JJ's Birthday Cupcakes

If you're anything like me, you have about 10 blog posts half finished lying around. Whether the pictures are on flikr but the words aren't typed up, or the post is waiting to go but the pics are still sitting on my camera, there's a bunch of lost and lonely dishes just sitting there, waiting, gathering dust and probably not long for this world... (one day I'll have a sort out... One day. About 20 years from now).

Normally, the reason I forget is because whilst they were good, they weren't great. But then yesterday, I spotted that I'd totally forgotten to post these babies! And the 'not great' descirption definitely doesn't fit here. These were stunning. So here it is! The ever so slightly late post on JJ's birthday cake part deux.

Hands down, the best thing about birthdays is cake. And if you're JJ you get two birthday cakes! (well, birthday cupcakes and a birthday cake). When I asked him what cake he'd like this year to take into work, it didn't take him long to settle on cupcakes. I did mention that maybe these weren't the most masculine of choices, but he reasoned that now he's engaged, he's free to confess his love of cupcakes without any question marks over his masculinity.

And I did try and make them as manly as possible! Apparently it's the cake-to-icing ratio, ie lots of icing! I thought it was just me who had the monster sweet tooth, but apparently not...

Now, I find that you have to have a great cake and a great icing. One without the other = a sub par cupcake. So to make these puppies I did a little research and mixed two recipes - the Hummingbird Bakery chocolate cake base and the Primrose Bakery icing (both FANTASTIC cake books - the Hummingbird cake method intrigued me but the icing used cocoa not chocolate*, hence using the Primrose icing).

This was a genius combo and one I highly reccomend. As for the second birthday cake? Oh it was good. SO good. Check it out over here...

Rosy xx

Chocolate Cupcakes
Adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, makes about 12 English fairy cakes or 8 American cupcakes

Ingredients
100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
40g soft unsalted butter
120ml whole milk
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
 
Method
So the method is very different to how you'd normally make a cake but follow it to the letter and it'll work, I promise!
 
Preheat your oven to 170C and line a tin with cupcake cases.
 
Put the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. On a low speed, mix until it resembles sand. This took me a fair while, so have patience if it doesn't happen instantly! Of course, this could also be because my kitchen is currently freezing cold...
 
Whisk the egg, milk and vanilla extract together and mix half into the flour mixture. Beat on high speed until smooth. Then add the rest of the milk and give a quick mix to combine, trying not to overmix. (I've made these a few times now and I have to say, it works fine if you have the beater on, pour in the milk slowly and then give a quick beat for a few seconds to thoroughly combine)
 
And that's it! How easy is that?! Just fill your cases 2/3-3/4 full and pop them in the oven for 20-25 mins until springy and a skewer comes out clean. Cool completely before icing.
 
Chocolate Icing
Adapted from the Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery
 
175g dark chocolate, melted (go for a 70% cocoa solids one if you can)
225g unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tbsp milk at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
250g icing sugar, sifted
 
Melt the chocolate - any way you like! I use a pan of simmering water with a glass bowl over the top, but that's because our microwave exploded. But microwaves are great for melting chocolate - I was actually melting chocolate when ours exploded (not the cause - crappy old rental house microwave was the cause!). Anyway, melt the chocolate and then leave it to cool.
 
Beat together the butter, milk, vanilla and icing sugar. Add the melted chocolate and beat. You'll probably have to beat it for a good 5 or so mins to get the mixture to thicken but don't panic if it's not yet spreadable, just keep beating!
 
Spread on your cooled cupcakes and decorate as appropriate for your audience. I just attacked a bar of white chocolate with a potato peeler to get the curls.
 
Eat! And try to stop at 1 - I dare you...

*I've since tried the Hummingbird cookbook icing and it's also very good - less ganache and more buttercream.

Chocolate Brownies

Last night I needed brownies. Yes, there are some nights, especially around this time of year and with an impending wedding, that baked goods need to be frozen for a later date, but there are some nights when brownies are needed! And last night was one of those nights. I realised just how much I needed them when I was walking home from the supermarket and found myself praying - yes, actually asking the Lord himself - that the recipe wouldn't call for softened butter as I just simply couldn't wait that long.

And it didn't!! Aaahhh, melted butter, you are my saviour on cold winter nights when butter just won't come to room temperature fast enough and the microwave's exploded so I can't speed the process along...

I discovered David Lebovitz via the fabulous blogosphere and I love his blogs. I have to say his recipes are some of the most dependable around - always delicious! These were absolutely no excpetion to that rule. Brownies can be a tricky thing to master. Having read this article on what makes the perfect brownie, I was very pleased with the results but they lost out on speed and ease of baking. These, on the other hand, are wonderful. Moist, deeply chocolatey and just about as supernatural as a baked good can get! For the recipe, pop on over here and enjoy - although I'm sure it's VERY bad for my health that I have such a quick brownie recipe to hand...

Rosy xx

Ps the recipe actually says to leave the brownies overnight. Of course, I simply couldn't do that (who on earth has that kind of restraint?!) and they were great warm out of the oven with a dollop of cream... Ahem, please excuse the bite mark!

Butter Toffee Crunch

It's Sweet Melissa Sundays time again! On a Monday... There is a reason for this - the recent break in left us laptop-less at home so I have to be in the office to upload any photos. But normal business should resume soon.

Anyway, back to the more important subject of toffee!! Kaitlin from Kait's Plate picked this week's choice and I for one was really looking forward to making it. I'm organising our church christmas coffee morning this year and the plan is to have lots of crafty stalls with bits and pieces of christmassy goodies. So I thought that me and one of the Sweet Supper Club groups could make up lots of little bags of sweeties and gingerbread to sell. These were super easy to make and delicious so a definite addition to the stall! And super cute in their little bags, don't you think?

The only very minor modifications I made were using pecans on the base (but still almonds on the top) and I used granulated sugar rather than brown. I've heard that brown sugar is a lot harder to make caramel and toffee out of as the impurities in it tend to burn. I didn't want to risk it!

Many thanks to Kaitlin for hosting this week and check out her blog for the recipe and all the other bakers' blogs for their take on the toffee.

Rosy x

Chocolate Triple Layer Mousse Cake (aka heaven in chocolate moussey form)

Phew! Just had such an exhausting but lovely weekend – JJ and I were away at a friend’s wedding. So beautiful! I’m a little on the tired (ahem, hungover…) side, so I’m just going to launch right in to the recipes from Rachel’s tea. The tea went well – everything was ready on time and I was pleased with the results, although I changed my mind at the last minute and changed the biscuity things for raspberry buttermilk cake (absolutely yummy! One of my favourites) as I had a lot of excess raspberries from the individual pavlovas. These are the little cubes of cake you can see in this photo with the meringues.

The one item I was particularly chuffed with was the chocolate mousse cakes. So pretty! They are a time consuming, but trust me, so worth it! Incredible. And looked so impressive, don’t you think??

So to make these, I first made a chocolate cake base. The first version was a flourless chocolate cake, but yummy though it was, it proved wholely unsuitable as it crumbled when I attempted to transfer it to the pan I wanted to mould the mousse in. This did nothing for my stress levels as you can imagine!!

After having a cup of tea and pondering the problem, I decided that a chocolate roulade recipe would work as these are about the right depth for what I was after and, as they’re supposed to be rolled, would be able to withstand the transfer. And it worked beautifully! Once I’d made the base and allowed it to cool (under a tea towel as per the recipe – unusual but worked like a treat!) I lined a loose bottomed tin with cling film, with a large overhang so that it was easy to remove. I cut the cake to fit snugly into the bottom of the pan, filled with the dark chocolate mousse and chilled until the mousse was set.

I then made the white chocolate mousse and poured this on top of the dark chocolate mousse layer, carefully smoothing the top. After this was thoroughly chilled and well set, I made a simple chocolate ganache and poured a thin layer onto the top of the cake. Et voila! A highly luxurious, deeply chocolaty chocolate mousse layer cake. The only thing I didn’t quite master was cutting beautifully equal squares… Ah well, I shall have to practice!! I’m sure JJ won’t mind – he happily sat there scoffing the left overs!

Rosy xx

Chocolate Roulade
175g/6oz plain chocolate, broken into pieces

175g/6oz caster sugar

6 eggs, separated

2 level tbsp cocoa, sieved

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Lightly grease a Swiss roll tin and line with non-stick baking parchment, pushing it into the corners. Melt the chocolate slowly in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Allow to cool slightly.

Place the sugar and egg yolks in a bowl and whisk with an electric whisk on a high speed until light and creamy. Add the cooled chocolate and stir until evenly blended.Whisk the egg whites in a large mixing bowl until stiff but not dry. Stir a large spoonful of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture, mix gently and then fold in the remaining egg whites, then the cocoa. Pour into the prepared tin and gently level the surface. Bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until firm to the touch.

Remove the roulade from the oven, leave in the tin and place a cooling rack over the top of the cake, being careful not to touch the cake. Place a clean damp tea towel on top of the rack, and leave for several hours or overnight in a cool place - don't worry, it will sink slightly. (If the tea towel dries out, simply re-dampen it.)

Pate a bombe
180g Caster sugar
120ml water
6 egg yolks

Dissolve the sugar in the water in a pan. Bring to the boil. Boil until a sugar thermometer reads 120C or the liquid gets syrupy and the bubbles bigger. You could drop a teaspoonful of thickened syrup into a glass of ice-cold water; if it forms a small, soft ball it is ready. This should take approx 5-7 minutes of boiling.

Meanwhile, whisk the egg yolks with an electric mixer until creamy. Once the sugar syrup reaches temperature, remove from the heat at once. Turn the mixer onto slow and drizzle the sugar syrup into the yolks. Beat on full speed for 3-5 mins until you have a firm yellow foam. Remove and cool, whisking occasionally.

This freezes well and you can flavour the syrup by adding whatever you fancy (lemongrass, vanilla, cardamom) to the sugar and just removing before adding to the yolks.

Dark Chocolate Mousse
4 oz (110g) Pate a bombe
3 sheets gelatine
6 oz (165g) chocolate (70%), melted and cooled
16 oz (440g) double cream, whipped into soft peaks

Soften the gelatine in ice water for 5 minutes. Squeeze out excess water and mix with 2 Tbs of the heavy cream (it's ok if it's already whipped to soft peaks). Melt them together in the microwave for about 7 seconds. Add this mixture to the soft peak whipped cream and whisk together until mixed. But be careful not to overmix. Add the cream to the pate a bombe and fold. Add the melted and cooled chocolate to the base and fold. You’re your chosen container with mousse and pop in the fridge to set.
For the white chocolate mousse, just repeat the above with white chocolate rather than dark.