Iron Cupcake Earth April: Soda pop

This month I picked cherry coke as my ingredient. Inspired by black forest gateaux, I've created a chocolate and cherry coke cupcake with kirch frosting. The soda gives the cake a moist but light texture with a hint of cherry.



To make the cupcake:

Melt 125g of butter and 150ml cherry coke together in a pan. Take off the heat then add 125g self raising flour, 150g caster sugar, 2 tbsp cocoa, a splash of milk, about 30ml kirch and an egg and milk thoroughly. Put into cupcake cases and bake for about 8 minutes at 200C.

For the frosting:

Beat 75g of butter and 175g of icing sugar together. Add a little kirch to taste and mix in well.

This month I'm competing to win the following:

Our April ETSY PRIZE-PACK is from artists:

* A creation by FRUITFLYPIE, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=16748
* a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
* a sweet surprise from Sweet Cuppin' Cakes Cupcakery, http://www.acupcakery.com/
* PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

Last and certainly not least, don’t forget our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .

Iron Cupcake Earth March: Nuts and Seeds

For this month's Iron Cupcake I've made Praline Baked Alaska Cupcakes. The cupcake part is chocolate (cocoa being a seed for a second challenge ingredient) with a fondant centre, topped with almond praline ice cream and meringue to look like frosting. Admittedly a large part of the reason for going with this idea is an excuse to use a blow torch. I had a little trouble with the ice cream, but I think this could be solved by cutting a small hollow in the top of the cupcake to sit the ice cream in so it stays put better while spreading the meringe over it. Hopefully that should prevent the escaping that happened when I cut into this for the cross section. The cupcakes were a success, with an good combination of textures. They bordered on the dessert side of cupcake, and were a little more showing off than had I gone with the more usual frosting topping.




Our February ETSY PRIZE-PACK from artists:

• DIANAEVANS - http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5599270
• as well as a pair of cupcake earrings from LOTS OF SPRINKLES at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6057281.
• PLUS, IronCupcake:Earth can not forget our good friend, CAKESPY, http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243382, who is now going to be doing a piece for our winner each month until further notice - sweet!

As an added bonus for February, SWEET CUPPIN CAKES BAKERY AND CUPCAKERY SUPPLY will be tossing in a variety of cupcaking supplies, http://www.acupcakery.com/index.html.

As well as the awesome prizes from our corporate prize providers: HEAD CHEFS by FIESTA PRODUCTS, http://www.fiestaproducts.com, HELLO CUPCAKE by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson, http://blog.hellocupcakebook.com, JESSIE STEELE APRONS http://www.jessiesteele.com; TASTE OF HOME books, http://www.tasteofhome.com; a t-shirt from UPWITHCUPCAKES.COM http://www.upwithcupcakes.com/. Iron Cupcake:Earth is sponsored in part by 1-800-Flowers, http://www.1800flowers.com .

Mothers Day Cupcakes

These were just a plain cupcake with pink glace icing. The flowers are a chocolate button with petals piped in melted chocolate. I need to work on my freehand piping skills (and photography skills for that matter) but I'm pretty happy overall with how they look.

Hopefully I'll have time to get some backdated baking on here in the next few days.