June 2012: Pretty Piping, Cardboard Boxes, Bannoffee, and Coffee Cupcakes

June was apparently all about the cupcakes, I was lucky at the time to be working with a few other fellow cake enthusiasts and we did a bit of a cake exchange, each week we would take it in turns to bake some cakes for our colleagues. 

I  got the very handy cardboard cupcake carrier from Amazon.

These were some of the ones I did - I loved how these came out. These were strawberry flavoured cupcakes using extract, with vanilla icing and freeze dried strawberry pieces I got from Waitrose, I have since spotted the same strawberry pieces in Morrisons as well.

The pink swirl effect is really easy to do, all you do is paint a stripe of food colouring gel down the inside of the piping bag before you put your icing in and et voila - pretty swirls. You can of course use different colours and widths of stripe to create different effects. For these I painted half the bag - these can look especially good when used with a rose piping nozzle.

These were bannoffee cupcakes, I wasnt that happy with how they looked -I should have skipped the extra drizzle of toffee syrup it made them look a bit messy.

To make them simply add 2 tblsp of Banana Nesquick powder (yes I did say that) and 4 tblsp of milk at the same time as you add the eggs using the basic cake recipe. Using the banana Nesquick makes the cakes really bananary but without that cloggy texture you get from adding real banana's. They are lovely and fluffy and you could do the same with Strawberry Nesquick powder too.

To make the icing I just made the normal buttercream but added 2tblsp of Cartmels Sticky Toffee Sauce (instead of vanilla extract) while I was whisking it up - if you've never had it, you should its delicious.

Mmm. Coffee cupcakes. I'm a bit controversial with these - I don't use actual coffee *gasp*. I actually prefer the taste you get from adding Camp Coffee - the added chicory essence just adds a certain 'something' plus it couldnt be easier to add as its already in liquid form.

Just add 2 tblsps to your basic cake recipe as you add the eggs.
For the Icing add 2tblsp as you whisk it up.