Yummy Chocolate & Strawberry Cupcakes

Chocolate and Strawberries, two yummy things that I have wanted to join together in baking matrimony for a while now, so of course I have brought them together into a cupcake. My blog is certainly staying true to its name as I have been posting quite a lot of cupcakes recently...I really can't kick this habit......guess its a good thing I really don't want to!   

I'd been thinking about this combo for a while now...making something dark and chocolaty accompanied with a nice yummy strawberry buttercream. I decided to try Fold in the Flour's devils food cupcakes  as I wanted rich chocolatey cupcakes. The only changes I made to the recipe was I lessened the sugar, I went with 100g of golden caster and 100g of Demerara sugar. As with most of mudcake/DFcakes they always taste better the day after, once they have had time to really absorb all of the lovely ingredients.

The cupcake had a lovely,chocolaty, moist sponge due to the buttermilk. This was complimented byt the lovey,strong strawberry buttercream. Basically Delish!  My only slight criticism was that I would have loved a stronger chocolaty KICK, the cupcake had a lighter chocolate flavour then I would have liked. I imagine its due to the recipe only using cocoa powder and no melted chocolate. Apart from that it was gorgeous, loved it! 

 For the strawberry buttercream I just added a 2 teaspoons of strawberry jam to a regular buttercream recipe.  The pink with dark chocolate looked SO pretty! 

On another matter, does anyone know where I can get good paper cupcake cases I mainly use foil ones as they are reliable and won't come away from the cupcakes the next day...but would like some nice patterned paper ones. What have you guys found to be good+dependable?

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.

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  :)

Apple and Blueberry Loaf

A yummy Apple and Blueberry Loaf is what I have for you today. It was meant to be the  Blackberry and Apple loaf  from Jo Wheatley's A Passion for Baking, but I didn't fancy blackberries and my crumble top didn't work out (I don't want to talk about it!) 

                                    

So we (my twin + I) decided to turn it into a Apple and Blueberry Loaf minus the crumble top. We were so happy with the way this turned out, it was so yummy! We sprinkled cinnamon on the top and on the apples we chucked in, so now and again you could catch wafts of yummy cinnamon. The cake was lovely, light and moist, it was an all in one method and we love an easy all in one method! It tasted of the lovely juicy blueberries...just like a big Blueberry muffin.

Only thing I would change is to cut the apples up bigger next time as they got a bit lost because they were small.

Smiles all round, this went down really well it was scrummy! Excuse the wobbly decoration I decided to put some White chocolate on for decoration.

Packed with yummy blueberries and apples.

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