This is just a quickie post to wish everyone a very MERRY CHRISTMAS. For this years Christmas post the most fashionable cake of the year definetly had to be in the picture. Unfortunately I don’t have the time to give you the recipe but it’s quite simple. Just take your favourite chocolate cake recipe add a pinch of cinammon and cardomam. Bake in cupcake forms and ice with a simple blend of icing sugar with freshly squeezed orange juice. If you have a great spiced chocolate cake recipe, please let me know.

Hope to see you in the New Year!

Tags: cupcakes, seasonal, spicy

Well I hope your Honey doesn’t . I whisked these up for a little teatime snack. They go great with a hot cup of a tea or a cold glass of milk. With the cold weather at the moment I have the tendency of snuggling under my duvet with a big cup of tea, something to nibble and a good book or dvd. For me it’s preferably an old classic with Cary Grant…sigh. They just don’t make men like that anymore.

Honey Bites

175g butter
60g brown sugar
60g runny honey
2 eggs
100g ground almonds
80g wholemeal flower
20g plain flour
3 tbsp of milk
2 tsp baking powder
1 handful of chopped almonds for garnish

Makes 24 bites (mini cupcakes) – alternatively you can bake in one large tray and a cut into small squares. Allow for extra baking time though.

Preheat the oven to 180°c.
Beat butter and sugar together. Add eggs, honey and milk while beating the mixture. If the mixture curdles, don’t worry. It will come together once you add the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl sift the flours, baking powder and almonds together. Add the dry ingredients to the batter. Spoon into mini moulds and sprinkle with chopped almonds (if you have an extra sweet tooth you could drizzle some honey on top too). Bake for 15-20mins or until bites bounce back when you touch them.

Tags: almonds, bees, honey

Hand me those cupcakes, I need my sugar fix! Well, it certainly feels like that there are a whole load of cupcake junkies out there at the moment. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that everybody in Paris is cupcake crazy. Well the proof has definetly been in eating the pudding! So much so that I’m doing another “Pimp my cupcake” session. It’s already booked up with a waiting list. Wahey!

Keep reading…

Tags: 7 minute icing, Cupcakes in Paris, Fluffy, Icing

You say tomatoe (just imagine the yankee accent ) I say tomato (and a brit one here). The same could go for cupcakes or as us Brits call them fairy cakes. I was doing some research for my next cookery class. The theme is cupcakes which is all the rage in Paris and I found a few interesting titbits…

According to the “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America”, cupcakes were originally just small cakes minus the icing, that came in the 1950s. The “cup” derived from two origins:
1. The switch from weighing to using cup measurements in the 19th century American households.
2. The practice of baking in small containers or cups. Large cakes were often burnt in the the hearth ovens.

Brits use the term “fairy cakes”, as you normally scoop out the top, fill that with buttercream and jam and then cut the top into two wings which you place on top. Hence them looking slightly fairy like. I would normally call those butterfly cakes and all the plain iced cakes, fairy cakes.

Anyway, at the end of the day they taste delicious and bring back memories of sticky little fingers at birthday parties (well, that is if you had an anglophone childhood).

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Tags: cupcakes, fairy cakes, pimp my cupcake

Keep reading…

Tags: clotted cream, scones, Teatime