Mojito Cocktail Cupcakes

The best chocolate blogging challenge around is now two! Happy Birthday We Should Cocoa. Set up by Choclette of Choc Log Blog and Chele of Chocolate Teapot WSC has now been going for two years, and I'm proud to say that I've been there since the start (although I haven't participated in all of the challenges!).

When Choclette announced that the theme for this month was Cocktails I have to admit that my heart sank. I don't think I've ever knowingly drunk a cocktail, or at least not a proper one. I may have had one or two mocktails in my time, but even those are infrequent. I was thus utterly stumped for inspiration on this one. I let the thought slide because my time has not been my own recently, but as of now (well, for a little while anyway) my exams are over and I can bake as I wish.

And so I didn't really think about this challenge at all. Since my exam date and the deadline collided exactly and since I have been at home on study leave and not really able to make cakes (and certainly not make them for colleagues) I thought I would bow out of the challenge. And then I remembered that Choclette had named me as one of the first month's challenge participants. And so the pressure to participate grew.

Fortunately inspiration struck just in time. I was thinking about the chocolate I like to eat most, and after unflavoured chocolate my favourite flavour is mint. I think this is because the sweet fruity centred chocolates are not my scene and nuts are off limits. So I always hope that if someone is buying chocolates for me they go for the mint box because then I can be a greedy piglet and hog them all to myself!

And to go with mint I thought of lime. Mint and lime, yum and then rounded off with white chocolate so the flavours don't clash with the strong dark chocolate. But how to combine them. I decided on a lime drizzle cupcake base and then a white chocolate and mint buttercream in luscious swirls on the top. Most decadent and most appropriate for WSC's second birthday. Mint and lime are the flavours of a Mojito, so these are my mojito cupcakes.

All kinds of green

Mojito Cocktail Cupcakes
Ingredients
125g unsalted butter
125g white caster sugar
2 eggs
125g self raising flour
about 3tbsp milk
grated zest 1 lime

For the drizzle/syrup
Juice of the lime plus 40g icing sugar

For the buttercream
75g unsalted butter, softened
150g icing sugar
40g white chocolate, melted
2 tsp peppermint extract
white chocolate chips to scatter

Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Line a 12 hole muffin tin with ten liners.
- Cream the butter until light and fluffy. Add the lime zest and continue to mix.
- Add the flour and eggs and beat well, then add the milk as necessary to make a softer mixture.
- Divide between the cases and bake for 25-30 minutes.

While they are baking make a simple syrup from the icing sugar and the juice of the lime - bring to the boil and simmer a couple of minutes. Allow to cool slightly.

- When the cupcakes are baked, prod all over with a wooden cocktail stick and carefully spoon over the syrup. Allow to sink in and allow the cupcakes to cool.

- In the meantime, make the buttercream icing by beating the butter and icing sugar together, adding the slightly cooled white chocolate and 2 tsp peppermint essence to the mixture.

- Pipe onto your cupcakes, scatter over white chocolate chips and admire.

What I have learnt from making these: that 6 hours in exams and a 90 minute journey home through driving rain does not necessarily mean you cannot bake when you get home. You will struggle to write the post up too though... thanks to Choclette for allowing me to be a little late.

Don't melt white chocolate in the microwave, well, at least not 40g for a minute on full power unattended. Cue smoke streaming out of the microwave and frantic (and ineffectual) wafting of teatowel to avoid setting smoke alarm off.

I'm pleased to say that they were delicious. The sponge was beautifully soft and moist and slightly lime-y and then the sweet buttercream was the perfect complement - rich and smooth and then minty too, but not overwhelmingly so. Just right for celebrating the end of my horrible day of exams! A celebration of two years of We Should Cocoa - here's to the continuing success of the challenge.

Chilli Chocolate Fudge Cake

It seems only right that my celebration of Chocolate Week should contain my submission to We Should Cocoa, the challenge designed to celebrate chocolate in all ways throughout the year. This time, Choclette from Chocolate Log Blog is hosting and she has chosen chilli as the ingredient to pair with chocolate for this month's challenge.

A tricky one, I'm sure you'll agree, but instead of remembering things I'd like it to, my brain is littered with the sparks associated with recipes I've seen and been meaning to make for ages. So when the chilli challenge  was announced, this recipe from Dan Lepard immediately popped it's head up and demanded attention. Apparently my memory is pretty long for cake related issues, as this recipe was first posted in September 2008.

I made only minor changes to the recipe - I substituted crunchy peanut butter for the tahini, as I don't have tahini and I do have peanut butter and wanted to use it up. I used the smaller amount of chilli flakes (1/4tsp). I also used the stipulated 8" square tin rather than the pictured round one!!!

The recipe was a little involved to make, with a few different steps, but none of them were difficult. I think the cake was probably done at 1 hour, but I left mine a further 10 minutes, which may have been a mistake...

The chilli heat was a slow build, you couldn't really tell it was there at first, but there was a chilli aftertaste. The predominant taste was of peanuts, and the contrasting lime icing was really delicious and refreshing, I wish there had been more icing to cake - perhaps baking in a shallower tin would help here. The cake was very crumbly in texture, and I don't know whether this is how it was meant to be, or whether I'd overbaked it, but it was tricky to pick up and eat! It was really well received at work, and I had a recipe request (with the requestee being directed to the Guardian website!) too!

All in all, not my favourite chocolate cake, but definitely an interesting and different kind of chocolate cake for the more adventurous baker/eater of chocolate cakes!

Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate lime buttercream

It's that time again - We Should Cocoa! This month's challenge was set by Chele over at Chocolate Teapot - she announced that the challenge this month was to be lime! Lime isn't a flavour that I'm very familiar with, I am more often to be found zesting lemons and oranges, so this was a good challenge for me.

It seems at the moment that I'm obsessed with buttercream frosting - what can I say? Well, I guess after years of thinking that I really don't like buttercream all that much - too sweet and sickly, I've come to appreciate a swirl on top of a cupcake can be a good, in fact, great thing indeed. I still don't want too much, which is why you can still see cake around the edges - too much is still too much, if you see what I mean...

So, in line with my current obsession I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with chocolate lime buttercream frosting. If you look really carefully you can see tiny little flecks of green in the buttercream - it is there, I promise!

The cupcake recipe is Nigella Lawson's cupcake base from her Night-and-Day Cupcakes, which she has apparently shared with Good Morning America - so I'll point you there for the method, and for cup measures if that's your thing. If not, the measurements are given below:

Night-and-Day Cupcakes
Ingredients
2 scant tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp boiling water
75g golden caster sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
125g self-raising flour
2 large eggs
125g very soft butter
1tsp vanilla extract
1tbsp milk, plus more if necessary to achieve a dropping consistency.

For the buttercream
75g very soft butter
150g icing sugar
zest and juice of 1 (very large, or 2 smaller) lime(s)



These were very popular and disappeared rapidly at work. The lime was subtle perhaps I need to add it to the cake batter as well next time, but these were delicious as all chocolate cupcakes are!

Lime star yogurt cakes

I'm rotating out of my current department, having thoroughly enjoyed the past eight or so months that I've spent there. My colleagues are really lovely, and have been an absolute joy to work with - sometimes that's the most important thing about a job I find. I can enjoy my work, but if I don't get on with the people I'm working with then I can still struggle to find the motivation to work hard.

My colleagues have been the recipients of quite a lot of the baking you see on this blog, and it seems that they've enjoyed it greatly! I've had some really lovely comments from various people, and at times, it's really made my day when someone has said something good. Anyway, because I'm rotating out of the department (but not permanently!) they very generously bought me some leaving/appreciation presents before I went. One of the things I was given were some silicon star shaped cupcake cases. I've had mixed success with silicon moulds before (see here for a bit of a disaster) but I had high hopes for these - the star shape was good and open and the silicon light and flexible and luckily they worked really well!

All packaged up and ready to transport into work.

I had yogurt in the fridge to be used, and limes that were threatening to take over the world (I've never seen such huge limes in my life before - they're the size of small lemons, I'm so impressed!) so I decided to make Nigella Lawson's Baby Bundts. I've always passed over these before, simply because I don't have the correct moulds to make them in, but this time I decided to adapt and use my new silicon baking cases. After all, a 2 egg mixture usually makes about 12 cupcakes doesn't it, so it was worth a try!

These have the added advantage of being a muffin mix - no creaming of butter and sugar is required, which makes them quick and simple to get into the oven and henceforth into waiting mouths....

The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, surely my most used of her cookery books, and constantly inspiring.

Lime yogurt star cakes

Ingredients

125ml natural yogurt

75g butter, melted

2 eggs

zest of 1 enormous (or 2 more standard) limes

150g plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

125g caster sugar

Method

- Preheat the oven to 170C/Gas 3. Prepare your tins as necessary. I didn't do anything to mine at all!

- Mix together the yogurt, butter, eggs and lime zest.

- Put the flour, bicarb and sugar into a large bowl.

- Pour wet ingredients onto dry, mix well to combine and spoon into your waiting moulds.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes until lightly golden brown.

- Allow to cool a little, until you can handle them, but not too long - Nigella says if they're too cold they'll stick. Mine turned out fine, happily!

Prepare your topping. Nigella's cakes are iced with a lemon glace icing (icing sugar plus lemon juice) but I decided to go for a more decadent buttercream frosting. 75g butter and about 150g icing sugar gave me enough to decorate the twelve cakes I made.

The cakes were moist and quite lime flavoured - not in-your-face lime-y but a bit more subtle. The vanilla buttercream was a nice complement to the cake, adding richness to a fairly plain base. This recipe isn't the sweetest of cakes, which makes it nice to have a sweeter frosting. I can't say that this will be my go-to recipe for cupcakes though, but it's good to try new recipes and ring the changes a bit. I was really pleased with how these silicon moulds worked though, I guess it's just a bit pot-luck whether your moulds stick or don't. Many thanks to my lovely, generous colleagues for their gifts. It's been a pleasure baking for them!

Individual lemon and lime drizzle cakes

Citrussy lemon and lime flavours are always popular with my colleagues, but spring seems a particularly appropriate time to use them, zesty flavours heralding the longer (and hopefully warmer!) days before the summer fruit really makes an appearance. You can tell I'm behind with my posting can't you! I did make these a while ago, but if I don't record them now, they'll be forgotten forever, a real shame! J has now given me a lovely little notebook to record the recipes I make up as I go along. Sadly I made these before receiving this gift, and since it's a while since I made them, I'll have to post what I'm fairly sure I did..... (and the annoying thing is that I absolutely know I've seen the recipe written down somewhere - in a notebook, amongst millions of other notes to myself....)

Katie's post here over at Apple and Spice reminded me that I too had that particular baking tin. I bought it a while ago (in the sale ;-)) and had completely forgotten about it, but thought at the time of purchase that it would make great individual cakes in a more interesting shape than cupcakes. So it was decided - lemon and lime, and a drizzle too.

Lemon and lime drizzle cakes

Ingredients

120g self raising flour

120g soft butter

120g caster sugar

2 eggs

zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime (unwaxed if possible)

75g lemon and lime marmalade

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. You could use a 12 hole muffin tin but because of the syrup later on, I wouldn't line them with paper cases, just grease well, or grease your specially shaped eclair tin well with butter.

- Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add eggs beating after each addition and then flour. Mix well until combined.

- Add the lemon and lime zest and marmalade and beat the mixture until the marmalade is well mixed in.

- Divide the mixture between the tins and bake for around 25-35 minutes (sorry that's so vague, I can't honestly remember how long it took, although I guess it was probably more like 25 than 35!)

In the meantime, make the syrup.

- Dissolve around 100g icing sugar in the juice of the lemon and lime you used the zest from, plus the juice of another lemon (again this is by memory, I'm not entirely sure how much juice I used, but this is what I'd use if I did it again) by heating gently in a saucepan over a low flame.

- When cooked (feel springy and cake tester inserted comes out clean) remove from the oven, but leave in the tins.

- Poke holes in the cakes with either a fine skewer or a cocktail stick and pour over the syrup, trying to make sure that it goes into the top of the cakes as well as running down the sides.

- Leave to cool before enjoying. These would probably be good with a good dollop of creme fraiche on the side. Yum!

I think this photo makes the cake look not only pretty enormous (they aren't!) but also really, really reminds me of a cruise liner... just me? Perhaps I need a holiday more than I thought!

Sweet and sticky from the syrup, but not as zingy as I would have hoped. Disappeared pretty quickly at work all the same though!

Lime and raspberry crumble cake

A little break from the spiced cakes and seasonal bakes of late. I present something entirely out of season, but delicious all the same! I was fed up of opening the freezer and trying to cram the latest item into it whilst cartons of raspberries bought at the height of the late summer/early autumn season stared back accusingly at me, languishing in their frozen home, just waiting for a fitting end. Because these ones were still in the carton (unlike those transfered to plastic freezer bags in a vain attempt to maximise space) they had held their shape and seemed ideal for a cake. The lime was hiding in the fridge, bought with no particular purpose in mind, so also found its way into this cake.

A very basic sponge recipe with a crumble topping.

Lime and raspberry crumble cake
Ingredients
2 large eggs
140g self raising flour
120g butter, softenend
120g golden caster sugar
zest and juice 1 lime

170g punnet frozen raspberries (I used mine from frozen)

For the crumble
40g plain flour
20g butter
20g caster sugar

Method

- Preheat the oven to gas 4/180C. Grease and line with baking parchement a 7" square tin

- Make the crumble by rubbing the butter into the flour, then stirring in the sugar. Set aside

- Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

- Add the flour and eggs and beat well until combined.

- Stir in the lime zest and juice (I find that if I add this earlier, the zest all gets caught on the electric mixer beaters and therefore doesn't get distributed very well in the cake.)

- Spoon into the prepared tin and level off. Scatter over the raspberries and then the crumble mixture.

- Place in preheated oven and cook for around 50min-1hour. I had initially thought that this cake wouldn't take longer than about 40 minutes, but it did for me. Keep checking! The cake is done when it springs back to the touch and a wooden toothpick/cake tester comes out clean.

Best eaten on the day of making, as the raspberries tend to sink back after baking. This went very quickly indeed at work, which was most gratifying. The lime taste was good with the raspberries and the crumble topping provided a good contrasting crunch. It wasn't the lightest cake I've ever made or tasted, but it was good all the same and at least those raspberries aren't staring at me reproachfully every time I open the freezer.


Well, I had to have something seasonal in this post!!! I saw this lovely little dog and just couldn't resist - some things never change!

Coconut and lime buttermilk cake

This was the last of the cakes I made for Comic Relief. My colleagues were very generous and in total we raised £61.82, which I'm very proud of. I think this will help to make a real difference to a child's life (and hopefully more than one) so it really was worthwhile doing 'something funny for money'!!! I hope you'll want to try this one too - it was light and moist and delicious....

Coconut and lime cake
Ingredients
33og plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
2/3tsp bicarbonate of soda
230g low fat natural yogurt
165g softened butter
265g caster sugar
4 large eggs

100g creamed coconut, grated

For the buttercream icing

100g very soft butter

Around 300g icing sugar

Grated zest and juice 2 limes

100g creamed coconut, grated

Method
- Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas 4. Grease and line an 8 x 12" cake tin.
- Sift the flour, baking powder and bicarb together into a bowl and set aside.
- Weigh the yogurt into a small bowl.
- Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl using an electric mixer until light and fluffy.
- Mixing slowly, add the eggs one at a time, continuing to mix for 30 seconds between each. Add a spoonful of flour if you're worried about the mixture splitting.
- Add flour mixture and yogurt alternately until all used up, blending well after each addition.
- When all thoroughly combined, stir in the grated creamed coconut.
- Spoon into the prepared tin then bake for 45 - 50mins (but start checking at 40 mins if you know your oven is hot) until a skewer/cake tester comes out clean when inserted into the middle.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the tin before unmoulding and allowing to cool completely on a wire rack.

For the icing:
- Gently melt the coconut cream with the lime juice and zest in a small pan. Allow to cool.
- Cream together the butter and 200g icing sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add a little of the melted (cooled) coconut lime mixture and a bit more icing sugar and mix in well. Keep adding a little more coconut/lime and a bit more icing sugar until it tastes nice and is a good consistency for spreading. (Sorry this is a bit vague, I sort of did it as I went along!)
- Spread the buttercream icing onto the cake.
- Enjoy the fruits of your labour!!!!


I cut this into 18 generous pieces.

It was very much enjoyed at work and I had lots of recipe requests for it. I think the buttercream icing went down particularly well. T managed to get a piece of this cake for once (as we were both visiting home simultaneously!) and his comments were 'It's not very coconutty' but he did like the buttercream. However, it smelled seriously coconutty while it was baking. Sadly I can't tell you whether his tastebuds are rubbish or not as I couldn't eat this one myself. So..... you'll just have to try it out for yourself and see what you think! Do you agree with my colleagues at work that it's fab - or my darling brother, that it's not very coconutty???

Do let me know what you think if you make it!