It has been a while since I posted anything baking related and that leaves me with contemplating two possible answers as to why that is the case: a) I have been too busy socialising or b) too lazy to bake. And while, in conclusion I will probably have to admit that it is most likely a combination of the two, I knew it was about time I slapped on an apron, turned on the oven and got out the glitter.
It also needs to be said that my parents have finally caved
and got me a Kitchen Aid for my birthday/Christmas. I have been asking for one
of years and every time I did my Dad shot me a horrified look and told me that
a Kitchen Aid is not something someone under 30 with a respectable social life
should own. And while I always had a tight and very strong argument against his
opinion he never succumbed to my wish. Until this year – maybe he figured I was
close enough to 30 and had established that you can combine a love of baking
with an active social life enough times. Or maybe, just maybe, they figured it
would be a gift that was easy enough to give as well as making me very, very
happy. Who needs diamonds when you can have a Kitchen Aid, right girls?!
I haven’t turned up at my old office with cupcakes in a
while and considering it was my most loyal cupcake eater’s birthday this week I
decided that it was time to try out my shiny new toy and make some cupcakes. So
this time around we are making:
Joe’s Cookie Monster Cupcakes
Because I am a sucker for doing anything from scratch I
started off with making the mini chocolate chip cookies. Most of my basic
baking is based on the Hummingbird
Bakery cookbook, which has a great variety of recipes. A lot of the
times I adapt them to my needs and tastes. Their chocolate chip recipe is a bit
too salty for my sweet tooth so here is my version of it:
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Ingredients:
- 150g salted butter, softened
- 80g light brown muscovado sugar
- 80g caster sugar
- Half a bag of vanilla sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 225g plain flour
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 200g 70% or 80% chocolate chips or chunks
Prep time total: About 15 Minutes - Baking Time: 10 minutes
How to:
- Preheat the oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5.
- Linea baking tray with baking paper. As they will need to fit into a cupcake your cookies need to be really small so you should be able to get by with just one baking tray. I also experimented with a bun pan (like this one) to make sure that they stayed a certain size – more info later.
- Put the butter and sugars into your bowl and beat with your mixer until creamy.
- Beat in the vanilla extract and egg.
- Sieve the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt together and slowly add to the mixture and continue until you have a smooth, caramel-brown coloured dough.
- Add the chocolate chips and stir well until reasonably evenly distributed.
- (If you are using a bun tray do not forget to grease the individual moulds)
- Using your hands form small balls (I did them about the size of my pinky for the cupcakes, otherwise size doesn’t matter that much). Make sure to put them far enough apart as these babies will spread and there is nothing worse than having one giant baking tray cookie rather than lots of nice, single ones (unless you have issues with being alone then maybe you want to end up with an unintentionally giant cookie)
- Bake for 8–10 minutes until light brown on the edges and still slightly soft in the center.
- Leave on the tray for a couple of minutes to firm up and then transfer to a cooling rack.
Voila chocolate chip cookies done. I had mixed feelings
about the bun tray. Yes it meant the cookies stayed a certain size but it also
meant they didn’t look as pretty as I wanted them too because they ended up
with slightly flatter edges than you would normally see on a cookie. However,
when shoving the cookies into the cupcakes this actually proved to be quite
useful because it made it a little easier to fit them into the cupcakes. Either
way works fine and it is just a question of personal preference.
The cupcakes were a little trickier. Most of the tutorials
on how to make Cookie Monster cupcakes used desiccated coconut dyed with blue
food colouring. What I didn’t take into account was that this would take
several (!) hours to air dry. Ain’t nobody got time for that! But when I
started out baking the cupcakes I was still taking the coconut into the flavour
account and thus opted for a simple cupcake.
Classic Hummingbird
Vanilla Cupcakes
Ingredients:
- 120g plain flour
- 140g caster sugar
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- 40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 120ml whole milk
- 1 egg
- ¼tsp vanilla extract
Additional
ingredients:
- White chocolate buttons
- Dark chocolate or dark icing pen
Prep time total: About 30 Minutes - Baking Time: 25 minutes
How to:
- Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.
- Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld 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 together in a separate bowl for a few seconds, then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated (scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula). Continue mixing for a couple more minutes until the mixture is smooth. Do not overmix.
- Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until two-thirds full and bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes, or until light golden and the sponge bounces back when touched.
- A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
- When the cupcakes are cold, spoon the vanilla frosting on top and decorate with hundreds and thousands.
If we had used the coconut I would have opted for a butter
icing to get the coconut flavour across better. However, as this wasn’t the
case I opted for my personal favourite, cream cheese icing. I always think that
cream cheese icing brings out the flavours of a cupcake much better and is less
sickly sweet than butter icing.
Cream Cheese Icing
Ingredients:
- 300g icing sugar, sifted
- 50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 125 g cream cheese, cold
How to:
- Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.
- Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed. Continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy, at least 5 mins.
Make your icing blue by adding good quality food colouring.
In this case you will need quite a lot – or at least I did – to get the right
kind of blue. You might have to add some additional icing sugar to your icing
to counteract the addition of all the food colouring. Continue to add drops of
blue until you have the right colour, then add more icing sugar until you have
the right consistency. With cream cheese icing it is often a good idea to pop
it back in the fridge just for a little while to make sure it isn’t too soft
and runny when you pipe it.
Cut into the cupcake and push the cookie inside the cut.
Then pipe your icing around it. I used a spiky nozzle to create the ‘fur’ of
the cookie monster. Start with the edges and work your way inwards. If you pull
the nozzle up and away you will get the right kind of shape – great tutorial Start
with the edges and work your way inwards. If you pull the nozzle up and away
you will get the right kind of shape – great tutorial here! Start with the
edges and work your way inwards. If you pull the nozzle up and away you will
get the right kind of shape – great tutorial here! Nozzle No.2 in the picture above is what you are looking for.
Once you are done icing prep your white chocolate buttons
and add either with dark chocolate (melted) or with icing pens (my mess free
solution). The buttons will melt super quickly as white chocolate has so much ‘fat’
in it thus it is best to do the eyes with the buttons lying down. Add the
buttons to your icing and voila: Cookie Monster cupcakes!
Enjoy!
P.S.: And if you have leftover cookies then why not pop them into a gorgeous glass jar and give them to a friend as a little pick me up? I made this one for my friend Jo.
CookieMonster 1 & 2 via RedHatNet
Nozzles via BidorBuy
All others my own