Chocolate chip cupcakes with caramel and coffee frosting

So a week ago I had a bit party here at my house! Not only did I graduate and got my Bachelor’s degree, my birthday is also coming up~ yay! But since my birthday is the 9th of July most friends I want to invite to my party are long gone on holiday by then. So, I threw a birthday/graduation party at the end of June and we had a blast! I did a barbeque and – of course – there were cupcakes, because you can’t have a party without cupcakes!

These cupcakes were a real hit with my friends! Everyone especially liked the frosting, which made me feel so happy because it was a bit of an experiment. But they are right. These cupcakes are delicious! I love these chocolate chip cupcakes, with the right amount of chocolate chips in them so that they don’t overpower the cupcake but still leave so much chocolate to enjoy. The frosting is delicious, too. Not overly sweet and with a good taste of caramel with just hints of coffee that add a bit of depth to the frosting. All in all, a success that I’m proud to share with all of you!

Chocolate chip cupcakes with caramel and coffee frosting
Adapted from: The cupcakes are adapted from The Cupcake, published by Love Food (page 144)  and the frosting is slightly adapted from Glorious Treats.
Makes: About 20 to 22 cupcakes

Ingredients
Cupcakes

• 200 gram self-raising flour
• 200 gram soft butter
• 200 gram caster sugar
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 200 gram chocolate chips (I used plain ones)

Frosting

• 500 gram powdered sugar
• 226 gram cream cheese
• 113 gram butter
• 4 tablespoons caramel sauce
• 3 tablespoons cold coffee

Directions
Cupcakes

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F and put the paper cases in a tray (I did them 12 at the time since my oven won’t fit 2 muffin trays).
2. Sift the flour into a large bowl. Then add the butter, sugar and the eggs and whisk/beat until the mixture is smooth. Add the chocolate chips and mix them with the batter.
3. Fill the paper cases with the mixture and bake the cupcakes in 20 to 25 minutes. They’re done when they’re firm to the touch and golden.
4. Transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack and leave them to cool. They should be entirely cooled down before you frost them.

Frosting

1. In a large bowl, lightly beat the butter.
2. Add the cream cheese and mix with the better for about a minute.
3. Add the powdered sugar, caramel sauce and coffee and stir through the butter and cream cheese mixture with a spoon. When it’s mixed a bit, beat with a hand mixer for about 1 minute.
4. Put the frosting into the ‘fridge to cool, about half an hour. I do this, so that when I pipe the frosting onto the cupcakes I have a firm frosting instead of one that’s ready to melt away. After frosting the cupcakes, I store them in a box in the ‘fridge, again, so the frosting won’t get runny.

~ Enjoy!

Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

I absolutely love cupcakes and seriously, who doesn’t? But, if I’m completely honest, I must admit that I do find buttercream frosting to be overly sweet most of the time. So when my grandma asked me to bake her cupcakes for her birthday I decided to try this Cream cheese frosting I found on Glorious Treats instead of the buttercream I’d made up until now.

And now, I’m hooked. I loved this frosting that was still sweet but not overly so and it went amazing with the chocolate cupcakes I made! They were a real hit at the party too and some people were surprised that I’d made them since they thought they were bought in the store. Kudos for me and this is definitely a recipe I’ll be making again!

Chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Adapted from: Cupcake from 500 Cupcakes and the frosting from Glorious Treats

Yields: ± 15 cupcakes

Ingredients for the cupcake

• 230 gram self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 230 gram light brown sugar
• 230 gram soft butter
• 2 eggs, white and yolk separated
• 100 gram dark chocolate, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 125 ml milk

Ingredients for the cream cheese frosting

• ½ cup butter (set at room temp about 10 minutes, but should still be cool)
• 8 oz. cream cheese (directly from fridge)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups powdered confectioners’ sugar
• 1 to 4 Tablespoons heavy cream, heavy whipping cream (or milk- although I do like the richness that cream adds)

Directions

Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 175°C/345°F and put the paper cases in a muffin tray.
2. Sift the baking powder and put aside.
3. In a medium-bowl whisk the sugar and butter until it’s creamy and light. Mix the egg yolks in and then fold the melted chocolate and vanilla essence trough the mixture.
4. Add the baking powder and milk bit by bit until they’re mixed completely through the batter.
5. In a clean bowl, whisk the egg white until it’s firm and then fold it through the batter.
6. Fill the paper cases with the batter and bake in the oven for about 20 minutes and then transfer the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool.

Frosting

1. Place butter in a large mixing bowl and blend slightly. Add cream cheese and blend until combined, about 30 seconds.
2. Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and blend on low speed until combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy.
3. Slowly add the heavy cream, a little bit at a time until desired consistency is met (don't add too much if you want the frosting to stay in place when piped on cupcakes).
4. Beat until fluffy, about 1 minute (if you want, add some food colouring now).
5. Frost your cupcakes and add any other kind of decorations.

~ Enjoy!

Banana Cake

Hurray! Today is my mum’s birthday and the entire family came by to celebrate with us. And with a birthday comes cake. A banana cake in this case.

Since a while I’ve started to love bananas more and more. I used to never eat fruit. A bad habit, yes I know, but I just didn’t like most fruits we have lying around the house (apples, tangerines). So instead of going to the store and buying fruit that I did like, I just never ate it.

But I’m taking a turn in my life now and want to be a bit healthier. Which means watching the amounts of food I eat (since over-eating is nice when you’re eating but not so much after), going out skating two times a week AND start eating fruit. So now I’m being a good girl, eating a banana and a pear a day.

So I offered to bake a cake for my mum’s birthday party and started going through the book and I knew I wanted to make this banana cake the moment I saw it. Granted, this is far from healthy but hey, it’s a birthday cake.

This banana cake is very firm so if you want your guests to eat any of the snacks you’ve made for after the cake-and-coffee-round I advise you give them a small piece each. But the flavor is very nice! The bottom is still a tiny bit moist and the cake has soaked up all the flavor of the banana put into it. The frosting on top is nice, not too sweet and it gives the cake a nice and creamy touch.

Banana cake

Adapted from: 500 cakes

Yields: 8 persons

Note: I made the recipe twice since I wanted a big cake for the entire family, so the cake in the picture is twice the size of what the recipe is for

Ingredients for the cake

• 2 ripe bananas
• 2 eggs
• 175 ml vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 300 gram light brown sugar
• 150 gram flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
• ½ teaspoon ginger powder

Ingredients for the cream cheese frosting

• 200 gram cream cheese
• 85 gram confectioner’s sugar
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1 banana (optional to put on top of the frosting)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven at 180 °C (350 °F) and grease an 7 inch cake pan. If you use one of these (like I do) I suggest you cover the bottom with baking paper.
2. Mash the bananas in a large bowl and whisk the eggs through the mash.
3. Stir the vegetable oil and milk through the mixture.
4. Sieve any lumps out of the sugar before adding it to the mixture. Stir well.
5. Sieve the flour, baking powder, cinnamon powder and ginger powder into the mixture, add a pinch of salt and fold it into the banana mixture.
6. Pour the batter into the cake pan and bake for about 45 minutes. The recipe said to bake the cake for 1 hour but mine (while making twice the recipe but using a bigger cake pan) was done at 45 minutes.
7. Let the cake cool.
8. In a bowl, mix the cream cheese, confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice until it’s a smooth, creamy mixture.
9. Spread the frosting over the cooled cake. Decorate with the third banana and sprinkle a bit of cinnamon powder over the top.

~ Enjoy!

Valentine's day vanilla cupcakes

So Valentine’s Day is coming up. It’s not something I celebrate. I don’t have a boyfriend and even if I did, I see it as some forced romance that is so commercial the romance has gone off of it, hasn’t it? But, it is the perfect opportunity for me to try out something I’ve been wanting to bake for a while! Chocolate filled cupcakes.

The result was both hilarious and delicious so I’m quite happy with my first try of filling cupcakes although, of course, I need improvement. But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy to share this recipe with you and hope you like it or make some improvements of your own and then maybe like it even more.

I got the cupcake recipe from 500 Cupcakes. It is SO easy and the cupcakes are light with a nice vanilla flavour. Reading the recipe I thought there would be no way they would rise properly in the oven with the way it was prepared but rise they did! Beyond my expectations… I’ll show you a picture of that later in the post.

The frosting recipe I got from Glorious Treats. A wonderful blog with the most amazing cupcake and cookie recipes, tips and gorgeous pictures. You should definitely check it out if you haven’t already!

This recipe makes about 15 cupcakes.

Ingredients

Cupcakes
2 cups soft butter
2 cups fine sugar
2 cups cake flour
4 ½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Ganache
1 oz dark chocolate (I use 75% cocoa chocolate)
1/8 cup heavy cream

Cream Cheese Frosting
½ cup butter (set at room temp about 10 minutes, but should still be cool)
8 oz. cream cheese (directly from fridge)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 cups powdered confectioners’ sugar
1 to 4 Tablespoons heavy cream, heavy whipping cream (or milk- although I do like the richness that cream adds)

Recipe

Ganache
A side-note: My ganache took ages to set to the right firmness for me to be able to use it and even then it was more runny than I’d have liked it to be. So start with the ganache first and then when it’s reached the right consistency, start making your batter. That way you won’t have your batter waiting for your ganache to harden.

• Break the chocolate into pieces and put in a heat-resistible bowl.

• Heat the heavy cream on the stove until it nears the boiling point.

• Pour the heated heavy cream over the broken chocolate and leave it to cool for 5 minutes.

• After 5 minutes, stir and put in the ‘fridge until it’s reached the right consistency. It should be able to be formed into a soft bowl with a spoon. It shouldn’t be too runny for then it will disperse within the cupcake as it bakes. Mine took about 45 minutes but I advise you to leave it for about an hour if not longer.

Cupcake batter

• Preheat the oven to 175 °C/345 °F. Put 15 paper cases in a muffin tray (I bake 2 times for this).

• Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix with a mixer for about 2 to 3 minutes. If you want to colour your cupcake (like I did) add the food colouring now as well.

• Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.

• Top each cupcake in the centre with a teaspoon of ganache (I used small teaspoons).

• Bake for 20 minutes and then transfer them to a wire rack and leave to cool.

Look at how my Volcano Valentine’s Day Cupcakes came out of the oven. Something definitely went wrong there but they tasted great and there’s nothing that a good layer of frosting can’t hide.

Cream Cheese frosting
While your cupcakes cool you can make the frosting.

• Place butter in a large mixing bowl and blend slightly. Add cream cheese and blend until combined, about 30 seconds.

• Add vanilla extract and powdered sugar and blend on low speed until combined. Increase to medium speed and beat until it begins to get fluffy.

• Slowly add the heavy cream, a little bit at a time until desired consistency is met (don't add too much if you want the frosting to stay in place when piped on cupcakes).

• Beat until fluffy, about 1 minute (if you want, add some food colouring now).

• Frost your cupcakes and add any other kind of decorations.

 ~ Enjoy!