Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes with Coconut Buttercream

My dad asked me to bake him some cupcakes using coconut as he really likes it and this is what I came up with. Its a dark chocolate cupcake with morello cherry jam, topped with toasted coconut buttercream, toasted coconut shavings and a glacé cherry. I thought about making coconut cupcakes but whenever I had tried them before they were too dry, so by having the coconut in the buttercream it stays moist and keeps it flavour. The cupcake recipe is a Nigella recipe, I usually have successes with Nigella's recipes and love how indulgent she makes food, especially her cakes. I love my new cupcake stand, my parents bought me it for my birthday :).

Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes 

125 grams unsalted butter (soft)

100 grams dark chocolate (broken into pieces)
300 grams Morello Cherry Jam
150 grams caster sugar
1pinch of salt
2 large eggs (beaten)
150 grams self-raising flour

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas mark 4.
2. Put the butter in a pan on medium heat to melt. When nearly completely melted, stir in the chocolate. Leave for a moment to begin softening, then take the pan off the heat and stir with a wooden spoon until the butter and chocolate are smooth and melted. Now add the cherry jam, sugar, salt and eggs. Stir with a wooden spoon and when all is pretty well mixed stir in the flour.
3. Scrape and pour into the muffin papers in their tin and bake for 25 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before turning out.

Coconut Buttercream

(For best results use a hand mixer or free standing mixer. If you have neither of these, you may need to beat the mixture a little longer to achieve a thick consistency for piping.)

110 grams butter

1/4 tsp of salt (if using unsalted butter)

250 grams icing sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

50 grams toasted coconut

2-3 tbsp whipping cream

Additional 50 grams toasted coconut for topping

12 glacé cherries (or one for each cupcake you managed to make)

1. In a bowl beat the butter until it is smooth, add the salt if you are using it. 
2. Add half of the icing sugar a quarter at a time, beating after each addition. 
3. Add vanilla and toasted coconut.
4. Add one tbsp of whipping cream and continue beating. 
5. Add remaining icing sugar a quarter at a time while beating. Add cream and beat until you achieve the consistency you want for piping.
6. Pipe onto the cupcakes however you would like or use a spatula to spread onto the cupcakes. Roll the buttercream in the left over toasted coconut for extra taste, decoration and texture. Place a glacé cherry on top to finish the cupcakes off. 

Walt Disney World Funnel Cake Review

Funnel Cake with Powdered Sugar

I had often walked past the Funnel Cake stand in Epcot and smelt the enticing aroma of cooked dough reminding me of doughnuts. But it wasn't doughnuts, it was this, a plate sized squiggly dough concoction. During my last trip to Walt Disney World I had to get a Funnel Cake to share with my boyfriend. We opted for the powdered sugar topped Funnel Cake, but you can have it plain, covered in sugar, drizzled in chocolate or topped with fruit.

Being English I had to research what Funnel cake was, so I have summarised it here for anyone like me who wants to know its origins, from Wikipedia. 'Funnel cake or funny cake is a regional food popular in North America at carnivals, fairs, sporting events, and seaside resorts. Funnel cakes are made by pouring batter into hot cooking oil in a circular pattern and deep frying the overlapping mass until golden-brown. When made at concession stands, a pitcher with an integral funnel spout is employed. Funnel cakes are typically served plain with powdered sugar, or with jam, cinnamon, Nutella, fresh fruit, or other toppings. In North America, funnel cakes were originally associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch region.'

You certainly have to be hungry to polish the entire thing off by your self, but it's the perfect size to share with someone else after a long day walking around the World Showcase. I found the Funnel Cake to be very sweet in a good way but not greasy like I was worried it would be. The powdered sugar on top made it soft and slightly sticky to eat, it made quite a mess, but that makes it fun. It reminded me of freshly made doughnuts bought from the seaside, deep-fried indulgence. Its certainly something I couldn't eat all the time, it's a treat, because when you are on holiday you don't have to count the calories. Its been a year since I went to Walt Disney World, I don't really find myself craving Funnel Cake, because as I said I can go to the seaside for doughnuts and they will taste the same, but there's something about having it sat in Epcot, people watching, that makes it special. I think that's what Walt Disney World does to everything, it makes everything magical. :)

Walt Disney World's Marble Cupcake Review

If you find yourself in Disney's Hollywood Studios and fancy a snack, head on over to the Starring Rolls cafe and choose from their selection of savoury and bakery items. If you want something that's big enough to share and won't disappoint go for the Marble Cupcake. My first reaction when my boyfriend brought this cupcake out of the cafe, was that it was huge and I thought I'm glad he only bought one.

On top of the moist vanilla and chocolate cake are three large swirls of heavy vanilla frosting, it is very sweet and filling, so I suggest you share this cupcake with a friend. In the middle of the frosting swirl is a hidden gem of fudge. The cupcake has been rolled in chocolate sprinkles, not those artificial flavoured plastic sprinkles you buy from the store, but actual chocolate sprinkles. They have a nice flavour that gives you a slight bitter hint while eating through the frosting. The mickey sprinkles on top are a nice touch, they make sure you know you are eating a Disney cupcake and give the cupcake an aesthetic appeal when you are looking in the bakery case.

Cross section view of the Marble Cupcake.

The vanilla cake part of the marble cake was my favourite. It was very soft and had a mellow vanilla flavour that made me want an entire cake made just out of the vanilla cake. I enjoyed the chocolate cake too, it was slightly less sweet than the vanilla cake, which was a nice contrast of flavours when eaten together. I found the flavour of the cake was slightly lost when eaten with the frosting and fudge on top, but this is just because I really loved the vanilla cake. Overall this cake is amazing, one that should only be a treat after a long day walking around the parks, but then again you are on holiday so you shouldn't really count the calories.

Honey Cupcakes with Honey Buttercream

This cupcake was inspired by a lovely honey cupcake recipe I saw on anncoo journal. I decided to swap the whipped cream topping with a honey buttercream because I knew my cupcakes wouldn't be eaten straight away, and I didn't want the whipped cream to spoil or melt. I will write the recipe down for you here, but if you would rather have the whipped cream frosting just follow the link to the anncoo journal I pasted earlier. My cupcakes have been topped with crushed Graham Crackers, because I had some left from my American cupcakes and I felt the slightly salty taste of the Graham Crackers would complement the honey in the cake and buttercream.

Honey Cupcakes

Makes 10

125 grams butter softened

110 grams caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp honey

2 eggs

185 grams plain flour (sieved with baking powder)

1 tsp baking powder

125 ml milk

1. Preheat oven to 170'C/325'F/Gas Mark 3.
2. Line a cupcake tin with 10 cases.
3. Beat the butter, sugar, vanilla and honey in a bowl until creamy.
4. Gradually add the eggs until combined.
5. Add the flour, baking powder and milk alternately and beat until combined.
6. Fill cases 3/4 of the way full.
7. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until slightly brown on top and springy to the touch.

Honey Buttercream

115 grams unsalted butter

60 grams honey

280 grams icing sugar

2 tbsp milk

1. Cream the butter and honey together in a large bowl until it is light and fluffy.
2. Add half of the icing sugar and beat until creamy. 
3. Gradually add remaining sugar slowly while beating, until the buttercream is think.
4. Use the milk to thin out the buttercream if necessary. 
5. I decorated my cupcakes with crushed Graham Crackers to complement the honey flavour.

Walt Disney World Butterfinger Cupcake Review

My first review on this blog had to be a Walt Disney World cupcake. If you ever go to Walt Disney World in Florida and enter the Hollywood Studios, you might notice a small eatery called the Starring Rolls Cafe on your way to the Hollywood Tower Hotel. The Starring Rolls Cafe is a nice little shop offering a variety of baked goods. Here is one of the best descriptions of the Cafe from the Disney Food Blog, I could spend hours on that blog reading different articles about food in the Disney parks. Ever since reading the description of a butterfinger cupcake I knew I wanted to try one. So on my most recent trip to Walt Disney world with my boyfriend and family, I headed straight to the Starring Rolls Cafe to get one.

Mine and my boyfriend's Butterfinger Cupcake before we started eating it. When we bought the cupcake is 2011 it cost $3.99 plus tax. But as you can see the price is defiantly worth it, its a massive chocolate cupcake, with a mound of frosting on top covered in Buterfinger crumbs.To any non-Americans like myself a Butterfinger is an American candy bar, that tastes like peanut butter, it has a golden crunchy caramel like centre covered with chocolate.

You first dive into the vanilla buttercream on top of the cupcake, this is what is covered in Butterfinger crumbs. It is a very sweet and light buttercream, which cuts through the rich-ness of the chocolate cake. The chocolate cake is moist and very moreish. It wasn't dry at all, maybe this was helped by the vanilla buttercream and sticky fudge buttercream centre. I found the fudge buttercream centre tasty but very dense, it came out of our cupcake in one lump, which was quite hard to separate so we could both have some. Its strong chocolate flavour did complement the vanilla buttercream, and overall didn't take away from the amazing cupcake. I really enjoyed this cupcake, it was even more impressive in person than in the photos I had seen. I couldn't eat more than one in a holiday because I dread to think how many calories are in them, but then I could walk around Epcot twice to burn the calories off. But I might find myself walking into the Boardwalk Bakery and then the problem starts all over again. So if you love cupcakes, chocolate, buttercream and Butterfinger candy bars, this is certainly the cupcake for you.

I was going to take a photograph of a cross section of the cupcake, but when I remembered we had already finished the entire thing. Just shows how good it tasted.