Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes with chocolate whisky ganache and Baileys buttercream

Agnes baking - cupcakes, recipe

Hooray! After weeks of practice cupcake baking, the Cupcake Challenge is finally here! (Quick recap – today is the RSPCA Cupcake Day. We are participating at work with a little bake off, with all proceeds going to the RSPCA.)

As soon as I saw these cupcakes on Hold the Beef, I knew immediately that I wanted to make them for the Challenge. Because – well just listen to the description – a chocolate Guinness cupcake, filled with a chocolate and whiskey ganache, and topped with Baileys buttercream… swoon!

I baked a practice batch a couple of weeks ago, and discovered that the cupcakes were as delicious as they sounded. You can’t taste any alcohol in the cupcakes, but the Guinness does seem to add something that I can’t describe. There’s no bitterness from the stout – most likely because there’s two cups of sugar in the recipe! I’ve heard chocolate Guinness cake being described as very rich, but in cupcake form it’s moist and not at all heavy. The other bonus of the Guinness is that you get more than a cup of liquid in a can, so you can drink the rest while you bake the cupcakes!

The middle of the cupcakes are filled with a chocolate whiskey ganache. I know, it couldn’t possibly get any more decadent.

For the Cupcake Challenge, I also made fondant toppers. I made ducks, penguins, little cupcakes, sheep heads, bunnies and bumblebees. I actually purchased some Playdoh to practice with before making these! Fondant doesn’t have exactly the same consistency as Playdoh (it’s softer) but I found that practicing with Playdoh still helped a lot.

I was quite pleased with how the fondant toppers turned out – I think my favourites are the sheep heads and maybe the bunnies.

(The toppers aren’t on the cupcakes because I didn’t want to put them on until the last minute.

So what do you think? Do you reckon I have a fighting chance in the Cupcake Challenge?

Chocolate Guinness cupcakes with chocolate whiskey ganache and Baileys buttercream

Adapted from Hold the Beef, and originally from Smitten Kitchen

I have adapted some of the measures to metric but not all of them. I know that you’re not supposed to have a combination of weight and volume measurements in a recipe, but that’s the way I bake. The buttercream recipe is thanks to Maria who has been unbelievably helpful in all things cupcake!

For the cupcakes:

1 cup Guinness
225 grams unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups plain flour, sifted
2 cups caster sugar
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs (I used 3 eggs, as mine were small)
2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. (The first batch of these I baked, I managed to get 28 cupcakes. With the second batch I made larger cupcakes and only got 18.)

In a saucepan, heat the Guinness and unsalted butter until simmering. Turn off the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt.

In a mixer, beat together the eggs and sour cream. Add the Guinness mixture, and beat to just combine.

Add the flour mixture, and beat briefly on a slow speed until combined.

Spoon into the cupcake liners, and bake for about 17 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

For the ganache:

230 grams good quality dark chocolate, chopped in rough pieces
2/3 cup thickened cream
30 grams butter, room temperature
2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (or more to taste – I used double this quantity and would still have been happy with more!)

Either melt the chocolate and cream in a double boiler, or do what I do and put the chocolate and cream in a microwavable bowl. Microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring between bursts, until melted. Add the butter and whiskey, and stir until combined. Set aside to cool slightly.

Filling the cupcakes:

When the cupcakes are cool, use a small knife and cut cone shaped chunks out of the middle of the cupcakes, making sure that you don’t cut all the way to the bottom (the other recipes say to use an apple corer or biscuit cutter but I found it easier to just use a knife). Eat the cupcake middles as you go and remember that the bigger holes you make, the more you get to eat! Spoon the ganache into the cupcake holes and fill them to the top.

For the Baileys buttercream

250 grams unsalted butter, cut into cubes and at room temperature
3 cups sifted icing sugar
2 tablespoons Baileys

Beat the butter in an electric mixer on high until it is very pale and fluffy.

Gradually add the icing sugar (I do this a tablespoon at a time), beating well between additions. Beat until the buttercream is very fluffy – about 5-6 minutes.

Heat the Baileys in the microwave until it’s very warm. Add to the butter cream and beat on high for another couple of minutes. Pipe on top of the cupcakes.

Lemon and blueberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing

Agnes baking - cupcakes, recipe

Practice run 2 in preparation for the Cupcake Challenge – lemon and blueberry cupcakes with lemon cream cheese icing.

I really liked these ones. They were moist, fragrant with the lemon, a bit tart from the blueberry and not too sweet. The sweet and tangy cream cheese icing topped them off perfectly – and look how pale the icing is! Yay!

But while they were tasty, they’re probably not a cupcake challenge winner. Still, they were pretty moreish and let me practice my atrocious piping skills.

Lemon and blueberry cupcakes

Adapted from this recipe.

Makes 24 small cupcakes

Cupcakes:

1 & 1/2 cups of plain flour + an extra 2 tablespoons
135 grams caster sugar
1 & 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
55 grams butter, melted
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup milk
Finely grated rind of one lemon
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, thawed

Lemon cream cheese icing:

110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon rind
1 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

Preheat oven to 180°C. Grease 2 x 12 cup muffin pans or line the holes with paper cases.

Sift together the 1 & 1/2 cups flour with an additional 1 tablespoon flour and baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. Add the caster sugar and salt and mix to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter and egg. Whisk in the buttermilk, milk, and the lemon rind to the butter mixture.

Add the buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Toss the blueberries with the remaining 1 tablespoon flour and fold the blueberries into tge batter.

Spoon the batter into the prepared cupcake cups – filling about 1/2 way. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a wooden skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove from the pan and cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Icing:

Beat together the butter and cream cheese until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the icing sugar. Stir in the juice, rind and vanilla extract. Spread or pipe over the cupcakes.

Red velvet cupcakes

Agnes baking - cupcakes, recipe

My workmate / almost twin Jennie has organised a cupcake bake off in August to raise money for the RSPCA as part of their cupcake day. A bake off? Naturally I’m participating! However, I’m not very good at doing decorative, fiddly things, so I thought I’d better get some practice in beforehand.

And when I found out that another one of my workmates had her birthday on Monday and was going into work even though she wanted to take the day off, it was the perfect opportunity for cupcake practice.

I decided to make red velvet cupcakes. I’ve never eaten one before, but I love the name and I’ve seen plenty of photos and loved the distinctive red colour. Well, do you know how red velvet cupcakes become red? Originally the colour was due to unprocessed cocoa having a chemical reaction with buttermilk. Nowadays though, it’s mostly due to red food colouring…. and a shitload of food colouring at that.

In fact, the recipe asked for so much food colouring (2 oz or 1/4 cup !) that it kind of scared me. I couldn’t bear to put the full amount in and only used half the amount, topping it up with water. Even that seemed like a lot and my batter was still very vibrantly red. It was so red that it coloured all the tips of my fingers and I struggled to stop it staining everything in the kitchen.

I had intended to bake something else after I had put the cupcakes in the oven, but after struggling with the bright red batter, I ran out of steam and had to sit down!

After the cupcakes came out of the oven (and I had rested) I turned to the cream cheese icing. The icing is normally white, but the recipe called for butter…. which naturally turned the icing yellow (Update: thanks to Maria and Rilsta who suggested that beating the butter for longer would help make the icing whiter!). I had to hurriedly pipe it on top of the cupcakes, because the light was fading fast and I wanted to take photos. I admit that my piping skills need practice, but the pressure did not help.

But the positives? Well… they could possibly be the best cupcakes I’ve ever eaten (admittedly I’m not a big cupcake eater). They’re not too rich, or too sweet, and have a really nice crumb. I also loved the cream cheese icing, even though it was the wrong colour! They went down rather well at work.

I would definitely make these again but next time I think I’ll leave out the food colouring. I don’t mind a small amount of colouring, but that seemed a bit much!

The recipe below is from recipezaar.com but I have adapted some of the measures to metric and cut down the amount of food colouring.

2 & 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
115 grams unsalted butter, softened
1 & 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/8 cup red food colouring + 1/8 cup water
1/4 cup water
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Cream cheese icing
225g cream cheese, softened
115 grams unsalted butter, softened
1 & 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Grease 24 cupcake cups or line with paper liners.
Cream together the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and mix until combined.
In a separate bowl, combine the cocoa, food colouring and water to make a paste. Add to the butter mixture.
Sift the flour and salt into the butter mixture. Mix until just combined.
One at a time, add the following ingredients and mix until just combined: buttermilk, vanilla, and water.
In a small bowl, combine the vinegar and the baking soda. Fold this into the cake batter, making sure it’s well incorporated.
Spoon the batter into the cupcake cups. Bake for 15-20 minutes, or until they spring back when touched.
Remove from the oven and let cool for about 10 minutes, then turn out of pan and onto a rack to finish cooling completely.

Cream cheese icing:
Blend together the softened cream cheese and butter until smooth. Then add the icing sugar and vanilla extract and blend until combined. Pipe on top of the cooled cupcakes.

Little orange poppyseed cakes

Agnes baking - cupcakes, recipe

I had a free health check at work today. There was good news and bad news. The bad news is that my height was 3cm less than I thought it was. Some might think that’s not really bad news, but when you’re not very tall, every centimetre counts!

The good news is that, along with my glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol being normal, I was also a couple of kilos lighter than I thought I would be. I’ve been eating a lot of cake recently, so this was a surprise.

I actually think that I may have been under measured and under weighed, but I can’t decide which outcome I’d prefer – to be taller but heavier, or shorter but lighter. Hmmmm.

The other week I felt like cake. Did I mention I’ve been eating a lot of cake recently? I went and bought a slice of poppyseed cake and felt very under whelmed as it seemed to have a nasty, chemically sweetness. It inspired me to do better! A google search unearthed a diabetic recipe for orange poppy seed cake (or so the website said). I made a few adaptations to the recipe, and rather than a big cake I baked several little ones.

My little cakes were strangely compelling. They weren’t too sweet, nor too orangey, and the texture wasn’t particularly cakey. In fact, they reminded me of scones. And they were SO moreish – I found myself eating a couple at a time because one wasn’t enough!

Little orange poppy seed cakes

Makes 12 regular sized muffins

Adapted from Fitness and Freebies

½ cup sugar
6 tablespoons butter, softened
3 eggs
¾ cup unsweetened yoghurt
Zest from one orange
3 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 cups cake flour
2 tablespoons poppy seeds
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 180° C.

In a large bowl, beat sugar and margarine until smooth and fluffy. Beat in eggs, yoghurt, orange juice and orange zest until smooth.

Mix in the cake flour, poppy seeds, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix until just combined.

Grease a 12 cup muffin tin. Pour batter into the moulds and bake for about 15 minutes, or until skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.