Cupcakes to the rescue ..

Baking, , , , , , 43 Comments

Summer is finally underway and though you were probably expecting to see a post on ‘How to get the perfect bikini body‘, you’re going to get a ‘How to hide in a muffin top‘ one instead as we’re talking baking again! 😀 Though I wasn’t planning to do another post on baking so soon, I couldn’t help but share this one as these cupcakes are too hard to resist! Also, I have an upcoming trip planned to visit the family soon, so the days have been filled with shopping, shopping and more shopping … thus, very little time to sit down and write something at the mo! Besides, I am certain you are busy planning out your own trip and these scrumptious looking cupcakes are just what you needed to see after the frustration of everything that goes into organising a holiday …. So fasten your seat belts coz we are now ready for take off ….

My mum is very fond of gardening and has an extremely beautiful garden. That leaves me with no choice but to develop an interest in gardening too …. buuut … the edible kind! While in her house, you’ll find a lush green garden, colourful flowers and birds chirping … in my garden, you’ll find a vanilla cupcake with chocolate buttercream frosting (that’s the garden), marshmallows (those will be the flowers) and sprinkles flying everywhere! The life span of her garden is probably all-year round, but the life span of my edible garden is less than 24 hours coz they are hard to resist! You’ll be going ‘Mmmmm’ from the very first bite itself. I hope you haven’t already decided these are too hard to make, coz I have included a tutorial below just to prove you can! But before we get to that, need to go over the recipe first ….

Serving: makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients for the cupcake:
All Purpose Flour: 1 and 1/3 cup
Unsalted Butter (at room temperature): 113 grams
Caster Sugar: 1 cup
Eggs: 2
Baking Powder: 2 tsp
Vanilla Essence: 2 tsp
Salt: 1/4 tsp
Whole milk: 1/3 cup
Mini Marshmallows: as required

Ingredients for the Chocolate Buttercream Frosting:
Icing Sugar: 2 and 1/2 cups
Unsalted Butter (at room temperature): 125 grams
Vanilla Essence: 1 tsp
Whole Milk: 1 tbsp
Melted Chocolate: 1/4 cup
Cocoa Powder: 1/4 cup

Method for the cupcakes:

  • Pre-heat your oven at 180 degrees Celsius and have your cupcake tray ready lined with cases.
  • In a bowl whisk together the butter and sugar until it forms a creamy mixture.
  • Add the eggs one by one, followed by vanilla essence.
  • In a separate bowl, add all the dry ingredients together i.e.. all purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Mix the ingredients with a spoon or spatula.
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and gently fold (I would recommend you use a spatula for this process instead of a hand-whisk to avoid over-mixing which would result in hard cupcakes) until the ingredients are well-combined.
  • Add the whole milk to the batter and fold again until smooth.
  • Add equal amounts of batter to your cases. The cupcakes should only be filled 2/3rd full as they will rise during the baking process.
  • Bake the cupcakes in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cupcake comes out clean.
  • Allow the cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.

Method for the chocolate buttercream frosting:
I would recommend using a stand mixer for the frosting as it takes a bit of time.

  • In a bowl, beat the unsalted butter at room temperature until it starts to go a bit white (from yellow). This takes approximately 5 minutes.
  • Add the vanilla essence, followed by the icing sugar (a little at a time), and beat again until all ingredients are well-combined.
  • Add approximately 1 and 1/2 tbsp of milk and beat again until it forms stiff peaks.
  • Add the melted chocolate and cocoa powder to the frosting and combine well.

Method to decorate:

Just one look at the tutorial below, and you’ll be going OMG at how easy they are to decorate …. but sssshhhhh, lets keep that a secret! 😉

unnamed-16

Now that there is nothing left to do but to eat them, time to sign off and go over the pending shopping list again …

Until the next post, lets keep it strictly lighthearted! 🙂

 

43 thoughts on “Cupcakes to the rescue ..”

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