Jaffa Cake Cupcakes

Good morning everyone! 

(I understand that you may not be reading this in the morning - hell, I'm not even writing this in the morning - but "Good evening everyone..." sounds a bit ominous to me).

I have been BUSY. And by busy, I mean working all day and then crashing as soon as I arrive home. Literally, in these past few days I have fallen asleep whilst reading, whilst watching a movie and whilst watching Breaking Bad (if you watch Breaking Bad you'll know it's pretty excitement-inducing and very difficult to sleep through).

So yes! This is why I have not been so faithful to you, dear bloggy, although I have been doing the odd bit of baking!

The following recipe comes from the new Hummingbird Bakery Book, Home Sweet Home. If you're a regular here, you'll know that I quite bloody adore Hummingbird Bakery recipes for one simple reason: THEY WORK. And taste delicious. And look pretty. Okay that's a lot of reasons. 

ANYWAY. Jaffa Cake cupcakes do pretty much what they say on the tin. It's a normal sponge, with an orange filling and a chocolate topping. Just like a normal Jaffa Cake...but topped with...a Jaffa Cake! I've typed the word Jaffa too much. What does Jaffa even come from?!

Jaffa. 

Jaffa Jaffa Jaffa.

Jaaaffffaaaa....

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes

- 70g softened butter

- 210g plain flour

- 250g caster sugar

- 1 tbsp baking powder

- half a teaspoon of salt

- 210ml milk (semi-skimmed or whole is fine)

- 2 large eggs

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- 100g marmalade

For the frosting

- 450g icing sugar, sifted

- 60g cocoa powder, sifted

- 150g softened butter

- 60ml milk

- mini Jaffa Cakes, to decorate (n.b. you don't actually need two packets for this recipe; we just bought two... for science)

The bottle of wine as pictured is optional but highly recommended. 

- Preheat the oven to 170C (325F) and line a muffin tin with paper muffin cakes - this recipe made 17 cakes for us)
- If you've got access to a freestanding electric mixer (like I did thanks to my friend Becca and her lovely kitchen), throw in the butter, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix till they form a sandy consistency. This can also be achieved by hand, it might just take a couple more minutes.

- Mix together the milk, eggs and vanilla extract in a separate jug.

- Mixing slowly, add in the milk mixture bit by bit until fully combined. Once you've added half the liquid, mix at a higher speed until everything is combined. Then gradually add the rest and, again, mix until fully combined.

- Spoon the batter into the paper cases (two-thirds full) and cake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

- If you've got a vanilla cupcake recipe that you adore, then definitely feel free to use that instead of this: it makes no difference whatsoever.

- For the icing, mix the icing sugar, cocoa powder and butter together until combined. The texture might at first be quite sandy and dry but fear not.

- Whilst mixing, gradually add the milk and beat until the butter icing has a light and fluffy texture. 

Eat all of the frosting from the bowl...mmm...wait...no...try NOT to do that.

-Once the cupcakes are cooled a bit, use a knife to make a hollow in the centre of each one, keeping a hold of the cut-out piece of sponge.

- Fill each hollow with the marmalade and replace the cut-out piece of sponge, trimming it if you need to.

- Ice the cupcakes using your chocolate butter icing in whatever manner you wish. Top each cupcake with a mini Jaffa Cake

- Enjoy with aforementioned wine - I've now decided that actually, it's not optional at all.

Cake International & Make-Your-Own Pizza

Nope, it's not Christmas.
And it's not your birthday.
(Unless...it is...).
And you haven't lost a tooth.
But I am giving you the gift of a double blog post today.
Part One: I went to Cake International in Manchester.
In case you're not familiar, Cake International is a cake show in which many different companies/bakers/chefs gather to show their wares and celebrate baking with enthusiasts like me. The show was made up of lots and lots of different stalls. Some were selling all kinds of different bits and bobs to make and decorate cakes, and some were run by people with some amazing skills.
Take, for example, this stall in which the display-cake showed that you can make freaking LACE out of sugar!

\

Or these flowers made solely out of butter icing. It's amazing what a piping nozzle and some cool angles can achieve! The good thing about some of these stalls was that they were putting on free demonstrations, showing us how the effects could be achieved at home.

Another big part of the show was the competition - there were many different categories in which people competed. From wedding cakes of three tiers or more....

....to novelty sculpted cakes...

....to themed cupcake displays.

The things that people had achieved with their cake decorating blew me away. Look at this one! This cake won Best in Show:

LOOK AT THE BABY ONES! LOOK AT THEM.

...anyway. The show was also attended by some biiiig names in the baking world. Mary Berry, the Queen of Cakes, attended on the Friday and the Saturday. I've been wanting to meet her for a long time and Cake International was my big chanc- oh I could only make it on the Sunday. Okay. That's the charm of working in retail!

As disappointed as I was to miss meeting the Berry, I did get the opportunity to watch a demonstration by John Whaite, who won the Great British Bake Off in 2012. He made an amazing sounding blueberry and limoncello tart from his upcoming book, John Whaite Bakes. 

Lastly, I managed to queue early enough to make it into a practical demonstration, in which I made a traditional bakewell tart under the watchful eye of food writer and chef Sean Bird. And they let me take it home!

I turned up to Cake International on my own and although it was strange to not have anyone to ooh and ahh at the gorgeous cakes with, it meant I could run around and do exactly what I wanted to do. I went to demonstrations, I met John Whaite, I baked a tart and I bought some more materials for this wonderful hobby of mine. The Cake & Bake show is coming up soon and Cake International is going to a couple more venues. Even if you've only got the slightest interest in cakes and baking, you should go. You'll see things that you'll probably never see again and it's a really cool and different day out. 

Now for Part Two! 

(You can't say I'm not good to you, lovelies).

I made homemade pizzas recently and I highly encourage you to try your hand at it. Obviously this is a little different to the things I have blogged about before but, trust me, you won't regret this one.

Ingredients:

- 650g strong white flour

- 7g sachet of dried yeast

- 2 tsp salt

- 25ml olive oil

- 50ml warm milk

- 325ml warm water

- noms to top it with

- Measure the flour into the bowl and add the salt onto one side and the yeast onto the other. This stops the salt from immediately denaturing the yeast.

- Stir in the olive oil and warm milk.

- Add the warm water in bit by bit until the mixture starts to come together as a dough. You ideally want it to be a little wet still when you begin to knead it, so don't add the water all at once. 

- Tip the dough out onto a well floured surface and begin to knead it. You can find a lot of information about kneading on Youtube if you need a visual to help, but I just think of it as pulling the dough in one direction and pressing it back into another. Keep doing this for 5-10 mins (yes! It needs that long) until it becomes smooth and elastic.

- Pop the dough back into the bowl and cover in cling film or a damp towel. Leave it in a warm-ish place for at least an hour - preferably 90 minutes if you can. It should double in size.

- After this time, take the dough out and knock it back. This essentially means knead it a little bit until all the precious built-up air is gone. Place it back into the bowl, cover and leave in the warm place for another 30-minutes to an hour.

- Prepare all your toppings. Obviously you should use whatever takes your fancy - as a basic guide you'll need some kind of tomato sauce (whether it's a tomato puree or a sauce from a jar or a homemade creation) and some cheese, but the rest is up to you! I used ham, mushrooms, peppers, mozzarella and chicken (not pictured)

- Preheat your oven to as high as it goes.

- Take a chunk of your dough (I halved mine because I'm greedy and like thick pizza doughs) and use a rolling pin to roll it into a vaguely circular shape. Mine was maybe a quarter of an inch thick.

- Top your base/s with the tomato sauce, cheese and then whatever wonderful array of ingredients you have lovingly put together and then shove it in the oven for 10-ish minutes until everything looks cooked/melted/crispy.

- Serve with a salad to pretend you just created a healthy meal and voila! an incredibly tasty meal that's way more fun than getting it straight from the supermarket!

A tip! To add to the fun times - if you're cooking for kids (or any big-kids), it's a really nice idea to get people to top their own pizzas. Lay out the rolled out dough, all the toppings and a big mountain of cheese and let everyone do the hard work!

Ultimate Lemon Drizzle Cake

Yeah, I said it. The ULTIMATE Lemon Drizzle Cake.

Let me tell you, reader, I have had my fair share of Lemon Drizzles, but this one? This one blows all others out of the water. As far as I'm concerned, when a recipe requires little effort and time, but produces fantabulous results, it's a winner.

This recipe comes from Paul Hollywood's How to Bake (not his new one, although be ready for an onslaught of rave reviews from that when I can eventually justify buying it...). 

This recipe uses lemon curd in the actual cake, which I was at first quite skeptical of, but now realise that it's the secret to the wonderfulness that is this cake. 

Ingredients:

- 125g caster sugar

- 75g butter, softened

- 150g self-raising flour

- 1tsp baking powder

- 2 medium eggs

- 1 tbsp lemon curd

- 2 and a half tbsp milk (semi-skimmed is fine)

- juice and zest from one lemon

- 2tbsp granulated sugar

- Preheat your oven to 180C (160 for fan ovens).
- Butter and line a 2lb loaf tin with baking parchment.

- Beat together the caster sugar and butter until it's light and creamy. You should notice a visible change in colour.

- Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture.

- Mixing all the time, add the eggs, lemon curd and milk to the mixture.

- Keep mixing until everything is well combined.

- Pour into your loaf tin, even it out with the back of a spoon or a knife, and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes. 

- MEANWHILE. Mix together your lemon juice, finely grated zest and granulated sugar in a jug, ready for when the cake comes out the oven.

- When the cake comes out, insert a skewer into it. If the skewer comes out clean, the cake it done! 

- Use the same skewer to prod a few holes into the cake.

- Pour your drizzle mixture evenly across the hot cake. The holes will allow some of the sugary lemony goodness to seep into the sponge.

- Allow to cool for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

 - Serve with a cup of tea and I guarantee joy.

I bet, if you've ever done any baking before, you'll have a lot of the required ingredients in your cupboard already. Pop out and get the lemons and lemon curd (you should have it on your toast for breakfast the next morning, FYI) and you'll have a very easy but VERY tasty cake to give, share, wrap up and take to work, or just eat yourself.

Next weekend, I'm going to Cake International in Manchester, and the only friend I'm taking is my camera, so be ready for a somewhat different post...