Scarlett O'Hara cupcakes

I spend a lot of wasted valuable time looking up cake recipes online and found an interesting one for mojito cocktail cupcakes. This got me thinking about other possibilities for cocktail inspired cupcakes and led me to search for cocktails containing one of my favourite drinks southern comfort. The one that spiked my interest was the Scarlett O'Hara which is lime, cranberry juice and southern comfort.

Source

There were many different possibilities for making these but I finally decided on a lime infused cupcake with cranberry filling and a southern comfort butter icing. This was a bit of an experiment and could have gone horribly wrong. Overall I think it worked really well. The cranberry sauce did sink to the bottom of the cupcake but I don't think it's a big problem, the flavour was still great. I wrote the method as I did it but you might want to leave the filling until after the cupcake is cooked. Once cool cut a small hole in the top, place a teaspoon of sauce into the cake and replace the top.

I am not a big fan of the large amount of butter icing that is traditionally put on cupcakes. I find it can get a little sickly. Therefore I tend to just add a thin layer. If you would rather be more generous with the icing then you might want to double the butter cream ingredients.

Cupcakes (Makes 6-8 cupcakes)
35g unsalted butter
105g plain flour

125g caster sugar
tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
105ml whole milk
1 large egg
6-8 tsp cranberry sauce

zest and juice of 1 lime
2 tbsp southern comfort

Butter icing
60g butter softened
120g icing sugar
1 tbsp southern comfort

-Preheat the oven to 170  °C and place cupcake cases on a tray. Use an electric mixer to combine the butter, flour, baking powder and sugar to form a breadcrumb like consistency. 

-In a separate bowl mix together the egg milk and the juice and zest from 1/2 of the lime.

-Pour the wet ingredients into the dry gradually mixing well between each addition. 

-Fill the cupcake cases to half way, add a teaspoon of cranberry sauce to each. Top with the remain mix so they are 3/4 full. 

-Bake for 20-25 minutes.

-Once cool brush over the southern comfort and a little lime juice from the left over lime. 

-For the butter icing use an electric mixer to blend the butter until it begins to get pale and fluffy. Gradually add the icing sugar mixing well. Finally add in the southern comfort and mix until smooth. 

-Spread the butter icing over the cakes and top with the remaining lime zest.

Thanks for reading x

Apple and sultana cake

This is from a Mary Berry recipe for Australian apple and raisin cake, but I replaced the raisins with sultanas. It fairly easy to make and contains no eggs, so good for those with allergies to them. I think it could also be easily adapted to be vegan if you replace the butter with a vegan friendly margarine spread.

Ingredients
1 large cooking apple
100g butter/margarine
100g light muscovado sugar
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
175g self raising flour
1 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
75g sultanas
Icing sugar for the top

Method
- Preheat the oven to 160 °C. Line the bottom of a loose bottomed 7" cake tin with baking sheet. Peel and core the apple before chopping it into chunks. Place in a pan with a little water and gently heat until the apple becomes tender. Break up the apple with a spoon, leaving some lumps and leave to cool.
- In a separate bowl mix the butter and the sugar together. Mix the bicarbonate of soda into the cooled apple before stirring into the butter and sugar mixture.
- Weight out the flour cocoa powder, nutmeg and cinnamon. Fold these dry ingredients and the sultanas into the wet mix. Pour into the cake tin and level the top. Place in the oven for 50-60 minutes.
-Allow to cool in the tin for 10-15 minutes before turning out and leaving to cool completely. Sprinkle the top with icing sugar.

This is a nice light cake. Next time I would add a little more cinnamon. The photo of the cake in the book looks much darker than mine so I wondered if their was an error and the cocoa powder should have been a tablespoon. I may try that if I make it again.

Thanks for reading x

Giant cupcake tutorial

I am not sure about calling this a tutorial as this my first attempt at a giant cupcake, but I thought I would share this anyway. I got a lot of inspiration and advice from the mycupcakeaddiction channel on youtube so please check them out here.

Firstly I made a chocolate cupcake mix for 24 cupcakes, I won't detail it here unless anyone wants to request it. Any cupcake recipe will work for this cake. I brought my giant silicone cupcake mould from hobbycraft. I think you can also buy similar moulds on ebay or many other sites. You can also buy giant cupcake tins where the bottom and top are connected together. I prefer the separate containers as I found the bottom mould required a good 10 minutes extra cooking time.

Preheat your oven to 175 °C. Spray your cupcake moulds with cooking spray or grease with butter. Take your mix and fill each mould about 2/3 of the way up. Pop in the oven for 40-50 minutes. I removed the top mould after 40 minutes and removed the bottom mould 10 minutes later. Check the cake is cooked all the way through by placing a skewer into the middle of the cake and making sure it comes out clean. I left them to cool for 30 minutes before carefully removing them from the moulds and placing them on a wire rack to finish cooling.

Next up I made a chocolate cupcake case for my cake, I got this idea from a mycupcakeaddiction video. I placed one melted 200g bar of bournville chocolate into my cleaned bottom mould and then used a spatula to coat the entire surface before placing the mould in the fridge. You can repeat the process again with more chocolate to make your chocolate case stronger and thicker but I found one layer was enough. I then carefully removed the case by slowly peeling the silicone mould downwards so you eventually turn it inside out. Once out you can sit it back in the mould while you assemble the cake and decorate, (it's easier to remove the second time).

Prepare some butter icing.

Butter icing ingredients

125g butter
400g icing sugar
3 tbs milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix the butter up with an electric mixer until it became pale and smooth then add the milk and vanilla before gradually adding the icing sugar while continuing to mix.

Once the cakes are completely cooled I used a bread knife to level the tops of the two sections so they are flat and the top of the giant cake can sit flat on the bottom section. I also removed approximately 1/2 cm all around the sides of the bottom cake. This allows the cake to fit into your chocolate cupcake case. I then cut the bottom cupcake into two in order to place a filling in the middle. I used a spatula to fill the chocolate cupcake case with butter icing and placed my first piece of cake into the case. I then used the spatula to add a thin layer of buttercream followed by some raspberries. I think cherries or strawberries would also work well with this cake. I then added the next piece of cake followed by the top piece of the cupcake. Then added a thin, even layer of butter cream all over the top of the cake.

The only thing left now is to decorate. I thought I would go with a simple swirly decoration using butter icing. I used a wilton 1M decorating tip.




After adding the buttercream I carefully removed the mould and viola one giant cupcake.

I thought it looked nice as it was but I tried adding some blue sprinkles and a wafer daisy which is pictured below.




For a first attempt at a giant cupcake I don't think it's too bad, the icing is a little messy but overall I am pleased. I hope my description made some sense! Do you like baking? What are your favourites?

Thanks for reading x