Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes...

As Halloween descends, I thought it was a perfect excuse to carve a pumpkin and use the leftovers to make some delicious baked treats. 

After trying many pumpkin pie recipes previously, I decided this year to bake something different and settled on a cupcake. So armed with my favourite carrot cake recipe as the basis - thinking that the pumpkin would work in much the same way that carrot does in baking - I modified the ingredients to suit the pumpkin. Here is the recipe.

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes

Makes 12-14

Cakes:

• 145g golden caster sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 120 m sunflower oil
• 200g self-raising flour
• 1½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1 tsp mixed spice
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ginger
• grated zest 1 orange
• 200g pumpkin (grated) or butternut squash
• 175g sultanas or raisins

Syrup Glaze:

• 2 tbsp orange juice (roughly 1 small orange)
• 40g golden caster sugar 

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting:

• 450g icing sugar
• 110g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 150g full fat cream cheese
• 1 tsp of orange essence
• Orange food colouring (if desired) - I used Wilton "Tangerine"

Method

• Pre-heat the oven to 160c and line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper cases
• Whisk the sugar, eggs and oil together in a bowl using an electric whisk for 2-3 minutes until it thickens and looks a golden colour
• Sift together the flour, bicarbonate of soda and all the spices into the bowl. Stir together, then fold in the orange zest, pumpkin and sultanas.

The base mixture



• Spoon the mixture into the cases (roughly 2 level dessert spoons per case)





Filled cases ready to bake


• Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until springy when lightly pressed in the centre.
• While the cakes are baking make the syrup by heating all the ingredients in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves
• When the cakes are baked, take out of the oven and make small holes in them with a skewer, making sure that you don’t pierce the bottom of the case. Brush over the syrup and leave to cool on a wire rack.

The cakes ready for frosting

• To make the frosting beat the butter until soft. Then add the icing sugar a spoon full at a time. Finally add the orange essence (or juice), cream cheese and colouring (if using) and combine. Don't over mix as the cream cheese can loosen too much. This can be refrigerated until you need it.
• When the cakes are cooled fill a piping bag fitted with a 1M nozzle with the topping and pipe onto the cupcakes. Decorate with sprinkles or pumpkin faces!
• Et voila - enjoy with a nice cup of tea!



The finished cupcakes decorated with a few sprinkles



What is your favourite Halloween recipe?

V x

A pie for all seasons...

One rainy Saturday afternoon I treated myself to the new Pieminister book. I've visited the Pieminister shop in St. Nicholas market in Bristol many times and always loved their array of pies. 


Available from here

My first impressions of the book were very good. Lots of lovely pictures, varied sweet and savory recipes and lots hints and tips.

After a good perusal, I made the "Deerstalker Pie" last weekend for friends. This is a venison based pie with celeriac, puy lentils and sausage on a shortcrust base and topped with suet pastry. I decided to cook the venison filling overnight in the slow cooker which worked really well and made sure the meat and veggies melted in the mouth. Then on the Sunday, I made the two types of pastry and assembled the individual pies.

Deerstalker Pie Recipe

The recipe was very easy to follow, produced generous portions (I hate stingy recipes!) and they went down a storm. I served the pies with minted mushy peas, mustard mash, cider soaked spicy red cabbage, roasted carrots and gravy. Yum.

My version

A successful first venture into the world of Pieminister. I'm looking forward to trying more! And, the added bonus of this new addition to the bakery book collection..?

#1. Brownie points from the Cake Pimp (who is originally from Bristol) for making his favourite pies.
#2. Cider. A West Country cider recipe to be exact. Blummin' genius.

Cider Recipe. Genius

Is it wrong to want pie and cider for every meal?!

V x

Pieces of pretty...

I often think about my dream kitchen and the beautiful things I'd fill it with. Don't get me wrong, my current kitchen is lovely and more than suits my requirements. But my dream kitchen? A HUGE double oven, Belfast sink and a homely but uncluttered shabby chic. In the mean time, I lust after various bits and pieces to fund my "baking-and-all-things-kitchen" habit.

First up, Portmeirion Dawn Chorus Pastry Forks. Well you can't eat your pastry with just any fork, can you?



From here

I have also started a collection of Pip Studio, and so far have a range of mugs, teapot, milk jug and sugar bowl. The mix and match patterns and colours are beautiful and go so well with all my Nanna's china plates at a tea party. I adore these little bowls... 

From here

 For storage, this is a beaut. I heart Le Creuset.

From here

A stunning apron. It's almost too pretty to get dirty, put I'd love to bake pretty cakes wearing this.



From here

And finally, (for now!) these bowls.

  

From Jamie Oliver

 

From Jamie Oliver


I'm off to drool over more pretty trinkets...

V x

Banoffee and GBBO...

I'm addicted to TV cookery shows. I'll watch anything. Ranging from Masterchef, Celebrity Masterchef, Australian Masterchef (I love the competitive x-factor edge!), Saturday Kitchen, any celebrity chef programme etc etc etc. I've been told by the Cake Pimp that under no uncertain terms can I get the Sky Food Channels. He is trying to curb my habit. Meany.

I have a particularly soft spot for The Great British Bake Off which finished last week. I love seeing the successes, failures, challenges and the simply fabulous recipes. I love sitting from the comfort of my armchair/soap box stating "I wouldn't do it like that.... I could do that... that's so hard..... wow, look at that!" I also love Berry and Hollywood talking about soggy bases.

As the Beeb has been so kind as to pop the recipes from the show here and after the rave reviews that the winner Joanne received for her Banoffee Pie recipe in the final, I thought I'd give it a whirl. And they were yummy. Really yummy. You can see why she won!

The recipe was surprisingly straight forward. The only sticking point came making the toffee. I took my eye off the saucepan for a second and had a black mess. Oh well, practice makes perfect and the second batch worked much better! I made a slight change to the recipe through the addition of some slices of banana to the top of the toffee. I just thought they'd be better with an added element of flavour and texture. Apart from that, I stuck to the recipe completely.

Here are some pictures of the end results.

The finished result... nom.

Next up on the bake off to test list are the Millefeuilles... I fancy the challenge of the rough puff pastry.

Report to follow!

V x