There are some kid’s school fete foods that I don’t like at all. Chocolate crackles due to the Copha for one and toffees in patty pans with hundreds and thousands over them send me into sugar shock. Fairy bread I’ll try more for the kaleidescope of colours atop but Honey Joys are a definitely favourite. I literally had not tried one for decades until I was reminded how easy it is to make them. And how every mum used to make these, chocolate crackles and toffees in patty pans for the school fete.

If the local schools are any indication, I fear these new generation mums simply won’t do a normal honey joy anymore for the school fete. Instead it’s cupcakes in all manner of form, even bought from a shop extracted in perfect trays from the back of a 4WD. Not that I have anything against that, I happen to love cupcakes. And I know that if I became a mum I’d be the kind that channels Bree Van Der Kamp rather than Lynette Scavo (except when Lynette was on ADD meds). So I am mocking my future self. Just don’t mock the Honey Joy.

Read More

We don’t have Halloween to any organised extent in Australia. If you knock on someone’s door and demand candy, you’ll probably get a puzzled expression in return or in the case of someone on a sugar high who has actually consumed all of the household candy, you’ll get a door slammed in your face. But Friday the 13th is well known. I’m a medium on the superstitious scale but have found that actually nothing bad happens on this day. Every Friday the 13th for me is a day where nothing at all awful happens. And I know this because every year, I wait for something terrible to happen and it never does. So I know to expect a good day rather than a bad.

I got the idea for these from Claire Crespo’s “Hello Cupcake” book which I often turn to for decorating ideas. Sadly I didn’t have any random doll’s arms lying around so I had to make a special trip to buy them. When I got home I pulled the arm off but it was too long for the cupcake so, serial killer like, I hacked off more of the arm. And I’m sure the neighbours thought we were completely bonkers taking the photographs outside at night.

These cupcakes are like a Chocolate Crumb cake and I found the recipe for the cupcakes themselves on the Nigella website from a reader, Bevis. It’s a no bake, easy recipe for when you just cannot cope with the idea of switching an oven on and getting out the heavy equipment. It is rather rich though so I’d suggest making them in the miniature 3cms diameter smaller cases as the recipe only makes 4 regular sized cupcakes.

Chocolate Crumb Cupcakes

Makes 4 regular sized cupcakes

• 8oz/240g digestive biscuits (like McVities)
• 4oz/120g unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup
• Medium sized bar of very dark chocolate (70% cocoa solids at least)
• Chocolate powder to dust on top (I used Max Brenner Hot Chocolate powder)

1. Put the biscuits into a plastic bag or similar and whack repeatedly with a rolling pin. You want some very fine crumbs and some bite sized pieces. Some will also break up a bit more with the stirring so don’t bash them up too much.

2. Melt the butter and syrup together in a pan and break up the chocolate and put that straight into the butter/syrup. You don’t need to worry about heating it over water or anything as long as you don’t have the heat up too high because the butter and the syrup will prevent it burning.

3. Once it’s all melted together into a smooth, silky sauce add the crushed digestives and stir them in until it’s all well mixed. The little crumbs should soak up the chocolate sauce while the larger bits get coated with it. You may not need all the biscuits but you want it so that there is hardly any obvious chocolate sauce, but the biscuits are still glistening and coated with the sauce.

4. Finally pour the biscuit mixture into a cupcake pans. The aim isn’t to crush the biscuits but to pack it all together so that the chocolate sauce bonds the whole lot together. Then put it into the fridge to cool. Once it’s mostly cool, but not completely, insert cut off arm (yes doesn’t that sound gruesome). It needs to be just warm enough for the arm to go in but not so warm the arm falls over). Return it to the fridge until it’s completely cold. Once it is cold it will keep perfectly and refuse to fall to bits even with the most vigorous throwing around as it is carted to wherever you want it.

Recipe adapted from Nigella.com reader recipe by Bevis

I’m certainly not one of those Coca Cola connoisseurs who can tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi. In fact I rarely drink the stuff and I also loathe Diet Coke. Didn’t Paris Hilton once say “Diet Coke is for fat people”? Although I’d caution anyone following her lead on things. My dislike of Coke goes completely out of the window when it comes to baking with Coca Cola. I will happily eat a Ham baked in Coke and a Coca Cola cupcake or cake. I can’t account for my lapse in logic but it’s one that allows me to eat a gigantic 4 tier slice of Red Velvet cake but say no to a can of Coke. I suspect it’s also that flawed logic that lets me buy a pair of shoes thinking 1 wear per year is actually pretty good and I have achieved a good cost to value ratio.

Sequin shoes-worn once since purchase=an excellent cost to wear ratio

And before I go any further, let me link you to a site that has almost 1001 uses for Coca Cola: http://members.tripod.com/~Barefoot_Lass/cola.html where Coca Cola is like a version of Windex in My Big Fat Greek Wedding where Windex is the cure all for any ailment from cleaning burnt pans to relieving jellyfish stings. I don’t know if I’d turn to either but in a pinch…

Coca-Cola cupcakes

(makes 12-14 cupcakes)

• 200g plain flour
• 250g golden caster sugar (I used regular caster)
• 1/2 teaspoon bi carbonate of soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 large egg
• 125 ml buttermilk (or 30g yogurt mixed with 100ml semi skimmed milk)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 125g unsalted butter
• 175 ml Coca Cola
• 2 tablespoons cocoa

Cola icing:

• 225g icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons Coca Cola
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Optional decorating

• Fondant or marzipan
• Red colouring gel
• Wine gummy Cola lollies

1. Preheat the oven to180c/gas mark 4 and line cupcake tray with paper liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt. Beat the egg, buttermilk and vanilla in a measuring jug. In a heavy-based saucepan, melt the butter, cocoa and Coca Cola, heating it gently. Pour into the dry ingredients, stir well with a wooden spoon, then add the liquid ingredients from the measuring jug, beating until it is well blended.

3. Pour into a measuring jug and then pour into cupcake pans, about 3/4 full (they will rise a little but not a great deal) Leave to stand for 15 minutes in the pan before unmoulding.

4. You can use the Coca Cola icing that Nigella details below: Prepare the icing: Sift the icing sugar and set aside. In a heavy-based saucepan, combine the butter, cola and cocoa and stir over low heat until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat. Add the vanilla and spoon in the sifted icing sugar, beating as you do so, until you’ve got a spreadable but still runny icing. While the cake is still warm, pour the icing over it. Leave to cool before transferring to a serving plate.

From How To Be A Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson

OR

5. You can use the Fondant/marzipan icing idea I used. Do white fondant parts first: make tiny white balls to represent bubbles. Do the open bubbles last, after the red fondant. Roll white fondant out and cut into strips. Set aside but be prepared to use it within the next 30 minutes before it goes hard. Colour fondant with red colouring and cut out circle. Place on cupcake, then add white ribbon swirl, then add solid balls. To do the open bubbles, roll a tiny ball, then dip the pointy end of japanese chopsticks with a thin end into icing sugar (not takeaway ones that have a thick end) and poke a hole into the centre of the ball and slide straight from chopstick onto cupcake. These are delicate so I found it easiest to slide them straight on in the end. Add coca cola sweet standing up.

At the risk of sounding like someone retelling a story that they heard from someone they knew who knew someone else who knew something from someone else, I first came across these gorgeous cupcakes via Vogue member and fellow food blogger Iron Chef Shellie who in turn saw these on flickr member’s hello naomi’s pictures.

I loved the idea of these pastel topped cupcakes with messages such as “Eat Me” and “Drink Me”. Who really ever needs prompting to try cupcakes? It was all very Alice in Wonderland, a children’s story with a distinctly surreal and dark side. So assembling my very best Alice themed china, the varied Wedgwood Harlequin set, I set about having my very own tea party, Alice in Wonderland style.

The cupcakes I made were vanilla cupcakes filled with strawberry jam and cream, pastel fondant icing, royal icing writing and patterns and silver cachous. Despite my somewhat fearful beginnings, I’m starting to really like using Royal Icing as I love the finish and consistency of it. I know that vanilla cupcakes with jam and cream filling sounds rather boring but this was the cupcakes that my girlhood fantasies were made of. I loved this combination and my favourite ever cakes when I was small were this. Yes, sadly, I do remember vividly one cake from my childhood with absolute clarity and some days, I can still taste it if I close my eyes and wish.

Read More

I don’t know if it’s quite normal to base cooking around crockery but when I saw this Wedgwood Queen of Hearts cup and saucer set I knew a) I had to have it and b) I had to bake a cupcake for it. I have a penchant for things that have hearts and also for details and I can be a right pain when it comes to details but rest assured anyone that has created things with flourishes or details, I’ll be one to notice.

It was easy matching a cupcake to this heart cup and saucer as I’d seen a card cupcake recipe in the Women’s Weekly cupcakes book which I adapted to up the ginger flavour. Better still is my husband loves ginger so it would be easy to get him to eat them. I realise I would have done better to get an Alphabet cutter set than make my own feeble Q’s but I haven’t seen one for the life of me so I had to make do with what I had.

Ginger buttermilk cake

Makes 8

• 1/2 cup (110g) firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
• 1/2 cup (75g) self raising flour
• 1/4 teaspoon bicarb of soda
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 90g butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup (60ml) buttermilk
• 25g glace ginger chopped into small pieces
• 2 tablespoons golden syrup

Decorations:

• 1/2 cup (80g) icing sugar
• 400g white prepared fondant
• 1/3 cup (110g) ginger marmalade
• 100g red prepared fondant

1. Preheat oven to moderately slow (170c/150c fan forced). Line pan with paper cases.

2. Sift dry ingredients into bowl, then add remaining ingredients. Beat mixture with electric mixer on low speed until ingredients are combined. Increase speed to medium, beat until mixture is changed to a paler colour.

3. Divide mixture among cases; smooth surface.

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Cool in tin.

5. Dust surface with sifted icing sugar, knead white fondant until smooth. Roll out fondant to a thickness of 5mm. Cut out rounds large enough to cover tops of cakes.

6. Brush tops of cakes with marmalade, cover with fondant rounds.

7. Roll out red fondant until 5mm thick. Cut out heart shapes and roll pieces into thin ropes and shape letters.

8. Secure fondant shapes to cakes by brushing backs with a tiny amount of water.

Recipe adapted from Womens Weekly Cupcakes book

Wedgwood Harlequin Queen of Hearts up and saucer available at David Jones, Myer & selected boutiques, $99 for the boxed set.