Mint Chocolate Aero Cakes

I was looking through my baking cupboard for some inspiration, and spied a mint chocolate Aero bubble bar. I'm really bad for purchasing sweets and chocolate randomly if it's something I think I could use on a cupcake. Or brownie. Or big cake cake. Or anything really. I say I spied it... what actually happened was that I opened the cupboard and it fell out... I took this to be a sign that it was time to use it. I've been using the Hummingbird chocolate cupcake recipe a fair bit recently, and thought it was time to experiment  bit and try adding my own twist to it. So I came up with these minty delights.

Ingedients:

(Makes 16)

Cupcakes:

200g Plain Flour

140g Caster Sugar

140g Light Muscovodo Sugar

40g Cocoa Powder (I used Bourneville)

1 Tsp Baking Powder
80g Butter/Stork (must be at room temperature)
240ml Milk (I used skimmed)
2 Eggs

1/4 Tsp Mint Flavouring 

Aero Bubble Bar (in mint)

Frosting:

350g Icing Sugar

175g Butter

2 Tsp Milk (I used skimmed)

1 Tbsp Cocoa Powder

1/4 Tsp Mint Flavouring

Green food colouring

Method:

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (or 150 degrees for a fan oven) and prepare your muffin/cake tin. The recipe will do 16 medium sized cupcakes, but you can make 12 muffin sized cakes if you prefer.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, both kinds of sugar, butter, cocoa powder and baking powder until a nice sandy consistency is reached. In a separate bowl (or jug), beat the eggs, then whisk in the milk and peppermint flavouring. Add about half this mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until thoroughly combined. Finally, add the remaining liquid and stir gently until smooth. 

I used an ice cream scoop to add mixture to each cupcake case. Then I placed a square of the Aero bubble bar in the middle of each case before adding more mixture to make the case 2/3 full. The Aero bubbles will work just as well. Bake for 18-20 minutes until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of the cupcakes comes out clean. Leave in the tin for about 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the frosting, cream together the butter and icing sugar. Separate this into two smaller bowls. To one, add the cocoa powder and to the other add the mint flavouring and food colouring, Mix these into the icing. Spoon the frosting into your piping back, alternating between the brown and the green. Once you have iced your cupcakes, top each with another piece of Aero. Eat.

Romantic Rolo Cupcakes

Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo? Or your last Rolo cupcake? Two of my work colleagues recently got engaged, so of course I couldn't resist the opportunity to bake. I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with a caramel icing, and a Rolo sneakily hidden in the centre.

Ingreduents:

Makes 12

Cupcakes:
200g Plain Flour
40g Cocoa Powder (I used Bourneville)
140g Caster Sugar
140g Light Muscovodo Sugar
1 Tsp Baking Powder
80g Butter/Stork (must be at room temperature)
240ml Milk (I used skimmed)
2 Eggs
12 Rolos (frozen)
1/4 Tsp Vanilla Extract

Frosting:
4 Tbsp Toffee Ice Cream Sauce
1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
160g Butter
200g Icing Sugar
Ready To Roll Regal Icing in Red
Edible Gold Lustre

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees (150 if using a fan oven) or gas mark 6.

Put the flour, both types of sugar, baking powder, cocoa powder and butter into a bowl. Mix gently until you have a sandy consistency.

Beat the two eggs, then whisk in the milk and vanilla extract. Add approximately half the wet mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until combined. Then add the remaining wet ingredients and gently beat until you have a smooth consistency, being careful not to overmix.

Spoon the mixture into your cake tins/papers until each one is about half full. Place a frozen Rolo in the centre of each, then add more mixture on top til about 2/3 full. If you don't freeze the Rolos, they will become hard and crunchy which does still taste nice. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes, or until a cocktail stick inserted into the centre of each cake comes out clean. whilst the cakes are baking, feel free to eat any left over Rolos. Leave to cool in the tin for about five minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

For the icing, cream the butter and icing sugar in a bowl. Once it has reached a creamy, fluffy texture, add the vanilla essence and toffee sauce. Beat again until thoroughly combined. The icing is then ready to be piped or spread over your cupcakes. Sprinkle some gold lustre over the icing.

Take the ready to roll icing, and cut out 24 small hearts with a cookie cutter. Make sure you roll this out quite thinly. Place the hearts on top of each cupcake with a slight overlap. 

Banana and Butterscotch Muffins

We all have them - those bananas that we forget to eat, and so they sit in the fruit bowl and slowly turn black. Rather than throwing them away, you could try this delicious little Nigella Lawson recipe.

I used butterscotch chips (from Sainsburys), and I only used 100g rather than the 150g in the recipe. I actually found this to be enough as the chips became nice and melty, giving the muffins a satisfying gooeyness. Personally, I think any more butterscotch may have made them a little too sweet, but it's all a matter of your preference.

I found that the mixture produced 12 lovely big muffins with enough left over for 3 smaller cupcakes. I baked them all for 15 minutes, and this was ample time for the muffins to become nice and golden. They smelt so delicious that I ended up eating one straight from the oven and it tasted like a lovely sponge dessert. They are also yummy cold, with a strong banana flavour and the butterscotch cutting through for that sugar hit.

Percy Pig Cupcakes

I am currently addicted to the little porcine devil known as Percy Pig. For those of you not familiar with this character, he is a chewy sweet available from Marks & Spencer. He comes in many different varieties, and I decided that the original Percy would look very cute on top of a cupcake.

Percy comes in grape and raspberry flavours, and after being unable to find any cupcake recipes in these flavours which I felt would compliment him, I settled on a vanilla cupcake. I've made a few of the Hummingbird Bakery recipes, and have always found them to produce a delicious sponge, moist and light. The recipe I used can be found here.

The only change I made to the recipe was using skimmed milk instead of whole milk, and it produced the perfect amount of mixture for 12 standard sized cupcakes. I baked them for 18 minutes at 150 degrees in my fan oven, and they came out perfectly. I have never made buttercream frosting with milk in the recipe before, and was a little concerned that it may be a bit runny, but it actually came out beautifully. It tasted lovely and creamy on top of the cupcake, and the actual cake itself wasn't overpoweringly sweet. Again, the quantity was just about perfect for the number of cakes, and there was very little waste. I didn't pile it on as I wanted to keep the tops of the cakes relatively flat, but if you like lots of buttercream, you may need to make a little more.

I found that a 100g pack of Percy Pig sweets contains exactly 12. I bought two of these packs (they were on offer) just in case I needed any more, and may use the second bag to whip up another batch as these are a scrumptious alternative to chocolate cakes, and I think they look incredibly cute.