Thee met Aimée

Iets lekkers met een bite!

Thee met Aimée

Showoff post: Baby shower / child’s birthday cupcakes

Nijntje cupcakes 2Over the past months, I’ve also been making themed cupcakes. These ‘Nijntje’ cupcakes (a famous figure from children’s books) were for a boy’s third birthday, and the Mickey Mouse cupcakes were made for the guests of a babyshower. Contact me at theemetaimee [ at ] gmail.com if you would like to order your own themed cupcakes!

Nijntje cupcakes 1

Mickey Mouse cupcake

Cappuccino cupcakes

Two great friends of mine had recently given me a very decent coffee maker — for free! There was really only one way to say ‘thank you’, which was to have them over for coffee with a treat. For the occassion, I whipped up these cappuccino cupcakes within the hour. I believe these portrayed my gratitude appropriately!

Ingredients:

200 g flour

7 g baking powder (approximately 1 tablespoon, or you could use self-raising flour)

220 g sugar

a pinch of salt

1 egg

180 ml milk

60 ml vegetable oil (I prefer peanut or sunflower)

vanilla extract, or the contents of  1 ‘fresh’ vanilla bean

some tablespoons of extra extra extra strong coffee, to taste

mascarpone, or another type of delicious heavy cream, about 125 g

powdered sugar, amount to taste

  1.  Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt).
  2. In another bowl, mix together the wet ingredients (egg, milk, oil, coffee) and vanilla.
  3. Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, pour the mixture in baking cups lined up in a cupcake baking tray and bake for about 25 minutes at 180 degrees celsius.
  4. Mix powdered sugar into the cream until you think the taste is just sweet enough.
  5. When the cupcakes are cooled (preferably on a wire rack), just smear the cream on top, and finish with a some chocolate sprinkles or cocoa powder.

The ultimate no-nonsense chocolate cupcakes

NOTHING beats chocolate! To me, the ultimate treat is sweet and contains chocolate in some shape or form. These days, cupcakes are all the rage. That’s probably got something to do with the easy preparation -anyone can do it-, ingredients – anyone can get it- and ready to eat serving portions -everywhere can these be served, no plates or cutlery neccessary-.

So here’s hoping this recipe for chocolate cupcakes will inspire you to get baking — from scratch! Yesterday I once again checked the package of one of those cupcake mixes offered in every store now: It really is nothing but self-raising flour and sugar. Please don’t waste your money on those, try this recipe instead!

Ingredients:

For the cake

140 g flour

50 g cocoa powder

1 tbsp baking powder (7 g)

220 g sugar

pinch of salt

1 egg

120 ml coffee (cooled) – I used instant coffee

60 ml (butter)milk – the sourness of buttermilk aids the baking powder

60 ml sunflower oil – but peanutoil or another plain vegetable oil will work just fine

1 vanilla pod’s seeds – I used approximately 2 teaspoons of artificial vanilla flavoring

For the topping

250 g butter (at room temperature)

60 g powdered sugar

250 g custard pudding (in Dutch also known as ‘banketbakkersroom’. You could use instant pudding, custard powder cooked in milk, or make it from scratch)

150 g dark chocolate, melted or nutella, at room temperature, amount to taste

  1. Mix the dry cake ingredients together, mix the wet cake ingredients together, and eventually mix them all together.
  2. Bake the cupcakes in paper liners in a cupcake baking tray – otherwise they will not have the proper shape: 25 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.
  3. Mix together the butter and powdered sugar for at least 10 minutes.
  4. Add the custard gradually, and keep mixing until your chocolate buttercream is nice and smooth.
  5. Pipe on the buttercream (here’s a video tutorial), or just smear it on.

(This recipe is an adaptation from ‘Rudolph’s Cupcakes‘ by Rudolph van Veen – in Dutch)