Banana and Cinnamon Muffins

Hello!

It is that beautiful time of year when exams and final assigments worth far too much of one's final grade are quick around the corner. Now I tend to avoid the library at all times during this season, unless it is to deliver friday bakery almond croissants to a stressed out Alix. The idea of rushing stampeding to the library to get a special seat or a seat at all stresses me out. I therefore spend my study time at home where I am only metres away from my beloved kettle and box of tea bags. But for those of you who camp out at that crazy central, malicious med or scary science library you will be in need of soul comforting and brain fuelling snacks to get you through.

Back home, my Mum makes my brother big batches of chocolate muffins for his school lunches (yes my brother is 18). She wraps them up individually in glad wrap and pops them in the freezer so they stay fresh. I decided to do the same with these banana cinnamon muffins for when Alix begins her month long disappearing act. 

This recipe is relatively low fat and low sugar (as far as muffins are concerned anyway). They have the goodness of bananas in them too. When I was making these I ran out of plain flour so I substituted in some wholemeal flour, so there is a wee bit of fibre in there too. You could probably increase the amount to around half if you wanted to. I think I added 100g or so. I also didn't feel like buying buttermilk for the sole purpose of making these muffins. As a substitute I used low fat vanilla yoghurt mixed with a bit of milk. This gives both the acidity and texture you need. You could even add nuts or chocolate chips if you wanted. These ones are topped with sugar and cinnamon which gives them that amazing crunch to the top.

This is inspiring me to do an exam muffin series, haha maybe i'll do some delicious bran and fruit muffins next. 

I got this recipe from my Hummingbird bakery cookbook, it has a whole muffin section so there will definitely be more muffin posts. 

Now the method in the book said to beat everything, beat everything quite a lot. Now I don't know about you but when I was little and my Mum taught me to make muffins she said you need to mix the liquids and the dries separately. Then when you add them together only stir with a spoon as much as you need for everything to be combined (ie no flour pockets). When you over mix the muffin mixture the gluten becomes over worked and air pockets form in the finished product. I followed my own muffin making instinct and went with what my Mummy told me and they turned out just fine.

Banana and Cinnamon Muffins

(makes around 20 medium sized muffins)

350g plain flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon plus extra to sprinkle

160g castor sugar plus extra to sprinkle

375ml buttermilk (or 275g plain or vanilla yoghurt + 100ml milk)

1 egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

70g unsalted butter

400g mashed banana

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees bake.

Sieve together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar. Give it a stir to mix it all up then make a well in the centre. Set aside.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk (or yoghurt and milk), the melted butter, the vanilla and the mashed banana.

Pour this wet mixture into the well of the dry mixture. Using a wooden spoon, stir the batter until evenly combined and all flour pockets have been incorporated. Do not over mix or use a hand beater.

Line muffin trays with paper cases and spoon fill them until 3/4 full (I like that overhanging muffin top bit that goes nice and crunchy). Mix together some castor sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over the tops of the muffins.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the top springs back when pressed.

Wait a few minutes before eating them as I find the muffin tends to stick to the paper when they are too fresh out of the oven. 

Enjoy!

Sophie x

Snickerdoodles

Hi there!

This weekend I have been on my lonesome so I took to the kitchen and filled my days with trying out new types of cookies and biscuits.

To be honest I came home this evening feeling a bit useless at everything and so I sought therapy in the one thing I don't seem to suck at: baking.

Thank God for baking. Had I not possessed the ability to whip up half decent treats I probably would have sulked and moped on the couch all night watching gossip girl and eating a tonne of red liquorice. Then I would have felt bad because I am supposed to be on a diet. Then I probably would have gone on a guilt induced trip to the gym for the second time in a day.

 I was going to make oaty chocolate chip biscuits. But that would have involved going to the supermarket to buy chocolate (funnily enough I did end up at the supermarket to buy tuna where I bumped into Mel who I then followed to the library to see Bryn. Talk about a detour. Did I mention this was 10pm at night?)

Right where was I? Ah I opened my Hummingbird book to see if there was anything new and exciting to make when I stumbled across this snickerdoodle recipe.

I had heard of snickerdoodles before, from numerous American TV and movie references. I didn't actually have any idea what they were though.

Turns out they are a dense but fluffy vanilla biscuit with a hint of cinnamon, coated in a crust of more cinnamon and sugar to create a crunchy yet fluffy spicy biscuit. They are delicious.

When I looked at the recipe I had everything I needed already in my extensive baking cupboard. What is even better is that they only use 60g of butter, so they are sort of in the low fat department with only around 4g of butter per cookie (lets not get started on the sugar - lets assume you burn that off in an instant :)).

This recipe does call for cream of tartar, I know it is not something you use often but it is super cheap to buy and only use a couple of times. Cream of tartar, or potassium bitartrate acts as a stabilising agent and a crystal forming preventative agent. It also helps to activate baking soda in baking powder.


Right lets get onto the cookie making shall we?

Snickerdoodles
(from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 12-14

For the dough:

60g softened butter
160g caste
r sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg
240g plain flour
3/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the coating:
1 1/2 tablespoons caster sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon


Cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Add the egg and beat until the volume almost doubles.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, cream of tartar and cinnamon and add this to the egg mixture in around three lots, beating well after each addition. Mix well until the mixture becomes a thick dough.

Cover the bowl with glad wrap and leave to rest in the fridge for half an hour.

While the dough rests, preheat the oven to 170 degrees bake (150 if on fan bake).

Prepare the coating by mixing the caster sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl.

Once the dough is firm, roll into walnut sized balls then coat well with the cinnamon and sugar mix.

Place on a baking tray and press down slightly with the back of a spoon, just to flatten them into fat discs. Space the dough balls evenly with around 5cm between each ball.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until the cookies are a light golden colour.

Allow to cool slightly before munching down on them :)

I hope you enjoy these :) they are really easy, pretty much fool proof and are a nice crispy change from the usual bickie :)

Enjoy!

TTFN!
Sophie x

Sophie Attempts to Make Macarons for the Fourth Time and Succeeds. Finally.

yes well that was a long title. Aptly named I do think.

During the mid year holidays I took the time to try and make macarons. However, with reluctance I admit I failed. A few times. They turned out flat. and brown. and stuck to the paper. It brought me great sadness. I didn't know what I was doing wrong. The online blogs talk about this mysterious macronage or whatever the only problem is that they do not show you what the mixture is supposed to look like. Very frustrating.

Mini macaron!!!

Then my prayers were answered. By Rosie. Rosie at work showed me this excellent visual aid as to how to make macarons. It was a simple recipe, no tricky ingredients, no rain dances and voodoo dolls required in the method. With faith, I gave the recipe a go and much to my delight, out of the oven came beautiful wee shiny, un-cracked domes of footed excellence.

excuse the dirty oven door

Ok I tested a few to make sure they came off ok. I ended up cooking them for a wee while longer.

Oh what a nice foot you have!

It is here where I shall share this link with you today. I feel like such a resource should be shared with the world.

These macarons are very easy to make however you will definitely need an electric mixer (hand or stand is fine) to do this. You have to make a very stiff meringue.

All you need is:
4 large egg whites
1/3 cup castor sugar
food colouring
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 cup ground almonds
Icing for the centres.

See SUPER easy! :)

So here is the link to HowtoCookThat's Easy French Macaron Recipe and video tutorial. It is well worth the visit.

So this isn't really a how to of my own, its more of a check this out kinda thing. But regardless, take my word for it, these work out fantastically!

Presents!

TTFN!!

(Here is my first attempt back in the holidays. uugh haha)

Turkish Delight

Hi there,

As you may recall my last post on Turkish delight flavoured cupcakes. I bought a nice big bottle of rose water especially for them. They turned out so wonderfully and the flavour was amazing that I wanted to use my rose water for more goodness. The obvious choice was to make actual Turkish delight this time.

The smell of rose water reminds me of my first year of uni where I organised out hall ball. The theme was The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and the museum atrium was turned into the Ice Queen's kingdom. As those who are familiar with the book will know, it is here where the Ice Queen gave Edmund some Turkish delight. So in keeping with the theme of the ball, I ordered 20kg(!!!) of Turkish delight from the local Turkish kebab shop and with the help of a few friends we packaged it all up into tiny cellophane bags with pretty organza bows to place at everyones table setting. We spend a good three nights packaging the stuff up and at the end of each packing session we were covered head to toe in the corn flour-icing sugar mixture. Opening my bottle of rose water and taking a whiff brought me right back to those nights.

I wanted to make this the proper way, with corn flour instead of using gelatine as the gelling agent. It requires an electric beater and a candy thermometer and it helps if you have at least 3 hands. The recipe I found was off this website by Titli Nahaan; Titli's Busy Kitchen. She had a video tutorial which was really helpful as it allowed me to see the exact colour and consistency that my sugar syrup and corn flour gloop needed to be.

I think I needed to cook my starch a little longer has my finished product is very soft and sticky. It was a good first attempt though.

I am not going to even attempt to write down a method here, just use the link and watch her video. Its step by step and fool proof.

Here is what you will need for it:

800g white sugar
1 1/2 cups water
1 tablespoon lemon juice

120g corn flour (I used maize cornflour)
2 cups cold water
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Red/pink food colouring
1 tablespoon of rose water


The ingredients are really very simple. Use this tutorial here for excellent instructions :)

If this seems like too much effort and stickiness (trust me, things get very sticky!) then pop down to your local kebab shop or international isle and pick up a box of it. Nom nom nom. I think I might use some of the runty pieces (which there are lots of) and pop them into the inside of my next batch of Turkish delight cupcakes.

TTFN!

Rosey Turkish Delight Cupcakes

As mentioned in my last post (which I posted like an hour ago) I have had a rather cupcake oriented day. Yes an hour later I am still in my pajamas. Yes it it 4pm on a Sunday. This is bad. Really bad. It's almost dinner time. For the record I did get up at 8am.

I had too many cupcake flavours that I wanted to try out at once. So I used Chris' thank you party for his helpers for the Cystic Fibrosis NZ street collection he organised to try two of them out.

The first one was the banoffee cupcakes and the second ones are these rose cupcakes. The recipe says they are rose but because they use rose water, just like Turkish delight, I associate them with being a Turkish delight flavour rather than a rose flavour.

I was really excited to buy some rose water, I found it in the international section of New World, City Centre. It was $8.99 for a 300ml bottle. A bit of a splurge if you are only just trying these out but I think it was well worth it. It lasts for ages and I plan on making Turkish delight in the holidays coming up. And once it is all gone you are left with a really really cool shaped bottle.

Flip I wish I could write essays as fast as I write blog posts.

This is really just a vanilla cupcake recipe that has two teaspoons of rose water added to the batter and 2 teaspoons added to the icing. Simple as!


Rose Cupcakes (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 12

40g butter, softened
140g castor sugar
120g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons rose water

Icing:
300g icing sugar
80g butter, softened
25ml whole milk
2 teaspoons rose water

A few drops of pink food colouring


Preheat the oven to 190 degrees bake (or 170 if your oven is fan forced). Line your muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat together your butter and sugar until all the butter lumps have been broken down and the consistency is even. Sieve in your flour and baking powder and beat until a sandy consistency is reached.

Add in your milk, vanilla and rose water, beat in. Next add your egg and beat until thick and smooth.

Fill your cupcake cases 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed.

Leave your cupcakes to cool a wee bit before transferring them to a cake rack or a clean tea towel.

Make sure your cupcakes are completely cold before you ice them. 

Icing:

Cream the butter and sugar together with the addition of the milk to loosen it up. You may need more milk or icing sugar if the icing isn't thin or thick enough. Add in your rose water and food colouring and beat until smooth and fluffy. Make sure your icing is relatively stiff, you don't want it slopping off your cupcake and making a mess.

Insert the icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle and swirl away! :)

Decorate with anything you wish :) I found those wee flowers at the supermarket.

Things got a bit messy after 50 cupcakes came through my kitchen

Tidy time I think

These cupcakes are amazing! If you love that amazing rose flavour of Turkish delight you won't be able to stop eating these :)

TTFN!!

Banoffee Cupcakes

Once again I am still in my pajamas at 3pm on a Sunday and the only think I have to show for myself are 50 or so cupcakes and 1000 extra words on my essay. You wouldn't have thought I got up at 8am would you?

So dearest Chris organises his friends together every year to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis New Zealand. As a thank you for everything I offered to make Chris some thank you cupcakes for a wee gathering to be held this evening. I made banoffee cupcakes (since he loves banana cake) and rose cupcakes which tasted a lot like rose Turkish delight as I was itching to try out the new rose water I bought a few days ago.

This post however will be on the banoffee ones. I'll post about the rose ones when I am not feeling so cupcaked out :S

Once again the dear old

Cake Days

book comes into play. It had a recipe for banoffee cupcakes with a caramel-whipped cream thing going on on top of them. To be honest I couldn't really be bothered putting on my face and putting on actual clothes to go down to the supermarket to buy the cream. So I just made a toffee icing like I did in my

sticky date toffee cupcakes

I made last weekend.

Remember that expensive issue I had with the

dulche de leche

? Well Linda at work said to try out Jamie Oliver's method of placing unopened tins of condensed milk in a full pot of simmering water for three hours, topping the water up when it goes down. I tried it out last night and boy did I get a pleasant surprise this morning when I opened up one of the tins! It was delicious! Sure three hours is a long time but I boiled up two tins, one for these cupcakes and one for next time. If you were super efficient you would put like five in at a time and leave them sitting on your shelf - after all you haven't opened them so they are still shelf stable.

Moment of truth!

Sweet mother of goodness!

Uugh I feel so sick. Too much icing has been consumed today and not enough actual food!

Don't let that put you off though, these are delicious. They comprise of a banana cake and caramel sponge with a sneaky dollop of caramel on top piled further with delicious toffee caramel icing :)

Don't kid yourself. The banana in these does not make these things the least bit healthy.

Give them a go, impress your mum and your friends when you show up with the most delicious treats out!

Banoffee Cupcakes

(adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days

 recipe)

Makes 12

40g butter, softened

140g castor sugar

120g plain flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

1/2 cup whole milk

100g mashed banana (about 3/4 of a large banana)

50g of dulche de leche  or the tinned condensed milk caramel

Icing:

300g icing sugar

80g butter, softened

25ml whole milk

100g tinned caramel

Splash of vanilla

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees bake (or 170 if your oven is fan forced). Line your muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat together your butter and sugar until all the butter lumps have been broken down and the consistency is even. Sieve in your flour and baking powder and beat until a sandy consistency is reached.

Add in your milk and vanilla, beat in. Next add your egg and beat until thick and smooth. 

Pop in your mashed banana and caramel and mix until evenly distributed.

Fill your cupcake cases 3/4 full (they tend to sink quite a bit when they cool) and bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed. 

Leave your cupcakes to cool a wee bit before transferring them to a cake rack or a clean tea towel. 

Make sure your cupcakes are completely cold before you ice them. 

Icing:

Cream the butter and sugar together with the addition of the milk to loosen it up. You may need more milk or icing sugar if the icing isn't thin or thick enough after you add the caramel. Add in your vanilla and caramel and beat until smooth and fluffy. Make sure your icing is relatively stiff, you don't want it slopping off your cupcake and making a mess.

Take the caramel and place a small blob (about 1/4 teaspoon) on each cupcake before you ice them.

Insert the icing into a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle and swirl away! :)

This is what a 1M nozzle looks like

Haha lucky is the person who gets this one :)

I think these are even better than the plain caramel cupcakes I did last week. Give them a go, you won't regret it :)

TTFN!!

Delicious oozing caramel :)

Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes

Hi there!

So I really should have been writing an essay this morning. I sort of did. Then I got distracted . . .

I know you guys must be sick of me going on about the Hummingbird Bakery. To be honest I am getting embarassed writing about it all the time. The problem is that their cupcake recipes are too good. They always work. Plus they don't use much butter so are really cheap and quick to whip up. Anyway on their website they post their weekly specials. This week they were running their milkshake and frappé inspired range of cupcakes. They listed the ingredients (not in quantities) and the strawberry ones just had some strawberry milkshake powder in addition to their usual ingredients. I assumed that they just added some of the powder to a standard vanilla recipe and some simple vanilla icing.

So I gave them a go. I used Hansells strawberry milkshake powder (it was the only one there apart from Nesquik) and put one tablespoon in with the milk then added that to the mix just as I usually would. I added one teaspoon to the icing.

The powder gave the cupcakes a pretty pink colour. Overall these are dead simple to make. I wish I had some candy straws to pop on the top though.

I think they turned out rather well, not that I actually got a whole one, only a wee nibble, I gave them all away :) From the nibble I did had they tasted really yummy and milky, just like strawberry milk funnily enough.

I used a 1M nozzle to ruffle the icing on like a frothy milkshake top :)


Strawberry Milkshake Cupcakes (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery Vanilla cupcake recipe)
Makes 12

40g butter, softened
140g castor sugar
120g flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
120ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon strawberry milkshake powder

Icing:
60g butter, softened
300g icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 teaspoons strawberry milkshake powder
3 tablespoons whole milk
A few drops of pink food colouring

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees on bake. Line a muffin tray with cupcake cases.

Beat with an electric beater the butter, sugar, sieved flour and baking powder until a fine sandy consistency is reached.

Add the milkshake powder, vanilla essence and egg to the milk, whisk until combined. Add this to the dry mixture, beat for a few minutes until smooth and slightly fluffy.

Fill each cupcake case two thirds full.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the sponge springs back when lightly pressed.

Leave cupcakes to cool completely before icing.

Trying to multi-task . . . failing

To make the icing, sieve the dry ingredients then beat everything together until smooth and fluffy. You want it so the icing forms fairly stiff pipe-able peaks that won't flip down when applied to the cupcake.

Put the icing in a piping bag with a 1M nozzle attached and swirl inwards starting from the outer edge. Sprinkle over whatever you fancy :)

All ready to go :)

I hope you enjoy these, super easy to make and a fun twist on the usual vanilla and strawberry :)

Byee!

My First Attempt at Whoopie Pies: Peanut butter and chocolate

Hello there.

Whoopie pies. Only recently have I heard of such a baked good. They are apparently comprised of two cakey blobs sandwiched together with fluffy frosting. They are commonly the size of small cheese burgers. Typical Americans continuously coming up with new ideas to become obese.

To celebrate my 10 00th view on my blog I decided to try something new. These whoopie pies in my Hummingbird Cake Days book looked delicious, almost comical in their perfectness. Unfortunately mine turned out a big more knobbly that they should have. Maybe I should have squished them down a bit, who knows?

I also found the mixture to be quite sticky, gummy and chewy, like the flour had been over mixed, like my overcooked mug brownies that stick to the roof of my mouth (not ideal). Oh well there is a first time for everything.

Once cooked (and popped in the fridge for a bit) they become quite fudgy. An unusual texture but I wouldn't say a bad one. I am actually rather enjoying this late night fat snack. Without the icing they wouldn't be so great though.

Whoopie pies are like really dense cakes, they use plain yoghurt and a wee bit of milk rather than mostly milk (like cupcakes). You also start off by beating the egg and sugar together, rather than the butter and sugar. What else is strange is that you add the butter melted, rather than softened. Quite a peculiar method to follow, but an easy one.

Cake Days says to use marshmallow fluff in the icing between the two pie pieces. Unfortunately I don't know where to get that in Dunedin and there is something about buying a can of marshmallow fluff that creeps me out a bit. Maybe its the thought of all the processing and additives that must be in it. I'm a food sci student, for additives to freak me out it must be pretty bad. Usually those sorts of products taste no where near as good as freshly made alternatives.

To compensate for my lack of fluff, I added a good hunk of butter as well as a nice heaped dessert spoon of crunchy peanut butter to the icing. The icing reminded me of the new Whittaker's peanut butter chocolate. That can't be a bad thing right?

I have not given up completely. Far from it. I shall try again! probably with a different flavour though. These will work for me! They will! For the mean time I shall use my food class to dispose of them tomorrow morning, hide all evidence that I failed!


Peanut Butter and Chocolate Whoopie Pies (adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days)
Makes 8-10 sandwiches

1 large egg
150g castor sugar
125g plain yoghurt (I just bought a single serve pottle from the supermarket for like $1)
25ml whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g melted butter
275g plain flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
60g crunchy peanut butter

Icing:
40g softened butter
2 ish cups icing sugar
25ml milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 dessert spoon peanut butter


Beat the egg and sugar together until thick and a very pale yellow colour.

In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, yoghurt and vanilla together. Pour this into the egg and sugar mix and beat well.

Pour in the melted butter then mix well again.

Sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa together. Add half of the dry ingredients into the wet mixture, beat well on a low speed until smooth then add the rest of the dry mix and beat again until smooth.

Add the peanut butter then mix through until evenly distributed.

Place the mix in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to cool down.

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees and line a baking tray with baking paper.

Once the batter is cool, roll into balls (mine weighed 40g each) place in the tray and flatten with your fingers. I should have done this step. Ahh hind sight, its a wonderful thing.

Bake for 10 minutes or until they spring back when lightly pressed. The dough is quite a dry mix and you definitely don't want to overcook these or else they will be horrid and dry.

Transfer the half whoopies onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Whilst they are cooling, beat your butter, milk and icing sugar well until light and fluffy. Add your peanut butter and continue to beat to regain the fluffiness. I found I had to add some more icing sugar to stiffen the icing up. If the icing is too soft the whoopie halves will slip off each other.

Transfer the icing into a piping bag with a large circular tip. Pipe the icing onto one half then sandwich another on top to make a sandwich. Unfortunately with sandwich biscuits as soon as all of them are stuck together the total yield of biscuits is halved, meaning they run out twice as fast!

Store these in an airtight container in the fridge to set the icing (or on the bench if your flat kitchen is cold enough).

I hope you enjoy, they do not taste bad at all. A little big for my liking (I feel like I have eaten a cake burger after only one).

Byeee!!!

Caramel Cupcakes: A rainy day treat

Good rainy evening!

Wow sure is pouring down out there in dear old Dunedin. There is something about wet miserable weather that gives me this sense of 'you can eat whatever the hell you like, the calories don't count; it's raining'. Do you guys get that?

Anyway I had some of the caramel I made for my sticky date cupcakes left over in the fridge as well as some left over icing. I had to use them up! Waste not, want not!

Ohhh guess what!!! Exciting!! Exciting!!! (No Alix, it's not Taylor Swift's new single). I bought the Hummingbird Bakery App! Now I can have my favourite baking cookbook permenantly in my pocket so I cant have easy access and impromptu baking sessions!

EXCIIITTTINNGGG!!! I reccommend you get it. It's super cool!!

Right, enough of that. It's cupcake time.

This recipe is basically just a plain vanilla recipe with the addition of caramel. The recipe says to use dulche de leche, a South American tinned caramel. Unfortunately that sells in the international isle at New World for $8.99. A bit out of range for a casual baking session. They also suggest normal tinned caramel as a substitute. I dunno about you but I find the highlander tinned condensed milk caramel a bit weird tasting. Jamie Oliver suggests placing tins of condensed milk, unopened, in a high sided pot filled with boiling water and leaving them to cook for three hours. Apparently this turns the condensed milk into a caramel. I am keen to try that. I didn't know this at the time I made my sticky date cupcakes so I just made up a normal caramel filling recipe that I use in my caramel slices, it's here under my sticky date cupcake post.


Caramel Cupcakes (Hummingbird Bakery's Cake Days book)
Makes 12-15

40g softened butter
140g castor sugar
120g sieved flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
75g (I sneakily used 100g) of dulche le leche or normal caramel

Icing
300g icing sugar, sieved
60g butter, softened
25ml whole milk
75g dulche de leche or caramel


Preheat the oven to 170 degrees, bake.

In a bowl, beat the butter, sugar, flour and baking powder together until it becomes a sandy consistency. Once all the lumps are removed, pour in the milk and vanilla and beat until smooth. Crack in the egg and beat until smooth and fluffy. Add the caramel and beat until incorporated.

Spoon into paper cases in a muffin tray until 2/3 full.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the tops are golden and the tops spring back when you press them. Leave them to cool slightly before turning out into a wire rack. Leave to cool completely before icing.

Beat the butter, sieved icing sugar and milk until light and fluffy. You may need to add more milk to smooth it out. Add the caramel and beat until smooth. I found I needed to add a bit more icing sugar to thicken it up. The caramel can cause it to become slightly sloppy and if you want to pipe it out nicely you need it to form really stiff peaks otherwise they will slop down.

Place a small spoon of caramel on each cupcake, pipe the icing using a 1M tip (or however you want) then drizzle over some more runny caramel or golden syrup. Nom nom nom.

I recommend you eat at least all of them instantly.

Excellent!

Happy rainy day!!

Sticky Date Toffee Cupcakes

Hi there!

So I got bored this afternoon and my baking itch wasn't satisfied with just the carrot cake I had made. I flipped through my Hummingbird Bakery Cakes Days book that Chris bought me (best present ever) and found this recipe for sticky date and caramel cupcakes. I was originally put off because they used this it called for an ingredient for dulche de leche, which is a South American tinned milk caramel. I found this at the Centre City New World but it was a hefty $8.99. Instead I bought a tin of condensed milk and made my own version on the stove top. (Right next to it, in the picture is the best lemon honey/curd you can buy in a jar! Aunty Von's, I highly recommend it).

I like sticky date pudding. I like it a lot. It is so moist and delicious, especially when drowned in caramel sauce and a bit dollop of sloppy whipped cream on top. As cupcakes, these are pretty close to the real deal. You include some of the caramel you made into the icing so the light and fluffy icing has a hint of caramel to it.

The other day I saw that you could buy caramel food flavouring in the baking isle now. That is pretty cool. If you were feeling a bit poor you could probably substitute the caramel in the icing for a few drops of essence. I might go and invest in some tomorrow.

What you cant substitute the essence for is the gooey layer of caramel that hides between the sponge and the icing. When you bite into it, it oozes outwards and all over the exposed sponge. Only one word can describe the deliciousness; NOMMMM.

Oh and if you want to make this even worse for you, top it all off with some pieces of caramel sprinkled over the top. It's worth it. I promise.

And just a special shout out to my brand new handbeater! Courtesy of Mum and Dad. I am sad to announce the passing of my dear old friend. He came to me second hand from my Mother and we had many happy memories together. Unfortunately he came to a very grinding halt. I shall miss him.

So anyway this is my new beater's maiden voyage :)

It's still so clean!


Hummingbird's Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

For the cupcake:
180g chopped dried dates
180 ml boiling water
80g unsalted butter, softened
150g soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
180g plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla essence


For the caramel:
375g (1 tin) condensed milk
50g butter, chopped into small pieces
4 tablespoons golden syrup

For the icing:
80g butter, softened
400g icing sugar, sieved
3 tablespoons whole milk
100g caramel or dulche de leche


Cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius on bake.

First soak the dates in the boiling water for 20 minutes (if you are impatient like me pop them in the microwave for 1 minute to help speed up the process).

Cream together the butter and sugar until pale brown in colour and fluffy in consistency.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well between each addition. Beat until the mixture roughly doubles in volume.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add this dry mix into the butter, sugar and egg mix in thirds, beating after each addition. Beat until the batter is smooth and even.

Add the vanilla to the water and date mix. Pour all of this into the rest of the mixture. Mix by hand until the dates and water are incorporated.

Line a muffin tray with cupcake cases and fill them 2/3 full.

Bake for 18 minutes or until they spring back when touched. Leave to cool slightly before turning out onto a wire rack or clean tea towel.

Caramel:
In a small saucepan, heat the condensed milk, butter and golden syrup together on a medium heat. Stirring regularly. Heat until the butter has melted and has been incorporated into the condensed milk. Keep heating and stirring until it turns a darker tan colour (a wee bit darker than the photo below) and becomes quite thick. Take it off the heat and leave it to cool.

Icing:
Cream the butter and a small amount of the sieved icing sugar. Keep adding icing sugar slowly, adding milk in between additions to moisten the mixture. If the mixture is too stiff, add a splash more milk. Add more icing sugar if it is too sloppy. Next add the caramel.I found that after the addition of the caramel the icing becomes quite soft and a bit more icing sugar was needed to stiffen it up again. Beat until fluffy and smooth.

Place a small dollop of the left over caramel onto the top of each cupcake. Next place the icing into a piping bag fitted with a Wilton 1M tip (or equivalent). Starting at the outer edge, squeeze the piping bag and start and inward spiral, overlapping the previous circle ever so slightly. Swirl around and up, moving the nozzle up and down quickly at the top to release the peak from the nozzle. sprinkle over a few caramel pieces (I used jersey caramels) and you are good to go.

Do give these a go, they are not that difficult actually. A few components to think about but the left over jar of caramel sitting in our fridge is well worth the effort!

See you later! :)