Lemon & Blueberry Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I have a lemony delight for you guys today as last week I made some Lemon and Blueberry cupcakes which I paired with a Lemon cream cheese frosting (lush!). I love lemony bakes their just so yummy and refreshing, I'd seen them paired with blueberries and thought what an awesome combo.

To my usual cupcake recipe I added the zest of two un-waxed lemon plus a bit of the juice as well as a handful of blueberries. I thought it would be nice to try a lemon cream cheese frosting with this as I wanted a light topping for this lemony cupcake. I used the Pink Whisk's cream cheese frosting recipe, initially i was just going to add lemon zest to flavour it. However after tasting it felt that zest alone wasn't giving me the strong lemon flavour I wanted so my twin suggested  I add a tablespoon of lemon curd to it..... definitely a good call.

I was so happy with the way it all turned out. I took them to work and I got such amazing feedback I went home a very happy baker! It was a deliciously, lemony cupcake surrounded by juicy blueberries. The cream cheese frosting was a beautiful compliment, silky and refreshingly light. The lemon curd that was added last minute gave it a gorgeous lemony kick. Simply delicious.

A special thanks to my talented friend she has outdone herself with these photos let drooling comence  lol x

I'm entering these to Kick at the pantry Door's Feel Good Food challenge as June's feel good food is  Blueberries.

I'm also going to enter Simple and in Seasonal for the first time also as Blueberries are in season.

Profiteroles with Strawberry Cream

 

Hey, so one evening  a baking idea floated in to my head, strawberry cream hidden inside a chocolate topped profiterole. Sounded like a yummy idea which I had to give ago, hence this post.
Making these was unfortunately not as easy as its inception, frankly it was a pain in the butt. Choux pastry is really hard work, my poor little arms...... they hurt so much and I got a blister!

I used this recipe by Paul Hollywood, I can't stress how painfully exhausting this was on my arms!!! An unwanted workout and a half. Then the shape went all funny when I was piping and I forgot to press down the pointy bits, so some looked ridiculous when they came out. After all the hard work they weren't crispy because I didn't leave them to crisp up in the oven long enough. Lastly I discovered an angry little blister on my hand thanks to all the crazy mixing with the wooden spoon.

For those of you wondering about the strawberry filling I squashed some strawberries in to the double creamed. Whipped that up with some icing sugar,piped that through the bottom with an icing bag.This was yummy and refreshing with a lovely strawberry flavour. Dipped the profiteroles in melted chocolate and left that to set. The pastry was ok, chewy not the crispy pastry I wanted.

Managed to snap a couple of pics on my phone while it was still light out. Feeling lots of hostility towards Choux pastry at the minute because after all that pain and hard work, they weren't quite what I was after.

 

 

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Strawberry Cupcakes

Hiya, so I made cupcakes with a strawberry buttercream ...these may seem like regular strawberry cupcakes but they signify so much more for me as a baker! Behold my first ever successful non chocolate buttercream gasp. It sounds mental I know, but honestly i haven't been able to make a buttercream that wasn't chocolate before....it has seriously been the bane of my baking life.
The cause of many baking disappointments. Shattering all my cupcake hopes and attempts, naively thinking maybe THIS is the day I succeed...It WASN'T.  I just wanted to make a beautiful cupcake adorned  with an elegant swirl of buttercream ....was that so much to ask for (cue the sympathetic NOs!)

I finally figured out what I was doing wrong, why my attempts resulted in a runny mess. I was stupidly using normal butter instead of the unsalted butter you were meant to use. Yep, not something incredibly difficult or scientific. I was just not following the recipe exactly, thinking it'll be fine It wont making that much difference!

So after this baking epiphany, I attempted buttercream again.....and it WORKED! go me! A good baker doesn't blame their tools/ingredients, but I can it was the Flora messing it up not ME!!! Yes I'm ignoring that fact that It was me who decide to use flora in the first place.... denial is a beautiful thing people, a beautiful thing.

Right, enough of me and on to the cupcakes. I was actually making them for a friend of mine who requested strawberry buttercream on top of her cupcakes.  I promised her I would do my best as she was well aware of my track record with butter cream.  I decided to use fresh strawberries to flavour my buttercream: chopped them small and ran them through a sieve to get a fresh strawberry juice.

I used this cupcake recipe and below is the buttercream recipe

140 unsalted butter  (Lurpack)
280 Icing sugar
5 strawberries
Dollop of strawberry Conserve.

I cream the room temp butter first, then add half the icing sugar and mix. Then I added the rest of the icing sugar along with the  strawberry juice/purée along with a dollop of strawberry conserve.I mixed till everything was combined and smooth.

The cupcake was lovely, but it was ALL about the strawberry buttercream it was really delicious. As I was careful to not to make it too sweet  it was perfect. Lovely and smooth with such a delicious strong strawberry flavour! Loved it.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Conquered

            Choc Chip Cookie 0 - Cupcake Girl 1

Hey, so as you may know my last attempt at Chocolate Chip Cookies didn't work out the way I wanted them to. They were half cake half cookies,.....what's wrong with that? I hear you shout eat your two desserts in one girl and be happy! Well um...I was just after a whole cookie...what can I say i'm a traditionalist I just want my bakes to come out the way the recipe says it should.

So I was determined to have another go and achieve the cookies I was dreaming about not literally I wasn't that obsessed....not yet anyway.
I gave Jo's wheatley's Cookies another go, this time sticking to the recipe completely! You'll never guess.... but that actually helps (shocker I know) so behold my successful cookies.


















Verdict:  Crunchy edge, chewy middle and chips hiding here there and everywhere.Yum but a tad too sweet if I'm honest.
I can now tick choc chip cookies off my imaginary to do list.....and yes I will be using my trusty imaginary pen to do that  :)