Comments on: Fran’s cupcakes

By: CAKE/OFF » Blog Archive » Jude’s birthday cupcakes

CAKE/OFF » Blog Archive » Jude’s birthday cupcakes — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 10:22:18 +0000

[...] velvet” ones we used a recipe Fran found online a while back, and previously posted here. Here’s a tweaked version of the recipe, to make 12: Soften 60g of unsalted butter then mix [...]

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 10:45:32 +0000

“Cup cake revolution”. It’s not quite up there with the American Revolution, or the French Revolution, or the Cultural Revolution is it?

The only thing I really wonder about these recipe is the flour /raising agents issue. The Grauniad one said “don’t use self-raising” or words to that effecty. The Times one did mention baking powder, but forgot to give a quantity. I’d be tempted to use some raising agent you know – you don’t want them as light as traditional British fairy cake, that wouldn’t be as satisfying, but you want it the light side of rich right?

By: fran

fran — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:49:30 +0000

These are my attempt at making red velvet cupcakes. Red velvet cake is all the rage in the states, an Americana classic. Magnolia bakery in NY is, I guess, the place that kick-started the new cup cake revolution quite some time ago. This recipe seems to come from one of their books, via the Grauniad’s magnificent word-mashing machine. The recipe is slightly mangled, but the cakes turned out fine. You can get beautiful, expensive versions of these at the Hummingbird Bakery in South Ken but making your own is much more satisfying and appropriate for times of economic super-catastrophe.

The batter does need to be ruby red to give you that extra lift as you eat them and it was sad mine wasn’t. You’d have to use two or three little bottles of red colouring. That much cocchineal can’t be good for a person. Next time, I’ll try beetroot. And I’d also put less batter in each case to leave room for more
cream-cheese icing.