Eggshell Green » Cupcakes

My first cupcake order

Chickie Little — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 07:47:02 +0000

Two of my friends had a joint birthday celebration of Cocktails, Cupcakes and Canapes – three fabulous things that I would normally indulge in but being pregnant I could really only enjoy two of those things. I was asked to make some cupcakes for the occasion, which I was more than happy to do because I love making cupcakes – and I also got to eat these ones.

The three cupcake flavours

I made three flavours which I was told were all delicious. I was too full by the time I had any, and could only handle a taste of the chocolate ones (I blame the bump taking up all of my valuable food space).

The first was Chocolate Cherry with chocolate fudge cream spiked with cherry liquer, and sprinkled with real chocolate hail. I would normally make them as Black Forest cupcakes with fresh cream but it was a bit too hot to do that in advance.

Chocolate cherry cupcakes

Then there was a Lemon Vanilla with a lemon buttercream and fruit jube on top. The little lemon wedges were candy I bought from the UK – so yummy and perfect as decoration.

Vanilla lemon cupcakes

Last was Lime and Coconut – though I completely forgot to put lime juice in it (just used zest), whoops! These were topped with Malibu buttercream, toasted coconut and a giant marshmallow

Lime and coconut cupcakes

The girls froze the leftovers and I’ve been told they defrotsed fine. I made myself some chocolate cupcakes yesterday and having them cold from the fridge today was not bad at all. Good to know I can keep iced cupcakes for when I have a random cupcake craving!

Pina Colada Cupcakes

Chickie Little — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:45:35 +0000

I finally got around to making cupcakes this week – actually it’s the first time since Abby was born, which is not good enough!

Being summer, I thought a cocktail-inspired cupcake was in order, so I came up with the Pina Colada Cupcake. It has chunks of pineapple baked into it and topped with buttercream laced with Malibu.

The recipe is once again based on the awesome Scout’s Cupcake, tweaked for this variation.

Like eating a cocktail!

Pina Colada Cupcakes

Makes 12

Ingredients

2 eggs
fresh whipping cream
1/4 tsp of vanilla essence
3/4 C caster sugar
4 pineapple rings, chopped
1 1/4 C standard flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Frosting

This makes enough frosting to cover 12 cupcakes if spreading it on with a knife. Make twice the amount if piping.

50 grams softened butter
1 Tbs Malibu
1 C icing sugar

Method

Break eggs into a cup measure and fill to the top with cream.
Pour into a large mixing bowl and beat on high with electric beaters for 1 minute.
Add vanilla essence and caster sugar.
Beat for another 3 minutes.
Stir in the chopped pineapple. (You could try adding in coconut essence or syrup from the tin of pineapple into the batter to strengthen the taste.)
Sift in standard flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
Fold to combine taking care not to over mix.
Spoon into 12 cupcake cases (you can make a few extra if the cases are over 3/4 full).
Bake for about 15-18 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove from tins (they can be quite fragile for a few minutes after baking) and cool on wire racks.

To make frosting, whip the butter until light and fluffy using an electric beater. Slowly whisk in half the icicing sugar. Add Malibu and whisk well. Keep whisking in small amounts of icing sugar until you get a good fluffy frosting.

I decorated mine with some dessicated coconut and yellow sugar.

Cupcakes and cookies

Chickie Little — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 09:34:27 +0000

I get excited when there’s a reason to bake, apart from just wanting to eat!

Last Sunday we were invited to Kiwi Wolf’s hubby’s surprise birthday get together. Myhubby volunteered me to make the cupcakes – lucky for him I like making cupcakes and he knew it anyway.

I decided to make two flavours – lemon lime (based on the Coconut Lime Cupcake recipe but minus the coconut essence) with a zesty lemon butter cream, and a Black Forest cupcake with fresh cream flavoured with cherry liquer. They were both delicious and I was sad that I could only fit in one of each :[

Lemon lime cupcakes with lemon butter cream frosting

Black forest cupcakes with cherry liquer flavoured cream

The hubby decided to make chocolate chip cookies. He managed to find the other recipe that we love. This one has coffee in it, and is a light cookie with a salty sweet scrumptiousness. I prefer it over the last chocolate chip recipe I posted. Unfortunately I didn’t get around to taking any photos before they were all eaten.

Chocolate Chip Cookies II

Makes 24

I’m not sure exactly where we got this recipe from or what we had altered, but it’s gooood.

Ingredients

1/2 C (125g) butter
1 C brown sugar
3 Tbs castor sugar
1 egg

1 Tbs vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 3/4 C flour
1 1/2 tsp coffee powder
225 g chopped chocolate (we use dark chocolate, and you could also use chips if you really have to)

Method

Preheat the oven to 190 C.
Cream together butter and sugars (use a wooden spoong or your electric mixer).
Beat in the egg.
Add in all other ingredients, sifting in the baking soda, powder and flour to get rid of lumps, and combine. You may need to use your hands to mix things together.
Divide into 20-24 cookies (depending on how large you want them) and bake on two trays for 8-10 minutes until lightly golden.

The cookies will still feel soft and spongy when done, but they will crisp up soon after.

Mmmm addictive!

Put the lime in the coconut

Chickie Little — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:09:09 +0000

I decided to be a bit adventurous this time and make coconut lime cupcakes with marshmallow icing.

The intention was to use the dessicated coconut that had been hanging around in the pantry since ages ago, but when it came to it I couldn’t find it anywhere. Maybe I’d already thrown it out because it was getting manky…

So I ended up using coconut essence, which isn’t the same, but it gave a nice subtle flavour.

We also bought a jar of Marshmallow Fluff when we were in the States a few years back. The hubby thought it was a great souvenir because it’s ’so American’, but we didn’t really know what to do with it. Then on an episode of Good Eats, Alton Brown made some marshmallow fluff-type frosting, so that gave me another reason for baking these cupcakes.

My recipe is as follows, and as always it’s based on the basic Scout’s cupcake recipe.

Coconut Lime cupcakes with Marshmallow Fluff frosting

Coconut Lime Cupcakes with Marshmallow Fluff Frosting

Makes 24

Ingredients

2 eggs
fresh whipping cream
1/4 teaspon of vanilla essence
3/4 cup caster sugar
zest and juice of one lime
1/2 teaspoon coconut essence
1 cup of standard flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt

Frosting

50 grams softened butter
dash of vanilla essence
Half jar of Marshmallow Fluff
Icing sugar

Method

Break eggs into a cup measure and fill to the top with cream.
Pour into a large mixing bowl and beat on high with electric beaters for 1 minute.
Add vanilla essence and caster sugar.
Beat for another 3 minutes.
Add the zest, lime juice and coconut essence, and beat for about 10 seconds to combine.
Sift in standard flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt.
Fold to combine taking care not to over mix.
Spoon into 12 cupcake cases (you can make a few extra if the cases are over 3/4 full).
Bake for about 15-18 minutes at 180 degrees Celcius until a skewer comes out clean.
Remove from tins (they can be quite fragile for a few minutes after baking) and cool on wire racks.

To make frosting, whip the butter until light and fluffy using an electric beater. Add vanilla essence and Marshmallow Fluff and whisk well. Add about 1/4 cup icing sugar, and whisk again until well combined. Keep whisking in small amounts of icing sugar until you get a good fluffy frosting. You could also add in some lemon juice for a lemony icing.

Birthday Tea Party

Chickie Little — Sun, 24 May 2009 21:00:48 +0000

Yesterday I turned a year older – boo! But at least it was an excuse to throw a tea party.

I don’t know why I put myself through these things. Oh wait, I do. It’s all the food I get to have at the end :)

I made sure that everything I made was pregnant-woman safe. I really wanted sushi which is fine if made fresh. I needed to heat up the smoked chicken and prawns before using them though. No big deal. The sushi was definitely worth it!

And of course there were cupcakes. The brother-in-law’s wedding is next Saturday and I’ll be making about 65 cupcakes for that. Had to have a trial run, and all is deliciously well.

Fez was really well-behaved. He got bored after a couple hours and put himself to bed. The only thing we are still battling with is his peeing inside when the weather is crap. It makes no sense as he will still happily go outside afterwards to reload with a drink of water. Naughty boy! I am punishing him with the silent treatment, after a telling off and 5 minute time-out outside.

Cupcakes and tea