Monday 30 August 2010

White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes

As promised I have finally used a recipe out of a book other than the Hummingbird Bakery book...hooray! This recipe is courtesy of the Primrose Bakery Book...another favourite of mine!

It was Karl's Mum's birthday this weekend and we were heading round for Sunday Roast. I couldn't resist taking some lovely cupcakes with me. After much deliberation I went for the White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes from the above book. Karl had no idea what sort of cupcakes his Mum would like so as a change to plain old vanilla and chocolate I thought I'd try white chocolate instead mixed with the summery flavour of raspberry...yum!

I decided to make these cakes on the morning that we were going round...probably not a good idea. My thoughts were that if I made them on the morning then they would be all lovely and fresh for Karl's Mum. Possibly not the best idea when I hadn't made the recipe before.

Up I got at half 7 on Sunday morning...yes yes I know...utter madness! But it was all in the name of yummy cupcakes! The actual cupcake recipe was easy to make and all went to plan. However, the icing/butter cream was a different story! By the time I had made the cupcakes and let them cool time was getting on a bit and I still had to make the icing, ice the cupcakes and get changed out of my baking clothes, into something half decent and do my hair and make up...argghh!

The icing/butter cream was made from vanilla butter cream with double cream and melted white chocolate mixed in. Now in the picture in the book it made it look like the icing was of quite a stiff consistency so I had it in my head I was going to pipe the icing onto the cakes as I normally do and they'd look all pretty. However after adding all the chocolate and cream to the butter cream there was no way this stuff was gonna pipe (I did try...but it kinda just went straight through the piping bag leaving a mess on my work top..argghh!) So at half 10 on saturday morning I start panicking...wondering what on earth to do. In the end I put the icing in the fridge to see if that would help...unfortunately in the short amount of time I had left it didn't. I ended up having to just spread the icing on the tops of the cake and put fresh raspberries on top.

I was very disappointed and when Karl came wandering sleepily through to the kitchen having just woken up he was met with an upset and stressed out girlfriend. On the positive side though he did get cupcakes for breakfast so I guess that made up for it! He kept telling me they were good and tasted lovely and his mum would love them etc etc but I had just got this picture in my head of what they would look like and well they didn't look a thing like it.

After much persuasion I did end up taking them round to Karl's Mum's. Earlier on in the week we had taken a trip to Sainsburys who have just improved their home baking range. I managed to buy some very cute cupcake boxes so I popped 4 of the cupcakes in one of these pretty boxes and took them round. She seemed impressed and I got a text from her today saying she had had one and she had loved it. Maybe they weren't so bad after all!

I think maybe the icing would have hardened up eventually in the fridge so it could have been piped onto the cake, as by the time we got back from Karl's mum's the icing was rock solid on the cakes we had kept for ourselves...on the downside the cakes had also suffered a bit from being kept in the fridge. They definitely need removing from the fridge 10-15 mins before eating.

All in all a bit disappointing for me...although everyone else seemed to like them. Maybe if I had had a little more time to perfect them I would have been happier...the actual cupcake sponge was lovely with raspberry jam mixed into the sponge mix and also popped into the cupcake after baking too, although for me I'd have to work on improving the icing. At least they look cute in the little box though...


P.S I am in a major rush to get to yoga so haven't got time to type the recipe out. I'm sure alot of you keen bakers have the Primrose Bakery book anyway. For those that don't..I can always send it you xx

8 comments:

  1. You are a woman after my own heart!!! I LOVE these cupcakes. Will you be entering these in this months We Should Cocoa challenge? (http://thechocolatepot.blogspot.com/search/label/We%20Should%20Cocoa)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I saw We Should Cocoa on your blog and was really excited as it was just after i decided I would make these..perfect i thought...i have an entry already!!...but after making them i was so disappointed it kinda put me off entering :(

    ReplyDelete
  3. Oh, they look so fantastic and scrummy.

    ReplyDelete
  4. a whole blog about cupcakes this is great! your header is fantastic did you design that yourself? pure awesomeness!
    happy wednesday!
    xoxo
    KC

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ahh thanks everyone for your comments:)

    Nope, unfortunately im not that clever to be able to design the header completely by myself. I got the image off a website that does lots of graphics and thought it would look cute on my blog...it was only going to be a temporary thing but i quite like it now!

    ReplyDelete
  6. These looks great all packaged up so professionally. They look a lot more elegant than mine. I have the book, but haven't made this recipe - yet! Thanks for participating in the challenge.

    ReplyDelete
  7. hehe, this sounds exactly like me! Even though really the cupcakes look great and everyone says they taste great too, if they are not how you pictured in your head then cue massive sulk!

    My boyfriend is constantly exasperated with me for not being happy about my icing.

    Yours do look fab though!

    ReplyDelete