This week I wanted to do cupcakes with pear, but all the pears at the grocery store were far from being ripe. I still bought some and will do my pear cupcakes later this week when the pears aren’t so hard! I still had to bake today though. I looked through my kitchen and saw I still had some frozen blackberries from the blackberry-vanilla cupcake. So I decided to do some blackberry and white chocolate scones. I love making scones. So much fun! I based my recipe on the lemon scones from the book Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. It was pretty straight forward until I added the blackberries. They had been thawing on the counter for about an hour so they had a lot of juice. When i added them to my almost finished scones the dough turned way too soft! So I added a cup of flour after the fact to try to dry it out. If you try out this recipe I’d recommend either using frozen blackberries (as opposed to my partially thawed ones) or adding the extra cup of flour from the beginning. They still turned out wonderful though! Here is the recipe for 16 scones:

ingredients:
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- 4 cups of flour (5 cups if your blackberries are partially thawed like mine)
- 1/2 tsp of baking powder
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cup butter cold and cut into small cubes
- 125g white chocolate chips
- a little over 1 cup of frozen blackberries
- a bit of milk for brushing

method:
- preheat the oven to 350.
- lightly beat the egg, cream and milk together, set aside
- sift the flour and baking powder together, then add the sugar and mix together
- add the butter to the flour and pinch the butter in the flour until the butter is down to small pea sized balls
- add the egg to the flour
- gently wet the flour with the tips of your fingers at first and when the dough is starting to come together you can knead it until it forms a nice big ball
- fold in the white chocolate chips
- fold in the blackberries
- use a big cookie cutter to form small circular scones
- place on baking sheets lined with parchment paper
- brush each scone with a little bit of milk
- bake for 20 minutes

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate, Fruits | 2 Comments »

Sunday was a coworker’s birthday and another coworker asked me to make cupcakes to celebrate. Which means I got my second paying cupcake gig! I need to figure out official prices and set up a page on my blog if this keeps going. I would really love for this to keep going, it’s so much fun! The order was for chocolate and lychee cupcakes with two flavour swirl. It was my first time with the two flavour swirl. I’m rather happy with the result. It makes for beautiful cupcakes and a nice variation in the icing. I also filled the cupcakes with mashed up lychee for an extra lychee taste.

cake:
- 50g dark chocolate
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 tsp of baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 1/2 cup of cream
- 1/2 cup of milk

method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- melt the chocolate in a double boiler and set aside
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition, then beat on high for 30 seconds
- add the melted chocolate and combine
- sift the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- add the cream and milk and combine until smooth
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- bake for 20 minutes

icing:
- 3 egg whites
- 140g of sugar
- 1 1/4 cup of butter cut in 1 inch cubes
- 1/4 cup lychee puree
- 50g dark chocolate

method:
- melt the chocolate in a double boiler and set aside
- combine the egg whites and sugar in a double boiler
- whisk a little until all the sugar is melted away
- take off the double boiler and beat on high until cooled and turned into a firm meringue, touch the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature
- add the butter one cube at a time while beating on a lower speed
- beat on high until you get a nice fluffy texture (it will turn to a cottage cheese kind of texture about half way through, just keep beating)
- separate the icing in two
- add the lychee puree to one half and the melted chocolate to the other.

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate, Fruits | 1 Comment »

This week I went for a more traditional flavour combo, banana and chocolate. Its a combination we see often in crepes for brunch. I caramelized the bananas. I’ve never caramelized fruit before and thought it was about time I did. It was a fun experiment and it smelled so good! I think it gives an extra diminution to the fruit. I’ll definitely try it with more fruits in the weeks to come! To caramelize 2 bananas you simply put a tbs of butter and a tbs of sugar in a skillet and while it melts you cut each banana once length wise and once across, put them in the skillet and flip them once in a while until they are caramelized. Here is the recipe for 16 cupcakes:

cake:
- 3/4 cup of butter
- 1 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups of flour
- 2 caramelized banana, mashed
- 2 tsp of baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 cup of cream
- 1/4 cup of milk

method:
- preheat the oven to 350
- beat the butter until it is light and fluffy
- add the sugar and beat thoroughly
- add the eggs one at a time and beat in between each addition, then beat on high for 30 seconds
- add the bananas
- sift the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together and combine with the butter/sugar mix
- add the cream and milk and combine until smooth
- line a cupcake pan with paper cups
- bake for 20 minutes

icing:
- 3 egg whites
- 140g of sugar
- 1 1/4 cup of butter cut in 1 inch cubes
- 75g of dark chocolate

method:
- melt the chocolate in a double boiler and set aside
- combine the egg whites and sugar in a double boiler
- whisk a little until all the sugar is melted away
- take off the double boiler and beat on high until cooled and turned into a firm meringue, touch the bottom of the bowl to make sure its at least body temperature
- add the butter one cube at a time while beating on a lower speed
- beat on high until you get a nice fluffy texture (it will turn to a cottage cheese kind of texture about half way through, just keep beating)
- fold in the melted chocolate

Enjoy :)

Categories: Chocolate, Fruits | 2 Comments »