Fat Friday #7 Mojito Cocktail Cupcakes

Its Fat Friday Time. This week we're looking at Mojito Cupcakes-a cocktail in cupcake form. The base is lime flavoured while the buttercream is mint and rum flavoured. I made these ages ago and they were very well received. I barely got a chance to photo them before they were devoured.  
Anyway's sorry for the short post, I'm just travelling back from Tenerife and its hard to bake and holiday at the same time. Will be doing a round up post soon of the holiday. Happy Baking!

Recipe:

Makes 24 Cupcakes  (Recipe adapted by The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma) 

·      275g unsalted butter, softened

·      250g golden caster sugar

·      4 large eggs

·      250g self raising flour, sifted 

·      1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

·      The zest from 3 limes, plus 2 tablespoons lime juice

·      2 tablespoons mint infused milk

 Equipment:

·       2 cupcake tins lined with cupcake wrappers

·       Electric mixer/hand-held electric whisk

·       Sieve

·       Bowl x 2

·       Knife

·       Tablespoon

·       Teaspoon
·       Grater

1.    Pre heat the oven to 170c/375c/ Gas mark 5. Line the tins with cupcake wrappers.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl, and add the lime zest. 
3. In another bowl, cream the butter and sugar together for 2 minutes, add the eggs and lime juice and beat for a further minute. 

4. Add the mint infused milk, beat and add in the sifted dry ingredients. beat the mixture for a further 30 seconds until fully incorporated.   

5. Fill the papercups up about 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes until the cupcakes spring back when touched. Leave cupcakes to cool on a wire rack.  

Recipe:

Buttercream (Recipe adapted by The Cake Book by Cupcake Jemma) 

·      300g unsalted butter, softened

·      675g icing sugar

·      3 tablespoons dark rum/rum flavouring

·      2 tablespoons mint infused milk

Equipment:

·       Electric mixer/hand-held electric whisk

·       Sieve

·       Piping bag fitted with a star nozzle

·       Tablespoon

·       Decorations of your choice, I used cut up straws and crystalised mint

1.Beat the butter with an electric whisk until smooth. 
2. Sift the icing sugar into the same bowl as the butter and mix well until incorporated. 
3. Gradually add the rum and infused milk and beat for about 5 minutes.

4.Fill up the piping bag with the buttercream and pipe onto the cold cupcakes.

5. Garnish with straws or any other decorations. 

What's your favourite cocktail? Happy Baking!

Monday Catch-Up: The First One

This blog has always been focused on recipes and is expanding into bigger and better things. I'm introducing a weekly catch-up with you readers. You know to make sure you're all doing ok and to keep you all informed on the weekends going ons and the forthcoming week in the world of Cupcakes, Cake and Passion. 

Not much has been going on this weekend, on Saturday I found myself down the beach all by myself. I wasn't there for any reason apart from fresh air. As my walk along the seafront continued I noticed people constantly recording on phones, instagramming photos etc. All of which we are guilty of and there isn't anything wrong with that. But for that moment, staring at the sea, listening to the soothing sound of the waves, I thought its nice to have a break from all the tech. For a few precious minutes, I was without a camera/smartphone, and just enjoyed a relaxing moment by myself. I gathered strange looks when I started writing these thoughts down in an old school paper and pen kind of way. If you take away anything from this post is that its fine to have a break from life, step away from the mobile and just take a moment to enjoy life. 

Its been a long time coming really. I mean, we all knew that it was bound to happen at one stage. Also, I found that some of you readers also wanted something different so I'm going to be posting reviews of restaurants. Because why not?! As a foodie I go to as many restaurants as I can get too, but of course meals out cost money so it won't necessary be a weekly thing (oh I wish!). I'll be posting as much as I can, whenever I can. So watch this space!

Also introducing another new feature: Baking Basics 101. Kind of what it says in the title...The inspiration came to me when I was sitting in a cafe in Dorset about a year ago, discussing with my boyfriend's mum about the joy of baking.

We were both chatting over coffee and pecan pie in a vibrant, busy cafe. Comparing recipes and techniques etc, when she mentioned that she knows quite a few people who can bake. Which is in contrast to me, I know a few people who dabble in baking, are too scared to bake for me because their scared I'll slaughter their skills or can't do so at all. I'm sure that many of you reading this post are thinking: "Basics *pffftt* I know what I doing!"

Or maybe, just maybe, a little secretly perhaps, that you would like a little 101 on the baking front. 
Sometimes its good to brush up on the basics, to remind oneself that baking is both a science and an art (Woo check me out with the 'oneself'). The methods I'm going to show you are well known and commonly used in home and professional kitchens. Hopefully, we'll be covering everything you will need to know about baking.

Simply put, I'm going to be posting as often as I can, dedicated going back to the basics of baking. If there's a particular method you would like to know about then comment below, tweet or facebook me with the hashtag #bakingbasics101

Another thing that is happening is that I'm packing to go on holiday! I'm off to Tenerife with my boyfriend on our first ever overseas holiday. We've saved up super hard to afford it and we're super excited. Woo! Hopefully, the hotel will have wi-fi so I can post some pics on instagram 

Happy Monday and see you on Wednesday for the first Baking Basics 101.

Fat Friday #5 Mini American Style Pancakes

I'm working from a 10 year old laptop so forgive me if the font on the pictures are a little odd and I can't fix it, but I didn't want you readers to miss out on this weeks Fat Friday! I'm soon moving to Portsmouth, but had to leave tons of my stuff in London, including my laptop so editing is taking ages. But I'm not going to hold out on you guys so lets get straight to it. 

This weeks Fat Friday involves American style pancakes but there super mini pancakes!!! I was going to name these super kawaii mini pancakes because there so cute and teeny. If I did call them that I think the title picture would have looked like this:

Woah... I think this is how unicorns see the world. This picture is a little too sugar coated, even for me. I'll stick to the original image... 

These are so yummy and can be customised to suit your taste. You like whipped cream? Whip it on them. Chocolate sauce? Just slap it on. For me, its caramel brought back from France (Thanks Rob sugar ;) ). Wow that makes me sound so middle class...

These pancakes are pretty easy and quick to make. Since there mini ones they can be served as a breakfast or a dessert. As an extra added bonus they can be frozen for about a week in an air tight container with baking paper in between them. Defrost them in the fridge overnight for at least 6 hours. They won't be as good as fresh but can be heated gently in the microwave for a minute, depending on your microwave. 

Recipe: Serves 4 greedy people so watch your fingers (Recipe Adapted from the Student Cookbook by Sam Stern)

• 110g plain flour
• 50g melted butter, plus a little extra
• 2 large eggs, separated 
• 150ml milk
• 10g caster sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Your choice of topping: cream, raspberry sauce, whatever you like. 

Equipment:

• Bowl
• Jug
• Hand whisk/(Electric hand-whisk-if your too lazy to whisk egg whites by hand)
• Frying pan
• Sift
• Fork

1. Separate the eggs into two different bowls. 

2.Beat the yolks, milk and butter with a fork.  

3. Sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder into a separate bowl.

4. Add the wet mix slowly into the dry mixture and whisk until the batter is smooth.
5.Whisk the egg whites until fluffy and stiff. Fold into the pancake batter.

6.Brush a heated frying pan with melted butter and drop tablespoons of batter into the pan.

7. Leave room in between each one and cook until the bottoms are brown and it begins to bubble. Turn and cook until puffy and golden.

Have an epic weekend, enjoy the weather (even if its rainy) and Happy Baking!

New Weekly Feature(s)

Now that I've got some more time, I'm going to be posting a lot more. I'm hoping twice weekly but as my job is quite demanding and with me going on holiday soon AND starting another patisserie course, it may be once a week. But hey, I'm well organised so at least once a week should be do-able. 

This is the introduction post to two brand new weekly features: Penny's Top Ten! and Fat Fridays! (Aren't you that excited? What do you mean 'no'?! GO SIT IN THE CORNER!)

Lets start out with Fat Fridays. I'm giving full credit to one of my work colleagues, Lucy Madz, for coming up with the name. (She calls it Fat F**k Fridays but since I've got a varied age range of readers, I'm keeping it clean) Once a week I'll be posting a recipe of something indulgent, yummy, and just, for one day, if you follow a healthy diet, tossing it out of the window. Here is week 1, week 2, and week 3 Fat Friday so far. Which features Raspberry Roulade, Doughnuts and French Toast. 

The second feature I'd like to introduce to you which will be making a weekly appearance is Penny's Top Ten! To break up the masses of recipes on here, this weekly feature will be a list of 10 points on any subject. I'm thinking for the first week maybe something related to a graduation since I've fully graduated like ohhh 3 weeks ago? Still haven't done a round up of it yet. But that's the joys of working full time, you don't get tons of time to blog!

Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks