Strawberry & Vanilla Cupcakes (Makes 12)

It is Wimbledon season. And that means two things. Pimms and Lemonade and Strawberries and Cream. So, I have decided to post this recipe, which is for Strawberry and Cream cupcakes, as my homage to Wimbledon. Super easy to make, and extra easy to eat! Enjoy! 

Ingredients

Cake

120g butter

120g caster sugar

120g self raising flour

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1tsp baking powder

1-2 tbsp milk

12tsp strawberry jam

Icing

200g unsalted butter, softened 

400g icing sugar

2-3 tbsp milk (or cream)

4-5 strawberries (a handful)

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, 160 fan or Gas Mark 4. Line your baking tin with 12 cupcake liners, or baking cups. 

Cream your butter, vanilla and sugar in a bowl and whisk until light and fluffy.  Add your eggs, one at a time, then add your flour and baking powder and combine, followed by your milk. 

Now put your cake mix in your cases, until about 2/3rds full. 

Pop in the oven for 18-20 minutes and then allow to cool on a wire rack. 

Once cool, grab yourself a chopstick, and stick it in your cake, and wriggle it around to make a little hole. 

Like so!

Now using a piping bag, pop your jam in each one. Now for the icing sugar!

Firstly, your strawberries. Take the green off the top of them and using a hand processor, blitz them until they are pureed. You need 2 tbsp of puree (if you have any extra it is great on ice cream!).

Now to make the buttercream. Whisk your butter until it goes pale, then gradually add in your icing sugar, followed by your milk. Whisk until light fluffy and lovely! You can do this by hand, with an electric handheld whisk, or with a food mixer. 

Now, take about 1/2 of the butter cream and put in a bowl. Add your strawberry puree. 

Now mix this all together. I added a touch of pink food colouring to add to the buttercream, but you do not need to do this. It should look like this: 

This buttercream will be too wet to pipe, so using a palette knife or spoon, I put this on the cake like so:

Now, with the remaining white buttercream, pipe a little rose on top of your strawberry frosting to make it look like a lovely English strawberry and cream cupcake! 

And there you have it. Game, set, match! Enjoy! 

Marbled Millionaire's Shortbread

Millionaires Shortbread. Named because of the use of a number of rich ingredients. Butter, sugar, caramel and chocolate. What isn't to like? This is an easy recipe from a old cookbook, the Bero cook book, that I have added a few bits to. I love this recipe. You do need to set aside some time for doing this, but it really is an easy recipe, that is guaranteed to wow everyone who you make these for. I cut them in big slabs, but me and my family are a greedy bunch. You could very easily cut these in half and you will easily make at least 24 squares. 

Also, this shortbread is perfect for this recipe, as it is not too sweet, however I would not use it for shortbread on its own, as it would maybe taste a little bland. 

Ingredients

Shortbread

250g plain flour

75g caster sugar

175g butter, softened

Caramel
100g butter
100g light muscavado sugar
2x397g tins of condensed milk

Chocolate Topping
120g dark chocolate
120g milk chocolate
50g white chocolate
small knob of butter

First thing is first. Grease and line a tin approx 35 x 25cms in size, with greaseproof or parchment paper. This helps to lift it out of the tin, so when you slice the finished product you can take it out of the tin before you slice, so you do not risk scratching your tin (I have learnt from experience with this one!)

Preheat your oven to 180 degress, 160 fan or Gas Mark 4. Measure out your shortbread ingredients.

To make you shortbread, in a bowl put in your flour butter and sugar and rub together to form a breadcrumb consistency, and then knead until you form a dough. Press this dough into the base of your tin like so. If you wish you can prick it with a fork a few times.

Now bake your shortbread for 18-20 mins, or until firm to touch and very lightly browned. Like so:

Do not worry if it is not perfectly flat, this is homemade stuff! Now leave your shortbread to cool, and let's get cracking with your caramel!

In a pan (non stick is better if you have it), put your condensed milk, sugar and butter in.

Now, before you start to make the caramel you need to do something very important. Have a quick loo break, make a cuppa, glass of water, beer, wine, whatever. And put it next to your hob. You will not be leaving here for 15-20 minutes, so you need to be patient. I always put a cup or glass of something next to the hob so I can have a drink while I am stirring. Which you need to do constantly. So be patient.

Pop your pan on the hob and heat gently, until all the sugar has dissolved. Stirring constantly.

It should look like this. My husband says it is the colour of a Caramac bar. 

Now you need to bring this to the boil, stirring constantly again. Once it has been brought to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently, stirring constantly for about 15-20 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened slightly. It will go darker to, like this: 

Now leave it to cool slightly for five minutes, and then pour over the shortbread and leave to cool. This could take a good few hours. 

Looks great, but don't be tempted to dip your finger in! 

Once your caramel is cool you can get to making your chocolate topping.  In a glass bowl, chop your dark and milk chocolate up and combine. Add a small knob of butter and melt over a pan of boiling water, making sure that the base of the bowl does not touch the water. 

The reason I add a small knob of butter is for 2 reasons. The first reason is that it makes your chocolate lovely and glossy, and the second reason is that when you come to slicing your shortbread, it is less likely to crack. No idea why, but it seems to work! 

Look how glossy it looks!

Also, melt your white chocolate. You can do this in the same way (without the butter). You can also melt it in the microwave, for 10 seconds at a time, stirring in between until melted. The white chocolate does not need any butter added to it. 

So, with your milk and dark chocolate mix, simply pour this onto your cooled caramel, and using a spatula or palette knife, spread it out so that it covers all of the caramel.

Now for the creative bit! Splodge the melted white chocolate using a teaspoon onto the white chocolate, like so: 

Now run a cocktail stick over the chocolate to create a fabulous marbled pattern. Be as creative as you like! 

All that is left to do is to leave the chocolate to set. This again can take hours. A tip from me at this point would be to not put it in the fridge. If you set the chocolate in the fridge you may find that it melts very easily at room temperature. You could pop it in the fridge after it has set to finish it, but if it sets at room temperature it is much easier to slice also. 

So, once it has set, all that is left to do is to slice it and serve. Another tip for you. Use the largest sharpest knife you have. Don't worry about using a hot knife, a cold knife, blah blah blah. Use a large sharp one. 

Now all that is left to do is to serve and enjoy! 

Madeira Cake

The humble Madeira Cake. My apologies for the awful picture. This cake was made for friends I had coming over, and I had two hours to make something for them, and to quickly take a picture before it was demolished. Which it was, about 5 minutes after I took this picture. 

This cake is a great cake to have in your back pocket for when you need it, it is a very basic simple cake mix, which stores great for a few days (and I think is even better if you can leave it a day before you eat it). It also welcomes flavours, so you could include orange or lemon zest, cherries, chocolate chips, etc.  

You need a loaf tin and also some loaf tin liners. You could grease your loaf tin and try without lining it, but I wouldn't recommend it! You can get your loaf tin liners for £1 from my online shop, here. 

I like mine with jam on, my husband likes it plain with a cup of tea. You decide what works best for you!

Ingredients

175g unsalted butter

175g caster sugar

3 eggs, beaten

150g self raising flour

100g plain flour

2-3 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 160 degrees, 140 fan or Gas Mark 3, and line your loaf tin with a loaf tin liner, or greaseproof paper. 

Either by hand or using an electric mixer, beat your butter and sugar until it goes pale and fluffy. Now add your eggs, little by little. Sift your flour on top of the egg mixture and gently fold these in, followed by your milk and vanilla. Your mix should look something like this: 

Now if you were to add another ingredient, you would do it now. 

Now simply spoon your mixture into the your tin and level the top as best you can. 

All you need to do now is pop it in the oven for an hour. 

It should come out looking like this: 

Simple. Let it cool on a wire rack, before popping into an airtight container until you need to slice and serve. 

Blueberry Cheesecake Cupcakes (Makes 12)

These cupcakes are special. Very special indeed. They have a biscuit base, a lemony sponge, filled with blueberry jam, followed by a cheesecake icing, which is perfect, not to sweet, and super tasty, and finished off with more blueberry jam. I made my own jam, however you do not need to do this. I am also pretty sure this would go great with many other flavours of jam, so mix it up and make something special!

WARNING: These will last five minutes, as they are so super gorgeous!

Ingredients:
Biscuit base:
30g unsalted butter, melted
90g digestive biscuits
1 tablespoon  golden syrup
Cake Mix
135g unsalted butter, softened
125g caster sugar
125g plain flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
zest from 1 unwaxed lemon and 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice
1-2 tablespoon milk
12 teaspoons blueberry jam
Cheesecake Icing
75g unsalted butter, softened
120g mascarpone
420g icing sugar
A few teaspoons blueberry jam

So, pop your oven to 190 degrees, 170 fan or Gas Mark 5. Line a 12 hole muffin tray with cupcake cases, or baking cups, both can be purchased from here.
Set to making your biscuit base. In a food processor, blitz your digestive biscuits while the butter is slowly melting in the pan.

When the butter is melted, take the pan off the heat and add the crumbs, and the golden syrup. Mix to combine, and then put a spoonful (I used a dessert spoon) of the biscuit mixture into each paper case, and press down to make your cheesecake base!

Now for your cake mix. You can use either hand and whisk, electric handheld whisk, or freestanding food mixer.  I used my freestanding mixer with the paddle attachment.
 Combine all the dry ingredients and mix, then add your eggs, butter, lemon juice and zest and mix until combined. Now add your milk and blitz again for 10 seconds or so, making sure all your cake mix is combined.

Divide your cake mix between the 12 biscuit lined paper cases. They should be about 2/3rds full. Pop these in the oven for 20-25 minutes. The sponge should bounce back when touched. When cooked, leave to cool on a wire rack.

Now for the fun bit. Getting the jam in the cake. You can do this a few ways. I have a piping nozzle which you pop into the sponge and pipe the jam in, or you can use a knife and cut a little round out of the cake, insert the jam and pop the little piece of cake you have removed on top of the jam, or you could use a chopstick (or something similar), poke a hole in the cake and wiggle a bit to widen the hole, and then with a piping bag you can pop the jam in (you won't need a nozzle). However you wish to do it is up to you, the end result is a delicious jam filled cupcake, however it is done.

 Now for the icing. Again, by hand with whisk, using a handheld whisk, or a freestanding food mixer. Again, I used the freestanding food mixer, and you could use the whisk attachment, but I used the paddle attachment again.

Whisk together your butter and mascarpone, for a good 2-3 minutes. It should go pale and fluffy. The mascarponse may release a little liquid, this is fine.  Now add half of your icing sugar and beat until combined, before adding the remainder and whisking for a minute or two.  If your icing seems a little wet, add more icing.

Now pipe your icing. I used a round nozzle, but you can get that icing on however you wish, blob it on with a spoon, make swirls, whatever!

Now for the grand finale. Pop a little blob of jam onto your cupcake, and using a cocktail stick, swirl the jam around the icing to get a lovely little effect.

Now eat, and enjoy! Try not to eat them all at once! I would also love to see your creations! You can either find us on Facebook, The Shire Bakery, or on twitter or instagram, @shirebakery. We will give you a little share and mention!

Peach Crumble Cupcakes

I love peaches. They remind me of Summer, holidays and all manner of lovely sunny memories. I also love fruit crumble. Served with cream, custard or ice cream, it is one of those puddings that evokes all manor of feelings inside me. It is one of my favourite comfort foods.

I had the pleasure a few weeks ago of trying a peach crumble for the first time ever, and I can can honestly say I was blown away by how tasty it was, and wish I had known you could put the two together, from now on peach crumble is top of my Summer Pudding list (and I will pop a recipe on here when I make it!)

So, I wondered, how about making a crumble-type cupcake? I also love my cupcakes, and sometimes, I don't really fancy the buttercream topping, and so I have come up with this little wonder. It tastes like heaven, and combines all of my favourite things, peach, crumble and cake!

This cake is quite wet at the bottom, and I have used baking cups with this recipe, as they are lined so no liquid will seep through. You can get these from my website, here.

Ingredients
Tin of peach slices (or halves)
140g unsalted butter
140g caster sugar
2 eggs
1-2 tbsp milk
140g self raising flour
Crumble Topping
60g light brown sugar
60g unsalted butter
100g plain flour
2 tbsp porridge oats (Optional but such a good addition)

So, turn your oven to 180 degrees, 160 fan or Gas Mark 4 and line a baking tray or muffin pan with 12 baking cups.

To start, take your peaches out of the tin, keeping the juices to one side, and chop your peaches into little pieces. Now share these pieces between the baking cups like so:

You will need to keep a tablespoon or two of the juice for the cake mix, but the you can put some of the syrup/juice in the bottom of the cup.

Now to make your cake mix. In a bowl, mix together your butter and sugar until pale and creamy, then add your eggs, mix, followed by your flour. Mix until just combined and then add your milk and peach juice and mix. Divide your mix into the baking cups (making sure there is enough room for your crumble topping)

Now to make your crumble mix. Simply put the sugar, butter and flour in a bowl and rub together to form a breadcrumb consistency. Then add the porridge oats and mix these in. 

Now pop a spoonful of the crumble mix into your baking cups, ensuring you leave some rising room. 

Simply pop in the oven now and bake for 18-20 minutes, until well risen and the crumble top is golden. 

You can serve these straight from the oven with a little jug of custard, cream or ice cream, or you can leave to cool and eat whenever.

However you choose to eat these, make sure you enjoy them!