Not a cupcake, but still cake!

Brooklyn Blackout cake to be precise.

I used a recipe from the The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and i'm not going to say it went fab but it was 8.30pm that i decided to start baking it, so i guess thas no-ones fault but my own!

Basically it is a chocolate cake, but instead of frosting or ganache, the filling is a very thick chocolate custard, now this is the part i don't recommend attempting to make when your a bit tired last thing in the evening, as not only did i make things ten times more difficult for myself but there were two casualtys from this baking session - a whisk and a sieve!

Oh yes, the joys of cornflour, i wont be using that ingredient again for a while, i mean 200g of cornflour with 120ml of water, im sure whoever wrote that recipe was somewhere laughing a very evil laugh when i was attempting to "mix" the two! And where did the sieve come into it? When the custard had thickened and i still had a whole load of lumps!! Ok, im not the worlds greatest cook, i admit that!

So anyway, witht the sponge i only had 2 cake tins instead of 3, so its not as tall and pretty but i think it still looks pretty darn nice, especially with the milk, white and dark chocolate i grated on top!

Conclusion? well i'm not a huge fan of chocolate cake anyway, there are only two i have found that i like so far - one from costa coffee, and another from thorntons, both of which are sweet and fairly gooey.  Now this cake would be labeled "tame" for the people who like chocolate cake but always complain it's too sweet, i found it not to be sweet enough for my taste, but i can understand that others would potentially enjoy this more than your other mainstream chocolate cake recipes.

What next? Back to cupcakes for me!

Cinnamon swirl cupcakes!

Well this is my first post to this blog, welcome! Today I experimented with making cinnamon swirl cupcakes.

This was my first attempt at these and the idea was pretty much "suck it and see" as I didn't have a specific recipe for them. I used my current favourite basic vanilla sponge recipe (I say current, it's the only one so far that I have managed to do without going wrong) which is as follows . .

(makes 6 large cupcakes, 12 small)

4oz butter
4oz sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
4oz flour

1. Mix butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla together until smooth

2. Mix in flour until incorporated

3. Spoon into paper cases

Now here is where the cinnamon part happened! I mixed some demorera sugar with cinnamon (don't ask about quantities because I havnt a clue, I just made sure it was edible, not too cinnamony!).

Backtracking slightly to spooning into the paper cases . .

I spooned a dollop of cake mix, enough to cover the base of the paper case, then a spoonful of the cinnamon sugar, then more cake mixture, then used a cocktail stick to swirl it around a little.

Then baked, at about 170 degrees, until golden and a cocktail stick inserted came out clean, about 20-25 Mins.

For the frosting I used the following recipe, although it is very sweet, I have yet to find a better alternative . .

250g sifted icing sugar
80g butter
Milk (a dash or two)
A few drops of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. Combine the butter and icing sugar (I like to use a handheld electric whisk)

(tip: make sure the buttetis fairly soft, room temperature is great)

2. Add the vanilla essence and milk, add enough milk to get the desired consistancy.

3. Beat in the ground cinnamon, 1/2 a teaspoon is an estimate, I just added it to taste!


Once the cakes were cooled I put the icing on using a plastic spatular and sprinkled a little cinnamon to decorate!

Here is the final result . .

And the swirl . .

Unfortunately I don't think I put enough of the cinnamon sugar in, next time I would certainly use more, and be sure to distribute it a little bit better.

Until next time . .