Baking quick questions

rachbc

I tend to just flavour a basic mix so for Rose a cardamon the milk is infused with a couple of spli cardamon OSS then the finished cakes are brushed with a simple syrup jade with Rose water. Then iced with a cream cheese icing with a lire Rose water or a White choc Swiss meringue buttercream icing (can find recipes for that online). Swis meringue buttercream is a great way of elevating 'ordibary' cupcakes into sublime ones - it's a bit of effort but worth it

squeaky

Hiya

You could make your favourite flavours and put icing (frosting) on them to dress them up? The thread below covers quite a lot of ground and a couple of good links...

Frosting for your Cupcakes

MaggieBaking

Funny, I have been thinking of red velvet cupcakes recently! I decided to make these... http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/470636/lemon-and-poppyseed-cupcakes

But I couldn't find any poppy seeds at Tescos! Grr!

dancingfairy

You could see if the Great British Bake Off series is available on catch up or to download - not sure if it was episode 1 or 2 where they had exotic cupcakes - it might give you a bit of inspiration. I'm not sure I'd go too mad like some of them though
As for recipes I guess you could get some advice when you've chosen a flabour.
Best of Luck
df

losingpatience

I tend to just experiment, what I make that always goes down well is chocolate orange cupcakes. Normal sponge mix with some cocoa and a teaspoon of orange extract in then a chocolate orange buttercream with a slice of terrys chocolate orange in the buttercream. Looks quite fancy but it's not.

Lemon curd cupcakes are nice too, vanilla sponge then cut a hole in the middle once the cupcakes are cooked and cooled, put a spoon of lemon curd in then a vanilla buttercream on top.

Alot of the time though if you just buy some decorations it can make a plain cupcake seem alot fancier ( toffee cupcake with buttercream and some toffee pieces on top, a plain cupcake with a swirl of buttercream and half a flake in etc )

MaggieBaking

Thanks everyone - ended up making my normal cupcake recipe and mixed half the batch with lemon juice and lemon zest and the other with cocoa powder. Topped off with matching icing. I really don't normally get "inspiration" and then find a recipe to suit, I like having one all ready to go because I don't trust ones I end up finding as much as I do ones I get recipes for!

Here's how they looked



Next time I am TOTALLY making the chocolate orange ones! they sound extra delicious!

SUESMITH_2

wow, they look amazing.

i'm cupcake making on sunday as my lovely mil is coming for afternoon tea to celebrate her 89th birthday

cookhead

How do you get the icing to look like that?

Lippycow

http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4434/romantic-rose-cupcakes sorry for the late post but these are to die for so delish and everytime i make them i have people asking for the recipe.

djdymond

that pic looks amazing! Have you ever come across the book "eat me!" by cookie girl? its on amazon although you could always borrow it from the library etc. theres some gorgeous cupcake recipes in there. my faves so far are marmalade cupcakes, french toast cupcakesand bounty ones!

just wondered, when you guys decide to add lemon zest/juice, flavourings, cocoa powder etc, how do you go about doing it? do u make a standard cupcake base and then add your extras to it, or do you take some flour etc out to compensate for extra ingredients? i worry they wont rise, or be too runny if i just add flavourings...