Cake mishaps

I just made a batch of chocolate mini-cupcakes. They totally didn’t work though (I think I mis-measured something or got the heat a bit off – my fan oven is just too efficient at times).  They came out with crispyish muffin-like tops and the bases didn’t hold their shape with the cups peeled off at all.  They are surprsingly tasty though, although not worth the effort of decorating.

I reckon the best thing to do with a batch of tasty, but otherwise unpresentable cupcakes, is take the casings off and warm them slightly – chuck a few in a bowl with a generous scoop of good quality vanilla ice cream, and drizzle with some warm chocolate source.  I haven’t taken a photo, but trust me, ice cream and a bit of warm makes any disastrous looking cakes suddenly a slightly fancy treat.

What do you recommend for cake mishaps?

Mini cupcakes

I’ve totally been bitten by the baking bug.  I totally love yummy little treats, especially if they look as pretty as a picture.  I’ll attempt to share my exploits here.

Recently, I made mini-cup cakes.  I’m particularly partial to them, mostly because of their size.  They do need some special equipment though to make them exceptionally nice.

I originally only had mini-cupcake cases – lined up some in a baking tray, and filled with regular sponge cake – but they all came out a bit deformed – so you definitely need to get a mini-cupcake tray to help keep them round.  I also got an icing bag and nozzles to make the icing super cute.  If you’ve got patience and a cool kitchen (mine gets really warm, so the icing starts to melt if it’s played with too much) you can probably do something cute enough with a fork and palette knife, but I’m not patient.  Piping little neat swirls is really pleasing.

So, the recipe I used:

• 125g self-raising flour
• 150g butter
• 125g caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tea-spoon of baking powder
• half a tea-spoon of vanilla
• a table spoon of cocoa powder

I combined the butter (softened it up a bit first over a pan of warm water – leaving it out for a few hours before would have been a smarter idea), caster sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl. Then sifted in the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder.  It’s best to mix in the dry stuff slowly, I find, using a metal spoon so you can fold in plenty of air.  Next, pop the mixture into the baking cases in your mini-cake tray.  I think I made about 35 (in two batches) from this mix.

Baked them for about 12ish minutes, until they looked like they were done.  Stick a knife in one and see if it comes out clean.  If it does, they’re good.  I usually eat one as I’m turning them out onto a cooling rack, but try and get them all there and lined up neatly.

I cheated this time, and used some ready-made chocolate fudge topping, that I loaded into the piping bag.  I did a little chocolate swirl on each one, and then decorated with some white and milk chocolate stars for extra cuteness.

Mini chocolate fudge cupcake