Ferrero Rocher

Well that 'no baking' thing lasted a long time... My Mocha cakes were handed out here there and everywhere which meant my dad had no cakes to take to work and seeing as I read an article for my dissertation I felt like it was a necessity to bake some cakes! :)

My taster aka Dad had the first taste of these cakes and he said they were beautiful! Phew, it was a very made up recipe and the icing was a bit of a mish-mash but at least it paid off.

The cake is a chocolate sponge, I won't post about this as its in my previous posts. Once they had cooled I used my favorite cupcake tool (other than my Wilton 1m tip) to remove the centre and fill with chocolate spread. I use Antony Worrall Thompsons chocolate spread which is of course dairy free and tastes exactly, if not better than Nutella with one branched hazelnut in the middle.

Now for the frosting. I was planning on creating chocolate ganche but although there are some dairy free recipes out there they use coconut milk and I just didn't fancy using that. So instead I made a chocolate fudge frosting.

So to make this frosting you will need:

100grams of plain/milk chocolate

2 tablespoons of milk (soya milk )

50 grams of butter (Stork)

75 grams of icing sugar

Place the chocolate, milk and butter in a small saucepan and heat gently. Once all the chocolate and butter have melted remove from the heat and stir in the icing sugar until smooth.

I used a small star shaped nozzle to pipe the frosting and sprinkled with crushed hazlenuts :)

Mocha Cupcakes

Okay, I think this will be my last baking session for at least a week now. I feel like all I'm doing is taking photos of cakes and then writing about them, but as soon as they run out I bake a new batch for my dad to take to work, for family friends or for an occasion like yesterday so they are not going to waste or being made for no reason ;) ! 

Today I was supposed to focus on my dissertation *sigh*, although I have printed some journals so once I have completed this I will actually do some work for once, but baking is just that little bit more fun. 

The idea for today was to bake Coffee and Walnut cupcakes as they are my dads favourite but seeing as I'm aching from my little 5K run yesterday I couldn't be bothered to move and buy some walnuts, thus I just used cocoa powder with coffee to form Mocha Cupcakes!

The recipe is pretty simple and I never change the formula, just add and subtract flavours. So... I added Camp Coffee extract in with a dash of vanilla essence for the coffee flavouring to my basic cupcake recipe, subtracted around 40 grams of self raising flour and replaced with cocoa powder and voila! You have a chocolate and coffee cupcake. 

Now for the icing, I was going to do the two tone with a chocolate buttercream and a coffee buttercream but the colours just merged together so was pretty pointless. Therefore it is just a plain coffee buttercream (Butter, icing sugar & Coffee essence) with pipped melted dark chocolate. 

For all you coffee lovers out there and dairy eating people, I would replace the extract with some instant espresso coffee as it'll probably give you a much stronger flavour and drizzle milk chocolate over the top, but whatever floats your boat will do!

Lotsa love, Kathryn xx

Race for Life

Race for Life time tomorrow and for some silly reason that I know I'll regret in the morning I have not trained at all! Luckily its only a 5K run but I'll probably still feel like death afterwards! 

I baked some cute girly cupcakes for the event that have a pink sponge with some handmade flowers and vanilla butter cream :) 

Wish me luck xxx

Mint Chocolate Cupcakes

Hey'all :) 

I finally found some Peppermint Extract today, not that it was hard to find and bought some dairy free mint chocolates so all set for baking Mint Chocolate cupcakes! 

Step 1:

I began with my basic recipe, measuring the 3 eggs as per usual and weighing everything according to the sum of them (Butter, Flour and Caster Sugar). 

For the chocolate, I replaced around 50 grams of the self raising flour with cocoa powder, in addition to this 1/2 tsp of peppermint extract was added, not a lot as it can be very over powering and included 1/2 tsp of vanilla essence! :) 

Leave in a pre-heated over for 20-25 mins at 180 degrees C and voila! 

Step 2: 

For a few of the cakes I topped with chocolate spread that is of course dairy free, just to experiment. 

Antony Worrall Thompson Chocolate & Hazelnut Spread

Step 3: Icing! 

Recipe:

So I made two batches of icing; one chocolate and one mint. For the Chocolate Butter Cream I used Stork butter, mixed with icing sugar then a few tablespoons of cocoa powder and a dash of vanilla essence. My icing didn't go quite the dark shade of brown I liked so added a few drops of brown food colouring from the Wilton Gel colouring range so it didn't water down my icing. 

The mint icing is pretty simple, replace the vanilla essence with peppermint extract and a drop of green colouring! 

Step 4: Now for the best part... Two Tone Icing

Fill two disposable icing bags with the two icings, twist and snip the ends. In a 3rd icing bag with a nozzle place both your icing and pipe! It isn't that simple but once you have iced a few of your cakes it should work out! I topped mine with half a dairy free mint chocolate :) 

Sorry, this wasn't that well explained but Im sure you get the idea!

Much love, Kathryn x 

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Before I start I would like to just mention that even though I thought my lemon cheesecake cupcakes were a disaster, they actually taste surprisingly nice and I have been having one for breakfast every day since!

So, I was planning on creating Mint Chocolate Chip cakes today, however the peppermint essence I had in the cupboard expired in 2001 and Tesco did not sell it so instead I have baked Lemon Meringue with homemade Lemon Curd filling! Enjoy! 

Stage 1: Bake the Cupcakes

Recipe: 

As per usual, measure your 2 or 3 eggs. Beat the margarine and caster sugar (same weight as the eggs) together until smooth and add each egg one by one. Add a drop of vanilla essence and 2 tsp of lemon rind (around 1 lemon). 

Sieve in the self raising flour (also the same weight as the eggs) then place in the muffin cases and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees C for 20-25 until golden brown!

Step 2: Make the Lemon Curd

Recipe: 

You will need; 1 egg, 50 grams of stork/butter, 2 tsp of lemon rind, 60 ml of lemon juice and 100 grams of caster sugar. 

Combine ingredients into a small saucepan over low heat. Cook and stir for around 5 minutes until it has thickened and strain through a sieve. Place in a bowl with cling film over the top and cool in the fridge. 

 Step 3: Fill the cupcake

Once the cake and lemon curd have both cooled, using an apple core or a cupcake cutter, remove the center of the cake and fill with lemon curd. 

 Step 4: Make the Meringue

Recipe: 

You will need; 3 egg whites and 150 grams of sugar. 

Place the egg whites in a dry bowl ( I placed mine in the fridge to begin with) and whisk until firm peaks form. Add 1 dessert spoon of sugar at a time beating well in between. Spoon or pipe over the cake and transfer them onto a baking tray in a pre-heated grill until lightly golden brown. 

 Step 5: Decorate

I sprayed some Pearl Lustre Spray onto some cakes, whilst others I sprinkled fine yellow edible glitter!

Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes- FAIL.

As the post name suggests, these were an utter fail. For once I decided that it would be sensible to follow a recipe for a Lemon Cheesecake Cupcake as I wanted to know how people made them dairy free. Blergh, never again. I had to use Soya Cream Cheese and Trex, which is a block of vegetable fat to make the icing and put soya milk in with the cupcake mixture. 

I knew it would be a fail as soon as I put soya milk and lemon juice in with the cupcake mixture as I had never done this before and knowing me it would go completely wrong. Thinking positive I took them out of the oven, had they risen? no, are they golden? nope, more like burnt. 

Burnt cake with Lemon Marmalade 

I then opened the Soya cream cheese and not to my surprise it stank, mixed in with the cheese was Trex, soya margarine and as much icing sugar as possible to make the buttercream icing however it was still runny, by this time I had given up and piped the cakes. So here are my awful attempt at Dairy Free Lemon Cheesecake Cupcakes- using a recipe :(  

Sprinkled with a crumble mixture and Lemon Zest

Lesson learnt. Always stick to what you know. 

Peanut Butter & Jam Cupcakes

So today I decided to try and replicate my love for Peanut Butter & Jelly (Jam) in a cupcake form. This is probably an either love it or hate it cupcake but seeing as its my favourite spread on toast I went with it. Feel free to read how I made them, bare in mind I've yet to try one (however the frosting is amazing!)

Step 1: 

Bake 12 cupcakes in the oven at 180 degrees C for 20-25 mins until golden brown and have a springy feel when you touch them. 

Recipe: This is how all my cupcake recipes start

Measure 3 medium sized eggs and then measure the butter, self raising flour and caster sugar to the weight of those 3 eggs. Simple. 

Cream the butter (Pure Soya Margarine) and sugar together, then add the eggs one by one. Sieve and fold in the flour. 

I would add a few dashes of vanilla essence here however I didn't realise I ran out! 

Step 2:

 Once cooked and cooled, use either one of these cupcake cutters if you have one or an apple core to remove the centre of the cake. 

Stir some jam in a bowl till runny and smooth and pour into the hole till it is half full then insert back the cake. 

Step 3: Peanut Butter Icing! 

Recipe:

 I can't explain to you how bad I am with creating buttercream icing using measurements, instead its a taste and add job.

You will need: Organic Smooth Peanut Butter with No Added Sugar

Stork Butter Block

Icing Sugar

Using 3/4 of the blocked butter, cream until smooth then add a couple of tablespoons of Peanut Butter (or to taste). Once creamed together add the icing sugar and carefully mix together. I have never measured icing sugar before as it just goes everywhere so add quite a bit and mix until you get a nice texture that isn't too soft or too lumpy. 

Step 4: Decorate!

 I use the Wilton 1m Icing Tip to pipe with. Either pipe centre outwards to form a rose swirl or out inwards to form the typical cupcake swirl. Drizzle some jam over and add some crushed hazelnuts if you want :) 

And Voila

x

First Post - Piña Colada Cupcakes

So I've decided to create a new blog specifically designed to share my love for baking cupcakes.

Firstly seeing as I am Lactose Intolerant all my cupcakes are 100% lactose free & free from milk proteins and  secondly, I am no professional baker I just purely enjoy experimenting with cupcake recipes and designs. 

Enjoy :)  

x

Piña Colada Cupcakes with Malibu

Apologises in advance that there is no recipe for these as I didn't realise I was planning on making a blog until today, however I remember several important ingredients. 

  

• A Block of Creamed Coconut grated into the cake mix and over icing if desired
• 2 or more lime zests
• Brown Caster Sugar
• Dark Chocolate for Decoration
• & Malibu to drizzle over the cake once cooled :)

Lactose Intolerant: The secret for thick butter cream icing is to use Stork Butter Block which contains no milk ingredients unlike the tub.