Almond, Strawberry and Champagne jam, Rose Cupcakes

I've been wanting to try my hand at creating rose cupcakes for a little while now.

I've seen plain ones, multi coloured or two toned ones, mini and large ones. They really are so pretty. Surely they'd be tricky to make? Turns out, they are very simple to create indeed!

I was throwing a small summer tea party for family and decided that these would be a perfect addition. Light almond sponge, decadent strawberry and champagne jam filling and a pretty topping. Romantic summery cakes!

Your grandma/mum/aunt/sister will love them and may even make a sort of cooing noise at how pretty these little cakes are, taking pictures to show Auntie Jean or Betty down at the bowls club (not your sister, that would be odd). Your grandad/dad/brother/uncle will express how impressed they are in a more discreet manly fashion and may even make a 'hmph' noise on site of these. However, they will probably ensure that they also pick up a big manly wedge of pie or sandwich to accompany one of these on their plate and only secretly and quietly quaff one. Probably in one bite. Like a man. Saying something like 'Did it look like a rose on top? I hadn't noticed. I just ate it.'

First, I started on the almond sponge. This is a recipe I've used time and time again. It creates quite ugly looking cakes, due to the fact that there is no actual butter or oil in the mixture (just ground almonds, eggs, sugar and baking powder). This recipe is from Kate Shirazi's cupcake magic book. Its the recipe used to create her cherry and almond cakes. Don't be fooled by looks though. There's a reason I use this recipe so often. It's delicious and very light!

This is the first time that I have used my shiny new stand mixer to make this recipe. I can't believe the difference it made! The structure of the cupcakes comes from the whisked egg whites. The mixer whisked them to such a volume that instead of making 12 cupcakes, as normally would be the case, it made 18!

Here's the mounds of whisked egg whites! Clever little mixer.

 
Here are 12 of them, straight out of the oven, not looking particularly attractive. But my house smells of sweet baked almond cake and we all know that in an hour or two they will be prettily decorated and no one will be any the wiser!

After these have cooled I used a melon baller to scoop out the centre of each cupcake. Its up to you what you decide to do with the centre. You may wish to test each scoop as you go along (to check for consistency) you may wish to ask a friend to supervise you and ensure that you throw all of these little sweet almond cake centres in the bin because once you have tasted one scoop I can guarantee you will want the rest. Sweet, fluffy and light almond cake bites!

Then I filled each cupcake with a spoonful of strawberry champagne jam. I used Whittard's, its my favourite jam. Sweet, indulgent with a strong, rich strawberry flavour. yum!

  

Now its time for the fun bit! The icing!

Firstly you have to ensure that you have one of these nozzles...

This is a 2D nozzle from the craft company. http://www.craftcompany.co.uk/drop-flower-nozzle-11361.html Who'd have thought such an inexpensive purchase could transform ordinary piped icing into pretty two toned pink roses? I trapsed all around Manchester trying to find one of these nozzles and despite the number of specialised baking shops we have in the city, none of them had any! So I bought this online instead and also stocked up on some pretty 'brown' polka dot cupcake cases (which actually look grey and offset the pink of the roses wonderfully) and pink polka dot cases. I then resisted the temptation to buy about 10 other items I hadn't realised were so essential until I saw them (cake thermometer, teddy face cupcake mould and rainbow dust scented sugar strands with a pumpkin scent. Who knew these existed? They are now all essential items though. Must pop back nearer halloween for those sprinkles...)

Then, as I wanted to create a subtle two toned colour for my roses I added a small amount of rose pink colour to my vanilla buttercream.

Then I 'painted' the inside of my piping bag with the concentrated rose pink icing colour. I had meant to buy a new brush to do this but forgot to. So, I improvised and my pastry brush was used instead!

Don't worry. We cleaned him up afterwards and and all was well.

Here's how the bag looked...

Then I spooned the icing into the bag and off we went...

To create a rose you ice from the centre outwards in a swirl. It's as simple as that.

Here they are!

These cupcakes look impressive but were surprisingly simple to make and were a fantastic addition to my summer tea party.

And the taste? The almond sponge was as light as a feather and contrasted wonderfully with the pocket of rich sweet strawberry champagne jam that melted into the smooth vanilla buttercream. Perfect summer cakes. But really, these were so pretty, who could bare to bite into one? Turns out, everyone.

Oh well, I suppose I'll just have to make some more!

Chocolate, Peanutbutter, Chocolate Fudge and Peanutbutter Marshmallow Frosting 'I love you very much. Thankyooooouuu!!' Cheesecake

Sometimes saying thankyou isn't enough.

I knew I was in one of those situations when I found myself in a state of bakery shell shock stood in my kitchen stroking a shiny new red mixer on the verge of tears and unable to move, muttering things like 'but think of the meringues' and 'theres a bread hook' as well as 'think of the cakey possibilities' under my breath to no one in particular.

So I made this...

That is a chocolate and peanutbutter cheesecake with chocolate and peanutbutter fudge topping and peanutbutter marshmallow frosting, filled with pockets of Reece's peanutbutter cup pieces.

And here is the mixer that inspired such a creation...

 So shiny and red and pretty. We've been together a week now and I'm very much in the early throws of love. I find myself daydreaming about her during the day. The baking possibilities she presents are quite mind confumbling. There are different settings for if you are whipping cream to whipping up a meringue or kneading bread or making fresh pasta. I find myself not wanting to leave the house.

Anyway, enough of me gushing over the new love of my life and back to the cake...

The mixer was a very generous present from Mr CaptainEggCupCake. So I decided to make him a dream cake. You may be aware from earlier posts that cakes aren't really his 'thing'. So it would have to be something rather special.

So I took the base of a cheesecake I had made from Marian Keys 'Saved by cake' book. The cheesecake in that book is a manly snickers cheesecake. Its a VERY good cheesecake but I needed something more. I wanted cheesecake, chocolate, marshmallow frosting, peanutbutter and cheesecake and peanutbutter and peanuts and chocolate, more more more!!! You get the idea! All of his favourite things to eat (other than pork pies- that didn't really fit in. I think I quite sensibly left that out of this creation).

The base was a simple mix of chocolate digestives and salted peanuts whizzed up in a processor and mixed with enough melted butter to bind and then flattened into the bottom of a cake tin. Yummy salty but sweet chocolate and peanutbutter biscuit base. Easy Peasy...

Next I turned to another cook book 'Tea with Bea'. This is a great book, often quite intricate recipes but you can guarantee that whatever you make from it will work and will be delicious. I used the filling described in the chocolate and peanutbutter cheesecake recipe. It involved making two types of cheesecake filling. Both with a cream cheese and whipping cream base, one with a vanilla flavour and one with oodles of melted chocolate poured in...

I then splodged both of the cheesecake fillings on top of the biscuit base and swirled them into each other using a spoon. Then, for good measure I got a couple of packs of these...

I ate one to test that I still liked them (its a while since I last had one). You can choose to say that you are checking to see if they are stale or use any other excuse you can think of to justify this behaviour. Then I chopped the surviving Peanut Butter cups into chunks.

Then you throw them on top of your cheesecake...

Mix them into the mixture and pop in your preheated oven.

Then pace around your kitchen, up and down your hall and around your living room like an expectant father waiting for his newborn baby to arrive.

When she's done she will look like this...

Then, more patience is required. When the cheesecake is cool enough put in the fridge overnight...

The next day I prepared the first topping. This is a chocolate fudge frosting, also from the 'Tea with Bea' book. Its essentially melted chocolate, cream, butter and golden syrup. When its warm it will be runny but as it cools it turns into a layer of sweet chocolate fudge. I blobbed this onto the top of the cheesecake whilst it was still a little warm.

Once this has been piled on and spread all over the top of the cake like so...

I then melt some crunchy peanutbutter for 20 seconds in the microwave and swirl that into the chocolate fudge layer.

Then I popped it back in the fridge for an hour for the chocolate peanutbutter fudge layer to set.

Whilst that was setting I set about making my peanutbutter marshmallow topping. This is where it gets a bit scientific and tricky.

It involves a thermometre and whisking eggs and sugar for a looooong time over a pan of simmering water at a very low heat.

Eventually, you can transfer this to your brand new exciting shiny mixer of dreams to whisk for a further 12 minutes once the mixture has hit the magic 70 celcius.

Go on shiny new mixer!!! Mix me some marshmallow fluff!!!!

Then I add dollops of crunchy butter and a few tablespoons of butter. I cobbled this recipe together from about three recipes for marshmallow frosting that I found on the internet.

Then, after holding my breath and very very carefully extracting the cheesecake from the tin without it falling apart (phew!) I piped this marshallowy yummyness in swirls onto the top of the cheesecake...

And to finish I sprinkled with chopped salted peanuts and some of the left over milk chocolate fudge frosting.

Finally!!!! The cake is complete!!

I had planned to share this with my other half and my mum who was popping around that afternoon. I spent a grueling 47.5 minutes waiting for my mother's arrival and for my other half to get back from the shop.

I WANT CAKE!

So I cut a little slice...

Oooo!! I wish they would hurry up and ARRIVE!! I can see a little piece of Reece's peanutbutter cup in the bottom left oozing into the cheesecake mixture.

The smell of this cheesecake is immense. Creamy chocolate, vanilla, peanutbutter and sweet marshmallow.

At this point, I'm seriously considering whether I should wait.

I cut up more slices so they're ready for when they get back...

Oooo this slice is collapsing on one side under the weight of its own dobber sized toppings. mmmmm....

FINALLY they arrive! (just as I'm contemplating whether 'you were too late, I ate it all' was really an acceptable reason to give them for just eating the whole thing to myself in one go or if it would be better to deny having made any cake at all or to just pretend it all went wrong and say I threw it in the bin.)

We all sit down to slice of cheesecake in the sunshine...

 Ok, so I may have nibbled that bottom right hand section of this slice just before everyone's arrival just to 'test' it.

Silence reigned as we scoffed our slices of cheesecake! Other than the odd exclaimation of 'good god!!' 'mmmmmm!!', scoff scoff 'yum!'

This is a SERIOUSLY GOOD cheesecake.

The marshmallow frosting is soft, foamy and sweet with a creamy flavour of salty peanutbutter and goes perfectly with the intense chocolatey, fudgy chunky peanut butter hit you get from the next layer. This all melts into the thick swirls of chocolate and vanilla cheescake. The cheesecake itself is thick, creamy and dense. Each mouthul is different because of the two different fillings and pockets of Reece's Peanutbutter cups. One mouthful can be more peanutbutter and vanilla, the next creamy chocolate. Then the base binds it all together with its chocolaty, salty peanut crumb. A perfect rustic contrast in texture next to the thick dense creamy cheesecake.

A wonderful mix of textures, the crumb of the base, density of the creamy cheesecake, hit of the chocolate fudge followed by the light fluffy sweet marshmallow topping. mmmmmm...

mmmm.......

The many textures and variations of some quite simple flavours make this a truly remarkable and enjoyable cheesecake experience. I'll be hard pushed to find a better cheesecake recipe.

But as you all know. I will try!

And what did Mr CaptainEggCupCake think of his thankyou cheesecake?

Well, after inhaling a slice in approximately 7 seconds flat and enquiring after a second piece. He took two slices with him to work the following day and asked 'what are you going to make me next with your new mixer?' He is a wise boy indeed. The mixer was an ingenious investment indeed for my chief cake tester!

So if you want to say a big thank you to someone. You wouldn't go far wrong by making them one of these!