Oreo cookie cupcakes ― recipe

I thought I'd upload the recipe we used for the OREO Cookie Cupcakes on the show for those of you who either don't understand Greek or didn't have your pencils handy! You can now also watch the video on Star.gr.

I made a simplified version for the show but on the internet you can find many other versions with different ingredients and methods.

Oreo cookie cupcakes
1 pckt Oreo cookies (or any other cream filled chocolate cookies)
75g self raising flour
25g good quality cocoa powder
100g light brown sugar
100g butter, room temperature
2 eggs (preferably free range or organic)

200ml whipping cream
1 tbsp icing sugar
1 packet of mini Oreo cookies


How to do it
Preheat the oven to 180°C (170°C with air).
Place 12 paper or silicone cases into your muffin tin.
Carefully twist each cookie to separate the top and bottom halves and place the half which has the creamy filling into the cupcake cases with the cream upwards. One reason I prefer Oreo cookies is because they can be pulled apart easily. This will give our cupcakes a yummy crispy base.
Reserve the other halves.

Sift the flour and the cocoa together.
Beat the butter and sugar until creamy.
Add the eggs one at a time with a spoon full of the flour/cocoa.
Fold in the remaining flour/cocoa with a spoon or spatula.
Divide the mixture between the cases.
Bake for about 14-17 minutes depending on your oven. Leave to cool.

Once cool, whip the cream with the icing sugar. Crush the reserved cookie halves and fold into the whipped cream. Pipe or spread onto the cupcakes and top with a mini Oreo.

If somehow you don't manage to eat them all at once (doesn't happen often) you can store the cakes in the refrigerator but let them come up to room temperature before eating.

Liz

Q&A - tips on frosting

A reader asks: 'what other things can you use on your cupcakes for soft frosting apart from buttercream, if that is not your favourite?'

You can use whipped cream. You can add some vanilla, sugar, or melted chocolate (this is called 'ganache').

Then there are also meringue based toppings made with beaten egg whites and sugar.

A final suggestion would be some sort of cream cheese frosting (with icing sugar).


Whipped cream goes especially well with chocolate cakes (as does ganache). It is also good if you want to decorate with fresh fruit.


The disadvantage with whipped cream is that it shouldn't be left out of the refrigerator for long periods. So, either have the cream whipped and decorate your cupcakes right before you serve them (keep the cream already whipped in a cold glass bowl in the fridge so you don't have to leave your guests long), or decorate your cakes in advance and then remove them from the refrigerator at least half an hour before serving to allow them to come up to room temperature.


Meringue topping goes very nicely on lemon cake. A nice suggestion would be to make your cakes and then spread on a little lemon curd (you can find ready-made lemon curd at shops like AB in Greece) or make a small hole in the cake and fill them with curd and then add your meringue on top. These are delicious at the end of a heavy meal. Light and refreshing. meringue topping just keeps improving when left at room temperature. Cupcakes made with can be made well in advance.

I love cream cheese and personally think it goes with just about any flavour cake.


The reader mentions that she can 'feel' the sugar in the buttercream. So here are a couple of tips for making smooth buttercream.


Have the butter at room temperature. Beat very well before adding any sugar.

Sift the icing sugar carefully. Do it twice if necessary.

Add the icing sugar in small quantities to make sure it doesn't get lumps, then, when it is all added, continue beating for a couple more minutes. A properly made buttercream should not be grainy.


Only refrigerate your buttercream if you have made it too soft, and even then it only needs a minute or so to harden up enough to decorate.

Hope these tips are helpful.

Liz

Q&A

The last post raised a few questions (on the greek side of the blog) so I will try my best to answer them (even though I can see from your comments that you're all taking care of it yourselves!)

Xanthi, I think it highly unlikely that you will find the Dairy Book of Home Cookery in any bookshop either in Athens or in the UK. The book was never distributed through book shops to my knowledge but was ordered and delivered by the local milkman (does anyone really remember the milkman?) I am not sure if there are 'Milk men' anymore. Every one seems to buy their milk from the grocery store nowadays. According to wikipedia the Milk Marketing Board was dissolved in 2002.

I was fairly surprised to find the book when I did a google search the other day. I thought that perhaps I might find a second hand one on Ebay. It seems that there must be a few still available at various online bookshops. If your children are staying in the Uk for a while they could certainly order it through one of the amazon sellers that I linked to in the last post and have it delivered to wherever they are staying.

Angeliki asked about getting cupcakes to be level on the top and not to dome.

First of all I'll point out that I always use my fan assisted oven. It makes a difference for baking cakes. My oven has two dials. One for the temperature and the other which has the different settings. With mine you can use the fan alone, the fan and the grill together. Obviously we don't want the grill on :P The fan makes the oven the same temperature all over so that it doesn't matter which level of the oven you put your cakes in (this enabled me to make three trays of cakes at a time for the wedding). Most oven manufacturers suggest lowering the temperature between 10 and 20 degrees when using the fan setting.


This is what I would do if my cakes were turning out domed:

First, I would check the oven temperature and maybe lower it by about 10 degrees. They could be rising too quickly because of the high temperature. So, I would try cooking at a slightly lower temperature for a few minutes longer. That should do the trick.


If that didn't work, I would try a different variety of SR flour. Each brand probably has different quantities of raising agent.

Lastly, I would check the size of eggs that I am using, maybe switch to the next size down or use one less.

If that failed, too, I would get a new recipe :)

Mass produced cakes are made using all sorts of pre-prepared ingredients and the amount of cake dropped into each case is controlled by a machine too! I am not a fan as you can imagine. I think the charm of home-made, baked from scratch is that they are not all exactly the same!

I am sure that the effort you made for your daughters cupcakes made them so much more special! I would have done exactly the same if my cakes had turned out domed. Adjusting the frosting to cover it is the genius solution and who can tell?? Another thing you can do is to slice off the dome and discard the domes or even better, make them into butterfly cakes.

Wedding cupcakes―the recipe

I promised to post my recipes for the cakes I made for the wedding. The recipe is so basic that you will probably be disappointed.

It is taken from the recipe book I go to when I want to make a well tested, no fail recipe.


This book was first published by the Milk Marketing Board in 1968, it was revised to Metric in 1978 and then the new version for the '90s was published in 1992. The new version includes how to take shortcuts by using the microwave etc. You can still find it if you look on the net; for example here.

It has lots of useful information on ingredients, such as how to buy the right cut of meat...


descriptions of pulses...



and more. In the baking section you can find recipes for all kinds of pastry, cakes, breads and delicious recipes like this..


While I have many cupcake books and recipes, I chose this basic recipe for the wedding cupcakes because I know it works and I know that those who eat these cakes usually groan with delight when they bite into them. So I'll write the basic recipe and then I'll tell you different ways you can alter it.

Basic cupcake recipe:
Makes 12

100g Butter
100g Sugar
100g SR Flour
2 Eggs

Beat butter and sugar until very light colored and creamy.
Add eggs one at a time with about a spoonful of flour.
Fold in remaining flour.
Divide the cake between the 12 cupcake cases and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 deg for 14-18 minutes. The time will vary according to your cooker and whether or not you use a fan assisted oven.

Resist the urge to over cook. When you take a cake out of the oven it will continue to bake for another minute or so anyway.

For Lemon cake: Add one to two teaspoons of grated lemon rind to the mix

For Chocolate cake: Replace 25g of the flour with cocoa powder (For the wedding cakes I added 25g of grated dark chocolate to ads a bit of depth)

This recipe is so adaptable. You can make it into carrot cake, raisin cakes, chocolate chip cakes or anything that you feel like. You could even add coloring to the cake if you want them to be interesting for kids although I personally prefer to avoid adding colors and add sprinkles or something similar for decoration.


The basic buttercream icing recipe is from the same book.

100g Butter
225g Icing sugar, sifted
20 ml Milk
Couple of drops of vanilla extract

Beat the butter, milk and vanilla until very soft then beat in sugar.

For the wedding I added a couple of drops of red coloring (to match the wedding theme) per triple quantity of icing and I add the seeds from some Madagascan Vanilla Pods.


Vanilla pods are rather expensive to buy in the shops. I recently saw some at the supermarket for 5 Euro for one! Obviously it helps to have a Madagascan friend (Hi C) who just so happens to have returned recently with a supply for her crazy cupcake making friend!


Tip: After you have scraped the insides out of the pod, you can put it into a jar of sugar and you will get wonderful vanilla sugar which is great for all kinds of sweet baking or in your coffee if you take sugar. I always have a jar on the go.


OK... so you don't get the aroma through a photo.

For the chocolate cakes I added 25g of melted and cooled white chocolate to the icing. I use slightly less milk when I add melted chocolate.

Again you can do all sorts of variations with this recipe: You can make it citrus flavored with lemon or orange rind, you could add espresso powder, cocoa powder and many other things.

Enjoy experimenting! Remember not to over cook them!

Lots and lots of sugar flowers

Thanks for all the kind words and wishes for the couple! Hopefully we will get some nice photos of both the bride and groom and the cupcakes to share with you next week!


Yesterday morning I started on the sugar flowers for the wedding cupcakes. They are small sugar paste flowers and I dusted them with edible gold dust just to take away the stark white color.

It didn't take too long to make them with the little tool you see in the picture. Cutters like this are available from most cake craft supply stores on the internet. It is best to get the kind with a plunger so that you just cut and pop them out in one move. Then use the ball tool to make them a little more three dimensional.


Only 350 of the wedding cupcakes will have sugar flowers on. My shoulders are only aching slightly! Actually, it was quite a pleasant job since I had peace and quiet with the munchkins at school. My favorite time of day.


Later on I will be going shopping for the rest of the ingredients. This morning I nearly bought twice as much butter as needed. Oops!

I spoke with the wedding planner a little while ago and we discussed how they will be displayed and whether or not to keep a stash of cupcakes for the dinner guests to enjoy later on too. Sounds like a good plan :P

Sorted out what we will all wear.

Liz