Trying to maintain the illusion that summer is still with us I decided to make these seasonal cupcakes to celebrate Ivy’s Uncle’s birthday. Another bonkers recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook - suggesting that you cover yourself and anyone in the near vicinity with flour. They were very tasty and moist and the fresh strawberries were lovely. I halved the icing and the crumbled digestives on top – how on earth they thought you actually fit 200g biscuit crumbs on top of these is beyond me, 100g was too much (and according to some could be omitted altogether). I did like the upside down cheesecake idea though.

Ingredients:
120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg
12 large strawberries, chopped into pieces
200g (yeah, right! Try 80g -100 g) digestive biscuits

Cream cheese frosting:
300g icing sugar sifted
50g unsalted butter and room temperature
125g cold cream cheese
(But I halved all these ingredients)

Oven at 170 degrees.
Put the flour, bp , salt and butter in a bowl and beat with a handheld electric whisk – then take a  shower. Alternatively, put the ingresdeitns in a bowl and rub the butter into the dry mixture with your fingers until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Pour in the milk and vanilla extract and beta until combined. Add the egg and beat well for a few minutes.

Divide the chopped strawberries between 12 paper cakes and spoon the mixture evenly on top. I think I’d rather mix the strawberries into the mixture first though as I did with the pear and ginger cupcakes. I’m not so keen on the fruit being at the bottom, I prefer the fruit within the cake. Bake for about 20-25 minutes (I didn’t use the fan).

Leave to cool then make the icing; combine the icing sugar and butter and beat well then add the cream cheese and beat again but not for too long – it can become runny. Spoon on to the cupcakes and top with the crushed digestive biscuits.

I received a special delivery from France last week – some dried organic lavender flowers from Kate’s mum. I had an enjoyable Monday afternoon (while Ivy was asleep and my mum nipped to the shops for us) baking lavender cupcakes. They are another recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and I got on better with this one, although I think it only makes nine decent cakes rather than the suggested twelve. My mum pointed out of course that perhaps there’s less cake to make room for more icing. Cupcake icing is so mega sweet that I think you can do with less so I made 3/4 of the suggested amount. You can play with this though, but I think Kate would be happier with more cake and less icing. I did leave the lavender to infuse with the milk overnight – I think it’s worth doing it for the maximum time. I seem to keep altering the methods the book suggests – Dan agrees that it’s sometimes a bit odd to whisk up mainly dry ingredients with a hand whisk in an open bowl – obviously it’s going to go everywhere!

They are surprisingly not as overpowering as you might think and have a lovely calming subtle flavour, well that’s my opinion.

Cakes:
120ml whole milk
3 tablespoons lavender flowers
120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
40g unsalted butter
1 egg
12 small springs of lavender (or a few flowers for the top)

Frosting:
25ml whole milk
1 tablespoon dried lavender flowers
250g icing sugar
80g unsalted butter
couple of drops of purple/blue food colouring

Put the milk and lavenders flowers for the cake mix in a jug and leave in the fridge over night (or as long as possible – a few hours). Do the same with the milk and flowers for the frosting. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees.
Put flour, sugar, bp and butter in a bowl and rub in the butter until a sandy mixture (don’t whisk it as they suggest – what?!). Strain the lavender infused milk and add slowly to the mix beating well, add the egg, beat well. Spoon the mixture evenly between 12 (9) cupcake cases and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until golden and bounces back once touched. Leave to cool completely before spreading on the icing.

Lavender frosting: Beat together the icing sugar, butter and colouring (I get it started with a wooden spoon or you have a snowy  kitchen again). Strain the milk for the icing and add slowly to the mix beating well. Beat for about 5 minutes until light and fluffy and ready to use.

(The icing’s a bit too turquoise – needs to be more blue, oh well have to experiment more)

My fellow baking enthusiast at work, Ms Hannah Mearns, lent me The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook by Tarek Malouf.

I made these. They were delicious. I ordered the book from Amazon. Home Delivery Network were crap… and I’ve still not got it! I want to make some more goodies from it. Among other things, I want to make both its chocolate cupcake and its chocolate muffin recipes, to indulge in the never-ending debate about what distinguishes the two.

Anyway, these cookies used a nifty technique where you make the dough, roll it into a sausage, then freeze the sausage for an hour. You then cut rounds and bake ‘em. It gives the finished biscuit a nice, almost production-liney regularity. Kinda.

Pecan and white choc is a quality combo, but this basic recipe is probably fairly versatile, so I’ll try some other variations… when HDN delivery my flippin’ Amazon order. Hmph.