Chocolate and Caramel Easter Nest Cupcakes

Warning – these are MOIST little buggers. They will sink in the middle, which makes it perfect for making caramel icing nests on top!

So, I was in London a few weeks ago and my culinary highlight of the trip was Violet Cakes in Hackney. They’d come under my radar before for their famous halva brownies. And then again when they were commissioned to make the royal wedding cake. I started following them on Instagram, and drooling.

So we went, we bought pretty much one of everything and chowed down. There is something bittersweet about eating baked goods that are SO MUCH BETTER than what you can whip up in your kitchen. But then I did get to eat the best vegan chocolate cake, cookie, brownie and cupcake that I’d ever had in my life. So I’m counting it as a reality check and an overall win. Because it was delicious.

The cupcake was a dense dark chocolate cake, covered with sweet salty caramel icing.

It was life changing.

My mum bought me the cookbook and I immediately went home to recreate it. I have tweaked the recipe sliiiightly, so mine came out a bit denser than hers. I will still probably play around with it a little more but it’s very yummy as is.

As it's Easter, I chucked some mini eggs on top and called it a day!

Birthday Cupcakes

Americans seem to love mixing sprinkles into cakes, so I thought I would give it a go. They call it funfetti but it just reminds me of birthday party food!

I love this, they look so fun and set up any table to look like a fun party. Got to love some hundreds and thousands. Note to self – buy some more sprinkles! I love the way they brighten up the simple icing, and I am going to start buying up some more variety.

I made these for my brother’s girlfriend’s birthday. She’s a big fan of Lilo and Stitch and so I made some cute cupcake toppers with Stitch stickers and toothpicks – Stich merchandise is niche so I didn’t expect to be able to find any ready made toppers. Really simple but really effective, I’ll be busting out my crafty side to do this again!

Spiced Festive Cupcakes

It’s the season where I add cinnamon and ginger and cloves to EVERYTHING. I have a little jar of spices I mixed together just for the wintery bakes (of course I do) and it comes in handy at times like this.

For the spice mix, I add together something roughly like 6 tbsp ground cinnamon, 2 tbsp ground cloves, 2 tsp ground nutmeg, 1 tbsp ground ginger, 2 bits of star anise, cinnamon bark and 6 cardamom pods into a small kilner jar. Then I mix it all together and use it throughout my Christmas bakes!

Whatever  you decide to use, these cupcakes are supremely delicious and you’re all welcome for this gorgeous recipe. I decided to ice them in a very festive way, with little wreaths and trees which are ridiculously simple to pipe (it’s just little splodges in shapes) and look (in my humble opinion) really cute!

Banoffee Cupcakes

I like to think that my blog reflects the current trends in my eating habits, I post what I’m making for dinner, and what sweet treats I bring in for work and for me things tend to go in themes. For example, I recently had a go at low carb, raw type cooking. I still do that, but not having been in the kitchen for ages, I stored up lots of recipes that I was dying to try, and they don’t fall into the healthy category. And with that in mind..

Banoffee is basically the best dessert in the world.

I don’t think any sane person would disagree with that. My only problem with it is the whipped cream. I hate cream. When I order it in a restaurant, I scrape the cream off (to my willing boyfriend’s plate!) and when I make it at home, I make a non-cream one for myself.

A quick note about caramel – I find it really difficult to make. So this is from a jar. It’s a great shame of mine (if you’re keeping count, I buy ready made mashed potato and ready made caramel, but NEVER ready made custard) but I’ve had to ditch tons of otherwise great bakes due to failed caramel, and I won’t have it happen again!

So, this is you basic banoffee flavours in cupcake form, you’ve got banana fairy cakes smothered in caramel buttercream and dotted with dark choc chips and tiny fudge pieces. The cupcakes are light and delicate with a lovely banana sweetness, and the buttercream is rich and creamy and basically amazing. I had like a tbsp. left over and just ate it directly from the piping bag. Unless that makes me sound gross, then I totally didn’t.

Ferrero Rocher Cupcakes

Oh my. Well, it’s January and everyone hates the world because it’s wet and cold and everyone’s attempting to diet.

And along I come with a cheery disposition and an armful of Ferrero Rocher cupcakes! The thing I love about these is that on the surface they look like the most luxurious, nutty chocolatey cupcakes.. And then you take a bite and there is even MORE deliciousness inside. It’s just over the top and vaguely unnecessary, and I love it.

Peek-a-boo!

So, I’ve seen these being bandied around the internet for a while now (interestingly not with recipes, most of them..), and it just felt rude not to make my own. I went with a cupcake mixture that was slightly more akin to a muffin, so that the Rocher wouldn’t sink too much and it would be a slightly firmer cake. Other ways I tried to keep the Rochers as high as possible in the muffin was to dredge in flour before adding, to make them a bit stickier.

For the finish, I just smothered them in a modified version of my chocolate fudge icing and topped the whole lot in a crunchy hazelnut praline.

Decadent, yes,  but utterly delicious. And everything is ok in moderation, so share these around.

Coconut Baby Shower Cupcakes

New year, new life.. And one of my friends is having a baby!

So, I decided to make a few little cupcakes for a mini baby shower. She doesn’t know what she’s having, therefore I decided to keep them very neutral, and I wanted a nice plain-coloured cupcake which still packed a lot of flavour.

Everyone knows I LOVE a bit of coconut, and coconut and jam are just best buds in my kitchen, so I did half little coconut cupcakes and half larger coconut muffins with a surprise jammy centre! These turned out sweet, super-duper coconutty and utterly gorgeous. I will make these a lot more.

Packaged up for transport!

Sidebar: because I am great at planning my life, the battery to my camera failed at the very end of this recipe, so the last few photos are courtesy of my nexus 5.

Cheeseburger Cupcakes

Ta-daaaaa!

I am a big fan of the TV show Bob’s Burgers. But, I prefer to bake. So this is my homage to Bob, who always names his burgers with a (sometimes cheesy) literary/pop culture reference.  

I have been wracking my brains trying to think of something clever to name these brownies as Bob would, and I can’t come up with ANYTHING. I am not creative. I have failed. Answers on a postcard.

I have another confession to make. I am kind of terrible at making things look pretty. I promise you, my food *tastes* great, but I can’t always get the cake to rise evenly, or ice things beautifully. My ganache always slips a bit, and my cupcakes always rise a bit too high in the centre. BUT! I wanted to give these a go. And I’m glad that I did, because I think they turned out pretty cool.

I already have great recipes for muffins and great recipes for brownies, so I have recycled those, if it aint broke don’t fix it.

Happy St Patrick's Day! Guinness Cupcakes

Ok, full disclosure: I DON’T LIKE GUINNESS. With that off my chest, I am happy to report that I LOVE these cupcakes. The Guinness flavour is there in the background, but it manifests itself in the most amazing way: transforming these cupcakes into rich, chocolately, dense morsels with just a hint of spice in the background.

These are really moist little numbers, and the batter is quite thin therefore difficult to get neatly into the cupcake cases. Not that I’m overly concerned with being “neat” but I’ve found that ladling the mixture into the cases works much better than the traditional tablespoon method.

Despite not liking Guinness, I am still Irish, so I know how a pint of the dark stuff is meant to be pulled. Imagine my disgust when I was out at a gig the other day and saw Guinness being poured directly into the glass all at once. No resting time! No head! Needless to say, I was shocked on behalf of all Guinness drinkers everywhere.

But luckily you don’t have to know how to pull the perfect pint of Guinness to be able to make the perfect Guinness cupcake. Or else the barmaids of Newcastle would be out of luck.

Makes a little over a dozen

Super Chocolate-y Cupcakes

Caution: do not lick the screen. Just follow the recipe below and it will all be okay

The most chocolatey cupcakes you will ever eat. People love these, they really do. And it’s easy to see (and taste!) why. There is something about the age-old combination of chocolate on chocolate which just works. You can't explain that.

You will note that there is no butter, instead using oil and buttermilk, and this gives a rich and moist sponge base for the super-fudgy icing to be slathered ontop of. If you don’t have buttermilk don’t worry, I find that you can substitute this for the same amount of milk with one tbsp of lemon juice. Or failing that, you can use half milk and half yogurt to make up the desired amount. Regular milk won’t give you the same consistency.

This is one of my favourite things to bake because they always turn out spot on.

Vanilla sugar in the cutest dish ever