Tag Archives: cupcake

Oct29

Vanilla Cupcakes Gone Mad! – Monday Made

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“I hate the notion of a secret recipe. Recipes are by nature derivative and meant to be shared – that is how they improve, are changed, how new ideas are formed. To stop a recipe in it’s tracks, to label it “secret” just seems mean.”~Molly Wizenberg

 

This is my secret vanilla cupcake recipe. I guess now it is not so secret.

I like this recipe because it makes about 6-8 cupcakes. That’s a good thing for me because I can’t resist eating them when I they are in the house.

My son is the main inspiration for the extreme decadence in this particular cupcake expedition. First he wanted peanut butter frosting. Then saw a picture on Pinterest of a caramel filled cupcake and had the great idea to put a caramel (we had some chocolate eclair lollies at our house, but I think the most appropriate would have been a Jersey Caramel, actually) in each cake. Gooodness me!

Luckily I had the opportunity to spread the gluttony around and leave none of these in my home for me to get into.

What you need:

  • 3/4 cup S.R. FLour (I use unbleached flour)
  • 1/2 cup raw sugar
  • 1/2 tsp  baking powder
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/4 cup butter (I use salt reduced butter), softened
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp  vanilla extract

What to do:

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degC (160 fan-forced)
  2. Cream the butter, sugar and egg in an electric mixer. Then add the milk , salt and vanilla.
  3. Sift the flour and baking powder together and add the wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.
  4. Fill each cupcake paper about 2/3 full. It is at this point we put a caramel on top of each cake. You don’t need to cover it with cake batter. It sort of sinks as the cake cooks.
  5. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Keep checking them. Over cooked cupcakes are rather dry!!

You can find the peanut butter frosting we used here. You should definitely halve this recipe as it makes A LOT of frosting. Which is dangerous. Because it is insanely good.

Sep19

Tea, Cake & Endless Possibilites

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“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.”~Emily DIckinson

Every Wednesday my children happily spend the day at childcare.

I happily spend the day alone. Sometimes with friends, but usually alone. That’s what I like on a Wednesday.

I like to go for a jog and listen to music. I like to wander around the house with my water bottle afterwards doing stretches and just generally taking stock of the situation.

I like to have my shower and then spend a long time in my dressing gown putting on moisturizer and filing my nails.

I like to watch TV shows that I have taped that are completely not ok for children to watch (like Dexter or Deadwood).

I like to take photos. I like to spend uninterrupted time editing photos on my computer. Sometimes I do that while at my favourite cafe drinking coffee and eating eggs.

I like to get a lot done. I like to not get much done.

Basically, I like just doing whatever I feel like at the time.

Today I took some photos of a friend’s baby boy. I edited them and dropped off a disc of the images to their home.

I had lunch at a cafe, went to the butchers then went to the cake shop to get a cupcake to take home and savour while I watched the series final of Gilmore Girls and drink a pot of Strawberry Green Chai Tea.

Perfect. And there is still more day to go.

My Wednesdays are always full of endless possibilities.

May16

Gluten & Dairy Free Coconut Cupcakes – Monday Made

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More gluten-free stuff. My daughter seems to have out-grown her egg allergy, so there is one item off the banned list, but she still can’t tolerate gluten, dairy and soy. Soy is definitely the real killer here. It’s in all the gluten free breads and bread mixes. I HATE YOU SOY!!!

Not true, I love soy milk and tofu and soy sauce and miso paste and all kinds of soy products. I just wish Luci could too!!!

BACK ON TOPIC: This recipe is a pimped-out version of the Vanillla Muffins on the Orgran website (www.orgran.com). I use Orgran All Purpose GF flour, but I’m sure other GF flours would be just as good. I prefer vanilla extract to vanilla essence. It packs more of a punch. I would even suggest vanilla paste for even more vanilla punch!

The water measurements are a bit vague as the recipe really needs 500ml of liquids- that being made up of margarine, eggs, vanilla, coconut powder and warm water. The eggs are an unknown quantity, so I just want the entire lot to add up to 500ml. This requires you to use a measure jug with a capacity of at least 500ml and put in the melted butter, vanilla extract, eggs, coconut powder and THEN add some water to make it up to 500ml. You could leave the coconut powder out and use coconut cream instead of water, but I like the powder form as you can get a really intense coconut hit without adding lots of liquids.

I also added about 1/2 cup of craisens (you know, dried cranberries) to the batter and put a few on top for decoration. You could leave those out, or use other things. You could even put a little bit of jam in the middle and make a little jammy surprise centre!

Please check that ALL your ingredients are gluten free. You wouldn’t believe the places gluten can be hidden. In particular, check your cornflour, icing sugar and baking powder.

My buttery icing is only a guide, I’m guessing on the icing sugar amounts as I always add little bits more here and there to get the taste right for ME. If dairy is not a problem, I would use cream cheese instead of margarine.

Finally, I imagine this would make more than 12 regular cupcakes. Fill the cases 2/3, otherwise you will get overflow. I used a mixture of mini-cupcakes and slightly larger cupcake papers that stand alone without the tray. I don’t recommend these big ones. Well. Not filled right up, anyway. Ruins the cake to icing ration, if you ask me. Enjoy!

 

Dry ingredients

1 1/2 cups GF all purpose flour

4 tbs of cornflour

3 tbs of coconut milk powder

4 tsp baking powder

3/4 cup raw sugar

3 tbsp desiccated coconut

Wet ingredients

4 tbs melted dairy-free margarine (I use Nutlex)

2 eggs 1 generous tsp vanilla extract

2 tbs coconut milk powder

1 1/4 cups warm water (APPROXIMATELY)

“Buttery” Icing

2 cup or so Icing sugar

3 tbs Dairy-free margarine

3 tbs Coconut milk powder

2 tbs Lightly toasted desiccated (or shredded) coconut

Splash of water.

Dash of vanilla.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C (160 degrees C for fan forced)

Sift all flours, baking powder and coconut milk powder into a bowl with the sugar and desiccated coconut.

In a jug, mix the eggs, melted butter, vanilla and coconut powder then add warm water to make it up to 500ml.

Briefly mix the liquids and dry ingredients together (try not to beat for too long or too vigorously otherwise the rising agent will do it’s party trick before you go to bake!!) then spoon into cupcake patties.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until they spring back at touch.

Cool, ice and decorate as you please!!