Brownie Cupcakes!

I really fancied a chocolate fix and thought the best way to deal with that would be to make some brownies but I had also come across some sweet cupcake cases from Dr Oetker in the supermarket so I came up with the plan for cupcake brownies! I know, I am a total genius you don’t need to say it…

I used a Hummingbird recipe for the brownies from their book which is pretty much the only bakery book I have bought because I am a massive BBC Good Food fan as you may have been able to tell? I also added in some orange zest and chocolate chips which pretty much melted instantly so they were a bit pointless but the white chocolate added a nice swirl on some. The recipe was really easy to follow and quick to do, it made 24 cupcakes and I cooked them for 20 minutes.

For the frosting I kept with the orange theme and added orange zest and juice to plain vanilla butter icing and did a piped splodge on top of each cupcake. I then garnished them with a piece of dried orange from my bag of mixed dried fruit.

The brownies only came out of their cases cleanly once they had thoroughly cooled so I would suggest making them the day before they need serving and with it making 24 its fine if a couple going missing, the chef should always get to eat a bake good warm out the oven!

Loved these brownies, the recipe book and getting to do some quick and easy piping so this is something I will definitely repeat in the future.

Let me know if you give it a go!

Thanks for Reading xx

All my ingredients laid out! Getting started!!

Dr Oetker cupcake cases

Melting butter and chocolate in a Bain marie

Adding my orange zest to get chocolate and orange brownies

What the mixture looks like after adding sugar

Action flour shot!

You can see how smooth its gotten this is the last egg!

Chocolate chips!!!!

Finished batter

It easily made 24 cupcakes

Where the white chocolate has melted and swirled 

Adding a little zest into the butter icing

Halfway through mixing in my icing sugar

Adding orange juice to get the icing light

Just out the oven

Piping ready!

Chef share with some whipped cream because they were too hot for icing

All Done!

The End of the Great Banana Bread Cake!

So I got inspired earlier this week and when I say inspired I just mean I really, really craved a Victoria sponge type dessert. Luckily we weren't able to keep up with our weekly, enough to possibly have a pet monkey, amount of bananas last week so I got to make a banana bread Victoria sponge style cake! 

I used this recipe for the banana bread because I find bbc soooooo reliable, it pretty much guarantees a good dessert. I never really know what the buttermilk does, why can't yogurt do? I might have too look that up! I always mash my banana in the bowl to save washing up but maybe I should have done them separately and coated them in flour as that stops things sinking and my banana sunk to the bottom a little but it was delicious anyway. I separated it into two cake tins to make the cake and started with an oven temp of 160 because I have a fan and 40 minutes for a guestimate and it was pretty spot on. 

For my filling I made a coffee and chocolate butter icing. I use double the amount of icing sugar to butter for all my butter icings so in this case I used 100g butter and 200g icing sugar as well as two teaspoons cocoa powder, all sieved. It totally makes a difference, trust me! Once all mixed in I put two teaspoons of coffee into a splash of milk and microwaved for 20 sec to get the coffee to dissolve then I added three tsps to the butter sugar mixture. I wanted both a coffee taste and for the icing to get lovely and light so keep adding the milk to the icing and tasting until its right for you. If you don't want a coffee taste just add just cold milk to get the correct texture. 

So I forgot to take photos of the finished article, think I was a little bit too desperate to tuck in but here are the last few slices, sorry!

Thanks for Reading xx