My knitting muse appears to have (I hope temporarily) deserted me. It's been months since I had the time to knit regularly, and now that I have a little time to dedicate to it, I just don't feel like it. I have a couple of neglected projects on the needles but they're destined to remain there until I have a burst of fibre-related energy. Same with my spinning wheels - they're sitting in the foyer looking decorative.

</end confession>

In place of all things textile, I have a new favourite time/money sucking pasttime.

Cupcakes.

Not eating them (although the baker's prerogative is always to have the first taste!) but the planning, baking and decorating of those tiny, tasty morsels in their sugary Sunday best. I've also become something of a blog whore, lurching around the interwebs searching for just one more blog about baking. 

My first foray into cupcakery came when one of my work colleagues announced she was going home to Korea to get married. We were all very sad to see her go and wanted to give her a memorable last shift. In the knowledge that at least 20 mouths needed filling with cake, I set to recipe hunting. The two finalists were Hummingbird cake with a citrus cream cheese frosting and rich chocolate cupcakes with fresh mint ganache filling and mint buttercream frosting. Both recipes came from Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit, truly cupcake heaven. I searched far and wide before settling on those two and discovered a treasure trove of cupcake porn in the process.

So, I set to shopping for ingredients (costly and frustrating - I want to be able to shop in American stores!) and baking. First off the bat were the Hummingbird cakes. As a few of my colleagues are gluten-intolerant, I opted to make these ones gluten-free by using Orgran gluten-free all-purpose flour. The ingredients assembled and mixed into chunky batter, I put them in to bake. Having never used gluten-free flour before and having heard many horror stories about baking gone wrong due to substitution of ingredients, I anxiously awaited the alarm on my mobile phone telling me it was time to remove them from the oven. I needn't have worried - they rose beautifully and tasted just like good Hummingbird cake should taste - moist, sweet, nutty and just a hint of the pineapple shining through. The cream cheese frosting has gone into my permanent baking library as a winner in its class. I frosted each cake, some regular and a tray of baby cakes, then topped each one with a pecan.

The chocolate cakes didn't go so well for me. Although I followed the recipe to the letter and used the best ingredients I could find, my cakes ended up almost bottomless with a hard top. I tried altering the cooking time to no avail and managed to ruin one tray completely by forgetting they were there. La la la! As the tops were too hard to cut neatly, I opted to spread the ganache on each cake, then refrigerate before frosting them. The fresh mint taste was overwhelming and although I love fresh mint, it wasn't my favourite choc/mint adventure. The peppermint essence I searched so hard for was barely detectable in the buttercream, despite doubling the amount used. Overall, they were nice, but nice isn't good enough for me to do again strictly to recipe. Next time, I'll try a Devil's Food recipe for the cake and use the peppermint essence in the ganache. Each cake was topped with a swirl of frosting, a Mint Slice ball and a sliver of candy cane.

After the hard work was over, I tried out a recipe for vanilla cupcakes called Scouts Cupcakes. The recipe calls for cream in place of butter and uses non-standard measures. I wasn't convinced they'd work and I was partly right - the batter was overflowing the cups within minutes of going into the oven. The taste was fabulous, however... soft, sweet vanilla cream in cake form. The Scouts cakes didn't get frosted and they stayed home to be eaten in their imperfect glory but I've since tried the recipe again using a slightly hotter oven and they worked a treat. I'd link to the recipe but I can't find the source, so here it is. I used double cream, not thickened.

Scouts Cupcakes
Into a 1 cup metric measuring cup place
2 eggs then fill to the top with thickened cream.
Beat 1 minute.
Add 1 splash vanilla essence and 3/4 cup caster sugar.
Beat 3 minutes
Sift 1 cup SR flour and fold into mixture.

Place in 12 patty pans, 2/3 filling each cup.
Bake in moderate oven until light golden and cakes spring back when lightly touched in the centre - about 15 minutes.

So, there ya have it. I'll leave you with the one not-crap photo of the Cakes for Sarah.