a temp- it was huge and filled the whole canteen, a lot of the cakes were homemade and I had an amazing scone with clotted cream and jam.

Unfortunately, the trend hasn't really continued and it's mostly half arsed attempts with an increasing majority of bought goods being sold on.

I first took part last year, when I first got into baking and make lemon drizzle and raspberry ripple cupcakes. I've never been the best at cake decoration, and as a result people went for the more professional looking shop bought cakes, although mine eventually did sell.

I decided this year, with a bit more experience behind me, to be more ambitious and make some chocolate orange cupcakes, using a recipe from Cookies and Cakes and All Things Baked. I had only made these cakes twice before, first time I made them I used self raising flour instead of plain flour and baking powder and the cake rose in the oven, only to sink when cooled. The second time, I followed the recipe exactly and they turned out perfect, only for The Boy to drop them on the floor.

Here is the finished product, they turned out OK, not as risen as I hoped but I think I was bit impatient with the mixing process. I won't write the recipe here, just go to the link above and whatever you do- follow the recipe EXACTLY!

 
Oh- and they all sold in a matter of minutes :-)

Lemon Buttercream

With our work's MacMillan Coffee Morning coming up this Friday, I have volunteered to bake and help out for the second year running. I used this excuse to splash out on a cupcake caddy I had been eyeing up from Lakeland.

With another day off planned, this time waiting for a telephone engineer to fit a new phone line, I was too inpatient to wait until Friday to use my new caddy!

So I baked some more lemon cupcakes using the recipe from my previous post (mainly because I had a spare lemon left over and I hate waste). However, I decided to experiment with the icing and try to make a lemon flavoured butter cream topping instead.

Again, this was adapted from a butter cream recipe in Susannah Blake's Cupcake Heaven, the recipe was originally for vanilla butter cream, but I substituted the vanilla essence for freshly squeezed lemon juice instead.

However, as by this point I was running low on Stork (which I used instead of butter), I had to adjust the recipe accordingly and use less on the cakes.

Here is what (I think) the recipe should be if you're not running low on ingredients!:

85g Unsalted Butter at room temperature (I used Stork!)
225g Icing sugar (sifted- if you're really bothered!)
1 tablespoon of milk (although I would suggest adding it in gradually)
1/4 teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice (or to taste, if you do alter the amount you put in, decrease the amount of milk or else it will end up too runny!)

Beat the butter in a bowl until smooth and creamy, then add sugar, milk and lemon juice. Stir until mixed.

However, my technique was different. I worked out that for every 1g of butter used, you need 2.65g of icing sugar. As I had 29g of butter, I mixed with 76g of icing sugar. I then added in roughly equal quantities of lemon juice and milk until the mixture incorporated. being careful not to add too much liquid which would make it runny.

Here is a picture of the finished product put away in the caddy, ready to take to work tomorrow. It's great having this as now only can I now take more cakes into work (I usually take them in a chocolate tin- that can only hold about 6) but I can decorate the cakes with butter cream without fear of disasters!

Lemon Drizzle cake

It's been a while since I've baked, due to living with The Boy's family in Bolton in August. Despite enjoying my time there, I'm a solitary baker and baking is something I do when nobody else is about and I want a bit of me time.

However, I've finally moved into my new flat, and having to wait in all day for various deliveries of housey stuff and a telephone engineer that didn't turn up I decided to fill my time with baking.

I decided to play it safe, after a previous disasterous attempt at experimental baking last week so I used a recipe in Susannah Blake's Cupcake Heaven. The recipe is actually a children's cupcake recipe for 'Flower cupcakes' with coloured icing, but today I decided to leave out the colouring!

115g butter
115g caster sugar (but I always use demera)
2 eggs
115g self raising flour
grated zest of one lemon

1) Mix the butter and sugar together
2) Add the eggs one at a time, mixing inbetween.
3) Fold in the flour then stir in the lemon zest.
4)  Spoon the mixture into paper cases, the recipe says the mixture should make 12 cupcakes but I decided just to do 8 large ones.
5) Cook in a pre-heated oven at 180C for 18 minutes

For the icing, I adjusted the amounts a bit as the recipe makes 12 cupcakes, as I had only eight, I weight out 50g of icing sugar and added the lemon juice gradually. When making the icing, it is best to add in the lemon juice gradually as if you add too much it goes EXTREMELY runny!

The original recipe for the icing is:
1) 150g icing sugar, sifted. Although I usually don't bother sifting, just break any lumps up with a spoon!
2) 1-1 and a half tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Mix in the lemon juice gradually bit by bit into the icing sugar until you get a smooth consistancy which is 'spoonable' but not too runny. Then spoon icing onto cakes.

An introduction

Hello!

And welcome to my blog.

This is my second blog, my other blog is Beatrix and Me which is dedicated to my cycling adventures. Although, I'm a cyclist I've discovered that I don't really have much to say on the matter hence the reason I set up this blog.

My love of baking developed just over a year ago. I'd bought a book on cupcakes that had been sat on my shelf gathering dust and then on one dull Saturday morning I decided to put it to use and have never looked back!

The name of my blog was inspired by a good friend who gave me the nickname of 'Amycakes' way before I became obsessed with cakes.

I mainly bake cupcakes, but occasionally bake cookies that turn out more like slab cakes due to the expansion process in the oven...

I'm also getting into cooking more savory items so future blogs may include this as well.

Enjoy

Amycakes