Thursday was a public holiday and, for me, the start of a long weekend.
Having recovered from the upset stomach (see previous post) I decided some cupcakes were in order.
I am actually capable of making cupcakes from scratch, but I like to keep Betty Crocker on standby, just in case. So I decided to use a Chocolate Fudge cake mix that had been teasing me every time I opened the pantry.
I made up the mix as per directions, but I also added a couple of ingredients based on tips I have picked up through my baking experiments in the last few months. I mixed a teaspoon of instant coffee with a little hot water and added it to the mix (because coffee really brings out the chocolate flavour) and also added a couple of capfuls of vanilla extract (because I lurve vanilla).
For the frosting, I used a great recipe I found last year - cream one and a half cups of icing sugar (I used Tate & Lyle) with half a cup of butter (Kerrygold unsalted) and then add a quarter of a cup of cream (Scottish Pride double cream) and a pinch of salt. Mmmm.
The frosting recipe also calls for a teaspoon of vanilla extract, but I held off on that until I had divided the frosting in two. One batch I flavoured with vanilla and coloured blue, and the other I flavoured with lemon extract and coloured a deeper yellow than the mix already was. Both the extracts I used were from Marks and Spencer, as that is the only place I have found so far in Malta that sells extract as opposed to essence.
A sprinkling of hundreds and thousands, and there you have it.
I have a long and varied history of culinary disasters to my name, but these turned out pretty well asides from that I undercooked one of the trays of cupcakes.
When you bite into one, first the frosting flavour hits you (vanilla or lemon), then you get the actual buttercream taste (although it's overpowered in the lemon), and after that the coffee and chocolate come out to play.
Tomorrow for breakfast I am planning on having Arabica coffee with some of the leftover double cream, and a cupcake, and I have been looking forward to it all evening. Now there's an incentive to get out of bed!
That looks delicious!
Posted by: wen | March 29, 2009 at 12:26
You know? Your cupcakes left me sooo hungry yesterday that I went to Mosta to buy a couple :)
Posted by: wen | March 30, 2009 at 17:32
Helloooo Mrs. Maltagirl... are you still blogging? I've revived my blog :)
Posted by: Giselle | May 08, 2009 at 23:06