Marten - Delicious Cupcakes: The best sweet recipes for yummy love cakes

Delicious Cupcakes

Sweet or savoury cupcakes, little works of art fresh from the oven, are always a source of flavour and fun. Be it for a birthday, as a bring-along gift, a surprise for friends, for baking with children or simply as an afternoon snack cupcakes have a taste to match any occasion. Try out the fruity Raspberry yoghurt cupcakes, the creamy Chocolate cupcakes with espresso buttercream or the crispy Chocolate chip cupcakes. There is no lack of variety here!

Naumann & Gbel Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
a subsidiary of VEMAG Verlags- und Medien Aktiengesellschaft
Emil-Hoffmann-Strae 1, 50996 Cologne (Germany)
www.vemag-medien.de
Author: Maja Marten
Translation from German: First Edition Translations Ltd
Production: Naumann & Gbel Verlagsgesellschaft mbH
All rights reserved
ISBN 978-3-8155-8792-8

Cupcakes, those elegant little cakes with their luscious toppings, are not only the latest trend to sweep our cafs but they are also stealing the limelight from former stars of the cake world. The unlimited decorating possibilities and foolproof recipes contained in this book are sure to make these small, sweet fancies a huge success.

Compared to muffins, which are less sweet and more rustic in character, cupcakes are elegant, miniature cakes, which are usually made from a smooth cake batter and crowned with sweet buttercream or cream cheese frosting.

Cupcake batter generally contains larger quantities of eggs and sugar and is beaten until very light and creamy. Once the butter or oil, sugar and eggs have been thoroughly blended using an electric hand mixer, the remaining ingredients are folded in and mixed into a homogenous batter.

Another characteristic feature of cupcakes is the obligatory frosting, which can either be artistically piped on, using a large icing nozzle, or roughly spread over the cupcakes with the aid of a palette knife. Any lavish decoration of your choice can then be added as a finishing touch.

Since cupcakes are luxuriously sweet and creamy, they are an ideal accompaniment to afternoon coffee but are also perfect for serving as an elegant dessert.

Traditional American cupcakes are covered with luscious toppings, many of which are also coloured with food dyes. However, the recipes in this book deliberately avoid relying on food colouring, preferring instead to use pured fruit, cinnamon or chocolate to colour the frostings. There are, of course, many different food colourings available, suitable for all kinds of occasions, which can be used to brighten up pale buttercream or cream cheese toppings and even the sponge itself. Liquid or paste dyes are recommended to achieve a uniform finish. When deciding on the right amount to use, bear in mind that less is often more. Start by using a small amount of colouring and add more as required. One attractive option is to divide plain sponge batter into four portions and to then colour each portion with a different colour.

Taking a spoonful from each portion at a time, build up layers of the different colours in the cupcake moulds, then finish off the recipe in the usual way. Your guests will be amazed when they eventually take a bite out of their cupcakes!

In addition to the traditional methods of applying frosting to the cooled cupcakes, which include using a rounded knife, palette knife or a piping bag with a large star-shaped nozzle, there is no end to the number of other creative opportunities: a piping bag with a selection of different tips can be used to fashion rose petals, rosettes or a variety of flowers, creating little works of art in the process. Your cupcakes will delight the eye and look almost too good to eat. If the frosting starts to become a little runny, place it in the fridge for a few minutes until it becomes firm again. This will make it much easier to handle.

Depending on the type of frosting used and how much of the surface is covered, the cupcake can be decorated with a whole range of colourful additions, such as coloured sugar beads, chocolate strands, nuts, cracknel, coconut chips, fruits or marzipan you can let your imagination run riot.

Cupcakes are baked in muffin trays. A standard tin will have 12 moulds, each of which should either be greased and dusted with flour or contain a colourful paper case. Nowadays, extra small or high-sided moulds are also available as well as the appropriate paper cases to go with them. If you do not happen to have a proper muffin baking tray, you can simply use two paper baking cases, one inside the other, and place these on a baking tray. Another option is to mould some extra-strong aluminium foil around the base of a drinking glass to fashion a baking case. Once baked, cupcakes are suitable for freezing without their frosting and then, when required, can be baked for about 1015 minutes at 180 C. Any leftover cake mixture can simply be spooned into paper cases, placed in the depressions of the muffin tray, and then frozen. It can then be stored in a freezer bag. When required for use, simply place the uncooked mixture in the muffin tray and bake according to the recipe instructions, extending the baking time by approx. 510 minutes. Cupcakes with frosting should be packed in an airtight container and can be stored for at least 12 days in the fridge. They should be removed from the fridge approx. 30 minutes before eating so that the frosting has a chance to soften. Any leftover frosting can be stored in the fridge for several days.

Traditional American cupcakes generally consist of a relatively basic, light sponge batter. The frosting, on the other hand, is therefore often all the more substantial and may consist of double cream cheese or butter with large amounts of icing sugar and additions such as chocolate, vanilla or fresh fruit pures. Below you will find a few tips which you may find useful when making our cupcake recipes:

Generally speaking, our recipes use vanillin in powder form, which contains real vanilla extract. If so desired, you can obviously also use the scooped out pulp of actual vanilla pods. In this case, the pulp from approx. half a vanilla pod would be enough for each cupcake recipe. Needless to say, the vanilla can also be substituted by vanilla essence in liquid or powdered form or vanilla sugar. Vanilla sugar should not be used for the frosting, however, as it would be too coarse-grained for the smooth cream.

When making cupcakes, try and use the freshest and least processed products available and take care to ensure that all the ingredients are at room temperature during preparation. As a general rule, butter should be soft so that it can be more easily creamed for the sponge mixture and frosting. Eggs should be removed from the fridge in good time to avoid the possibility of the butter and egg mixture curdling later on. Any cream cheese required for the frosting should also be at room temperature so that it can be whisked to a light and airy consistency with the sifted icing sugar.