Cupcakes

I'm a bit obsessed with making cupcakes at the moment. I think it started at work, where a few people brought in some really good looking cupcakes that were tasty and looked good, but were very....traditional? I like to mix it up a bit, and basically make them juicer. 

So I started thinking about filled cupcakes, with jam and the like. The guy at work had the same idea and brought in carrot cake cupcakes, very nice! But still not juicy enough. I thought sticky toffee pudding would be nice, as it's moist and has toffee sauce on it...or what about in it? 

So I Googled a sticky toffee cupcake and found my inspiration already thought of;

http://thelittleloaf.wordpress.com/2012/05/28/peggy-porschens-sticky-toffee-cupcakes/

Rather than buy the caramel, I made it from this recipe;

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1837652/butterscotch-sauce

Although after it was cooking I realised that there was too much cream for it set like I wanted so I caramelised another 100g of sugar and poured the butterscotch onto it. It's not difficult to make butterscotch. The only thing that you can do wrong is to burn the sugar as you're making caramel. It'll be obvious because it'll be black! If you do that, just ditch the sugar and start again. Oh, and don't burn yourself as sugar melts at 170°C, which will take your skin clean off and you won't be able to get it off. Think of that melted crown scene in season 2 of Game of Thrones!

Anyway, I took these to work and they went down a storm. One of the greatest rewards of cooking is making people happy, when someone just eats your food and says nowt it's a major setback. But most waxed lyrical about the textures and flavours in the sticky toffee cupcakes. I put their ramblings down to the sugar rush, but I agreed that we were onto a winner, so I thought of a few more, all available of the internet of course! There are no new ideas anymore!

Lemon meringue 
Lemon sponge, lemon curd filling, baked meringue top? Or just blowtorch piped meringue?

Key Lime Pie

http://thedoctorsdishesdessertsdecor.blogspot.co.uk/2010/04/key-lime-cupcakes.html

Lime curd filling

http://www.traceysculinaryadventures.com/2013/09/key-lime-curd.html#.Una0jPm-2m4

meringue topping

Jaffa Cake

vanilla sponge, orange centre, dark chocolate topping
Sticky toffee

Butterscotch filling, cream cheese butter icing
Tiramisu 
Coffee sponge, mascarpone and tia maria filling, chocolate topping
Apple (or whatever fruit) and custard 
Sponge with fruit, Creme patisserie filling 
Chocolate 
Ganach filling, choc topping 
Toffee apple
Apple/Vanilla sponge, Apple and butterscotch filling, Caramel crispy topping 
Banana Rum n Raisin

Creme patisserie/banana cream filling, rum butter icing
Apple crumble 
Sponge filled with fruit, butterscotch Crumble topping
Bakewell tart
Almond sponge, Jam filling, Latice topping 
Trifle

Vanilla sponge, custard, jelly, cream

Black Forest Gateaux

Chocolate sponge, cherry filling, cream topping

Right now I'm experimenting with the key lime pie. I made the lime cupcakes (see top pic) and the lime curd filling. I baked the meringues at 100°C for around 40mins. Set the timer for 20 mins and open the oven door to have a look at them. This cools the oven enough for the meringues to not colour too much. Also, you don't really want to dry these out too much, just dry enough to hold the shape, then cap the cupcake. Tbh, I lost my way at the meringue stage. I was thinking about 2 cupcakes at the same time and this morphed into a key lime meringue, whereas I was going to so Lemon meringue and Key Lime Pie, which would have had more of a cheesecake topping, but it's all an experiment, and I'm happy with the meringue tops. Everytime I type meringue I have to say mer-ing-ooh to remember the spelling!