Coconut Pineapple Upside down cake

Hey! So in the last blog I mentioned I had a giant pineapple that I wanted to bake something using it. I didn't really feel like anything loaded with sugar or icing, I was more in the mood for something fresh and light that would go perfect with a cup of tea.

So I decided on a pineapple upside down cake as I'd never made one before however all the recipes I had had the sticky pineapple top however the cake part was just pretty plain. So I altered a little, I had some desiccated coconut and thought that that would go perfectly creating a Caribbean style flavour with a hint of spice.

And here it is:

The first slice, just for me!

I really liked this cake, it wasn't to overwhelming or to sickly which meant I could eat even more of it, nomnomnom.

Here's how it's made:

basic technique from the big book of baking:

Coconut Pineapple upside down cake

4 Eggs, beaten

185g Golden caster sugar or light brown soft sugar

1tsp Vanilla extract

170g Plain flour

55g Desiccated coconut

2tsp Baking powder

1 tsp Cinnamon

1/2 tsp Nutmeg freshly grated

125g Unsalted butter, melted.

Topping

40g Unsalted butter

4tbsp Golden Syrup (On baking I realised I didn't have any in so used 4tbsp brown sugar instead)

Canned pineapple rings or fresh pineapple cut into rings

Glace Cherries

Preheat the oven to 160degC and grease and line a cake tin. (I used a 10" round but 9 would have been better)

For the topping, place the butter and syrup into a pan and heat until gently melted. Bring to the boil and boil for 2-3 minutes until slightly thickened and toffee like.

Pour the syrup into the base of the tin and arrange pineapple rings in one layer over the syrup (My pineapple was to large so I had to use 1 ring surrounded by 1/2 rings.) Then place half a glace cherry in the centre of each ring (You will notice I only used one in the centre down to the fact I ate all the cherries and there was only 1 left, ooops)

Place the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract in a heat proof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water and whisk with an electric mixer for approx 10-15 mins until thick enough to leave a trail when the whisk is lifted. (I was far to impatient for this so whisked for about 5 - 7 minutes and all was still fine)

Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold these in with the dessicated coconut, nutmeg and cinnamon. Fold the melted butter in until evenly mixed. Spoon into the tin over the pineapple and bake in the oven for 1 hour - 1hour 1/5 mins or until well risen, firm and golden.

Leave to cool in the pan for 10 mins then carefully turn out onto a plate.

And that's it! I really enjoyed this cake but didn't get to eat an awful lot of it as it all magically disappeared in a day!

Ok I've decided it really wasn't a good idea to write this blog when I'm hungry, I've had a lovely dinner but now all I want is cake! and there's none in the house I'm wondering if half 9 at night is to late to start baking? It's like torture I tell you.

Well on that note I'm off to raid the cupboards fora sweet treat and think of what to bake next.

Cupcake Kris xxx

Linked up to sweets for saturday



Cookie dough day! peanut butter cookie dough balls, cupcakes and a classic cookie.

Last week I had no occasion to bake for! No parties, no birthdays, no visiting friends so I had the chance to just bake anything I felt like baking.......at which point, as it always does when I don't have a plan, my mind went blank!

I looked on the board I write all my to do cakes on and I didn't really feel like any of it, and then I remembered what I'd been craving just a few days before... Cookie dough! not just cookies but raw cookie dough, in all its sweet, gooey, chocolate chippy unadulterated naughtiness. And don't try to pretend when making cookies you don't just love to eat the cookie dough. I often have to get the cookies in the oven super fast otherwise boyfriend will eat all the cookie dough.

So I made a really simple super sweet treat of cookie dough balls, of which I didn't get many because boyfriend scoffed loads. These are perfect if you have a really sweet tooth and can't resist eating raw cookie dough, here they are:

and inside:

Mmmm full of cookie dough and tiny chocolate chips. And don't worry for those of you worried about raw egg there's none in this recipe (not that that usually stops me eating the cookie dough)

And here's how they're made:

For the cookie dough  - this recipe makes around 12 cookies or 24 - 30 cookie dough balls depending on size

110g Unsalted butter
175g soft light brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
200g Plain flour
pinch of salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
125g plain chocolate chips or chocolate, chopped into small chunks.
2 tbsp peanut butter
50ml Milk
200g of chocolate, melted

Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat together until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla extract and stir in the flour, milk, salt and bicarbonate, mix in the peanut butter until you have a smooth dough, If the dough is to dry add a little more peanut butter, or more flour if the dough is to sticky.

Stir in the chocolate chips until evenly dispensed.

Roll the cookie dough into small balls and arrange on a plate (I found it better to butter the plate to save the dough from sticking) and place these in the freezer to chill.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water and then set this aside to cool slightly. Once the cookie dough balls are chilled take them from the freezer and dip the cookie dough in the chocolate, I find this easiest by using 2 teaspoons and swapping the ball between the two. Then chill these until the chocolate has set. And that's it!

These can also be made into cookie dough pops by dipping the end of a lolly stick into chocolate and inserting it into a cookie dough ball and leaving to set before dipping in the chocolate then using a piece of polystyrene or foam to hold the pops up. This I feel makes the dipping process a whole lot less messier.

But I didn't stop there I had left over cookie dough, I wanted more cookie dough so I also used this eggless dough to make some ordinary peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, using bigger chunks of chocolate:

I didn't like them as much as my usual peanut butter cookie recipe but they were still very yummy.

Oh no and I didn't stop there either I also baked some vanilla cupcakes and dropped a ball of the cookie dough into each cupcake batter before baking to leave a cookie treat at the bottom of the cake:

cut in half without icing.

And here they all are together in all their super sugary cookie dough glory!

Enough to make any ones dentist cry!

Any way that's all for today I'm off to rack my brains for something to bake to use the ridiculously large pineapple that's sitting in my kitchen.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris xxx

Mojito Cupcakes on a sunny day

So in my last blog I mentioned how my friends really love cake, they also love cocktails, and for the past couple of months ever since I mentioned I found a recipe for a Mojito cupcake I've been pretty much hounded to make them. My lovely friend Mandie even graffitied my noticeboard telling me to make them.

So last week when It was forecast for a sunny day (a rarity at the moment) I decided to invite my friends round for a BBQ and some cocktails and I didn't want to disappoint so I cracked open the rum and got started on the Mojito cupcakes to accompany our cocktails. And that's exactly how they were enjoyed:

The recipe suggested them as mini cupcakes, but I know my friends and unless there was a ridiculous amount of them mini wouldn't go down to well, so I made them slightly smaller than usual as I had cute green polka dot cases but still ample enough size to please!

 These cakes really turned out great and they tasted just like you would expect a Mojito cake to taste like. A soft moist cakes with kicks of lime, mint and sugar and a hint of rum. This recipe really impressed my friends too with one of them declaring them the best cupcakes yet so I will definitely be trying the other cocktail inspired cupcake recipes I have.

Any way here's how they're made: (Recipe from Hummingbird bakery's Cake Days)

Mojito Cupcakes!

Makes 12 medium sized cupcakes or 20-30 mini cakes

For the sponge:

100ml White rum
170g Caster sugar
40g Unsalted butter, softened
120g Plain flour
1/4 tsp Salt
1 1/2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Grated lime zest
1 tsp Grated lemon zest
1 tbsp Finely chopped mint
1 large egg
120ml Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 170deg C and line a muffin tin with cases

In a saucepan bring the white rum and 30g of the sugar to the boil, reduce by half and set aside.
Beat together the butter, flour, salt, baking powder, lime and lemon zest, mint and remaining sugar. Mix until you have a crumb like consistency.
Mix together the egg milk and vanilla in a jug and gradually pour this into the dry mix mixing until you have a smooth batter.

Spoon cake batter into the cases up to 2/3 full. Place in the oven and bake for 12-15 min's for mini cupcakes or 15 to 20 for bigger or until the cakes are a light golden brown and springy to the touch.

While the cakes are still warm spoon the rum reduction over them (1/2 tsp for mini cakes 1tsp for bigger approx) Then leave to cool completely!

While the cakes are cooling, make and drink a mojito! ... erm I mean make the frosting!

For the frosting

80g Unsalted butter
250g Icing sugar
1/4 tsp lemon zest
1/4 tsp lime zest
4 tsp milk
4 tsp White rum

1tbsp caster sugar
1 tsp chopped mint or lime zest

Using and electric whisk, beat together the butter, icing sugar, lemon and lime zest until combined in a sandy consistency. Stir together the milk and rum and pour this into the butter mixture while still beating, whisk until light and fluffy.
Divide the frosting between the cakes. To finish, mix together the caster sugar with either 1 tsp of mint or lime zest and sprinkle over the top.

And that's it, the perfect treat to share with friends on a sunny day and because they have rum in the grown ups have no choice but to eat them all before the kids see.
I definitely recommend making these soon.


I've recently had more orders for cupcakes too , and I used this as an excuse to try 2 colour swirl icing for the first time. Making a vanilla cupcake and topping it with half vanilla butter cream and half pink strawberry butter cream. Here's my first attempt:

Not to bad I think. Its done by filling one side of the piping bag with white icing and the other half with pink. I found it easier to hold a knife down the middle of the bag when filling with the two icings.

Here they all are decorated, boxed up and ready to go along with plain pink and more chocolate orange cakes:

How cute are the little cupcake toppers, they were a bargain!

Any way that's it for today, I'm felling in a cookie dough kinda mood so that's what I'll be baking with this week.

Bye for now

Cupcake Kris

xxx

Linked to foodie-friends-friday-linky-party

Chocolate Caramel Marble Bunt Cake.

Phew I feel like I haven't blogged in so long as I've not been able to spend to much time on blogspot the last week I've been a little busy and like a few others I've had a few issues with logging on.

Any way last week I had my friends round for lots and lots of pizza. And even with copious amounts of pizza I knew my friends would expect 1 thing - cake! In fact I didn't even need to second guess this as I got a text message about 2 hours before my friends were due letting me know that there best be cake on offer!

I already had to make some Chocolate Orange cupcakes for an order I had (They seem to be a very popular flavour at the mo) so there was some of them left over but I also needed something else (I have lovely but greedy friends)

I decided on something caramel themed as I had some left over dulce de leche that needed to be used. I also had wanted to make a marbled cake as it was something I'd never made before so I went with a caramel and chocolate marble cake. I used my bunt tin but this recipe could be made in any tin.

The cake turned out really nice soft and just the right mix of caramel and chocolate which gave the outside a deep golden colour. And it didn't last long at all before it was all snatched up! Here it is:

I don't know why I love the shape of Bunt cakes so much. Here's the swirly inside,

I even managed to steal myself a piece before it was all whisked away:

And here's how it's made:

I made more caramel mixture than chocolate as I didn't want the caramel overpowered by to much chocolate. Also depending on the size of your tin you may have a little left over. I had enough to make 6 caramel cupcakes as well.

For the Caramel sponge: (from hummingbirds caramel cupcake recipe)

80g Unsalted Butter
280g Caster sugar (I had almost run out so used 1/2 caster sugar 1/2 soft brown sugar  - worked perfectly)
240g Plain flour
1 tbsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
240ml Whole milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
2 large eggs
150g Dulce de leche

Preheat the oven to 190degC

Whisk or rub together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt until you have a sandy consistency.
Place the milk and vanilla in a jug with the eggs and whisk together. Pour 3/4 of this into the dry ingredients and whisk together firstly on a slow speed and then increase the speed and whisk till you have a smooth thick batter. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining milk mixture and caramel and mix until all the ingredients are combined.

Put to one side while you make the chocolate mix.

For the chocolate sponge:

100g Plain flour
20g Cocoa Powder
140g Caster Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
40g Butter
120ml Milk
1 egg
1/4 tsp Vanilla extract

Put the flour, cocoa, baking powder, sugar and butter in a bowl and rub together until you have a sandy consistency.

Whisk the milk, eggs and vanilla together and add slowly to the mixture beating out any lumps. Mix for a couple of minutes till everything is well combined but don't over mix.


Then get your desired cake tin and grease then either line with greaseproof paper or grease and dust with a fine layer of flour to prevent any sticking. I went for about 2/3 caramel mix and 1/3 chocolate and filled the tin approx 2/3 full.

First pour in the desired amount of caramel mixture then on top pour the chocolate mixture. Then take a teaspoon or knife and gently swirl the mixtures together to create a marble effect all the way through.

Then bake in the oven for 40  - 50 minutes (depending on size of cake/tin) or until golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean.

Then serve (Very yummy served warm with custard or cream)

and that's it!

As I said I had a little left over to make 6 caramel cupcakes, I didn't have any icing sugar left so I pricked the top of them and drizzled with toffee sauce to give a really sticky sweet cake:

One thing I love about my friends is that they don't hold back when it comes to cake. After finishing the pizza and easting cupcakes and cake, just before leaving they all ventured into my kitchen got the tin foil out and started cutting and wrapping slices of cake to take home. hehehe. They did leave me a couple of slices though.

I've had to make a lot of cupcakes for orders over the last few weeks but I have a free weekend this weekend so I'm hoping to bake something new. Not that I haven't enjoyed making all the cakes to order and as I said Chocolate Orange is definitely proving to be the favourite, I mean just look at this lot:

And this was just half of the amount of them I made last weekend.

Any way that's it for now!

Until next time, keep baking

Cupcake Kris
xxx

Special Toffee Cupcakes and obsessive baking

I've been meaning to put this recipe up for a week now but it's been a bit of a crazy week so again I'm blogging later than expected.

Anyways a few weeks ago I was asked by my friend Alex to make some cupcakes for her Grandma's Birthday and they had to include Thornton's special toffee as that was her Grandmas favorite. I did play with the idea of somehow melting the toffee into the cake but the toffee is so hard it just wouldn't make for good texture. So I decided to make a toffee flavoured sponge with caramel icing and then I smashed up toffee into tiny pieces to sprinkle over the top and topped with one large chunk before drizzling the icing in toffee sauce. They went down very well! The cake was very soft and light and the icing sweet and topped with plenty of toffee to add a hit of toffee flavour.

Here they are:

If i was making these to have with little or no icing I would use dark rather than light brown sugar to give the cake a darker, richer taste however with a big swirl of icing the cake is sweet enough.

Here's how they're made:

80g Unsalted Butter, softened
150g Soft light brown sugar
180g Plain flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
1 tsp Bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt
1 tsp Vanilla essence
2 large eggs
100ml Milk

Makes 12 - 16

Preheat the oven to 190deg C and line a muffin tin with cases.
Beat the butter and sugar together until soft and fluffy. Mix in the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Beat together the eggs, vanilla essence and  milk and add this to the dry mix. Mixing until you have a smooth batter.

Fill each paper case 2/3 full and bake for 18- 20 mins until risen and springy to the touch. Leave to cool before icing.

(For an alternative to make sticky toffee cupcakes add 180g pitted and chopped dates and replace the milk with 180ml boiling water. Soak the dates in the water for 20 minutes and add these to the dry ingredients after adding the egg and vanilla.)

For the Icing

160g Unsalted butter
500g Icing sugar
50ml Milk
100g Dulce de leche
Toffee to decorate

Mix together the butter and icing sugar gradually add the milk and mix well add the tinned caramel and beat until light and fluffy.

Spoon or pipe the icing onto the cakes and top with crushed toffee and drizzle with toffee sauce or dulce de leche.

and all packed up and ready to go

And that's it!

Ok well that's nearly all for today but before I go I'd like to confess that I think my baking addiction has gone to far! I've been trying to not eat as much naughty foods recently but I am still itching to bake so last week I found a silly, bargain of a cook book and before I knew it I actually found myself baking. Not for me or boyfriend but I was baking healthy, tasty treats for my dog! Yep my baking addiction has officially gone to far!

The book was a bargain (99p) and as well as loving to bake I do like my doggy to eat well so I suppose that doesn't make me too crazy (does it?) but here they are, the banana and carrot oaty dog biscuits I made:

They actually smell damn good! although there's no sugar in them so they taste pretty bland (yes I tried a nibble!)
Clyro on the other hand loves them and starts wagging his tail whenever I bring him one. I also wrapped a few up for my friends dogs who also approved. (Although my friends might think I'm a bit mad)

Any way that's it for today

off to decide what to bake next

bye for now

Cupcake Kris xxx

Linked up to sweets for a saturday

Cake poppin for a worthy cause : Chocolate cake pops.

I have a confession: I was meant to write this blog about 3 hours ago but I got distracted by pretty dresses online (To Nickie, if your reading this it's all your fault) and I even ended up buying dresses that I don't know if they will even suit me. But they are pretty so forgive my lateness.

Last week in work there was another Charity bake sale, (They just can't get enough of the cake in my office!)
and I was asked to make some sweet treats to contribute to it. I was also very flattered as the girl who asked me also mentioned how she had been passed my blog address and really likes my blog. (blushes) So as flattery gets you everywhere I went home and shut myself in the kitchen ready to make some cakes. I made 6 chocolate cupcakes as well as 12 chocolate cake pops as I had a bar of chocolate cake covering spare.
Lots of people at the sale commented on how great they looked and tasted (cue more blushing).

But the most important part was that we raised lots of pennies for a very worthy charity: the Samantha Dickinson Brain Tumour Trust . Lots of people made cakes to sell and as usual it was a great success as people just cant resist home baked goodies!

Any way as I've previously posted how to make cake pops, here's the link to how to make them. The only difference being this time I used Milk chocolate cake covering (a much easier to source in the UK and cheaper option than candy melts). Here they are:

As you can see I decorated them with pink and lavender sugar crystals. I found it a lot easier when decorating to wait until the chocolate had dried then re dip or coat the part of the pop I wanted to decorate and sprinkle on the crystals. This made for much neater decorating when just decorating the top or sides. And it also made the pops look like they were wearing little hats hehehe.

Any way since there is no recipe I'm just going to fill the rest of this post with more pics of the pops! (hehe)

I definitely need to get better at fixing little cosmetic mistakes on my cakes before taking pictures.

Right that's enough poppin for today

Till next time

Cupcake Kris xxx

Cherry Coconut Cupcakes, Easter Cupcakes and Cake Pops.

I hope you all had a lovely Easter break and bank holiday weekend. I have absolutely loved the weather we have had during the break and I've filled my time with a camping trip in the beautiful lakes with walking and kayaking, indoor rock climbing, my little brothers birthday and lots and lots of cocktails with friends. I think I need another week off!

I have also done allot of baking over the break I had to make 30 Easter themed cupcakes for a friends work, 12 cake pops for a friends mother in law as well as hot cross buns (previous blog)  and mini Creme egg cupcakes.

Here are the cupcakes I made for my friends work, I went with 12 chocolate (Recipe on a earlier blog) decorated with micro eggs:

Forgot to take the pics until after I'd packed the cakes away. I also made 12 Lemon cupcakes with sugar paste flowers (recipe on earlier blog)

And then I made 6 Cherry Coconut cupcakes with bright cherry coloured icing and dipped in dessicated coconut:

And here's the recipe for the Cherry Coconut cakes: Recipe via Next: Cupcakes


Cherry Coconut Cupcakes

115g Butter, softened
115g Caster Sugar
2 tbsp Milk
2 Eggs, lightly beaten
85g Self raising flour
1/2 tsp Baking powder
85g Desiccated Coconut
115g Glace Cherries, quartered
Handful of Desiccated coconut to decorate.

For the Icing I used vanilla butter cream dyed with red food colouring. recipe here.

Preheat oven to 180degC and line a bun tray with 12 cases.

Put the butter and sugar into a bowl and cream together until light and fluffy. Stir in the milk. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Sift in the flour and baking powder and fold them in with the coconut. Toss the quartered cherries in flour and then stir them into the mixture.
Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 20- 25 minutes until well risen and golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Once cool spread over a spoonful of icing and roll the top of the cake in desiccated coconut.

enjoy!

As i said earlier I also made some mini Creme egg cupcakes and cake pops but just before I went camping I accidentally deleted all the pics of these from my camera and I was gutted.

The Creme egg cupcakes were a chocolate cupcake with a min creme egg baked inside and then iced with vanilla icing and drizzled with orange coloured icing to look like egg yolk and topped with a mini creme egg cut in half. It was definitely a calorie fest! But as there are no pic here's a cute one from my camping trip instead:

I do have a couple of pics of the cake pops, one a  very bad camera pic and the other taken by a friend after handing them over you cant see them very well but here they are:

They were chocolate inside dipped in white chocolate cake covering and decorated with pink sugar crystals.
Here's how to make cake pops. Link!

These ones turned out much better than the last I think too (which is why I was so gutted about the loss of pictures) Cake pops are definitely something that take practice.

Any way that's it for today. Tomorrow is my first day back at work after the break and I also have to fit in a zumba class as well as lots of baking for a charity bake sale so it's an early night for me tonight!

Till next time,

Cupcake Kris

xxx