Salted Caramel Cupcakes

Recently I was out shopping and randomly wandered into Marks & Spencer. I always go in there for treats. I know it can be expensive but the things they sell are so nice! I wandered up the sweet isle and saw on the shelf "Salted Caramel" in a jar with a picture of some ice cream and some warm oozy caramel melted on top. After being recommended to buy it from a friend and an M&S worker actually coming up to me and saying it's amazing I was sold!

The jar was £3 and I can tell it will last me while for sure. It's so nice on Ice cream, in hot chocolates, on desserts and puddings or in this case...in cupcakes! This recipe came together after I was thinking what things it would be nice with and sure enough, cupcakes came to mind. The salty caramel drizzle on top of the sweet butter cream and a surprise caramel centre make these cupcakes on in their own.

Ingredients: (Makes 12)

Cakes:

125g of Self Raising Flour

125g Unsalted Butter

125g of Caster Sugar

2 Large Free Range Eggs

1/4tsp of Bicarbonate Soda

1 1/2tbsp of Milk

1/2tsp of Vanilla Extract or Paste

3tbsp  of Salted Caramel

Frosting:

200g Unsalted Butter (Room Temperature)

450g Icing Sugar

3tbsp Milk

3tbsp of Salted Caramel

Chocolate Balls to decorate

Equipment:

12 whole cupcake tray

12 cupcake liners

Piping Bag or Spatula

Bowl

Electric Mixer

 

Method:

1. Start by pre-heating your oven to 170 degrees f. Line a cupcake tin with 12 cupcake liners and set aside for later.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together your room temperature butter and sugar for about 2 minutes till it is nice and pale and it has fluffed up a little.

 

2. Now add your eggs one at a time, whisking after every addition.

3. Add your vanilla extract and whisk again.

4. Now sieve in your flour and bicarbonate soda and fold together till smooth.

5. Add your milk and stir one last time till fully combined.

 

6. Get your cake tin and place about 1tbsp of the mix in the cake case and repeat for all 12 cases.

7. Now add about half a tsp of the salted caramel in the centre of each cake and repeat for all 12 cakes. Alternatively you could use toffee or caramel sauce if you don't have the salted caramel.

8. Put enough batter over the top to cover the caramel but only till the cases are 3/4 full, they will rise in the oven.

9. Bake them for about 20 -22 minutes, I would check them after 20 as mine where done then. If a knife can be put in the middle of a cake and it comes out clean it's done. Leave them to cool in the tin for 5 minutes the transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely. As you can see one had to be 'tested' in other words I couldn't wait for them to cool...

10. While your cakes are cooking, you can make your frosting. Add your butter to a bowl and whisk for 3 minutes till it has gone really pale.

11. Now add your icing sugar in two lots and whisk well after every addition. Once you have added all your sugar, whisk for 2 minutes continuously. It takes time to get good frosting so the more you whisk, the nicer it is.

12. Add your vanilla and milk and whisk for a final time.

 

14. Spoon your frosting into a piping bag and twist the nozzle at the top.

15. Pipe onto the cake at a 90 degree angle applying even pressure so that it doesn't all come out an once. You could spread the frosting on if you don't have a piping bag.

16. Take about 3tbsp of your caramel and put it in a bowl to melt in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir till it cools and spoon over each cake.

 

17. Top with the chocolate balls or any decoration you could like and enjoy.

This really is a simple recipe but done well you will get some amazing results that both look and taste super! This makes around 12 cupcakes so there is plenty to go around or you could just eat them all although I wouldn't recommend this...As tempting as it may be.

 

Tweet or Instagram me with a picture if you make these cakes and be sure to let me know how they turn out if you make them.

 

As always, thanks for reading,

 

Luke.

 

Day out in York

So last weekend me and my family went to York. We have always loved York, especially when they have food markets on. It's probably one of my most favourite places to visit, you genuinely can arrive hungry and leave feeling like you couldn't eat another morsel. And that's just the food, York is known for it's high-street and designer shops and it sure didn't disappoint on this trip.

 

We drove to York and got the bus into the city. Instantly I found the food market and when I say food market, I mean hundreds of stalls selling everything you could possibly want. This one stall caught my eye as they were selling these amazing chocolate muffins with marshmallows and jammy dodgers. I got talking to the man who worked behind the stall and asked him if I could get a snap of the muffins. I couldn't leave without getting anything so after some severe thought, I opted for a white chocolate and almond cookie.

 I turned round after my first purchase of the day to be greeted with a stall called "Tratdelicious" which specialised in traybakes and I honestly couldn't resist a look. They had everything you could imagine. Something like your classic Flapjack to the more adventurous Oreo Blondie or Marsbar Tray Bake. Again, you can probably see where this is going...so I made a purchase of one of the blondies...baked goods 2...will power 0.

 

 After some wandering, I stumbled upon this cupcake shop and it honestly had some of the best flavours I have ever seen. They had a huge window display, but because they were so popular, they only had a few flavours left. I was beyond gutted that they sold out of Sticky Toffee Flavour as that is my favourite pudding of all time. However the Cheesecake and Oreo flavours looked equally as tempting but I thought with my bag slowly filling with treats and the money in my wallet draining quite quickly, I'd have to decline, however hard that decision may have been.

I then had a wander up York high-street as the sight of all the shops was making me want to buy everything. H&M can be either hit or miss when it comes to the men's section. However the one in York was on point. I managed to pick up this navy shirt, a simple black t-shirt and a grey jumper for £27 with 20% off with UniDays. Excuse the shameless mirror selfie.

 

After a mooch round all the shops and a severe case of window shopping blues, I passed a shop called "Yogi". I saw two women come out with two mountains of frozen yoghurt and couldn't resist having a look in. Frozen yoghurt is seriously one of the nicest desserts when you don't fancy ice cream. They had a speciality of Salted Caramel but I thought I'd keep it reasonable healthy with raspberry flavour.

You have a choice of small, medium or large with 1,2,3 or 4 toppings. I chose a small pot with 2 toppings but you could actually go to town on the toppings. I went for crushed Oreo's and tonnes of raspberry culis. They had things like Reeces pieces, fudge chunks or fresh fruit to name just a few. It was amazing and I couldn't recommend the place enough.

In an attempt to try and walk off all the calories I had consumed in the space of about an hour, we chose to have a walk up to the minster. You really get a sense of how amazing York is once you visit the minster. It's just up from Shambles street and is amazing to look at.

 All this walking was thirsty work so of course this called for an obligatory visit to Costa for a refreshing iced drink. The thing I love about Costa is that they do these drinks all year round so when you need something thirst quenching, you're covered. This was a Medium Peach Iced Tea and it was exactly what I needed.

After Costa, we went for another wander only this time were in the search for something savoury...which turned out to be rather unsuccessful as my sweet tooth can never be satisfied. We saw this amazing window display in Patisserie Valerie and if you blocked out your surroundings you could be in Paris itself.

There was a slight waft of Nutella and Crepes in the air and this could only mean one thing...Crepe Stall. I thought I could resist but who was I kidding? The combination of crepes and Nutella is only going to end well. £3 down and I tucked in to probably one of the nicest crepes I've ever had. Enjoying this with a lemonade by my side and a band singing Ed Sheeran over the road...it really couldn't get any better.

 I think it was both a combination of all the sweet things I ate over the day, but I was fancying something savoury. We saw this authentic noodle store selling Asian style noodles and went in for a look. They had some amazing things on the menu, but I kept it simple with a Thai style chicken and noodle dish. Ate with chopsticks on the way back to the car, it finished the day off perfectly.

Face stuffed...check. Sweet tooth satisfied...check. Trip back to York soon? Most probably. I really do love York, it's one of those cities you can go back to time and time again and find something new ever time you go.

I hope you liked this little post of a day out I had, I really enjoy writing them. Be sure to leave a comment on any places you love to visit or if you go to York, what things you enjoy getting up to when you're there.

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Luke.

Strawberry & White Chocolate Millies Cookies

Cookies...I genuinely don't think you get any better than rustling up a fresh batch of homemade warm chewy cookies. Millies cookies are probably the best out there in my opinion and truly I wouldn't even try to compete with making ones similar, however I did give it a go with these warm strawberry and white chocolate cookies and boy did they taste good!

 

This recipe is just a standard white chocolate cookie recipe only I added the chopped up strawberries for a fruity and sweet change that sets these apart from any other cookies.

 

Ingredients: (makes 20 cookies)

 225g Plain Flour

1/2tsp of Salt

1/2tsp of Baking Powder

1 Egg

65g of Granulated Sugar

60g of Light Brown Sugar

1tsp of Vanilla Paste/Extract

115g of Unsalted Butter

250g of Strawberries (hulled and chopped)

150g of White Chocolate Chips

 

Equipment:

Scales

x2 bowls

Wooden Spoon

Baking Tray

Greaseproof or Baking Paper

Cooling Rack

 

 Method:

 

1. Pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees, gas mark 5 or 375 degrees F. Start by putting your flour, salt and baking powder in a bowl and stir till it is mixed together. Set aside for later.

 2. In another bowl, weigh out your butter.

 3. To the butter add both kinds of sugar and cream together till soft and pale. If you are struggling to mix these together, place the mix in the microwave for 10 seconds to help the process.

 4. Now crack in your egg and measure out your vanilla paste, I use the paste as is much stronger however extract works just as well. Mix till everything is incorporated.

 5. Now you have the wet mixture, you can gently add your dry mix, stirring until all the flour has been incorporated.

 6. Now get your clean strawberries and chop them into small pieces ready to be added to the dough.

 7. Add your chocolate chips too, I use white chocolate chips but if milk or dark are more your thing use them.

 8. Mix till the strawberries and the chocolate are fully combined. It's okay if your strawberries get crushed, this makes them look better in the end.

 9. Get your baking sheet and line it with greaseproof paper.

 10. Take small amounts of the dough, about 1 tbsp worth and put blobs of it on the baking sheet. Place these well apart as they will spread a bit.

 11. Squish them down slightly with a spoon so that they bake evenly and you have a nice thin cookie.

 12. Bake for 10-12 minutes until the tops are nice and golden but still soft underneath.

13. Leave them to cool on the baking sheets completely before transferring them to a wire rack. 

 14. They should be nice and soft on the bottom which means when they cool down, they will be crisp on the outside but nice and chewy in the middle.

 15. To serve, I placed these in a tub with some greaseproof paper so that it kept them fresh. These should keep for 2-3 days in a air tight container.

And that...is it. Again, another really simple recipe but if done well is really effective. These cookies are so nice to be ate warm or cold. The strawberries almost turn into a jam and the white chocolate gives these cookies an indulgent taste.

I hope you've enjoyed this recipe and if you do make these at home, be sure to let me know as I love hearing how they've turned out or take a snap of them and send them to any of my social media links above.

Thanks for reading as ever,

 

Luke.