Coffee Cupcakes & New Look

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Hiya















Que the thoughts.....something is different about My Cupcake Habit......but i can't put my mouse on it. You may have clocked it straightway OR the words new look in the title gave it away  doh. You see I was rather bored with my old blogger look, had totally blog envy looking at all the  pretty blogs out there  and wanted something new + lovely. So I bought this lovely premade template from Etsy...and my blog is complete. Now anyone for coffee cupcakes?

I have recently fallen hard for anything to do with Coffee, its rather a yummy flavour in cakes...still can't drink the stuff though! (odd)  I was never really bothered with coffee cakes before...would completely over look them for whatever other baked good was available....i'm so mean- i regret it terribly now. Then one day there was NO other baked good, so I had me a slice of coffee.....and it was gooood. I loved the sweet coffee taste that you got from the sponge and yummy Buttercream. I had tasted all the ones available in the supermarkets, and felt I should bake me some coffee yumminess.

Now I was really only interested in digging in to lashings of coffee buttercream...the cake base was an afterthought!  To flavour my buttercream I poured some hot water in to a teaspoon of coffee granules. Try not to dilute it too much as it will weaken the coffee flavour which will mean you need lots of it to get the flavour coming through in the buttercream. This will then make your buttercream quite soft.

Recipe
100g unsalted butter
200g of icing sugar
I used three teaspoon of the coffee to get the flavour I wanted.

Cream the softened butter with half of the icing sugar to avoid making a big mess. Then add the other half of the icing sugar with the coffee. Beat until light and fluffy.

The sponge was an a nice normal cupcake base to which I added  the remaining coffee liquid to.....you can tell I only needed it as a vehicle for my yummy coffee buttercream.The buttercream was gorgeous! Lovely and light in texture with a yummy coffee hit. I was a happy little baker digging in to these babies.

So, have u guys discovered any new yummy flavours recently ? What do you think of the new look?! You can now easily access my Instagram and twitter if you wanna check them out or mayb even follow me ;)

See you soon x

Mint Madness

My beloved cupcakes are back on my blog! all is well the world....and they've gone all minty. It been ages since I've posted cupcakes,Mint and Chocolate have been on my mind since my twin bought home some peppermint essence. I've been waiting to make them because...errr.....I wanted to purchase some nice dark brown cupcake cases to put them in .......don't judge me! If I'm gonna make something I want it to look amazing, so my head colour co-ordinates my bakes and that is the ONLY way they can look......admit it they would have just looked silly with blue cases right? Just don't ask how long I  actually waited!

Moving on from my baking vanity, to these minty lovelies which have a rich Dark Chocolate base.They are topped with a Peppermint Buttercream and some have been flourished with chocolate chips.I used The More Than Occasional Baker's chocolate cupcake recipe which was amazing! A lovely moist chocolaty sponge with some serious chocolate flavour, they were even better the next day. I used 70% Lindt Dark Chocolate which has a really high cocoa content, so you if ate one on its own it was a tad bitter but they balanced out once paired with the sweet Peppermint Buttercream. They complimented each other beautifully making one hell of a cupcake! The choc chips added a nice crunch which added a different texture.

I'm always looking for great rich Chocolate cupcake and find it interesting how different they can taste depending on whether the recipe calls for Buttermilk,Yogurt or Sour Cream. Ros's recipe called for Sour Cream which was a first for me, I think it added a  lot to the texture of the cupcake. I think that's something I might dedicate some posts to.... my search for the best chocolate cake/cupcake recipe which will require tasting a lot of Chocolate cupcakes....it will be hard.....but I'll manage..... SOME HOW.

For the Buttercream  I creamed 150g of Lurpak with 250g of Icing Sugar to which I added  just a teaspoon of the Peppermint Essence. This amount gave it a lovely Peppermint flavor any more would have been overpowering, lastly a splash of milk which made the Buttcream nice and creamy. I used a tiny bit of the Wilton Lime food colour gels.

Commitment!...I going to put it in writing now... I really want to get regular on my blog so I've decided that Monday evenings are going to be my official post night, I'm gonna try my very best to post something every  Monday (InshaAllah) so do please keep an eye out.

PS Would love it if you could point me in the direction of your fave chocolate cake/cupcake recipe...I'd love to give them a try!

Blueberry Cupcakes

Hiya

How hot has it been?! I haven't baked in a while as I can't be bare the heat of the kitchen. These were made BBH (Before the British Heatwave!)
How pretty is this colour people? As I loved my Lemon +  Blueberry cupcakes I fancied a complete Blueberry one so here are the pics of my Blueberry baking labour.

With these I used my usual cupcakes recipe and just chucked some blueberries in at the end. As I had some Bonne Maman Blueberry jam I decided to use this to flavour my buttercream. A thing to note was that I had to use a lot of the jam to get the Blueberry flavour I wanted, loads actually, but as the jam isn't really sweet it thankfully didn't make the buttercream too sweet. Next time I think shall use fresh Blueberries in the buttercream, as I think that would  be an easier more effective way of getting a lovely Blueberry flavour. 

Recipe for Blueberry Buttercream

100g Unsalted Butter (Lurpack)

200g Icing sugar

3 heaped tablespoon of Blueberry Jam

Method

Beat the butter with half the icing sugar till you get a  sandy consistency, then add the rest of the icing sugar along with the blueberry jam. Beat this all together till everything is incorporated.This is where I stop and check if I'm happy with the flavour and add more Blueberry jam if necessary. Normally I'm carefully to not over beat however I'd heard about beating your buttercream a lot to get a nice light fluffy buttercream. So hoping I wouldn't take it too far.. I gave it ago...and er...I  think I may have beat it too much. It was certainly lighter in consistency but I felt it made it way too soft really, which made piping trickier plus I felt it made it taste buttery which was a bit odd .

On to the flavour, I seriously loved these! The cupcake was lovely with juicy blueberries in and around. The buttercream was a lovely Blueberry flavour. Light consistency + lovely flavour...loved it.  

Chocolate & Hazelnut Cupcakes

Hey Bakers,

From my blog you may have gleaned that I'm a little bit nutty about Chocolate +Hazelnut. By little I naturally mean obsessed with the flavour....I 'll try and chuck hazelnuts at anything that looks/smells/sounds like chocolate.
As my blog is called My Cupcake Habit, a chocolate hazelnut cupcake was inevitable. That is exactly what I have for you today, I kept the sponge normal and went nutty on the frosting. I decided to use a chocolate Ganache as I hadn't used that as a topping for my cupcakes before so I wanted to give that ago.I made these a while ago so bear with me as I try to remember what i did!

Recipe
200g of Milk Chocolate
150g of Double Cream
1 huge table spoon of Chocolate Hazelnut spread
Chopped Hazelnut to decorate

I heated the double cream, took  it of the heat to add the Chocolate & Hazelnut spread. I stirred till everything was combined and then let it cool. I piped with my Wilton 1M star nozzle when it had firmed up, I think I could have done better with my piping though.

This ganache gave me lots to think about, I shouldn't have used Milk Chocolate as it gave a very light chocolatey taste. Which was disappointing when I was after a smack around the taste buds of chocolatey Hazelnuttyness.
It was a silky, smooth chocolate ganache with a delicate Hazelnut taste.The lightness of the vital flavours was a bit annoying! Now I know what a ganache is like with cupcakes I  probably won't bother with it again as I think I could get a better stronger flavour with a chocolate buttercream .
All that written, it was nice it just didn't hit the Hazelnut spot for me.



                             

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.

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 Mudcake Cupcakes with fresh cream frosting

Hiya guys, feast your eyes on theses beauties! Chocolate Mud Cake cupcakes. I don't usually make chocolate cupcakes and I thought it was time to right this wrong. I opted for the mud cake variety as I wanted SERIOUSLY CHOCOLATEY cupcakes.

I'm really glad I made them and this will be a recipe I shall use again. An important thing to note is that these cupcakes are much better eaten the next day. My cupcakes don't normally get to see day 2 but I am so glad these did. When I made them I tasted them with and with all honesty they were quite average chocolate cupcakes, I wasn't especially impressed. But when I ate one the next morning OMG they were amazing! Lovely RICH and CHOCOLATEY a million times better. 

On the first day they were average chocolate cupcakes ,on the second day they had fully transformed into chocolate mud cakes! 

                     

                              

The recipe came with a chocolate butter cream recipe but I didn't want that, and decided to go for a fresh cream frosting. I wanted something light and refreshing to balance/compliment the rich chocolateness  So I whipped double cream and sweetened with icing sugar.

 I was seriously happy with the end product, the fresh cream really worked well with the mud cake as you got a light, refreshing sweet cream followed by the rich chocolatey cupcake. You needed the sweetened cream to provide some sweetness because the cupcake wasn't sweet just very chocolatey.

I used my Milton 1M star nozzle to pipe this on, I started on the outside and piped in. Fresh cream is certainly more temperamental then butter cream, the air bubbles I couldn't get rid off inside the piping bag meant when I piped I wasn't able to get continued swirl it kept spurting and cutting me off. Then it wouldn't give me a clean neat finish so I had to get strategic with where I placed my flowers decorations!

Chocolate Mud cake Cupcakes Recipe (makes 16)

56g Plain Flour

56g Self-Rasining Flour

22g Cocoa Powder

1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

156g Caster Sugar

90g Dark Chocolate (This needs to have high cocoa content mine was 7o%)

93g Butter

3/4 Instant Coffee (This is to boost the chocolateness you won't be able to taste the coffee)

65ml Water

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vegtable Oil

56g Buttermilk  

Preheat oven to 170 c

Melt chocolate, butter, coffee and water in a pan, stir till choc is melted, as soon as it has take it of the heat wait for it too cool down.

Combine wet ingredients;buttermilk, oil, eggs. Once the choc mixture is cool add the wet ingredients and mix till everything is combined. Important to make sure you don't add it if its hot as the heat might start to cook the eggs.

Now dry ingredients; 2 flours bicarbonate of soda and sugar can go in to mixture , mix till everything is combined. 

Divide mixture into cases and bake for 20-24 mins or until your skewer comes out clean. Mine were done around 20 I was being careful to not over bake so kept checking towards the end of the baking time.

Enjoy x

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Chocolate Orange Cupcakes

So here Is my first bake for my blog,I thought it should be cupcakes since my blog IS called my cupcake habit . 

I love a chocolate orange combo and wanted to put it in cupcake form. The chocolate butter cream was rich and tasted like Terry's chocolate orange. Yummy chocolatey orangeyness and THEIR NOT Terry's THEIR MINE! 

Recipe for the orange sponge

6oz  flour

6oz butter

6 oz sugar

3 eggs 

1 tsp of baking powder

2 tsp of orange extract

1. Preheat your oven gas mrk 4 and line your cupcake tray with cases.
2.  Cream butter and sugar for about 5min till light and fluffy in a bowl I use an electric whisk. The longer u beat these two the lighter + fluffier your cupcakes will be!
3. Then mix in your beaten eggs 1 at time mixing each 1 in as you ago.
4. Now sift your flour and baking powder in to the mixture and fold in the flour along with 2tsp of orange extract, remember not to over mix as that will result in denser cupcake. Stop when everything is incorporated and spoon the mix in to your cupcake cases filling up 3/4 of the way.
5. Bake for 20 min, cupcakes are done when a toothpick comes out clean.

For the choc orange buttercream
100g of butter
200g of icing sugar
70 g of cocoa powder I used sainsbury's  100% cocoa powder= very chocolatey.

Mix all the ingredients togther untill fluffy. If a little thick add a splash milk, keep going till your happy with the consistency.
I had my twin hold a tea towel around the bowl to stop the icing suagr +c powder flying every where. 
A yummy messy business this. 

Lastly I piped on rose swirls on with a small star shaped nozzel...start in middle and pipe out.  x