Blood Orange & Poppy Seed Cupcakes

My love affair with Blood Oranges is still going quite strong.
I had a bag of 6 which had made it's way to the bottom of my fridge after I bought them many weeks ago and I thought it was about time I made something gorgeous with them.

And what gorgeous cupcakes these are! don't you think?



Now, down to the details. These little morsels consist of an orange and poppy seed cupcake, filled with blood orange curd and topped with mounds of luscious white chocolate swiss meringue buttercream and finished off with a candied slice of blood orange - AH-MAY-ZING!



I must say I am pretty proud of this little concoction as they look gorgeous and taste even better (if I do say so myself).



Orange & Poppy Seed Cupcakes
1/2 cup (113g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (130g) caster sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 blood orange (use regular orange if you prefer)
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 1/2 cups (195g) plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees and line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl whisk together the orange zest, flour, baking powder, poppy seeds and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full and bake for about 15 - 20 minutes or just until set and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Candied Blood Orange
1 cup water
1 cup sugar
2 blood oranges, thinly sliced

Bring water and sugar to boil in a heavy large skillet, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the orange slices to the pan, arranging in a single layer.

Reduce the heat to medium-low and barely simmer until the white pith of the orange becomes translucent, turning the slices occasionally, about 40 minutes. Allow the orange slices to cool in the syrup, turning occasionally.

Blood Orange Curd
1 blood orange (juice and zest)
½ lemon (juice only)
55g butter
110g caster sugar
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
Red food colouring (optional)

Zest and juice the blood orange and the ½ lemon juice into a small bowl. In another small bowl, beat the two eggs and the egg yolk together well.

Melt the cubed butter in a large heat-proof bowl over a simmering pan of water, making sure the bowl isn't touching the water.

Add the sugar and the zest and juice from the blood orange and lemon, followed by the eggs. If you’re using food colouring, add a few drops in. Stir the mixture carefully and constantly with a spatula, making sure the mixture doesn’t boil. Once the mixture coats the back of the spatula (turn the spatula flat and run your finger through the mixture coating it – if you can draw a line through the mixture and it doesn’t re-fill, then it’s cooked), remove from the heat and allow to cool.

White Chocolate Buttercream
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup (112g) caster sugar
170g salt reduced or unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
50g white chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature

Beat butter with a hand held electric mixer until fluffy and pale.

In double boiler over simmering water, whisk sugar and egg whites until warm and sugar is dissolved, 3 - 5 minutes (if you have a digital thermometer, warm until temperature reaches 70 degrees c). Transfer to clean bowl of electric mixer; beat on high with whisk attachment until fluffy and cooled, about 10 minutes.

Reduce mixer to medium-low; add butter a dessert spoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.

Switch to paddle attachment; add the melted and cooled white chocolate and beat on lowest speed 3 to 5 minutes.

Assembly
1. Using a small pairing knife or small (2.5cm) round cutter, cut out a hole in the top of your cupcake.
2. Fill the cavity with blood orange curd.
3. Replace the top of the hole.
4. Ice the cupcake with the buttercream
5. Top with a candied orange
6. EAT!

Gorgeous Geisha Cupcakes

If you're a fan of T2 tea, then you'll know where the inspiration came from for these cupcakes.

Gorgeous Geisha tea is a delicious blend of green tea flavoured with strawberries & cream and is one of T2's most popular teas (and for a good reason).


The occasion for these cupcakes was a friends 31st birthday. I adore spoiling friends with a home made sweets, and even more so when they are for a special occasion.

The components of this cupcake included a matcha (green tea) cupcake, filled with a sweet fresh strawberry filling and topped with a velvety swiss meringue buttercream.

I was so happy with the results of these cupcakes and I hope they were enjoyed by the birthday girl too.


Matcha (Green Tea) Cupcakes
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons cake flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon matcha (green tea) powder
113g unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 large eggs
1/2 cup full cream milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 175 degrees 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, salt and matcha powder; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until the cubes of butter are peanut-sized or a little smaller.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. 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 overbeat.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Strawberry Filling
450g Frozen strawberries, thawed and diced
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon lemon juice

In a medium saucepan, combine diced strawberries, sugar, cornflour and lemon juice and mix well. Heat and stir until mixture boils and thickens. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Strawberry Buttercream
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup (112g) caster sugar
170g salt reduced or unsalted butter, softened
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Approx 1/4 cup strawberry puree (using left over strawberry filling)

Puree the remaining strawberry filling in a food processor and set aside.

Beat butter with a hand held electric mixer until fluffy and pale.

In double boiler over simmering water, whisk sugar and egg whites until warm and sugar is dissolved, 3 - 5 minutes (if you have a digital thermometer, warm until temperature reaches 70 degrees c). Transfer to clean bowl of electric mixer; beat on high with whisk attachment until fluffy and cooled, about 10 minutes.

Reduce mixer to medium-low; add butter a dessert spoon at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in vanilla.

Switch to paddle attachment; beat on lowest speed 3 to 5 minutes adding the strawberry puree to taste (don't put too much in as the buttercream can go goopy).


Assembly
1. Using a small pairing knife or small (2.5cm) round cutter, cut out a hole in the top of your cupcake.
2. Fill the cavity with strawberry filling.
3. Replace the top of the hole.
4. Ice the cupcake with the buttercream (I used a piping bag with a 1M Wilton tip)
5. EAT!

Chai Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream Frosting

I have a bit of a Chai Latte addiction at the moment, which inspired me to make this gorgeous Chai Cupcakes.



Chai Vanilla Cupcakes - adapted from Joy of Baking
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup (130 grams) granulated white sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons of instant chai drink powder
1/4 cup (60 ml) milk

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line a 24 hole cupcake tin with paper liners.

With a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, chai powder and salt.

With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Evenly fill the cupcake cups with the batter and bake for about 15 - 20 minutes or just until set and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. (Do not over bake or the cupcakes will be dry.)

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Once the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with icing.


Maple Buttercream Frosting - adapted from Joy of Baking
230 grams icing sugar, sifted
130 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons milk or light cream
2 tablespoons of pure maple syrup

In an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer) cream the butter until smooth and well blended. Add the vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, gradually beat in the sugar. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the milk and maple syrup and beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes).

Add a little more milk or sugar, if needed to get the right consistancy.

Using a piping bag and tip (I use Wilton's 1M piping tip), pipe a swirl of the butter cream on each of the cooled cakes and decorate as you like.

Now go eat your delicious creations!

Chocolate & Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

Chocolate and caramel… one of the great culinary combinations.

I bought a jar Dulce de Leche before I headed off to France, and now that I am back I have be dying to use it.

After tossing a few ideas around my head (David Leibovits dulce de leche brownies…dulce de leche cheesecake…) I decided on Caramel Filled Chocolate Cupcakes, because, lets face it, cupcakes are awesome.

Now, the hardest part about this recipe was finding a decent cupcake recipe. Initially I was after a nice, dense cake, but after the first recipe failing, I dug up a chocolate cupcake recipe that I had used before which I thought would do the job nicely.

I dressed these beautiful little cupcakes with a swirl of chocolate butter cream and chocolate curls.

Now I must say, these little cupcakes were just glorious. They looked and tasted just fabulous. Will definitely be making again.

You can make your own Dulce de Leche (there are various methods to do so online) or you can just cheat and buy it. You could also substitute the Dulce de Leche for Nestle’s Caramel Top’n’Fill.


Chocolate & Dulce de Leche Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes
50g Dutch-processed cocoa powder
240ml boiling hot water
175g all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
113g unsalted butter, room temperature
200g caster sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 190°C. Line a cupcake pan with liners.

In a small bowl stir until smooth the boiling hot water and the cocoa powder. Let cool to room temperature.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Then in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat only until incorporated. Then add the cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.

Spoon evenly among the lined cupcake pans to half fill the pans. Dollop a little (I used a piping bag, but you could use a teaspoon) Dulce de Leche into the centre of each pan, then spoon over more batter to fill.

Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Spread or pipe a swirl of buttercream and decorate as desired.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing
60g butter, softened
240g icing sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
30ml (1 1/2 tablespoons) milk

Beat butter with an electric mixer or electric hand-held beaters until light and creamy. Sift icing sugar and cocoa together into a bowl. Gradually beat in half the icing sugar and cocoa. Add milk and remaining icing sugar and cocoa and beat until fluffy. If necessary, add a little extra milk to achieve a creamy consistency.

Notes: To make the chocolate curls, I melted some dark chocolate and then spread it out on a pastry mat (you could use a cutting board, or similar flat surface). Wait until it is almost set and then using a cheese slicer, slowly draw the slicer in a straight line down the block of chocolate. See here

Chai Buttermilk Cupcakes with Maple Buttercream

A Chai flavoured cupcake has been on my cupcakes-to-make list for a little while now and I thought a maple buttercream would go really well with the spices.

I had some left over buttermilk from breakfast, so to use it up I found a vanilla buttermilk cupcake recipe and added some chai tea mixture to it.

The cupcakes came out really nicely. They had a nice crust on them and the centre was really moist and fluffy. The original recipe only called for 1/4 cup of butter, but i found this not enough to cream with the sugar.

I dusted my finished cupcakes with a little chai spice.


Chai Buttermilk Cupcakes
1 1/3 cups plain flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
½ cup butter, room temperature
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla (i used vanilla bean paste)
1 cup buttermilk
Chai Spice - To taste: I used a chai spice tea drink mixture which wasn't very strong in flavour. I used approx 2 tablespoons, but if you were using a straight spice mix I imagine you would need to use a lot less.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Place liners in a 12 cup cupcake tin. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until it looks creamy.

Beat in the egg and the vanilla until mixture is smooth. Add half of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir until almost combined. Add buttermilk and stir, again, until almost combined. Add the rest of the flour and stir until all ingredients are mixed in. Add enough chai spice mixture to your liking.

Divide batter evenly into tin. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Let cupcakes cool for 10 minutes and then remove from the muffin pan. Cool completely before frosting. Makes 12 cupcakes

Maple Buttercream
110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1-2 tbsp. Milk

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter on medium-high speed until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the powdered sugar. Beat on medium speed until well combined, then increase speed and beat until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again and add the maple syrup. Mix until incorporated. If the frosting is too thick, add 1-2 tablespoons of milk and beat until smooth and desired consistency is achieved. Top each cupcake with a swirl of frosting.

Hummingbird Cupcakes

Ahhhh mid week baking. With my oven FINALLY fixed, I can now produce baked goods at home – Yippeee!
It hasn’t been working for many many months, so I would always have to do my baking at my mums house (which had it’s pro’s & con’s). The pro’s being: bigger kitchen, oven that works, mum to help and all the ingredients I need. Con’s being that I have to transport all the baked goods back to my house, which isn’t always easy.

When it comes to baking with bananas, the rule is the browner the better. I had some lovely ripe-for-baking bananas sitting in my fruit bowl that were calling out to be made into something delicious, but something a little different to my usual banana cake.

Hummingbird cake has been on my list of things to make for a while now. I don’t think I have actually ever tried it before, but as it looks so delicious in all of the pictures, I thought it was about time I attempted to make it for myself.

Now I don’t really know what to compare this recipe to, but it was delicious! It was wonderfully moist with chunks of pineapple strewn throughout cake. I think it would be nice with some roughly chopped pecans in it, just to add another dimension to the texture.

I garnished mine with some shredded coconut which I toasted off in the oven.


Hummingbird Cupcakes
1 x 450 g can crushed pineapple
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 cup desiccated coconut
1 cup mashed over ripe bananas (about 2 bananas)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup vegetable oil

Cream Cheese Frosting
100 g butter, softened
1 x 250 g cream cheese, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 1/2 cup icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (160 degrees Celsius fan-forced) and line a 12 hole cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

Drain pineapple through a fine sieve, pressing out as much syrup as possible, reserving ¼ cup syrup. Sift flours, soda and cinnamon in a large bowl. Stir in sugar and coconut. Make a well in the centre. Add combined bananas, eggs, oil, pineapple and reserved syrup. Mix until combined. Pour mixture into prepared cupcake pans.

Bake for about 20 minutes, until the cupcakes are light golden. When they are ready, a skewer or thin-bladed knife inserted into the centre of a cupcake will come out without any batter attached.

Allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for about five minutes, and then place them on a wire rack to cool completely.

Cream cheese frosting: Beat buffer, cream cheese and essence in a small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in icing sugar until smooth.
Spread or pipe onto the cooled cupcakes and garnished as desired.

Farewell Cupcakes

These were made for the boys final day at work. I really do hope the office enjoyed them :)

Caramel Mud Cupcakes

Each week I make a sweet treat for the boy to take to work. This week he requested something creamy and crispy, or caramel mud. I chose the latter (mainly because I have had a recipe sitting in my to do pile for a while).

So the cake part was easy, it was finding a frosting that was the hard part. I couldn’t find any recipe for a caramel buttercream that I was completely happy with.

I eventually settled on one that involved butter, brown sugar and golden syrup. After making it, it wasn’t really what I was after. I ended up adding some icing sugar and extra golden syrup, but still, it tasted too much like the start of a butter cake, rather than a fluffy frosting. I wouldn't use this frosting recipe again.

For a garnish, I was inspired by Masterchef to make some honeycomb. I was surprised at how easy it was. I didn’t used the Masterchef recipe, as I didn’t have any glucose, so used one with golden syrup instead.



Caramel Mud Cupcakes
125g butter, chopped coarsely
100g white eating chocolate, chopped coarsely
2/3 cup (150g) firmly pack brown sugar
1/4 cup (90g) golden syrup
2/3 cup (160ml) milk
1 cup (150g) plain flour
1/3 cup (50g) self-raising flour
1 egg

Preheat oven to 170°C/150°C fan-forced. Line 12-hole muffin pan with paper cases.

Stir butter, chocolate, sugar, syrup and milk in small saucepan over low heat until smooth. Transfer mixture to medium bowl; cool 15 minutes.

Whisk sifted flours into chocolate mixture, then egg.

Drop 1/4 cup of mixture into cases. Bake about 30 minutes. Stand cakes 5 minutes before turning top-side up onto wire rack to cool.

Caramel Buttercream
125g butter, at room temperature
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
2 tbs golden syrup (i probably added another tbs)
1 tbs milk
(i also included about 1 Cup of icing sugar)

Use an electric beater to beat together the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a medium bowl until light brown and fluffy. Add the milk and beat until well combined. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

Honeycomb
6 tbs white sugar
2 tbs golden syrup
2 tsp water
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Place sugar, golden syrup and water in a heavy saucepan and stir over a gentle heat until the sugar is dissolved

Bring to the boil and boil for seven minutes

Remove from the heat and quickly add the bicarbonate of soda. At this point the mixture will froth.

Stir quickly and pour into a greased 28x18cm lamington tin. When cold, cut into pieces and sprinkle over cupcakes. Store leftovers in an airtight container.