Raspberry White Chocolate and Peanut Butter Chocolate....

I've not blogged for over 2 weeks....really was starting to get bloggers guilt! But after the fiasco of a few weeks ago my heart really hasn't been in baking mode. Luckily I enjoyed the cupcakes I made yesterday SO MUCH that I've definitely got the bug back. :)

Also I joined the wonderful Baking Mad a few weeks ago and it turns out when I registered I entered a competition and won a copy of Home Bake by Eric Lanlard. I haven't made anything from it yet but the recipes look absolutely delicious!! I'd heartily recommend both the book and Baking Mad - their site is fantastic and has a great community of bakers.

Anyways onto the actual baking I made this week...

It was my aunt and uncles 50th birthday party last night and since I've got myself a bit of a reputation for making cupcakes for special events, I offered to make them cupcakes for their guests. I couldn't decide for a loooong time what kind I was going to make because I was given open choice to do whatever I liked (often a bad thing!) but ultimately settled on a batch of chocolate and peanut butter and a batch of raspberry jam and white chocolate.

The chocolate peanut butter was a mixture of the chocolate base recipe from Hummingbird's new Cake Days book and the peanut butter frosting was from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes. I was a little wary of the latter to be honest - there seemed to be a fair amount of cream in it and I was worried it wouldn't taste 'sticky' enough. Luckily I was wrong.

The chocolate bases from Cake Days were extremely easy to make. Brought together the butter, sugar, flour and cocoa powder to resemble breadcrumbs, then add the milk and egg which you've already whisked together. Easy peasy!

Like I said, I was a touch nervous with the frosting but I didn't need to be. Peanut butter, cream cheese, cream and icing sugar mixed together to create a frosting that tasted strongly of peanut butter (with that slightly salty taste) but not too 'lip smacking'!!

I was worried it was essentially going to taste as though they were smeared with peanut butter but luckily they worked really well.

Initially was going to top them with a slice of Snickers bar but in the end went for a peice of chocolate covered popcorn. It went really well with the flavours.

Next up was the raspberry and white chocolate cupcakes. The base and frosting was taken from the Primrose Bakery book which I always know I can have confidence in.

The bases were a straight vanilla base with goobers of raspberry jam swirled through. All extremely easy. Then once they were baked and cooled, I cored out the centre and added a dollop (official baking term) of raspberry jam inside and topped with white chocolate frosting. Their frosting recipe is normal vanilla with 100g of melted while chocolate added. The recipe also calls for 3tbsp of cream but I left it out, quite happy with the taste and consistency after adding just the chocolate.

After adding the jam I topped it with the frosting and a red fondant crown. Initially was going to put little 50s on them made from Candy Melts but decided to save that particular experiment for another day.

Took them to the party and they were really well received. In the early stages I was tempted to make Pina Colada cupcakes but then thought I'd end up just drinking the rest of the bottle and thought better of it!!

Would definitely use all the recipes again (particularly the peanut butter frosting) as they were all so easy to make.

Rose and Earl Grey Cupcakes

My friend make a request for some cupcakes - rose and earl grey. The base is a normal earl grey cupcake and the frosting has a light rose water scenting.

Unlike last weeks disasters, these turned out really well. Its absolutely the easiest kind of cupcake to make - boil some milk, pop in 4 teabags and let them simmer. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs, then add flour and milky tea. Viola! Recipe comes from the Primrose Bakery book which I really love. Ironically I was a little disappointed with the actual bakery when I went down to London, but the cupcakes that come from the book are fab. Its where I got my 'staple' recipes for lemon, rose and these. And those are three of my favourites.

Nearly ran out of frosting (it's meant to be spread on, not piped) but JUST got enough out the end of it. Phew! Its always a bit of a worry when you make coloured frosting because there's no way you'd ever get the colour to exactly match with another batch!!

Red Velvet Explosion

It doesn't always go right when I bake. I mean I have a pretty good idea when things are all going to pot, but this time I'm not even sure what I did wrong! But last night it certainly did....

My friend had asked me to make 20 red velvet cupcakes with white frosting for her son's birthday party. I used the recipe from Cake Days and doubled it. Hummingbird reckons the batch would result in 12-16 cupcakes so I make two batches together. Everything was fine until I added the cocoa powder/red colouring/vanilla to the mixture and it, uh, didnt mix.

It's a little difficult to see but there were specks of cocoa and red food colouring that didn't quite mix with the rest of it. I wasn't happy with it but thought I'd bung them into the oven to see if it would disperse when cooking and it may not be noticable. It was.

The little pockets of dye must have just exploded in the oven and resulted in a rather messy batch of cupcakes. I was really disappointed - mainly because I'd wasted 2x the ingredients for red velvet cupcakes and a good portion of my evening. I also discovered the old Kenwood Chef from the 50s might be great, but it's mix speeds of 'still' and 'fast' don't always cut it.

So I popped out to Tesco to buy more ingredients and started again. Except this time I just made one batch with the intention of doing the rest this morning.

Shockingly, the batch that was meant to make 12-16 actually resulted in 23!!

It looks a little bit like Heinz Tomato Soup but it can assure you it didn't taste that way!!

They came out the oven looking pretty good. A couple had 'bubbled' at the edge a little but they to tend to do that a little if you overfill the cases. I've adopted the method of using an ice cream scoop to make sure the sizes are consistent and it's really worked.

I waited this til morning to make the frosting as I like to frost them right after it's made. I used double the amount of vanilla frosting that the recipe calls for because I piped it on, rather than spreading it as they suggest. But that's what my friend wanted. :)

I'm not going to lie - I'm not keen on the frosting. I thought it looked a little amateur but there wasn't much I could do. I wasn't sure if it was the consistency of it or the fact I was using a new nozzle but I really didn't like the way they came out. My friend was pleased with them though when I delivered them today and they looked much better when displayed on the trays she picked out.

Just hope the birthday boy is pleased with them.

Cuckoo's Bakery in Edinburgh

Yesterday we went to Cuckoo's Bakery in Dundas Street because I've been wanting to try it for a while. I was told about them when their website went up and have looked over it since they opened on Valentines Day this year.

I absolutely loved how kitchy it was inside and how homely it all looked. The owner chatted to us for a while and explained it took a while to find the display case they use for their cupcakes but I'm glad they held out. Its a large haberdashery unit with glass to let you see the cupcakes inside.

The cupcakes were delicious too - I had an Elvis which was banana and chocolate chip base with a peanut butter frosting. Absolutely delicious.The cake was a touch denser than I was expecting but the peanut butter frosting was absolutely beautiful. There was a huge amount of choice on offer and I was very torn as to which cupcake to choose. Ultimately I brought home a Black Bottom Cupcake and  Red Velvet to munch on with my friend later.

We ate the 'leftover' cupcakes this morning after breakfast and were really impressed at how good they still were 24 hours after we bought them. The Black Bottom had the delicious surprise of gooey chocolate cream in the middle. Always a winner with me.

Needless to say, I loved their cupcakes at Cuckoo's Bakery. Easily the best cupcakes I've had from a bakery in Edinburgh and I'd heartily recommend them.

Vegan Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes

Tonight I tried a recipe from another book I bought this week called Cupcake Heaven. There's a section in there for healthy cupcakes. I didn't trust it to be healthy at first because it was surrounded by recipes for Caramalised Banana Split Cupcakes and Fudge Frosted Peanut Butter Cupcakes. Luckily.....I was proved very wrong and they've turned out delicious!

As they're vegan, they didn't include eggs, butter or milk - another thing that made me suspicious (I should say at this point I'm naturally cynical when it comes to things being called 'healthy', hence the blog...). I admit I didn't choose them because they were vegan, instead I just went through the book, looking at the Weight Watchers points and picking the recipes that actually looked tasty. Some plain flour, baking soda, cocoa powder, sugar, water, vegetable oil and white wine vinegar all bound together to make yummy cupcakes.

Possibly my favourite thing about the book though is that there are no airs and graces. None of this 'mix in a freestanding mixer with a paddle attachment' which any baker recognises as 'mix in a £350+ mixer'. I do have an old Kenwood Chef but am just as happy to mix things in a bowl, old fashioned like, so just did that in this case (was one less thing to wash too. ;)).

The mixture looked fab. Runny and the complete opposite to yesterdays 'lumps'! When baked they were a glorious dark brown colour and I just knew they were going to taste beautiful. I let them cool and made the frosting a few hours later. It was made by mixing vegetable oil, cocoa powder, boiling water and icing sugar which created a shiny and spreadable glossy frosting which spread really easily over the cupcakes. I'd be keen to make the same frosting for any chocolate cupcakes I make in the future - it would also go well on top of brownie.

Needless to say, they're delicious. I was a bit wary of continuing yesterday after neither recipe went flawlessly but these definitely smashed one out of the park.

Weight Watchers ProPoints: 6

Calories: 177