Ren Behan - Author Wild Honey and Rye

Food Writer

Raspberries

A Posh Jubilee Trifle (or two) for the Forman and Field Bake Off!

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee weekend is getting closer and I’ve been getting creative in the kitchen with a lovely box of ingredients, sent to me by online British gourmet food specialists, Forman and Field . The chaps over at Forman and Field love a good party, so they challenged a fine group of bloggers to create “a fabulous, magical, celebratory and most importantly delicious cake or sweet treat in honour of Her Maj’s Jubilee.”

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Diddy Cinnamon and Philly Cupcakes

It’s not over yet, brace yourselves for more cupcakes in celebration of National Cupcake Week! My little boy finished his very first full day at school yesterday, so my little girl and I baked some cakes and prepared a little picnic for his return home.

 
We made these yummy mini cupcakes to a recipe sent to me by Melissa on behalf of Philadelphia. The original recipe uses caster sugar and the finely grated rind of an orange, but instead, I chose to use cinnamon sugar in the cake batter as I thought it would go well with the Philly cream cheese in the topping. If you don’t have cinnamon sugar just use plain caster sugar and add a teaspoon of cinnamon to your flour when it goes in.
 
Using little sweets is an easyway to decorate little cakes, we also sometimes use smarties.

They also look just as pretty without the sweets, but they aren’t nearly as much fun for little fingers who want to pick!

 
And, as I discovered myself with a nice cup of tea, the Philly frosting also paired well with a couple of late Autumn raspberries. Well, the first week of school was hard for me too!
 
 
A little thank you also goes to the lovely Zita of Zizi’s Adventures who very kindly gave me the two little place mats you see on the first photo when we met for the first time at Food Blogger Connect this summer.

 

Diddy Philly Cupcakes
Recipe courtesy of Philadelphia
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:
125 g butter or margarine
125 g caster sugar or cinnamon sugar
2 medium eggs
125 g self-raising
Finely grated rind of 1 orange
1 tbsp skimmed milk
150 g Philadelphia Light
50 g icing sugar
Some colourful cake decorations

 

Method:

1. Beat butter and caster sugar or cinnamon sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time then fold in the flour, orange rind and the milk.
2.Line mini muffin tin with mini cupcake cases. Spoon the mixture into the cases filling about half full. Bake at 180⁰C, Gas mark 4 for about 12-15 minutes or until golden and risen. Leave to cool.
3.Meanwhile make the frosting by beating the Philly and icing sugar together. When the cakes are completely cold, spread some Philly frosting over each of the cup cakes and decorate as liked.

 

Tips

This mixture may make as many as 36 mini cups cakes depending on their size or alternatively use the mixture to make around 12 usual size cup cakes. The larger cup cakes will take a few extra minutes to cook. Eat same day or store in the fridge over night. I got 24 mini cakes and 4 large cakes from the mixture.
If you don’t have cinnamon sugar, use caster sugar and add one teaspoon of cinnamon into the cake mix with the flour.
I mentioned in my previous cupcake post that a little tip I picked up on a course was to use a piping bag to pipe the batter into the cases – this is how your cases should look if you do this. Ensure that the piping bag just touches the centre of the case as you squirt a bit in…this amount per case will give you perfect little cupcakes ready to decorate.

Also…if you want flatter tops use margarine in place of butter.

If you have little helpers, they’ll prefer the option of just eating most of the mixture and making a mess with the rest! My little girl just swiped the packets of sweets and went to hide instead.


 
Have you been baking cupcakes this week? Is so, what’s your favourite flavour combination?
 
For more cupcake recipes, such as Mini Carrot Cupcakes, visit the Philly Site and look out for tips on the Philly Facebook Page!

 

Raspberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Easter is such a lovely time of year and it is made even better by this glorious weather. Not that you really want to be stuck in your kitchen, but if the urge takes you, here are some easy ideas for decorating Easter cupcakes.

These are white chocolate chip cupcakes filled with seedless raspberry jam, but you could use a chocolate recipe and just use mini eggs, Easter chicks and hundreds and thousands to decorate. Once baked, I used a teaspoon to scoop a bit of cake out from the middle and filled them with the jam, but lemon curd works really well too with white chocolate.
Easter Cupcakes
Easter Cupcakes
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Raspberry and White Chocolate Cupcakes

Prep

Cook

Total

Yield 12

Tasty cupcakes to make and decorate over Easter, filled with jam or lemon curd.

Ingredients

  • For the cupcakes
  • 375 g self-raising flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 120ml milk
  • 120ml vegetable or rapeseed oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla essence or extract
  • 115g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
  • 225g caster sugar
  • 3 eggs
  • 50g seedless jam or lemon curd
  • For the white chocolate buttercream
  • 50g white chocolate
  • 125g unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 250g icing sugar
  • 2 tablespoons of milk

Instructions

  1. Preheat the oven to 180C/160 fan/gas 5 and line a twelve-hole muffin tin with paper cases.
  2. Sieve the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl and leave to one side.
  3. Measure out the milk, oil and vanilla in a jug and also leave to one side.
  4. Whisk the butter and sugar in a mixer until very pale and creamy.
  5. Add the eggs one at a time and mix.
  6. Add the flour mix and milk/oil mix alternately to the mixer until it is combined - be careful not to over mix.Spoon into the paper cases.
  7. Bake for 20 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack.
  8. Once cooled, using a small spoon, scoop out a hole in the centre of the cupcakes and fill with jam or lemon curd.
  9. For the Buttercream
  10. Melt the white chocolate in a bowl in the microwave (for 30 seconds) or in a bowl over a pan of gently bubbling water. Leave to cool slightly.
  11. In a stand mixer, beat the butter until pale.
  12. Add the icing sugar a little at a time and beat again until smooth.
  13. Pour in the white chocolate a mix well.
  14. Add two tablespoons of milk to loosen the mixture a little if it is too thick.
  15. Pipe your buttercream onto your cooled cakes or spread on with a spatula. Decorate with chocolate mini eggs, chicks and hundreds and thousands.

Happy Easter!