Hey readers! It’s been a while since I last posted anything
about baking, and seeing as I’ve been doing quite a lot of that lately, I thought
I should put this up. I decided to bake something for my last day in music before
the exams and I realised that I should probably make a variety of things. But,
I didn’t really want to end up baking batches upon batches of different bakery
items so I figured that making a few cupcakes would be my best option. So, I
googled a plain cupcake recipe and edited a few things. I doubled the
ingredients and then added a few extras. What I ended up with was six plain
cupcakes, six with chocolate cream icing, nine with a chocolate centre and
three with a chocolate centre and chocolate cream icing. Ok, so not that varied
but they catered to everyone’s taste and it proves that you can take a plain
recipe and do whatever you want with it. So, here’s the recipe! It should make
around 24 cupcakes…
Ingredients:
·
250g butter softened
·
250g caster sugar
·
4 med eggs
·
250g self raising flour
·
Splash of milk
·
1tsp baking powder
·
1tsp vanilla essence
·
Chocolate spread (I used plain cheap stuff but
feel free to use nutella or whatever else you may prefer)
Utensils:
·
Seive
·
Large mixing bowl
·
Small mixing bowl
·
Glass bowl
·
Small sauce pan
·
Electric whisk (I didn’t use one and the recipe
takes up a lot of time and effort if you don’t have one, but if like me you
prefer baking without an electric whisk you’ll need a wooden spoon and a fork)
·
Set of Scales
·
Set of measuring spoons + teaspoons!
·
Cupcake cases
Method:
1.
Pre-heat the oven to 190c or gas mark 5
2.
Cream the butter and sugar together in the large
mixing bowl
3.
In the smaller mixing bowl whisk the eggs and
add the vanilla essence
4.
Sieve the flour and baking powder into the
butter mixture
5.
Fold in the eggs and add the milk
6.
Spoon in the amount of mixture you want to use
for plain cupcakes into the cupcake cases
7.
For chocolate middle cupcakes add one teaspoon
of mixture to case then make a hollow in mixture
8.
Next add a teaspoon of chocolate spread and cover
with another teaspoon of cupcake mixture making sure that no chocolate spread is left visible
9.
Put cakes into oven for 10-12 minutes.
10.
When done, leave to cool for a bit before transferring
them to a wire cooling rack.
For the Icing:
I found a recipe for the cream icing in a cookery book I own
and halved it. Feel free to use the normal amounts if you want to ice all of
your cupcakes…here’s my version:
1.
100g of whatever kind of chocolate you like
2.
100ml of double cream (a good low fat
alternative is Elmlea)
Method:
1.
Break chocolate into chunks and add to the bowl
and melt them over a pan of simmering water
2.
Take bowl off heat and let the chocolate cool
for about 5 minutes
3.
Stir in cream and leave in the fridge for a
further 5 minutes to thicken the mixture
4.
Ice your cupcakes! (but make sure the cakes are
completely cooled first. My advice would be to stick them in the fridge for a
while)
I’m happy to say that the cakes went down really well! I turned
up at school with three tubs full and came home with the tubs completely empty.
By the way, the chocolate spread cakes taste amazing when they’ve just come out
of the oven because the chocolate spread in the centre is melted and sooo good.
My advice is to leave a few of the chocolate spread cupcakes un-iced because
you can pop them in the microwave later on to warm them up so that the
chocolate spread goes runny again.
