Make it Monday - Camo Cupcakes {Dairy & Gluten Free}

I promised I would share the method for making Calum's birthday Camo Cupcakes and so here we are. 

They are really straightforward to make, not too time consuming at all, but don't tell that to whoever you are baking these for!

For the food colouring it is best to use the pastes rather than the liquids as this won't affect the consistency of your cake mix.

You will need:

{for the cupcakes}

10oz dairy free margarine

10oz Doves Farm Gluten Free Self Raising Flour

10oz sugar

4 eggs

1-2tbsp soya milk

green & black food colouring

a few tablespoons cocoa

{for the icing}

1lb icing sugar

5oz dairy free margarine

a little splash of soya milk

green & black food colouring

a tablespoon of cocoa

~ Put the margarine, flour, sugar and eggs into your mixer and beat well until everything has mixed together and looks creamy. Then add the soya milk and beat a little more.

~Divide the mixture as evenly as you can into three bowls.

~Colour one bowl green, another black and add enough cocoa to the third to get a nice brown colour. 

I must admit to having a slight 'blonde' moment when I was looking out my food colourings to make these. I looked through the colours I had and thought to myself, if only I had brown colouring to make the third colour. Thankfully it didn't take too long to dawn on me that all chocolate cakes have the perfect colour that I needed and without any food colouring!

~Now all you need to do is put a splodge of each colour into your cupcake cases. There is no fancy way of doing this and no need to mix the colours together at all. Just try not to have the colours right on top of each other or you will end up with just layers rather than the swirl of camo.

~Bake at 180C for around 20 minutes. Timing is a little more important for these as normally I would just go by the colour on the top of a cupcake to see if they are ready. Not so easy when the cakes are black on top! James (14) came through when I took them out of the oven and thought that I had burnt them!

~While they cool you can crack on with the icing.

~Put the icing sugar and margarine into your mixer and beat until they come together. You might need to add a splash or two of soya milk to help them come together. Once it looks nice and smooth, again separate into three bowls and colour each one as before.

~Using disposable piping bags, fill three separate bags with each colour. Then take a fourth bag, with a nozzle attached and slot the three different coloured bags into this one. To help with this, try and get your coloured bags nice and thin by squeezing the icing evenly as far to the top as you can, while still leaving squeezing room at the top for when it's time to ice.

~Swirl the triple coloured icing onto your cooled cupcakes.

~Bask in the admiration of the cakes' recipients who now think that you have spent far longer concocting these than you really did and that you are something of a culinary genius!

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Recipe of the Week - Cappuccino Cupcakes

It's been a hectic couple of days here, with various check-ups at the hospital amongst other things, hence the neglecting of the little blog this week. So, the best way I can apologise  is with cupcakes!

Technically these should be called Mochaccino cupcakes, as there is chocolate in them too, but they look like little cups of cappuccino. Plus, I always think that Mochaccino sounds a bit pretentious, so Cappuccino it is.

These are Calum's favourite flavour of cupcake at the moment.

You will need:

6oz Doves Farm Wheat Free Self Raising Flour

2oz drinking chocolate or cocoa powder

8oz light brown sugar

6oz melted dairy-free margarine

4 eggs, separated

about 100ml very strong coffee

for the icing:

4oz dairy-free margarine

12oz icing sugar

left over strong coffee

~Mix the flour and cocoa together in a bowl and add the sugar.

~Just using a hand held whisk, beat in the melted butter, egg yolks, and about 60ml of the coffee. Mix until smooth.

~Meanwhile, beat the egg whites with a mixer until stiff peaks form.

~Carefully fold these into the rest of the mixture. Don't add them all at once but in two or three batches.

~Share the mixture between cupcake cases. I usually get about 2 dozen from this mix.

~Bake for about 20 minutes at 180C.

~While they are cooling beat together the icing ingredients. You might not need all of the left over coffee. Just add as much as you want to get your own desired flavour, and without making the icing go runny.

~Ice the cupcakes and then dust with a sprinkling of cocoa powder.

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