'Death by Oreo' cupcakes!

Sorry for how quiet it's been here the last month! I had exams so had to get my head down and hit the books for a couple of weeks in preparation. However, it's over and done with now, so normal service shall resume!

'Death by Oreo' cupcakes (makes roughly 20)

Ingredients:

2 packets of normal sized Oreo cookies

1 box of mini sized Oreo cookies

Dry Ingredients:

225g self-raising flour
225g sugar
21g cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon of salt

Wet Ingredients:
120ml milk
2 eggs
55g chocolate (melted)
110ml boiling water
90ml oil
½ tablespoon vanilla

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degress celcius.

2. Line a muffin pan (a cupcake pan will be fine if you don't) with large paper cases.

3. Take an oreo, and carefully twist it open. Place the biscuit with the icing on at the bottom of the case, repeat. (It's good to have an extra packet of Oreos for the inevitable casualties!) Keep the other half of the oreo for the frosting.

3. Place your chocolate in a small bowl, and then place over a pan of simmering water until it is melted. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together all your dry ingredients.

5. In another large bowl, whisk your eggs until they thicken slightly and turn pale in colour.

6. To the egg mix, add in the milk, vanilla and oil and whisk well.

7. Then add in the cooled chocolate, and again whisk.

8. Add the wet mix into the dry mix, (or vice verus depending on which bowl is bigger!) and mix just to combine. Then mix in your hot water.

 9. Fill the cupcake liners about 3/4 of the way full (due to this it was hard to work out how many cupcakes the recipe would actually produce, so I had a couple without oreos in the bottom).

 10. Bake in the oven for around 15-18 minutes, or until when the sponge bounces back when pressed lightly with a fingertip.

 Frosting ingredients:

125g unsalted butter

250g icing sugar

1-2tbp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Oreo halves (crushed)

1. While the cupcakes are cooling, you can make a start on the frosting. First of all, take your oreo halves and blitz them either in a food processor, or place in a freezer bag and bash with a rolling pill until they reach crumb consistency.

 

2. Whisk together the butter and icing sugar, adding a splash of the milk and vanilla extract until the mixture is light and fluffy.

3. Mix in the oreo crumbs.

 4. Once the cupcakes are cooled, either pipe on the frosting with a piping bag and nozzle, or just spread over the cake with a knife.

5. Cut a mini oreo in half, and place it on either side of the cupcake. (Note, best to do this before serving, as mini oreo's go soft very quickly in the frosting!)

 Recipe adapted via a cup full of cake.

Checkerboard Cake.

I've been going to my local library to check out the cookery books. It's the best of both worlds as you get to try all sorts of different recipes and without having to buy a expensive book! My library has a decent selection to browse through and so a couple of weeks ago I brought back the "Green & Blacks Chocolate Recipes". I had a quick look through and the cake that struck me the most was the checkerboard. It is a pretty big cake, so it deserved a big occasion - my friend's 20th! 

Checkerboard Cake (adapted via "Green & Blacks Chocolate Recipes")

Ingredients:

Vanilla batter:

225g unsalted butter

225g caster sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

250g plain flour

10g baking powder

Chocolate batter:

225g unsalted butter

225g caster sugar

4 large eggs

220g plain flour

50g cocoa powder

10g baking powder

Vanilla frosting:

80g unsalted butter

250g icing sugar

1-2 tbsp of milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Chocolate Ganache:

150g dark chocolate (minium 60% cocoa solids)

150ml whipping cream

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees.

2. Butter the three cake tins and line the bases with greaseproof paper.

3. Make the vanilla cake batter. Cream together the butter and sugar thoroughly. Add the eggs, one by one, mixing until well incorporated, then add vanilla extract. Sift together the flour and baking powder andt add to mixture, stirring well. Take note that this mixture will be quite stiff!

4. Make the chocolate cake batter. Same instructions as before (minus the vanilla extract of course!) and sift in the cocoa powder at the same time as the flour and baking powder. Stir. Once again, the mixture will be stiff.

5. Time to make the rings of batter! You can either do this by placing the cake batters in different piping bags and piping a ring around, or do what I did and spoon a rough circle shape around the tins. Start by piping a ring of vanilla, then chocolate etc. On the next cake pan, start with a ring of chocolate then vanilla etc and then finally on the third cake pan repeat the pattern from the first.

I ran out of cake tins and had to make one cake in a pie dish!

 

  6. Bake in the preheated oven for around 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

7. Leave cakes in their tins to cool for around 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

 8. Prepare the vanilla frosting. Mix together the butter and icing sugar with an electric whisk. Mix together the milk and vanilla extract and add a teaspoon of the mixture at a time while whisking. Stop adding milk when mixture sticks to the back of the spoon and is light. Whisk for around 4-5 minutes.

9. Once your cakes are cool, place the first vanilla ring on the bottom and spread vanilla frosting over the top. Place the chocolate ring on top and repeat. Finally add the other vanilla ring on top.

 10. Make the ganache. Melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl suspended over a saucepan of simmering water. Once melted set aside.

11. Whip the cream until soft peaks form, then pour the hot chocolate over the cream mixture whilst continuing to mix until the chocolate has just blended.

12. Once the ganache is cool, spread over the entire cake.

I iced mine with a birthday message. It was my first time actually writing words, so it was a bit dodgy!

 It was a surprise to find out how well the checkerboard design had worked out as, of course, I only got to see inside when the birthday boy cut the cake! I think the idea of checkerboard was there - it would have probably been better if I had piped the rings so they were consistent but still!

Banana and Chocolate Marble Cake.

The last time I made Marble Cake it turned out to be pretty dry. Was it my recipe, my oven or just cooked too long, who knows? We still ate it, but with some custard so it wasn't a complete disaster!

My friend requested a Marble Cake for movie night so I knew I had to adapt the recipe to make sure that it was moist. And what cake is always moist? Banana bread of course! So, a Banana and Chocolate Marble Cake it was.

 

  

Banana and Chocolate Marble Cake (serves 8)

 125g butter
125g caster sugar
125g self-raising flour
2 medium eggs
2 slightly mushy bananas
5-10g of cocoa powder

 

1. Cream butter and sugar together.
2. Add one egg and about half the flour, stirring until fully incorporated. Repeat with the other egg and remaining flour.
3. Peel and break the bananas into rough pieces. Place in bowl and then mash with a fork until more of a liquid consitency.
4. Place around a third of the cake mixture into a seperate bowl and add the cocoa powder. Mix until combined.
5. Add the bananas to the plain cake mixture and combine.
6. Grease and flour two 20cm cake tins.
7. Dollop alternative spoonfuls of the banana and chocolate cake mixture between the pans and then, using the handle of a spoon or a skewer, swirl around to create the marble effect.
8. Place in a preheated oven of around 180 degrees celsius for around 25-30 minutes. Remove when either the sponge bounces when pressed or when a skewer comes out clean.

You could always do this in a loaf tin but I wanted to make to cake with filling and all. I used my usual vanilla frosting recipe from Hummingbird to sandwich this together as it isn't too sickly and again, just adds some moisture.

Wondering what happened to the dinosaur biscuits I said I'd make a couple of weeks back? Here's a sneak preview!

Check back next week for the full post!

I actually made a lion cake!

I went up to Dundee for a couple of days to stay with some friends and we ended up looking round TK Maxx where I found a small lion tin. I couldn't resist! Once I returned home, I invited my friend Steph over and we set about making it.

The pan came with a recipe so I decided to use theirs which was a big mistake. It started overflowing in the oven and when we cut it apart it was filled with nothing but air! Disappointment galore.

I went back to the recipe I always use and it worked fine. Lesson learnt! The lion had a some difficulty getting out the pan so we had to do a little reconstructive surgery to save it. We then frosted it with chocolate and plain frosting.

Here is the finished result. I think it looks adorable!

Easy Chocolate Truffles

My flatmate makes these whenever there's a bakesale and they're really tasty and easy to do. I didn't have the recipe to hand, so a quick google led me to 16 digestive biscuits, a can of condensed milk and 6 heaped tablespoons of drinking chocolate. Very easy!


First of all, smash the digestives into crumbs. I put mine in a large bowl and bashed them with the end of a rolling pin.


After the digestives have been crushed, add six heaped tablespoons of drinking chocolate and mix together.


Then, add the whole can of condensed milk and mix thoroughly until you have a sticky mixture. Refridgerate for 10-20 minutes until the mixture keeps it shape when you mould them.



Pour some drinking chocolate in a bowl. Roll the mixture in between your hands until you have a ball shape and then roll in the drinking chocolate powder. Repeat!