Cherry blossom
Apr 22, 2011 Cupcakes Bakery
The cherry trees have been in bloom for a few weeks now. Its simply beautiful. My sister suggested to do a cherry cupcake to celebrate this. And so was born the cherry blossom cupcake! Since cherries obviously aren’t in season right now, I used bottled, pitted sour cherries. To add a flowery taste I used lavender and rose water. I also added a full cherry in the middle of the cupcake between two scoops of dough. Here is the recipe for 18 cupcakes,
cake:
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 tsp of baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1/2 cup of cream
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1 cup of pitted sour cherries (I chopped them up with a bit of the juice from the bottle of cherries in a food processor to get smaller pieces of cherries)
- 1tsp of rose water
method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition, then beat on high for 30 seconds
- sift the flour, baking powder and salt together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- add the cream and milk and combine until smooth
- add the cherries and rose water
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- bake for 20 minutes
icing:
- 2 cups of water
- 2 tbs of lavender
- 3 egg whites
- 140g of sugar
- 1 1/4 cup of butter cut in 1 inch cubes
- 1/2 tsp of rose water
method:
- put the lavender in the water and let sit over night to flavour the water
- reduce the flavoured water on the stove to about 1/4 cup
- strain the lavender syrup to remove the lavender flowers, reserve
- combine the egg whites and sugar in a double boiler
- whisk a little until all the sugar is melted away
- take off the double boiler and beat on high until cooled and turned into a firm meringue, touch the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature
- add the butter one cube at a time while beating on a lower speed
- beat on high until you get a nice fluffy texture (it will turn to a cottage cheese kind of texture about half way through, just keep beating)
- add the lavender syrup and rose water
Enjoy 
Tags: 2 Eggs, Baking Powder, Cherry Blossom, Cherry Trees, Cottage Cheese, Cupcake, Double Boiler, Egg Whites, Flavoured Water, Fluffy Texture, Inch Cubes, Lavender Flowers, Paper Cups, Pinch Of Salt, Smaller Pieces, Sour Cherries, Sugar Mix, Tsp, Water Line, Water Method
Lavender and honey
Oct 20, 2010 Cupcakes Bakery
This week I wanted to try something with soft and subtle flavours: lavender and honey. The lavender cake turned out great, but the honey flavoured icing was a bit too subtle for me. I’ll wait until I get my testers opinion of it before passing a final judgement on it though. I already have a bunch of ideas for another go at it. I definitely want to try this icing again!
lavender syrup:
- 4 tbs of water
- 2 tbs of sugar
- 2 tbs of lavender flowers
method:
- put the water, sugar and lavender in a small pot
- bring to a boil and reduce heat
- let it reduce
- sift to get the flowers out (press down on the flowers against the sift to make sure you get all the syrup out of the flowers)
cake:
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 3/4 cups of flour
- 1 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 3/4 cup of whipping cream
- 1/2 cup of milk
- 1tbs of vanilla
- lavender syrup
- 2 tbs of finely chopped lavender flowers
method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- start by beating the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition
- sift the flour and baking powder together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- mix the whipping cream, milk, vanilla and lavender syrup together and then add it to the dough
- line a cupcake mould with paper cups and fill them up to 3/4
- bake for 20 minutes
icing:
- 1 cup of butter
- 2 cups of powdered sugar
- 1 tbs of milk
- 1/3 cup of honey
method:
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- sift the icing sugar and beat
- add the milk and beat until completely combined and fluffy
- add the honey and beat one last time
Enjoy!
Tags: 2 Eggs, Baking Powder, Boil, Cream Milk, Flour, Honey Cake, Judgement, Last Time, Lavender, Lavender Flowers, Paper Cups, Pot, Powdered Sugar, Sugar Mix, Tbs, Tsp, Vanilla Syrup, Whipping Cream
Vacation duo
Sep 2, 2010 Cupcakes Bakery
Hello there! I’ve been on vacation since the last post and enjoying every minute of it, which means I’m behind on my blogging. Well on this very rainy day, I’m here to catch up and tell you I will start working and baking regularly again in September. In the mean time I have two cupcakes to show you!
The first cupcake is chai tea with orange icing. I tried a new chiffon cake recipe. I found it tasted very eggy, but that’s partly because the flavour of the chai didn’t come through enough. One of the ingredients listed was water, so I thought I would just infuse the water with tea, but that wasn’t enough. As my brother later suggested, I could have put spices like cinnamon that are in chai tea directly in the cake batter to bring the taste out more. The texture was great, soft and spongy. I will need to give this one another try!
The second cupcake is vanilla with lavender icing. I had trouble getting the lavender flavour in the icing. I tried making a lavender syrup, but that was always too subtle and overpowered by the butter. I ended up chopping some dried lavender flowers and putting that directly in the icing. That did the trick! The cake was a vanilla yogourt cake, the same I used for the mango and pomegranate cupcake.
Cheers
Tags: Blogging, Brother, Cake Batter, Cheers, Chiffon Cake Recipe, Cinnamon, Cupcake, Cupcakes, Flavour, Hello, Lavender, Lavender Flowers, Mean Time, Orange Icing, Rainy Day, Spices, tea, Texture, Vanilla
