Count Your Cupcakes

Everyone has seen the film Bridesmaids right? You know the hilarious female led film with enough gross bits to compete with any lad film, puppies as party favours and chris o'dowd trynna make it as a big time movie star... WELL there's a scene halfway through the film where kristen wiig has some sort of ex bakery owner equivalent of crying over your ex boyfriend at midnight and decides to bake a cupcake, except she just bakes ONE cupcake, and ever since seeing that film i have been been desperate to know how she just makes enough mixture for one perfect little cupcake. Obviously she has no effing clue. She is an actress. Not a real life baking lady. The cupcake probably tasted like ass.

ANYWAY, pointless examples aside. I finally found a recipe one day when browsing pintrest- i tracked down the source of the picture and found it on a very lovely and exciting baking blog called Bakergirl- A truly scrumptious baking blog from across the pond with tons of delicious recipes and great photography to go alongside- no iphone snaps and instagram filtering in sight which i am incredibly guilty of in regards to this blog.....

Its perfect because sometimes the thought of making 24 cupcakes in an afternoon and then having to ice them all with nowhere to then take them to afterwards can seem a bit of a pointless waste and probably one of the reasons i avoid making cupcakes unless its someone's birthday, because no one NEEDS 24 cupcakes in the house (yes, i did just say that) and theres always too many and not enough icing etc etc.

So here is the recipe for vanilla cupcakes just for 2, they will make 2 if you're using large muffin cases- or 4 with the standard small cases.
The recipe was a quick and easy success- i was a tad worried as baking is like science and when you start messing with quantities and measurements all sorts can go wrong but after about 15-20 minutes in a pre heated non fan oven at 180c they were soft vanilla perfection!
I baked 4 and bought cute cupcake carry boxes from Hertford cake shop and  took them to the boyfriends. They survived a whole train journey to London til they met some womans wildly swinging backpack on the packed W3 bus. She's lucky i didn't see the damage til i got off otherwise it would have been a heavy mock rocco bag TO THE FACE!

Holly x

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup flour- 32 grams in UK

1/4 heaping teaspoon baking powder

Pinch of salt 
1 1/2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350°F. (180C and no fan) Line a muffin pan with 2 liners.

In a bowl, add egg white and sugar and whisk until combined. Add in vanilla and melted butter and stir until mixed. Add flour, baking powder, and salt and stir until smooth. Stir in milk. Divide batter equally between the 2 cupcake liners.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until cake is set and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Let cool completely & then frost as desired

I was was in the mood for experimenting as i only had 4 to decorate so i made a bright pink creme cheese frosting with smashed up pieces of green and blacks honeycomb choclate and gold edible glitter. Because it was new and i couldn't help myself.

Visit bakergirl's beautiful blog at the budding baketress for this recipe and hundreds of other delicious sweet treats:

Bakergirl

Pesky Purple Piping Bags

Many, many of you will be sitting here laughing at this when i say that at 23 years old, with many many years of baking and cake eating experience under my belt, i have only just learnt how to use a piping bag.
You, laughing person over there, are either:
a) an incredibly experienced baker who has taken baking up as either a full time career or hobby therefore could pipe a cake with your eyes shut because you have the time, patience and practice!
or
b) have never, ever attempted it in your life and think the people on the telly on great british bake off make it look soooo bloody easy surely YOU can do it too! Its just squeezing icing out a bag in a circle right?
RIGHT?!

So my mothers day baking treats this year came in the form of vanilla cupcakes from the magnolia bakery book- another chance to practice this pretty much flawless recipe, adding dry ingredients in 3rds i think has such clear advantages when making cupcake batter, much better than, and it pains me to say this, nigellas 'blitz it all in the processor' approach which i find can end up very runny. This mixture was so thick i almost panicked, but it was easy to put in the cases and baked in about 15 minutes!
I used mini cases and therefore opted for a small nozzle to pipe the icing which when comparing with the mini cupcakes in Lolas bakery a few days later i realised it wasn't essential, a normal/medium sized one works just as well and leaves less lines on the icing, however i twisted and held the bag properly this time, took my time and the icing was a good consistency (cream cheese icing- it holds so well) I also used raspberry flavoring and my absolute first choice for food coloring a lovely violet/lilac one i use on everything!
Not bad for my second attempt. My first attempt we forgot to put the nozzle into the bag before adding the icing. So ya know, baby steps and all that.

Holly x