Monster cupcakes (apple and cinnamon)

The monsters! 

These apple and cinnamon cupcakes were actually made back in February - before I used the same recipe to make the Sheep Cupcakes for my friend’s hen weekend – I just haven’t gotten around to writing them up!  These cupcakes were made for a visit to see my sister, brother-in-law and 18-month-old nephew. I wanted to make something fun and remembered having pinned monster cupcakes to my Cupcake Inspiration board on Pinterest.

I experimented with different piping nozzles for the buttercream – making spiky monsters with a small round nozzle, hairy monsters using a grass effect nozzle, and wiggly wormy-like monsters with a medium round nozzle. I chose purple and green buttercream to contrast, but you could make any colour monsters!

To decorate the cupcakes, I made circles out of white fondant icing for the eyes and mouths out of black fondant icing. I have this small cutter set, which has lots of basic shapes and is very useful! Making the teeth and sticking them on was quite fiddly – as they are tiny pieces of fondant – but worth the effort! The easiest way to make tiny triangles is to cut out stars using a star cutter, and the cut the triangles off each star. The tongues were made from fizzy belt sweets, cut with a pair of kitchen sweets and then inserted through the mouths – again a bit fiddly! The hair/antennae were simply made from strawberry pencil sweets, cut into short lengths. You could experiment with various different sweets for different hair-types / antennae.

If you wanted to make these cupcakes as a fun activity with kids, you could use white chocolate buttons for the eyes, teeth / lip / fang sweets for the mouths and various different types of sweets for the hair!

These cakes tasted fantastic, but the cake / icing didn’t really go with the strong taste of the sweets on top! If I were to make monster cupcakes again, I’d probably go for a simple vanilla cupcake, or a strawberry cupcake to go with the sweets!

Cinnamon cupcakes with apple puree and maple syrup buttercream 

(makes 12 cupcakes and 4-6 mini cupcakes)

Ingredients

1. 110g butter, at room temperature
2. 225g golden castor sugar
3. 2 large eggs
4. 150g self-raising flour, sifted
5. 125g plain flour, sifted
6. 120ml semi-skimmed milk
7. 2 tsp cinnamon
8. 1 tsp vanilla extract
9. 2 large / 3 small Bramley apples
10. ½ - 1 tblsp soft brown sugar

Buttercream:

1. 115g butter, at room temperature
2. 500g icing sugar, sifted
3. 2 tblsp maple syrup
4. 2 tblsp milk
5. Food colouring

To decorate

1. Sweets (I used fizzy belt sweets and strawberry cables)
2. White fondant icing
3. Black fondant icing
4. Black writing icing (optional)
5. Red food colour pen (optional)

For the eyes and mouths (this can all be done in advance):

1. Roll out a small amount of white fondant icing.
2. Use various circle cutters to cut out different sized eyes.
3. Use a star-shaped cutter to cut out several stars and then use a knife to cut these stars into small triangles for teeth.
4. Cut out small rectangles for additional teeth.
5. Roll out a small amount of black fondant icing.
6. Use an oval cutter to cut out mouths and shape as desired.
7. Use a paint brush dipped in a tiny amount of water to attach the teeth to the mouths.
8. Use scissors to cut tongue shapes from the belt sweets.
9. Cut small slits in the mouths and then push tongues through these.
10. Use black writing icing or a black food colour pen to add pupils to the eyes.

For the cakes:

1. Peel and chop the Bramley apples.
2. Place the chopped apples in a saucepan with two tablespoons of water and half a tablespoon of soft brown sugar.
3. Cook over a low heat until softened and mostly pureed ( a few small lumps is fine).
4. Taste and add extra brown sugar as required.
5. Place to one side to cool.
6. Preheat oven to 160C.
7. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with cupcake cases.
8. In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (this will take at least 5 minutes with an electric hand /stand mixer – don’t rush this stage).
9. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for a few minutes after each addition. It should result in a lovely light mousse-like mixture.
10. Combine the two flours and the cinnamon in a separate bowl.
11. Combine the milk and vanilla extract in a jug.
12. Add one third of the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and stir gently to combine.
13. Pour in one third of the milk mixture and stir gently.
14. Continue to add flours and then milk mixture alternately, stirring gently after each addition, until all have been added.
15. Spoon mixture into the cupcake cases, filling to about 2/3 full.
16. Bake in the oven for about 30 minutes until lightly golden brown. The cakes will spring back lightly when touched, if cooked.
17. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in tin for about 10 minutes, before carefully placing on a wire rack to finish cooling.

While the cakes are in the oven, make up the buttercream:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, maple syrup and half of the icing sugar until smooth.
2. Add the rest of the icing sugar and beat until smooth and creamy.
3. Add milk (if needed to bring the buttercream to a piping consistency) and beat again.
4. Put buttercream into a piping bag with a nozzle adaptor.

Once cakes are cooked and cooled: 

1. Use a tea spoon to cut a cone out from the centre of the cakes.
2. Cut the top disk off each cone and retain.
3. Fill the hole in each cake with a teaspoon of pureed apple and then replace a cake disk onto each cake to seal the hole.
4. Pipe the butter cream onto the cakes using various nozzles.
5. Add eyes, mouths and hair / antennae.  

Halloween Red Velvet cupcakes

 

It was my turn to make cakes for the Friday meeting at work this week and, being so close to Halloween, I thought that they needed to be themed. I hadn’t made cupcakes for a while and so decided to make some Red Velvet cupcakes and also a Primrose Bakery Lemon Layer Cake.

Needing inspiration, I turned, as usual, to Flickr: a simple search for Halloween cakes brought up loads of ideas. Some of the cakes were extremely gory and although they were very clever, I just don’t fancy eating cakes with fake blood pouring out of them! I decided to go for something quite simple – grass-covered cupcakes with pumpkins, ghosts and witches’ hats!

The Red Velvet recipe came from a Sara Stanley cupcake course at the Bertinet Kitchen: we did 6 different flavours on the day – 3 of which I completely love – including this ultra-light and fluffy Red Velvet recipe. I’m not really a chocolate cake fan (secret, shameful fact – I’m actually not that fussed about chocolate at all), but these only have a tiny smidgeon of cocoa and they’re absolutely gorgeous! I add mashed up raspberries to the raspberry jam to liven it up a bit. I don’t use the food colouring as I don’t really see the need!

On this occasion, I topped the cupcakes with simple vanilla buttercream rather than a cream cheese frosting that normally tops them. The cream cheese frosting tastes fantastic and goes brilliantly with these cupcakes, but has to be eaten immediately, or be kept in the fridge, and the cakes go a little hard when kept in the fridge. A standard vanilla buttercream is also a lot easier to work with – which was necessary for piping the grass.

As a warning, this recipe rises a lot! It says that it makes 14 cupcakes (which is a bit annoying seeing as typically tins have 12 holes!) – I decided to just spread it over 12 and some of them overspilled by quite a bit!

Red Velvet cupcakes

(makes 14)

Ingredients

1. 160g Castor sugar
2. 110g soft margarine
3. 1 egg
4. 160g plain flour
5. 10g cocoa
6. ½ tsp salt
7. ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
8. 120g buttermilk
9. 1 tsp vanilla extract
10. 1 tsp malt vinegar
11. ½ whole bottle of red food colouring (optional)
12. Approx 4 tblsp raspberry jam
13. Approx 14 raspberries

Vanilla buttercream

1. 110g butter at room temperature
2. 60ml semi-skimmed milk, at room temperature
3. 1 tsp vanilla extract
4. 500g icing sugar
5. Food colouring as required

 Method

1. Preheat oven to 165C.
2. Beat sugar and marge until pale and fluffy.
3. Add beaten egg gradually, mixing until smooth and light.
4. Weigh the dry ingredients into a separate bowl.
5. Sieve the dry ingredients into the beaten mixture, bit by bit, stirring gently between each addition.
6. Add the remaining ingredients and mix gently to incorporate.    
7. Put cupcake cases into bun tin and fill two-thirds of each case with cake mixture.
8. Bake for 20 – 30 minutes until the cakes spring back when touched lightly.  

While the cakes are baking, make the buttercream:

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter, milk, vanilla extract and half the icing sugar until smooth.
2. Gradually add the rest of the icing sugar and beat again until smooth and creamy.
3. If adding colour, add drop by drop until the desired colour is achieved.

Filling and decorating the cakes

1. Mash the raspberries and mix with jam. Warm gently if needed
2. Once cakes are cooked and cooled, use a tea spoon to cut a cone out from the centre of the cakes.
3. Cut the top disk off each cone and retain.
4. Fill the hole in each cake with the raspberry jam mix and then replace a cake disk onto each cake to seal the hole.
5. Pipe buttercream on top of each cake.