Butternut Squash and Ginger Cupcakes

It's Autumn…I know right? like who would have guessed?.. and the big flavours of the moment are pumpkin, carrot…well anything orange really. Pretty much like the leaves falling from the trees. 

Pumpkin is huge at the moment , thanks maybe to the fact that we all buy them to carve for Halloween, you may find pumpkin in a whole host of recipes such as the yummy pumpkin and pancetta spaghetti that I had from Prezzo on Thursday night. Indeed it is not just savoury dishes that are pumpkinfied as over in America pumpkin pie is a staple dessert especially at Thanksgiving. Pumpkins have even filtrated our coffee - Pumpkin Spiced Latte anyone? - on a side note, does anybody actually like these? 

Anyway I’m not actually here to talk about Pumpkins but rather their lesser appreciated cousins; the squash and specifically one of the butternut variety. Butternut Squash its delicious roasted or used in soups or risottos a la yesterday’s dinner. 

Yet I'm not really much of savoury person so unless I can have it in a sickly sweet and devilishly good form then I'm not interested. Cue the cupcakes. 

I will be basing my cupcakes on a Jamie Oliver recipe but true to form I shall be tweaking it along the way.

Presentation has never been my strong point when it comes to baking I mean have you seen me with a piping bag? Yet after a session at the Cake and Bake show in Harrogate with ‘Burlesque Baker’ Charlotte White and a little research via the GBBO I’m hoping for more success this time around. 

Whenever I read baking blogs I normally despair at the preamble and will the author to get to to the good bit so sorry for rambling. 

First things first: I shall be making little gingerbread biscuits as decorations so for the gingerbread you will need:

150g flour

1tbsp ground ginger

1tbsp mixed spice (optional)

4tbsp golden syrup

3tbsp light brown sugar

50g butter

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 egg beaten.

Sift the flour, mixed spice (if using) and ginger into a bowl a set aside.

In a large saucepan combine the butter, sugar and golden syrup. Heat gently until thoroughly melted. You may need to stir the mixture occasionally. 

Stir in the baking powder, this will make the melted mixture ‘fluffy’ and golden in colour. Somewhat like honeycomb you will notice air pockets forming. 

Add the wet mixture to your dry ingredients and combine the beaten egg. Leave to cool in the fridge for half an hour. 

At this stage the dough is very wet and therefore you should leave it to chill and it will be much easier to work with

Whilst our biscuits rest a while lets turn our attention to the cupcakes. In his recipe Jamie Oliver uses 400g of butternut squash but with the peel on? Sorry Jamie but I'm going to have to peel mine. 

Before peeling my half a squash measured 625g yet after peeling I only got a measly 250g. I am therefore going to have to rewrite the whole thing. Bother. 

For the cup cakes you will need:

250g butternut squash

175g sugar

175g flour

87g butter (Jamie uses olive oil but I much prefer to use butter in my cakes)

2 eggs

1tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

Additional ingredients that I added were:

15g crystallised ginger

1tbsp ground ginger

Start by preparing the butternut squash. I peeled mine and roughly chopped it. I then blitzed it with my Bamix (food processor/blender anything will do) If you prefer you can grate yours just like a carrot cake. I had the same intention but mine looks more like mush. 

Oh and you might want to preheat the oven at this stage to 180c

Cream your butter and sugar and fold in the butternut squash and finely chopped crystallised ginger. 

Add the spices, baking powder and gradually stir in the flour and eggs.

Spoon the mixture into  cupcake cases (that are already in a tin obviously) but be careful not overfill them as you will need to get your icing on top. Don't be too stingy with the mix  though. Nobody wants a bun that's more cup than cake. 

Place in the centre of the oven and bake for approximately 20-25 minutes. 

By this this time your gingerbread should be ready. 

Knead your mixture for a few minutes before rolling it out and cutting into shapes.

I made butterflies, hearts and bunny rabbits but I might of forgotten about my first batch whilst they were cooking so they got a little bit burnt. 

Bake the gingerbread at 180c for 10-15 minutes depending on the size of the biscuits. 

The bunnies all came out of the oven stuck together. They are friends now. 

Once all your bakes are sat cooling you can turn your attention to the icing. I’m making a cream cheese buttercream to go with mine but alternatively you could make a lemon icing and drizzle it over or go all out with the ginger them and put some ginger syrup in there.  

For the butter cream you will need:

300g icing sugar

100g butter

50g cream cheese

First melt the butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Pour the butter into your icing sugar gradually stirring continuously. I often make the mistake of  adding the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and then it never thickens . 

Stir in the cream cheese. The buttercream should be a thick liquid. I think that the main reason why my piping work has always been unsuccessful is that the icing was the wrong consistency.

Choose your nozzle and snip off the end of the bag so that the nozzle peeks through. I like to put my piping bag over a pint glass as it holds it in place as you add the icing and its a good spot for holding the bag when not in use. 

I used a large star nozzle and tried three different ways of piping

The first technique used was starting in the middle and moving outwards thus creating a rose. 

Second I tried creating a kind of hedgehog effect by creating a series of dots. Pressing the bag down and immediately lifting back up again. 

The final piping method that I used (my favourite of the three) was starting form the outside and working inwards, pulling upwards when you get to the centre thus creating a peak.

If you look from the top line going left to right you will see the different effect the techniques had. 1 and 4 use method 2, 5, 6 and 7 method 1 and you may be able to guess method 3 is 2 and 3.

Place your gingerbread onto of the cakes to present. Sadly as my butterflies were too burnt to salvage so i had to opt for the hearts to adorn the cupcake, they are a little on the big side though which detracts from the piping (that I totally nailed) 

You don't want to store the cupcake with the biscuit and the gingerbread will soften.

Salted Caramel Cupcakes

After extensively scrolling through the internet for a good salted caramel cupcakes recipe and I was coming up short. This was not because a lack of recipes - there are hundreds out there but I didn't find one that I liked so I was left with only option; make my own.

For these cupcakes I used:

For the cake

150g golden caster sugar
150g butter
3eggs
175g flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1tsp vanilla essence

For the icing

100g  butter
200g golden icing
50g philadelphia

For the caramel

125g butter
125g golden caster sugar
1 tsp double cream (optional)
A pinch of salt

In most cake recipes, well if you are using the creaming method anyway, the first thing you will do with your ingredients is to cream the butter and sugar until they are light and fluffy but I wanted to make caramel ones so instead of creaming the two I melted them instead.  (For added saltiness to the caramel I could have added an additional handful of salt at this stage.) Once I was happy with the consistency of my caramel I removed the pan from the heat and left to cool.

Meanwhile I did a little dance and sung into down my hairbrush while the caramel cooled.

After singing along to MTV for a few songs I was satisfied with the temperature of the caramel and proceeded to beat in the eggs…one by one…..careful not to get any shell in. At this point the mixture looked very runny but fear not because this why I added more flour than the other ingredients. Yet before folding the flour trying to incorporate as much air as possible I incorporated the baking powder and vanilla essence.

The mixture was then divided equally (well I tried to make them equal but it didn't really work) between 12 muffin cases and baked at 180 degrees for approximately 17 minutes.

With stage one complete I moved onto making the caramel filling and icing.

For the caramel I melted more butter and sugar with some salt yet feeling a tad adventurous I also added a little double cream thus making my caramel a little thicker and more fudge like. In the same way as butterfly buns I cut a groove into the top of the cupcakes before filling the space with the salted caramel and placing the piece of cake on top like a hat.

I used golden icing sugar for my icing as not only does it have a nice golden tint to it (as the name suggests) but also because the icing has a subtle caramel flavour to it. 

For the best effect I should have piped the icing onto the cakes but I have come to realisation that piping really isn't my my forte so I used the trusty spoon and knife method.

 Finally I decorated using honeycomb and butterscotch pieces. Eh voila scrummy cupcakes!

Let Them Eat Cake

Baking has grown massively in popularity in recent years thanks in no small part to the advent of the Great British Bake Off. This has led to people staging their own bake offs around the country, the rise of baking sites such as BakingMad.com spearheaded by Eric Lanlard and events such as The Cake and Bake Show in both Manchester and London that showcase to best in British baking.

The GBBO's James and Ryan

 

Walking around the packed Manchester Central at the 2013 Cake and Bake Show you can’t help but be awed by the impact that baking has had on us all. Baking trends have also become a lot more prominent, indeed you can hardly move for all the cupcakes. 

Tom Herbert's Masterclass at the The Cake and Bake Show Manchester

America have paved the way for the next baking trend that started it’s across the pond in 2012: Cake Pops. For those of you who are unsure what these little beauties are, think of a cake lollipop. 

More recently a trend that has been grabbing my attention is the cake push pop. This idea is very much like the ice cream push pop that swept the nation in the nineties but the cake push pop is less likely to give you a brain freeze. 

On the quest to try and make my very own cake push pops I enlisted my mother to help me trawl around every shop and supermarket in search of these elusive treats. Yet the push pop proved to be a bit too retro for most places and our search was fruitless until we stumbled across the Smarties ice cream of the exact description of what I was looking for in the bus station of all places. 

For the cake push pop to work best the plastic encasing should be see through, something that that push pop that I had was not. I had hoped that the blue card around the plastic case would come off leaving a clear shell but I was sadly mistaken so I was forced to abandon ship. I later learnt that I can order the case exact to my specifications off the internet. What a numpty. 

The popularity of baked goods has influenced many areas of life such as the media and even fashion.  Cake has recently taken a starring role in some photo-shoots and not just as a form of sustenance to keep the photographer, stylists and models going after a working day. This blog is a great example of cake being used to accentuate the models look. http://www.celebrationgeneration.com/blog/2010/05/03/fashion-and-cake/

At Accent Clothing (@AccentClothing) bright colours, high fashion and of course cake were the inspiration for the May look book shoot. (Baking done by yours truly)To achieve the brightness required I went through many bottles of food colouring but nothing seemed to be working, the colours weren’t vibrant enough and the cakes just tasted like the food colouring. This problem was resolved when I met colour pastes; I would only need a toothpick of the colour and not only were the cakes the right colour but also everything that I touched ended up stained.  

One of the most challenging tasks that I faced was not the making of the cakes or even the decorating of it (although that was hard) but trying to transport rainbow cupcakes and funky coloured cake pops in one piece. As I let out a sigh of relief when I delivered the cake and nothing had broken I felt like a proud mama. The cake craze is here to stay and I for one am delighted.

Of all the tea in China, so I made cupcakes

If anyone has ever had the pleasure, nay the privilege, of entering my humble abode you will know that is filled with an array of different teas. Whether it is colour, flavour, type or the country of origin I can pretty much guarantee that I have that tea. 

According to the Chinese Historical and Cultural Project tea “is today’s most popular beverage in the world,[1]” since its introduction to Europe in the seventeenth century tea was seen to be a very expensive product and tea smuggling was rife especially amongst those who could not afford the product that was worth its weight in gold. It seemed like nobody could keep their hands off the stuff but why only drink it when the tea can be used for so much more?

When first trying out a recipe I have been advised to stick to it and adapt it later on when you know that it works, well I’m throwing caution to the wind and the song goes ‘It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to.’ I probably will cry if it goes wrong.

The original recipe can be found here: http://www.lowfatvegancooking.org/?p=2213

 

My version is as follows:

Ingredients:

3 tsp green tea leaves  I used Bancha Arashiyama a Japanese Green Tea  available from the Tea House Emporium without additional flavours added to it but I wonder if using a different type of tea, maybe a more flavoursome variety would change taste of the cupcake.

400ml Almond milk 

60g Almond butter

Or alternatively 475ml of milk and no butter, I used Almond because we had some in the house but regular milk and/or butter can be used instead, unless you are vegan, then I would suggest a milk/butter of the nut variety 

160g Whole grain flour, you could use white flour but it tastes more refined and contains less fibre.

1 tsp Baking Powder

¼ tsp salt

150g sugar

Boil the milk with the tea leaves for 10 minutes allowing the leaves to infuse the milk. Strain, making sure to get as much of the liquid out of the leaves as possible.

Cream the sugar and butter (if using butter, if not then this a pretty useless step to have) 

Add the vanilla extract and ¾ of the milk mixture to the sugar as well as folding in the rest of the dry ingredients.

Bake in the oven at 180°c for 25-30 minutes

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To make the icing, don’t do as I do and pour the icing sugar into the green tea milk, it will never thicken. Instead mix a tsp of vanilla and a tsp. of almond extract with 150g icing sugar and gradually add the green tea milk.

To go with my almond theme (almond milk and almond butter) I decided to put marzipan rounds on top of each cupcake before icing, it also added a different texture to the finished cupcake. I didn’t add the marzipan rounds because I had loads of marzipan left over from making Christmas cake and needed to find a use for it, of course not.

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[1] CHCP, Teas Wonderful History (online) available from: http://www.chcp.org/tea.html