Iron Cupcake London: 2nd challenge

Wow! What a great night the "Summer fruits" challenge turned out to be. We had TWENTY fabulous entries and everyone took their voting rights seriously to make sure the right cupcake won.

As you can imagine, with twenty (let me repeat TWENTY!) amazing entries it will take me a little while to gather all the photos and write it up....but watch this space!

Thanks to everyone who entered, came along, and helped with the organisation for making it such a terrific evening.

Ginger squares

With the heat wave in south east England showing no signs of abating (it was hotter than the Bahamas this week!!!) I understand that ginger isn’t perhaps the most natural choice of ingredient to use in baking. But what can I say? I fancied it.

I’ve baked a fair few ginger cakes in my time and have come to realise that one component really alters the outcome of the cake. If you want a dark, sticky stodgy ginger cake – and I think this is a winter thing – then use black treacle. For a pleasingly anytime cake use golden syrup. This version however, is definitely the airiest and spongiest variant and uses honey. You will notice that the cake is far lighter in colour too.


The icing looked similar to many other icings but when you read the method you will see how different it is. We’ve all balanced bowls on top of saucepans to start making luscious things like Swiss meringue buttercream but this icing is made totally in the saucepan. One pot cooking at its finest! When cooled the icing has an almost fudge-like texture and is a quite beautiful accompaniment to the hot ginger.


I enjoyed eating a slice of this while sipping my tea and marvelling that, not only had Roger Federer made another Wimbledon final, but I’d won yet another fridge magnet from the CCBF (Caked Crusader’s Boyfriend). Life is good!


Ingredients:
For the cake:
80g unsalted butter
85g honey
65g light brown sugar
100ml milk
2 eggs
185g self raising flour
3 teaspoons ground ginger
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

For the icing:
60g unsalted butter
100g light brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
100g icing sugar


How to make:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Grease a 16 x 26cm tray bake tin.
- Start by making the cake: Place the butter, honey and sugar into a medium sized saucepan – make sure it is big enough to hold all the other ingredients, as the saucepan is the mixing bowl for this cake.
- Stir over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. You can best tell this by looking at the back of your spoon – if you can see tiny crystals, the sugar has not yet dissolved.
- Leave to cool slightly.
- Add the milk, eggs, flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda to the cooled mixture and stir in until well combined. I used a whisk as I find ginger cake batter is a bit lumpy and a whisk works better than a spoon.
- Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out cleanly.
- Leave to cool in the tin on a wire rack.
- Now make the icing: melt the butter in a small saucepan.
- Add the light brown sugar and milk and bring to the boil.
- Simmer, stirring all the time, for 2 minutes.
- Stir in enough of the icing sugar to make a spreadable consistency.Spread over the top of the cooled cake.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

Cream brulee cupcakes

The cupcake sponge is identical to the strawberry and custard cupcakes I made last week, but with a twist. I don’t normally make such similar recipes back to back but these looked special so I decided to go ahead. The book the recipe comes from is one of my favourite cupcake books – simply called “Cupcakes” by Murdoch Books; I love all their recipe books...and no, I don’t have shares in the company so it’s an honest opinion!


Whoever came up with this recipe – putting a crème brulee inside a cupcake – deserves much praise; it is a genius concept! The custard is silky and thick but made tons! I had lots left over....which isn’t the world’s worst problem I admit!


You need to take a little more care when creating the brulee topping so as not to char the sponge with your blow torch. It’s not tricky...just be careful out there! If I could hand you two tips to make these, that I learned by bitter experience, they would be as follows:

1. Don’t use a frilly paper case because when you start blowtorching the top you will set fire to the case and a flaming cupcake is not a joyous thing. Thankfully, no harm was done.
2. You can make and fill the cupcakes in advance and refrigerate until you wish to serve, but add the brulee topping at the last minute. I made them the day before and, because they need refrigeration, my brulee topping went soggy. They still tasted great but they lacked crunch.


Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
185g unsalted butter, at room temperature
170g caster sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 eggs
125g self raising flour
60g plain flour
125ml milk

For the custard and topping:
375ml whole milk
3 egg yolks
55g caster sugar
2 tablespoons plain flour

12 teaspoons soft brown sugar

How to make:

- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan oven 160°C/350°F/Gas mark 4.
- Line a cupcake pan with 12 paper cases, have a second tin on standby with paper cases as I found the mix made enough for several more cupcakes.
- Beat the butter, sugar and vanilla together until creamy and light.
- Beat in the eggs one at a time.
- Weigh out the flours and measure out the milk.
- Fold half the flour in, followed by half the milk. Repeat.
- Spoon the mixture into the paper cases. Fill each case about 2/3 full.
- Bake for approximately 15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out cleanly.
- Leave to cool on a wire rack.
- Now make the filling: place the milk in a saucepan and bring just about to the boil.
- Remove from the heat.
- Beat the egg yolks, sugar and flour until thick and pale.
- Gradually whisk in the milk.
- Pour through a sieve, back into the saucepan and stir over a medium heat until the mixture thickens and comes almost up to the boil.
- Remove from the heat
- When the cupcakes are cool cut the centre out of each one – don’t go right through to the bottom; you’re aiming to create a little bowl made of cupcake.
- Fill each cavity with as much custard as possible.
- Refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Sprinkle one teaspoon of soft brown sugar over each cupcake and blowtorch until the sugar melts and turns brown.
- Leave the sugar to harden.
- Bask in glory at the wonderful thing you have made.
- Eat.

I love this picture....

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