Oreo Cookie Cupcakes

Last week was my sisters birthday, which meant for me, I had an excuse to get out my baking gloves once again.

The cake recipe was taken from an incredible cook book, The Great British Bake Off - How to Bake and the icing was my own invention. I cannot recommend this book more! Every recipe works perfectly and I've made a fair few.

I started by making the cupcake itself, following the recipe for chocolate velvet cupcakes. You need: 175ml milk

100g dark chocolate

125g of caster sugar

60g of unsalted butter

1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 large egg - pre beaten

150g of self raising flour

Get all your ingredients together and your ready to begin

Start by preheating your oven to 180 degrees and then melt your chocolate in your milk on a low heat - stir it every so often to speed up the process.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually add your egg and vanilla extract(I like to add a tablespoon of flour at this point to prevent any curdling from happening).

Next slowly mix in a third of your chocolate, then a third of your flour, then a third of your chocolate (I'm sure you get the gist) until it's all mixed in.

Once it's all mixed in, spoon your mixture into cupcake cases and pop in your oven to bake for 15-20 minutes (mine came out perfect at 17 minutes exactly). They came out, beautiful and domed, smelling delicious. 

Next comes the fun part, or the not so fun part depending on how you view it. I actually mixed up a batch of icing and spend a good two hours practicing to be able to create a swirl I was happy with. It's still not perfect, and I definitely need more practice. 

To make your Oreo icing, you need:

600g of icing sugar

300g of butter

a dash of vanilla extract

12 oreos - middle removed

Put your oreo cookies in a bag and bash them till they're crumbed, then pop all the ingredients into a bowl and cream it until its all light and fluffy. Spoon into your piping bag, and ice away. 

Finally I added half an Oreo to each one and stuck a candle in the middle. My sister loved them and we took them to a friends house where they were promptly devoured, but those photos will be kept to myself. 

Let me know if you make these, I'd love to know how you got on!

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I love a good carrot cake so I’ve tried a few and while I don’t really want to oversell this, I think I’ve found the best recipe of the batch. A deliciously moist sponge with the perfect amount of spice interspersed with chunks of walnuts and pecans to add some depth to the texture.  I based my recipe on the one from the hummingbird bakery, but adjusted it slightly to make them spicier. Pecans and walnuts for extra flavor, and cupcakes because what could be better than your own mini cake. 

Just look at that perfect dome! 

To make your own you do need a whole host of ingredients; 300ml of vegetable oil, 3 eggs, 300grams of brown sugar, 300grams self raising flour, 1/2tsp of salt, 1tsp cinnamon, 1tsp of ginger, 1tsp of nutmeg, 1/2tsp of ground cloves, 1tsp vanilla essence. 300grams grated carrots, 75gr chopped pecans, 75 grams of chopped walnuts.  I managed to get 20 cupcakes out of this recipe.

Once you’ve gotten all of that together, you want to whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil until you have something that looks like this:

Make sure you’ve got plenty of air mixed in; it helps with the fluffiness of the cupcakes later on. Add all your dry ingredients to this, gently folding them into the mix. The batter will start to thicken up and be much nicer on the eyes. Finally, add your vanilla essence and you’re done.

Pour your mix into muffin trays filling them 2/3 of the way.  These rise beautifully so don’t over do it, bake for exactly 22 minutes at 170 degrees and finally you’ll be left with these. PS. Ignore the ones in the middle on the far right and left they were misbehaving.

Personally I think these are best straight from the oven, with a cup of tea. If you manage to have any left over by the time they’re cooled, cream cheese icing on top is pretty much the perfect pairing.

Check out these beauties : ) I took them to work the next day and they were demolished by 11am.