Christmas Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and Gingerbread Men Toppers

The final cupcakes I made for the Christmas stall were gingerbread flavour.  

There's just something about gingerbread, and to me you can't do Christmas baking without it featuring! 

The simplicity of the cream cheese frosting is the perfect combo with the spiciness of the cupcake, and what makes them super cute is the mini homemade gingerbread man on top.

Gingerbread Cupcakes:

Makes 12 regular and 12 mini

From: Cupcake Creations

1 cup self raising flour

1 cup plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1 cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs

180g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup semi-skimmed milk

4 tbsp golden syrup 

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C.

Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg into the bowl of a free standing mixer.

Add the remaining ingredients.

Beat in mixer until combined and lighter in colour (approx. 2 mins).

Divide mixture between cases.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Leave to cool in pans for 10 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Makes enough to frost above

From: The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook

300g icing sugar

50g unsalted butter, at room temperature

125 cream cheese, cold

Beat the icing sugar and butter together in a freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment 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 minutes.

Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny.

Gingerbread Men Cookies:

Makes approx. 30-40 cookies depending on size or 12 large size gingerbread men

From: Net Mums

350g plain flour

1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

100g unsalted butter

175g soft light brown sugar

1 egg

4 tbsp golden syrup

Sift the flour, ginger and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl.

Rub in the butter (or if you're lazy like me your KitchenAid can do this job pretty well too).

Add sugar and stir in the syrup and egg to make a firm dough.

Flour your work surface generously and flour the rolling pin, roll out to 5mm thick.

Flour your cookie cutter and cut out the men.

Space the cookies out on your baking sheet as they will spread out.

Bake at 190 degrees C for 10-15 minutes (Cut the baking time in half if you are making the mini size gingerbread men for cupcake toppers). 

Leave to firm up on the baking tray for 5 minutes and then transfer them to a wire track to cool.

Once I had made enough mini gingerbread men for the cupcakes, I used the rest of the dough to make different festive shaped cookies.  I whipped up a batch of very standard icing = icing sugar and water, and then piped an outline on the cookies, flooded the middle and decorated them with a variety of sprinkles.

For the mini versions of the cupcake I topped them with gingerbread men sprinkles which were very cute too as unfortunately they don't make a gingerbread man size cutter small enough to fit on top of a mini cupcake! I also used my gingerbread men cupcake cases, and you may just be able to see them peeking through if you look extra close in this pic! 

Each egg box of mini's contained the three other festive flavours too: Candy Cane Red Velvet, Peanut Butter Brownie and Hot Chocolate.

A Christmas Cupcake Stall at Bangor's Christmas Market

Yesterday was Bangor Uni's Christmas Market, which was run by the students.  We got an email a while back asking if anyone was interested in running a stall so I jumped at the chance, not realising the market was the day after I had an essay due in! In hindsight, it wasn't the best timing! but it turned out pretty well in the end considering how little sleep I got (please excuse the bad pictures - the lighting in the hall was terrible!) Also, I am not claiming responsibility for the purple tablecloth or the tinsel - that was all down to the University setting up! but I must thank my mom for sending me the awesome gold and starry tablecloth and serviettes to make my stall a little bit prettier! Most people didn't worry with their stalls but I like things to look fancy! 

Here's a little run down of everything I made, recipes will be following later in the week...

First up, I made some red velvet cupcakes with peppermint frosting.  I made the frosting two tone to co-ordinate with the candy cane toppers.  

The most popular of the day had to be these hot chocolate cupcakes with swiss meringue buttercream.  If you've never had swiss meringue buttercream before (no one seemed to know what it was who visited my stall!) it's a very silky light frosting made from a combination of heated egg whites, butter and sugar.  It's less sweet then regular buttercream and was the perfect accompaniment to the rich chocolate cupcake.  It also pipes on like a dream and as it's so light it helped to create the whipped cream look I was going for.  I dusted some cocoa, sprinkled some marshmallows on and dipped a wafer in melted chocolate just to finish them off! 

One of my favourite combos, especially for Christmas is gingerbread with cream cheese frosting.  I made these cupcakes for the first time two years ago and then last year in the Caribbean I made them with my sister too, so they're definitely becoming a bit of a tradition!

 Homemade gingerbread men as toppers always go down well.  I'm really not a fan of fondant decorations and I believe cupcake toppings should always look good and be delicious.

My favourite cupcakes of the day were these brownie cupcakes with peanut butter frosting.  They are all round a delicious flavour combo but also I was excited to make them so I could turn them into baubles! I ordered the mini Reese's peanut butter cups from one of my favourite websites - The Stateside Candy Co, and I knew as soon as I saw them that they would be perfect for looking like a bauble! 

So I tried my best to mound my frosting into a circular shape and then did a few zig zag patterns over the frosting with melted chocolate.  I put the reese's cup at the top to act as the hanging part of the bauble.  They were time consuming but I think they were worth the effort! As a random side note, I discovered last year whilst in the Caribbean from my American colleagues that they didn't know what a bauble was! Apparently in America they are known simply as Christmas Ornaments so for all my American followers these were my 'Christmas Ornament' cupcakes! 

I also baked 12 mini's of each flavour because these bite sized treats are always popular.

Did you know egg boxes are made for putting mini's in? I like to give them aways as presents in these by decorating the boxes and tying ribbon around them.  I decorated these with some striped Christmas paper and a gift tag...

and put a random assortment of mini's inside - people fell in love with these and all the boxes were snapped up in the first 20 minutes! I must remember to make more for next time around...

I finished with a few treats for those out there who might not be as cupcake crazy as I am! I made some Christmas shaped gingerbread cookies, and these peppermint brownies.  They were chocolate brownies frosted with chocolate-peppermint swiss meringue buttercream and finished off with some chopped up candy canes and a drizzle of mint chocolate .  I made these in the last hour before we had to leave the house as an afterthought, but I was glad I did as they got some of the best compliments of the day! 

I'm off to do my 25th load of washing up...no really! Baking for the masses without a dishwasher is no fun at all! 

Red Velvet & Brownie Wedding Cupcakes...for a very special wedding!

 

Shall I tell you every bakers worst nightmare, or let me rephrase that...every English bakers worst nightmare - 1. Red Velvets, 2. Red frosting!!

Guess what Laura wanted me to make for her wedding, red velvet cupcakes and brownie cupcakes with the dreaded red frosting!!! Already I was foreseeing stressful times ahead! 

Let me explain why...baking up a red velvet if you live in America is easy peasy (and why you find them at every cupcakery/bakery from California to New York) because they just pop down to Wal Mart or wherever and pick up a bottle of red food colouring and follow their perfect little recipe.  Job done.

In England it's not so easy! because some 'clever' (a.k.a stupid) person has decided artificial red food colouring can no longer be sold on our shelves and that everything needs to be natural.

So this is what happens when you bake a red velvet with natural food colour. 

 

You get a red velvet that comes out brown!!!  I tried four different kinds of red velvet recipes.  I tried liquid red colour, gel red colour and either the colour didn't work or it worked so well that the mixture became inedible. 

Do you know what saved the day in the end and produced this beautiful red hue you see below?

 

A bottle of cochineal, that I had bought at the supermarket like 2 years ago when I remember reading on a blog that it was good for making red frosting! Unfortunately that little bottle wasn't quite enough to make ALL the red velvets I needed too so I popped to Sainsburys...and then to Tesco...and then to Asda and apparently cochineal is too artificial these days too so they no longer sell that either!!!

Luckily I had a small bottle of red food colour that my fantastic sister had brought back for me from the States so I managed to finish my baking using that....but it was no mean feat baking up 75 red velvets and a giant cupcake too - I needed the help of ALL the red food colours in the picture below! and some were no help at all like stupid silver spoon food colouring with no artificial colours! psh!

The bride had requested red glitter and red m&m's so I made a special trip to m&m world to buy a giant bag of only red and white m&m's!

 

and of course there had to be lots of red hearts involved on top of the cream cheese frosting.

 

My red frosting actually turned out surprisingly great! thanks to my new favourite sugarflair colour - RED EXTRA! where have you been hiding all my life! when I have had red frosting baking fail after fail after fail..this little guy would have come in handy! but I've found it now and I'm passing on my little secret to all of you! 

 

Some of the cupcakes got decorated with a few jimmies...

 

and there were also 75 minis just to add to the fun!

 

They got topped the same way as the regular sized cupcakes but I managed to get mini versions of the heart sprinkles and the m&m's just got chopped up smaller!

 

The brownie cupcakes were specially requested by the bride after she tried them here and here and fell in love with them! If you want to bake them yourself then go ahead and follow Martha's recipe, they're super fudgy and yummy! 

 

The red frosting I whipped up was my fave flavour - vanilla bean.

 

I also made a giant cupcake for the occasion too.

 

Here are a few pics of the cupcakes that I managed to snap just after I set them all up at the wedding.

 

I liked the way it was a whole table filled with cupcakes dotted all over the place rather than the more traditional cupcake towers.

 

I'm really loving my new lens these days! Although Byron uses it much better than I do, so credit to him for taking all these!

 

The prettiness of this table summed up the whole of Mr & Mrs Brooker's amazing day!

 

I even managed to co-ordinate with the cupcakes without even planning it! 

 

and here I am with the beautiful bride! After all the red related headaches, I was happy they turned out great in the end! and it was so fun to be able to make these cupcakes for Laur's special day! 

I'm sharing these over at Hoosier Homemade for Cupcake Tuesday! Go check out all the other delicious cupcakes everyone has been baking up!

Happy Christmas!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and it was filled with as many cupcake related prezzies as mine was! and filled with tasty treats! We had a rather unusual Christmas day and spent it at the beach...which was definitely a first! (note the sandballs instead of snowballs that we would have been playing with had we been back in the U.K)

As promised, here's a little snippet of some of our festive baking we've been upto!

These are a few of the 100 cupcakes we made for a church carol service on the Island.  

I know I know...candy canes and gingerbread you've seen it all before! but they really are such yummy festive flavours that they can't be beaten! 

Chocolate brownie cupcakes topped with peppermint buttercream and crushed candy canes.

Gingerbread cupcakes topped with cream cheese frosting, a little gingerbread cookie star, and my favourite part was the gingerbread crumb! thanks to my sister for that idea...I will sure miss my baking partner when she goes back to England on Tuesday! boooo

We rolled these larger gingerbread cupcakes in gingerbread crumb and topped with 3 stars.

These cuppies got flat frosted with some fun cookies as toppers.

These were chocolate brownie cupcakes topped with chocolate frosting, a mini marshmallow and a dusting of icing sugar - a basic version of hot chocolate cupcakes.  

On Christmas eve, we made these delicious cookies courtesy of our Martha Stewart holiday cookies magazine.

They were chocolate and peppermint cookies, dipped in melted white chocolate and then sprinkled with crushed candy cane.  We wrapped them in cellophane and gave them to our friends here as gifts.

We even made a few star shaped ones and Christmas tree ones too...just for fun! and oh my I just remembered we still have cake balls in the freezer too that haven't even made it to the photographing stage yet...which is probably for the best, I'm not the most attentive cake ball maker! which leads to some pretty messy looking cake balls! 

Finally for the 'Pièce de résistance' we made a Buche de Noel for our Christmas Day feast.  Man that thing was hard work! We slaved away at it for hours! We used a total of 17 eggs altogether to make that...17 eggs! it was crazy! There were two types of buttercream, a rich chocolate buttercream and a malted chocolate buttercream.  We got the recipe out of a snazzy baking magazine that Mara brought with her, the method is 2 pages long so I'm not even going to bother typing all that out! Whilst we were pleased with the end result appearance wise, it actually looks pretty identical to the picture straight out of the magazine! the overall taste left something to be desired, all the chocolate used in the recipe called for 70% cocoa solids and I'm not the biggest dark chocolate fan, so in the end it was a little too rich for our taste buds but it made a nice centre piece! Check out my gorgeous new cake stand that Byron got me! Happy blogging days...no more using the ugly plates from our rented apartment here! 

The festive baking continues....Gingerbread Man Cupcakes

So I now realise the importance of always listing your recipes along with your blog posts! Last Christmas I made some delicious Gingerbread Man Cupcakes with a random recipe I had found off google.  I have it written down but it is currently in England somewhere in my parents attic! There was no way I was going to remember which site it came from so this time round I went with a different one and it wasn't quite as delicious...still good, but if I'd have posted that recipe how much easier things would have been! 

We began by making gingerbread cookies to be the toppers for our cupcakes.  I had said let's make the cookies first and then while the cupcakes are cooking we can decorate the cookies...but no, our recipe produced an enormous amount of dough that seemed to be everlasting so for 4 hours straight on Tuesday night we made cookies...batch after batch after batch!

Then came the decorating!!! 

Mara was taking it very seriously! 

This was my first ever time 'flooding' a cookie, I was quite nervous but was pleased with how easy it turned out to be!

We had quite alot of Christmas sprinkles to use, and I was really happy with this cute little Christmas tree cutter I ordered off a baking website in England that Mara brought over for me.

Mara decorated her Christmas tree with individual green sprinkles around the edge which I thought was a good effect:

These were our cute teeny Gingerbread Men for our toppers, you might not be able to tell but the one on the left has a little red heart too - a tip we picked up from all The Martha Stewart Show's we have been watching on American T.V! 

Since we had so much cookie dough left over, we made quite alot of stars too! and went to town on the decorating, I love the one with the Candy Cane Kisses on top! 

At about 1am we decided to call it a night on the baking front...so we resumed the following morning to make the cupcakes and finish our idea! 

The batter of the recipe we used produced was very light and fluffy.

While they were in the oven, I whipped up my cream cheese frosting with some trepidation.  The last 4 times I have made cream cheese frosting out here it has been a flop, literally.  I think because of the humidity and because the butter is always so soft to begin with, you take it out the fridge for like 10 minutes to soften and it's practically liquid by the time you're ready to put it in! 

Well...this is my super happy face! because hurrah! making cream cheese frosting in Turks and Caicos finally worked for me! The temperature has cooled down alot since we first arrived and so I wonder if that helped things! I'm pretty sure it was the best batch of cream cheese frosting I've made...ever! The American butter here is not as yellow as our butter in England so it made the frosting lovely and white and very glossy too! Here is the recipe I followed for the frosting:

Cream Cheese Frosting:

300g icing sugar
50g unsalted butter
125g cream cheese

1. Beat the butter and sugar together in an electric mixer on low speed
2. Beat the cream cheese in on medium-high speed, turn up and beat until the frosting is fluffy (be sure not to overbeat, as cream cheese will go runny).

I got to work piping, you can't really see but the mini cupcakes are even in gingerbread man cases...I ordered them from Wilton but they aren't greaseproof and are not the best cases I've ever used, but they look fun! 

Hmm look at all the frosting! and check the Christmas cupcake wrapping paper in the background! All of my presents under the tree are currently wrapped in that...fun stuff!

Here are the finished cupcakes, I was so pleased with the way they turned out! 

Gingerbread Cupcakes:

Makes 12 cupcakes

1/2 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup plain flour

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 egg

90g unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp golden syrup

Preheat the oven to 170 degrees c.

Sieve the flours, soda, ginger, cinnamon and nutmeg into a large bowl.  Add the remaining ingredients. Using an electric mixer, beat for 2 minutes (until mixture has lightened in colour) and all ingredients are combined.

Divide the mixture evenly between cases and bake for 30 minutes.