Gluten and dairy free, one bowl, simple chocolate cupcakes

This weekend we were invited to a family get together. My mum is one of seven siblings so it can be quite a gathering when the whole family turns up. 

This time it was relatively quiet, but with culinary skills running in the genes there was the usual semi-competitive bake off. 

A homemade chicken pie, a beautiful pork pie and two home baked loaves made my humble cupcakes pale into insignificance. But at least my offering was gluten and dairy free. 

When we arrived one of my Aunties proclaimed "I've weighed our breads and Sylvia's is the heaviest!" I mis-heard and thought she said "weighed our breasts"!! Oops! 

The beauty of these gluten and dairy free cupcakes is that you would never know they aren't 'normal'. It's the simplest recipe and if you use Doves Farm Gluten Free flour you don't need to worry about finding gluten free baking powder or Xantham Gum. 

I was really pleased with how these baked. They were soft and spongy and I defy anyone to tell the difference from a traditional chocolate cupcake.

I have to hold my hands up and admit they don't quite live up to The Pink Whisk's chocolate cake recipe in which vinegar is added to milk to cause a chemical reaction that results in a really rich and gooey texture that's just divine. If you're not dairy-free I urge you to try this.

However for a gluten and dairy free treat, these will do just fine!

I had some leftover buttercream from last week's orders so I topped half of them with icing roses so anyone not following gluten and dairy free didn't feel too hard done by.  

The allergen-free ones were topped with icing sugar using a (cheap) heart shaped icing template hence the rough edges and different sizes! 

RECIPE

120g Dove's Farm self raising flour

120g margarine or dairy free spread (check the ingredients, I used Pure Dairy Free Spread) 

120g caster sugar

2 eggs

4 tablespoons cocoa powder (I used Green and Blacks organic, it's just divine) 

1-2 tablespoons of dairy alternative milk e.g. almond milk, oat milk, rice milk or soya milk. 

METHOD

There really is no detail to the method. Put everything apart from the milk substitute in the bowl of a mixer and go. Start slowly and work up to full speed. You'll literally need just a couple of minutes and it's done. If the mixture is on the thick side, add a small amount of milk substitute and remix. 

This will make 12 cupcakes. 

Pop in the oven for 20 minutes - 190 C (170 C for Dan oven) / 375 F / gas mark 5. 

When the timer goes off, pop a cocktail stick in one of the cupcakes and if it comes out clean they're done. Bob's your Uncle and Fanny's your Aunt as they say! Although they're not - despite such a huge family there isn't a Bob or a Fanny! 

Happy Baking!

National Cupcake Week

Despite being back at work after maternity leave and the house being a state, the ironing piling up and nothing in the fridge that's still in its sell by date, I couldn't let National Cupcake Week go by without my own bake off.

On Thursday it was my boss's birthday and what better way to suck up to the boss than a dozen cupcakes? I think the results show that yellow and grey even works for cakes. I love this colour combination.

I took over mum's kitchen again this morning to do a birthday batch, choosing a purple and lilac theme.

Both batches were inspired by my new baking bible, Ruth Clements' Busy Girls's Guide to Cake Decorating. Ruth was in the first series of Great British Bake Off and has her own blog www.thepinkwhisk.co.uk.

Yum, yum, happy National Cupcake Week.

 

 

Pinterest - my new favourite social network

I could spend hours trawling Pinterest for inspiration. The gorgeous cakes and cookies I find just make me want to get baking.

http://thedecoratedcookie.com/2009/05/watermelon-cookies/

I've started following a few inspirational boards and have created a few boards myself. I've put all my own cakes on one board and created others to keep track of ideas I'd like to try.

https://pinterest.com/marecip/cookies/

https://pinterest.com/followcharlotte/cakes-and-parties/

http://pinterest.com/jessicamotz/cake-ideas/

I am trying to 'suggest' to puddle duck that she should have a 'Hungry Caterpillar' themed party so that I can do a cupcake caterpillar and cookies made out of all of the different things the caterpillar ate through.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cococake/3380402658/

She's not having any of it though and wants a fairy with a castle! Oh well, I'll just have to search Pinterest for fairy cakes.

Charity cake sale

A friend just texted me and asked whether I want to bake some cakes for a charity event she is part of?

Er, YES! It took less than five seconds to consider the request and already my mind is a whirl of potential cupcake toppings and biscuit designs.

The event is organised by New Cross hospital maternity unit in Wolverhampton as part of National Breastfeeding Week 2012. It's planned for Thursday 21 June at Bantock House in Bradmore, Wolverhampton.

Pregnant mums, new mothers, families and health professionals are invited to bring a picnic and join in the fun, including live music presentations and activities. The event runs from 10am to 3pm.

More information can be found on the West Midlands regional infant feeding coordinators network web site http://www.infantfeedingwm.org.uk/nbw.aspx.

I'm thinking big buttercream toppings for the cupcakes, in typical candy colours and some simple heart and circle biscuits with patterns from my new embossing mats. I am going to pack them into little cellophane bags to make them more hygienic for the stall and hopefully easier to transport.

The problem won't be making them it will be knowing when to stop!

Jubilee baking competition with 'Homemade by Fleur'

I follow @cakeboule on Twitter who posted last week that she was going to enter the Homemade by Fleur, Blogging Jubilee Baking Competition.

Homemade by Fleur Jubilee Baking Competition

As we have three parties to go to this weekend, there were always going to be jubilee cakes to be designed and created, but I wanted to give the competition a bit more thought. There's £100 amazon vouchers up for grabs thanks to the competition sponsor Appliances Online so a simple red buttercream rose just wasn't going to cut it.

So, taking inspiration from the article in the latest Marks & Spencer magazine, which looks at Her Majesty's fashion through the decades, I thought I would celebrate events from the past six decades. I think that the jubilee should be about The Queen's entire reign, not just one weekend, so I got my thinking cap on.

I started with 1952 and the coronation, pretty obviously - although when I looked into the coronation a little bit closer, I discovered that it actually took place in 1953 so I can't really understand why we're celebrating this year but that's by the by. I used red buttercream, piped with my brand new rose tip, finished off with red sprinkles and a gold crown crafted using my new crown mould and gold lustre dust.

Jubilee Cupcake - The Coronation

Originally my 1960s cake was going to be all about the swinging sixties, but as there is also an international footballing competition starting next week I though the 1966 world cup would be more appropriate. I used green rolled out icing with white piping icing for the pitch and white rolled out icing for the ball.

Jubilee Cupcake - 1966 - England win the World Cup

I didn't have a clue what happened in the 1970s, having been born at the end of the decade, so Google came to the rescue declaring that decimalisation was introduced in 1971. I used the same buttercream but iced into a swirl rather than a rose and topped it with a £5 note and £1 coin.

Jubilee Cupcake - Decimalisation

Apparently, also according to Google via Wikipedia, the world wide web was invented in 1989, and that's about all that happened in the eighties. I tried to make a computer out of modelling icing and was delighted when baby puddle duck came home from nursery and said she wanted to eat the cake with the computer on - if she can tell what it is then I reckon it will be OK. I also used my new alphabet stencil to imprint the 'www'. I'm definitely going to need more practice with these.

Jubilee Cupcake - Invention of the world wide web

The 1990s were a pretty horrific decade. Google suggested some highly significant historic events, but neither the 9/11 terrorist attack nor Princess Diana's death were topics I would like to depict on a cupcake topping! So instead, I opted for the opening of the channel tunnel. Not my favourite subject for a cake but I was really struggling for a suitable theme by this point! I used blue icing as the background to depict the sea and created the Euro Tunnel logo and French flag out of modelling icing rolled out flat.

Jubilee Cupcakes - Euro Tunnel opens

The year 2000 was much more celebratory, and I wish that I'd bought a champagne glass or bottle mould when I bought the crown one as my attempts at modelling these out of icing were futile! I thought the millennium dome would scream '2000' so I plumped for that.

Jubilee Cupcakes - Millenium Dome

Finally I did some 'typical' jubilee cupcakes to represent 2012, and these are the ones I'm going to take to the party tomorrow. 

Jubilee Cupcakes

Jubilee Cupcakes - 1950 - 2012 - The Queen's reign through the decades

I hope Fleur likes the idea, even if the inspiration was more successful than the execution. I definitely need a bit more practice and lot more time to dedicate to crafting my cakes. Having my hair cut and coloured, feeding a nine week old baby three times and picking up a three year old from nursery meant these cakes actually took nine hours!

Giant cupcake part II

I am going to attempt my second giant cupcake. It's not my favourite shape cake but it was requested so I'll give it another go.

This time I am going to bake the top and bottom separately as the top was far too dry last time and the bottom undercooked. Despite following the instructions that said to bake the bottom for half an hour before adding in the top mixture, they did not bake evenly. Mom suggested baking in two separate batches instead which I hadn't thought of so hopefully that will result in a much nicer tasting cake.

I haven't decided yet whether to make a chocolate 'case case' for the bottom of the cake or use rolled out fondant icing. I've seen a few methods for doing this, including the inspirational Victorious Cupcakes who is on Facebook and also at http://www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/Victoria-Threader.

I just don't want it to look amateur and the heat is incredible so I am not holding out much hope that the icing is going to handle all that well.

Results will be posted tomorrow when the cake is iced and finished.