Christmas Pud Cupcakes!

Still on the theme of Christmas, I found this lovely recipe that includes chocolate (a must at Christmas!), sour cherries and soured cream. In the original recipe, these cupcakes are decorated with bay leaves so that it looks like a holly leaf with berries but I could not find any in the supermarkets, so decided to do without.

This tasty cupcake has melted chocolate as well as cocoa powder so it came out really moist and chocolatey. The recipe called for sour cherries but as I had some dried cranberries left over, I used a combination of both. Icing is once again a simple white frosting and decorated with a sour cherry or cranberry on top.

I ended up with 26 cupcakes so will be interesting to see how quickly they will go tomorrow with the ginger biscuits!

Christmas Ginger Biscuits!

In the spirit of Christmas, I have been baking with any ingredients to do with Christmas for the last few weeks. Hence this weekend, I decided to bake some double gingerbread men, trees, stars, holly leaves, angels and teddy bears! The 'double ginger' comes from ground ginger and chopped stem ginger.

However, I think I might have overbaked them and they have come out more crunchy and more like biscuits so I have decided to call them christmas ginger biscuits instead. I have also iced them with simple white frosting and coloured star sprinkles to give them some colour.

The Husband has tried them and said they were 'ok' although he would have preferred more icing!

Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Milk Chocolate Icing!

We had an influx of new colleagues in the Office last week and chocolate seems to be a recurring theme with boys, so I decided to bake cupcakes with some chocolate in them to complement the cranberry & orange cupcakes.

The Husband tried these cupcakes without icing and thought they were really good. With the icing, he ate another two in the office the next day!

I also discovered why cupcakes are usually round as star-shaped and heart-shaped cupcakes actually turned out to be a nightmare to ice! I am sure it is fine if I am using sugar icing but because chocolate and cream cream icings are not as stiff, spreading them evenly takes more of an effort to get them right without having icing spreading off the edges!

My in-laws have also tried them and pronounced them 'quite tasty'. Together with the orange and cranberry cupcakes, the Office managed to finish 40 cupcakes in a day!

Orange & Cranberry Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Icing!

I received a whole new collection of cupcake moulds for my birthday from my brother and sister-in-laws and I was quite keen to use them to bake more different shaped cupcakes.

Seeing as Christmas was only a couple of weeks away, I decided on a Christmas themed cupcake recipe that involves fresh cranberries. This is the first time I am using fresh cranberries and I found them quite a hard berry which has to be chopped up finely and baked into the cupcakes. I do not actually think they are that tasty raw although they do look sweet as decorations.

The Husband is not a fan of cream cheese icing, hence did not really these cupcakes but they did vanished in a day in the Office!

Pirate Birthday Cake!

I received a request from a friend to bake a birthday cake for her son last weekend. She was very taken with the raisin and chocolate sandwich cake that I did before so wanted a similar cake for the birthday boy.

The birthday was a pirate-themed one, so I baked the cake the night before and frost it for collection the day of the party. I was slightly worried as one of the cakes had sunk slightly in the middle but luckily the frosting was more than enough to make up for it. The cake was then decorated by my friend with the pirate decorations.

Post-party, she told me that when her partner came home with the cake in a Galaxy chocolate tin, she thought that he had gone out and bought chocolates. Apparently, the birthday boy thought so as well and put his hand in to come out with a palmful of icing which he ended up licking happily! His poor mother had to smooth over the icing to make sure the cake was presentable again. The entire cake was eaten by ten adults and six children in the afternoon.

Christmas Tree at the McNabs!

This is Christmas tree No 2 that the Husband has got for me. Coming from a tropical country, the novelty of Christmas still appeals to me despite the amount of snow we have got blanketing the country for the last 2 weeks.

And below are the pictures of what I came back to a couple of weeks ago....just before we couldn't get the car out of the garage the next day!

Cranberry & Cherry Cake!

I found this lovely recipe in one of my books and since Christmas is almost round the corner (20 days to be exact!), I figured a recipe with cranberries would be ideal.

This cake has 200g of glace cherries and 50g of cranberries baked into it so when one slices it, there is a great contrast between the yellow sponge cake and the red fruits. The orange zest also gives it a tangy feel. It did take some time though as the eggs and flour had to mix in alternately in spoonfuls to get a smooth batter.

The Husband has commented that it tastes like what his Grandma used to bake, which I thought was quite sweet. :)

Ginger Madeleines!

I have been wanting to bake these ginger madeleines since I found this recipe online but I had to wait until I got the madeleine baking pans to do so. Luckily, my girlfriends in the Office were happy enough to get the pans for me for my birthday so I set to work this weekend baking them.

What are madeleines? According to Wikipedia, "madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions.The madeleine or petite madeleine is a traditional small cake from Commercy and Liverdun, two communes of the Lorraine region in northeastern France."

These madeleines were quite easy to bake. Stem ginger and ground ginger are both mixed into the batter which gives a strong ginger flavour, ideal for ginger lovers! Butter, eggs, sugar, flour and vanilla extract are the standard baking ingredients. The batter is then chilled for 30 mins before spooning them into the pan and baking them for 10 mins. The madeleines are then dusted with icing sugar.

The Husband has pronounced them 'pretty good'.