18 Sept 2011

Wedding cupcakes

I have been waiting awhile to blog on these cupcakes, I was waiting to get some pictures that others took but still haven’t gotten hold of them so have decided to post anyway with the pictures I have ….I have had not one but three family wedding this year, which is one of the reasons for the low frequency of posts. Being Asian, our weddings are roughly speaking a week-long, not to mention all the planning beforehand. It was my first time doing the whole wedding thing with a 5/6/7 month old baby, quite an achievement to have survived! 





Anyhow the weddings provided ample exciting opportunities for baking! The ones with the heart decorations were a present done as part of red-heart themed present collection given to the bride from the grooms’ side! The other cupcakes were done for a pre-wedding party. I had them displayed in some very cute stands at the party but have not got those pictures yet, I will upload them at a later date when I get them. 
















I used the hummingbird bakery’s recipe for plain vanilla cupcakes. You get to skip the creaming butter and sugar stage which seems quicker and easier though actually in retrospect maybe it just felt like that as the last few times I made cupcakes it was from that book .  I may return to my standard recipe next time. The hummingbird bakery ones are a bit denser than cupcake recipe that I have been using forever, but are still nice and soft and keep very well for quite a few days in an airtight container. I give both recipes below. I use a 1M Wilton tip (available from most cakes decorating  online stores) for doing the swirl icing and large disposable icing bags from Lakeland.  I used buttercream here but fresh cream is also lovely. The icing recipe below is for twelve cupcakes if you’re doing a normal palette-knife covering but you need 1.5 times that if you are going to the classic swirl icing. ebay have some great stores for cake decorations which is where I got my red sugar paste glitter hearts from, though these would not be hard to make if you had the time….I hope you enjoy the pictures!
Both cupcakes recipes are for 12 cupcakes:
Hummingbird bakery vanilla cupcakes
120g plain flour
140g castor sugar
1.5 tspn baking powder
A pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter at room temp
120ml whole milk
1 egg
¼ tspn vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 170◦C (325 ◦F), Gas mark 3
Put the flour sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or freestanding electric whisk) and beat on slow speed until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined. Gradually pour in half the milk and beat until the milk is just incorporated. Whisk the egg, vanilla extract, and remaining milk in a separate bowl and then pour into the flour mixture until combined, scrape down sides of bowl and beat for a few minutes but do not overmix. Spoon mixture into cases until  two thirds full. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until inserted skewer comes out clean. Ice when cooled.

Standard cupcakes

100g self-raising flour
100g unsalted butter softened
100g sugar
2 eggs
1-2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 190◦C, cream together sugar and butter, then add the eggs 1 by 1 and then the flour.

Buttercream icing

250g icing sugar
80g unsalted butter softened
12-25 mls of milk
A couple of drops of vanilla extract