Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

There were meteor showers last week! I got majorly excited about it and my maternal instinct kicked in to pack two thermos flasks of earl grey tea, blankets, and gluten-free chocolate cupcakes! It was my first attempt at using gluten-free flour so I didn't know how it would turn out but it turned out great! I also had the luxury of decorating them with lots of pink. Gosh, such a princess!

Recipe for Gluten Free Chocolate Cupcakes

Ingredients

• 250g of softened butter (1/2 cup)
• 1 cup of caster sugar
• 1 1/2 cups of gluten-free flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp xanthan gum
• 1/4 cup of cocoa powder
• 2 tbsp milk
• 3 eggs

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees/Gas Mark 4. Line cupcake tin with cupcake casings.
2. In a large mixing bowl, sift flour, baking powder and xantham gum together.
3. In a separate bowl, mix butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and flour alternately. Sift in cocoa powder and finally add the milk to form a smooth batter.
4. To put the batter into the cupcake casings, either use a piping bag OR use a large tablespoon and teaspoon. With a large tablespoon, scoop a generous amount of batter and scrape it off into the casing with the teaspoon in one movement. The batter should fill the each casing to at about 3/4 full.
5. Bake in the oven for 12 - 15 minutes until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.
6. Ice with buttercream icing

For Buttercream icing, simply mix 150g of butter with 280g of sifted icing sugar, 1-2 tsp of milk and 1 tsp vanilla. 

Strawberry Cream Cake

June is the perfect time for summer cakes despite the rain as you can enjoy summer by baking your cake and eating it too! The strawberry season was perfect in early June and I this cake went quickly as soon as it was set on the table. It's incredibly simple and a delight to make!

I modified this recipe from BBC good food's recipe of their amazing Victorian Sponge Cake, which was obviously very vital to making a nice fluffy cake. The link is:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/victoriaspongewithst_90309

Definitely preferable if you have two sandwich tins so you can make a little layer inbetween them which just adds to its look!

Recipe

Ingredients:
For Victorian Sponge Cake (directly from BBC Good Food),
225g of butter
225g of caster sugar
225g of self-raising flour

4 large free-range eggs
1 tsp of vanilla essence
For filling and garnish,
200g whipping cream (no need to be accurate; but more is better!)
125g of strawberries (depending on how much you want on it!)
2 tbsp caster sugar

Directions:

1. Prepare two 17cm sandwich tins by lining them with baking paper. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
2. Sift the flour in a large bowl. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Now add the eggs and flour into the butter mix. To do so, slowly add flour into the butter mix, alternating with each egg. I use this technique to ensure the batter doesn't get too dry or wet and to not overbeat the mix. Add 1 tsp of vanilla essence.
5.  Pour the mix equally into both sandwich tins and level it with a spatula. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Leave to cool.
6. Flip the cakes upside-down and peel off the baking paper. Turn them over again and set them side by side.
7.  For the topping and filling, first cut the strawberries into quarters.
8. Using a mixer (as it is much easier!), beat the whipping cream with the caster sugar until it is slightly stiff and forms small peaks. Do not overbeat it as it will curdle!
9. Using a spatula (or the blunt edge of a wide knife), spread the whipped cream over one of the cakes. Then place the strawberries generously over the cake. Put the other cake on top of this and repeat by spreading the whipped cream. Decorate it with the strawberries and you're ready to eat!

This is an amazingly light cake, which makes it so more-ish and impressive when presented! So I definitely recommend making this to those who have that nagging strawberry craving as I made it out of a whim and it turned out great! Effortless and tasty, just what every girl wants ;)

A very Simple Rainbow Cake

This year has been a huge test on my baking skills, and I've been constantly chosen to be the birthday baker. So as my time in university draws to an end, I decided to end the last birthday cake with a bunch of colours shoved into one cake - the really lazy rainbow cake!

What most bakers do is, with much TLC, bake a layer of cake in a sandwich tin in a different colour. I decided to skip all that hassle, and merge it together to create some chaos. 

The idea is simple. Make the batter for a sponge/white cake and split it into several bowls. Colour each one in a different colour and shove it back into a tin and bake it. Yes, I make it sound crude but you'll get it easier that way. So here's the recipe for a Simple White Cake, and then the procedure will explain the process of making the rainbow cake:

Ingredients

•  1 cup caster sugar
• 1/2 cup butter (approximately 250g)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cups of self-raising flour, sifted (alternatively use all-purpose flour and 1 3/4 tsp of baking powder)
• 1/4 cup milk

Procedure

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees/Gas Mark 4. Use an 8x2 inch pan or a 9x1.5 inch pan. 
2. Using a large mixing bowl, mix softened butter with sugar until fluffy. Add the sifted flour alternately with the eggs and mix. Finally, add the milk to get a smooth batter.
3. Separate the batter into as many bowls as you want colours. So if you want 5 colours, split the batter into 5 batches. Easiest way of doing this is just getting the three prime colours to make blue, red, yellow, green and orange batter.
4. Then like a marble cake, alternate the batter into the cake tin. Your cake will end up with chunks of colours as seen below. You can also swirl the batter to create a more marbled effect.
5. Finally, bake the cake in the preheated oven for 30 - 45 minutes until an insert toothpick comes out clean.

So that's all fine and dandy. For the icing, I used a buttercream icing:

• Just mix 150g softened butter with 250g sifted icing sugar and 1-2tsp of milk and 1 tsp of vanilla extract. I usually just mix the icing until it forms stiff peaks.

Then you can colour the cake whatever colour you want! I opted for a sunny orangey pink colour which was more of an accident than a colour. The best part of course comes when you cut into the cake to see all the pretty colours!