Christmas Cupcakes! It's nearly here!

Hullo,

So my recent challenge was creating some Christmas Cupcakes for the work peeps. It may sound bizarre but before I even started thinking about the actual cakes I was consumed with thoughts about cupcake toppers! This year I vowed to make: Christmas Trees, Christmas Puddings, Baubles, Snowflakes, Santa Clauses, Robins and Snowmen. A week before I was due to bake the cupcakes I made my toppers using fondant icing. I did this because this gives the fondant a few days to harden so it's easier to top the cupcakes with them. If the cupcake toppers are soft they mould and flex around the shape of the cupcake.  I place them on baking trays, lined with baking parchment which is lightly dusted with icing sugar (stop them sticking) and leave to set somewhere cool. It took me 6 hours (including cleaning time) to create 40.

Finally, a week later, it was time to think  about baking the actual cupcakes. I wanted to create a festive flavoured cupcake but I appreciate that not everyone likes dried fruit and Christmas spices so I also made plain vanilla cupcakes using the vanilla cupcake recipe found in this book. I have mentioned this book before; it is 'Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery' by Marta Swift and Lisa Thomas and is a fant-abulous book! A perfect last minute Christmas gift for the baker in your family or circle of friends!

This is the recipe for the Vanilla Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

Cupcakes (makes 12):
110g unsalted butter (at room temperature)
225g caster sugar
2 eggs
150g self raising flour (sifted)
125g plain flour (sifted)
1tsp baking powder
120ml semi-skimmed milk (at room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla EXTRACT (not essence, this does not give as good a flavour as extract does)

Method:

• Line a muffin baking tray tin with your cupcake cases- I line two muffin baking tray tins as I find although the recipe is meant to make 12 cupcakes I can usually get somewhere between 16-18 from the mix.
• Pre-heat the oven to 160 degrees celsius.
• In a large bowl, measure out your butter and beat it a little with a fork. I find this makes creaming the butter and sugar together easier.
• Add the sugar to the butter and put to one side.
• Crack the eggs in a small bowl and whisk slightly with a fork and put to one side.  
• In a separate, medium sized bowl sift the flours and baking powder together and put to one side.
• In a jug, measure out the milk and add the vanilla extract to it and put to one side.
• Now all your ingredients are ready they just need combining. It may seems illogical to use all these bowls, particularly when it comes to washing up, but I find this works well in terms of getting your cupcakes in the oven asap once the wet and dry ingredients are mixed. Once the flours/baking powders are wet the raising agents within them are activated so it's best to transfer the batter into the oven asap.
• Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I use an electric hand whisk and this takes about 5 minutes).
• Slowly add the egg mixture to the creamed butter and sugar, whisking as you add it.
• Add a third of the flour mixture and whisk. Then add a third of the milk and vanilla extract mixture and whisk. Keep doing this until all of the ingredients are combined.
• Then pop the batter into your cupcake cases. Some people use spoons, some people use piping bags to get the mixture into the cupcake cases; I use a jug and pour it in! I find this helps me get an even distribution of mix into each cupcake case without to much faffing. Please feel free to fill your cupcake cases whichever way works best for you.
• Bake for 25 minutes. Test with a skewer to ensure they are baked, when removed the skewer should come out clean. If it doesn't bake for a further 5 minutes. Keep doing this until the cupcakes are baked.
• Once baked leave to cool in the tins for about 10 minutes then remove and place on a cooling rack to finish cooling. I find this helps the cupcakes firm slightly as they cool which makes decorating easier.

For my festive flavoured cupcakes I followed the recipe above but added the following:

Extra Ingredients for Festive Flavoured Cupcakes:

• 3-4 tsp of mixed spice (add this to the flour)
• 200g of mixed fruit- soaked in brandy overnight. Once I have drained the brandy off I coat the fruit in a tbsp of flour then mix it into the cupcake batter at the end just before I spoon the mixture out. In this case I do spoon the mixture into the cases to ensure each one gets a little bit of dried fruit in it.

Whilst the cupcakes are cooling I crack on with my buttercreams. I topped the vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream and the festive flavoured cupcakes with brandy buttercream. Again these recipes are taken from the same book.

Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

• 175g melted chocolate (good quality chocolate, at least 70% cocoa)
• 225g unsalted butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 250g sifted icing sugar

Method

• Melt the chocolate, I do this in a metal bowl over a pan of gently simmering water.
• Let the chocolate cool slightly.
• Combine the butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract. I find it helps to beat the butter on it's own slightly and the add the icing sugar in stages until you've added your 250g. This stops your kitchen from being dusted in icing sugar as you beat it into the buttter.
• Then add the melted chocolate and combine well.

This creates the most scrumptious chocolate buttercream I have ever tried. It is gorgeous! Try not to eat it all!!

Brandy Buttercream (this is the vanilla buttercream recipe from Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery but I replace the milk with brandy...oooer!)

• 110g unsalted butter
• 500g icing sugar
• 60ml brandy

I must say this worked okay but next time I would edit this brandy buttercream recipe to use slightly less icing sugar and maybe add the milk as well as the brandy as it had quite a powdery taste. Nice but a bit powdery.

Method

• Combine the butter and icing sugar until smooth- again I find it helps to add the icing sugar in stages.
• Add the brandy and mix well.

Finally it was time to decorate and those well crafted cupcake toppers were finally be used. Yey!

Have fun with any festive baking you decide to do this Christmas!

Enjoy

xoxo