Inside the cake was what I normally bake when I am not sure of someone’s preference, layers of chocolate and vanilla cake with a chocolate buttercream.

panties

matching set

bad choice of icing color

bad choice of icing color

Click for bigger piccy

Unfortunately these look HIDEOUS in the pictures. They looked damn adorable on individual plates and I seem to have taken pics of the ugly ones haha.

Made dinner tonight to celebrate with family end of exams. Chicken paella wiuth chozorio and bacon *drooool* and tiramisu cupcakes. I think I got in everyones good books – Just as well because the whole creation session took hours lol! Once again this is another super long reciepe, infact much longer than the lemon meringue cupcakeys, because the assembly factor of these takes SOOOO long.

To be honest the inspiration for these comes from movenpick tiramisu icecream, possibly the best icecream flavour in the world. You can see the empty carton in the background of the finished pics hehe! The marscapone cream tastes just like the icecream and I ate waaay too much of it in the baking process! But it was totally worth it

Vanilla ButterCake
90g Softened Butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup self raising flour
2 tablespoons milk

1. Preheat oven to 160 (or 180 if you dont have a fan) and line 12 muffin cases
2. Beat all ingredients together on low speed until just combined, and then on high speed until batter changes to lighter colour.
3. Divide mixture into cases, smooth tops and bake for 15-20 minutes, turn onto wire rack to cool.
4. Make mascarpone cream & coffee mixture.

Mascarpone Cream
250g Mascarpone (this is actually a cheese, sometimes found in the cheese or sour cream section)
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon marsala ( i used port, with a similar result but I imagine marsala would be much much better)
3/4 cup / 180ml thickened cream, whipped

1. Combine mascarpone, icing sugar and marsala in bowl and fold in cream.

Coffee Mixture
2 tablespoon instant coffee granules
2/3 cup boiling water
4 tablespoons marsala (or 3 if you prefer)

1. Combine all in small bowl, cool.

Assembly
1. Remove cakes from cases. Take a cake and carefully cut horizontally into 4. I dunked each piece into the coffee mixture but you could brush it on if you wanted a less tiramisu-ey result.
2. Join the pieces with layers of mascarpone cream.
3. Spread the tops of the cakes with mascarpone cream and sprinkle with finely grated dark chocolate.
4. Refridgerate for 3 hours before serving.

Piccies (I need to refine my camera skills)

I made these for a very special 4 year old’s birthday I think they were pretty successful – well they looked cute anyway.

Still not happy with the chocolate base, this version adapted from Chokylit’s one, I found it had way to much sugar and something not quite right about the texture. Still they were cute. One thing to be careful of is how much you fill the cones. I filled mine up to different levels, about 2/3, and still most of them overflowed.
Chocolate Cupcakes

2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1-1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 eggs

1. measure out everything but the eggs into bowl
2. beat together until just mixed, then on high for about 2 minutes
3. add eggs, beat on high speed again for 2 minutes
4. pour batter into ice cream cones, leave a lot of space between batter and the top of the cone
7. bake at 180 for about 20 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean

Butter Cream Icing

125g softened butter
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
2 tablespoons milk

1. beat butter in small bowl until as white as possible
2. beat in sifted icing sugar and milk

Split icing and colour with cocoa and red food colouring, and leave some white. Decorate with choc hail, rainbow sprinkles, choc shavings and fondant

The cupcakes themselves were a major let down as they shrunk from the cases sooo much after cooled they were tiny. I need a good chocolate cupcake recipe please. However the stand out was the mocha buttercream/frosting.

Infact Jonno raved about it so much after I forced him to try it he started eating the leftover frosting out of the bowl!! Dangerous stuff. I have a whole bowl in the fridge Im hoping I will frost a cake for my friend Hong with the leftovers.

This is a basic, creamy, sweet but not tooth-achingly sweet buttercream. The espresso majorly cuts the sweetness down and turns this into an adult frosting, although i got major compliments from my 8 year old brother-in-law on them too

One stick of butter is 113 grams or half a cup or 8 tablespoons. I always have to google for this conversion, it seems americans do butter measurements in sticks. I’d love to see what a “stick” of butter is exactly

Laura’s Mocha Buttercream

This recipe makes AlOT. Enough for 36 generously frosted cupcakes. Make sure to sift all dry ingredients well before adding.

2 sticks / 16 tablespoons / 226 grams / 1 cup room temperate butter
8 to 10 cups sifted confectioners’ / icing sugar
2/3 to 1 cup sifted unsweetened natural cocoa
1 cup espresso
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat butter until soft and well beaten (preferably in a kitchenaid with the paddle attachment but I wont stop you from doing it in something else). Stop beating and add 2 cups of the icing sugar. Beat until smooth and well incorporated. Scrape down the bowl and paddle. Add all of the remaining ingedients gradually and process or beat until completely smooth and creamy. Add more sugar or coffee if necessary to bring the icing to spreading consistency.

You can make this a day in advance and keep it in the fridge, and bring to room temperature and re-beat it before using.

This is a very palatable smooth frosting and pipes extremely well with the wilton 1M star tip for cute cupcake spirals

Recipe, pics after the jump.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Jam filling
adapted from Vanilla Vanilla cupcakes from [ More From Magnolia ]

Makes about 12 cupcakes

1.5cups flour
1 cup sugar
1.5 teaspoon baking powder
.25 teaspoon salt
1 stick (113g) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 large eggs
.5 cup milk (I actually used rice milk but whole dairy milk is best)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Few drops of almond extract
A half jar of jam flavor of your choice

1. Preheat oven to 325°F (160°C). Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until just coated with flour.

2. In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, milk, and essences/extracts. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not over beat.

3. Fill liners 1/3 full then top with a teaspoon of jam. Fill until 2/3 fill with remaining batter. Bake, rotating pan halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.

To make frosting:

1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cup icing sugar
4 tblsp milk (once again I used rice milk but normal is better)
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 tsp raspberry essence

Beat butter and icing sugar together until mixed. Add other ingredients and if necessary more icing sugar to bring it to a pipeable consistency. Pipe onto cupcakes. Enjoy!

This is my second batch so I can pretty much guarantee that if you like coconut and dense cakes then you will like these. And cherries. I have more of a glace cherry addiction than I like to admit and nothing beats biting into what appears to be a plain cake and finding hidden whole glace cherries in there. Ohh baby.

More after the jump incl recipe + lotsa pics

(one with not so hidden cherries from my last batch)

190g flour
200g sugar
1tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
70g coconut (1 level cup)

125g cream cheese
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/4 cup juice or milk
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond essence (makes these so good!)
150-200g glace cherries

Beat all wet ingredients excluding cherries together. I use the kitchenaid for this or you could just use a bowl if you soften the cream cheese first.

Chuck all the dry ingredients on top and mix until no pockets of flour showing. Then add the cherries and mix through until everything is nice and even. Do not overmix!

Fill muffin cases or pans and bake at 200 degrees celcius for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned and firm in the center.

Now something is really wrong with my oven. These two were right in front of each other and the one closest to the door got crazy white and high.  Weird. Nothing like an oven from the 1940s or so lol..

recipe + pics after the jump…

100g Guylian seashells, chopped
100g Cadbury milk chocolate, chopped
170g unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/2 cups strong brewed coffee
5 tablespoons bourbon (preferably 80 proof)
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups high grade flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 140°C.
Prepare cupcake pans and one spring form pan (original recipe calls for 2 7 inch spring form pans, I used one and a tray of 12 cupcake pans).

Melt chocolates and butter with coffee in a big saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring constantly until smooth. Remove from heat and cool 10 minutes. Beat in bourbon, eggs, and vanilla. Sift in flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt and stir until batter is smooth (batter will be thin).

Divide batter between springform pans and cupcake tins (fill cupcakes first). Bake cake in middle of oven 1 to 1 1/4 hours, and cupcakes 30 mins or so. Watch carefully after 20. Remove from oven and cool in pans on racks 20 minutes.

The cake tasted much better than the cupcakes. I also iced with some really gross raspberry icing which I attempted to make red but never got there, and had some fresh raspberries beat into it.

i think there is some kind of link between baking/cupcake decorating/general awesomeness and being a female software engineer/programmer/real life girl geek. for my proof i bring you the all round greatness of:

hellonaomi
chockylit’s cupcake bake shop
the cupcake fairy

and im sure there are probably more. weird. very weird. anyone care to psychoanalyze?