Orange and Vanilla Bean Cupcakes

I saw these really pretty cupcakes a while a go and thought the flavour combination sounded yummy. I was right!

These are nice and fresh. The creamy vanilla beans perfectly goes with the tangy orange.

Recipe

You can find the recipe over at Annie's Eats here.

You know how much I love easy and effective cupcake toppers and I especially like ones you can eat. As you can see I candied some oranges for this recipes. This was the first time I have candied anything (I'm sure I say that in every post) it was surprisingly easy. Annie details exactly how to do it in her post. I used a whole orange and had to cut the pieces in to quarters. Annie candied a smaller tangerine so one ring covered the cupcake - In future I would go with this idea but I only had oranges, it's so much cuter to have a whole slice. 

This is my entry for Tea Time Treats this month. The theme is Summer Fairs & Fetes and Cake Stall Cakes and Bakes and it's being hosted by the lovely Karen from Lavender and Lovage. Sadly I have no summer fair to sell these at (really wish more were held in London!) but I think they would be a fab treat if I did!

I don't mean to sound so English but the weather really is awful here! I just got back from Malta and it was beautiful. I can't recommend it enough for everyone, all ages and interests! I yhought I'd share some holiday snaps (possibly too many but it was hard to choose) with you, just to remind us UKer's that the sun does exist! 

Happy Baking x

Guinness and Baileys Cupcakes

This post is slightly late in coming! I made these for St Patricks Day.

The boy's mum bumped in to a friend of ours and mentioned to them that her and the boy's dad were coming over to our house for St Paddy's Day lunch. She also mentioned that I was going to make St Paddy's day cupcakes, to which they replied "Oh they'll probably just be green".

She thought "I doubt it" and she was right!

I made Guinness and Baileys cupcakes. You'll have to forgive me but I thought this was a really original idea and I had come up with it all by myself. A little gooogling later, I discovered everyone and their aunt was making them!

Either way they were delicious.

I followed this recipe for the Guinness cakes by Dave Leiberman.

I originally thought I would make a Baileys cream to top them with because I had forgotten how "not sweet" the cakes were. After a quick nibble, to check they weren't posioned, I decided a sweet buttercream would be better.

I  used this recipe for the Baileys buttercream from Tide and Thyme.

As you can see I topped them with a swirl, however, not just any swirl an Ateco piping tip swirl!  I have been on the hunt for a large piping tip forever, I like the Wilton 1M but I would like it to be a bit bigger. After goggling, because I'm obsessive like that, I heard mention of Ateco but apparently you can only get them in the US and Australia. My excitment when I found them on a trip to Nottingham was immense. Haha.

I top them with a fondant "Shamrock". It's not quite a shamrock but this is the only cutter I had and I didn't fancy cutting them all by hand, I think you get the general idea.

The boys mum and dad seemed to like them. The boys dad even asked for seconds.

The sponge is a rich chocolate with a hint of an oaky stout flavour which I think makes the chocolate flavour deeper and the icing is creamy, boozy delicious-ness.

You can definately have these anytime of year - but just for grown ups!

Happy baking.