Kids Cooking Thursday: Aztec Truffle Cupcakes

Using the leftover mixture from the Aztec Truffles, we whipped up an .87c chocolate cake mix into cupcakes, and placed a tiny ball of truffle inside each one before baking. This is not a recipe to make with children if you are messphobic, or want photos of the process. They tasted great though!

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Gluten Free Strawberry & Mango Cupcakes

You may remember back in February, when I had so much trouble with my Taste & Create assignment of Cupcake Project, because I had such trouble narrowing it down to one recipe. Regular readers might remember that I ended up making two more recipes from Stef's site, after Taste & Create was over for the month, purely because I couldn't resist Pomegranate Mojito Cupcakes or these cute Cupcakes in Orange Peels. Well guess what. This month, I'm paired with Stef again! And once again I had trouble deciding. I almost made these Chocolate Stout Cupcakes, but then I thought I wanted to save them for later in the week, to welcome home DP after a week away for work, and I wouldn't have them made, let alone blogged before the deadline. (so look for them in a week or two!) Then the Jasmine Cupcakes with Raspberry and Honey caught my eye, and I ended up using Stef's technique to bake with the flavour of tea as my recipe this month. I used some beautifully fragrant Strawberry and Mango herbal fruit infusion 'tea'. It was both caffeine and gluten free, being mostly fruit powder.

Melt butter


Obtain 'tea' leaves. I planned on leaving them in, so I crushed them finer


Mix together and cook on low heat for five minutes,
then cool, strain (if you want to) and use as directed in your recipe

I have a friend who is Coeliac and she has promised to come around in the school holidays to play Bop It with Master Six. So I thought I'd use the yummy fruit butter to make her some cupcakes. I looked at a few gluten free recipes, but in the end caved, because really, how many times am I going to use xanthan gum and gluten free baking powder and rice flour for anything else?

Ok, so it's a box mix... but for a good cause!

I followed the directions on the box, using my flavoured butter, and seeping a tea bag for 20 minutes in the water it called for.

Water as directed, flavoured with another tea bag


Ready to cook

I haven't iced them yet, though the box came with gluten free icing mix, because I'm storing these in the freezer until the day before she comes around, when I'll make the icing and ice the cupcakes. I don't trust myself around these not frozen for that long. I've eaten two out of the dozen myself already. Sooo good!

Choo Choo Choo, Happy Birthday Master Two!

While technically he won't be two for another 4 hours, we had his birthday party this afternoon, and I'm really super proud of the cupcakes I made for birthday cake. I just couldn't wait any longer to share!

The cupcake base was Peanut Butter & Nutino Muffins from Mochachocolata-Rita. I used Nutino instead of Nutella, it's much the same, only a slightly richer flavour. I didn't fill them either, I figured the chocolates on top was enough extra flavour.

I iced them with vanilla icing tinted green, and drew train tracks in freehand with black writing icing.

The sweet vanilla went really well with the nutty cake.

In America, they make these trains using Tootsie Rolls for the engine and cabin, but I couldn't find those, so I used fun sized Bounty bars for the engine, and two Pineapple Lumps for the cabin.

A miniature Peanut Butter Cup cut in half made the cow catcher, and the smoke funnel was a Rolo turned upside down. The wheels were M&Ms, though Smarties would have worked just as well. Everything was "glued" together with melted chocolate, and left to set overnight before placing on the cupcakes.

Everyone commented on how cute they were - I may have been bragging a bit though! ;)

Kids Cooking Thursday: Jaffa Cupcakes in Peels

The second flavour of extra-credit cupcakes from Cupcake Project that I had on my list (see here for what I'm talking about) was more a technique than a flavour. Stef made vanilla cupcakes from scratch, but we made chocolate cakes from a packet mix. Yes, yes, I know, but today's lesson I was hoping to impart, was not one of quality ingredients, the value of doing things from scratch, blah, blah, it was 'don't be afraid to try something different'. Like grilling cupcakes in orange peels.

I know I don't need to share instructions on how to make a packet mix cake, so I'll just fill you in on the bits not written on the back of the box.

First, remove juice and pulp from oranges. (Juice half as many oranges as you want cakes.)

Miss Four was happy to oblige

Heaven forbid any citrus be squeezed in the house without Master One's help!

Yep, this one's done Mum!

Place peels in a muffin tray.

Make cake mix as directed on the box, substituting some of the orange juice for some of the water or milk that the directions call for, if you wish. Otherwise, drink it straight away, because the vitamins in orange juice oxidise quickly, leaving the juice tasting funny, and not as good for you.

Fill the peels 2/3s full with batter, and cook like normal cupcakes.

Yummy!

Leftover batter became babycakes

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Pomegranate Mojito Cupcakes

Recently, I made Peach Cup-pies for this month's Taste & Create, and mentioned that there had been another three flavours on my short-shortlist. This is the first of those three that I am gracing you with: Pomegranate Mojito Cupcakes. One of my best friends is having her birthday on the weekend, but I can't make it to her party. The next day, my SIL is having a cocktail themed Tupperware party. I'm killing two birds with one stone, and made these for both of them.

This makes 70 babycakes and 1 regular sized cupcake (because I couldn't be bothered to cook yet another batch - my babycake tray only holds one dozen, and I only have one tray). The recipe calls for Pama, pomegranate liquer, but neither of the bottleshops near me sell that, and I wasn't willing to bus into town to buy a bottle. I've substituted pomegranate juice, but I think the flavour would be stronger with the liquer, so use it if you can.

I've left the recipe here as Stef wrote it, changing only to Australian measures. (No attempt at plagarism or theft intended!) :P

Pomegranate Mojito Cupcakes (from Cupcake Project)
For the pomegranate mojito syrup:
1/2 cup light rum (I used Bundy, because it was the only rum I had. I don't think it is "light" though)
1/2 cup PAMA
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice
19g fresh mint leaves
1/2 cup sugar

For the cake batter:
2/3 cup sugar
2 cup plain flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp lime zest
1 Tbsp finely chopped mint leaves
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
2 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
2 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice

1. Bring all syrup ingredients to a boil in a heavy-bottomed pot.
2. Reduce heat and simmer for fifteen minutes until you have about 1/2 cup of syrup.
3. Strain mint leaves and set syrup aside.
4. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, lime zest, and mint in a bowl.
5. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl for 1 minute, until light and fluffy.
6. Beat eggs, sour cream, and lime juice into the butter/sugar mixture until blended.
7. Alternately fold in flour mixture and syrup.
8. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
9. Bake at 175C for about 15 minutes for babycakes, or 25mins for regular cupcakes, or until a toothpick comes out of the cupcake clean.

70 is a LOT of tiny cupcakes.

PAMA Frosting:
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 Tbsp sour cream
3 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 Tbsp PAMA
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1 pomegranate (optional)

1. Mix all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl until smooth.
2. Spread on cupcakes.
3. Optionally, garnish with pomegranate seeds.
You might need to add more icing sugar. I added an extra cup, just to make it workable, but it was still pretty runny, and not very spreadable.

The whole time I was making and icing these, I was thinking of a friend of mine, who after a trip to Cuba, loudly disdains Mojitos made anywhere else. Too many people chop the mint, and no one uses the cane sugar syrup. I'm not sure what she'd think of the blasphemy of adding pomegranate liquer, or turning it into a cupcake, but in honour of her, this is an entry for Foodalogue's Culinary Tour 2010, the Cuban leg.

Don't forget to get messy with your young 'uns for Kids In The Kitchen, training our next generation of food bloggers! ;)

Peach Cup-pies

I had a lot of trouble with this month's Taste & Create. Not because there was nothing to cook, oh no. I spent 7 hours pouring over Cupcake Project, frantically bookmarking recipes! I was completely spoilt for choice. If I had the time, I'd bake my whole shortlist, and put it up in one post, but unfortunately I have children, and housework, and can't sit around doing nothing but making cupcakes. In light of my desire to drop another two dress sizes, I think that's probably for the best.

I very seriously considered making the Nian Gao Cupcakes for Chinese New Year a few days ago, but I had none of the ingredients on hand, and well, I had a lot of peaches. Look forwards to more peach posts coming soon. There were three other cupcake recipes on my short-shortlist, but I'm not going to put them here, because I plan on cooking them later in the month. Not for Taste & Create, just because I can't resist. I will point you towards the Strawberry Sorbet though. In the end I made these lovely little peach pies with only the smallest of changes. Ok, forgetting to buy Brie might be considered a big change, because it seems to be the main point of the recipe, but still...

I switched the lemon zest and juice out for lime, because I had a lime, and it needed using. Mmmm, lime and peach... *drools* and I also traded the 1/2 tsp cinnamon and the 1/4 tsp nutmeg for 1 tsp speculaas spices, because I had them in the house and everything tastes better with speculaas spices. The peaches were a bit overpowered

I made these on Saturday, to bring to a birthday party on Sunday, so I made some of the pies with little heart centers.

If I was hoping for a Valentine's Day present from DP, this would be more appropriate.

DP doesn't "do" the Hallmark Holidays. I got him a pack of Cadbury Jaffas.
Really only because they were new. I'd have bought them regardless of the day. I do that a lot.

Kids Cooking Thursday: Pink Cupcakes

Rose and Strawberry Cupcakes, and Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes

It's not a party without cake, and what better kind of cake for a 'Pink' party than Strawberry Cupcakes? Just a packet mix I'm afraid, but we jazzed them up a bit. Half the mixed batter had chopped turkish delight and the other half had pureed strawberries added. I was quite lucky the other day, I picked up a kilo of slightly overripe strawberries for just $3.18. I hulled them, and threw them in the food processor, and then blitzed the lot down to moosh.

This is what a kilo of strawberries looks like in my food processor

I measured it out into little ziplock lunch bags. Two bags of 1 cup each, and one bag with only 1/2 cup. Then 1/2 cup went into the cupcake batter, and the troublemakers "cleaned" the other 1/4 cup worth out of the bowl after I removed the blade. So now I have 2 punnets of whole frozen strawberries, plus 2 and 1/2 cups of frozen strawberry puree in my freezer.
And cakes. Not that they'll last long around here.

Miss Three mixing

Master Five taking a turn

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Taste & Create: Mango Cakes

Today the kids helped me make Mango Cakes from Foodelicious, whom I was partnered with for this month's Taste & Create. The recipe is here - we followed it exactly only substituting orange essence for mango essence, because I could not for the life of me find mango essence anywhere. I should have known better than to buy a mango in Victoria in October, and I probably should have learnt from my last taste & create effort. Cupcake recipes containing real fruit don't work as cakes. I made 5 cupcakes, before running out of patty cases, so I put the rest of the batter into a large cake tin. Despite the massive amount of baking powder in this recipe, that didn't rise. The cupcakes did well though.

I really wish I'd been able to find mango essence, or at least a riper mango, because the flavour was not very pronounced at all. I found them kind of bland and gluggy, but the kids liked them. I think when summer hits full force here, and the fruit departments of the supermarket are heady with the aroma of mangos, then I'll revisit this recipe, and see if I can''t make it work. After all, they sound so heavenly on Foodelicous.

And while they were baking, we tried our hands at making chocolate! From scratch no less!

Looks great, but it never set. Even after a few hours in the freezer it had a consistency of sticky fudge, which deteriorated into sticky mess once warmed to room temp. I bundled some of it up into small squares of puff pastry, to bake up for Miss Three's birthday, and the rest is sitting in the freezer waiting for me to figure out what to do with it. A filling for bread rolls perhaps? I have no idea what went wrong though. Perhaps I should just stick to buying the stuff.

Kids Cooking Thursday: Lemon Lime Cupcakes

Lemon Lime Cupcakes
3/4 cup butter
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp lemon essence
1 1/2 cups plain flour
90 ml lemon lime fizzy drink (that's 1/4 cup and 2 tbsps, and we used lemon lime mineral water)

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 12 cup muffin pan and line with patty cases.
Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 15 minutes. Mix in the eggs one at a time, mixing each until well blended. Stir in the lemon essence. Stir in the flour, alternating with the lemonade, just until the batter is smooth. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly. (We made 12, but should have made 18.)
Bake until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack.

It may have been because we followed the above recipe (which is missing half an egg, because I scaled it down), or because I used mineral water instead of 'soda', or because our patty cases were full instead of 2/3s full before baking. Whatever the reason, our cupcakes ended up with a lovely crunchy top crust. The insides look and taste/texture like normal cake, lovely and light and fluffy and not overpowering at all.

But the top looks more like those Danish butter cookies with sugar baked on them... in fact you can see where the sugar has swollen in cooking, and it's all crunchy and toffee like and awesome. I don't rightly care that it shouldn't have happened, it's the best bit of the cakes, and that's why I've given you exactly the recipe I used instead of just linking to allrecipes. We were going to bring these to my parents house, but I think I may just eat them all myself. Maybe I'll give a few to Miss Three. She did help lots with the measuring after all.

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The Edible Word: Golden Eggs (Cupcakes)

It's been a long time since I joined in a blog event, (funnily enough that was one of Stephanie's too!) but when I saw that one of my favourite bloggers, Stephanie over at Dispensing Happiness was cohosting with Cath from A Blithe Palate another edition of The Edible Word (Remember that?) I could not resist any longer.

The book in question was Confections of a Closet Master Baker by Gesine Bullock-Prado. Since it doesn't come out until the 8th, do what I did and go read the first chapter, available as a pdf on the Amazon site. Right at the end, it has this recipe, Golden Eggs.

It made 18 cupcakes, and this cake as well.

This event was perfect timing, I passed 14 of the cupcakes on to my sister when I visited her for her birthday, and then when my parents gave me a lift home, I gave them the cake. All the fun of baking, none of the calories! (Well some of the calories. We all had a cupcake each - except Master One).

Now, I don't know about these tasting like donuts, but we ate ours cold. Perhaps they taste like donuts if you eat them still oven warm. Either way, they were delicious. And as a bonus, when watching the step-by-step instructional video Gesine has on her blog, I actually learned something. All these years I've been cooking, and I don't think I've ever creamed something right. Everything I've baked since watching this has turned out so much nicer, even if it does take three times as long to make.

Keep an eye out in a few days at your local bookstore, looks like this one is a keeper! Also go and check out A Blithe Palate for 3(!) posts of round-up!

Kids Cooking Thursday: Red Velvet Cupcakes

I've always wanted to try Red Velvet Cake. It's not something people make over here, in fact, I'd never even heard of it until I started blogging. So when I was sifting through recipes, looking for a use for some leftover buttermilk (stay tuned for that recipe coming soon!) I Googled my way across this cupcake recipe, and thought we'd give it a try. Miss Three loved helping sift the flour and 'mixing' spilled flour and food dye on the tabletop while I used the hand mixer. This Sunday is Father's Day here in Australia, so these are going to my parents house with us to feed the hordes.
Since this post is prepared in advance (like the cupcakes) I only have an unfrosted picture, since I didn't want to get frozen icing stuck all over the bottom of the cupcakes that are in the top layer of my container. (Except the three 'iced' with molten chocolate, leftover from coating the last of last week's truffles. Those three got eaten, not frozen)

Red Velvet Cupcakes
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
30ml red food coloring
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp bi-carb (baking soda)
1 tbsp white vinegar
2 cups plain flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 180C. Line 15 muffin tins with patty cases.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, buttermilk, red food colouring and vanilla.
Stir in the bi-carb and vinegar. (Master Five was very excited to see the bubbles where the vinegar landed on the bi-carb)
Combine the flour, cocoa and salt, stir into the batter just until blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared cups, dividing evenly.
Bake until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. (I totally forgot to leave them in the pans. None collapsed.) Ice when cooled.

I haven't included an icing recipe, partly because I think Americans have some sort of traditional cream cheese icing for this cake, but DP dislikes cream cheese, and partly because I chose to use Betty Crocker's Ready to Spread Deluxe Vanilla Frosting. So sue me. I wanted to see if it was as good as the Chocolate one. (It's not). That stuff... *drools* you can stick it in the freezer and then eat it in it's semi solid frozen state as the best, most coma inducing ice cream ever. Seriously.
I had to restrain myself from getting a tub of the Chocolate to do just that.

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