Bakers United

VANILLA CUPCAKES WITH COFFEE FROSTING.

Ingredients:

400g Self-Raising Flour
1.5 cups of caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup of milk
200g softened butter
2 tsp of vanilla essence, or vanilla bean paste. [I personally prefer essence, but this is up to you! :)]

And for the icing:

200g icing sugar
300g softened butter
2 handfuls of roasted coffee beans, plus some more for decoration.
[I have a coffee bean grinder at home (I’m a massive coffee drinker/lover) so I ground my beans just before putting them in the icing so that they would taste as fresh as possible. I suppose you could use instant coffee… {but really, instant coffee?!}] 

To do:

1. Preheat oven to 180C (356F) 
2. Line muffin pans with patty cases. (This recipe makes about 24 - so two trays :))
3. Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla essence and eggs. [Normally, one would use an electric mixer. I used my arm.]
4. Add the flour and milk and combine. I don’t suggest using an electric mixer here.
5. Spoon the mixture into patty cases and bake! This usually takes about 20 minutes, but to double check, lightly tap the top of a cupcake - if it springs back up, it’s cooked! :)

YOU NOW HAVE CUPCAKES!

For the frosting:

1. Grind the coffee beans. Or use instant coffee, that’s totally cool too. [Hint: You can buy quality ground coffee at your supermarket. If you want to make your icing legit, I suggest you use it. :D]
2. Combine the icing sugar and the butter until it becomes a paste-like frosting mixture. (There should be seemingly more butter than necessary - if it’s already dry, you’ll need more butter)
3. Put in the ground beans into the mixture. MIX!
4. You have frosting xD

Frost the cupcakes with the frosting and decorate with coffee beans. You’re done! :)

(There is usually more frosting than you actually need - as a result, you have a lovely little caffeine boosting treat to get you [and your friends!] through the day)

Chocolate Cupcakes for Blue Dragon

Baked for a fundraiser for Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. Naturally the icing had to be a worrying shade of blue.

http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com/

Williams Sonoma Chocolate Cupcakes

2/3 cup plain flour

2 1/2 tbs cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

85g dark chocolate, chopped

160g unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup caster sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

Preheat to 180C

Whisk flour, cocoapowder, baking powder, salt.

Place butter & chocolate over simmering water and melt whilst stirring.

Remove from heat and cool.

Whisk sugar in, then eggs one at a time.

Fold in dry ingredients.

22-24 minutes, test with a skewer to see if they’re ready.

Remove the cupcakes and let them chill out on a cooling rack.

Horrifyingly Blue Swiss Meringue Buttercream

3 egg whites

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

250g butter, room temperature

Vanilla essence

A lot of blue food colouring

Combine sugar, egg whites and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl with a handmixer.

Bring large pan of water to the boil with the water level with the egg whites.

Put the bowl in and whisk until it reaches 60C or the top becomes foamy like a cappuccino.

Move bowl to stand mixer and beat on high for 3-5 minutes.

Transfer 2/3 of the meringue to another bowl and beat together with half the butter until combined. Add the rest of the meringue one spoon at a time, then the butter one spoon at a time. It might look disgusting and soupy at first but it’ll get better.

Chuck in a teaspoon of vanilla essence while the mixer is still running, then a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste if you want.

THEN OVERLOAD ON BLUE FOOD COLOURING.

Pipe like crazy (I used a 1M tip) and eat it all, sharing is not caring when the object is something as heavily coloured as this.

-Clara