Winter Apple Cupcakes

We had a long weekend last weekend, so in the spirit of the lovely cool weather we've been having lately, I decided to make something wintery and delicious.

I just mucked around with my normal vanilla cupcake recipe (hey, I've found a gf cake recipe that doesn't go dry - I'm almost too afraid to try another one in case it goes all dry and horrible!) . I swear, next time I'll try a new recipe! Really!

125 g butter (room temperature)
2/3 C caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 C self raising gluten free flour
1 Tbsp milk
1/4 C Cream Cheese
1 1/2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and diced into 1 cm pieces
juice of 1/2 a lemon
2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 12 hole and a 6 hole cupcake tin with cupcake cases.
   
2. Squeeze the lemon over the chopped apples (this will stop them browning and adds a lovely zing)
   
3. Cream butter and sugar together until pale. Beat in vanilla.
4. Beat in 1 egg. Scrape down the sides. Beat in the second egg and scrape again.
5. Mix in the flour and cinnamon in 3 additions, alternating with the milk and cream cheese in 2 additions, mixing continuously.
6. Stir through the apples
   
7. Divide evenly into cupcake cases.
8. Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Note: the batter doesn't quite cook evenly through the cake - the batter around the apples stays a bit wet even when the rest of the cake is cooked. If I was going to do it again, I'd either bake the apple cubes first to dry them out a bit, or increase the milk to 1/4 C and use 1/2 C dried apple pieces instead.


I was feeling particularly lazy this week (as you can probably guess by the fact it took me 4 days to post!) so I didn't ice them. They were so moist and sweet,

Southern Pulled Pork

OK so I have a confession. Cupcakes aside, my biggest weakness is southern US and central American cuisine. TexMex, soul food, Creole, Yucatan, Mexican, Cuban - I love them all. When I was a teenager, a group I performed with did some touring in that area and I just fell in love with the cuisine.

Pork is a huge part of the diet over there. It's much cheaper than it is in Australia, and pork can be slow cooked in a myriad of ways - and every time it seems to come out moist and sumptious. I was feeling terribly nostalgic last week, and was craving the pulled pork I had in Dallas. Sweet, meaty, sticky and covered in a unctiously smoky barbecue sauce, it was a dish I'll never forget. Problem is, you can't seem to find that type of food anywhere in Australia - so I decided that I was craving it enough to make it for myself.

Since I don't have a slow cooker, I used an oven baked recipe. I was pretty happy with how it turned out - the barbecue sauce was quite acidic and runny, so I only ended up using half - but a small amount make the pork simply perfect! I'd never acutally used a dry rub before - this one is delicious, but makes much more than you need! I'm using the leftovers to make chicken wings - yum!

Southern Pulled Pork

You will need:

Dry Rub:

3 tablespoons paprika I used smoked paprika - it made it that much better!
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon dry mustard
3 tablespoons coarse salt I used 1 Tbsp fine salt
1 (5 to 7 pound) pork roast, preferably shoulder or Boston butt I used a 1.8 kg deboned rolled shoulder

Cider Vinegar Barbecue Sauce:

1 1/2 cups cider vinegar
1 cup yellow or brown mustard I used seeded mustard
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 garlic cloves, smashed
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper


Mix the paprika, garlic power, brown sugar, dry mustard, and salt together in a small bowl. Rub the spice blend all over the pork and marinate for as long as you have time for, as little as 1 hour or up to overnight, covered, in the refrigerator. This rub sma

Preheat the oven to 150 C.

Put the pork in a roasting pan and bake for about 6 hours. Basically, roast the pork until it's falling apart. Mine took 4 1/2 hours because it was a little smaller

To make the barbecue sauce: combine the vinegar, mustard, ketchup, brown sugar, garlic, salt, cayenne, and black pepper in a saucepan over medium heat. Simmer gently, stirring, for 10 minutes until the sugar dissolves.

Remove the pork roast from the oven and transfer to a large platter. Allow the meat to rest for about 10 minutes. While still warm, take 2 forks and "pull" the meat to form shreds. Using 2 forks, shred the pork by steadying the meat with 1 fork and pulling it away with the other. Put the shredded pork in a bowl. Pour 1/2 of the sauce on the shredded pork and mix well to coat. If you can stop licking your fingers when you do this, you have much more restraint than I do!

Serve on tacos or fresh bread with coleslaw or guacamole. This is finger-licking food - the best kind of food. Yummo!

Black and White Cupcakes

A good friend of mine from work turned 26 last night. As her birthday present, she asked me to make some cupcakes.

I was feeling a little under the weather and stressed, so I simply combined the Vanilla Cupcakes and Hot Chocolate Cupcake recipes to make Black and White Cupcakes (or if you will, Michael Jackson Cupcakes). Awesome.

Just a tip - make the batters simultaneously so they don't dry out!

Black and White Cupcakes (Makes 24)

Vanilla cupcake batter:
125 g butter (room temperature)
2/3 C caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 C self raising gluten free flour
1/2 C milk

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake cases.
   
2. Cream butter and sugar together until pale. Beat in vanilla.
3. Beat in 1 egg. Scrape down the sides. Beat in the second egg and scrape again.
4. Mix in the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the milk in 2 additions, mixing continuously.
5. Divide evenly into cupcake cases.

Hot Chocolate Cupcake batter:

125 g butter (room temperature)
2/3 C hot chocolate powder (I used Cadbury's as it's gluten free)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 C self raising gluten free flour
1/4 C milk
1/4 C Sour cream

1. Cream butter and hot chocolate powder together until pale. Beat in vanilla.
2. Beat in 1 egg. Scrape down the sides. Beat in the second egg and scrape again.
3. Mix in the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the milk and sour cream in 2 additions, mixing continuously.
4. Divide evenly into cupcake cases on top of the vanilla batter. Swirl the batters together with a toothpick.
5. Bake at 180 C for 20 minutes.

For the Fluff:
6 egg whites
1 C sugar
2 Tbsp vanilla

For the Fluff (this is just Swiss Meringue!):

1. Over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together egg whites and sugar until the mixture is hot (72 C) and frothy. This usually takes quite a while - 8-10 minutes.
   
2. Using an electric beater, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form and mix is cool.
3. Beat in vanilla.
   
4. Pipe or spread mixture onto cupcakes.

I then piped some melted chocolate over the top. Delish!

Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Following the success of the Vanilla Cupcake recipe, I wanted to see if there were any adaptations that were possible. Turns out drinking chocolate powder makes an excellent substitute for sugar - especially when you replace some of the milk with sour cream! However, I made the mistake of trying to incorporate marshmallows into the batter - they bubbled up and ran down the sides, gluing the patty pans to the tin. Turns out baked marshmallow is approximately the consistancy of tar. Yummy. Apart from that though - delicious! I used a vanilla SMBC as homage to the whipped vanilla cream I love on top of hot chocolate.



You will need:

125 g butter (room temperature)
2/3 C hot chocolate powder (I used Cadbury's as it's gluten free)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/4 C self raising gluten free flour
1/4 C milk
1/4 C Sour cream
12 marshmallows (I used neopolitan but you could use vanilla or strawberry)

1. Preheat the oven to 180 C. Line a 12 hole cupcake tin with cupcake cases. Place a marshmallow in each case.
   
2. Cream butter and hot chocolate powder together until pale. Beat in vanilla.
3. Beat in 1 egg. Scrape down the sides. Beat in the second egg and scrape again.
4. Mix in the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the milk and sour cream in 2 additions, mixing continuously.
5. Divide evenly into cupcake cases. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.
6. Cool on a wire rack.

Vanilla SMBC

You will need:

3 egg whites
1/2 C sugar
125 g butter
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a large, clean heatproof bowl, combine the egg whites and sugar. Set the bowl over (but not touching) simmering water in a saucepan and heat the mixture, whisking constantly, until the sugar has completely dissolved and the mixture is very warm to the touch. Remove the bowl from the saucepan.
2. Using an electric mixer on high speed, beat the egg white mixture until it is fluffy, cooled to room temperature, and holds stiff peaks (the mixture should not look dry), about 6 minutes.
3. With the mixer on medium-low speed, add the the butter, a few pieces at a time, beating well after each addition. If the icing appears to separate or is very liquid after all the butter is added, continue to beat on high speed until it is smooth and creamy, 3-5 minutes more. Add the vanilla extract scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.