Oreo cupcakes

I adore Oreos. I only tried them for the first time about a year ago (maybe two) and I can't believe I missed out on them for 19/20 years! The first time I remember hearing about Oreos was when I saw The Parent Trap (the one with Lindsay Lohan), I loved that film. They ate theirs with peanut butter which is actually pretty nice. I had to try!

ANYWAY, to start with I twisted the oreos apart (so most of the cream is on one half) and placed that half at the bottom of the cupcake cases. I saw this idea on someone elses blog.

Don't throw away the other half, you'll need them for later!

All of the recipes I've seen for these cupcakes have used a chocolate sponge. I decided to use vanilla as I thought I'd find it too sickly otherwise. I just used the normal ingredients (caster sugar, butter, self raising flour, vanilla extract) and spooned it in to the cases.

They went in the oven (fan oven at 160°) for about 13-15 minutes. I always check the cupcakes after 10 minutes and just go from there. I got them out the oven and put them on a cooling rack.

I absolutely love how the bottom of the cupcakes look.

Whilst the cupcakes were cooling, I blitzed the remaining Oreos in a blender. Try to get the pieces as small as you can, otherwise some parts may get stuck in the nozzle (I found this out)

I used 4oz of icing sugar (I would have used more, but I ran out...I really need to start writing down when I need more stuff!) and 2oz butter. I mixed the blended Oreos in and added some milk. Not exactly sure how much, I just kept adding little bits until I felt the consistency was right.

Then I piped the icing on. Then I cut more Oreos in half and put one on top. Easy peasy. I really, really want/need to get a bigger nozzle. I just think it'll make my cupcakes look better! I'm going to try and get one soon.

I really, really do love this part of the cupcakes. (Er, excuse the fact I had already took a bite at this point...)

There we go. I think these may be my favourite so far!

Hayley x

P.S I heard that there are more flavours or Oreos in the US. OMG!! I want to try these. Especially if there's mint. Me and Kirsty are going to New York in June (CAN'T WAIT!!!!!) so I think I will have to stock up.

Football Cupcakes

Yesterday, one of my cousins turned 11. He is obsessed with Manchester United so I knew that I had to do football cupcakes for him.

I used a one egg sponge recipe and baked the cupcake in the oven for about 15 minutes. Let them cool (you know the deal now!) and then decorated.

I used butter cream icing with green food colouring. I used natural food colouring, which is why it didn't go as green as I'd like, I added so much in! I had to use natural as one of my cousins will go LOOPY if I used the not natural stuff.

I tried to get the icing to look grass like, I used this nozzle to get the effect. Originally I was going to have the Manchester United rice papers on top of the grass, but thought it'd look better this way. I used a cocktail stick, rice paper on each side and icing to stick together.

I was also going to have chocolate footballs on the cupcakes to make them look even more football-y. But do you think I could find them anywhere? NOPE. In the end I found some Haribo football themed jellies, which didn't look too bad. But if I ever do them again, I'm going to use the chocolate footballs, as long as I can find them somewhere!

Anyway, there we go.

Expect a blog from one of us soon (I need to get my thinking cap on, don't know what ones to make next. Hmm...)

Hayley x

Valentines Day Cupcakes

A friend of ours asked if we could bake some valentines day cupcakes for her boyfriend. Of course, we were happy to!

We used a basic cupcake recipe (vanilla) and decided to go with the marble effect. We split the mixture in to two bowls and coloured one lot.

Then we put the mixture in to the cases, pink first, then white, then pink (and vice versa!), then got our cocktail sticks and then did our stuff. I always see recipes saying use a knife to do it, but I find that cocktail sticks work so much better.

In the oven for 15-20 minutes and they came out looking good! (And very large...bit too much mixture in the cases I think)

Kirsty chopped the tops off (saving them for later!!) while I started dying the white icing red...or should I say pink!

Our friend gave us some cute "I love you" cutters so we used them to add lettering :)

Here's the final result!

And with the tops, we made buttercream sandwiches (DELICIOUS!)

Love, Hayley x

Coffee and Chocolate Cupcakes

It's a friends birthday tomorrow so because I'm such an awesome friend, I decided to make her a cupcake to go with her presents. I baked a one egg recipe making five coffee cupcakes (forgot to take photos of that bit), adding dry coffee pushed through a tea strainer rather than making it into a paste with boiling water as I find this curdles the mixture.

I then made a sticky chocolate icing to separate the coffee cake and the coffee icing, using 75% cocoa chocolate, icing sugar, butter and a secret ingredient ;)

I then spread the icing on the cakes with a teaspoon, and it looked sooo luxurious:

While they were cooling in my conservatory, I made up the coffee buttercream icing - as always I make too much as I find it quite hard to measure out the ingredients for buttercream. A lot of recipes tell you to double the icing sugar to the butter, but it still tastes buttery to me - so I usually use 1oz butter to 8oz sugar. Seems a lot I know, but it's worth it to make a better cake. Here's what my icing looked like:

Yum or what.

I let the icing cool in the fridge for about 30 mins and then I melted some left over chocolate onto some greaseproof paper, and a tupperwear lid:

(My friends name is Kirsty, so the K was for her cake only) and I was following a friend's idea to melt chocolate on a flexible surface to create my own chocolate sprinkles. It worked really well.

I piped the icing into a rose shape, not totally covering the cake so that the chocolate icing was on show, then added a malteaser onto each. I then crushed the rest of the malteasers, almost cried, then stuck the malt pieces into the coffee icing before scraping the melted chocolate from the lid to create sprinkles. 

Here's the finished cakes:

They look slightly like nipples, but I reckon they'll taste like cakes.

Kirsty

x

Mint Cupcakes

So here I tried my hand at icing with a piping bag for the first time - it's not as easy as it looks!

This was a really simple recipe, with just a touch of peppermint extract in the cake and more in the icing to give it a kick.

I also added a tiny amount of green colouring to the base icing and green and blue Dr. Oekter for the decoration and slightly oddly shaped icing on top.

I think they look sort of wintery - and they were really refreshing to eat as well.

There you go, peppermint cupcakes!!

Kirsty

x

Red Velvet Cupcakes

I have never tried red velvet cupcakes before, but I always hear people talking about them. I've never heard or read anyone say they don't like them!
I searched online for a recipe. I came across so many but decided to use The Hummingbird Bakery's recipe. I have only heard good things about them and I hoping to go and visit one day soon.

This is my assistant, she's called Treacle. She sat on that chair the whole time I was baking and just watched everything I was doing.

Anyway, I mixed all of the ingredients together. In a metal bowl because of the red dye! I love how bright the colour is.

I tried to be so careful with the red dye. But there was no escaping red everywhere, over the work sufaces, over my hands and arms. Everywhere!!

These cupcakes took about 20 minutes in my fan oven (at 160°) - I think maybe I overcooked them a little bit, but ah well. We live and learn!

Proof that they ARE red

I waited for them to cool and then I made the frosting. Cream cheese butter cream...it's sooo good!!

Apply to cupcakes and TA DA! I think the frosting really does compliment the taste of the cake. Because of the buttermilk, the cake isn't the sweetest, but I like it. I don't know if they tasted like they were supposed to because I have nothing to compare it to, but my family really liked them. Even my Nan who is the most honest person you will ever meet.

I put these cupcakes in the fridge for a couple of hours. For some reason, I personally think they tasted A LOT better after that. Strange, but it's just what I felt.

Don't they look lovely?

There we go :) Expect more blogging this week.

Love, Hayley x