White Chocolate Snowball Cupcakes.

 

 

IIIIITT'SSSSS CHRIIISTMAAAS! as Noddy Holder would say. Well... in 63 days :/. I guess that's quite alot really. Still, I maintain it is okay to be a little excited, it is christmas afterall. Plus the whole month of December is festive and lovely anyway and that's not too far away really. I may even treat myself to an advent calendar this year, I don't think you can ever really be too old for one. Everyone loves chocolate! The lindt one looks gorgeous but I'm sure I saw it was about £8 or £10 in ASDA the other day. How ridiculous. I wish they did a Terry's Chocolate orange one or a Reeses peanut butter cup one. Yum.

Anyway, the reason for my far too premature yuletide excitement is that I am hoping to give my friends and family some little boxes of cupcakes this year to accompany their main presents so I thought I'd try out some recipes now so that I have them ready to bake in time for christmas. I've already tried two Gingerbread Cupcake with Caramel Frosting recipes and one of them was actually really nice and my sister loved it but it was a bit more cinamonny than gingery so I think I need to work on it's ginger flavour to try and make it taste a bit more like a gingerbread man. My other recipe was also okay but not my favourite as it tasted a bit too much like black treacle for my liking but, my grandad thought it was delicious so it can't have been that bad. Then again he's my grandad so maybe he has to say that else he'd be dashing my hopes and dreams of one day opening my little cupcake bakery.

Anyway, I still need to perfect my Gingerbread Cupcake and Caramel Frosting recipe but in the meantime I thought I'd try another christmassy recipe and I'm not going to change a thing about this one. The white chocolate frosting is sweet and fudgey and the sponge is soft and moist in the middle with a crisp outer because of the little chocolate chips inside which is lovely and they taste delicious. How adorable are they aswell? Making the curls is a bit awkward actually, for me anyway as I had to keep popping my white chocolate into the microwave to melt it a bit so that I could get some nice curls without the chocolate crumbling to pieces. Still, it was deffinately worth it and I think the cupcakes look really sweet, simple and pretty. I also think they are quite festivey and look like little snowballs especially dusted with a bit of icing sugar. When I first popped it in the microwave I left it in the foil wrapper. Big mistake. Now, I know you are not supposed to put foil in the microwave but I figured 5 seconds couldn't hurt. Surely nothing could happen? As soon as I turned it on sparks flew and my whole wrapper melted. Luckily I was able to rescue my chocolate but the wrapper smelt and looked all burnt and horrible. Apparently even 5 seconds is too much, who knew?

I'm hoping to give everyone a box of four cupcakes which will include; a White Chocolate Snowball one, a Gingerbread one with Caramel Frosting, a Chocolate Orange one and then a Marshmallow one for the kids and a Blackforest Gateaux one for the adults. I'd like to get some pretty little gift boxes for them too. I love these ones but they are very expensive. Damn my love of cupcakes, cute things and christmas it all equates to an expensive taste.










Recipe
150g butter
150g caster sugar
175g self-raising flour, sieved
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
50g white chocolate chips
100g chunky white chocolate
White Chocolate Fudge Frosting
200g white chocolate, chopped
5 tbsp. milk
175g icing sugar

icing sugar for dusting

1. Line a cupcake tin with 12 paper cake cases.
2. Put the butter and sugar in a bowl and beat with a hand-held electric whisk for about 2 minutes until light and creamy.
3. Beat in the eggs and fold the flour into the mixture with a metal spoon being careful not to remove the incorporated air.
4. Stir in the chocolate chips and vanilla extract.
5. Divide the cake mixture evenly between the paper cases and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180C for about 17 minutes until risen and the sponge bounces back when lightly pressed with a finger.
6. Transfer to a wire rack to cool and prepare the white chocolate curls. Pare curls from the white chocolate using a vegetable peeler - if the chocolate breaks off in small, brittle shards, try softening it in a microwave for a few seconds. Set the chocolate curls aside in a cool place while icing the cakes.
7. Prepare the chocolate frosting.Put the chocolate and milk in a heatproof bowl. Set the bowl over a pan of very gently simmering water and leave until melted, stirring frequently. Then, remove the bowl from the pan and stir in the icing sugar until smooth. Spread the frosting over the cupcakes while still warm. (I actually found my frosting to be a bit runny though so I popped it into the fridge to stiffen up a bit for about 20 minutes before spreading it on top of the cupcakes with a pallette knite and then I piled the chocolate curls on top of the cupcakes and lightly dusted with some icing sugar.

This recipe is from the hamlyn 200 cupcakes book which if you like baking and cupcakes I would highly recommend purchasing as it's really good and has some delicious, unique little recipes.

Thankyou for reading!

Love Courts x