Nutella Cupcakes with Malteaser Burst

Not really the ideal cake for anyone on a New Year's diet but utterly delicious...and a bit of a looker to boot! I made these for a birthday and they were really well received.

I used the mybakes.co.uk nutella cupcake recipe, although there are several different versions about. A taste tester tried one on the day they were made and then tried another one the next day, the verdict...twice as delicious on day two!

The suggested decoration for this cupcake is a couple of malteasers on top but if you really want to make an impact you can try a Malteaser burst. To make it I used gold florist wire, florist tape, a flower pick and obviously Malteasers! Cut 5 pieces of wire of various lengths and then fasten together at one end with florist tape. Push a Malteaser on to the end of each piece of wire and then bend each one outwards. It is not generally recommended to push this straight into the cakes, especially if you were to lose the piece of florist tape off the end. It may therefore be advisable to insert a flower pick before icing, although I know that some people may just push the individual bits of wire into the cake!

Finally, thanks to Matthew Piper who took the stunning photo at the top. Check out more of his pictures on Flickr.

Random Recipes Challenge: Summer Fruit Cream Slice

As it's a new year I thought I'd try a new challenge and what better than Belleau Kitchen's Random Recipes to fit in with my new year's resolution of resisting the urge to buy a new recipe book for the whole of 2012!!

This month the idea was to pick your newest cookbook and then flick through the pages with your eyes closed and whichever recipe you land on is the one you have to make! As previously mentioned my last cookbook (for the year) was McDougall's Better Bakers Guide. I flicked through and before me was a recipe for a Summer Fruit Cream Slice...slightly at odds with a cold dull January but a little something to remind us of summer.

This is a great challenge as not only does it encourage you to use the cookbooks you already have (as per my resolution) but it also encourages you to try new things. I for one have never tried making flaky pastry, it's something I've always wanted to try but may have never gotten round to... so thanks Dom at Belleau Kitchen for a great challenge.

Making the flaky pastry, it is essentially a puff pastry and requires lots of folding, rolling and chilling. As you can see the pastry was rolled out into an oblong and then roughly divided in to three, knobs of butter were scattered over two thirds of the pastry before folding it over on itself and rolling out. This process was repeated several times and eventually gave the lovely layers you can see in the picture.

This is essentially a Mille Feuille and to prevent the pastry puffing up in the oven an empty baking tray was placed on top of the pastry to keep it relatively flat! My three layer slice ended up as a bit of a humdinger, for a slightly more elegant slice you could remove the top layer as above.

I really enjoyed trying something new...why not join in with next month's challenge!

Passion Cake

So here is my first cake of 2012! A simple affair after the excesses of Christmas, it's a passion cake from the aforementioned McDougall's Bakers Guide...my last recipe book for a year!! This is a nice moist cake with an extremely tasty cream cheese frosting... it would be a good one to serve with a cup of tea when you have friends round. The passion cake would be good if you're planning a frugal January but still want something that tastes ever so slightly decadent! :-)

• 275g plain flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 150g soft light brown sugar
• 100g carrots, grated
• 50g walnuts, chopped
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 100ml sunflower oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 432g can crushed pineapple, drained

Cream cheese frosting

• 75g butter
• 75g soft cream cheese
• 175g icing sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Heat the oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 4 and then grease and line a 20cm cake tin. Mix the sifted flour, cinnamon and baking powder in a bowl before adding the sugar, walnuts and carrot. Mix together again and make a well in the middle, to which the oil, eggs, vanilla extract and pineapple should be added. Beat together with a spoon before pouring in to the prepared tin. Level off the top and bake for 1 1/4 hour. Cool in the tin.

When cool swirl the frosting on the top. This can be made by mixing the butter, cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla essence with an electric mixer. It is helpful to chill the cake for at least 30minutes before serving.

McDougalls: The Better Baker's Guide

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a great Christmas. Now the festivities are all done and dusted I decided to have a spring clean yesterday and happened to pile all my recipe books in one place...I have to say, I knew I had quite a few but was a bit surprised to realise how many!!

I then read a couple of great posts from Cake Boule and English Mum about New Year's resolutions and concentrating on the things that matter in life. As English Mum says life is about snapshots and not about stuff! Therefore, I have decided that one of my New Year's resolutions is to resist the temptation to buy a single cookbook in 2012...which will be tough!! But I really have quite enough already and maybe I should concentrate on making delicious treats from the ones I already have!

However, if you're planning a frugal January after the Christmas excesses but can't resist a new recipe book then this is the cost conscious option for you. McDougall's Flour publish a Better Baker's Guide, they're currently on the 35th edition! It's only £2.50, so it won't break the bank and it's crammed with over 100 classic recipes which all look delicious! Fortunately, my copy arrived just before the New Year, so this will be my last recipe book until 2013 but I think it's certainly a good one to end on... and probably has more recipes than some other books which cost at least quadruple the price!!

Today is my last day of freedom before going back to work tomorrow, so I have my first recipe from the McDougall's cookbook in the oven and I will post the results later.

Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2012!

To get your own copy of the McDougalls Baker's Guide then you just need to send a cheque for £2.50 (payable to McDougalls Foods Ltd) to the following address:

McDougalls Baking Book
PO Box 100
Blackburn
Lancashire
BB2 9FL

It will take about 28 days to arrive and P&P is included. You just need to send your cheque along with your name and address.