Cupcakes....

I was asked by a friend to prepare a selection of cupcakes as a birthday cake. Now as you may have gathered I am trying to make a break from cupcakes looking for 'the next big thing' in baking. However I have to confess there is much delight to be had in swirly technicolour icing and sprinkles so I set to on my task.
I stuck with a couple of old favourites - chocolate and lemon complete with swirly icing and was very pleased with the results, but as I've mentioned this is safe ground.
The third cake was my venture into the unknown - Carrot cake cupcakes. I decided to use my trusty carrot cake recipe and a lot of hoping that it would translate into mini form. I generally use this mix as a tray bake so I was concerned it would lose it's characteristic moistness through being placed in small cupcake portions. However (good old sneaky oil in cake mix...) this was not the case and they were just as moist as their tray bake brothers.

Icing these was simple - Cream cheese and the juice of an orange, as I would have done for a tray bake - but of course slightly stiffer in order to be able to pipe it.

The major downfall came with my enlightened idea of placing a wee mini royal icing carrot on the top of each...handmade of course by moi...first one - ah so cute. Second one - this is pleasant. Third one - Dear god...how many of these do I have to do...? One of those 'Seemed like a good idea before you started it' deals. Still, I was very pleased with the end results and it's definetly something I shall use again in the future!

Ravishing radishes

Just a little update on the shovels side of my blog...
Currently we're throwing just about every type of seed going at the ground in the hope that something will thrive and this ingenious technique is giving us a heady mix of success and heartache.
First the lows - Outdoor tomatoes...keeled over almost as soon as they looked at the ground.
Dwarf French beans...I gave these the benefit of the doubt and remained ever optimistic for a few weeks, ungrateful things went and died on me!!

Now for the highs - Firstly my darling daughter seems to have green fingers!! Her haphazard 'planting' has lead to pea plants which are stronger than those we put in as seedlings.
Secondly, despite a few loses, the cabbages, sprouts and broccoli are coming along beautifully.
And finally the piece de resistance....I am very very proud to announce.....we have actually had some produce from the allotment...the radishes came into ruby red victorious fruition!!!!!!
I have to confess to doing a little celebratory boogie I was so very excited! In fact so excited I made my darling children lovingly pluck them from the earth with me though Madam was less than impressed!
So here, of course, is the photographic evidence....

Another Whoopie adventure!

I've been so inspired by the cult of Whoopie that I've been carrying out my own experiments in an attempt to create 'the ultimate'. As the Whoopie is an American creation I thought I'd run with that theme and combine Whoopie with peanut butter.

To do this I took my regular Whoopie recipe, omitted the cocoa and replaced about 1/3rd of the butter with peanut butter. The result, though they look 'right' were just a little too dry. Whether this was down to cooking or lack of wet ingredients I'm not quite sure.
Also the glaze though it had the right consistency and 'look' lacked a slight tartness. I think, if I were to attempt these again I would replace my chocolate filling with a creme fraiche based one in order to add a zing and reduce the sweetness.

I've also considered changing the elements around - perhaps a chocolate Whoppie with peanut filling? Peanut with a chocolate glaze? Ahh...so many experiments still to be done!!

Pink and Sparkly....

A friend of mine recently gave me the above title as a brief for her daughter's first birthday cake. Uttering the words 'pink' and 'sparkly' to me is like holding the proverbial red rag to the bull. Three tiers and lots of glitter later I had created this....Three tiers of sponge layered with pink butter icing and piped with yet more butter icing complete with glitter and spray painted flowers.
Initially I was very happy with the results but then it began to lean to one side. I could have cried. I have drawn a few conclusions on the matter....Firstly - that a basic sponge recipe is too delicate to bear weight like this - I had added to this problem by dividing each tier into three. But my husband on seeing the cake said "Wow I love the lean" - he thought I'd been really clever and designed it that way....I knew there was a reason I married him.
Also I felt the flowers lacked a little vibrancy - This may seem as if I'm ripping myself to pieces but I am a perfectionist and also I need to learn from these errors in order to progress!

Anyway..after all the self-depreciation. My friend was ever so impressed and said that the cake was delicious which is of course the most important thing!!!

But of course you'll need filling with that....

To fill your Whoopies I suggest....

(Sufficient to fill the previously posted Whoopie recipe)

150g Philadelphia
150g Butter
10ml Vanilla icing
500g Icing sugar

Mix together either manually or using an electric mixer (remember to start off slowly to avoid icing sugar snow showers!!). Consistency should be creamy and thick enough to pipe.

A whoopie recipe!!

Alas this is not one of my own, but it is brilliant thus I shall share! This recipe came from 'The Times - The Table' Supplement a few weeks ago and is wonderful!

Ingredients:
115g Soft butter
200g Brown sugar
1 Egg
225ml Buttermilk (Or 225ml milk mixed with lemon juice..my sneaky tip)
60g Cocoa Powder
5g Bicarbonate of Soda
190g Plain flour
5ml Vanilla essence

Method:
* Preheat the oven to 200*C.
* Grease your baking trays / Use parchment.
* Cream together butter and sugar.
* Add the egg to the mix.
* Add the vanilla to the mix.
* Sift the dry ingredients - flour, cocoa and bicarbonate of soda - twice (Though I am not one for faffing this is well worth doing as it adds air to the mix and a lightness of texture).
* Add half the flour to the wet mixture (eggs etc.). Fold in lightly.
* Add half the buttermilk to the mixture. Fold in lightly.
* Add the remaining half of the flour to the mix. Fold in lightly.
* Add the remaining milk and fold in lightly. Your mix should resemble a very stiff sponge almost a cookie mix.
* Spoon the mixture onto a baking tray. For a biscuit sized Whoopie use a teaspoon and cook for 7 minutes. For a traditional burger sized Whoopie use a tablespoon and cook for 9 minutes (Cooking times may slightly vary with different ovens).

A FEW LITTLE HINTS:
* Work lightly with this mix as it shouldn't be overmixed.
* Use a large metal spoon to fold to avoid overmixing.
* It may seem there are a lot of steps but they are well worth following as there are hardly any mixing agents used and this adds air and lightness in their place.
* Take the time to 'quenelle' the Whoopie mixture onto the tray as otherwise they have a tendency to burn around the edges.

GO FORTH AND MAKE WHOOPIE!!

So I'm sure by this point you're wondering....

Where do the shovels come into it?
Well those would be used on our allotment. I'm hoping that with time my baking and the produce of the allotment will become inextricably linked. I'd like to imagine myself a little later making beautiful strawberry cream teas or butternut squash tarts...however the reality may be me weeping over a few limp stalks.

It's very very early days yet and very much trial and error. We spent our first full day there the other day and put in some seeds and seedlings. Seed wise we put in radishes and rainbow chard as these are both supposed to have a quick turnover. We put in peas, dwarf french beans, cabbages and sprouts in seedling form as well as a young blackcurrant and blueberry. We inherited a strawberry patch and millions of raspberries canes which was a bonus...

Very much wing and a prayer at the moment but I shall keep you all updated!!

A whoopie epiphany!

In the past few weeks I feel as if I've had a little light shone upon me from baking heaven.

First big realisation – To get ahead in baking it's all about your baking personnae. What do I mean by this? Well having had a little scoot around the web it appears that it's not all about bake and eat. No, no, no far from it. It's now about the minutiae of each bake – method, textures, colours. Followed by photography that 'Good Food' would be proud of.

Second realisation – The possibilities provided by wholemeal flour. Oh how I have dismissed it for being heavy before. My eyes were well and truly opened at a local food fair where a stall was selling their flour and demonstrating it's capabilities by offering beautiful light sponges. Also, not to be fickle but it ticks all the 'PC' boxes. It's local, it's organic and my goodness me I can even go gluten free!

Third realisation – The death of the cupcake and the 'Whoopie' rising phoenix like from it's ashes. Now for those of you not in the know a 'Whoopie' is a cookie/cake hybrid which had been living modestly in America until recently being brought to the dizzying heights of Harrods and Marks and Spencer. It's about hamburger sized and is filled generally with a marshmallow based icing. There is a lot of controversy as to whether or not they should be decorated with traditionalists saying they are beautiful in their natural state.

So what have I done with these little nuggets of knowledge I hear you ask (if you're still reading of course...).

Well...with regards the first...this looks rather like the beginning of a big and flashy food related blog to me...

The second remains to be fulfilled..mainly as noone has been tot hat part of the county in very recent times...but be assured I have a plethora of ideas at the ready!

Ahhh...the 'Whoopie'. I have made my own. Traditional chocolate based ones and British twist vanilla ones with jam and buttercream filling – an homage to the ubiquitous Victoria sponge.

These are far easier than their cupcake predecessors I have to say. The mix doesn't require careful creaming of ingredients, in fact, quite the opposite. Being as it has to retain a biscuit quality then the less mixing the better.

There is also no delicate placing into cases. I personally found they worked best when the spoonfuls of mix were shaped into a rounded quenelle using two spoons but this is easy peasy!

The speed of the cake gratification is also wonderful – ten minutes and they're cooked. A quick swirl of icing in the centre and they're decorated – genius.

Although.....having said that...I may have gone against the traditionalists....as you will see...there is a smidgen of pink icing on the vanilla Whoopies...and I also may have slipped with some sprinkles..

Now I shall leave you with, I hope, some fabulous chintzy photos of my efforts.....