Happy Pancake Day!

For those of you who don't reside in the UK or who have no idea what 'pancake day' is, I shall explain. Pancake Day or 'Shrove Tuesday' is the last day before lent begins. In Christian tradition, during lent you must give up rich/fattening foods, specifically 'eggs, butter, milk'. Therefore, on this most blessed day the best excuse ever arose - use up all your fatty foods (or go buy lots of fatty foods to use up ;) by making pancakes. I am a huge pancake fan and always make a big stack of them. And Im not talking about those piddly American pancakes, oh no, these are plate sized crepe pancakes and you can fill them with a range of deliciousness - bananas & chocolate spread, fruit, ice cream, maple syrup, golden syrup, syrup syrup and of course the classic, lemon & sugar.

Now the 'what' is out of the way, now for the 'how' - this is my go to pancake recipe which I have been using since I was a (slightly) smaller girl. And you can tell I've been using it since I was a short stack *pancake reference* as it's straight out of one of my favourite recipe books from my childhood, 'The Usborne First Cookbook.'

Ingredients

250g Plain Flour
a pinch of salt
570ml milk & water mixed (I usually just use milk)
2 eggs
1 tbsp melted butter

1. Sift the flour and salt into a big mixing bowl.
2. Make a hollow in the flour and break in the eggs. Whisk them, drawing in some flour from the sides.

3. Add the milk & water a bit at a time. Keep whisking until everything is mixed together. Add the melted butter and beat until mixture is smooth.

4. If you have time, leave mixture for an hour or so.

5. Melt a little butter in a frying pan and pour a ladleful of batter into the pan, swirl it around so it covers the pan evenly.

6. Cook the pancake until bubbles appear and the edges turn brown.

7. FLIP!!

8. Cook the otherside then turn onto a warm plate and serve with lemon & sugar, chocolate, bananas, maple syrup, golden syrup, fruit and ice cream. (Ok that last bit is mine...)

Ta - da!

Now THAT is a pancake stack!

Enjoy your pancakes everyone :) I'm off to start on mine.

Lucy xx

Lemon Drizzle Guglhupf

I can't believe how long it's been since I updated my blog. It's awful! I am so busy, which is great, but means I don't have much time to blog. However I tried out a non-cupcake related recipe/project yesterday so thought it was a good excuse to blog :)

My family from Austria arrived on Thursday and bought with them some mini guglhupf tins or as you may know them, bundt tins. So I took this opportunity to try out the lemon drizzle cake recipe from 'The Great British Book of Baking' which accompanies the tv series The Great British Bake Off. Now, the actual cake recipe turned out great, it was lovely and moist and had a nice zingy flavour. However, the cake was too moist for this type of mould. Next time I will try a denser cake.

Here's the recipe:

For the cake:
200g Unsalted Butter
250g Caster Sugar
3 Medium Eggs
finely grated zest of 2 lemons
250g Self-Raising Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
100ml milk

For the topping:
100g Caster Sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Zest of 1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 fahrenheit. Put the butter, sugar, eggs and lemon zest into a large mixing bowl. Sift the flour and baking powder into bowl then pour in the milk. Beat with a wooden spoon, or an electric whisk on medium speed until the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.

Transfer the mixture into the tin(s) and spread evenly. Bake in the oven until cake is a good golden brown and firm and a cocktail stick comes out clean - 50 to 60 minutes (I cooked these for 25 minutes).

 Meanwhile, make the topping. Mix the sugar with the lemon juice and zest to make a runny glaze. As soon as the cake is cooked, remove it from the oven and stand the tin on a wire cooling rack. Prick the top of the cake all over with a cocktail stick, then quickly spoon the lemon topping over so that it trickles down into the holes. Leave to cool completely before removing the cake from the tin(s).

It looked great in the tins....

However they didn't want to come out!

This one came out the best:

BUT, it tasted great so I will definitely be making it again. Just not in guglhupf tins!

If you want to buy the book (which I would definitely recommend if you love baking, it has some great traditional recipes), it is available on amazon:

 Great British Book of Baking

Angel Food Cupcakes Recipe

I bought a packet of fresh egg whites from tesco so decided to have a go at making some Angel Food cupcakes. I used this recipe from allrecipes.co.uk: http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/3847/angel-food-cake.aspx#Nutrition

Except I adapted it for cupcakes so didnt use a tin and turn it upside down etc. Also added an extra tsp of vanilla. And don't know if I used exactly 10 egg whites because the packet had 15 in so I just used 2/3 of the packet!!

Ingredients

10 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
250 g (9 oz) caster sugar
125 g (4½ oz) plain white flour, sifted

1. Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F, gas mark 4). Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until foamy. Sprinkle the cream of tartar and the vanilla and almond extracts over them and continue whisking until the mixture is stiff but not dry.

2. Add the sugar, 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking continuously: the mixture should be shiny and form soft peaks.

3. Fold the flour in with a metal spoon, blending it thoroughly without breaking down the egg whites.

4. Spoon the mixture into 24 cupcake cases, filling the cases about 3/4 full and smooth it out with the back of  a spoon. Bake on the lowest level of the oven for about 20 minutes until the top of the cupcake is golden and it springs back when you touch it.

5. Leave to cool for half an hour or so.

6. And ta-da! Decorate however you wish.

I did a couple with vanilla frosting...

One with ice cream...

And the rest I topped with whipped double cream and fresh fruit.

I made it into my Oma's 81st birthday cake. (Oma is Austrian for Grandma by the way!!)

Hope u enjoyed looking at the photos :)

My Guest Post for 'Touching From a Distance' - Cupcakin and Book learnin'

This was my first blog post on cupcaking and I wrote it for http://www.touchingfromadistance.co.uk/ . It features my recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes.

When I was asked to write a guest blog post for TFAD on the connection between cupcakes and literature I admit I wasn’t sure which direction to go in. Yet after the overwhelming response I received on twitter after posting my ‘Cupcakes for Bookworms’ the link seems obvious. What better way to pass a Sunday afternoon than sitting down with your favourite book, beverage and cupcake? No longer are we constrained to a boring biscuit to go with our cuppa and copy of Wuthering Heights, but we can express our creativity and love of books through other means. Cupcakes are the new yo-yo’s, tamagotchis, the new little black dress and everyone wants one. Wedding cakes have turned into elegant cupcake displays and no party is complete without a triumphant tower of cupcakes. This is what gave me the inspiration to amalgamate the two things I love most, cupcaking and book learnin’. And this was the result:



Cupcakes for Bookworms by ~peeka85 on deviantART



Now all I can think about is what else I can put on a cupcake or turn into a cupcake. Cupcake mania has indeed taken over. And I would like to share with you some of my favourite pieces of cupcake art:


Bloody Pumpkin Cupcakes by =Sliceofcake on deviantART


PacmanCupcakes. by ~RebeccaRoseBrine on deviantART


Super Cupcakes by ~babbit-chan on deviantART


Pansy Pots by ~Verusca on deviantART

And if you’d like to try out your own cupcakes, here’s my easy all in one recipe for Vanilla Cupcakes, this makes between 18 and 24 cupcakes depending on how big you make them (because let’s face it, you can never have enough cupcakes) but the recipe can easily be halved.

225g Self Raising Flour (sieved)
210g Caster Sugar
210g Butter or Margarine (I use Stork)
4 Large Eggs (6 small eggs)
2 tsps Baking Powder
1 tbsp Corn Flour
2 tsps Vanilla Essence

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees centigrade. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat until a smooth consistency. The mixture should slowly drop off the spoon into a peak. Divide evenly into cake cases or muffin cases (I prefer muffin cases) making sure they are filled about 2/3 of the way full in order to get a nice rounded cake. Cook for approx 18 - 20 minutes (oven times my vary). You can test they are done by inserting a toothpick, if the toothpick comes out clean it is done. The cake should spring back when touched.

And now you’re ready to decorate with buttercream. I use 140g of Icing sugar and 140g butter but you can change this to suit your own taste depending on how sweet you want it.

Happy Cupcaking!