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Cola Cup Cakes and a longing for a Sodastream
I treated myself last week to the latest Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. Time was that a “treat” would have been something a bit more…hedonistic, but age appears to have caught up with me.
As Oliver was having some friends over for the day, and Tom was off to a birthday party for a couple of girlfriends (girls who are friends, yeah? Not girlfriends. *grunt*) I decided to kick off with their Cola Cupcakes.
Deliciousness
These cute and hyper sweet little beauties would make a good addition to any party (for adults and children alike) and would be especially great as part of a Willy Wonka Party
The addition of Cola Syrup is genius, and I managed to get hold of some very easily in my local supermarket alongside the Sodastreams. A Sodastream. Oh! how I longed for one when I was a child. The ten year old inside me (I mean my inner child as opposed to something entirely more disgusting) reached a sweaty paw out to add the Thing Of Wonder device to my shopping trolley. The 38 year old me simply looked at the price, and then at the cost of CO2 cylinders and slapped the ten year old round the face.
To reward the 38 year old me, and to punish the stupid profligate 10 year old me, I bought a flour sifter. That’s right. A FLOUR SIFTER. To be honest I should probably not be allowed out on my own with plastic money. I do hate sifting flour with a sieve though, it’s so time consuming and boring and annoying.
My lovely new flour sifter makes the job slightly less boring. So, eight quid well spent. *face*
BEHOLD!
I found the recipe fairly easy to follow – I was interested to find that there’s no creaming together of the butter and sugar, and instead the butter is added to the flour and sugar and mixed to a breadcrumb texture before having the wet ingredients added, but I decided to trust in the Hummingbird.
Different Method
I filled the baking cases with an ice cream scoop’s worth of batter (a brilliant tip from the book) and popped them into the oven.
Using an ice cream scoop ensures each case has the same amount of filing
The cakes emerged, after a little more baking time than recommended and were fluffy and looked almost fizzy.
I let the cakes go completely cold before attempting to ice them. I have learned, through bitter experience, that to do anything else is just a total waste of time.
So after about an hour of cooling, I iced the cakes with buttercream icing (with cola syrup) using a pallette knife. The results were a little rough around the edges, but I’m sure with practice I will get better at achieving a nice smooth finish.
Hmm. Need some practice
I decorated each cupcake with a cola bottle
Unbelievably tasty
Tom took cakes as small gifts for the girls throwing the party
Cake in box
and Oliver and his pals tucked in.
YUM!
They really were delicious. The sponge was light and yet satisfying and although the buttercream was sweet, it wasn’t jaw achingly so.
A new addiction is born, and on that note I am determined to bake every single recipe in the cookbook.
I will report back.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream (Cupcakes)
Well, I’m back from my holiday. We did NOT die in plane crash, and although I have returned to the UK slightly crispier than before, this is entirely down to the 40 plus degree heat combined with beer at lunchtime forgetting to put on sunscreen regularly, rather than some sort of fiery fireball.
(I’d like to take this opportunity to thank one of my commenters DillyTante for her comforting words on my last post. Thanks, Dilly. Thanks A LOT)
In Skiathos, I pondered on the cake I would like to make for Oliver’s upcoming Beach/Tropical party (Yes, I am THAT sad) and came to the conclusion that I’d like to make cupcakes which look like ice creams.
So, while going out to restaurants to eat delicious food:
I think I'll pass...
Or watching the sun set over the harbour:
*thinks about cupcakes*
Or just generally hanging out:
WHAT?
The idea grew and grew.
So today I decided to have a trial run. I googled about a bit and found a recipe which actually cooks the cake inside a cornet. Genius! I decided to try a few of the cornet cakes and to also try a traditional cupcake in a case.
I assembled the most important ingredients…
The bananas and plums are there for me to make rude fruit salads for my own amusement. (the chicken likes to watch)
…and got to work. The recipe calls for a pretty standard vanilla cake mixture which should then be distributed between 12 cornets (with flat bases). As this is a trial run I only made four and spooned the rest of the batter into some lovely cases which I bought from the local CakePorn shop.
Oh! Do you remember when I told you of my vast and unending love of the two local party shops Here ? Well, in news just in…one has closed down due to financial difficulties and the other BURNED DOWN. *gasp*. So I am reduced to driving to a party shop that also specialises in cake decorations and tins and cases and cake stands and and and I’ll be bankrupt by Christmas.
So I prepared the batter and shared it between the cones and the cases.
Note the large amount of batter in the cornets
I baked them for 25 minutes and got on with the buttercream ice cream icing.
Again, I used a standard buttercream recipe consisting of:
250g unsalted butter
600g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
I also added the second half of a vanilla pod’s seeds (the first half went into the cake batter) and whisked the butter and vanilla together until pale and then added the icing sugar slowly. Adding the sugar slowly made NO FUCKING DIFFERENCE WHATSOEVER and I still ended up with a kitchen which wouldn’t have looked out of place in Miss Haversham’s house. I made half of the mixture without colouring paste, and the other half a small smear of “SugarFlair” paste in primrose yellow.
The cakes came out of the oven looking pretty good…
Hmmm
…but as you can see the cakes in the cornets have risen far too high over the edge of the wafer, when I add the icing this is going to cause a problem.
I got on with decorating the cakes, adding icing, flakes and sprinkles to get an idea of what works best.
Looking pretty good
The inside of the cornet
And the traditional cupcakes looked pretty good too..
YUM!
And so onto a taste test..
The cornets, although looking much more authentic as “ice cream” were far, far too sweet (possibly due to the large amount of frosting needed to cover the overspill of cake mixture). They were pronounced “YUCK!” and “TOO MUCH” and ended up..
Make compost, make something good of yourself Ice Cream Cornet Cupcake...become one with the universe.
(they also wouldn’t sit still on my…and I’m embarrassed to confess that I own one..cupcake stand *shame* which will be necessary to make the small fairy cakes into an effective Birthday Cake for the party)
And so we have a winner!
It's an ice cream in cake form...what's not to like?
But I’ve now got 40 cornets to use up and a ridiculous amount of icing sitting in the mixing bowl, malevolently.
And so I knocked up a cone dipped in icing, rolled in hundreds and thousands and filled with Marshmallow, M&M’s and smarties:
Sugar PLUS
And Oliver and Tom pronounced it “Good” and ate it, wafer and all.
And so, to a couple of links for you if you would like to make cakes that look like ice cream.
And a link to the blog that inspired the cone filled with sweets (actually, this whole blog is filled with wonderful ideas, I would have tried the cupcakes in ice cream pots if only there had been time)
Thank God for trial runs.
