Tag Archives: icing

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

Posted on by Abi
Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

I absolutely adored the cupcakes we had for our Halloween party recently, they’re squidgy and moreish thanks to the wonderful winter spices and the cinnamon icing might just be the best thing ever! Today I’m going to share the recipe for Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing.

Ingredients

3oz/ 85g Butter or Margarine

8oz/ 225g White Sugar

8oz/ 225g Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

180ml Milk

8oz/ 225g Pumpkin Puree (you can use canned or freshly made)

10oz Self Raising Flour

1 heaped Tsp Ground Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp Ground Ginger

1/2 Tsp Nutmeg

1/2 Tsp Ground Cloves

1/2 Tsp Allspice

 

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

1 standard tub of Cream Cheese (usually about 225g)

2oz/ 50g Butter

Icing Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1 heaped Tsp Ground Cinnamon

 

Method

First cream together the white sugar, brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy. Then add in the eggs one at a time mixing thoroughly.

Now stir in the milk and pumpkin puree until combined.

Sift the flour, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, ground cloves and allspice into the mixture. Fold the flour into the mixture using a large spoon until just combined.

Now fill 23-24 cupcake cases or approx. 15 muffin cases with the batter.

Bake in a preheated oven 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for about 20 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let cool on a wire rack.

Icing

The trick to cream cheese icing is not to over mix, if you do you’ll end up with a delicious runny icing but it’s no good for piping on a cake. Either use an electric mixer on low speed or mix by hand.

Mix together the butter and cream cheese until just combined. Next add in the vanilla extract and cinnamon.

I haven’t put a quantity for the icing sugar because I think it’s better to test your icing by taste and texture. Add icing sugar and mix gently until you like the sweetness and your icing can hold together sufficiently to be iced onto your cooled cupcakes.

 

 

 

 

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A ‘Happy’ Halloween Party even if you don’t like Halloween!

Posted on by Abi

I am a member of the Collective Bias®  Social Fabric® Community.  This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias and their client.

Halloween Pumpkin Party #shopEvery year in the UK Halloween seems to be gaining in popularity, but what if you don’t like scares or gore? Perhaps the idea of terrifying your loved ones doesn’t appeal or you feel that celebrating the kind of thing we’d normally avoid seems contradictory. Whatever your reasons if you don’t like Halloween do you have to avoid the season completely? Personally I don’t think so, I think it’s more than possible to have a ‘happy’ Halloween. I’ve never been a big fan myself and all my children are easily scared so I set out on a mission to make Halloween fun for everyone.

decorations #shopOne of the best things about autumn is the readily available supply of pumpkins, carve them, cook them, stick them in a pie and they are down right delicious! We bought three this year, two we carved and one became a bowl to hold sweets. I invited family and friends who are not Halloween fans to our Pumpkin Party and we set to work.

We bought most of our decorations and supplies from Wilkinsons and you can see how we got on with our shop by clicking here.

table #shopOur Pumpkin Party started with a whimsical meal squidged around a table, it was cosy! We ate Pumpkin Shaped gluten free biscuits (for the recipe see my last blog post).

Gluten free pumpkin shaped biscuits #shop

Gluten free pumpkin shaped biscuits

Yummy Spiced Pumpkin teabread and Pumpkin pie, all made with the pumpkin flesh carved from our decorative pumpkins.

Spiced Pumpkin Teabread #shop

Spiced Pumpkin Teabread

Toffee apples, which I was more than a little proud of. I’ve never got the toffee to stick properly before but apparently the trick is to place all your apples into a bowl and cover with boiling water for a couple of minutes before drying and dipping into the toffee. Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing, again this was made from our fresh pumpkins and they were absolutely delicious!

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing #shop

Spiced Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

We all ate until we felt ready to burst and the light had dimmed enough to show our pumpkins (carved by my husband) glowing softly. The fun wasn’t over though, we had party games to play!

Leaf Design Pumpkin #shop

Leaf Design Pumpkin

Pumpkin Treasure Hunt

Party games can be hard at the best of times, but trying to find vaguely Halloween themed games which aren’t remotely scary or gross is particularly tasking. In the end I settled for a treasure hunt. Clues were hidden about the house written on pumpkin shaped notes and the final clue led to a chocolately prize! This seemed to go down really well and there was lots of giggling from adults and children alike.

Pumpkin Treasure Hunt #shop

Pumpkin Treasure Hunt

Pass the Pumpkin

Next we played a twist on pass the parcel. We’d hollowed out one small pumpkin until it could comfortably fit a bowl inside, this was then filled with sweets. The music played and the pumpkin was passed around until the music stopped, the holder of the pumpkin could choose one sweet. The music stopped ten times and whoever was holding the pumpkin on stop number ten won the entire remaining contents!

Pass the Pumpkin #shop

Pass the Pumpkin

Finally after much fun and hilarity we waved our guests off but not before they took a favour from our Halloween tree, small cones filled with yummy delights! This is an adaption on an earlier tutorial I wrote.

Halloween Favours #shop

Halloween Favours

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Custard Brioche Recipe

Posted on by Abi

This recipe was a recent accident happened upon by my husband and myself. While attempting to make another dish entirely I merrily added all the wrong things, in all the wrong order and ended up in a complete muddle. I had created a sweet dough, although I wasn’t sure what to do with it. My husband being the resourceful type immediately grabbed for a can of powdered custard and created this wonderful dessert. It has since made appearances at parties, work functions and has become a fast favourite. In this instance it was a most fortunate mistake.

What You’ll Need

300ml/ 10 fl oz Milk

600g/ 1lb 5oz Plain Flour

75g/ 3oz Unsalted Butter

1 Tsp Salt

2 Tbsp Caster Sugar

1 Large Egg

1 dried yeast packet (7g)

Custard

Icing Sugar

Hot Water

Step 1

In a pan heat the milk and butter together until the butter has melted. Leave to cool slightly. In a large bowl mix together 500g of the flour with the salt and sugar. Beat the egg into the milk and butter mixture.

Step 2

Mix the yeast into the flour mixture. Slowly start to pour the milk mixture in to combine. Once combined, slowly add the remaining 100g of flour to make a dough. We knead our dough in a stand mixture for around 4-5 mins, you can also knead by hand but it will take a few minutes longer. Return the dough to a mixing bowl, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour.

Step 3

While the dough is rising make up a quantity of custard (the exact amount is down to personal preference). Leave to cool slightly

Remove the now risen dough and place onto a lightly floured surface. Roll out to make a long rectangle. Spread the custard across the dough. Slowly roll up the dough (like you would a Swiss Roll). With a sharp knife slice the dough into little rolls. Arrange the rolls in a prepared tin, cover and leave to rise in a warm place for an hour.

Step 4

Place into a preheated oven 180C/ 350F/ Gas Mark 4 for 20-25 mins. Once cooked leave to cool. Mix up some simple icing using icing sugar and hot water. Trickle across the cooled brioche. Now all you need to do is cut a slice and enjoy!

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