Dragons and White Mice

Today I saw How To Train Your Dragon for the third time. I have a serious love for this film, it makes me want a dragon of my on so very badly. The scenes where Toothless is zooming about through the sky reminds me of the behaviours at SeaWorld and it makes me pine for that dream job.
I love Toothless. I think my favourite scene is where he watches Hiccup drawing the portrait of him in the dirt, and he mimicks drawing with that huge branch.

So cute.

Anyway, I've also been baking today. I used some of my favourite confectionary of all time, white chocolate mice, to top them with. I used a basic vanilla sponge for the cupcakes and vanilla buttercream for the icing.

Ingredients: (as usual, everything is best used at room temp.)

• 110g unsalted butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150g self raising flour
• 125g plain flour
• 120ml milk
• 1tsp vanilla extract

The method for making these cupcakes is essentially the same as for the peanut butter ones I posted in my first blog. Obviously, just skip putting in the peanut butter.

They bake in the oven at 160C(fan)/180C/gas mark 4, for 25 minutes. When they're done they have the most gorgeous warm, vanillarey cake smell. Mmmmmm. Now leave them to cool on a wire rack, then it's time for icing!


For the icing, I used a simple vanilla buttercream. This is a very versatile icing and can be coloured with a few drops of food colouring, although I just left mine as it is. It can be used to ice a number of flavoured cakes, and this is a good recipe to have on hand for different occasions.

Ingredients:

• 75g unsalted butter
• 40ml milk
• 1.5 tsps vanilla extract
• 400g icing sugar

In a large bowl, beat the butter, milk, vanilla and half the icing sugar until smooth. Gradually begin adding the rest of the icing sugar, beating with the electric hand whisk over a few minutes.


Keep beating until the icing is smooth and creamy. If, after beating for a few minutes, it is too runny to ice with, add a little more icing sugar.

Use a butter knife to spread the icing onto the cakes, using the flat of the knife around the edges and pointing it at the top to achieve a pretty swirl effect.


Now that's done, you can decorate them with whatever you like! I used yellow and purple sugr stars to start off with. I love that combinaion of colours together, and I think it looks even better with those bright cake cases.


After a while I managed to convince myself to stop eating the white chocolate mice and use them on the cakes. After popping them on the top I was very pleased with how they looked, the colours complimen eachother really well and the mice just add that little bit of nostalgic cuteness that works so brilliantly with cakes. Delicious no matter what your age.

Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Welcome to my blog! This is my first post and today I'm also going to put up a lovely recipe for Peanut Butter Cupcakes along with my ramblings. I haven't used this recipe before but I was very pleased with how it turned out. These cakes are quite rich but still very delicious. Let's start off with the Ingredients:

(makes 12 regular sized cupcakes. Also all ingredients except the cream are best used at room temperature.) Cupcakes:

• 75g unsalted butter
• 130g smooth peanut butter
• 190g light soft brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1tsp vanilla extract
• 120g plain flour
• 1tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 60ml milk

First make sure to preheat your oven so it gets nice and hot, you want the oven to be at the perfect temperature when you put the cakes in the oven so make sure you do this before anything else so it has chance to heat up properly. The temperature for these cakes is 160C (fan)/ 180C/ gas mark 4. You might want to line a 12 hole muffin tray with cupcake cases so it's ready for your mixture too.

I also went to the trouble of taking some photos of my progress with these cakes; it was my first time making them too so we're in this one together. :P

Weigh the peanut butter, peanut butter and sugar and put them in a large bowl.


Once this is done, use an electric hand mixer to cream the ingredients until they are relatively pale and smooth. Make sure you do this for at least a minute to make sure they're well blended.



Add the eggs one at a time, and make sure to blend well after you add each one. Then stir in the vanilla extract. At this point you might want to try using a knife or a spatula to skirt around the edges of the bowl and push any mixture around the side of the bowl back into the middle and re-blend. This is just to make sure everything is mixed evenly and you actually use everything which has been weighed out.

In a seperate bowl combine the plain flour, baking powder and salt. Make sure to only use 1tsp of baking powder, you want the cakes to rise but they're much easier to ice if they're not looking like little miniature volcanoes. A side note - have you seen Disney's Sleeping Beauty? There's a good scene in that where the green fairy is trying to bake a cake; she pronounces the shorthand for "teaspoon" as "tsp" phonically... it never fails to amuse me and now whenever I see that in recipes I always think of her. And when she "folds in the eggs"... Oh dear...

Anyway. Add one third of your flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat well with the whisk.



Then add one third of the milk and beat well again. Repeat until all the flour and milk have been added.

Now it's time to put the finished mixture into the cupcake cases. When I made this my mixture was runnier in consistency to the usual cakes I make, so to aid in filling the cases without making a giant mess I used a jug to pour the mixture in.


As you can see I managed to make a little bit of mess. But only a little bit. Now put these in the oven and leave them to bake for about 20 minutes. As tempting as it may be, try and refrain from opening the oven door when they're cooking, as the slightest bit of cold air on them while they're still baking can result in sinkage - which you don't want. Trust me.

After 20 minutes, you can open your oven and you should be greeted with something like this:


They should be raised gorgeously and a nice golden brown colour when done. Leave them in the tin for a few minutes to cool slightly, then carefully put them on a wire rack to cool completely.

Now for the icing. :D

Usually when making cupcakes I go for a simple buttercream icing. This is versatile; easily modified to suit different flavour cakes and can be topped with pretty much anything to decorate. This time though I went with a chocolate fudge icing, slightly faffier to make but it compliments the peanut butter really well and tastes lovely.

For this you will need:

• 60ml double cream
• 30g unsalted butter
• 300g milk chocolate
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Place the butter and the double cream in a saucepan over a very low heat.


Stir the mixture continuously until all the butter is completely melted. Don't allow it to boil or else it will burn and this really impairs the flavour. When all the butter is melted take it off the heat and add the chocolate, broken into pieces, into the mixture.

Mmmm. I know it doesn;t look the prettiest at the moment but I promise; stir the chocolate continuously until it's all melted and it will look much tastier.


Still not appetising yet?

This can take about 10 minutes to melt completely, so don't give up. If you need to, turn the heat back on but only very low, and keep stirring it until it's all melted. When you're done it should look something liiiiiike:

Much better. :D Now add the vanilla and stir again so it's nicely incorporated.

This icing might feel as though it's too runny to use. So allow it to cool slightly, and if that doesn't do it then beat it slightly just before you ice your cupcakes.

I usually spiral my icing on with a butter knife but today I got a bit lazy and just used to wooden spoon to blob it on.

Well when I say "blob it on", I mean i put a bit of icing on then smoothed it roughly over my cakes until they looked vaguely presentable.


To decorate I would have preferred to use peanut butter chips. Sadly though I couldn't find these anywhere, so instead I went a-hunting for Reese's Pieces. You would have thought they'd be far easier to come by, but for some reason over the last week or so I've been planning on making these, I just haven't been able to get my hands on them. :( So instead I had to make do with chocolate buttons.

Et voila!

Peanut butter cupcakes. Enjoy, and thanks for reading!