Hummingbird Bakery cupcakes help

Bakingbliss

Hi Guys

I have been reading through the posts and thought I would share my experiences with this book.

I bought this book about a year ago and to be honest have had mixed results.

The Peanut butter cookies are AMAZING :j and seem to turn out perfectly every time. The cake recipes on the other hand seem to be a bit hit and miss, this could be down to errors in the recipe, or sometimes the size of the cupcake cases that I have tried using.

They do recommend that you buy the cases from Waitrose or Lakeland.

Personally I buy most of my baking stuff from Lakeland, but again if I go for their Muffin cases (the ones with the pleated edges), there is not enough mix to fill the cases, so as an experiment I bought the new Greaseproof muffin cases which are slightly smaller than the others and so far these have proved to be perfect in terms of the size.

I have just made my first batch of Vanilla cupcakes from this book and these have turned out great - I was a little worried as the cake mix is more of a batter then your traditional sponge mix, but thought if they did not work, then would revert back to the tried and tested WI sponge mix, but I should have had more faith.

I have always found excellent results using McDougalls flours, free range eggs from a near by farm and unsalted butter. I can also recommend an oven thermometer which you can get all over the place, but can be ordered from Lakeland if you can't find one.

Every oven bakes differently and therefore the oven thermometer takes the worry out of the oven temperature.

I have had problems with the red velvet cupcakes as they seem to sink when they come out of the oven, but I have read a few reviews and some say that the recipe mentions baking powder which my book does not, neither does the ammendments on their website, but this is the only thing that I can think which may help as they do not seem to have enough raising agent in them considering that the recipe calls for plain flour , so not sure with that one.

The carrot cake is amazing and moist and keeps well :T. The oat and raisin cookies are also really good and you can pretend that they are almost healthy!!!!:A

LJM

i recieved this for my birthday have yet to try out any of the recipes yet though

anguk

I don't like carrot cake but OH does so I do it in cupcake cases instead of one big cake, then I can freeze them and just take them out a couple at a time. Otherwise OH would just eat them all.

skintbint_2

have just read through - i also do cakes - and now i want the book! but will keep an eye out for the latter version

thanks

LauraBDMU

I've tried alot of their recipes and they have never failed to impress.

I did however, bake the Red Velvet Cupcakes the other day, using the correct red food colouring yet when cutting through the cupcake it appears a mixed red/orange/brown colour. They still taste absolutely great though!! So next time i'll just try adding a little more colouring.

I also baked the vanilla cupcakes at the same time, and ended up with alot more red velvet than vanilla at the end, which didn't matter to me but the quantities did vary quite a bit.

I also agree with the comments made about frosting. I ended up with double the amount needed for both batches.

Always make sure your ingredients are in date too. As the raising agents wont work correctly if they are out.

Ladyhawk

I agree on the Red Velvet cupcakes - they are absolutely gorgeous but are slightly more brown than red...

aliwali

I love the HB cook book, the lemon cupcakes are divine. The vanilla ones have always turned out great, I use spreadable butter in mine rather than hard block butter. I find it keeps them lighter, although use hard butter for the icing.

The carrot cake is my favourite of any, beats cafe bought any day. I've made the lemon layer cake from the primrose bakery book, divine. Not tried their cupcakes as they have so much more butter in them, which seems a bit unhealthy.

I would recommend both books, I'm really sorry that some of the recipes haven't worked out well for some.

lurkey*is*here

My kids bought me the hummingbird cake days book for Mothers day This week Ive made sticky toffee ,red velvet, and apple and walnut cupcakes By far the favorite was apple and walnut they are gorgeous

jamsandwhich

Very interesting thread - didn't realise it was so old as I read it backwards:rotfl:

I got the book out of the library a couple of months ago as they had just put it on the shelf from new - am so glad I did as I was about to buy it and haven't bothered now:(

The chocolate cupcakes with the cheesecake filling turned out fab and I loved them but they were not as sweet as the rest of the family, wasted lots of money on the strawberry cupcakes - ended up with a soggy mess and the few other recipes I tried again and again with terrible results.

I photocopied a couple of recipes at work which I liked the look of but it didn't suit me at all - I have an electric oven which can run a bit hot and I followed recipes to the letter but still not good.

rachbc

I made 120 hummingbird cupcakes today - 30 each vanilla, choc,lemon and rose - only 1 batch went wrong and that was my fault as the butter was too cold. I find I get 10 from a batch rather than 12 but other than that they are are fab