A couple of years ago I went through a bit of a cupcake phase. I tried all sorts - vanilla, chocolate, carrot, lemon, coffee, pumpkin, strawberry. Cheescake and Tiramisu. I have made Birthday cupcakes, Christmas and Halloween cupcakes, as gifts for teachers or New Baby presents, cupcakes as after dinner dessert...
I think the appeal is the miniaturisation of a cake. I love the idea of making little versions of a big cake. There is so much fun to be had with decorating a cupcake - colours, sprinkles, edible glitter - you can buy a fantastic range of cupcake toppers very easily now.
Then I went off them for a while and went back to baking good old fashioned layer cakes or loaf cakes. But I do love a cupcake and sometimes only a cupcake will do. They are most definitely not fairy cakes which, in this house, are baked in the smaller muffin tins and have plain old icing-sugar-mixed-with-water icing. But I do love buttercream frosting. I could just eat it out of the bowl with a spoon. So, after my extensive research this is my ultimate cupcake: The plain Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla Frosting from the The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. (Seriously, this is a brilliant book. I find all the recipe times and temperatures just work and I have never had a disaster from this book). It is a light and moist cupcake, quite small and not at all heavy. There are loads of links to this recipe around on the internet (it is clearly very popular!) like this one here.
On Sunday night I made another batch to give to a friend who had a baby girl a few weeks ago, partly as a gift and partly because I believe that when you visit the home of a new mother you should always bring cake!
They are gorgeous!!
ReplyDeleteI am going to have to visit hummingbird on Friday.
Hey there! Loving your new Lovely Food blog. I am jealous that you can call in to the actual bakery - I have to buy the books and pretend.
DeleteI agree about their first book, i use it often. Your cakes look amazing! We will have a quick visit to the shop on your next visit!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely! And can we pop into VV Rouleaux too please! xx
DeleteYou cakes look amazing, I love the box of them at the bottom
ReplyDeleteThanks! I get a ridiculous amount of pleasure from decorating them then putting them in a box and wrapping a pretty bow around it!
DeleteYour cupcakes look beautiful and I am very interested in your recipe which is a bit different from mine. I have agreed to make a couple of dozen at the weekend for children to decorate for Mothering Sunday and am going to give your recipe a go. It seems to use one less egg and more milk than mine for comparable quantities of the other ingredients which may be makes for a lighter cake texture - I am going to find out! Thanks for sharing. E x
ReplyDeleteA couple of dozen, gosh, good luck! What a lovely idea for a Mothering Sunday activity. The recipe doesn't use much egg or butter, and it is quite a wet batter. It makes enough to fill each muffin case by one third but they rise to the top of the case during cooking. Also, the icing doesn't look like a lot when it's made but it's always enough!
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