Sour Cream Banana Cupcakes

When I bake, my boyfriend always likes to eat some of the results but as the cupcakes I made earlier are for someone else I had to make him something as well! So he has been blessed with these lovely sour cream banana cupcakes. I didn’t have sour cream so used crème fraiche instead and they are fine! The recipe is from the same book I used for the white chocolate mud cakes called The Complete Book of Cupcakes, Cheesecakes and Cookies by The Australian Women’s Weekly. I made them a bit fancier by taking them out of their cases and filling them with icing and fresh banana.

For 12 standard sized muffins:

90 g butter, softened

110 g brown sugar

2 eggs

75 g plain flour

75 g self raising flour

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

½ tsp mixed spice

2 mashed medium sized bananas

80 g sour cream

2 tbsp milk

Heat oven to 180^oC (350^oC or gas 4)

Beat butter, sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy (guess what? It curdled again!). Stir in the flours, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice and once well mixed add in the bananas, sour cream and milk. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl to get all the ingredients well mixed in. Divide the mix between 12 muffin cases and bake for about 20 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. Once the cupcakes are cooled, slice in half, spread with a little butter cream (my standard recipe is here) or fresh cream, layer on banana and put the top back on. And here are the very tasty results!

Lizzi :)

Filled Fairy Cakes

I have the baking bug! It really chills me out and work is crazy at the moment so my boyfriend is going to get fat! Today I decided to try and make some filled fairy cakes but went with the easy option and filled them after I’d cooked them. I topped them with a simple icing made from butter, cream cheese and icing sugar. My fairy cake recipe was taken from my first ever Baked and Delicious magazine (Baked and Delicious) and is a basic sponge recipe which I adapted for the second batch of mint chocolate flavour.

For approximately 8 fairy cakes:

60 g (2 oz) softened butter

60 g (2 oz) caster sugar

1 egg

60 g (2 oz) self raising flour (I took out 1 tbsp and replaced with 1 tbsp of cocoa powder in the second batch)

1 tbsp milk

½ tsp vanilla extract (I substituted this for peppermint essence in the second batch)

Heat oven to 190^oC (375^oF)

Beat butter and sugar together. Gradually add a little of the egg whilst still beating to prevent the mixture from curdling. Generally if my mix does curdle it doesn’t affect the outcome but I do get a satisfaction from preventing it! Add a little of the flour if it does. Fold in the remaining flour, extract and milk with a metal spoon. Divide evenly into cake cases and bake for 10-15 minutes. I always check mine are cooked by using a cocktail stick and checking that it comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

I made fruity fairy cakes with the basic vanilla mix by taking out a little of the middle of the fairy cakes. I used the end of a teaspoon to make a small hole and filled with Morrison’s Best Mango and Passion fruit jam. I mixed the jam up a bit to make it easier to use.

For the mint chocolate cupcakes I made a very basic ganache with some left over sour cream from the doughnuts I made earlier in the week! I just melted 50 g milk chocolate and beat in 1 ½ tbsp of the sour cream. Again I made some small holes in the top of the chocolate fairy cakes and filled with the ganache.

For the icing I used 25 g cream cheese, 25 g butter and about 200 g icing sugar with ½ tsp of lemon essence for one lot and ½ tsp peppermint essence for the other. I piped the lemon icing onto the fruity cakes and spooned the peppermint icing onto the mint chocolate cakes. For each batch I finished off with some pretty sprinkles on the top.

And now for the results!

My fairy cakes are coming out a little misshaped at the moment, my bun tin is really shallow so I think I'm going to get a new one!

Lizzi :)

Sour Cream Doughnuts

So today I decided to tackle doughnuts. I’ve made them before and it’s been a long and laborious task that hasn’t produced great doughnuts. My boyfriend is Polish and they have ‘fat Thursday’ like a lot of European countries where they eat pączki (Polish doughnuts). He loves them but I often just buy them from the supermarket for ease! However, over this weekend I stumbled across a website with some fantastic ‘copycat’ recipes (copycat recipes) which of course led me onto other recipes. I eventually found a recipe for sour cream doughnuts which seemed simple and sure enough they were (sour cream doughnuts). They are super easy, have turned out brilliantly and have gone down a storm with my boyfriend!

For approximately 20 mini doughnuts:

(The recipe is in cups which I converted to grams and it worked fine – I’ve put both on here for you to choose.)

150 g (1¼ cups) plain flour

35 g (⅓ cup) icing sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

15 g (1 tbsp) margarine

60 g (¼ cup) sour cream

1 egg

Oil for frying (I used about 500ml of extra virgin but it’s probably cheaper and just as good to use vegetable or sunflower oil)

Sift all the dry ingredients together. Beat together all wet ingredients until smooth. Pour the wet mix into the dry mix and stir together to make a sticky dough. Chill for at least 20 minutes. Heat your oil. Be VERY careful when deep frying, particularly if you use gas like me. I use a high sided saucepan and watch it like a hawk. I don’t have a thermometer so just have to cook by trial and error. I have found that putting a tiny bit of the dough into the oil and seeing when the oil starts to bubble is the best way. If you do have a thermometer then the oil needs to be at about 175^oC (350^oF). Pull off bits of dough and roll in the palm of your hands into a ball shape. You can make whatever size you like but I made mini ones about 3cm (1.5 inches) in diameter. They will take varying times to cook but a good indicator is the colour. Mine went golden brown. Fish out with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen roll. You can roll them in sugar if you want to make them authentic and voila! Homemade doughnuts!

And now for the tasty results!

 Lizzi :)