Cake Balls

Ok so this is a lovely story about some cupcakes that didn't quite cut it as cupcakes and decided to have a second life as cake balls. What are cake balls? Balls of cake, dipped in chocolate! Yum. I got the idea from Bakerella who has some really gorgeous things on her site I recommend you check it out.

Anyway so in the weekend I was trying to make up a recipe for white chocolate and kiwifruit cupcakes. I did manage to but the recipe had a bit too much butter I think and they were very buttery and a bit heavy, and some of them sunk. They still tasted great though! And I did ice them up and they looked ok (although I'm not going to bother with swiss meringue buttercream again till I've got an electric mixer, it's too much work by hand and came out a bit goopy).


Anyway these were just sitting around not being eaten, partly because the Un-death by Chocolate ones were just so delicious (make sure you check them out) and besides two batches of cupcakes is really too much for just me and Darren. You'll be glad to know that I did distribute a few around work yesterday and today so now we've officially got a cupcake count of zero in the house again.

So as I was saying the white chocolate kiwifruit cupcakes were not moving fast, so when I was reading Bakerella and saw that her gorgeous cake balls were basically made of cake and frosting and I realised that I had cake and frosting! So I bought a block of white chocolate and set to it.

Here's the cupcakes becoming crumbled cake and frosting:



Then the frosting and crumbs got mixed together rolled into balls and put in the freezer:



Then they got dipped in chocolate and left to set. I was going to write them off as a failure as my dipping really didn't go very well, but on second thoughts it wasn't a total disaster - redipped I think they'd be fine. I think I would have been better off using dark chocolate to dip them as I find white chocolate a little temperamental and I'm not too experienced, and also might have been better if I'd let the chocolate cool a little before dipping. What happened was my nice hard packed cold buttery balls turned a little bit mushy in the hot chocolate. Anyway I haven't been put off, I will be back for another go!

Here's the finished result anyway:



xxx
Mindy

Un-death by Chocolate Cupcakes

Ok so this is it. Amy and my contribution to the Halloween Cupcake competition run by How To Eat a Cupcake and I Heart Cuppycakes. I would say it's my entry but I can't really enter as I'm not in America, but I still wanted to be part of the fun especially given the fact that these two sites were the very first cupcake sites I started looking at!

Ok so our concept was zombies coming out of their graves, Amy was the creative director here and I was the flavour director. The flavour is chocolate mud, with almonds and cherries, filled with cherry and cherry custard, and topped with a rich chocolate ganache laced with cherry liqueur.

Ok well I think we'll start with a picture of the finished product made to look even scarier with some photo manipulation. Hehe I love the hands in this photo.


Ok now I think I'll post the recipe then I'll put the piccies of them being created.

Cupcakes (makes about 15)

• 100g dark chocolate
• 100g butter
• 1/3 cup of water
• 1/2 cup chopped cherries (I used frozen as they were easy to chop)
• 2 Tbsps cherry liqueur
• 1 1/2 cup ground almonds
• 1 cup caster sugar
  
• 1 cup plain flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 Tbsps cocoa powder
  
• 2 large eggs
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1/4 cup milk

1. Preheat over to 160 degrees celsius.
2. In pot stir chocolate, butter, water, cherries, cherry liqueur over low heat until chocolate and butter melted and well mixed. Set aside to cool.
   
3. Add ground almonds and caster sugar to large bowl, sift in plain flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder. Stir well.
4. In a medium bowl whisk eggs, and milk.
5. Add the milk mixture to the dry ingredients and stir until mixed.
6. Add the chocolate mixture to the other ingredients gradually stirring well after each addition.
7. Fill cupcake cases 1/2-3/4 fill.
8. Cook until skewer comes out clean, about 20 minutes.

Cherry Custard (for filling cupcakes)

• 2 egg yolks (at room temp)
  
• 1/2 cup cherries
• 2 Tbsp cherry liqueur
• 1 Tbsp cherry jam

1. Put cherries, liqueur and jam in a pot and cook until cherries are soft
2. Push as much mixture as you can through a sieve, discard the left over cherry skins and and cherry flesh
3. Whisk egg yolks until smooth
4. Add about half a tablespoon of the cherry liquid to the egg yolks and whisk well.
5. Add some more liquid to the egg yolks and whisk well (maybe a tablespoon this time.
6. Add the egg yolk mixture to the pot and return to the stove on a low heat.
7. Continually stir until the custard becomes thick.

Chocolate Cherry Frosting

• 100g dark chocolate
• 50g butter
• 1/4 cup double cream
• 2 Tbsp cherry liqueur
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
  

1. Put chocolate, butter, cream and liqueur in the microwave for about 60 seconds
2. Stir well
3. Add icing sugar and stir well
4. Let cool until thick enough to spread on cupcakes

Decoration

• Hands and a couple of blades of grass made out of icing and left to harden
• Gravestones made out of white chocolate coloured grey
• Grass made out of sugar and ground almonds coloured green
• Dirt made out of crumbled oreos

To Assemble

1. Cook cupcakes and cool
2. Make custard
   
3. Cut hole in the top of each cupcake fill with a whole cherries and cherry custard
4. Make frosting and ice cupcakes
5. Before icing is set add gravestones, grass, hand and dirt!
   

All lined up waiting to be cooked


And here they are just out of the oven


Mmmm cherry custard


In this case the cherry wasn't on top, but hiding inside


Iced and ready for some graveyard action!


Finished cupcake


My graveyard


xxx
Mindy

Eloise's Cardie

Hello! Well I had a busy cupcake filled weekend - it was good to be at home for a change though. Stay tuned for more cupcakey updates, I'm waiting for my photographer (Darren) to set up a shoot for me so we can capture the cupcakey goodness in it's best light. Anyway as I was saying it was nice to be home but at the same time I'm really looking forward to this weekend when we're off to Cambridge to see Rach and Greg. We haven't seen them in ages so I'm really excited :)

Right well what else is news?

I finished Eloise's cardigan that I've been knitting for ages. Seriously I restarted this about 5 times. The first few to get the tension and needle size right, then I had to start it again because I'd left it so long I'd forgotten where I was up to. Anyway finally got it done! And it's in the post and on the way back to NZ! Yay

Oh quick aside Royal Mail here has this website where you can print out your postage at home (or at work) it's so fantastic! No need for stamps.

Ok here's the top:


Ok that's all for my for today. I'm very tired for some reason.

xxx
Mindy

Klingons

Well D-brain has been baking again! He's so multi-talented. I'm so proud of him. Anyway his most recent creation lends itself perfectly to a basic Star Trek tutorial for all of you who aren't in the know. Darren and I love Star Trek (and I love that since I turned 22 I don't care what other people think of me anymore and I can annouce to the world that I love Star Trek without feeling the slightest bit of embarassment). I'm only new to it, but I've watched a couple of seasons of Next Generation, and a lot of series of Voyager (Katherine Janeway is my hero ;) ) and a wee bit of Enterprise. Anyway the lesson will now commence.

Exhibit 1: Worf - Klingon

Worf is a full blooded Klingon, although he was raised by a Starfleet officer so he acts a tiny bit more human than other Klingons. Klingons like war and being agressive and they have funny bumps of their foreheads.

Exhibit 2: B'Elanna Torres - Half Klingon Half Human

B'Elanna is a half Klingon half human her mother was a Klingon her father a human, which basically just means she's just a like a really moody human. With some bumps on her head but less pronounced than Worf's.

Exhibit 3: Muffins - Half Klingon Half Triple Chocolate

Chocolate muffin, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate pieces and a dark chocolate Klingon forehead!

:)
Mindy

Froggies!

Time for another batch of cupcakes! This time I wanted to do something really cute and I was thrilled when Marie at work volunteered her children to try my cute kiddie cupcakes - it was really nice working with an actual audience in mind. So I went to the lolly section of the supermarket for inspiration and found some great little toadstool lollies, I painted some spots on them and they looked brilliant, but I needed something else to go with them so I thought what goes with toadstools - froggies! So then I got to work and made some little froggies. Not the best executed fondant sculpting in the world, but it was my first go! Anyway the little froggies were made - and I must say for some reason Darren loved them - he hid some in the kitchen and wouldn't tell me where they were, only that they were "watching me".


Then it was time to make the cupcakes. I used the delicious white velvet recipes from How To Eat A Cupcake - I think I'll probably go through all those recipes before I try somewhere else. Anyway the cupcakes were made and I spent a day thinking about how to do the decoration - before eventually deciding to drop the toadstools and just have the frogs on lilypads. So now I have a whole bunch of toadstools to use later! I might make gnomes for them one day.

Anyway here's some piccies:


The white egg looking blobs are supposed to be lillies - anyway I decided they needed something else so I added some reeds... and here's the finished product:


And here is my evil fiance enjoying a cupcake:



xxx
Mindy

Anniversary Cupcakes

On Sunday it was Thomas and my 3rd anniversay. Awww. As is our tradition, we went and saw a Kiera Knightley movie, this year it was the Duchess. We both really enjoyed it. Gosh Tom loves his costume dramas ;-)

I decided to make Hello Cupcakes! chocolate box cupcakes. It was a great plan as it had lots of room for creativity. The only problem is all the lollies I bought to decorate them with- I used so few and have eaten so many!

So I used the Martha Steward one bowl cupcake recipe again. I really like this recipe. I find the cupcakes are nice and rich but I do find that they don't rise very much. I am going to need to find a nice high rising chocolate cupcake one day. Here they are before the decorating, I really loved the red cupcake cases (I actually intended the red and brown to be the same size but I bought them at different times ;-) )

And here they are after decorating. Awww. So yummy!

Almond Roca

Well I'm in love. With food. Again. Not food I made myself this time though. I love food. Anyway a colleague at work went away I'm guessing to America and bought back this "candy" for us all to try a piece. I bit into it and it was love at first bite. It's hard to describe - I'm not sure this would have the same kind of impact on anyone else in the world it may just be a personal thing but I thought these were amazing! It was like toffee that didn't break your teeth or stick in your teeth either. It was almost like a biscuit to bite but so much better than a biscuit. And it was gorgeously buttery and had chocolate round the outisde and it all just went together perfectly! I sat there having enjoyed it then had to get up and go and check the packet and find out some more info. So I found out they were Almond Roca Buttercrunch for Brown and Hayley


Of course in the back of my mind as I was eating it was "hmmm how am I going to find out how to make this stuff!". So next time I want a challenge I can pull this one out of my pot of challenges I've got in the back of my mind.

In other news I solved something which had been a real mystery to me. Everyday I noticed as I was exiting the female changing room and walking towards the building exit to go for my lunchtime run that my thumb hurt and was rubbed red. I wracked my brain trying to figure out what could be causing this! I could not think of anything... until the other day I caught myself in the act so to speak. i.e. I realised how I was hurting my thumb while doing it... can ya guess? It was putting my shoe on I was using my thumb like a shoe horn. Hehe ok so that wasn't very interesting but I must say it was a huge relief to me to get to the bottom of it.

xxx
Mindy

Look at what my baby did!

Wow I am so proud today. Last night I was working on this week's cupcake decorations which of course Darren wanted to eat. Poor boy was dismayed when I told him not only could he not eat them, but I wasn't even going to make the cupcakes that they were going to adorn until later in the week. I suggested he did some baking himself. To my surprise he agreed - well said he would - I was dubious.

I shouldn't have doubted him I came home to the delicious smell of baked goods and 7 delicious looking chocolate muffins sitting on the bench. I must admit I was a little worried that doing something like baking all by himself without any advice may not provide the most perfect results (no reflection on Darren I just know how much I had to rely on Mum the first times I baked, and still do if I'm cooking something new I haven't cooked before). But he did really well. And to put his own touch on them I think the batch had a whole block of Cadbury Caramello crammed into them. Yum!



If this sort of behaviour keeps going I won't be baking my own birthday cake next year!

xxx
Mindy

Christening Cupcakes

On Sunday my cousin's baby was Christened (and looked adorable) and I helped celebrate by making cupcakes (any excuse!) After many attempts at finding the perfect lemon cupcake recipe I think I found it- the Lemon Poppyseed Recipe in Hello Cupcake! So good, it rose, it was light and airy and was still really yummy after spending the night in the fridge. I didn't include the poppyseeds for looks.

Here are the poppyseeds on my new cupcake plate filled with lemon curd- yum!

I made my first swiss meringue buttercream. I made it with meringue powder as I'm a little concerned with raw eggs in NZ- it was really yummy although it was pretty tricky to set, it ended up in the fridge for a bit. It was very very late by the time I got round to icing so no piping but I had previously made white chocolate flowers for the top so you couldn't see the icing anyway. I find working with chocolate can be quite frustrating but once it's set it always looks pretty good :)

More Cupcake Stuff

Ok well I know if you don't like cupcakes you won't find this interesting. But really. Who doesn't like cupcakes. Who doesn't like ganache for that matter! So the other day I said I'd post my recipe for the frosting I put on my chocolate mud cakes and so here it is. This is rough as I like making things up as I go - especially with something like frosting - butter, chocolate, cream how can you go too wrong!


White Chocolate Ganachy Mousse Frosting:

200ml double cream
225g white chocolate
60g butter
2 Tbsp icing sugar

1. Put chocolate 1/3 cup cream (about 60ml) and butter into a double boiler and stir until melted and smooth
2. Cool chocolate mixture to room temp
3. Whip the remaing cream
4. Little by little fold the chocolate mixture to the whipped cream adding the icing sugar while doing this to keep it stiff
5. If its too runny to be pipable refridgerate until it is whisking it up when you take it out of the refridgerator - it will get very hard so you just need to be patient and refridgerate it till it's the consistency you want to work with.

That's all.

Now Darren has been spoiled with cupcakes lately and wanted some for desert - I had a whole bunch sitting there to take to London in the weekend so I felt kinda bad he wasn't allowed to eat those. Also I had left over chocolate from the mud cake cuppys that was burning a hole in my pantry so I whipped him up two with a recipe I totally made up on the spot and couldn't remember it if I tried - so I won't bother. But I did make them look pretty and put delicious frosting on them - again I made it up on the spot and can't remember - it was ganache based though with an egg white in it.

Here's my pretty picture! Well here's my pretty cupcake - I need someone to teach my how to take better photos of my baking... Lyndy Loo I need you!



xxx
Mindy

Choc Mud Cupcakes

Ok so if I do say so myself these were a HUGE success. I am trying out the recipe for our wedding cake so wanted to see if I liked the flavour. I do indeed! I'm quite disappointed as it looks like I've found a winner with my first try. I almost don't want to share the recipe but I will - it's likely Ame will be the only one who ever uses it from here anyway!


Chocolate Mud Cupcakes

Yield - About 18

125g dark chocolate
125g butter
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules
1/3 cup water
1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 Tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/3 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 Tbsp oil
1/4 cup whole milk with a dash of white vinegar added

1. Preheat over to 160 degrees celsius (not fan forced)
2. Prepare cupcake tins/liners whatever you're using
3. In saucepan stir chocolate, butter, coffee powder and water together over low heat until smooth and then set aside to cool to room temp
   
4. Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, salt in a large bowl and stir in caster sugar (I always sift things twice)
5. In medium bowl whisk eggs, oil and milk. Add egg mixture to dry and stir until well combined.
6. Add the chocolate mixture in 3 lots, stiring well in between each.
7. Put in cupcake liners!

Don't fill the cupcakes too much as this recipe does rise but doesn't do a nice cupcake mound (I based it on a cake recipe) but it will do a very flat top (which ends up nice and cookie like!) but not the best if it overflows too much. I'd say 1/2 fill would probably be best.

I will post the recipe for the white chocolate ganache mousse recipe later I've got to try and remember what I did (I made it up).

And here's the final product! You can see the nice cookie like top, but trust me the cupcake has a totally flat top under the icing (BTW I made the cute little flowers with advice on piping chocolate from Ame thanks Ame! Not bad for a first attempt).

xxx
Mindy

Next Game Piccy

Ok so I had two entries for that last picture. This is good news if this keeps up throughout the game I can give everyone who entered a big prize! (Yay for Lottie and Ame!). The correct answer was Paris, Amy got it we were up Notre Dame.

Ok here's the next picture:

I'll give you a clue, this one is somewhere in England :)

Right well I had a really fun night last night making very yummy cupcakes from a semi-made up recipe and a made up frosting recipe so I'm quite proud of thre results. Pictures and details to come tomorrow!

xxx

Mindy

Taffy Trouble

This won't be a very textual post, it's a photo journal of my taffy making troubles and a desperate plea for help ;) What happened was the other day something made me remember about how when I was a kid, a young inexperienced kid I on one or two occasions made pull taffy. Successfully. And it was fun. So I decided to try it the other day, googled a recipe and ended up with a disaster on my hands. Here's the basics of making taffy:

1. Boil sugar and water till it gets to a certain temperature
2. Pour it onto a (preferably marble) board and let it cool whlie working it with knives into a ball
3. When it's cool enough to pick up you pick up the ball and pull it, fold it, pull it, fold it etc till it's almost hard then cut it into pieces.

Simple! Well it was when I was young. I got to the picking it up bit and pulled it once or twice then it all turned to fudge. Literally, instead of being smooth and pullable it turned into a more fudge like consistency.

Not to be put off I decided to have a second go and tried a different recipe and photo documented the process - but it had exactly the same result. If anyone can tell me what I'm doing wrong I'll be grateful - otherwise I'm going to wait until I've got a proper candy thermometer before trying again. My current thermometer is a bit crude I dripped some of the boiling liquid in a glass of cold water and seeing if it goes brittle.

1. It was all going so well, look how neatly I pre arranged all my ingredients.

2. This is the sugar and water boiling, ok so this isn't the nmost exciting picture in the world.

3. Mmmm then we add the cream and butter!

4. Now it starts looking really good this is just before I deemed it ready to pour.

5. Still looking nice and taffy-like cooling in the pan

6. Working it with my knives... it's still looking delicious and taffy like

7. I even managed to pull it once or twice.... till....

8. FUDGE! As soon as it turned powdery I pressed it really hard into this sandwich tin and it did still make delicious fudge.... but I wanted taffy!!!!

xxx

Mindy