Happy Birthday, Mummee! How to do Swirled Icing

Wow, have I really written 360 blog posts? That's a lot! And to celebrate, I'm sharing the cake I made for my Mum's birthday! Seems quite ordinary, but I'll explain.

When you’ve made as many cakes as I have, sometimes you hit a creative drought. 2017 was an extremely prolific year for my blog, and I think since then my output has been a little stunted by life stresses and pressures: work, wedding planning, martial arts exams, learning how to drive, etc. The last two years has been a manic time in my life, all in good ways for a change! 

Because so much happened over such a short time, I’ve been playing catch up with myself pretty much all throughout. My blog, as such, went on the back burner. 

But now, as school is slackening off in preparation for summer (the Irish summer holidays are very long, and normally start in the last week of May right up until the last week of August, except for those doing state exams) and I’ll soon be having about three months’ paid holidays and loads of free time, baking will be back on the menu big style. 

But anyway, back to what I was saying about creative drought. 

When a family birthday comes around, sometimes I feel a little uninspired: my brother Paddy loves the same chocolate cake every year, my brother Andrew loves the same coffee cake every year, my Mum loves the same lemon cake every year, my Dad loves either a coffee cake or some kind of Bakewell thing every year, I love the same strawberry and cream cake every year.... the only person who likes to try something different every year is my sister Nix, because she loves having a big fuss made over her for her birthday (and why not?) 

So, May rolled around this year and again it’s time to make a lemon cake for Mum’s birthday. It’s always yellow, always zingy lemon, and always has lemon curd in it. However, this year I decided to use a piping technique that I’ve seen on Pinterest and Instagram so many times but never got around to doing myself. 

Normally, when you do a swirled icing with many colours, one folds the piping bag open over their hand and scrapes the different colour icings along the inside, avoiding contact with each other, so that when you twist and pipe they come together out through the nozzle. However, I’ve found sometimes the colours mix as you pipe, so the distinction between them completely disappears. You can also pop piping bags in piping bags, which is a little wasteful for me. 

I’ve seen people getting around this problem online by using clingfilm (which, albeit wasteful, is nowhere near as wasteful as using loads of piping bags) to keep the colours separate: they spoon the icing into a sheet of film, fold it over to enclose the colour, then add another colour alongside it, then wrap it again, and so on. What you end up with is like a clingfilm and icing Swiss roll of many colours. 

And this worked perfectly! I went with a classic complementary scheme (yellow and purple) and it worked wonders: the white, yellow, and purple stayed separate all throughout piping without mixing. I recommend this method, as long as you don’t mind using cling film.  

First Attempt at Whoopie Pies (Wheat Free with a Dairy Free Option)

 There is now a new and improved post about Whoopie Pies here.

Today, I present to you a recipe several months in the making! Behold my own take on the American classic, Whoopie Pies!

About two or three years ago, I got a new cookery book for my birthday, which is a typical gift for me. This book, simply entitled Whoopie Pies introduced me properly to a confection that I had only heard of by name once or twice. I tried a recipe or two from the book, but wasn't a hundred percent happy with how they turned out and, as such, the book is still gathering dust on my bookshelf. 

Then a few months ago I was watching a programme on Food Network, and I saw the cook make some chocolate whoopie pies. It had been quite some time since I had last tried them and I thought Heck, why not give them another go? Seeing as the cook described them as a "mixture between a cupcake and a sandwich cookie", that's the kind of approach I took: I tried merging my basic sponge cake recipe and my chocolate chip cookie recipe together, but the results were disappointingly flat and crispy.

The real breakthrough came when I merged my basic sponge recipe with a basic scone recipe, and replacing the butter with oil: it made a very fluid mixture that puffed up nicely, but didn't spread out too much during baking. The result is a cake that has all the fluffiness and sweetness of a sponge cake, but the sturdiness of a biscuit. However, I'll probably work on this recipe in the future, because I generally am not a fan of the fact that this only uses brown sugar: I don't want my plain vanilla whoopie pies to be brown!

These lovely little sandwiches go slightly sticky on the crust the longer they stay in storage, which is ideal: I have it on good, American authority that a whoopie pie should somewhat stick to your fingers. 

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

DIFFICULTY

Requires mixing and spooning out runny batter

TIME

About 2 hours

RECIPE RATING

Easy!

~~ ^ _ ^ ~~

INGREDIMENTS

For 12 to 14 sandwiches (24 to 28 total cakes)

8 ounces (225 grammes, 1.8 US cups) plain white spelt flour

2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) baking powder

¼ teaspoon (1 millilitre) salt

6 ounces (170 grammes, 1 US cup) brown sugar

4 fluid ounces (115 millilitres, ½ US cup) sunflower oil

1 medium (US large) egg

6 fluid ounces (170 millilitres, ¾ US cup) buttermilk, or plain soya yoghurt

1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence

About 1 pound (455 grammes) icing filling of your choice: butter cream, ganache, marshmallow fluff, etc.

METHOD

• Preheat the oven to 170°C (340°F, Gas Mk.3), and grease and flour two flat baking trays.
• In a large mixing bowl, sieve together the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Make a well in the centre.
• In a jug, beat together the buttermilk, egg, oil, and vanilla essence until smooth. Pour into the well in the dry ingredients then, using a balloon whisk or electric mixer, mix together until there are no streaks of flour and the mixture is smooth and consistent.
• Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture on the baking trays, about an inch (2 centimetres) apart, using the tip of the spoon to smooth the dollops into rounds. Tap the trays sharply on the work surface to flatten out the pies. I got about 6 on each tray.
• Bake in the centre of the preheated oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the oven when the pies spring back when touched lightly with a finger.
• Allow to cool for about 5 minutes before transferring from the trays to wire cooling racks to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining mixture.
• Pair the cakes together according to size, then sandwich together with about two tablespoons of filling. Set in the fridge for about half an hour before serving.

NOTES

• For chocolate whoopie pies: Replace an eighth of the flour with cocoa powder, and sieve in with the other dry ingredients.

• For red velvet whoopie pies: Replace a tablespoon (30 millilitres) of the flour with cocoa powder and sieve with the dry ingredients, and add red food colouring to the wet ingredients to get the shade you want.

• For pumpkin spice whoopie pies: Add in 1 or 2 tablespoons (15 or 30 millilitres) to taste of your favourite pumpkin spice or mixed spice blend, and sieve in with the other dry ingredients.

• For coffee whoopie pies: Add 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) of instant espresso powder, and sieve in with the other dry ingredients

THIS TIME IN 2017: Hot Cross Bunnies: a Cutesy Twist on a Traditional Favourite (Wheat Free)

THIS TIME IN 2016: Buttermilk Scones (Wheat Free)

THIS TIME IN 2015: April Afternoon Tea Party: Bollywood Part Two!

THIS TIME IN 2013: Black Forest Gâteau: a Retro Classic? (Wheat Free)

There was no blog on this day in 2014.

Happy Anniversary, My Wonderful Companion: Giant Angel Slice

Happy first anniversary to my dearest companion! You have been a rock and support to me in awful times, and a wonderful friend to enjoy the good times with, too!

In celebration, I made my companion his favourite kind of cake, although in much larger dimensions than usual: an Angel slice!

For those who don't know, and Angel slice is a Mr Kipling favourite: it's a sandwich cake, with a white and a pink layer, filled with a vanilla flavoured cream, and iced with white and pink fondant. Usually, you buy them in packets of four slices. The cake is super light and fluffy, like a fondant fancy, and the filling is sticky, sweet, cheap, and nasty.

As such, I made two 4x8 inch (10x20 centimetre) cakes using this recipe scaled up to two eggs—one left plain, one coloured with a hint of pink—and sandwiched them together with some vanilla flavoured buttercream, before topping it off with a simple fondant style icing of 8 parts icing sugar to 1 part melted butter, thinned to a nice fondant consistency with milk. I coloured some of it pink and drizzled it on the top.

Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of the cake before he and I tucked into it as a naughty anniversary breakfast, but I did take a picture of what was left!

I also made a nice wall hanging of envelopes which I folded from fancy paper, each containing photographs commemorating each month of our first year, and pictures from the weekend when we first started dating. I was super pleased with it!

Here's to many more years with you, my dearest lovely.... ^_^ x

Death by Coffee: for Those Who Prefer Coffee Cake to Chocolate Cake, like Me (Wheat Free)

Chocolate cake is nice, and I like it as much as the next woman, but in my opinion there is something tastier: coffee cake!

I find the flavour of coffee a little more nuanced and interesting than chocolate. There's something slightly bitter and sharp about it, in comparison to chocolate which is a little smoother and rounder tasting. Coffee makes for more interesting flavour pairings, too.

My Dad concurs: coffee cake is his favourite, too. Which is why I look forward every year to making his birthday cake.

I think my fondness comes from a delight in traditional Irish bakery coffee cakes. There's something about their naff margarine buttercream and crunched up nuts or digestive biscuits on the sides that just speaks to me. The local bakery, before I was taken on by new management, used to make a fabulously naff coffee cake that I would buy every time I had a few extra euros at the end of the week.

I know I've done lots of coffee cake recipes before—on account of it being my favourite—but this one is slightly different: this cake uses the same recipe as my recent American style Devil's Food Cake, but uses coffee instead of hot water and cocoa powder. This makes for a super soft, fluffy, and moist cake.

So, let's get started!

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Eggs
☒ Dairy (dairy substitutes can be found in italics)
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products


INGREDIMENTS
For one large 8 inch (22 centimetre) round cake

• 7 ounces (200 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking soda
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) butter, at room temperature, or margarine
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) caster sugar
• 3 medium eggs
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) brown sugar
• 6 fluid ounces (180 millilitres) strong coffee, either brewed or instant

For the buttercream,

• 1 pound (455 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) butter, at room temperature
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) vegetable fat, at room temperature
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) instant coffee granules
• 2 tablespoons (30 millilitres) boiled water
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) vanilla essence

For assembly,

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) instant coffee
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) boiled water
• 12 chocolate coffee beans, or other chocolate decoration

METHOD

• Preheat your oven to 170ºC (325ºF, Gas Mk. 3), and grease and flour an 8 inch (22 centimetre) deep round cake tin.
• Prepare the cake according to this recipe, using coffee instead of cocoa powder and hot water, and sifting the cornflour in with the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, or until fully baked and a skewer comes out clean. Cool as instructed.

For the icing,

• Dissolve the instant coffee into the hot water and allow to cool to room temperature.
• Beat the vegetable fat until creamy with an electric mixer, then add the butter. Continue to beat until fully combined.
• Beat in half the icing sugar on a low speed, then the coffee, then the rest of the icing sugar. Adjust the consistency with some milk or water if needed.

To assemble:

• Cut the dome off the cake, then slice in half horizontally. Attach the top half of the cake to its platter with a tiny smear of the filling to make the bottom layer. Spoon a third of the icing onto the bottom layer, spread out with a palette knife (or butter knife) until it's about half an inch (1 centimetre) from the edge.
• Place the bottom half of the cake on top upside down, so the flat surface is not the top of the cake. Press gently to glue together, and chill in the fridge for about 10 minutes to firm up.
• Reserve about half of the remaining icing for piping, and use the other half to ice the side of the cake. Ice a one inch (2 centimetre) border around the top of the cake also.
• Make some glacé icing by dissolving the coffee in the water, and mix it into the icing sugar with enough hot water to make a running consistency. Ice the top of the cake up to the border. Allow to crust.
• Using the remaining icing, pipe 12 rosettes around the edge, one in the centre, and a shell border around the foot of the cake. Decorate with some chocolate sweets, or chocolate coffee beans.
• Allow to set for about an hour before serving.

Here, in this picture, you can see the consistency of the cake itself: fluffy and rich and moist and nomnomnom... I could have eaten this whole thing. It is to be enjoyed, however, in small portions, and will keep for up to a week in an airtight container. So, practise some restraint.

Cherry Chocolate Fairy Cakes

Whether it's black forest gateau, liqueur chocolates, covered berries, chocolate bars, or biscuits and cakes, chocolate and cherries belong together. Forever, and always.

I've done the black forest thing a few times, but this time I thought I'd try something a little bit different. In the traditional gateau, it's chocolate cake, fresh cream, and fresh cherries and cherry jam, whereas this time I thought I would try mix the cherry and the cream together, in a cherry butter cream.

However, here in Ireland, cherries are incredibly expensive. Because they have to be imported from southeastern England or the continent, they can be up to €13 ($14.50, £11.30) per kilogram. Also, there's no such thing as cherry essence in the shops. So, I had to improvise.

Here, we can buy cherry juice drink. It's generally in the fruit juice and juice drink section of the supermarket. The one I buy is 25% cherry juice. Of course, you can't add cherry juice directly to the buttercream, otherwise it'll be too runny, but if you reduce it to a syrup it works just as well.

If you have access to cherry essence or flavour oil, you can just use that instead.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Eggs
☒ Dairy (dairy substitutes can be found in italics)
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS

For 12 standard fairy cakes

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 medium eggs
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 ounce (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2 fluid ounces (30 millilitres) warm water
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence

For the icing:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) butter, softened or margarine
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) block vegetable fat, softened
• 12 ounces (340 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• 4 fluid ounces (120 millilitres) cherry juice drink, at least 25% fruit juice content, like this one
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• Red and blue food colouring

To make the chocolate coated cherries,

• 12 glacé cherries (choose the roundest, prettiest ones from the tub)
• 1 ounces (30 grammes) dark chocolate
• 2 teaspoons (10 millilitres) sunflower oil

HOW-TO

First off, make the chocolate cherries,

• Wash and dry the glacé cherries to remove all the excess syrup.
• To make the coating, melt the chocolate and oil together in a cup or small bowl, either in the microwave in 30 second increments, or over a pan of simmering water.
• Line a small tray or chopping board with a sheet of non-stick baking paper.
• Using a cocktail stick, pick each cherry up through the hole in the top and dip in the chocolate. Slide each cherry off onto the paper lined tray. Refrigerate for about an hour.

Then, prepare the syrup for the icing,

• In a small saucepan, boil the cherry juice until reduced by half. It should be slightly syrupy.
• Leave the syrup aside to cool completely

Then, make the cakes,

• Make the cake mixture according to this recipe, using a 12 hole muffin tin lined with pink cake liners (or white, if you can't get green). Divide the mixture between all the cases, and bake at 180ºC (350ºF/Gas Mk. 4) for about 20 minutes. Once cooked, transfer the cakes to a wire rack and cool completely.

Now, assemble the masterpieces,

• To make the icing, beat the butter and fat together with an electric beater, or with a wooden spoon and a lot of elbow grease, until light and fluffy and well combined.
• Add in the vanilla essence, and about 3 tablespoons (45 millilitres) of the cooled cherry syrup and half the icing sugar and beat again until fully combined.
• Add the rest of the icing and continue to beat until you get a nice smooth and creamy icing. If you think the icing is too stiff, add cherry syrup until it's the right conistency.
• Add the red colouring a drop at a time until it's a deep pink colour, then add a drop or two of blue colouring to give it a slightly darker, more cherry like shade.
• Fit a piping bag with a medium or large star nozzle, and pipe swirls on top of each cake. I start in the centre of the cake, swirl around the edge, then continue to swirl upwards to have two layers and a peak on top.
• Pop a chocolate glacé cherry on the top of each cake. You could add some sprinkles if you like, too.

The cherry taste in the buttercream is nice and subtle, and a lot more natural than the intense -- almost synthetic -- taste of a flavour oil or essence. And the chocolate coated glacé cherries are a nice touch, and I think I'll be repeating that in the future.

This time in 2015: Something Different: Koeksisters (Wheat- and Dairy Free)

This time in 2014: Chocolate Truffles (Gluten and Dairy Free)

This time in 2013: Variations on a Theme: Neapolitan Coconut Ice

Chocolate Lime Cupcakes (Wheat Free)

Behold! This wonderful green confection: chocolate lime cupcakes!

While I was in England, I got a lovely tube of rainbow coloured fairy cake cases: a 300 pack of proper Wilton paper liners. As such, I've got a real bug for making fairy cakes recently, and I like to try and come up with unusual flavour combinations, inspired by other desserts or sweeties.

I looked at the cake liners for a while, jotting down ideas in my sketchbook, and the green liners were really singing to me. At first I thought of mint, but unfortunately my peppermint essence has lost its flavour over time (it's an organic on in carrier oil, which now tastes only of the carrier oil), so I thought what else is green and goes with chocolate?

This called to mind a sweetie that I used to enjoy greatly as a kid: chocolate limes. Essentially, they are neon green boiled sweets flavoured with nasty fake lime flavour, filled with a chocolate creamy thing. They're naff, but they're delicious.

Source: http://sweetsfortreats.com/boiled/chocolate-limes/

The great thing, though, with making your own sweets and cakes is you know exactly what you're putting in. As such, I opted to use real limes, which don't give that characteristic 'candy' lime taste, but are easier to get here and are probably better for you.

So, I decided to make a nice light and fluffy chocolate fairy cake, with mountains of lime buttercream, and a little smattering of chocolate glaze.

FREE FROM

☑ Soya (check for soya lecithin)
☑ Yeast
☑ Wheat
☑ Nuts

CONTAINS
☒ Eggs
☒ Dairy (dairy substitutes can be found in italics)
☒ Gluten
☒ Refined sugar products

INGREDIMENTS


For 12 standard fairy cakes

• 4 ounces (115 grammes) white spelt flour
• 1 ounce (30 grammes) cocoa powder
• ½ teaspoon (3 millilitres) baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• 2 medium eggs
• 4 ounces (115 grammes) caster sugar
• 2 ounce (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 2 fluid ounces (30 millilitres) warm water
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence

For the icing:

• 3 ounces (85 grammes) butter, softened or margarine
• 3 ounces (85 grammes) block vegetable fat, softened
• 12 ounces (340 grammes) icing sugar, sifted
• Zest of 3 limes
• Juice of 1 lime
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• Green and yellow food colouring

To make the chocolate glaze,

• 2 ounces (55 grammes) dark chocolate
• 1 tablespoon (15 millilitres) sunflower oil

HOW-TO

• Make the cake mixture according to this recipe, using a 12 hole muffin tin lined with green cake liners (or white, if you can't get green). Divide the mixture between all the cases, and bake at 180ºC (350ºF/Gas Mk. 4) for about 20 minutes. Once cooked, transfer the cakes to a wire rack and cool completely.
• To make the glaze, melt the chocolate and oil together in a cup or small bowl, either in the microwave in 30 second increments, or over a pan of simmering water. Set aside to cool.
• To make the icing, beat the butter and fat together with an electric beater, or with a wooden spoon and a lot of elbow grease, until light and fluffy and well combined.
• Add in the lime zest and juice, vanilla essence, and half the icing sugar and beat again until fully combined.
• Add the rest of the icing and continue to beat until you get a nice smooth and creamy icing. Mix in green and yellow food colouring, a drop at a time, until you get a nice and suitable vivid green colour.
• Fit a piping bag with a medium or large star nozzle, and pipe swirls on top of each cake. I start in the centre of the cake, swirl around the edge, then continue to swirl upwards to have two layers and a peak on top.
• Drizzle each cake with some glaze. You could also put sprinkles or a sweet on the cake if you like. Allow the glaze to set for about 30 minutes before serving.

This time in 2015: Danish Pastries: Dinosaur Paws (Wheat Free with Dairy Free Option)

This time in 2014: Lessons in Chocolate Dipping and Edible Anniversary Gifts

This time in 2013: Homemade Box of Chocolates = WIN

American Style Buttercream: Because Sometimes Cheap and Nasty Is Just What You Need

The other day, I was eating a shop bought cupcake. Sacrilege, I know, but sometimes I can't make them just like you can get from the shops. Which got me to thinking, what makes the icing on top -- and the filling within -- shop bought cakes so cheap and nasty, but so nice?

I decided to look on the back of the packets of shop bought cakes that had 'buttercream', and they predictably contained no butter in the icing: in pretty much every case, it was palm oil, or hydrogenated vegetable fat. So, I took to the internet to see if people make icing with these fairly gross ingredients.

I did a search for 'buttercream with vegetable fat' or something like that, and I was brought to the official Wilton recipe for buttercream icing: it used butter and vegetable shortening in equal quantities, and lots of vanilla essence. At first, I was skeptical, not only because vegetable fat on its own is fairly disgusting, but because the vegetable fat that was being used in the video didn't resemble anything we have here in Ireland.

In the States, it seems, vegetable fat -- or shortening -- is soft and spreadable and bright white; it beats up like butter. Here, we get blocks of hard vegetable lard; it's made of the same stuff, only in a solid brick of a thing. I had utterly convinced it wouldn't whip or be beaten well like the American style stuff.

However, I got some just to try. I softened the butter and the fat to room temperature and used them both to make some vanilla buttercream icing. And, in complete honesty, I was thoroughly impressed.

Advantages

• It is very stable: it's not prone to curdling or splitting like traditional buttercream made with only butter. It also holds its shape very, very well, which makes it perfect for piping
• The combination of vegetable fat and butter is quite bland: it doesn't have as strong a buttery taste, which makes it easier to flavour. You don't need as much essence, powder, or what-have-you.
• It's cheaper: a pound of butter is about €2.40, whereas a pound of vegetable fat is half the price at €1.20. So, if you mix them in equal quantities, you save 60c per pound.
• It whips up really quickly: the vegetable fat catches more air bubbles and makes something akin to whipped cream icing, but it doesn't go off like cream does. It'd make a nice filling for fondant fancies or the like.
• It's pale, therefore easy to dye.

Disadvantages

• The butter and fat take a lot of beating to come together. You need to work them a lot with a wooden spoon and a strong wrist, or with an electric beater. HOWEVER, if going the electric option, use it to mix the butter and fat only until beaten, otherwise....
• It whips up really quickly: if you use an electric beater to mix in the icing sugar, you will end up with something that's more like whipped cream than buttercream. So when adding the icing sugar, switch to a wooden spoon.
• It's a little more greasy in mouthfeel than traditional all butter icing, and doesn't have the smoothness of butter.
• It's fairly bland if you don't add enough flavouring, because it lacks the richness of the butter. You might want to add a baseline of vanilla essence in underneath whatever flavour you're adding in.

Long story short: Make sure the butter and fat are well and tempered to room temperature. Mix the butter and fat together really well on their own first. Don't over mix once you add the icing sugar. Add vanilla essence no matter what flavour you're making it for more depth. Forgive it its slightly greasy mouthfeel.

200 Recipes! Strawberry Fairy Cakes (with Meringue Buttercream)

Happy 200th Recipe!!

Today marks the 200th recipe (technically the 201st post, but the first post I ever wrote was an introductory one), so I thought I'd do something that I've always wanted to do but have actually never done: strawberry cupcakes.

When I was in college, the canteen served these super cute pink-iced fairy cakes. They had tooth-achingly sweet buttercream, flavoured with strawberry and coloured pink, and were decorated with little pink and white heart shaped sprinkles (like the ones I buy from Lidl; I think you've been rumbled, catering company!). The cake was just simple vanilla sponge. There's something wonderful about synthetic strawberry flavour: it conjures up images of childhood, and even as an adult who knows it's cheap and nasty I just can't help but love it.

I know you're all thinking, how can you have been running a bakery blog for nearly 3 years and never have done a simple strawberry cupcakes recipe? Unfortunately, here in Ireland strawberry essence is hard to come by, and usually very expensive, so I just forgot about it for quite some time.

However, the other day I was catching up on my YouTube channel subscriptions, and saw a woman making icing using strawberry milkshake powder, and I suddenly felt like a bit of an idiot: that stuff is super cheap and easy to come by, and I actually had used it once to make icing when I was a teenager.

So, I went to the shop to buy some, and inspected the ingredients: it's pretty much all sugar, except for less than one-percent strawberry powder, and some flavouring. This makes it easy to swap out for sugar in icing recipes.

This is my first foray into meringue buttercream, and I will say, it's harder than it looks. I based my creation on this recipe, halving the butter and adding it in in thin slices instead of chunks, and increasing the sugar. It made some delicious icing, but the making of it was quite complicated. I will in the future be tampering with it and trying to find a way to make it easier: I found that it kept collapsing and I had to refrigerate it to make it whip-able.

I also decided to chance putting some jam into the middle of each cake before baking, but the jam was heavier than the cake misture, so it sank to the bottom. It still tasted nice, though!

INGREDIMENTS

For 12 large cupcakes

• 6 ounces (170 grammes) white spelt flour
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) cornflour
• 1½ teaspoons (7 millilitres) baking powder
• 6 ounces (170 grammes) caster sugar
• 4 medium eggs
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter, or block margarine
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) sunflower oil
• 1 teaspoon (5 millilitres) vanilla essence
• 3 tablespoons (45 millilitres) strawberry jam, sieved

For the meringue buttercream (EXPERIMENTAL; correct recipe to follow)

• 2 medium egg whites
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) strawberry milkshake powder
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) white caster sugar
• 2 ounces (55 grammes) butter at room temperature, cut into thin slices

HOW-TO

To make the cakes,

• Line a 12 hole muffin tin with large paper cases, and preheat your oven to 180°C (350°F, Gas Mk.4, or moderate).
• Make the cake mixture following this recipe (leaving out the jam). Divide equally between the 12 cases: they should be about three-quarters full. Swirl half a teaspoon of strawberry jam in each cake, and tap the pan off the work surface to release all the bubbles.
• Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until well mounded and springy to the touch. Take out of the oven, transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the icing,

• Put the strawberry milkshake powder, caster sugar, and egg whites in a large heatproof mixing bowl. Heat over a saucepan containing about an inch (2 centimetres) of simmering water. Stir until hot to the touch, and when you rub the mixture between your fingertips you can feel no grains of sugar.
• Take off the heat, and beat with an electric whisk until you have a super fluffy, big, soft meringue that is completely cold; it should have at least tripled in size. This can take anywhere from 7 to 15 minutes, depending on the strength and quality of your whisk.
• With the whisk still running, add in a slice of butter at a time; each slice should be no more than half an ounce (15 grammes). Once the first slice is completely beaten in, add the next one, and so on. Take it slowly: otherwise it might collapse.
• If it does collapse, no worries: finish adding the butter, then refrigerate for about 20 to 30 minutes and beat again, and it should be lovely and fluffsome.
• Put into a piping bag fitted with a close star nozzle, and pipe onto the cooled cakes as you please. Decorate with sprinkles of your choice!

As you can see in this picture, I also made some chocolate ones, which were fabulous. The meringue buttercream is much lighter and creamier than traditional buttercream, so I actually prefer it, however I need to work on my technique. Watch this space...