A Few of My Favourite Things !

Before EJ, I had no idea how daunting the task of motherhood is. I don’t know how I would have survived the first three months without the support of all those mums out there so this is a visual thank you.

These look really professional but are dead easy to make. Put together the cupcake batter of your choice, fill some flat-bottomed cones two-thirds of the way up and bake as usual. Whip up a buttercream frosting and decorate with colourful sprinkles, hundreds-and-thousands and cute animal or flower motifs.

Santa should come see me when he is need of someone to guide his sleigh. All my reindeers seem to be named Rudolph.

A. thought that these reindeers were far to merry looking to be eaten. The hardest part about making these were getting the pretzels to break in the right spots. Between A & I, we managed to waste more than half a pack of pretzels that didn’t look right for the antlers!

Using Nigella’s recipe for a Strawberry Meringue Layer Cake, I made these baby cakes for A’s birthday. The base was far less sponge-like than I had imagined and more like a shortcake, with a biscuity bite.

There was way too much egg white for the amount of batter I had in the paper bases butI used it all anyway. The meringue top puffed up beautifully in the oven and would have looked a treat that way however I specifically wanted to layer King Island pure cream and strawberries on top of mine. So, off the foamy meringue heads went - a good decision too because the cake is sweet enough on its own (although I have noticed that I’m not as fond of sweet things as I used to be…). They looked great with sparklers although these left tiny little black sooty bits on the pure white cream

More strawberries later on, coutesy of Edible Blooms. These were really amazingly fragrant and sweet and juicy, everything a strawberry should be. Easy to make too, if you are so inclined. Just arm yourself with a few skewers and a head of lettuce!

I had recently come across some wattleseed at my not-so-local supermarket. This bushfood which is harvested as a seed from a plant member of the Acacia species, was originally used by Australian Aboriginines as a valuable, nutritious food source. They ate it raw, dried or incorporated it into their baking. Roasted and ground, wattleseed has a nutty flavour with coffee undertones.

As I don’t often come across native foods, unless it’s sold as a speciality item at markets, I wanted to make something with it. I decided on cupcakes and wanted to pair it somehow with pecans because I think the flavours match really well. In the end, I made a pecan crumble to sprinkle on top and for the surprise part, I would fill the cupcakes with an espresso frosting to enhance the coffee flavour.

I used a basic cupcake recipe from Nigella’s How to be a Domestic Goddess and added about 2 tablespoons of this native spice. Chopped up pecans mixed with some raw sugar on top then into the oven they went. Once cooled, I made an espresso then used it to mix some icing sugar into a paste. This went into a piping bag with a sharp nozzle and was piped in through the base of the cupcakes. This is not a particularly fluffy cupcake so it took some effort to get the icing in. If you look carefully at the photo, you will see that I didn’t end up with much of the frosting inside but this turned out quite well because it wasn’t overly sweet.

These babies were really good. An unusual flavour that reminds you of coffee but not quite as strong as coffee/espresso cupcakes. Can anyone enlighten me on why my cupcakes have a little hump in the centre though? I’ve never had this happen before.

Head over to Alanna’s for all the surprises in month’s Sugar High Friday round-up!

Wattleseed Pecan-Crumble Espresso Cupcakes

125g SR flour, 125g butter, 125g sugar, 2 large eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp baking powder, 2 tablespoons wattleseed, 2-3 tablespoons milk. Crumble: chopped pecans and a sprinkle of raw sugar. Frosting: Espresso and icing sugar

1. Cream butter and sugar, then add eggs and vanilla extract
2. Add dry ingredients and mix.
3. Add milk to form a batter with a ’soft dropping’ consistency
4. Spoon into muffin tin, sprinkle pecan/sugar mixture on top and bake at 200C for 20 minutes.
5. Mix the espresso and icing sugar into smooth paste and pipe into middle of cupcakes through base