Chocolate oreo cupcakes

Hello hello. There is nothing I love more than baking and eating cakes and I adore my Hummingbird bakery cookbook more than any other recipe book I own. However, there are only so many icing combinations that you can pair with a plain sponge so I did the fairly standard twist-add oreos.

Make your chocolate cake mix by beating 100g plain flour (sieved), 20g cocoa powder (sieved), 140g caster sugar, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt and 40g unsalted butter. Then mix in 120ml milk, 1 egg and 1/4 tsp vanilla extract ( I may have got my little brother to do all this).

Split equally into 12 cupcake cases and then push a whole oreo to the bottom of each case. Place them into your pre-heated oven (170 degrees) for around 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin whilst you prepare your buttercream. I decided to go with cream cheese frosting but you could always make oreo buttercream by stirring crushed oreos into your standard buttercream mix.

Beat 300g icing sugar and 50g unsalted butter together until light and fluffy (around 3 minutes) and then mix in 125g cream cheese. Once your cakes are cool you can pipe/smother them in the frosting and top with whatever you fancy.

Don't forget-you aren't obligated to share these with anyone, we won't judge you if you eat all 12 because they really are delicious.

I think I might try to create Jaffa Cake cupcakes next time, stay tuned.

xoxo

My chocolate workshop

Sunday 11th May was a particularly special day because my sister and I finally got to cash in our Christmas experience day from mumma. I admit, I didn't feel to confident about it on the way up, it wasn't in the nicest of places in Central London. However, they have certainly made their workshop space very welcoming, full of cute jars and stands and the strong smell of chocolate definitely helped to ease the nerves.
The night was full of activities and festivities; bubbles, crazy strong chocolate martini's, flavouring chocolate, making and dipping fudge and truffles and tasting chocolate from around the world.
3 hours of pure indulgence and fun. It helps that we had a very amusing Canadian instructor too. Being the biggest chocoholic I know, I have to tell you how much fun it was, and even better was that we got to bring a bag of goodies home to share (or eat ourselves, *stuffs face*) and I definitely recommend it to anyone with a sweet tooth.

xoxo

P.S you can find the website here

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Choc caramel

Hey guys, quick recipe post for you today. Since the GBBO has been back on, all I want to do is bake. So I did, and here it is. Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate and caramel drizzle!

Stir 125g of sugar and 2tbsp of water together in a heavy based pan, put on a medium heat until the sugar dissolves and then turn up the heat and wait until it starts to look like the below image (do not stir during this process!)

When it starts looking like caramel. Take off the heat and stir in 25g of butter and 70ml of double cream, leave to cool.

Sift 100g of plain flour, 140g of caster sugar, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, pinch of salt and 20g cocoa powder. Add 40g of butter and mix. Gradually add an egg, 1/4 tsp vanilla essence and 120ml milk, don't over mix. Divide between 12 cases or double up for 24 ;). Cook at 170 degrees, or 150 degrees in a fan oven for 20 minutes ish, or until skewer comes out clean.

Sift 375g of icing sugar and mix with 120g of butter and 35ml milk. Use a big star nozzle to create this look with the buttercream (or do whatever you want,) drizzle your caramel over the top, and if that isn't enough, melt some chocolate and put that on top too.

Don't worry, you can thank me later!

Megan xo

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O.M.G

I can already tell this will be my favourite post of the year, and it's only my first one!

Yesterday I went on my first cake class, I loved every second of it, crazy how much you can learn in one day. Even better, it was a whole class based around decorating with chocolate, very apt for me. I'm already thinking about which class to do next.

You can find out all the information here.

I'm looking forward to practicing everything I have learnt, and all the techniques will come in handy when I have to make my grandmas 90th birthday cake next month!

 

Megan xo

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Lollipops and cakes = cake pops!

Hey guys!

Pre warning, give yourselves plenty of time to do this, don't start them at 11pm like me, I was up until about 3am!

For 20 medium cake pops you will need:

20 popsticks

A block with holes in

Cellophane bags and ribbon (optional)

Vanilla cake

120g unsalted butter

150g caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

180g sifted self-raising flour

4 tbsp milk

Vanilla cream cheese frosting

80g unsalted butter

40g cream cheese

200g sifted icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 180°C/gas mark 4 and lightly grease a 20cm circle or square cake tin. Cream butter and sugar until smooth, add eggs and vanilla. Slowly mix the flour and milk into the mixture before pouring into the cake tin and baking for roughly 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

When cool, crumble the cake finely into a large bowl.

Cream the butter and cream cheese, gradually combine the icing sugar and vanilla. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before using.

And the icing to the crumbs bit by bit until you have a fudge like texture, you probably won't need all of the icing.

Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for an hour. Split into 20 equal (ish) balls (or exact equal weights if you're a bit of a perfectionist like me.)

Melt a little bit of chocolate, dip the pop stick 2cm into the chocolate and then put it roughly half way into the cake ball. Put in the fridge for another 20 minutes.

Melt 450g of chocolate in 30 second intervals in the microwave, stirring each time. Use whatever method you like to cover the cake ball in chocolate. Make sure the chocolate goes right down to the popstick.

Cover them with whatever sprinkles you like and put in the fridge for 10 minutes to set. It's handy to have a polystyrene block or a make shift block with holes in to place the pop cakes in to. Avoids having flattened/ruined sides.

Leave them bare or wrap them individually, it's up to you!

Enjoy!

 

Megan xo

 

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2 years...Trip to London

Oh hai!
I am in such a good mood right now, so I thought I would share with you what I got up to on Thursday!
My boyfriend, being the massive sweetheart he is, surprised me with a big bunch of flowers Wednesday night. Thursday morning I thought I would be nice, so made him breakfast after giving him his present (a jumper, how original, ha!) To start off our trip to Londres, we went and saw Shrek the musical (how grown up of us) before deciding to head to Embankment for a 'romantic stroll', as if, we ended up in a freak circus (very strange) before getting caught in the rain haha. I love walking down Embankment and seeing all the buskers and fortunately we managed to see some of them before they packed up.

This was done completely in ballpoint biro, how amazing?!

Who doesn't want a photo with a moving, talking telephone box

This was after the downpour, didn't want to show my 'rain face'

Pretty London

Feeling a bit peckish, we hopped on a tube to Leicester Square to begin our hunt for a place to eat. You know they love a restaurant when there's 3 on one street! Anyway, we walked around for ages, nothing taking our fancy, and then, and then we spotted the m&m store. UHOH. The second I walked in that store, I was in my own little heaven. with tubes and tubes of m&m's all around me. Be proud, I didn't buy anything, not even a bag of m&m's.

Anywho, we decided to be super original and go to our favourite place, Zizzi's, yum yum. We had such dedication that we got 2 tubes from Leicester Square to Victoria, just for dinner!

We get dough sticks, every time without fail. Yummy pasta, so yummy in fact, I had already eaten some before remembering to take a picture, so I had to try to make it look pretty again. Rasberry Lemonade, I have never been able to find any that tastes as good.  I apologise for this last photo, but it made me giggle. He hates photos being taken, and was not happy with me for this. 

Megan xo

'It's not Terry's cake, it's mine'

Hey guys!

So, today I thought I'd do a recipe post for a change. I absolutely love baking cakes, and I love decorating them too (I'm not very good at decorating big cakes though, I go a bit crazy and it ends up looking like a child got at it.) I decided on 'Chocolate and Orange ring cake' as a couple of weeks ago I used a similar recipe but used Lemon and Poppy Seeds and everyone seemed to like it. Besides, it has chocolate in it so it must be good right?

You will need:

A ring mould

Cake

250g/9oz Self raising flour

200g/7oz Caster sugar

175g/6oz Unsalted butter (and extra for greasing)

2 tsp Baking Powder

3 Eggs (beaten)

2 small oranges (or in my case, 1 big orange)

90g/3oz Plain chocolate

Topping

50g/2oz Plain chocolate

170g/6oz Icing sugar

2 tbsp Orange juice

Preheat your oven to 160°C/325°F/Gas Mark 3

Start by grating the zest of your orange(s), and put aside. Then peel the orange and remove the horrible core/top bit (as you can see in the picture.) Remove as much of the white skin as possible and cut the segments into small pieces. Try to reserve around 2 tablespoons of the orange juice, as you will need this for the icing later.

Coarsely grate 90g of your plain chocolate and set aside with the orange segments.

Sift the flour and baking powder into your mixing bowl, add the pre beaten eggs, sugar, butter and orange zest and mix on a low speed until the mixture is smooth, (be careful not to over-mix.)

Fold in the Orange segments and the grated chocolate until it is nicely mixed.

Be sure to grease your ring mould well before adding the mixture, as it will only make it easier for you to remove once it's cooked!

Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until it is golden brown and springy to touch (and that if you insert a skewer it'll come out relatively clean.) Wait until the cake has cooled before turning out.

Make the icing by sifting your icing sugar into a bowl before mixing in around 2 tablespoons of your reserved orange juice. It should be a slightly runny consistency, (you can always add a few drops of water if it's a bit thick.) Drizzle over the cake however you like.

Melt 50g of plain chocolate over a pan of hot water, and then drizzle over the icing. Finish by grating some extra chocolate or orange zest over the top (or leave it as it is.)

 Voila! Serve with a nice big mug of Tea and enjoy!


Which ingredients shall I try next?

Megan xo