Jaffa Cupcakes

Aren't these the cutest little clementine oranges you've ever seen? They're not the real thing though. The real oranges are in the bowl in the background. These little cuties are made from marzipan! They were pretty easy and very fun to make. I decided to make these to top some cupcakes I was creating for my little brother's birthday.

He LOVES the English Jaffa Cakes which are these chocolatey-orangey (McVitie's terms) biscuits. We can find them in the U.S. now and I'm always buying him a box for his birthday or Christmas. We visited a cupcake shop together recently and he commented that nobody makes a chocolate-orange combination. So, I vowed to him that I would...and here it is! I made chocolate cupcakes with a homemade orange buttercream and topped them with my homemade marzipan crafted into tiny little clementine oranges.

Overall, they turned out quite good, but I did have a few hiccups (I mean learning experiences) along the way.

First of all, I think I filled my cupcake papers just a little too much. So, while they rose nicely and baked perfectly, they were a little too full and some of them stuck to the cupcake tin a little. They don't even look that full, but it's best to keep them only 1/2-2/3 full.

I also tried using these new cupcake papers called "If You Care." They are unbleached, which I thought was good and while I was trying to be a good environmentally conscious baker, they didn't work out so well. While they boast "better non-stick performance" that apparently not only meant they wouldn't stick to the pan, but also that the cake wouldn't stick to the paper. The cupcakes that I baked in these papers, were coming away from the paper and looked awful. I was lucky that I baked half of them in just plain white (yes, probably bleached) cupcake papers, but they turned out better (the one on the right).

Ok, so that's my venting about the cupcakes out of the way. Now onto the fun part - the little marzipan clementines.

I started with my smallest packet of frozen marzipan that I made from scratch earlier in the year. I thawed it in the refrigerator overnight and then let it come to room temperature the next day. As I did previously when I made the marzipan tulips, I reconstituted the marzipan using a little light corn syrup and it came together and was ready to mold in no time.

The first step was to make it orange, so I used an actual clementine orange as my subject and used AmeriColor Electric Orange (163) that was cut into the marzipan before I kneaded it. After having green and pink hands for a few days after coloring fondant for my birthday cake, I decided to wear some gloves to knead the orange color into the marzipan.

I was pretty happy with this nice bright orange color and molded it into a log first.

I cut the log into eight somewhat equal pieces.

Then, I cut each of the eight pieces in two and this was the size I used for rolling them into 16 little oranges.

One tip that I almost forgot about (and had to re-roll a few) was to place them on plastic wrap after molding them as it's pretty sticky.

I love this idea that I read about. To give the oranges their stem, I used whole cloves with the bloom from the middle removed.

Then they were rolled over my ceramic spice grater for the "dimpled" effect. However, I find that marzipan (especially homemade) has a little texture to it anyway from the ground almonds.

Here they are, my heaping bowl full of marzipan oranges. Now onto decorating the cupcakes...

I ended up making my own recipe for the orange buttercream. It ended up having a nice light orange flavor, but not too overpowering (see recipe below).

I piped on the frosting as I thought it would look nicer with the orange zest in it. While I definitely need to work on my piping skills (and am trying desperately to get into that course in culinary school), this was a little more difficult to pipe because it had a looser consistency with the orange juice I added in. Perhaps, I should have added a bit more powdered sugar to hold it together more, but it worked out just fine. I chilled the cupcakes overnight and it held together nicely. I just let them come to room temperature before I placed the marzipan oranges on top and served them.

While I learned a few things along the way, I was quite happy with my Jaffa cupcakes. My brother was too, but admitted that he felt I had gone through way too much trouble for him to just inhale it in less than a minute.

Recipe for Orange Buttercream:

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

4 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1-2 teaspoons fresh grated orange peel

4-6 tablespoons fresh squeezed orange juice

Beat the butter until light and fluffy. Add in the powdered sugar a little at a time and beat on low (so it doesn't fly everywhere). Beat in the vanilla and orange peel. Add the orange juice a few tablespoons at a time for taste and consistency. Note: I used a little over 6 tablespoons and it had a nice flavor, but the consistency was a little loose.

Strawberry Ice Cream

This is most likely my last strawberry creation (at least this week). Strawberry season will last a little longer and I may be further inspired to try something else....a tart perhaps. After three batches of strawberry freezer jam, cookies and several fresh eaten strawberries, I decided to preserve the final few quarts of strawberries with cream, milk, sugar and pure vanilla in the form of some homemade strawberry ice cream.

I soaked the strawberries in sugar and fresh lemon juice all morning and mashed the strawberries to get some good juice to color the ice cream. I mixed the cream, milk, sugar and vanilla with the fresh strawberry juice and crushed strawberries and put it in my Cuisinart ice cream maker.

When it first comes out of the ice cream machine after about 25 minutes, it has a nice soft gelato like texture.

We sampled some and it was AMAZING and the rest went in a freezer safe container to freeze more to enjoy later.

Oatmeal Cookies

I meant to make this cookie in May and time got the best of me with the other projects I decided to take on. I love this oatmeal cookie recipe and got hungry for them after I lit an oatmeal cookie candle I have. I lit it when I had company coming over as it makes the house smell like you've been baking. I felt like I was cheating with the candle, so I wanted to make a batch of these cookies and recreate the real smell! It's simple in that it is purely just oatmeal, but sometimes simple is just better. I grew up with oatmeal cookies loaded with coconut, chocolate chips, raisins and sometimes nuts and while I love those, this is definitely my go-to oatmeal cookie recipe now. They are perfectly crispy on the edges with a soft center. And, since they are dredged in powdered sugar before baking, they come out of the oven with a warm sugary coating and they just melt in your mouth.

The batter is very easy to make and I always use my mini cookie scoop to keep the size of the cookies consistent.

I rolled each cookie scoop into a ball and gave them a nice thick coating of powdered sugar.

They went on Silpat lined baking sheets and I flattened each of them slightly with the back of a spoon.

Here they are fresh out of the oven. Beautiful cracks in the powdered sugar coating as they spread out when they baked and a slightly gooey warm sugar coating.

I made a lot of them so I had plenty to send some home with family that visited and a nice big container for my husband to take to the office.

I think these cookies would be great with maybe a homemade caramel or cinnamon homemade ice cream sandwiched between them. I have some other ideas for fun ice cream sandwiches and plan to make some in the warm summer months to enjoy with the kids.

A Trip to Yesteryear

Near where I grew up is the little town of Blanchard, Michigan. You'd never imagine such a quaint place to be in the middle of nowhere, but Loafer's Glory is a little gem that I love to visit when I visit my mum. They are closed through the winter months, so we recently went for our first visit of the year. It has a nice country charm to it and while I don't care as much now for country style decorating, it is still fun to look around. They have several shops with anything from candles, to table linens and books. I love going there around Christmastime and in November they always have a live Nativity scene that really sets the mood for the season.

They have a collection of different shops and the Wildflower Tea Room is in the middle. It has more of a luncheon menu without the traditional tea room items, but we always love to eat there. I'll always remember our visits to have lunch there when my Nan was visiting from England and the broccoli cheese soup was always her favorite. In fact, we sat at the table that we last recall sitting with Nan. Audrey and I had a nice lunch with mum and she even shared her hot fudge sundae with Audrey. I had my favorite dessert, their buttermilk pie.

They have fantastic homemade bread that is made in the Sun Flour Bakery and mum and I both ordered a loaf to go.

The Ole's ice cream shop is so charming and I love the old fashioned stools.

A trip to visit my mum always seems like a trip to "yesteryear." Old memories, looking through the room I grew up in, a trip to the Amish farms for eggs or vegetables and a visit for lunch at Loafer's Glory, the "village of yesteryear." I'm already looking forward to my next visit. I think we'll sit on the stools in Ole's and order a big sundae.

Scones with Strawberry Jam

I have written about the scones we enjoyed in England last summer and the awful scones we had at the Crown & Crumpet in San Fran, but I've yet to write about my own scone recipe. My scones are more of the English style scones that are a biscuit like shape and texture. I don't much care for the triangular shaped scones that most cafe's and bakeries have and they always seem to be very dry, tasteless and covered in huge crystals of sugar. What's special about mine? I always use pure full fat unsalted butter. It's best to use unsalted to control the amount of salt in the recipe and most scone recipes don't call for much sugar, so it's good not to overdo it on the salt, especially for fruit scones. You also must use baking raisins. Most people don't know they exist, but you can buy Sunmaid baking raisins in 1 cup pouches in most grocery stores. They are much juicier for baking unlike those dry pebbles of raisins that come in boxes. They are great for scones, but also for oatmeal raisin cookies and even to put in your morning oatmeal. I use a scalloped biscuit cutter and you can also make different sizes. I usually do this to make some smaller ones more suited for afternoon tea vs. the bigger "breakfast size" scones with the larger biscuit cutter. When baked just the right amount of time, they are moist but not doughy, rise nicely and break apart perfectly without the need for a knife...aside for spreading on the clotted cream and strawberry jam! I enjoyed afternoon tea with Audrey last weekend and used the last of my homemade strawberry jam.