Gingerbread latte

Those cupcakes were very delicious. Gingerbread flavour, soft and rich cake with cinnamon and coffee butter cream. Perfect ! The recipe comes form 'Making cupcakes with Lola' cookbook.

Ingredients for 12-18 cupcakes:

• 120g golden syrup
• 120g black treacle
• 200g heavy cream
• 250g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 and 1/2 tbsp cocoa
• 1 tsp instant coffee
• 2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp mixed spice
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 135g butter
• 125g brown sugar
• 2 eggs

Sift the flour, baking powder, cocoa, coffee, ginger, mixed spice, nutmeg, salt into a big bowl and set aside.

Put the golden syrup, black treacle and heavy cream into a sauce pan. Heat the ingredients up until they turn into liquid. Do  not  let the mixture to boil.

Into an electric mixer bowl put the butter and sugar and beat until light and fluffy. 

In a meantime preheat the oven to 180C. line muffin tin with paper cases.

When the butter and sugar turn into fluffy mixture add the eggs one at the time beating continuously. When the eggs well incorporated add half of the flour mixture and half of wet ingredients mixture beat until all ingredients combined and repeat with remaining ingredients. 

Spoon the batter into paper cases about 3/4 full. Bake about 25 minutes. When ready remove form the oven and keep for a while in muffin tin then transfer to wire rack to cool down completely.

Ingredients for frosting:

• 120g soft butter
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g icing sugar
• 3 tbsp milk
• mixture of 2 tsp instant coffee and 1/2 tsp boiling water and  1 tsp cinnamon

Place the butter into an electric mixer bowl and beat until light and fluffy. Then add the vanilla extract and sugar (reduce the mixer speed otherwise your kitchen will be dusted with sugar) and beat until well incorporated. The add the milk and increase the speed to high. 

In a meantime put the instant coffee, cinnamon and boiling water into a small bowl and combine them with a spoon until they turn into a thick mixture. When the butter cream is ready add thick mixture and beat until is well incorporated. 

Put the butter cream on top of each cupcake. Enjoy !

 

 

Banana and lemon muffins

This is 12th banana muffins recipe. This time with lemon. My children like them a lot. The cake was soft, spongy sweet thanks to bananas with lovely lemon fragrance. The recipe comes from 'Let's cook. 52 cakes, bakes and chocolate.'

Ingredients for 7-11 muffins:

• 70g banana chips + 11 whole ones for decoration
• 140g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 lemon
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 5 tbsp milk
• 1 egg
• 50 ml oil
• 3 ripe bananas

Chop the banana chips and place them in a bowl. Add the flour, baking powder, sugar and freshly grated lemon zest. Combine them together and set aside. 

Preheat the oven to 200C. Line muffin tin with paper cases. 

In separate jug whisk the egg. Add the oil and milk and combine them together. Set aside.

With a for or potato masher mash the bananas. Stir in one tablespoon of lemon juice. 

Pour the wet ingredients and the bananas into a bowl with dry ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Spoon the batter into paper cases, 3/4 full. Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and gold. Keep them in muffin for a few minutes then transfer to the wire rack. While they cooling down prepare the icing.

Ingredients for icing:

• 4 tbsp icing sugar
• 1-2 tbsp lemon juice

Place the icing sugar in a bowl add one tablespoon of lemon juice and stir well. If the mixture is too thick add additional tablespoon of lemon juice and stir again.

When the muffins are cooled down spoon the icing over each muffin top and decorate them with hole banana chips.

 

 Enjoy !

Coconut mini cheesecakes

The idea for coconut mini cheesecakes came form coconut cappuccino muffins. The cream cheese filling was so tasty that I decided to bake it separately as small cheesecakes with of course coconut streusel on top. As it was an experiment I baked only 5 of them. They were divine :) 

Ingredients for 5 mini cheesecakes coconut streusel:

• 30g flour
• 40g sugar
• 20g dessicated coconut
• 2 tbsp melted butter

Melt the butter. Put all dry ingredients into a small bowl and whisk them. Then stir in the melted butter. Set the mixture aside.

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line muffin tins with paper cases. I used slightly bigger ones so it was easy to remove baked cheesecakes form them to serve. 

Prepare the cream cheese layer.

Ingredients for cream cheese:

• 100g cream cheese
• 50g mascarpone
• 70g sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Put all ingredients into an electric mixer bowl and beat them until just combined. Set aside.

And now is the time to prepare the last layer. The cheesecakes bottoms.

Ingredients for cheesecakes bottoms:

• 73g digestives cookies (6 cookies)
• 20g margarine

Place the cookies and margarine into a blender and whisk them until well combined.

Take prepared earlier muffin tin lined with paper cases and place it font of you. Spoon the digestive cookies mixture on the bottom of each paper case. Press the crumbs with a back of the spoon. Divide evenly among all paper cases. Then put a layer of cheese mixture again divide evenly among all paper cases. Then sprinkle with coconut streausel.

Bake for 25 minutes. After baking time remove form the oven and leave in baking tin to cool down. Serve when completely cooled. You can keep them in the fridge to cool down. 

Enjoy !