Posted on 8 Comments

Top Tips for Baking the Perfect Cupcakes

Cupcakes

1. Use the minimum of utensils and keep your ingredients list reasonable.

I have a habit of making a huge mess of the kitchen when I am cooking, and with 6 mouths to feed, the kitchen can look like a bomb site quite easily.  I have got cup cake making down to a fine art with only my mixer, a cup, a dessert spoon and a knife at the ready.  I use no bowls whatsoever and just put everything straight into the mixer.

2 – Choosing Ingredients

Use the best ingredients you can afford.  It does make a difference.  The quality of flours can be quite different when you have your finished cup cakes.   If you’re using chocolate, use real chocolate and not the cooking kind that nobody really likes.  For chocolate powder, splash out on something like Green and Blacks Cocoa powder and not cheaper versions with fillers, and you’ll be very glad you did.

Use unsalted butter instead of margarine.  I really don’t understand the margarine or spread brigade as I’d rather have a little less of the real stuff than a heap of manufactured fats full of additives and other difficult to pronounce ingredients.

Baking really is a case of getting the mix of ingredients right.  As long as you add butter, sugar and flour at the same proportions and 1 egg for each 120g of any one of the other ingredients, you should be fine.

3 – The Mixing Moments

How much to mix is always a big issue with cup cake chefs.   I do have my mixer on at a fairly low-speed for a couple of minutes and then I turn it up high for the last little while at the sugar and butter stage to try to blast some air into the mix.

4 – When to Add the Ingredients

I’m going to go completely against the grain here.

Sifting the flour in can add extra air, but I suspect most home bakers don’t bother.  I am not telling you that I actually follow the rule for sifting flour into the mixer, as there are times when I don’t.  I’ve never had complaints from not sifting and my cakes seem to be as light as when I do sift, but I can often hear my grandmother in the background nipping my ears for not doing it right.  Guilt will sometimes make me reach for the sieve.

If you’re really brave like my sister-in-law, you can throw everything in the mixer at the same time and just mix until it’s ready to spoon into cases.

5 – Get the mix even in the cases.

This one is common sense.  If some cases have more mix than others, some will be cooked more quickly than the rest.  Try using a standard sized spoon or scoop to get the same amount of cake mix in each cup cake case.

6 – How to know if it’s mixed.

The consistency should be creamy and not like Scottish Tablet with a grainy consistency.

7 – Work your oven.

It takes a while to get to understand a new oven.  Each one works differently and gives different results.  If you know your oven tends to run hotter or colder than recipes usually ask for, change your baking time.   Use a skewer to know when they are ready.  If a skewer comes out clean, then the cakes are ready.

Resist the temptation to open the oven part of the way through cooking.  Your cakes may well just fall flat as a pancake…

8 – It’s disaster time..

Cakes that don’t look perfect are rarely a disaster.  Make a form of Eton Mess using the sponge, or change a bread and butter pudding recipe, or cover it all up with icing.  If it tastes great, then it doesn’t matter what it looks like.

 

 

Posted on 16 Comments

Pirate Cup Cakes

I spotted this lovely box in Sainsburys (I think).  I had to buy it, and my eldest decided to don his cheffing apron and make a batch of cakes with them for Halloween.

I know it’s a bit past Halloween now, but these are great cup cakes for birthday parties.

How many little boys could bypass some delightful cakes with tasty icing for a special occasion?

The box contained enough cup cake cases and flag toppers to make up to 24 cakes.  I think he did a pretty good job of the icing and decoration for his first attempt from start to finish at making cakes, with absolutely no help from mum (well ok, just a bit).

He is rightly chuffed to bits with the outcome.

Here is the recipe that he used to make his cakes.

Pirate Cup Cakes

Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Bakery
Servings 24

Ingredients
  

  • 8 oz Caster Sugar
  • 8 oz Butter Melted
  • 4 Medium Eggs
  • 8 oz Self Raising Flour
  • Packet Coloured Icing We used green and red, ready made sugarcraft icing.
  • Sprinkles or Topping For on top of your cakes.

Instructions
 

  • Add melted butter and sugar into a bowl, or mixer and mix until smooth.

  • Add the four eggs and continue to mix until thoroughly mixed.

  • Finally, add sifted flour and mix until the desired consistency is reached. I sometimes add an extra ounce or two of flour if I don't like the look of the mix.

  • Place into the cupcake cases and bake for 15 - 18 minutes at 180 degrees. Makes your oven is pre-heated.

  • When your cakes are cooked, take them out of the oven and let them cool before adding sugarcraft icing, sprinkles and the flags.