Carrot Cupcakes

Carrot cake is lovely. When we lived in Dubai, we would go for lunch at a cafe called The Lime Tree Cafe, and we could never go there without ordering a piece of carrot cake, either to eat there or take home. It was a good day when there were 3 boxes in the fridge with slices of carrot cake in!

So after not seeing any carrot cupcakes around, I decided to make some of my own :)

These were yummy cupcakes, but I messed up the icing, so I haven't put pictures of the iced cakes up.

Recipe:

Cupcake:

- 175g light brown sugar

- 150ml vegetable oil

- 2 large eggs

- 200g self-raising flour

- 2 tsp cinnamon

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- Zest of 1 orange

Icing:

- 300g full fat cream cheese

- 50g icing sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line a muffin tray with 12 cupcake cases.

2. Add all of the ingredients into a bowl and mix together. 

3. Spoon the mix into the cases, and bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes.

4. While the cakes are in the oven, mix the cream cheese and icing sugar together. I decided to beat mine in a mixer, then it went really runny, so just gently mix it in a bowl by hand. 

5. When the cakes have cooled, decorate with the icing.

Okay, here is a little picture of the cakes with icing and a sprinkling of glitter. I don't think the glitter made the cakes look any better unfortunately!

Zoe x

Fuzzy Navel Cupcakes

I love sweet cocktails. They don't taste of alcohol so they go down very easily. 

Fuzzy Navel, orange and peach, in cupcake form! They have quite a boozy hit to them.

Makes 18 cupcakes

Recipe:

- 110g butter

- 225g sugar

- 2 eggs

- 60ml peach schnapps

- 50ml orange juice

- 200g self raising flour

- 75g plain flour

Icing:

- 60g butter

- 500g icing sugar

- 40ml peach schnapps

- 20ml orange juice

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees. Line two muffin trays with 18 cupcake cases.

2. Cream the butter for as long as you can with a fork, or an electric whisk.

3. Add the sugar, mix.

4. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Add the orange juice and peach schnapps.

5. Sift in the flour in and mix again.

6. Put a tablespoon of batter into each cupcake case. 

7. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

8. While the cakes are cooling, start to make the icing. Cream the butter until it is pale and fluffy. 

9. Carefully stir in the icing sugar. The icing will be very thick. Then add the peach schnapps and  orange juice.

10. When your cakes are cooled, decorate them with the icing, either piping it on, using a palate knife or a regular knife! 

11. To decorate the cupcakes I added glitter cherries and flying saucers (retro treat for a retro cocktail).

I hope you enjoy them!