Atom Cake & Cupcakes

Nautical Cupcakes

To all the cast and crew of H.M.S Pinafore, you are amazing and I love you. Mi xoxo

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate & Coffee Buttercream

Golden Gaytime Cake

Recipe from Tinman's Treats.

Coconut Cake

Ever since mini-Mi started solids, I've been on the hunt for delicious easy recipes for egg less cakes. I've had limited success with egg less baking so far with the exception of my go to banana muffin recipe, admittedly I haven't tried that many recipes but the ones I have tried so far don't have the same texture as cakes made with eggs. My dad's birthday was coming up and he loves coconut so this time around I decided to find a recipe for coconut cake and modify it by replacing eggs with another ingredient. I came across a recipe for Citrus Coconut Cake which had good reviews so decided to give it a go. I made slight modifications which are detailed below, in short, reduced the sugar by half, replaced eggs with natural yoghurt, replaced milk with coconut milk, added vanilla extract and up scaled the recipe by 1.5 times to make a slightly larger cake. Finally, I topped the cake off with some chocolate ganache and toasted shredded coconut. I was really pleased with the result, the cake was lovely, moist and crumbly a bit on the dense side but delicious flavours with just a touch of sweetness. Mi xo

Coconut Cake (adapted from Taste)

• 175 g unsalted softened butter
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 3/4 cup natural yoghurt
• 1 1/2 cup sifted self-raising flour
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 1 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Finely grated rind of 1 lemon

Kirby Birthday Cake

It's Mr Mi's birthday in a few days and this year his request was for a Kirby cake. This time around, it had to be a cake that mini-Mi could eat too as he is allergic to eggs and we are also trying to limit his sugar intake. So I started researching on the internet for egg-free vanilla sponge cakes and came across a couple that looked good: Sharmis Passions Eggless Vanilla Sponge Cake and Divine Taste Eggless Golden Yellow Cake. I trialled both and in the end decided to go with Sharmis recipe as I felt the texture was much softer and had more of a likeness to regular sponge cake. The only modifications I made were to use plain flour instead of maida and honey instead of sugar (4 tbsp). My cake didn't turn out quite as fluffy as the one on Sharmis blog and I'm not sure if this was due to the addition of honey. In any case, it was still delicious topped off with a strawberry buttercream and enjoyed by all especially mini-Mi!

Banana, Peanut Butter & Oat Cookies

I'm always trying to find new and healthy snacks for mini-Mi that are easy to grab on the go. Every week I make a batch up banana muffins and freeze them. This week, we had some bananas that were over-ripe and thought I should try something different this time. I love the combination of banana and peanut butter and came across this recipe from Two Peas & Their Pod. It looked really delicious and so I decided to give it a go, just made a few slight modifications (see below).

Banana, Peanut Butter & Oat Cookies (adapted from Two Peas & Their Pod)

• 1 large over-ripe banana (mashed)
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter
• 1 tsp macadamia nut oil
• 3/4 cups rolled oats
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp salt

1. Preheat fan forced oven to 180 degrees Celsius
2. Mix wet ingredients and add to dry ingredients
3. Place spoonfuls onto pre-lined baking tray (about 18 small cookies)
4. Bake for about 15 minutes until lightly golden
5. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely

They turned out pretty well, soft and chewy although a bit too much on the chewy side for me. Next time, I might try processing the oats or using instant porridge oats to see if that makes much difference. Most importantly, mini-Mi loved them = success!! Mi xo

Banana & Blueberry Muffins

This recipe is a modification of Banana and Nutella Muffins which originally came from Two Red Bowls. Mini-Mi loves these muffins and so I decided to add a few more goodies (grated carrot and blueberries) to make them extra healthy! They also freeze and thaw really well, so a great snack for bub when you are on the go. I make these every week now! Mi xo

Banana & Blueberry Muffins (adapted from Two Red Bowls)

• 50 g unsalted butter (melted)
• 1 over ripe banana (mashed)
• 1 carrot (grated)
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1/2 cup Greek yoghurt
• 1/2 cup blueberries

1. Preheat fan forced oven to 180 degrees Celsius
2. Add banana and carrot to melted butter
3. Sift dry ingredients and add to butter mixture
4. Gently mix in yoghurt then blueberries (I used fresh berries but you can use frozen too)
5. Spoon into 12 cup muffin tin lined with patty cases
6. Bake for 12 - 15 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Nyan Cat Themed First Birthday!

Banana & Nutella Cupcakes

It's no secret that I have a sweet tooth, in fact I think all of my teeth are sweet! :) It's mini-Mi's first birthday soon, WOW a year has passed by way too quickly and I started thinking about what amazing creations I could make for his first birthday cake. Then I stopped to think about the fact that we have been providing him with a well balanced and healthy diet so far and why should his first birthday cake be any different? In addition, he is allergic to eggs so it got me searching for recipes that are egg-less/vegan and low/no sugar. This was completely unknown territory for me so I spent a lot of time reading about different egg and sugar substitutes. In the end finding a replacement for egg was relatively easy and as for sugar I didn't really feel that any alternatives we necessarily "better" for you and so I took the opinion that everything in moderation is okay and I would reduce the quantity and use unrefined whenever possible. Most importantly, I wanted it to be a cake that was still delicious and appealed to grown-ups too! Anyway, here is my first attempt of an egg-less, reduced sugar recipe slightly modified from Two Red Bowls.

Banana & Nutella Cupcakes

• 1/2 cup raw caster sugar
• 100 g unsalted butter (room temperature)
• 1 cup natural Greek yoghurt
• 3 very ripe bananas
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 tbsp Nutella
• 1 tsp oil

Modifications

• Doubled the quantities of ingredients mainly because I had three ripe bananas to use up, but kept the amount of sugar the same yielding 24 cupcakes
• Used raw sugar instead of white sugar
• Omitted egg (banana can be used to replace egg)
• Used butter only, no oil
• Used half plain and half wholemeal flour

The end result was absolutely delicious! The cupcakes were light and fluffy packed with banana goodness and just the right amount of sweetness. I made some for mini-Mi without Nutella and he loved them. Next time, I think I will try making them without sugar and perhaps add a hint of cinnamon. Mi xo

New York Cheesecake with Blueberries

Must be blueberry season as our fridge seems to be overflowing with them at the moment. Luckily mini-Mi loves eating blueberries but even so I didn't think he could eat that many!! Time for some baking me thinks. Mr Mi loves cheesecake. I'll admit I haven't really baked many cheesecakes in my time and so didn't have any basic recipe up my sleeves. After a little searching on the internet I came across a Jamie Oliver recipe. We have a decent collection of Jamie's cook books so I didn't really think I could go wrong with this one. I wanted to make a cheesecake slice rather than "cake" so made a few modifications.

New York Cheesecake Recipe by Jamie Oliver

• 250 g digestive biscuits, crushed
• 150 g unsalted butter, melted
• 95 g caster sugar
• 2.5 tbsp cornflour
• 750 g cream cheese, at room temperature
• 2 eggs
• 95 ml double cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of 1 lemon

Modifications

• I wanted a thinner layer of cheesecake so reduced the quantity accordingly
• Used a 20 x 30 cm rectangular tin instead of 24 cm cake tin
• Placed blueberries in the cheesecake layer prior to baking instead of making a blueberry sauce
• Reduced cooking time to 35 minutes

It turned out pretty well and Mr Mi was satisfied with the outcome. Next time, I think I will make the biscuit layer just a little bit thicker as I found it was a bit to thin and crumbly this time but otherwise a great, easy and delicious recipe. Mi xo

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