Delicious Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

When life gives you lemons … 

I’m sure you have heard it before, when life gives you lemons … (insert witty comment) and in my case its: bake lemon meringue cupcakes. I have been wanting to try these out for a while but didn’t really think my skill level was that high, but after making them on the weekend I realised they are actually quite simple to make and a lot of fun to assemble.

Step One: The Cupcakes

This was the easy part. I decided to try a different recipe than my normal basic vanilla cupcake recipe and I stumbled upon Martha Stewart’sLemon Meringue Cupcakes recipe. I have started to use buttermilk in a lot of my recipes as I feel it gives the cupcake more or a richer smoother taste without being dense and heavy. So I was quite keen to try this out. However I didn’t want the cupcakes to be lemon flavour as I figured the lemon butter would take care of that and I didn’t want to overpower it. So I simply skipped the lemon zest and lemon juice. I didn’t need to add anything else to it, the mixture was a great consistency without it. They came out looking beautiful and golden, rose just a little and smelt sooooo amazing!

See ... beautiful and golden

Step Two: Lemon Butter

I have never made Lemon Butter before, I know, crazy right! It such a classic thing to make. I looked in my Country Women’s Association (CWA) book hoping to find a simple classic recipe, but didn’t quite find what I was looking for. For those of you that don’t know, CWA books are the bomb! They have hundreds of recipes in their books and they are always simple and tasty. Kinda like the recipes your Mum or Grandma would make. So I was a little surprised and disappointed that I didn’t find a good lemon butter recipe. Nonetheless I found this one here on Frills in the Hills. I think the fact that it is the blog author’s nans recipe just seemed to make it a little more authentic to me. Oh and I definitely didn’t want to make an ‘easy microwave’ recipe. To me that isn’t traditional and it’s cheating. Kinda like using packet mix cupcakes instead of starting from scratch. Anyway, we won’t get into that debate!

The recipe says you need a candy thermometer, unfortunately I don’t have one of them, but I do have a meat thermometer! Haha so I just used that instead.

The highest temp is 200, so I just guessed when it hit the 230 degrees. My lemon butter turned out pretty good, only it seemed to have little white flecks in it, which I think was the zest. My grater only has 2 different grater types on it, so next time I will make sure I have a proper zester. The lemon butter was delicious though, zesty bits and all!

Step Three: Meringue

I was a little anxious making the meringue, it just always seems like such a daunting thing to do, getting the whites to the right consistency without over doing it. Its only been a week but I already cant remember the recipe I used! But I do remember the recipe saying it would make 8 cups, that seemed like enough for a dozen cupcakes, it certainly was! I don’t have a stand mixer yet, just a simple hand held kitchen aid mixer. So I didn’t use a whisk attachment like was requested, just the standard beaters. However it still turn out perfectly. Getting it into the piping bag was fun though!

Step Four: Putting it all together

So the last and final step was to put all of this together. I used a cupcake corer to cut out a whole in the middle of the cupcake. This was when I had my first taste of the cupcakes, eating the core centre that I pulled out and it was soooo good, I couldn't wait to eat the whole thing.

So I cored the cupcakes then spooned a few teaspoons of the lemon butter into the whole, filling it to the top, being careful not to over fill it.

Then I filled my piping bag with meringue, and used a large start tip and piped very high swirls on the cupcake, ensuring I covered any evidence of the lemon butter hidden underneath. Then the fun bit, using the blow torch!

I have only ever used a mini blow torch once before when I made crème brulee and it was so much fun! I know that sounds sad, but it’s just cool, to see the pristine white meringue instantly turn golden and brown on the outside Once I had my fun with the blow torch I sprinkled a bit of lemon zest on the top and wallah! Lemon Meringue Cupcakes are finito!

Chocolate cupcakes: Sugar free, Gluten free and Keto & Paleo friendly!

It's official! I have successfully made chocolate cupcakes that are not only gluten free and sugar free but also Keto and Paleo friendly! And best of all, they taste deliciously good and I can eat them guilt free! Amazing! 

I was at the local vet a few weeks ago and happened to see an advertisement up for RSPCA Cupcake Day, you can get more info here. Then I was perusing through the recipe section and came across Pete Evans' recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes that was Gluten free and Paleo friendly. Perfect! You can find the full recipe here.  

My boyfriend is gluten intolerant so I'm always on the look out for gluten free cupcakes or any other gluten free baking ideas. And for the last few months I have been following a strcit Keto diet. If your not sure what Keto is dont worry neither did I until I started it, but its basically a low carb diet with no sugar. I know, I know your probably thinking, but how? she always bakes yummy sweet things. One of the perks of the diet is to have one 'cheat night' a week, so I usually save my special treats for that night or I do what I have been doing lately, finding alternate sugar free versions of my normal treats. This new style of eating has certainly been an eye opener for me, there are still so many yummy things I can create that are a lot healthier for me than the usual sugary sweets I would go for. Nonetheless I still love a delicious red velvet cupcake smothered in fluffy buttercream frosting :) 

Anyway, back to the cupcakes! So these are Paleo friendly, but they still have sugar in them, so to make them Keto friendly I had to sub that out for something. Earlier in the year I went to the Cake Bake and Sweets Show in Sydney and discovered Natvia. Its basically a natural sweetener and is very useful in baking, both because it tastes good and it also has a 1:1 ratio to sugar which makes things handy. So there any many sweeteners out there and I have barely scratched the surface with them, but this is the one I have had the most experience and success with so far. If you want to find out more info you can read about it here. 

So I replaced the 190g of honey with 150g of Natvia. I also used almond milk, not coconut milk. As the frosting was made with Coconut Oil I didn't want to overload the coconut flavour so opted for Almond Milk instead and I also happened to have some leftover in the fridge that I needed to use. 

I followed the recipe exactly for everything else, my mixture ended up giving me 21 cupcakes which was great! A lot more then the prescribed 12. 

When I pulled them out of the oven they had a 'biscuit top' (my boyfriends term) look to them. But to be honest, I wasn't concerned about how they look, I just wanted them to taste good and they were going to be covered in frosting anyway :) 

So while they cooled I started on the frosting. The recipe calls for 500g of coconut oil, this seemed like an exuberant amount to me, so I just started with 300g, then figured I could add more later if need be. I did 40g of Cocoa powder instead of the 80g, but did a little extra cream. I just used normal cream not coconut cream. Firstly as I had normal cream in the fridge to use and I didnt want to open up a 300ml can of coconut cream only for 2 tablespoons and secondly, I again didnt want to overload the coconut flavour. 

The recipe said put all the ingredients in a food processor and mix it together until smooth. I unfortunately don't have a food processor at the moment (I must really look at getting one) so I just put it all into the blender and blended it together. I was really hesitant with the frosting, I just couldn't see how it was going to work out, with no powdery substance i.e. no icing sugar and so much oil. Anyway I blended it in spurts and scraped the sides and blended again and after a few minutes it becomes lusciously smooth and decadent, very much like ganache. I didn't look at the picture, so wasn't really sure how it was meant to turn out, I only knew that I had to be able to pipe it. So I poured it into a bowl and put it in the fridge to set for a bit to firm up to make it pipeable and after maybe an hour it came out perfectly pipeable and tasted like eating Bounty flavoured ganache. 

Due to my eating restrictions at the moment, I just frosted a few for us to eat over the next few days and then put the rest in the freezer. 

The cupcakes tasted great! They weren't dry or dense like gluten free cupcakes sometimes turn out, almond meal is great for that and the choc coconut frosting on top just gave it that added richness and variation in flavour. And best of all I can eat them guilt free knowing they are sugar free and my boyfriend can also enjoy them as they are gluten free. 

So here is the recipe:

Chocolate Cupcakes (gluten free and sugar free)

Adapted from Pete Evans' recipe found here. 

(Makes approx 20) 

Ingredients

Cupcakes

300 g almond meal

5 tablespoons raw cacao powder

2 tablespoons baking powder

3 organic free-range eggs

100 ml coconut oil, melted

160 ml almond milk

150 g Natvia sweetener

Chocolate and Coconut Frosting

300g coconut oil (softened, not solid)

100g Natvia sweetener

40g raw cacao powder, sifted

2 tablespoons cream

Shredded coconut to garnish

Directions

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Line a 12 cup muffin pan with pattie liners.

In a large bowl mix the almond meal, cacao powder and baking powder.

In another bowl, whisk the egg, coconut oil, almond/coconut milk and honey until smooth.

Gently fold the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and mix to form a batter.

Spoon the batter into prepared muffin cups, filling each to three-quarters full.

Bake for 20 minutes or until cooked through. To check if the cupcakes are cooked, insert a toothpick into the centre and if it comes out clean, the cupcakes are ready.

Allow the cupcakes to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

To make the chocolate frosting

Combine all the ingredients in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Place in a bowl and set in the fridge for an hour, or until frosting becomes firm enough to pipe. 

Pipe the frosting onto the cooled cupcakes and sprinkle with shredded coconut to garnish.

Have you ever made paleo or keto friendly cupcakes or simply used a sweetener instead of sugar? I would love to hear about it :)

High Tea Cupcakes

A while back I baked cupcakes for a mini high tea work function. I had just recently bought some amazingly cool cupcake holders and so this seemed the perfect time to christen them.

I baked my trusty Red Velvet Cupcakes and my basic Vanilla Cupcakes. I baked them in the tea cups as they are made from silicone, however next time I think I will grease them better to ensure they can be eaten easier. Unfortunately they stuck to the sides and so people had to almost scoop the cupcake out with a spoon or pop it inside out and risk the cupcake going on a mini flight! This was my first time baking with silicone, so Im not sure if its always like this or not. Feel free to post in the comment box below and tell me your positive and negative experiences with silicone cupcake cases.

I made a basic butter cream frosting and tinted it pink and purple and then simply decorated them with an assortments of flowers, cashous and sprinkles. The frosting was piped with my trusty and favourite Wilton tip 1M. Such a simple and easy to use tip, if you havent used it before I highly recommend you grab one and try it out for your next batch of cupcakes :)

And there you have it, some basic, yet fancy High Tea Cupcakes!

Halloween

I know its not Halloween, very far from it in fact, but this is the start of my back log of baking adventures I wanted to blog about. 

So this post has pictures from both Halloween in 2012 and 2013. I went with the same kind of themes of the pumpkins, ghosts, mummies etc both times.

I made batches of both basic vanilla cupcakes and also red velvet cupcakes.

Scary pumpkin Cupcakes

These were actually quite simple to make. I whipped up some buttercream frosting, tinted it a nice vibrant orange. Then while the frosting was still fresh dipped it upside down into a bowl of orange sugar crystals, this added to the intense orange flavour and also gave it some texture.

Then the eyes and mouth were simply made from licorice pieces. Depending on how evil, scary or happy you want your pumpkins to be depends on how you cut and shape the licorice.

I also used some black gel colour on some of the pumpkin faces, it was a lot easier to use than licorice.

Vampire cupcakes

There are a little hard to be recognised at vampire cupcakes! haha the idea is they look like teeth marks/bites with little bits of blood trickling down. On the inside I wanted to add something moist and red to portray blood. I ended up using some red jelly, raspberry of strawberry flavour will work, then cutting a chunk of the cupcake out, adding it in the jelly, then placing the top back on. 

   

The jelly was ok, but next time I think I will use jam. The bite marks were done with red gel colouring simply dotted and dripped onto the white frosting on the cupcake.

Ghost cupcakes

These are my favourite halloween cupcakes to make! I frosted my cupcake with a base of orange buttercream frosting just to contrast with the white ghost, then got 2 marshmallows and stuck them on top of each other, held together with a small dollop of frosting, then put them onto my cupcake. This is what allows your ghost to have height.

 Then roll out some vanilla/white fondant to just a few mm thick, I'm sure modelling chocolate would be fine to be used as well and cut a circle that is one size larger than your cupcake. Place a small dollop of buttercream frosting onto the top of the top marshmallow then rest the fondant circle on top and gently push it down. The fondant should naturally fall/drape over the marshmallows and cover them nicely. You can gently squeeze and shape the fondant to make it look more ghost like. Then add two little mini M&M's or black dots (using an edible marker) for the eyes, and your done!

Evil Mummy Cupcakes

These were very simple and fun to make. Basically choose two M&M's that are the same colour, these are our eyes. Place them on your cupcake, a third of the way down from the top, then pipe over them with white frosting. I cant remember the name of the tip I used, but its long and thin, so that when you pipe it, it comes out in straight lines. Similar to what you can use for rose petals.

         

Brains cupcakes

The hardest part for these cupcakes was getting the brain colour right in the frosting. Mine are a little darker than I would have liked, however adding the red gel colouring in between and over the brain, helped to lighten the colour and make it more 'brain like'. 

  

Spider web cupcakes

This was a bit of a last minute idea I had with some leftover frosting. Cover you cupcake with the white frosting, then with the black gel draw circles on the cupcake, starting small and in the centre and getting bigger as you work your way out. Then use a toothpick to 'draw' straight lines out from the centre, making it look like a web. Add a plastic toy spider for added creepiness!

               

You can also simply draw a spider onto the cupcake. As you can see I need to brush up on my spider drawing skills!

Happy Halloween!

Oreolicious!

So I have wanted to bake some Oreo cupcakes for a while now and finally got around to it last week, and the Oreo's were even on special at Woolworths, Awesome! it was definitely a sign for me to bake :)
I found a recipe online from a fellow blogger, looked like the best and easiest one out there http://www.bakerella.com/cookies-and-cream-cupcakes/. 

The recipe was a little different to normal especially with adding hot water, Ive never baked cupcakes that have added water. So the mixture was quite runny, but she said to expect that so I didn't worry too much 

The rest was quite normal. So you can add your Oreo's in a few different ways, either twist and split the Oreo and add half to the bottom of the tray with the cream side up, or crush them up a bit and add them in ...

I was going to grab the traditional Oreo's but ended up getting the strawberry and double choc ones, just to make things a little different. You could also use the mini oreo's, it's up to you what you want to do. 

     So you pour the mixture in and bake and then come out looking like this ...

Delish! Now to the frosting ...
You can use shortening to make the frosting white to add to the whole 'oreoness' of the cupcake, but I just did normal buttercream frosting and added white icing colour. I found it in a Kitchen shop the other day and its great! As the name states its white colour, its done by Wilton so you can prob check it out at http://www.wilton.com/ and find out what shops near you have it. They say don't add too much otherwise it changes the flavour of the frosting, but I didn't seem to notice any difference, but you do need to use a lot of it to get it quite white. So just normal frosting, then add crushed up bits of oreo biscuits (the other half of the ones you added to the bottom of the cupcake) Tip: make sure the oreo crumbs are just that, crumbs! with no little chunky bits in there. As if you don't crush them properly they will get stuck in your frosting tip and your frosting wont come out! I learnt that the hard way unfortunately haha
Then you can decorate however you like, I kept it simple and simply added mini oreo's on top ... 

Mmmm delish! Cant wait to bake these again!

Bitesize ...

So I was out shopping the other night and I found this great little book, in a ladies clothes shop, of all places!

I had a quick flick through it and found something I wanted to make on every page ...

Raspberry cupcakes with white chocolate ganache

Vanilla whoopie pies with white choc chips

Mini coconut cakes

Black velvet whoopie pies

Hibiscus vodka pops

I have never even made macaroons or 'whoopie pies' pies before but they look delish! Has anyone made macaroons before? What tips woud you give me?