choocolate cupcakes with coffe icing (a)

Its robs birthday...(well it was on monday)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BERTI!!

and i kinda managed to convince him that dinner with mates would be a great way to celebrate turning 23. originally, i offered to cook dinner, but this turned into a celebration at his house. i was a bit cut that i couldnt cook for him, but, i was asked to bring sweets (again) at about 1 hour before i had to catch the bus to get there. knowing that berti was a fan of coffee, i thought chocolate cupcakes with coffee icing would be the perfect addition to dinner...whatever it was. i also didnt have enough time to make a cake.

(changes to post: this was written about 3 wks later...) i thought i didnt have a photo of my cupcakes, but berti, amazing as he is, took a photo (with his amazing camera hence it looks so good) and even got it printed for me :D LOVE!



anyways, these cupcakes are really really good (and easy) trust me, so good they went in one night. after we had already scoffed 2 salads a roast turkey, roast lamb, roast potato, pumpkin and chocolate cake. soft and light but not too sweet with a real hit of coffee in the icing. i topped them with a shard of dark chocolate, which really clashed with the sweet icing.


Chocolate cupcakes

113g butter softened (I cut off 150 g and used the leftover 37g in the icing)
1 c sugar
2 large eggs
3/4 c flour
1/2 tspn baking powder
1/4 tspn baking soda
1/4 tspn salt
1/2 c cocoa powder
1/4 c milk (or water...but seriously?)
1 tspn vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Prepare muffin/cupcake tray. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, until well combined. Sift dry ingredients into butter/egg mix and combine. Add milk and vanilla essence. Mix.
Scoop about 1 1/2 tbspn of batter into each cupcake case. (warning: do not eat batter because it tastes amazing and you wont end up with any cupcakes left) Bake for about 20 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Coffee icing (momentous day...I MADE ICING THAT WORKED!!!!)
Leftover softened butter from the 150g cut off for the cupcakes (about 37g)
1 1/2 c icing sugar
1 tspn instant coffee
2 tbspns milk

Dissolve instant coffee in milk in small glass (yes it does work with cold milk!) Place butter, icing sugar and coffee mix into bowl and mix until combined. it should hold shape. if too runny, add more icing sugar. if too much icing sugar, add milk (about a tbspn at a time)

When cupcakes are cool, ice with coffee icing and shove a shard of dark chocolate in the top.

Passionfruit Sponge (a)

Argh all this food talk is making me hungry. But I kinda dont want to eat because I am planning an epic dinner. I dont know what, but its going to be good. infact, i think steak is on the cards. yeahboiiii!!!
anyways, what i am really meant to be talking about is passionfruit sponge. Like i said, I made two cakes for hannah's birthday, and this is the second cake. being delightfully creative, i decided that because i was making a rich-ish chocolate cake, the other cake should be light and fruity. i had leftover passionfruit syrup in the freezer, so figured that would be a good way to go.
this passionfruit sponge was again, sooo easy to make and really light. it was probably a tiny bit dry though, so maybe a bit less time cooking, or get it all creamed up sooner so the cream can soak through.
can i just say, that i love the word sponge. i think it fits this cake perfectly. when you press down on a sponge and it springs back, just like the word rolling off your tounge...sppoooonggeeeee....it goes down on the 'spon' and then slowly rises again 'geeeeeee'. perfect.




Passionfruit Sponge

4 eggs (seperated)
3/4 c castor sugar
3/4 c cornflour
2 tspn self raising flour
1 1/2 tspn baking powder

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Prepare two cake tins (same as for the devils food cake) Beat egg whites into stiff peaks. Add sugar gradually, continuing to beat. Add egg yolks individually, still beating. Sift dry ingredients. Fold dry ingredients into wet mix. Divide the mix between two cake tins. Place into oven and bake for 20 minutes. Do not open oven while cakes are cooking!! (the wait nearly killed me). Cakes are ready when you press lightly on the top and they spring back. Allow cakes to cool before icing

Icing
1 cup cream
1/4 c passionfruit pulp
2 c icing sugar

Beat cream until stiff. Use the cream to fill between the two cakes or do what I did and cream the middle + all the way around the cake.
Mix the passionfruit and icing sugar and pour/spread overtop of cream/cake

No tips for this cake, its pretty straightforward and I dont think you could stuff it up!! :)

devils food cake (a)

Its hannahs birthday. (well it was hannahs bday on the weekend)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!!

So, for hannahs birthday I decided to bake her a cake. well, two cakes. because there were 20 people coming and i didnt think one would be enough. the first cake i decided to bake was a devils food cake. why? because hannah requested a chocolate cake. i got the recipe from david lebovitz, this random guy who lives in paris and has written books about chocolate. i think thats pretty cool!
now, ive always thought that devils food cake would be really hard to make and would involve lots of crazy ingredients. turns out, its actually pretty easy, and all the ingredients were in my pantry! YAY!
this cake is moist, not too crumbly, and definitley not as heavy as the raspberry ganache cake. its not a mudcake, but its heavier than a chocolate sponge. pretty damn yum if you ask me.
so pull out the cocoa and have a go at:



Devils Food Cake

9 tbspn cocoa powder (unsweetend if you can find it)
1 1/2 c flour
1/ tspn salt
1 tspn baking soda
1/4 tspn baking powder
113g butter
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 c coffee
1/2 c milk

Preheat oven to 190 degrees. Prepare two cake tins (i used 2 different sized ones coz i didnt have the same sizes - used spring form and buttered the side, put baking paper circles on the bottom) Sift all the dry ingredients into a bowl. In another bowl, beat cream and sugar until creamy. (i used an electric mixer for the first time to do this. epic fail. will now stick to the wooden spoon. class.) Add the eggs into the butter and sugar mix one at a time, combining well. In a small bowl/glass combine the coffee and milk. Add 1/2 the dry ingredients to the wet mix. stir. add the milk and coffee. stir. add the rest of the dry ingredients. stir. Divide the cake batter into the two tins and bake for 25 minutes or until skewer comes out clean. Allow cake to cool completely before icing.



Chocolate icing
again, my icing was an epic fail. if you check out davids website you can see what the icing is SUPPOSED to look like. my icing was runny and i didnt have time to let it cool properly so i just poured it over the cake. still tasted GREAT.
250g chocolate(dark choc ftw)
1/2 c cream (or water, but seriously...water??)
90g butter (use softened to make it easier)

Melt chocolate in microwave. Let it cool for about 5 minutes. Add butter and stir well. Add cream, making sure you stir continuously so that the cold cream doesnt make the chocolate go hard. If you have time, let the icing sit until completely cool. If you dont, pour icing over the bottom cake and ice the sides. place other cake ontop, and pour icing over again. actually ends up looking pretty cool :)

Tips
to write on a cake, combine icing sugar + water until a little runny but not too much (about 1/2 c icing sugar and 2 tbspns water). place icing into piping bag, or plastic sandwhich bag (cut a small corner off and pipe icing through that) and write on cake!!

Enjoy!!