Pumpkin Cupcakes!

MMMM. Cupcakes. Have I mentioned I like dessert? It's my favorite food group.

These are some yummy cupcakes. Extra bonus that it's not too sweet, in fact the pumpkin almost makes this taste healthy!

The recipe makes 24 cupcakes

280g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
110g butter, softened
200g caster sugar
5 tablespoons brown soft sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
180ml milk
250g pumpkin puree

For icing:
8 tablespoons (1 stick/4 oz./113g) butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners' (icing) sugar, sifted
3 to 5 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1.Preheat an oven to 190 C / Gas 5. Grease 24 muffin cups, or line with paper muffin cases. I use silicon cupcake cases. They're great, no greasing or paper cases needed!

2.Sift together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, clove, allspice, salt, baking powder and bicarb. Set aside.

3.Beat 110g of butter, caster sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs, one at a time. Stir in the milk and pumpkin puree.

4.Stir in the flour mixture, mixing until just incorporated. Don't overmix! Pour the cupcake mixture into the muffin cases.

5.Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, until golden and the tops spring back when lightly pressed. While the cupcakes are cooling, make the icing.

6.In a large bowl cream together the butter and vanilla. Blend in the sugar, a quarter at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the milk, and continue mixing until light and fluffy.

7.Cover the cupcakes with the icing, either by spreading it with a spoon, or you can put the icing in a small plastic bag and cut a bit off one tip.


Though I don't recommend putting on those little edible ball thingies. Cupcakes shouldn't be so crunchy!

Apple Brown Betty aka sugar overload

So this week over in the bake-along (ravelry link) I've pulled rank and declared it free-for-all week (I didn't want to do a cherry pie) and this morning I just happened to have seen an old email from yet another bake-along I do over on swap-bot called 52 weeks of baking (we're on week 15), where someone had written about the apple brown betty she had made from a recipe by The Pioneer Woman.

One thing led to another, which led to me making some of the yummy (and really sugary) goodness tonight.

I have to say though that I can't see how I could eat more than a few spoonfuls if it had ice cream on it. And if I make this again I would cut down on the brown sugar.

And yes, this is coming from someone who loooves sugar.

Here's the UK version of the recipe with my notes:

3 whole Apples, she used Granny Smith, I used Braeburn
7 slices Wheat Bread
170 grams butter - she called for salted, I used unsalted (it should not be softened)
300 grams Packed Brown Sugar (mine was unpacked and there was still too much of it!)
3 Tablespoons (to 4 Tablespoons) Water

Peel and thinly slice the 3 apples. (If I make this again I might make it 4 and cover the bottom with apples). Dice or tear the 7 slices of bread into very small pieces.

Coat a small baking dish or pie plate with butter (ummm, I didn't do this, and it turned out fine, but if I were you I wouldn't skip this step, just in case). Then add 1/3 of the brown sugar, 1/3 of the apple slices, and 1/3 of the breadcrumbs (again, another layer of apple on the bottom might be nice). Repeat these 3 layers another two times, ending with breadcrumbs.

Preheat oven to 200 C. Slice butter and lay slices all over the top of the breadcrumbs. Sprinkle dish with water and a little more brown sugar (hah!), and bake, covered in foil, until done – about 40 minutes (should be bubbly). Remove foil and bake for a few more minutes until brown.

Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, or Reddi Whip, if you enjoy feeling sick from too much sugar.

And here is my Apple Brown Betty taken with my old crappy point and shoot in incandescent lighting.


(can you tell I have camera envy?)

Peanut Butter dance

Ok, so I didn't really dance when I made these, but I did do a little happy head sway.

I saw these on Joy the Baker's site, and fortunately no one else had any other suggestions on the lets cook group (we do a weekly bake-along).

There is seriously nothing to these.

Peanut butter, sugar, egg, and baking soda. That's it.

Last week I made Almond and Apple Cake. It was pretty easy (though I think it would have been better if I used more apples). All we had was wholewheat flour, but it still tasted great, and the wholewheat made it taste healthy, so we ended up eating a lot of it :)

I wonder what I'll be making next week ...

I hope the oven isn't tired

So I'm part of a weekly bake-along over on ravelry and last week's theme was pizza.

Yum! I used half the recipe for a smallish pizza, the other half was for bread.

I can't remember the last time I made pizza, and I was surprised how few ingredients and steps were needed. The hardest thing was the ten minutes of kneading, which actually felt like 20. But you know, it wouldn't hurt me to develop better upper body strength.

And then on Sunday J was having a bit of a bad day and requested a dessert, so I made Brown Sugar Chew.


This week's bake-along is Rice Krispies Treat (really easy, feel free to jump in and join us). I had to go to a large and slightly more upscale grocery store than the neighborhood ones to find marshmallows, apparently it's a US thing (like microwave popcorn)...

It was a test of willpower to wait until they were cool!


And that was all in the last few days, and I just might make another pizza very soon (have I mentioned already that it was really yummy?).

Has there been any baking lately in your kitchen?

Have my cheesecake, and sunshine too

After writing yesterday's post about the make-along I made a cheesecake. It was about 1 am when it was done but still had to set, so I couldn't try it until this morning. Oh the anticipation!



It's my best cheesecake yet! Which isn't really saying much because I only really remember baking one other one, but it is saying ... something.

It's Lemon Ginger Cheesecake. I put a little less ginger than they called for on the topping since I'm not a big ginger fan (it reminds me of being woozy on long car rides) so it came out gingery, but fortunately not too overpowering.

It was a lovely day today so we went into the city centre where we saw some Japanese tourists taking lots of photos of fancy cars. You know, like you do.


Proof that it was so warm that I took my coat off, that I wore my scarf out, and that I pet a metal pig:


And look! People lounging on Calton Hill.