The Great British Bake Off Quest

So my first blog! How exciting! My first baking attempt for blog purposes hasn't exactly gone to plan – my cupcakes look more like mega muffins; a meal in itself! I may have an issue with portion size by the look of these beasts. But they taste pretty good and that’s all that matters for the time being.

So the first recipe I've tried is Crunchy Coffee Cupcakes. The recipe has been ever so slightly adapted from that of a cake in the Great British Bake Off Everyday book. I am a massive fan of The Great British Bake Off; in fact my mission is to be on it in 2015 so I’m going to be using the blog to learn the basics and when it’s back on the TV I’ll be trying all of their challenges in preparation for my application :)

The recipe makes 12 cupcakes (but then mine are mahoosive so actually it probably makes more) and I've made two different buttercream icings to top them off. One is a coffee buttercream icing to further the coffee taste and the other is cinnamon to bring out the flavour from the streusel which creates the middle layer of the cupcake – that gives them their crunch!

Fresh from the oven - yummy!

Iced and ready to be devoured - the two icings look pretty similar but the ever so slightly darker one is the coffee one.

Crunchy Coffee Cupcakes

For the streusel:

• ·         100g light brown muscovado sugar
• ·         50g plain flour
• ·         25g porridge oats
• ·         1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ·         50g unsalted butter
• ·         50g pecan pieces (or walnut)

For the coffee cake:

• ·         2 tbsp instant coffee granules or powder
• ·         2 tbsp boiling water
• ·         120g unsalted butter
• ·         200g caster sugar
• ·         2 medium eggs
• ·         200ml buttermilk, at room temperature
• ·         250g plain flour
• ·         Pinch of salt
• ·         ½ tsp baking powder
• ·         ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

For the buttercream icing:

• ·         210g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• ·         420g icing sugar, sifted
• ·         1 tbsp milk
• ·         ½ tsp cinnamon
• ·         1 tsp instant coffee granules or powder

Instructions:

1. ·         Heat your oven to 180°C/350°C/gas 4. Prepare a muffin tin with cupcake cases.
2. ·         First you need to make the streusel – mix the sugar, flour, oats and cinnamon with your fingers. Add in the butter and mix with your fingers until it looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in the nuts and leave to one side.
3. ·         Stir the coffee into the boiling water until dissolved and leave to cool completely.
4. ·         For the cake, using an electric whisk beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat until you have a fluffy mixture.
5. ·         Put the eggs in a small bowl and whisk with a fork. Gradually add to the butter mixture, beating well after each addition. You need to be careful here to make sure that the mixture doesn't curdle.
6. ·         Gradually add the buttermilk to the mixture using a metal spoon to stir. Add in the coffee.
7. ·         Sift in the flour, salt, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into the mixture and fold until combined thoroughly.
8. ·         Spoon half of the mixture into the cupcake cases. Scatter half of the streusel mixture into the cupcake cases and press down on to the cake mixture. Spoon the rest of the cake mixture into the cupcakes on top of the streusel. Scatter the remaining streusel mixture on top of the cupcakes. (If you want your cupcakes to look a normal size try not to overfill as they do rise quite a bit!)
9. ·         Put in the oven and bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Around the 20 minute mark check that the cupcakes aren't browning too quickly. You can cover them with foil to prevent them becoming too dark.
10. ·         Place the cupcakes on a wire rack and leave to cool completely.
11. ·         Meanwhile make your buttercream icing. Mix the icing sugar, butter and milk in a bowl. If you’re making the two flavours then once it resembles a plain buttercream icing, split the mixture into two.
12. ·         For the coffee icing: put the coffee in just enough boiling water to dissolve it. Gradually add the coffee to one of the buttercreams, making sure the consistency is still strong enough to pipe.
13. ·         For the cinnamon icing: follow the instructions for the coffee icing using cinnamon instead.
14. ·         Pipe the different buttercreams onto the cooled cupcakes and ta-dah!