After Eight Cupcakes

I love, love, love St. Patrick's Day! It's an excuse to indulge (as if I need any!) and you can be as tacky as you like with decorations and food colouring!

St. Patrick's Day = Green

Green = Mint

Mint + Chocolate = Win!

Although I stayed fairly calm with the flavours here, I used shamrock green cupcake cases which looked so cute and festive! 

Also, a 150g box of After Eights was the perfect size for these cupcakes, no need to buy a big box.

I used a chocolate batter, with a hidden After Eight baked inside, and kept the peppermint flavouring and green colouring for the icing. 

The results were delicious! Just like an After Eight in cupcake form!

Ingredients- Yields 12 Cupcakes

6oz self-raising flour

4oz caster sugar

4oz margarine

3 eggs

2 tablespoons cocoa

12 After Eight Mints

1. Preheat oven to 180degrees Celcius.
2. Line baking tray with cupcake cases (I used cute green polka-dot ones from Sainsburys)
3. Mix all ingredients except for the After Eights until combined.
4. Spoon half of mixture into cake tins.
5. Place a whole After Eight on top of batter in each case.
6. Cover each After Eight with more batter.
7. Bake for 20 minutes or until the cupcakes are springy to touch (don't try the skewer test here!)
8. Cool on a wire rack.

Icing:

About 1/2 a bag confectioners sugar

3 drops green food colouring

3 drops peppermint essence

2 knobs margarine

2 teaspoons hot water

6 After Eight mints

1. Mix all ingredients, except After Eights until smooth.
2. Add more green colouring or peppermint essence, to taste.
3. Slice mints diagonally.
4. Ice cupcakes, I used a small spatula and worked in a circular motion, picking up the icing from side to side and finishing in a small peak in the centre of the cupcake.
5. Place the After Eight firmly into the cupcake, apex upwards.

Enjoy these beauties with a cup of tea in front of War of the Buttons!  

Let me know what you think of them in the comment box below, honestly, they're probably my favourite thing I've ever baked!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! Have a great one and see you back here next week!

Stay sweet! x

St. Patrick's Day Show!

Hope you're all having a great St. Patrick's Day! If you're still looking for some ideas for parties and munching, or just want to enjoy the best of Irish homegrown musical talent tune into this week's show!

Clover in a nearby forest recently

If you're in the mood for crashing on the couch, watching Darby O'Gill and the Little People, or laughing at the horrendous Irish accents in P.S. I Love You, try the new DairyMilk Bubbly Mint- amazing! 

Watch this space for scrumptious Paddy's Cupcakes! 

Bain taitneamh as La Fheile Padraig!

x

Blueberry Muffins

As you saw here, my sister gifted me Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook for my birthday! Today I made her blueberry muffins, listed as Blythe's Blueberry Muffins.

These are so so yummy!

I had never used blueberries at home but when I saw them in store this week I knew I had to make these muffins! Here's the recipe online if you're not lucky enough to have the book- note the book has a healthier version... Let's be honest though, you won't be finding it on this blog! ;)

The blueberries I bought came in packs of 125g so although the recipe calls for 300g I thought there were still more than enough blueberries in this amount, feel free to cut it down further!

Bonus point- I had exactly 125g of unsalted butter leftover from the cookies I made recently! No waste! Perfect!

I made these in cupcake cases rather than muffin cases and the yield increased by 50%! Another win in my book! ;)

Hope you get the chance to make these! I had one right out of the oven with a glass of milk!

I'll let you know how well they last over the next few days... If there are any left! ;)

See you all on sUCCulent tomorrow at 11am on UCC 98.3!

Stay sweet! x

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is this Sunday folks, time to get crafty! 

In this week's show I have some cake decorating and flavour tips- which all sound so good I 
was almost drooling over the mic!

Also, what about throwing a girls-night-in or the 'Anti-Six-Nations-Rugby' party? Sound good to you, and more importantly your momma? Click here to hear more!

And check out these Valentine's day platters which could be re-created to say thanks to your mom!

What are you planning for Sunday? Let me know in the comments box below! 

Stay sweet! x

Egg and Spoon

Cadbury's Crème Eggs. I can never get over how delicious they are!! I know they're a real love or hate sweet but really, how can anybody resist?? I always dreamt when I was younger about getting an Easter Egg filled with the Crème Egg inside. Thankfully Cadbury's never invented such a creation, and I have not yet delved into a sugar coma. 

Pimp That Snack is an epic website where people even more obsessive than me actually make these giant desserts!!! It's a dangerous website, but soooo worth a troll. Have a look at my favourite, the home-made giant Crème Egg.

Anyways, I've finally accepted the fact that this will probably not become a reality for me, so I turned to a new product... Cadbury's Egg and Spoon!

The chocolate isn't as thick as the Cadbury Crème Egg, but that isn't to say that they aren't as heavy! This was the white chocolate mousse version and wowzers were they filling!! But oh so tasty! I could eat them all day every day! Definitely store them at room temperature because the filling solidifies in the fridge (it'll soften after a few minutes, but who wants to wait that long??)

Creamy, comforting, chocolatey and cute these are fab! You tap off the top of the egg and then dive into the filling! Adorable! I really was pleasantly surprised by them and they'd be great for a girly night or a snack with someone special! 

Be warned they only come with two spoons- encouraging us to be fatties maybe! They also are quite pricey but a few stores are selling them at a special introductory price at the moment so if I were you, I'd scoop some up now while you can! :)

Stay sweet! x

Over- Cook(i)ed

Last Saturday I was super bored, beyond bored. Living in a house that usually resembles Grand Central Station, everyone was either out of the house for the day. Aside from walking the terriers, I had no company, wa waaah! I know this should have been the opportunity to study and make good use of the day, but with an assignment due the night before I was burnt out! My brain was fried so the only thing I could do which didn't require much thought was bake. I borrowed this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod, minus the caramel and with mini chips instead of regular. I was too tired to adapt a recipe and when this one had baking soda which I thought was a nice addition and wondered how it would turn out!

Now, this would have been good if my tired, tired mind took note of their recommended cooking time... 10 minutes. However, as the cookies still looked pale and flattened when I touched them. The cupcake-baker in me quickly snapped the door shut and left them in for another TEN minutes. BIG mistake! So the lesson here is, follow the instructions when it comes to cookies! :) Still, they weren't that bad... Just a tad crunchy! Think Hagrid's Rock Cakes! I joke I was the only person who seemed to care about them being hard, everyone else just dipped them into tea! Where there's a will, there's a way!

Lesson learned! Here are some cute photos of the cookies anyways, a feast for the eyes!

Don't forget to tune into UCC98.3fm tomorrow for the Mother's Day edition of sUCCulent! 

Until then,
Stay sweet! x

Danish Baking with a Great Dane!

After a sickness-induced hiatus, sUCCulent was back on air today! Sarah Foley, a classmate and baking enthusiast was on the show chatting about Danish baking! From culture to ingredients, recipes and traditions, you'll find all you need to know about Danish baking here.

Sarah's amazing Danish buns are a real crowd pleaser and as she said on the show, don't let the yeast put you off- 15minutes in the oven and you'll be as popular as our guest!

The recipe for gorgeous Danish 'fastelavnsboller' (Custard buns)Makes 14 buns 

Custard:

3 egg yokes
2 tablespoons sugar 
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar 
2 dl. fullfat milk 
2 teaspoons cornflour

1. Whisk the egg yokes, sugar, vanilla sugar  into a bowl. 
2. Boil the milk in a pot and whisk it into the eggmix. 
3. Pour the custard back into a pot and let it boil for a couple of minutes. 
4. Leave to cool.

The dough:

1 yeast satchet
1.25 dl. lukewarm fullfat milk#
1 egg
50 g. sugar
1 tablespoon salt
175 g. soft butter in pieces
450g. flour

1. Dissolve yeast into the milk. Add egg, sugar, salt, butter and flour. 
2. -Work the dough for ten minutes. To begin with it will be very moist and fall apart, but keep going and you will end up with a nice, firm dough ball. 
3. Leave the dough to raise for 30-45 mins. 
4. Roll the dough until it is 1 cm. thick. Cut squares of 10x10cm and place a tablespoon of custard in the middle of each square.
5. Fold the squares into small sachets (if you fold the corners 8 times instead of 4, more custard will remain in the bun).
6. Glaze the buns with egg, and bake in the oven for 15 mins at 200 degrees. 

Enjoy! :)


Thanks again Sarah for being a fab guest!
More recipes to come over the weekend, but until then...

Stay sweet! x