White Chocolate and Raspberry Cupcakes

One of the great things about adding fruit to your cupcakes is you can trick yourself into thinking that they must be one of your five a day. Not to mention that the tart taste of the raspberries goes perfectly with the sweetness of the chocolate.

Ingredients:

115g self-raising flour, sifted
115g caster sugar
115g soft unsalted butter
2 eggs
1 tbsp of milk
1 tsp of vanilla essence
1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
200g mascarpone
75g white chocolate
1 punnet of fresh raspberries
1 tbsp of icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 190/gas mark 5


Let's Get Making:

1. Beat the sugar and the butter until light and fluffy.

2. Add the vanilla essence and one tbsp of the flour (this stops the mix splitting), then add the eggs one at a time, beating after each one, followed by the milk.

3. Mix the bicarbonate of sad in with the remaining flour, then gradually add the four to the cake mix.

4. Pick twelve of the prettiest raspberries from the punnet and put to one side. Lightly crush those that remain and carefully add to the mix.
5. You are now ready to fill your cupcake cases, only two third full, mind.
6. Place in the oven and cook for 15-20 minutes, until lightly brown.

Whilst the cakes are cooking, melt 75g of white chocolate. Wait until it is lukewarm and then beat with 200g of mascarpone until it is smooth and glossy. Top each cake with a teaspoon of the mascarpone mix, and put a raspberry on top. Dust each cake with a little bit of icing sugar and finally, enjoy!

Mini Egg Treasure Hunt

Forget running around the garden hiding eggs, just pop them in your cupcakes. These Easter cakes the yummy answer to the Easter egg treasure hunt.

Ingredients:
Serves 24

125g unsalted butter, softened

125g caster sugar

125g self-raising flour

Pinch of salt

2 medium eggs

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 packet Cadbury's Mini Eggs

For the Frosting:

50g unsalted butter, softened

100g chocolate, melted

300g icing sugar

3 tbsp Milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

Let's get making:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C or Gas Mark 5.
2. Beat the butter in a large bowl until it is softened. Add the sugar, flour, salt, eggs, milk and vanilla and whisk until the mixture is smooth.
3. Spoon the mixture into the cases, and then press one Mini Egg into the centre.
4. Place muffin tin in the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes, until cupcakes are a light golden colour.
5. Remove the tins from the oven. Leave the cupcakes to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

To make the frosting:

1. In a large bowl beat the butter until it is fluffy. Beat in the melted chocolate. Gradually add half of the icing sugar, stirring first (to prevent it going all over the counter, and you) and then beat until well combined.
2. Slowly beat in the milk and the vanilla. Then add the remaining icing sugar. Beat in more milk, if needed.

Pipe the icing onto the cakes, when cooled and then top with a Mini Egg.

And there you have an Easter egg treasure hunt on a plate!

Blue Denim Cupcakes

I love Red Velvet cupcakes. They taste divine and look amazing; red cakes-genius!
Blue Denim cupcakes are my own little creations, my ode to the Red Velvet if you like. They are essential a
white chocolate cupcake that have had a stone wash and topped with cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients:

250g unsalted butter, softened

250g caster sugar

250g self raising flour

Pinch of salt

4 medium eggs

4tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

200g white chocolate, melted

1 tbsp blue food colouring

Let's get making:

1. Preheat oven to 190°C or Gas Mark 5.
2. Beat the butter in a large bowl until it is softened. Add the sugar, flour, salt, eggs, milk and vanilla and whisk until the mixture is smooth.
3. Fold in the melted chocolate and food colouring

4. Spoon the mixture into the cases.
5. Place muffin tin in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until lightly golden on top.
6. Remove the tins from the oven. Leave the cupcakes to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

Whilst your blue cupcakes are cooling, you can make the cream cheese frosting. For this you will need:

125g cream cheese

250g icing sugar

90g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 lemon, juice only

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix until combined. Store in the fridge until the cupcakes are ready to be frosted.

 And there you have it, the Blue Denim Cupcake...

The LBD of Cooking

There are some things you can pull off that will never fail to impress, just like your favourite LBD, and this sauce has to be one of them. Perfect with ice cream, poached pears, chocolate cake (just in case it isn't chocolatey enough already for you) or even just for dipping marshmallows in.

Ingredients:

250 ml water
100 g sugar
160 g light corn syrup
75 g unsweetened cocoa powder
55 g dark chocolate, finely chopped

Let's get making:

1. In a medium saucepan, whisk together the water, sugar, corn syrup, and cocoa powder.

2. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Once it’s just begun to simmer and boil, remove from heat and stir in the chopped chocolate until melted.

Although it might be tempting to delve straight in, it is best to allow the sauce to stand for a while and thicken.

Nuts About Nutella

Apparently, spooning Nutella straight out of the jar isn't the only way of eating it. (Although it works for me.)
In Nick Sandler & Jonny Actons book, the Branded Cookbook they explore different recipes using everyday, branded ingredients-Nutella being one of the.

Nutella Truffles is my favourite nutty, chocolatey recipe from the book. (If it is possible to have a favourite-they all use Nutella, after all!) I love this recipe because it is simple, a little bit messy and in hardly any time at all, you have your very own treats similar to those fit for an ambassador.

Ingredients:

4 ice-cream wafers
2 tbsp almonds
3tbsp whole blanched hazelnuts
2 tbsp Nutella

Lets get making:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4
2. Crumble the ice-cream wafers with your fingers until they are the size of large breadcrumbs.
3. Bake the almonds and hazelnuts in the oven for about 8 minutes and then let them cool. Remove 12 of the whole hazelnuts for later on. Process the remaining nuts in a food processor until finely ground.
4. In a bowl, mix the ground almonds and hazelnuts and half the crumbled ice-cream wafers with the Nutella. (Put the remaining crumbled wafers in a small bowl.)
5. Using a teaspoon, pick up a blob of the truffle chocolate and press in a whole hazelnut until it has disappeared into the chocolatey abyss. Then place in the bowl of wafer crumbs and roll around until it is coated with an even layer. Repeat again and again until you are left with around 12 truffles.
6. Store the truffles in the fridge. They should keep for a few weeks in an airtight container. Not that I have tested this, mine didn't last that long.

Egg-tremly Expensive

I love chocolate, who doesn't, but do I love it enough to spend £49.99 on an Easter egg? Probably not. Do I love anyone else enough to buy them a £49.99 Easter egg? Certainly not. (If anyone would have it, it would be me. However, I'm not sure I can justify spending that much on a few indulgent moments.)

But if you can, pop into Selfridges and pick up your Gianduja chocolate egg. This luxury egg from Baratti & Milano, is made from Gianduja chocolate and the inside is layered with over 200 whole hazelnuts. (I think I would also like to find a little gold nugget inside for that price.)

A more reasonably priced egg, if you want luxury, is the Marc de Champagne egg. For a less jaw-dropping, £18.99 you get an egg made from the finest milk chocolate and it is filled with marc de champagne truffles. Yes, it's still a little pricey for an Easter egg but it contains three of a girls favourite things: chocolate, champagne and truffles. And if you're going to eat lots of chocolate this coming weekend, you might as well as make it the best.

And as for Fortnum and Masion's £85.00 egg, they can't be serious. I can only imagine that anyone buying one of these would either have to be the biggest chocolate lover in the world, or have a brain like the inside of a Cadbury's Cream Egg.
Hmmmm...Cadbury's Cream Eggs-sometimes the simplest things are the best.

Itsy Bitsy Eggs

Hope and Greenwood is one of my favourite shops. Firstly, the shelves are stacked with sweet treats and secondly, there is a wonderful nostalgic feeling about it. Remember your favourite childhood sweet and you will find it in a jar on the shelves waiting to be weighed and taken home.
This Easter, Hope and Greenwood offer a variety of eggcellent treats including Vintage Bunnies, Farmer Greenwood's Eggs and Butterfly Truffle Boxes.

Although, my favourite chocolatey choice has got to be the Itsy Bitsy Eggs Funbag-tiny little chocolate eggs with a speckled candy shell. Surely being so small they must contain an itsy amount of calories? At least that's what I'm telling myself as I dig into my second bag.

One Bowl Brownies

I love chocolate. I also love not having a huge mess left in my sink after baking. Imagine being able to have both things in just 40 minutes (okay, maybe 42 by the time you have washed out the bowl), a delicious chocolatey treat and hardly any mess.

Ingredients: 

112g dark chocolate (70% is best)

170g butter

400g white sugar

3 eggs

5 ml vanilla extract

125g plain flour

115g chopped walnuts

Let's get making:

1. Preheat oven to 180C/gas mark 4 and grease a 13 x 9 inch pan.
2. Melt chocolate and butter in large bowl until butter is melted.
3. Stir until chocolate is melted. Stir in sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Stir in flour and nuts.
4. Spread in greased 13 x 9 inch pan and bake for 35 minutes. (Try not to over bake, but like you would want to leave them in there any longer than they absolutely have to be.)

Serve with ice cream, whipped cream, double cream or all three.