Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberry Cheesecake Frosting

Happy new year! My new year's resolution is to bake and blog more so here it goes first post of the year.

This dark chocolate cupcake recipe has been my go to recipe lately. It's so easy and the best thing is that the cupcakes remain moist and fresh even after a couple of days. Every time I go to the website I end up having to convert some of the quantities of ingredients, so I've decided to re-write the recipe below with the quantities in grams.

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes (from Two Peas & Their Pod)

• 110 g unsalted butter
• 60 g dark chocolate (I use Nestle Club Dark)
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup plain Greek yoghurt

I topped off the cupcakes with a cream cheese icing scaled down from this recipe (250 g cream cheese, 70 g unsalted butter, 1 and 1/3 cups icing sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract) and a strawberry. Mr Mi's favourite flavours! Mi xo

Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Nutella Ganache

A friend of ours is totally obsessed with Nutella, it has been so long since I had some. I remember as a kid spreading a thick layer of it on a fresh slice of white bread (crust off of course!) or eating spoonfuls of it straight from the jar. So when we had our baby reunion last week, I wanted to make some Nutella inspired cupcakes. I made a dark chocolate cupcake using this recipe and covered it with a Nutella ganache. It turned out pretty well, but next time I think I will have to boost the quantity of Nutella. It's a shame that she couldn't make it in the end, guess I will just have to make it again! Mi xo

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

Lemon Drizzle Cupcakes

It's no secret that I love to bake. People often say to me that they don't know how I find the time or else they find baking too difficult and would prefer to use a packet mix because it's easier. Perhaps it's just the scientist in me, but I find as long as you follow a recipe and measure out all quantities precisely you can't really fail. In fact it's more satisfying than a science experiment as more often than not it will result in success, in science I find 9 times out of 10 things will most likely fail or else end up with unexpected results! My point is, baking should be simple and a good book for such recipes is 1 Mix 100 Cakes. Admittedly, I haven't tried all the recipes but this one is definitely one of my favourites! The original recipe is for a loaf, but I made cupcakes instead. Mi xo

Lemon Drizzle Cupcake Recipe

• 1 and 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 180 g unsalted butter, softened
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 4 eggs
• Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Syrup

• 3/4 cup pure icing sugar
• 3 tbsp lemon juice

1. Preheat a fan forced oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift flour and baking powder.
3. Add butter, sugar, eggs and beat well until mixture is smooth.
4. Stir in lemon rind and juice.
5. Spoon mixture into 2 x 12 muffin size tins lined with paper.
6. Bake for about 15 - 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.
7. For the syrup, place the icing sugar and lemon juice on the stove and heat gently until sugar has melted.
8. Prick the cupcakes with a skewer and drizzle the syrup on top.

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

Rainbow Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

Happy New Year! This post is dedicated to my friend Miss T Bunny, she loves rainbows and so I wanted to make super-special cupcakes for our NYE celebration. She is the most wonderfully gifted and generous person and is soon to embark on her own little adventure. We shall all miss you dearly! Love Mi xo

P.S. Why are there so many songs about rainbows?
P.P.S This marshmallow frosting recipe is amazing!!

Gingerbread Cupcakes with Maple Cinnamon Buttercream

Every Christmas I make gingerbread men, but this year I thought I would try something slightly different - gingerbread cupcakes! This recipe is from my favourite cupcake recipe book 500 Cupcakes. I topped the cupcakes off with a maple cinnamon buttercream using Na's basic buttercream with the addition of one tablespoon of maple syrup instead of milk and one teaspoon of cinnamon. The cupcakes turned out really moist and lovely with the addition of crystallised ginger for that extra bite. Merry Christmas! Mi xo

Christmas Tree Cupcakes (Chocolate & Peppermint)

These Christmas trees featured alongside Mi's delicious red velvet cupcakes last Christmas and were part of our very first blog post! Unfortunately, the recipe was not included in that first post...just a pretty picture. So here it is...just in time for Christmas!

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.

Flourless Orange Cupcakes with Candied Orange

Mr Mi loves the little flourless orange muffins from Luxe Bakery (and I love them too)! So I decided to try and make these sweets treats for him. After some searching, I came across this great recipe from Citrus and Candy. I followed the recipe exactly as written, except instead of using a cake tin I used muffin tins to make 22 cupcakes and reduced the baking time to 20 minutes. To decorate, I made some candied orange slices using this recipe, replacing white sugar with raw sugar resulting in a nice caramel syrup. The cupcakes were lovely, moist and the candied orange finishes it off nicely. Mr Mi gave it a 10 out of 10 and thumbs up, he especially loved the candied orange. Try it out, you won't regret it. Mi xo

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

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:

Butterfly Cupcakes

I absolutely love the smell of vanilla cupcakes baking in the oven. I've made a lot of cupcakes in my time and I still think the best recipe for a basic vanilla cupcake is equal portions of butter, sugar and flour. I got this recipe from 500 Cupcakes one of my favourite baking cookbooks. It's super easy and you can't go wrong. In fact it's very similar to Na's basic cupcake batter in her recent post Lemon Meringue Cupcakes. Just make sure the butter and eggs have come to room temperature before beating together.

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:

Lemon Meringue Cupcakes

Making lemon meringue cupcakes can be quite a laborious process that can require a bit of elbow grease but what I'm about to present to you is the cheats version! Maximum reward with minimum effort! This is how you do it...

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

Piggy Cupcakes

Some lucky people in my life will remember a time when I was totally obsessed with piggies! They are so adorable, I had to find a way to create the cutest piggy cupcake. These cupcakes are made from a basic chocolate cake recipe, glace icing, marshmallows and choc fudge icing for the eyes and nose. They are way too cute to eat! :) 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