Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate & Coffee Buttercream

Golden Gaytime Cake

Recipe from Tinman's Treats.

MiNaScope

The MiNaScope microscope stage with various "biological" samples.

Yes, I know it's been a very, very long time since we've posted anything. I've had this one saved in the drafts folder since August and just haven't had the time (or motivation) to finish it off. Better late than never I guess!

A few months ago, Na sent me an email about the "Great Microscopy Bake-off 2013" held at The University of Sydney. The brief was to make a science or microscopy-themed cake, cupcake or biscuit. This was right down our alley and we really wanted to make a joint submission. We brainstormed and came up with various ideas, being so like-minded we actually came up with very similar ideas so it made the final decision easy. As we are both microscopists, we felt very strongly about making something microscope-related but a microscope seemed too obvious. In the end we decided on a microscope stage and various "biological" samples, this way we could easily make the components separately and then arrange them together on the day.

The MiNaScope microscope stage was chocolate brownie on the inside covered in basic vanilla buttercream and fondant. I bought the white icing at the supermarket and black fondant at The Essential Ingredient. Na's gingerbread cookies were covered in royal icing and decorated using a feathering effect described here. The writing on the "glass slides" was achieved by using a pen with edible ink.

Anthea Leonard from Sweet Art was there to judge the cakes and we came second! How amazing is that? Mi xo

Gingerbread cookies with "fluorescent cells" made by Na.

"Bacterial plate"gingerbread cookies made by Na.

Gingerbread "glass slides" made by Na.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream

As seen in my previous post Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting this recipe makes amazingly dark chocolaty cupcakes. This time I followed the recipe all the way and used the raspberry buttercream frosting. A perfect combination, the raspberry nicely balances the richness of the chocolate. Mi xo

Chocolate Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Frosting

Happy 1st birthday to MiNa's Food Adventures (well, one year and 2 days)! I can't believe it's been a year since our very first post, Christmas Cupcakes. What better way to celebrate this milestone then to post about our most favourite sweetie in the world, cupcakes!

I'd been searching a while for a really chocolaty cupcake recipe and came across this one from Two Peas & Their Pod. Thought I would give it a go and boy was I glad that I did! At first, I was a bit uncertain about the addition of Greek yogurt but the result was worth the wait - super moist and super chocolaty cupcakes. If you love chocolate, then look no further then this recipe and the best part is it's really easy to make. I was in a salted caramel mood, so decided to team these cupcakes up with a delicious buttercream from Sally's Baking Addiction. Very naughty...very YUMMY! Mi xo

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Birthday Cake

This post is dedicated to my friends N&B and their gorgeous little boy Josh. They are the most amazing parents and little Josh is such a happy, relaxed and easy-going bub. Mr Mi and I are soon to be parents and they are an inspiration! The very hungry little caterpillar (aka Josh) turned one recently and his mama wanted to make him a hungry caterpillar cake for his birthday party. After a few searches I saw this amazing cake, so we set on another fondant adventure to attempt this cake. I used my favourite basic vanilla cake recipe and Na's buttercream to make a four layered sponge cake. We covered the cake in ready rolled icing and Josh's mama hand cut the fruits and made the amazing caterpillar. We were pretty proud of our efforts and needless to say we were completely sugared out after a slice of the rainbow caterpillar cake. Happy first birthday Josh! Mi xoxo

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream

Nothing beats a classic vanilla cupcake with Na's delicious buttercream. I swear by this recipe as seen in my earlier post. I use it for cupcakes and cakes. It is so easy, throw everything in a bowl and beat until well combined! YUM! Mi xo

Peanut Butter and Jam Cupcakes

These little cakes came into being thanks to a mildy humorous story. I was walking back to work, munching on a sandwich and enjoying the sun rays, when I heard the raucous laughter of university students. They walked past and through the relaxing sounds of Neil Young coming out of my headphones, I overheard one of them say very proudly "I havn't had a peanut butter and jam sandwich in such a long time and now I have two!". There he was, marching proudly with not one but two of almost everyone's childhood favourite.

I'm not quite sure why I found this amusing but it made me smile so I thought I'd use it as inspiration for a cupcake recipe. To be honest, I'm always trying to turn almost every idea into a cupcake recipe. This one turned out pretty well I think. The recipe is as follows:

Muppet Cupcakes

Photography by G.P.

A group of us went to Miss T's house over the weekend for a "Muppet Cupcake Extravaganza". Our quest was to re-create these amazing hand cut and hand painted edible Muppet cupcake toppers. When Miss T first proposed the idea, I have to admit...I thought to myself these are going to be really tricky but I was ready to take the challenge. Miss T led the team by baking a batch of delicious vanilla cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes. My task was to assist with all things sugary, Na's basic buttercream and the fondant! I printed out some pictures and we traced them onto baking paper to help with cutting out the shapes, although some of the characters such as Beaker made by Miss T's mum was cut free hand! After a few hours of colouring the fondant with Wilton gel colours and painstakingly cutting out tiny little fondant shapes, I think the results speak for themselves - twelve lovely too-cute-to-eat Muppet cupcakes. We were very pleased with our efforts! Needless to say, I had a bit of a sugar-ache that evening (and the next morning!). I wonder what our next cupcake project will be? Love Mi xoxo

Photography by G.P.

Chocolate Chai Cupcakes

A slight modification of the chai cupcake recipe that I posted earlier. I was asked to make a batch of my chai cupcakes for a special occasion but I wanted to change it up a bit since I was growing a little tired of basic vanilla. I'm a chocolate fiend, so the first thing that came to mind was adding chocolate to these spicy chai cakes. You can find my full recipe on the Chai Cupcakes post. Just add 2 heaped tablespoons of cocoa powder to the basic vanilla cupcake batter. Simple! Next time, I would like to make them a little bit more chocolatey by adding some choc chips or melted chocolate. Na xo

Coffee and Walnut Layer Cake

It's no secret that I'm a tea lover. Having said this, I sure do love my coffee when it comes in dessert form! I came across this recipe for coffee and walnut layer cake while flipping through one of my favourite cookbooks; Kitchen by Nigella Lawson. In the book, Nigella reflects back to when she was a child. She made this coffee cake every year for her sister's birthday so I thought, if a child could make this, I can too! Basically, all the ingredients go into a food processor and are blitzed till a smooth batter forms. The batter is then divided into 2 sandwich tins so that you end up with 2 perfect layers for the layer cake! This was great for me because I'm hopeless at cutting a cake perfectly in half.  I then made the delicious coffee buttercream and decorated the cake with walnuts. If you would like this simple recipe, pick up a copy of Kitchen. I think it's Nigella's best book so far! Na xo

Vanilla and Rose Water Cupcakes

For Mr Mi's recent birthday bash, Mi asked me to make a batch of cupcakes to accompany her brilliant Nyan Cat Cake. I wanted to keep it simple so I decided to make a basic vanilla cupcake with a pleasing swirl of buttercream frosting on each one. I gave the buttercream a bit of an exotic touch by adding just a hint of rose water essence. The full recipe is as follows:

Nyan Cat Birthday Cake

Mr Mi had a second birthday celebration (lucky man!) and this time I decided to move on from the Android cake and set myself a new challenge. Mr Mi loves Nyan cat, I had no idea what it was until he showed me a few months ago. Who would have thought a cat stuffed inside a poptart with rainbows coming out of its bottom would be so popular? Although I have to admit that after watching it I couldn’t get the song out of my head for days! After seeing this amazing Nyan Cat Cake from Grace Cakes, I thought I would give it a go.

For the cake, I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe with the addition of the zest of one orange. I divided the cake batter into four portions and coloured each portion red, yellow, green and blue using Wilton gel colours. Then, I gently placed each of these portions into a cake tin one at a time to create a layering effect. For the buttercream, I used Na’s recipe with the addition of the zest of one orange and 2 tablespoons of orange juice. Now, the Nyan cat took a good few hours to make…if you attempt this I suggest making it well in advance and storing in an airtight container. I traced an image from the Internet using baking paper and used this as a template to cut out the shapes from ready rolled icing. It was a fun experience, that was until I started to cut the pixels out for the poptart sprinkles…by then I was ready to have a break! It is a simple design, but don’t be fooled...cutting all those square edges out and assembling takes time! The cake turned out pretty well and was enjoyed by all. Love Mi xo

Chai Cupcakes

These mini cupcakes are quite a crowd pleaser and very simple to make! I recently made a batch for a dear friend's birthday party. If you like chai lattes, then you'll love these. It's also quite fun watching people try to guess what spices are in the buttercream. The recipe is as follows:

Chocolate Whoopie Pies

What do you get when you mash together a cake with a cookie? Whoopie pie! I came across this recipe from one of my favourite food blogs, Not Quite Nigella. The first time I tried this recipe, I used rock salt thinking somehow that the granules would dissolve...well it didn't! So, second time around I just decided to omit the salt and instead of the marshmallow filling I made a peanut buttercream. I also made them much smaller, using a teaspoon instead of an ice cream scoop. They rise and expand quite a bit in the oven, you have been warned! I used Na's buttercream recipe with some slight modifications:

Peanut buttercream recipe

• 125 g unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup of smooth peanut butter
• 1 and 1/2 cup of pure icing sugar, sifted
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp milk

1. Beat the butter and peanut butter with an electric whisk
2. Add the icing sugar, vanilla and milk
3. Beat until smooth and creamy

I love peanut butter and while I thought this buttercream was pretty good, I think I would add more peanut butter next time. Enjoy! Mi xo

Instagram Camera Cake

My sister loves cameras and all camera related items. I wanted to bake a cake for her birthday and a camera cake was an obvious choice! She loves digital cameras, vintage cameras and uses Instagram. I thought that a plain black digital camera cake might look a little boring so I made a cake that looks like the Instagram app! This cake was a bit of a challenge to make and I would call the end result "rustic". Let's just say that I have a new found respect for the folks on Ace Of Cakes.

The actual cake base is a vanilla sponge made using my favourite basic sponge recipe that I adapted from you guessed it, Nigella Lawson's How To Be A Domestic Goddess, but you can use any basic sponge recipe that you like for the base. Once the cake is baked and completely cooled it's time to decorate! Clear everyone out of the kitchen because things are about to get serious!

Cute Collar Cake

I have an affinity for anything with a peter pan collar. You may call it an addiction. It's my thing! My lovely sister made this adorable cake for me in tribute to my love for collared dresses! It's so cute! The actual cake is a victoria sponge and it's covered in a vanilla buttercream. Clothing has never looked so delicious! Na xo

Pandan & Coconut Cupcakes

I wanted to make some super-special cupcakes for Na! I love the combination of pandan and coconut as you may have noticed from the recent ice cream post. I found a great recipe for Pandan Coconut Cake originally from Creative Making of Cakes by Alex Goh. Instead of making a cake, I made 24 cupcakes using a standard 12 hole muffin tin. Topped off with a coconut buttercream, using Na's fantastic basic buttercream recipe. If you ask her nicely, she may share it with you. Mi xo

Green Tea Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream

Unlike me, my mum doesn't have a sweet tooth so when her birthday was coming up I wanted to make her cupcakes that were not too sweet. Green tea was the answer! I went on a mission to find matcha, but couldn't find it anywhere in the Asian food stores. I should have looked closer to home, in the end found it in T2. Dissolving the matcha was a little tricky, make sure you warm up the milk and whisk. In the end, I was pretty happy with the flavour and most importantly my mum loved them! Thanks to Na for the buttercream recipe. :) Mi xo