Mint snowman cupcakes

Mint snowman cupcakes were baked and decorated for purpose of school Winter Fair which took place last weekend. We had great day out. Children prepared lovely Christmas decorations and toys for sale. There were arts and crafts corner, face painting, singing shows ...  There were also a stall with baked goodies and I was happy to participate in that part.  My contribution was small but I was really happy that the snowman cupcakes were quickly gone. If you would like to prepare some yourself here is the recipe.

Ingredients for 8 - 12 cupcakes:

• 125g soft butter
• 125g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 150g flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp mint essence

For snowman:

• 2 pack 500g each of ready to roll icing
• paste food colouring

Preheat the oven to  180C. line muffin tin with paper cases.

Place the butter, sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder and mint essence in an electric mixer bowl. Mix the ingredients until smooth. Spoon the batter into prepared earlier muffin tin about 3/4 full. Bake 20 - 25 minutes until skewer interested in the middle comes out clean.

Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack to cool them down completely.

Dust the worktop with icing sugar. Roll about 300g of ready to roll icing and with circle cookie cutter cut 12 circles. 

Dab small amount of cooled boiled water on the fondant circle and stick it to the top of cupcake. Water will help the fondant to stick to the cake. 

Now it's time to make snowmen heads, scarfs, hats .... .  To add some colour to the fondant just take the desired amount of fondant add small amount of food colouring and knead them together. 

Winter Fair stall

Mint hot chocolate

Mint hot chocolate cupcakes were delicious although I had some problems with buttercream. Instead of creamy, soft buttercream I had something rather crumbly and hard. I am not saying it wasn't delicious but not exactly was I was expecting. But the chocolate cake and mint filling were really tasty. With no doubts. The recipe comes form 'Making cupcakes with Lola' cookbook.

Ingredients for 13 cupcakes:

• 100g dark chocolate
• 175g butter
• 225g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 100g self - rising flour
• 3 tbsp cocoa
• pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 180C. Line muffin tin with paper cases.

Break the chocolate into a smaller pieces and put into a bowl, add the butter. Melt them together using microwave or placing a bowl over a pan of simmering water. When melted stir well add the sugar stir again and let  cool for about 10 minutes.

In a meantime sift the flour, salt and cocoa into a separate bowl. 

Pour the chocolate mixture into an electric mixer bowl and beat for 3 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 10 sec between each addition. Add the flour mixture and mix until blended.

Divide the batter between the muffin cases. Bake for 25 minutes, until well risen  and  a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove form oven and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Mint filling ingredients:

• 250g icing sugar
• 2 tsp mint essence
• 2 tbsp water  

Sift the sugar into a small bowl. Add the mint essence and 1 tbsp water and mix. Add another tbsp of water and mix again. The sugar should be incorporated and the mixture should form thick white paste.

 

 

When cupcake are cooled completely cut a whole in the middle of each one. Put inside about 1 teaspoon of mint paste and cover with remaining cake (look at above pictures).

Buttercream ingredients:

• 120g soft butter
• 250 - 300g icing sugar ( originally 500g but my buttercream was too thick I would recommend to reduce the amount of sugar to 250-300g)
• 1 tsp mint essence
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 1 tbsp milk
• green food colouring

 Put the butter into an electric mixer bowl and beat until smooth. Sift the half of the sugar and beat until incorporated. Add the second half of sugar and beat on low speed. Add the mint and vanilla essence. Add the milk and mix beat for 3-5 minutes on higher speed. 

Add a couple of drops of food colouring and beta until incorporated.

Spread the frosting over the cupcakes using a spatula, or spoon the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe on top of a cupcakes. Decorate with mint chocolate. 

Enjoy !

Mint chocolate chip muffins

Soft, moist, sweet with delicate mint aroma, packed with dark chocolate chips. We liked them very much as we love mint and chocolate combination. The recipe comes from 'Easy muffins' 

Ingredients for 12-14 muffins:

•  280g flour ( I used 200g plain flour and 80g wholegrain flour)
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 115g caster sugar
• 150g plain chocolate chips
• 2 eggs
• 250ml milk
• 85g malted butter
• 1 tsp mint essence
• green food colouring (optional)

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

Melt the butter either in microwave or over a heat. Set aside to cool down.

Place the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and chocolate chips in a big bowl and whisk them together.

Whisk the eggs in separate jug, add milk, cooled butter, mint essence and food colouring. Stir well all ingredients. 

Pour the wet ingredients into a bowl with dry ones. Mix them until just moist. 

Spoon the batter into baking cases, about 3/4 full.

Bake for 20 minutes until well risen and springy in touch.

Transfer them to the wire rack or plate and enjoy warm or cooled down.

Enjoy !