Lemon Drizzle Fairy Cakes

To counteract the unsummery weather we've had recently I wanted to inject some sun into the kitchen. Lemon is one of my favourite ingredients in both sweet and savory cooking and decided to play around with my fête fairy cakes recipe. This time I swapped the custard powder for cornflour as I didn't want the vanilla to dominate, but still wanted to have the light fluffyness that both custard powder and cornflour give to a cake.

For baking these I used individual silicone cake cups and they are slightly bigger than traditional fairy cake cases, but not as big as cupcakes. To be honest these cases and a spatula are the only piece of silicone bakeware I would recommend. In my experience the other type of silicone bakeware just don't work, are a pain to transfer to the oven, nearly always still stick, don't keep their heat well, which inturn doesn't bake the food as well. For every other type of baking I stick to traditional metal pans.

I wanted to use the mini jelly lemon/orange slices I had seen for sale somewhere recently, but could I find them when I wanted them? nope. I remember when we used to get these fruit slices in our stocking at Christmas I deemed them as the height of sophisticaion. My perception of sophistication has changed somewhat since then. Instead of decorating them with the elusive lemon slices decided to decorate them with some of the lemon zest.

One of the first things given to me from my Mum for my kitchen was a citrus zester. At first I thought "what on earth would I do with a zester", but I can honestly say it is one of the best gadgets I own. Rather than the fine zest a grater produces it produces long ribbons of zest which is ideal for decorating. Plus I have less chance of adding part of my finger to the dish than I would with a Microplane. For a loaf version of this cake try Tara's Lemon Drizzle.

Lemon Drizzle Fairy Cakes
Makes 12

140g unsalted butter, softened
140g caster sugar
3 eggs
100g self-raising flour
25g cornflour
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
100g icing sugar, sifted

1) Preheat oven to 190oc. Arrange cake cases in fairy cake tin. Beat together butter and vanilla sugar then one by one beat in the eggs.

2) Into the bowl sift flour and cornflour then fold into the batter until ingredients are well combined. Stir in lemon zest. Half fill each cake case with the batter.

3) Bake for 15 min until risen and golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

4) Beat together icing sugar, lemon juice and boiling water until you have a smooth icing. Using a teaspoon drizzle the icing over the cakes then leave to set.

Strawberry Ice Cream Cupcakes

It's that time of year again when I break up for the summer holiday and celebrate my birthday. As Hubby & I have known each other for 9 years he knows exactly what I like. With the KitchenAid for my birthday last year and the trip to River Cottage for Christmas he outdid himself yet again this year with an iPhone for me. I've been talking about buying myself one for ages, but have been saving up. For my birthday I also got some beautiful flowers, lovely set of new saucepans (after the handles fell off my old ones), microplane grater, Lothian raspberry vodka from Demijohn and some other lovely foodie gifts. What you can't see in the photo above was that 3rd Birthday was the birthday I got a Fisher Price kitchen set for my birthday, a sign of things to come?

To celebrate my birthday we had a BBQ, something of which has come a bit of a tradition. Thankfully the rain held off and in amongst the various vegetables and raised beds we had a barbecued shoulder of hogget (sourced from a smallholding friend) along with some tomato focaccia, roasted new potatoes, beetroot hummus and salad.

For after the BBQ I made a peach melba jelly and also wanted a nostalgic cake. When I saw the Ice Cream Cupcakes on Mums Who Bake a few weeks back I knew they would be perfect. As a child I can remember how much I loved the marshmallow filled ice cream cones that were a treat and any trip to the seaside was incomplete without a Mr Whippy. As strawberries often featured in my childhood birthday cakes I wanted to add the pulp from the last few strawberries from the garden into the icing.



One thing about traditional cupcakes is that I'm not a big fan of buttercream as I find it too sweet, so decided to try a cream cheese frosting. Well, I have to say I'm converted to cream cheese icing. Although it doesn't last as long as buttercream and it isn't as stiff, it's not as sweet as buttercream and absolutely delicious. I could quite happily just eat the icing! I really enjoyed my making these cakes and I'm going to try and do more swirly icing on cakes now I've found an icing I like. Still need a bit more practice with the icing bag and I'm going to try and see if I can find bigger icing nozzles as the shops here have quite a limited selection.

One thing I did learn from this is don't overfill the ice cream cone or it will dramatically burst and dribble cake mix down the cone.

Strawberry Ice Cream Cupcakes
Makes 8-10

For the cakes
125g plain flour
125g vanilla sugar (or caster sugar)
125g softened butter
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1.5 tsp baking powder
8 flat bottomed ice cream cones

For the icing
240g cream cheese, cold from the fridge (it has to be the full fat version or it won't work)
80g softened butter
150g - 190g icing sugar (to taste)
the pulp of a few mashed strawberries
3 full sized flakes cut into 1/4

1) Preheat the oven to 180oc. Beat together the sugar, butter and eggs, then mix in the rest of the ingredients.

2) Line up the cones on a baking sheet. It does make it slightly easier if you put the cones in the cups of a bun pan.

3) Fill up the cones about 2/3 with cake mix. Don't overfill or they go everywhere! Bake in the oven for 15 min, or until they are golden and pass the skewer test. Allow to cool on a wire rack before icing.

4) Once the cakes have cooled beat together the butter and cream cheese then mix in the sieved icing sugar to taste. Fold in the strawberries then pipe onto the the cakes. Decorate with a flake.

5) If you want the icing to be a bit firmer, chill in the fridge for a few hours.

Fête Fairy Cakes

Today is fête day, but with storm clouds rumbling outside and showers of hail I'm seriously thinking it is going to be called off. Like all good fêtes we have a cake stall. As I'm renowned for my general cake geekiness I thought I should contribute to the cake stall. No nipping off to Tescos and trying to pass their cakes off as mine, for me!

I decided to make something that I haven't made in years. While cupcakes have been à la mode for the last few years I wanted to go English Old School and go for the cupcake's daintier, less ostentatious cousin - the humble fairy cake. Until I made this batch I had forgotten how much smaller the fairy cake is compared to a cupcake.

As I'm not a huge fan of icing at the best of times, though I love the look of big cupcake swirls, I wanted to use a thinner icing that could be brightly coloured with ease. This icing acts more like self-levelling concrete and hides all the cake imperfections and also can hide a cake if it hasn't risen as much as you hope. Frankly I wanted another excuse to play around with my new food dyes.

I found the animal decorations in the back of my baking cupboard. Hubby bought them when we attempted chocolate covered apples, but thankfully I found hundreds and thousands before we made them; and yes these sugar animals were still in date. Hopefully the cakes sell well and make some money.

There is a secret ingredient, well not so secret as I'm about to tell you, that goes into these cakes; and it's custard powder. The custard powder does 2 things. It makes the cakes fluffier as well as flavouring the sponge. Hubby tasted one of the cakes last night and spotted the subtle custard taste. I don't really use custard powder for making custard, I prefer proper custard or a tin of ambrosia (yes I know, but there is something very comforting about it!) and use it in baking more. If you have any custard powder you can use cornflour to help keep the cakes fluffy. Of course cornflour alone won't flavour the cakes so add some vanilla extract.

This recipe is based on a Good Food recipee, though I have altered the method and icing.

The storm is getting worse...I wonder if these cakes will end up on the staffroom coffee table tomorrow instead.

Fairy Cakes
makes around 20

140g unsalted butter, softened
140g caster sugar
3 eggs
100g self-raising flour
25g custard powder

for icing
200g icing sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp boiling water
food dye (optional)
sprinkles (optional)

1) Preheat oven to 190oc. Arrange cake cases in fairy cake tin. Beat together butter and sugar then one by one beat in the eggs.

2) Stir in flour and custard powder until ingredients are well combined. Half fill each fairy case with the batter. Don't over fill or you won't have room for the icing to puddle.

3) Bake for 15 min until risen and golden. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

4) Beat together icing sugar, lemon juice and boiling water until you have a smooth icing. Colour with dyes if wanted. Using a teaspoon slowly pour the icing on top of the cakes. You can guide the icing somewhat as to where you want it to go. Once you have finished icing, cover with sprinkles and leave for the icing to set.

The Fizzy Drink Cupcake Experiment

The 6 week holiday boredom has truly set in. So much so that my science geek side has emerged and I decided to do some experimenting in the kitchen. Proof I have officially lost the plot. This was all inspired by Cakespy's cake challenges and various recipes on Craftster.

After seeing Nigella's recipe for Coca-Coca cupcakes it got me wondering... Which fizzy drink makes the best cake?. Rather than the usual cola I decided to pick some truly British fizzy drinks - Tizer, Vimto (my personal favorite), Irn-Bru and Dandelion & Burdock.



I hasten to add this blog entry should also be entitled "How to make ugly cupcakes". The last time I made cakes looking so decidedly dodgy was when I was 8.


Method

I used the Nigella's coca-cola cake recipe but omitted the cocoa. To make enough for 4 sets of cakes, I doubled the recipe, then divided the cake mix by 4 before adding the various fizzy drink/butter mix. The icing was simply 110g of icing sugar for each flavour of cake mixed with 90ml of the fizzy drink.

I used paper cases as various recipes around the internet suggested that the cakes can go very sticky.

To make it a fair test all cakes were cooked for the same part of the oven for exactly the same amount of time. At the end of the 15 min all had passed the "skewer test"

Results

Resulted in an *cough* interesting mix of cakes some of which I certainly will not replicate again! Others however, with a bit of tweaking, could make good cakes.

Dandelion & Burdock



This drink makes me reminisce my childhood. The taste is unlike any other fizzy drink out there. In terms of cake baking it produced a fluffy well risen cake and you could certainly taste the D&B in both the cake and icing. The D&B tinted the cake and icing nicely.

Irn-Bru



Irn-Bru is one of those kind of drinks that you haven't a clue what it is meant to tastes like, but it's delicious especially with a bag of open chips from the chippy. It is also the unofficial national drink of Scotland. I didn't realise until I did this experiment that Irn-Bru has caffeine & quinine in it. Why you need quinine in Scotland is another question for another day.

Considering the amount of artificial flavours and colours in Irn-Bru it produced a so-so cake. Only a very slight colour change in the icing and cake. It just tasted sweet rather than Irn-Bruish. Not as fluffy as the D&B cake. It also had a slightly greasy texture.

Vimto



Vimto is my favourite fizzy drink of all time, it is also great in the cordial format. Never drunk it much as a child as I was always made to believe it was expensive! It made cakes with a pleasing purple hue and noticeable Vimto taste, however was almost verging on being too sweet. Like the D&B cake with a bit of tweaking it could make a nice cake. Didn't rise as well as D&B.

Tizer



Although they look like quaint little Bakewell Tarts , they turned out to be a bitter disappointment...where do I start. They have to be one of the worst cakes I have ever tasted. Cakes shouldn't have a chewy texture! Although they had passed the skewer test after cooking, they looked promising...until about a minute later when they just collapsed leaving a lovely crater for the icing to pool in. They also leached a load of grease while cooking. Euch. There was no change in colour of the cake or icing. Interestingly Tizer was the only drink that I experimented with that said "No artificial colours, sugars or flavourings" so I wonder if this had something to do with it.

The said cakes are now infusing the compost heap.

Conclusion

Dandelion & Burdock makes the best cake, as for Tizer, never again unless you want a chewy greasy mess.



Things I learnt while cooking the cakes:

* When the little old man in the Newsagents questions why you are buying so many crazy coloured fizzy drinks, don't admit to the fact you've lost the plot and want to cook cakes with them.

* I have a innate ability to make as much mess as possible while cooking. Cake mix down the washing machine? KitchinAid covered in cake mix? You name it, I can get cake mix on it.

* Cupcake cases are not a universal size, I must have picked up tiny ones and ended up with double the amount of cakes I had originally intended.

* The cake mixture is incredibly watery and it is easier to pour it from a jug rather than trying to spoon it in...yes I did try spooning it.

* Hubby does have the ability to be honest when it comes to my baking. I don't blame him as I thought the same!

Simnel loaf and cupcakes

In England it is traditional to make a simnel cake to celebrate Easter. Similar to a Christmas cake in that it is a spiced fruit cake. It features 11 balls of marzipan which represent the 12 apostles excluding Judas. The cake is thought to have been around since Medieval times and the name comes from the Latin simila meaning fine wheat flour.

Tradition dictates that it should be baked on Mothering Sunday by a daughter. If it is still moist when cut open on Easter Sunday it is a sign of a good cook (and potential wife!) As I only found this information out yesterday, and had missed Mothering Sunday I still decided to go ahead with it.

The original recipe for this Simnel Loaf cake featured in this months GFM, I made some alterations due to ingredients I had available. I also made my own marzipan, which is far better than any shop bought version. It is meant to make 1 2lb loaf, but I was left with loads of extra cake batter so made some simnel cupcakes to go with the loaf. It turned out beautifully moist, I'm glad it did or I would have been proved to be a shocking wife and cook! Method wise it is very similar to a Boiled Fruit Cake. Rather than the important 11 marzipan balls being on the top of the cake they are distributed throughout the cake, a bit like a stollen. You can use this recipe to make just simnel cupcakes (I guess this recipe will make about 18), use the same amounts. The cooking times for the cupcakes are below. I've entered the cakes in to Julia's Easter Cake Bake.

It's snowing here at the moment and we've been predicted heavy snow for tomorrow so we could be in for a white Easter.

Simnel Loaf and Cupcakes
Makes 1 2lb loaf and around 6 cupcakes

Marzipan
Makes 250g

125g ground almonds
60g icing sugar
1 tsp lemon juice
1 egg, beaten well (you won't use all of it)

1) Sift sugar into bowl then mix in almonds.

2) Add the lemon juice then the egg a tiny bit at a time. Beat to a firm paste then knead. It will end up having the texture of grainy dough. If it is too sticky add a bit more sugar and almonds. Wrap in clingfilm and chill in fridge while you prepare the rest of the cake.

Cake

140g unsalted butter, cubed
175g golden caster sugar
250ml orange juice
75g dried apricots, quartered
275g mixed fruit
220g glace cherries
200g marzipan (see above)
300g plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp mixed spice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
50g flaked almonds

Icing
1 egg white
250g icing sugar
50g marzipan

1) Preheat oven to 150oc. Line 2lb with baking parchment. Ensure it goes high up the sides as the cake will rise.

2) In a large saucepan slowly heat butter, sugar, orange juice, dried fruits until boiling. Simmer for 10 minutes then allow to cool for 15 min. While this is cooling shape the cake marzipan into 11 balls around 2cm across.

3) Sift flour, spice and baking powder into the pan, then stir in eggs and almonds until everything is well combined.

4) Spoon cake mix into tin until it is about half full. Arrange the marzipan balls evenly over the cake mix then cover with the remaining cake mix (don't over fill the tin). Smooth over the top. Bake loaf for 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 until a skewer will come out clean. Leave to cool in tin for 15 min, then remove and finish cooling on wire rack. Allow cake to cool fully before icing.

If cooking cupcakes bake for 30 minutes at 150oc.

5) Lightly whisk egg white then beat in icing sugar until you have thick spreadable icing. Spread over the top of cake. Roll remaining marzipan into balls and brown with a blow torch (you could do this under the grill). When the icing is almost set press the marzipan balls along the top.

Irish Mocha Cupcakes - Homage to the Baileys Blitz

The second item for my marathon "cheer up" baking session are Irish Mocha Cupcakes. These cupcakes are inspired by Sugar Plum's St Paddy's Day Pub Crawl Blogging Event and a coffee called a Baileys Blitz that fueled my university days. Baileys Blitz was a mocha coffee with a shot of Baileys topped with lashings of whipped cream and (rather randomly) maltesers....mmmmmmm..

In these cupcakes I've forgone the malteasers, but all the other ingredients are there in some form or another. I'm really pleased how well they turned out. Of course I had to "test" one of the cakes just to check they are fit for my workmates ;) The rich coffee chocolate sponge is complimented perfectly with the Baileys icing.

Irish Mocha Cupcakes
Makes 12

For the cupcakes
110g butter, softened
110g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
85g self-raising flour
30g cocoa
2-3 tbsp cold strong coffee

For the Baileys icing
210g icing sugar, sifted
95g butter, softened
2 tbsp Baileys

1) Preheat oven to 180oc. Cream butter and sugar together into light and fluffy. Stir in one egg at a time so they don't curdle.

2) Fold in sifted flour and cocoa, then stir in the coffee one tbsp at a time.

3) Spoon into cupcake cases then bake for 15 min. Allow to thoroughly cool before icing.

4) Beat all of the icing ingredients together. If the icing it too stiff add some more baileys, if it is too runny add a tiny bit more icing sugar. Ice cakes using a piping bag.

Rolo Cupcakes

As soon as I saw these beautiful cupcakes on Hannah's blog I knew I had to make them. I've never made, what I call, American Cupcakes with the swirls of buttercream on top before. I baked them in my silicone cupcake cases and they make things so much easier, I would highly recommend them for anyone who does baking. I used the last of my homemade butter to make both the cakes and the buttercream.

The cupcakes are a Valentines gift for Hubby. However to ensure they are edible I had to just taste test one of them, and I can say they are delicious! I wasn't able to get hold of any Valentines related sprinkles so had to make do with hundreds and thousands.

Two things I learnt while making these cakes:

1) Don't, on a whim, decide to use the old electric whisk that has been getting dusty in the cupboard since you received your all singing & dancing stick blender. The old whisk will only speed up and slow down on it's own accord and smell like burning plastic. The said whisk is now living at the bottom of the dustbin.

2) Hundreds & Thousands are called that for a reason. When sprinkling them on make sure you have something underneath with a lip to catch them or, like confetti, you'll be finding them for months to come. You wouldn't believe how far they roll.