Shame shame shame.
I must explain. I am pregnant. And I am not one of those fabulous, glowing, liberated, at-one-with-my body pregnant women. I liken my pregnant self with something a little more akin to how Keith Richards would feel after a busy week.
So, more recently, the cloud has lifted and I am suddenly not feeling sick (well, not too sick), and I am finally thinking clearly. Clearly enough to make sentences. I'm not too sure about the quality of these sentences, but they are somewhat better than the many ridiculous drafts I did during the first 25 weeks of pregnancy.
So I sit here surrounded in mess. Surrounded by all of the things I should be doing, like cleaning, washing the banana out of my hair, etc. and I do something far more important. I write about cakes (and, by the looks of things so far, myself).
I have been baking, although not as much as I would like, and I recently did a wedding cake for a lovely couple. They asked for bride and groom cakepops, 3 different varieties of cupcakes and a red velvet cutting cake.
This blog is about the cupcakes. We have a fabulous red velvet cake recipe from the amazing Bakerella, so that was easy. Then I thought I would like all the cakes to be the same texture and consistency, so I adjusted the red velvet recipe to make a chocolate cake recipe and a pistachio cake recipe.
It took some time to get the pistachio recipe correct. I won't go into details other than to say it was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Here is a montage to summarize:
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| Photographic evidence of my Keith Richardness. |
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| Hmmm, this was funnier in my head. |
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| I know, I'll add a picture of the baby helping. This will up the cheese factor. |
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| Back to his hideously tired mother. |
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| Note: fabulous new oven! |
Here are some recipes:
Chocolate cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup cocoa
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs - lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Method:
1. Whisk dry ingredients together in a bowl.
2. In a seperate bowl, mix wet ingredients together.
3. Add wet ingredients to dry and whisk on high for about a minute.
How easy was that!
4. Now divide the mixture between your cupcakes. Only fill the cups about half way, you should get about 45 cakes out of this recipe.
5. Bake in the middle shelf of your oven at 190 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes, or until a scewer inserted into them comes out clean.
6. Allow to sit for 10 minutes in the tin before transfering them to a wrack to cool.
Pistachio cupcakes:
2 1/2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs - lightly beaten
1 1/2 cups oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon of almond essence.
1 cup pistachio nuts - roasted and chopped.
Method:
1. Whisk the first 4 ingredients together.
2. In a seperate bowl, whisk wet ingredients together.
3. Add wet mixture to dry ingredients, mix on high for one minute.
4. Fold pistachio nuts into mixture.
5. Now divide the mixture between your cupcakes. Only fill the cups about half way, you should get about 45 cakes out of this recipe.
6. Bake in the middle shelf of your oven at 190 degrees celcius for about 15 minutes, or until a scewer inserted into them comes out clean.
7. Allow to sit for 10 minutes in the tin before transfering them to a wrack to cool.
I iced all of the cakes with the insanely yummy white chocolate cream cheese frosting which Susie has blogged about before. It is in our recipe index here
Here are some photos!!!
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| Oh my! How did that get there!? HANDSOME!! |
Katy.xx
