Cute little cupcakes

I don’t think I’d baked any cupcakes or anything cake-like this year…. (except my MIL’s birthday cake which I’ll have to post about!)…. so I thought MiniObsi and I could bake some cupcakes and ice them (normally if I make cupcakes, it’s for her school snacks and I don’t ice them – coz I’m a mean mum, and she doesn’t like the frosting anyway :P)

MiniObsi wanted them to be pink, with strawberry icing and sprinkles.  We couldn’t decide what size to make – normal size, small or teeny tiny, so we made some of each.

The tiny ones are *tiny* – this is one in a teaspoon 😀

They are sooo cute!

Cupcakes

I caught up with some friends, and thought I’d make some cupcakes.

Purple Carrot (with cinnamon, clove & cardamon), with purple carrot infused cream cheese frosting

Choc Vanilla (It was supposed to be marbelled, but I don’t know how marbelled they went – vanilla bean and grated white &  milk chocolate with choc/vanilla cream cheese frosting

Lemon & Coconut – Slightly lemony cakes with a coating of lemon zest, coconut and sugar (on cream cheese frosting)

They went down well 😀

Purple cakes of WIN!

I’ve been a fan of purple carrots since I found them in my supermarket, but I was disappointed that when baked in a cake they seemed to go blue – I presume due to some chemical change  – I’ve read that you can make pink, purple and blue natural food colour by adding vinegar (pink) or baking soda (blue) to water that you’ve boiled purple cabbage in… So I’m presuming the baking soda in the flour is what makes the purple carrot go blue.

Anyway, last night I made some, and while they did initially go blue, this morning they were purple!  WOOT!

Also, delicious! (so recipe at the end)

In the bowl… lovely!

For once I didn’t alternate my cupcake cups and just put them in the pan in whatever order they were in the stack -it messes with my head not being in an even pattern (blue-pink-blue-pink-blue etc.), but I was in a hurry to bake them so I could go to bed.

Last night – blue 😦

Today, purple!

I should have used the same plate so you could tell it’s not just a platey affect making it seem more purpley.. I swear, it did actually change colour overnight!

Recipe… (of sorts)…

What I do is make my standard cake mix, and then just chuck extra stuff in, and adjust the moisture as required, so there is no set recipe as such…

Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar (I tend to use raw)
2 cups SR flour
2 eggs
Some milk *

2 purple carrots, grated
Some coconut
Some linseed meal (ground linseeds)
Some vanilla essence
Some ground cinnamon
Some ground cloves
Some ground nutmeg

* The recipe I got that basic mix recipe from said to use 1/2 a cup of milk but I find that’s not enough, so I just keep adding until it’s the right consistency.  You want it slightly firm, but not too dry.  So  in total I probably use about 1/3c maybe… for this cake though, with the added coconut and linseeds I used maybe 1 cup.

I actually use powdered milk for making cakes, coz it’s easy to keep powder on hand for cooking so you’re not using the drinking milk up…  I always just mix about 2tb of powder in with the water (or just pour some from the container into the cakemix :D), so it’s probably more creamy than using milk.

Method:
“Cream” the butter and sugar (mix those together until it goes pale and smooth), then add in one egg, beat that in, then add the other egg, beat that in.  Add 1 cup of flour and about 1/4 cup of milk, beat that well.  Then add the other cup of flour and 1/4 cup of milk, beat that in.  Add extra milk in if you need…

Then add in the grated carrot, about 1/2 cup of coconut, about 1/4 cup linseed meal (you could use the almond/linseed meal stuff instead), about a tb of cinnamon, about a tsp of cloves and maybe a teaspoon and a half of nutmeg – that’s really to taste, and I just shake the container in and guesstimate what will taste good 😀  And a splash of vanilla essence… perhaps a tablespoon?  Sometimes I use the natural vanilla extract which is stronger (and better), so I’d use less (maybe a teaspoon and a half?), sometimes I use the imitation stuff….

Add more milk as needed and mix it all up into a cakemixey type consistency… spoon into muffin cups, bake around 20-25 mins…  they are super yummy while still warm, but good cold too.

I never bother to ice cakes like this… so they become a sort of mini muffin.

Adventures with purple carrots.

I posted about my purple spring roll experiment here… but I’ve done some other things with purple carrots, I thought I’d share.

Purple carrots?  – yes!  Actually, purple was a “normal” colour for carrots, until we started growing only orange ones… they have been around probably longer than orange ones.  They just haven’t been as popular, and are now slowly coming back in.  They are supposedly higher in antioxidants and some other nutrients, and they are really cool.  Interestingly, they taste pretty much identical to an orange carrot!  The ones I’ve had were ever so slightly milder in taste than an orange one, but then orange carrots can vary wildly in taste anyway.  If you had your eyes closed, you’d never know you were eating a purple carrot instead of an orange one.

They are really dark, and look almost black, with a deep red tinge… but in food, and if you get them stain your white benchtops, they are definitely purple.

Since my vegie patch has been neglected for a looooooong time (and no, that’s not an euphemism :Þ), I’m at the mercy of my local supermarket, who has stocked them occasionally, and I buy heaps every time they do.  But you can get the seeds to grow your own.

My first experiment was the purple spring rolls… only because I’d bought like 8 purple carrots and no orange ones, so I thought I’d see how the purple ones went in spring rolls.  Not actually expecting them to colour the entire mix.

Then I thought – BRILLIANT! – If purple carrots make purple spring rolls, will purple carrots make a purple carrot cake?  Alas, no…  The carrot cake recipe I used had brown sugar and golden syrup in it, so the cakemix was brown…. adding the carrots into that made the uncooked mix a weird army green sort of colour, and when baked it looked just like a darker normal carrot cake.  😦

So then I thought perhaps I could get purple cakes if I grated purple carrots into a normal butter cake mix….  before baking, they were a pink colour….

After baking though, they go distinctly BLUE! – Cool, don’t get me wrong… but not purple 😦

I am assuming that the alkali of the baking soda in a cakemix turns the purple colour to blue – given that I’ve read a natural blue & purple food colour site that uses acid/alkali to change the colour.  Nevermind, they were cool anyway (and unlike a carrot cake, these tasted like a normal cake)

So then I wanted to see if I could make a shepherd’s pie look like a cupcake… by boiling some purple carrot with the potato, and piping that on.  However I added too much purple carrot, so it went a lot darker than I anticipated, and they didn’t mash as nicely as the potato, so I used a stab blender which changed the consistency of the mashed stuff (it went sort of goopy)… but anyway…  sadly, they went a sort of burgandy colour, rather than red… (though I did add a little cream cheese, which might have changed the ph?)… which went dark and even less appealing when cooked… but it was good for a test… next time I’ll add less carrot.

Also, pink lemonaid!

I boiled some carrot tops in the water/sugar mix for making lemonaid, knowing that the acid in the lemonjuice should turn it pink – and it did!

Rainbow cupcakes

I started a post about these but never finished, so here it is…  Horrifyingly brightly coloured, immensely cool rainbow cupcakes!

Start off by taking any normal cakemix, and dividing it into a few separate bowls.  Add some food colouring to each separate bowl.  I used red, blue, green, yellow and purple.  Purple is hard to get right though (tends to go greyish) .  You can use natural colouring, but it won’t be vibrant

Spoon about a teaspoonful or less of each colour into the patty pans so you have layers of colour…   then bake.  They can look incredibly cool like this before you even do anything else to them!

….becomes….

 

To do the multi-coloured piping, all you do is make 4 colours of frosting, and spoon each one into the 4 corners of a piping bag (not that a cone has corners, but you know what I mean)… there will be some blending, but try to keep the colours as separate as you can.

Then as you pipe it on, magic happens!

Ruby Cupcakes

It was my inlaws 50th Wedding anniversary last weekend, so I decided to make some cupcakes.  I wanted to try and make Red Velvet cupcakes but using raspberries in there as well to colour it more naturally.  it didn’t work 🙂  I had to add red colouring anyway… nevermind

But they were still pretty yummy… I drained a tin of raspberries and simmered the syrup to try and concentrate it a little more…. then I used a basic plain cupcake recipe, except I used half the amount of butter and added the mashed raspberries, and used the raspberry syrup with some milk powder instead of the milk….and I added some cocoa and red food colouring.

The icing was made with a bit of the reduced raspberry syrup too, and a little cocoa… and a fair amount of red colouring LOL.  I thought it was pretty yummy actually

I started icing them and then realised I didn’t have enough, so I went to just making smaller blobs…  but that was ok, I’d also run out of red muffin papers, so the red ones were larger and got fully piped icing, the smaller silver ones just got a hat 🙂

I even bought some (horrendously expensive and disappointly non-tasty) sprinkle stuff to go on top.

Cupcakes for mum

….if you look up “worse daughter ever” … my picture would appear…

I forgot mum’s birthday 😦

In my defence, I forget just about everything, and know when her birthday is (as in the date – I even know the year), it’s just that since I have no idea when today is… I have no reference point to know when things are (unless someone tells me – which is hubby’s job)… so I knew it was coming up, and had started thinking of gift ideas, but then the day came and went and ……..I’m a bad daughter……

Anyway…. so… what do you give the mum who has everything…. when you’re also apologising for being forgetful……Truth be told, I had been thinking of a big bucketful of homemade laundry detergent, but hubby tells me this is a crap present…. I thought it was practical, thoughtful and useful…. I guess I’ve become like my friend Sam who one year was thinking about giving me a pile of compost for my garden… a very thoughtful, very useful but perhaps a rather unorthodox gift 🙂 (she did instead bring cake, but that was more to do with the fact it’s hard to lug a pile of compost around on public transport)

So…I do still intend to make the detergent 😛 because I am a practical and unorthodox person… however it was decided something nicer was needed…I pondered long and hard.. and decided on……..cupcakes!

So this is what I made.

The cakes are all the Lesley’s cupcake mix (without lemon), using margarine because mum can’t have butter (I even made a special trip to the supermarket to get that – aren’t I thoughtful! :))…. using vanilla bean paste (so real vanilla, not just flavouring), with frosting made from margarine and icing sugar (again, no butter). For the pink ones I added a little food colouring and strawberry flavour, to give a hint of strawberry.

The back ones have icing flowers with purple sprinkles…. The middle row have the strawberry frosting and I tried out a new piping tip, which is weird…. I thought it would give nice complex swirls, but it just makes a tangles mess… so after testing it on a test cupcake and a piece of baking paper, I decided to just go with the squiggly tangled mess motif.. not too bad for my first go with it I think… Some have pink sprinkles. And the front row has grated cadbury chocolate 🙂 (is it just me, or does the chocolate taste different now in the cardboard packs? it’s harder, less creamy…and somehow different…)

I went to 3 different cupcake supplying places looking for inspiration…. The first I picked up the icing flowers and sun… the purple metallic cupcake papers.. and a bottle of purple crystal sprinkles… The second shop was not useful (it’s downsized it’s cake making section). The third shop was cool, I got the leaves there.

I was looking for something to transport them in (not really wanting to part with my beloved cupcake courier)…. and didn’t find anything… so then I decided to buy a gift box ($8)… and then I saw some aluminium foil muffin trays (2 for $2), so I thought I could create my own cupcake carrier with those in the box (they just needed a slight trim and covering in fabric/tissue paper).. thinking I was very clever. Which looks like this:

and then at the last cupcake shop I discovered the proper carry boxes for $2.50! bargain. so kicking myself for the box/tray idea, but nevermind. So now I know where to get boxes (they had different sized ones too), I might make cupcakes as gifts more often!

I think she liked them 🙂

Spirulina Icing

I know, sounds horrible, but I wanted to make naturally coloured icing, and it worked well (no change in flavour)

I just crushed up a couple of spirulina tablets and added it to the icing mixture.  So not only did it go green, but also good for you 🙂

Australia Day Cupcakes

I was feeling in the spirit of things, so I couldn’t just take plain cupcakes to an Australia Day BBQ… no…no…no!

Lemon cupcakes with lemon icing…. 2 colours… green and gold!!! (ok, more a “mint” and “lemon”…subtle colours, as I know some people don’t like bright coloured food)

I’d been dying to test out 2 colour icing for a while…. you just put one colour on one side of the bag, and the other colour on the other side. Its not as easy as it sounds though, as once you put one lot in, the bag wants to stick together, but I got the 2 colour effect I was after, so I was pleased.

The cake itself was marbelled green and gold… though this cake wasn’t a good example of the marbelling as it turns out.

I’m still a piping novice, and I was literally doing these before running out the door (already an hour late!)… so they are a bit rushed and not as neat as they could be.

Cupcakes & Christmas

This year I declared I would not use paper wrap. We do still have like 5 rolls left over from previous years, but I won’t be buying any more, and only 2 things were wrapped in paper this year. Everyone else got cloth wrappings!

See how pretty it all looked under the tree? I was hoping to get the wrappings back to reuse again, but some people wanted to keep them to reuse, so that’s good too. I’ll have to pick up more xmas fabric in the post-xmas sales.

And I made some festive mini cupcakes…. and carried them in MY NEW CUPCAKE COURIER! (yes, they are tiny ones, so they don’t fill the spaces)

Arty shot by hubby

And look what I got for Xmas….

A scarecrow! MiniObsi’s idea, made with help from her Daddy 🙂

(it even has cork earrings, a belt buckle and drawn on fingernails)

and my rose bush decided to grow a bunch of roses in the centre of the bush…. for some unknown reason…

And lastly…. Because I won the last round of cupcake competitions, I got to pick the next recipe. Chai Cupcakes!  (I did one half with vanilla frosting and half with the chai frosting, but we like the chai better)

Chai Latte Cupcakes
(Makes 24 large cupcakes)

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups milk
2 black (normal) tea bags
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
pinch of ground black pepper
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 3/4 cup castor sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla essence (or vanilla bean)
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 cups Plain flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour

Method:
1). In a saucepan, heat the milk until just before boiling. Add the teabags and spices (including the split vanilla bean if using this), cover and remove from heat. Allow to stand for 10 minutes, then give the milk a stir and remove the teabags, squeezing them to remove as much tea flavour as possible. (and remove and scrape the vanilla bean). Allow to cool. Measure out 1 1/4 cups of this, adding extra (plain) milk if some has evaporated off (I needed to add 2 tb).
2). Beat the sugar and butter until creamy. Add eggs. Sift together the baking powder, salt and flours.
3). Gradually add the spiced milk and sifted flour mix alternately, mixing well.
3). Spoon mixture into baking cases and bake at 190C for around 20 minutes, or until cakes are cooked (skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean). Allow to cool before icing.

~ If you would prefer to use Chai teabags instead of the spices, use 3 Chai teabags and do not use the spices or black teabag, however the result will not be the same flavour as using the spices. If you really like Chai, try the Chai frosting, or if you prefer something more subtle, perhaps a plain vanilla frosting. ~

Vanilla Chai Frosting:
100g softened butter
100g softened cream cheese
Whatever you need from 3 cups icing sugar)
1 tsp vanilla essence/paste (or 1 vanilla bean)
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

Beat butter and cream cheese together, then add spices, vanilla and enough icing sugar to make the right consistency. Halve the spices for a more subtle flavour.

Cupcake Challenge #2

This week’s Challenge was for “Red Velvet” cupcakes. I was going to substitute the food colour for beetroot juice or something natural (I was contemplating using my newly acquired dehydrator to make some powdered beetroot and raspberry red colouring)… but then I couldn’t be bothered, and wanted to make the cupcakes for a tuppercino 😉 so here they are.

I ended up using Donna’s leftover passionfruit frosting, because I’d left my icing sugar at home… but the passionfruit frosting was delicious (even if it was a bit sloopy because we watered it down a bit too much). I figured the cherries went well with the red cakes 🙂

Red Velvet cupcakes
INGREDIENTS
¾ cup butter, softened
1½ cups castor sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 Tbsp liquid red food color
2 tsp white vinegar
2 1/2 cups cake plain flour

Icing (optional)
2 bricks philly cream cheese, softened
½ cup butter, softened
1½ cups castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cupcake Challenge #1

OK, I’ve been bit by the cupcake bug 🙂 Seeing so many lovely cupcakes my friends are making, I wanted to join in, and now there is a weekly cupcake challenge, it’s incentive for me to get making (not that eating so many cupcakes should be encouraged!).

I didn’t have time to ice them properly (and no piping bag), so I mixed some icing sugar with some coconut and food colourings and flavours to make an interesting top…. Pink are rosewater flavoured, then lemon zest & lemon juice, Blue ones are lavender and vanilla flavoured and the orange ones have orange zest with a little flavouring & colour

A double-decker one just for fun

Then I bought a piping bag and made some vanilla and lavender frosting.

So this first week Challenge recipe was:

Lesley’s Vanilla Cupcakes

150gr butter (2/3c?)- room temperature
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups SR flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice
dash of vanilla extract /1 vanilla bean

Cream butter & sugar, add 1 egg, beat well then add the other egg, mix in lemon juice and vanilla, then add half the milk and flour, beat well then add remaining milk & flour. Beat until pale and creamy. Bake in a preheated 180C oven for 10-20 mins depending on size cake making.

Lesley’s frosting (optional)

250gr butter
1kg icing sugar

beat butter until smooth and then add icing sugar …..beat until smooth and fluffy