This has been a wonderful weekend of baking and bbq-ing but boy am I shattered now. Today was the turn of the Peppermint Tea cupcakes. I was originally going to make the Angel Food cake but due to my lack of successful in finding a Ring tin in time, I had to make a last minute decision on what to substitute it for. Settled on the Peppermint Tea Cupcakes as I love making cupcakes and had all the ingredients available in my cupboards for these, bonus!
Was up at 8.15am this morning (after turned clocks forward) to start this recipe. The recipe itself is the same as all the usual cupcake/sponge ones, just requires a little forward thinking to make sure the peppermint tea bags are left to brew for 30 minutes, first in a small amount of water to add to a milk and egg mixture for the sponge and then in milk for the icing.
Had another minor slip-up and added too much flour to the dry ingredients, measured out the sugar correctly and then used that same weight needed for the flour by mistake. Corrected it easily though but really must find my reading glass as this is not the first time it has happened and I am only 4 recipes into this challenge so far! I'm surprised this blog is readable to be honest. The batter also came out a little lumpy, the butter would not seem to mix easily this morning but it didn't seem to affect the cupcakes once cooked.
I found that the cupcakes themselves took a little longer to cook than recommended but that could have also been down to the fact I had to rotate the two trays midway through cooking to make sure they cook and colour evenly and I know you should try to keep the oven closed once the baking is underway until required cook time is up.
Onto the icing whilst these cooled from the oven. Nothing to report on this batch, again an icing sugar explosion over half of my kitchen and having read the comments on the whoopie pie blog before this entry, I am going to desperately try and find a bowl cover to slot my whisk into to prevent this from happening..I shall keep you updated. If anyone know where this can be purchased from or its technical name I will be forever in your debt.
I halved the quantity of ingredients for this batch of icing as I usually do and it worked out well. A nice covering on the top of the cupcakes but not too much that they became top heavy or overloaded and none of it was wasted. The icing smelt devine with the peppermint tea flavouring and I decorated them with a little icing peak and leaf of fresh mint each.
Once iced and finished I didn't get a chance to taste them as was rushing to clean the kitchen, and myself, ready for our friends to arrive for a BBQ that my Husband decided all of yesterday evening, that we should throw. Hence the early start this morning to get my baking done..and who doesn't love showing off their skills with some unusual flavoured cupcakes to company. The children attending were the first to taste them and they gave them the seal of approval so myself and the rest of the party dove straight in...They were absolutely gorgeous!
The peppermint tea icing is definately one of my favourites now and the sponge, when tasted alone, has such a wonderful subtle hint of the peppermint tea. To get the thumbs up from children, whos ages range from 3 to 9, was also lovely since they don't usually go for something with that sort of flavour and they turned down the Chocolate Whoopie pies for the cupcakes as well! Shocked and Stunned.
This is definately going to be one of my favourites to bake from now on and cannot wait to try the Earl Gray and Fruit Tea variations too.
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