The best Chocolate Cupcakes

I love baking.  I've posted a few times on here about recipes I've liked. I find I can never bake at the moment as I don't have enough people to eat it all! It is only your standard chocolate cupcake but they taste so good so thought I would share with you! I've always had a good response from them!

I found this recipe online so it's not like I made it up myself or anything! You will need the following:
(Makes 12 cupcakes) 
-150g butter 
-150g caster sugar
-175g self - raising flour 
-25g cocoa powder 
-3 eggs 

For the buttercream icing - 
-250g butter 
-500g icing sugar 
-Vanilla Extract
-Chocolate flake/chocolate chips/chocolate sprinkles (anything you want really!) 
I do half this icing recipe as 500g is a whole box of icing sugar and I find half is plenty and I still have some icing left over.

Onto making the cakes! First things first, pre heat your oven to gas mark 4 / 180 c / 350f and line your cupcake tin with cupcake cases.

 Next, beat the 3 eggs together in a small bowl.  

Then in a separate bowl cream together the butter and sugar and then add the flour and sift in the cocoa powder. Once this is all mixed together, slowly add the beaten eggs.   

It is easiest to use an electric whisk for this part but you can use a spoon if you don't have an electric whisk!  How easy is that?! Now just spoon the mixture evenly into the cases.

Put them in the oven for 15-20 minutes, I've found 20 minutes to be perfect but it all depends on your oven. You can check if they're cooked by putting a skewer in through the middle of the cupcake and it should come out clean.

Once they're done put them on a wire rack to cool and while you wait, you can start the icing! In a bowl put the butter in and then gradually sift in the icing sugar.  If you add it all at once, you will have a cloud of icing sugar when you try and stir it! Slowly mix together and add a couple of drops of vanilla extract.  Then use an electric whisk to whisk together to make the icing nice and fluffy.  If you find the icing to be too thick then add a bit of milk but I've never had to.

Once the cakes are completely cool, you can start icing! I like to pipe the icing but if you prefer you can always just spoon it on.  Once they're all iced, add your decorations.  I like to use crumbled flakes.  Absolute worst blogger ever, I forgot to take pictures of the finished ones!!! 

And there, your cakes are finished! They're so easy to make and taste amazing so I definitely recommend this recipe.

Let me know if you try this recipe :)

Christmas Cupcakes | Blogmas Day 7

The title of this post may be a little misleading, they're not really Christmas cupcakes.. They're just chocolate cupcakes with Christmas decorations so sort of Chrismas, right?! 

Unfortunately, they didn't turn out quite as I hope as they just look a bit of a mess but they taste good, so thats what matters! 

I bought these really lovely Chrismas fairy cake cases and decorations so I thought they'd be perfect for this. 

Ingredients (Makes 12)

110g Butter or Margarine

100g Caster Sugar

2 Medium Eggs

75g Self-Raising Flour

25g Cocoa Powder

For the Icing and Decoration
175g Icing Sugar
75g unsalted butter
5m Milk or Warm water
Holly and Berry Sprinkles (Waitrose)
Edible Glitter Flakes (Waitrose)

Method

1. Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4 and then place the cupcake cases into the tin.  I used a muffin tin which worked well, but you can of course use a cupcake tin.
   
2. Next, cream the sugar and butter together.  It should become lighter and fluffy.  I put the butter in the microwave for a bit before doing this just to make it a bit easier. 

3. Once its all creamed together add the 2 eggs.  It is best to add one then beat it in and then add the other and beat the mixture again.

4. Then add the flour bit by bit and fold in using a metal spoon.  Once that's all folded in, sift the cocoa powder in and fold again.

(does not look too appetising here but it gets better!)

5.Finally, spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases.  I found filling them up about 2/3rds of the way up works well.

Put them in the oven for 15-20 minutes.  Mine took 15 minutes, but it all depends on your oven.  When they're cooked they should be well risen and firm when you gently touch them.  Leave them to cool on a wire rack!

I just made a basic butter cream icing by mixing the butter and icing sugar together.  I used a bit more than 5ml of milk as it needs to be spreadable, so I'd suggest just adding what every you think you need!
Decorating the cakes is where it all went a little bit wrong (i.e they turned out looking nothing like how I wanted them to!!)  I planned to pipe the icing on, but then my piping tube broke and I couldn't find anything to make a piping bag out go so I had to just spread it on.  I then just sprinkled the red and green glitter flakes all over while the icing was still wet enough so it would stick and then added the holly pieces on a few of the cakes.  This part of decorating them is entirely up to you!

They may not look like very neat but they taste so nice! I definitely recommend you make these if you like to bake as they are so easy to make.

See you tomorrow

Jessica 

xx

Funfetti Cupcakes

Hi everyone! Sorry its been a while since the last post. Today I thought I'd post something a bit different than usual.

I love baking, but I just never seem to have the time to do it and if I do I have no one to eat it all so it gets wasted but this weekend I decided to make a smaller recipe! I saw these 'Funfetti Cupcakes' from Zoella's video (you can watch it here) and they looked like they would be good to make.

Ingredients:

• 125g Caster Sugar
• 125g Unsalted Butter
• 2 Large Eggs
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Vanilla Extract 
• 125g Self Raising Flour
• 1/4 Teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda
• 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Milk (I only need 1 tablespoon) 
• As many sprinkles as you like! 

Method: 

I didn't follow the exact way that Zoe did, but here is what I did.  

Firstly, I creamed the butter and sugar together.  I made sure the butter was soft before this as it makes things much easier! 

Next I added the Vanilla Extract and the 2 eggs.  I mixed the mixture after I added the first egg and then again after I added the second.  The mixture didn't look great at this point, but they turned out ok so I'm guessing that is what it was meant to look like haha.

I then added the flour and the bicarbonate of soda.  I know sometimes you need to add the flour bit by bit but I didn't do that this time and it all mixed well. At this point I added a tablespoon of milk and found that the consistency of the mixture looked fine without anymore milk. 

Finally, I added sprinkles.  I added quite a few so the mixture looked like it had a lot in (the picture shows what I mean!) 

I forgot to take a picture of them in the cases before putting them in the oven but I put the mixture in about 3/4 of the way up.  This was actually too much as I only got 9 cakes out of it so I'd recommend putting less mixture in than I did! 

For the icing I used this from Dr. Oetker which I really loved so I'd definitely recommend it unless you want to make your own icing, of course!  To finish off the cupcakes, I added a few more sprinkles :) 

The point of putting the sprinkles in the actual mixture was to give the cupcakes pops of colour, but unfortunately mine didn't do that.  I'm not sure why! They tasted really nice though and people enjoyed them, so, oh well! 

Hope you enjoyed this post and let me know if you want to bake these!

Jessica 

xx

Summer 2015 Plans

I'M BACK. My exams are over and all my work is handed in and so I have finished my first year of University! I'm so happy.  There were so many times when I thought I wouldn't make it, but I have and for that I am proud of myself. Whether I pass or not is another story, haha.

Anyway, onto today's post... As I have about 3 months off for summer, I thought I should create some sort of plan or things that I want to do over this time.

1) Run the Race For Life 
I've always wanted to do this and this is year I am going to do it. I am so unfit and will probably just walk the whole way round haha, but as long as I raise money that is all that matters to me! Cancer Research UK is a charity close to my heart so I just want to raise money for them.

2) Spend time with friends
I have a tendency to isolate my self from everyone a lot. I'm not sure if thats just the way I am or because of my mental health, but either way, I do. So this summer my aim is to go out as much as I can face.

3) Have BBQs 
I love BBQs and I just want to have lots of them, depending on the British weather (obviously, haha)

4) Eat more healthily and become fitter 

As I've said, I'm really unfit. So this summer, my aim is to be more carful about what I eat and do more exercise. Being at University, I find it really hard to eat really healthily and find time to exercise, I just can't do it. I hope I'm not the only one that finds that!

(https://unsplash.com)

5) Bake More
Since I'll have plenty of free time, I want to bake more.  I've always loved baking, but since being at University I haven't had the time to really do much.  So this summer, I'm going to make sure I do.

I also just want to be happy.  As long as I'm happy during summer, I don't think it matters what I get up to!

I hope you enjoyed this post! Let me know of what you hope to get up to this summer :)

Jessica

xxx