Ugly!Cake

There are some cakes and bakes that feel a little bit like Holy Grails. Souffles, for example. Or Macarons. But when it comes to cakes, something that has been mocking me from the horizon is the Red Velvet Cake. I must explain for those of the American persuasion that Red Velvet is not a common cake over here in Blighty. I’d never even heard of it until about a year ago, when simultaneously my friend tried and failed to bake one, and a Buttercup cupcakery opened at my local shopping centre. But it looked so delicious! It tasted so delicious! It was gaudy and flouncy in all my favourite ways! I was desperate to try making some, but struggled to find certain ingredients, and was a little shy of trying it too.

However, the planets aligned. The stars spoke forth unto the sibyl, and I found myself with buttermilk, red food colouring, marscapone and whipping cream. It was time.

I found a recipe on Joyofbaking.com which I decided to try. The exact recipe I used (and then tweaked) has been changed on there, but as far as I can see it has mostly just been halfed. However, I have listed below the exact amounts I used, and the method.

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Reeeeeeeeed :D

Combine the three mixtures by adding the flour and buttermilk to the butter a bit at a time. Stir gently until fully combined.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine vinegar and bicarb. Allow to fizz, then combine quickly but gently with the cake mix.

Making haste, not speed, divide the mixture between your cases and put in the oven to bake for 15-18 minutes.


Perfect Cream Cheese Frosting
230g cream cheese
230g mascarpone
1 tsp vanilla extract
120g icing sugar
360ml whipping cream

Remove items from the fridge. It is not essential to let them warm up, as you are going to be whipping them thoroughly.

Beat together the marscapone and cream cheese until completely combined and fluffy.

Using an electric whisk, whip the cream until stiff.

Sift the icing sugar into the cream cheese mix, and then fold the cream in to combine gently but thoroughly.

Spread or pipe as you like.

I think these are probably the prettiest cakes I have ever made. Ever. In my life. I was a little overcome, actually. And they were almost unnervingly delicious. The cream frosting was so light and sweet and moreish, and the cakes had the smoky touch of cocoa, but were so moist and delicious. If I could change anything about the bake, it would be that mine weren’t quite as dayglo red as some examples I’ve seen. I will happily and hungrily work on that!

For reference: the size of bananas I used beside a teaspoon

Combine the two mixtures together, adding wet to dry until evenly mixed. You will have a very liquid, aerated batter. This is normal. Do not panic.

Ladle or pour the batter into either a pre-lined muffin pan or, like me, into your silicone moulds. A regular cupcake mould should be full up to about ½-1 cm below the rim.

These cupcakes did not impress me one bit to begin with. There was something about the flavour combo that just didn’t work for me. It was only after the cake was aged for a day or two that I really began to appreciate the smoky chocolate and indulgent fruitiness of these cakes. I’m still not 100% convinced by the ganache/cake combo, since the ganache packs a real hefty wallop against the most subtle flavour of the cake. The ganache is incredible on its own if you use the right chocolate, and makes very good truffles in its own right. However, flavours aside, the cake is very light, fluffy and moist, and flavours more subtle. I think if I make these again I’ll just chocolate/royal ice them, and stick a foam banana on top! How wonderfully gaudy! Squee!

I gave a plate of these to Looby because she wasn't feeling well. They certainly perked her up!

Salutations, Dear Internet, how be, how be? I’m very well; I’ve been flitting off to London every day for a week, and have one more week of fluttering to go! I feel so debonair, so chic, so utterly fabulous, wandering up and down the Strand or gazing over the ornate period rooftops from my office window. Oh, be still my shallow, cliched heart!

But I am very excited, Dear Internet. Have you heard? It’s National Cupcake Week! Happy National Cupcake Week, Dear Internet? Have I managed to convince you that it is National Cupcake Week yet? Ohoh! In celebration of our favourite confection, I plan to share with you a series of bakes this week, all wonderfully scrumptious and darling cupcakes! Hoorah! The itinerary may or may not include:

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Chocolate Banana Cupcakes
Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

My plan is to post up about 3-5 bakes between today and the nineteenth. This will depend, firstly, on my internet access- some horrible folk decided to cut my internet and phone lines on the 8th, and I have been without it ever since! Boohoo! Secondly, it will depend on time constraints. I may throw in a LFMF to fill in a gap!

Are you excited, Dear Internet? Possibly not. But do be excited, and ecstatic, and exultant, and express you sheer glee at the fact that it is National Cupcake Week, and you don’t need to find an excuse to enjoy pure deliciousness! Huzzah!

Dear Internet; how have you been? Me? Oh I’m just peachy keen, thanks for asking. Where have I been? I’ve been in lame-not-posting town, that’s where! And then I went on a little jaunt, oh yes! But I am back now, and I have lots of bakes to share with you. Are you ready?

Now, I did some baking while I was away, and a couple of bake lessons for my kitchen-shy pal Pam, and particularly considering the oven we were using (which doesn’t believe in cooking anything. EVER) we did exceptionally well! I intend to fully write up those bakes soon, but in the interim, Dear Darling Simon asked that I posted a recipe for him, so he could make cupcakes for this weekend. So, consciously curbing my hyperbole, and, alas, omitting images, here are my White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Vanilla Butter Cream!

White Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Makes approx 16 regular sizes cupcakes

225g golden caster sugar
225g unsalted butter (room temperature)
1tsp vanilla extract
4 Free Range Eggs (room temperature)
225g Self raising flour
White chocolate chips.

Preheat oven to 180c (160c fan assisted).

Cream the butter and sugar together. Once combined, mix in the vanilla.

Beat in the eggs. The mix will look curdled and disgusting, but fear not! From ugliness, comes deliciousness. Beat this mix fairly vigorously to encourage air into the blend.

Mix in the flour and chocolate chips until the mixture is pale in colour and even in consistency.

2/3 fill your muffin cases, and bake for 13-15 minutes, checking at 13.


Vanilla Butter Cream

113g Unsalted butter
1tsp Vanilla extract
250g Icing sugar
1tbsp milk/single cream

Sieve the icing sugar into a bowl.

Add the butter and vanilla and cream together until the mixture is dry and almost even in consistency.

Add the dash of a milk or cream and mix thoroughly.

If the mixture gets too wet, add more sugar, and more milk/cream if it still to dry.

Decorate as you please!


And because I think this would be great, an alternative topping for you!


White Chocolate Ganache

227g White chocolate (good quality (Menier/Green and Blacks etc))
180ml Double cream
28g Butter

Break up the chocolate into small pieces and set aside in a mixing bowl.

Heat the cream and butter in a saucepan over a medium heat, stirring as you go.

Bring the mixture to the boil and immediately pour over the chocolate. Let this mixture stand for a few minutes to make the chocolate melt, then beat vigorously with a whisk. This will make the mixture thicken.

Refridgerate for about an hour, and then the mixture can be piped. If you wish to spread the mixture onto the cupcakes, let it come back to near room temperature before you try.

Hope that helps, Simon dear!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to meet up with my friend Looby after her job interview. She was sitting in the temple that is Starbucks (I am so clichéd, ugh), drinking a hot chocolate and eating a strawberry cupcake. She said ‘the cake is ok, but try the icing’. She was right. The cake itself tasted like shop cake; just a basic and sadly bland vanilla. The butter cream icing however was made with real strawberries, and was really something. It had the little strawberry pips dotted through it, giving it this adorable, rustic look, whilst being pristinely piped.

I wanted to make my own!

So I scoured the internet, and found a recipe that suited on cooksunited.co.uk. The whole first batch I made with this recipe I threw out for the birds (see this post), which was a real shame, as that’s a hideous waste of materials. However, second time around, I ended up with some pastel pink, aromatic and incredibly light cupcakes. And the frosting… stuff you Starbucks, I can do better at home!

I had to mess the recipe about a bit, mainly with the cooking times and temps, and it is one I want to mess around with more, but this is what I did for the firstrun. Apologies now, and always, for my hideous food photography.

Strawberry Cupcakes
Makes 12-16, depending on how big you make your cuppies.

For the cakes:

100g fresh local strawberries, hulled and halved
1sp baking powder
180g flour
60ml milk
120g butter (salted or unsalted, depending on your preference)
200g golden granulated or caster sugar
1 large free range egg
2 large free range egg whites
1sp vanilla extract (not essence; you’ll thank me)

Preheat your oven to 170/150 fan assisted. Line your muffin pan with paper cases, or, if you are like me, line a baking tray with silicone cupcake cases.

In a blender, puree the strawberries. Try not to glug the delicious fruity goop down on its own. Be strong. Set it aside.

Combine flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl. Set aside.

With an electric mixer (hand or processor) cream the butter until fluffy and pale, then gradually add the sugar and continue to mix.

Add one egg and mix thoroughly.

Separate off your egg whites. Add them to the mix with the vanilla and blend/beat well until the mixture is well aerated and uniform.

Combine the strawberry puree with the milk. Marvel at your milkshake of awesomeness, but do try not to drink it. Add the ’milkshake’ into the wet mixture, mixing well.

Combine the wet mixture into the dry flour mixture about half and a time. Be careful not to beat too hard; you want to preserve the air in the mix from the egg beating. Continue until mixture is even in colour (pale, pretty pink) and texture.

Spoon out your mixture into your prepared cupcake baking receptacle(s). I made mine quite small, so it worked out to be enough batter for 16. The recipe is meant for 12 good sized cupcakes.

Bake for 15-18 minutes. Mine were a little more well done than I would have liked (I baked for 18), despite taking 7 minutes off the original baking time. If you are baking 12 large cupcakes rather than my 16, 18-20 minutes should be plenty. When done, the outsides will be prettily golden (darker if like me you use unrefined sugars), the insides fluffy and pink.

Allow to cool in pan/on tray for about 5 minutes, before removing to a cooling rack. Mine fell out of their silicone cases with ease at this stage.


For the butter cream and decoration: