Cakes & Bakes: Rachel’s easy buns

Rachel's easy buns | H is for Home

We’ve just been on one of our short visits back to our old stomping grounds. Well, we’ve been there every month since we moved, so hardly old stomping grounds. There’s an antiques centre space to check on, more stuff to collect from storage… and buns to eat! Do you call them buns, cupcakes or something else? We stay at Justin’s mum’s, where his sister Rachel is also to be found in her role as carer. She’s a great baker and often knocks up batches of these tasty treats.

Putting cake batter into bun cases | H is for Home

She has a quick, simple recipe incorporating self-raising flour, sugar and eggs… with the addition of any other suitable ingredients that take your fancy. Sultanas, raisins, cherries, coconut, lemon, cocoa, various essences. The list of Rachel’s easy buns options isn’t quite endless, but could fill a page or two of this post!

I didn’t have any self-raising flour after a mouse got into my dry store, so just added ½ a teaspoon of baking powder to 100 grams of plain flour – a good little tip if you find yourself in the same predicament!

Cooked buns under a glass cake dome | H is for Home Close up of cooked buns under a glass cake dome | H is for Home

It’s a simple, one bowl mixing job – then spoon the batter into the paper cases and bake. It couldn’t be easier. And another tip that you might like to try; Rachel never cools them on a wire rack. She always puts them straight under a glass dome where they cool slowly and retain their moisture and softness. I made half a dozen with sultanas added to the mix and half a dozen spread (after baking) with damson jam and dipped in toasted coconut. Delicious!

Rachel's easy buns from above | H is for Home

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Rachel's easy buns | H is for Home #buns #cupcakes #recipe #cake #baking #cooking #cookery
Rachel's easy buns
Yields 10
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
30 min
Prep Time
10 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
30 min
Ingredients
  1. 100g/3½oz butter, softened
  2. 100g/3½oz caster sugar
  3. 100g/3½oz self-raising flour
  4. 2 eggsRachel’s easy buns ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC/400ºF/Gas mark 4
  2. Cream the butter and the sugar
  3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating all the time. Add a dessert spoonful of the flour after each egg if the mixture looks like it's going to split
  4. Mix in the flour until fully combined
  5. Spoon the mixture into bun cases, put them in the oven and cook for 20 minutes or until the buns have turned a lovely golden brown
  6. Do not cool on a wire rack. Instead, put the buns under a lidded cake dome or cover with an upturned mixing bowl until cool
Notes
  1. Covering the buns straight out of the oven makes them super-soft
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Cakes & Bakes: Coffee raspberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

Home-made coffee raspberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

Last week, I was having one of my irregular clear outs of our store cupboard and was about to throw out a bag of ground coffee. I brewed it up once but I’m not keen on flavoured hot beverages. Like I’ve said on many occasions I hate waste, so I thought I’d use the coffee to cook with instead of drinking. My coffee raspberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream idea was born!

Wet & dry ingredients in two mixing bowls

I whipped up a basic cupcake recipe; cream butter and sugar, add eggs and fold in the dry ingredients – self-raising flour and the chocolate and raspberry flavoured coffee grounds. In hindsight, I should have reground the coffee on the finest setting; the cupcakes were a little ‘gritty’ on the texture front.

Spooning cupcake batter into cupcake papers Just cooked cupcakes

Despite this, they had a wonderful flavour – I’ll be making them again!

Coffee raspberry cupcakes cooling on a wire rack

I finished them off with a swirl of vanilla buttercream and topped each with a little raspberry – our garden is full of fruiting raspberry canes at the moment.

Vanilla buttercream ingredients with piping bag

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Home-made coffee raspberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream
Coffee raspberry cupcakes with vanilla buttercream
Yields 12
Cook Time
15 min
Cook Time
15 min
For the cupcakes
  1. 140g/5oz golden caster sugar
  2. 140g/5oz butter, softened
  3. 3 eggs
  4. 140g/5oz self-raising flour
  5. 2 tbsp fine ground coffee (or instant dissolved in 1tbsp boiling water)
For the buttercream
  1. 150g/5¼oz butter, softened
  2. 150g/5¼oz icing sugar
  3. 1tsp vanilla extract
To decorate
  1. 12 fresh raspberriesHome-made coffee raspberry cupcakes ingredients
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For the cupcakes
  1. Heat oven to 175ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
  2. Line 12 holes in 2 muffin tins with cupcake cases
  3. Whisk the sugar and butter until light and creamy
  4. Beat in the eggs, one by one, adding a tablespoon of the flour at the same time (to avoid the mixture curdling)
  5. Fold in the rest of the flour along with the ground coffee
  6. Spoon the mixture into the cupcake cases and bake for 15 minutes
  7. Carefully remove the cupcakes from the baking tins and allow them to cool on a wire rack
For the buttercream
  1. Beat together the softened butter with the (pre-sifted) icing sugar
  2. Add the vanilla extract and mix in well
  3. Once the cupcakes have cooled completely, using a spatula spoon the buttercream into a piping bag and add a swirl to the top of each
To finish
  1. Gently push a raspberry into the top of the buttercream (and sprinkling with icing sugar if you like!)
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Cakes & Bakes: Simnel cupcakes

Home-made Simnel cupcakes | H is for Home

Each Easter I like to make a dish that’s traditional for the celebration. Last year, I made a hot cross loaf; the year before that, a crescia and this year I’ve made simnel cupcakes.

Circles of home-made marzipan and tins with simnel cupcake mixture | H is for Home

A simnel cake is a fruit cake with a middle layer of marzipan and another layer on the top. Since Victorian times, the cake has been decorated with 11 or 12 little balls of marzipan. It was traditionally eaten on the middle Sunday of Lent – the 12 balls representing Christ and his 11 apostles (minus the 12th, Judas).

Simnel cupcakes baked in food tins | H is for Home Tops sliced off of simnel cupcakes | H is for Home

I have a confession to make, I’d never actually eaten a simnel cake until I made these. What have I been waiting for? They’re easy to make from scratch and are delicious! The idea of cooking them in used food tins is ingenious. A word of caution, however, try not to use ring-pull tins. They have a lip at the top that makes it difficult to ease the cake out after baking. I had to open the other end of the tin to get them out!

Home-made simnel cupcakes | H is for Home

Even though I used small tins (150g Morrison’s own brand sweetcorn… around the size of small Heinz baked beans ones), we shared half a cake each.

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Home-made simnel cupcakes recipe | H is for Home
Simnel cupcakes
Yields 4
For the marzipan
  1. 150g/5oz ground almonds
  2. 200g/7oz icing sugar + extra for rolling
  3. 2tsp almond extract
  4. 1 egg white
For the cake mixture
  1. 115g/4oz butter, softened
  2. 115g/4oz caster sugar
  3. 2 eggs
  4. 125g/4½oz self-raising flour
  5. 300g/10½oz mixed dried fruit ( any of currants, raisins, sultanas, mixed peel, glacé cherries)
  6. 1tsp mixed spice (I didn't have any, so I made my own mixture)
  7. 4tbsp apricot jam (I used some home-made plum jam)
  8. cocoa powder, for dustingHome-made simnel cupcakes ingredients
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For the marzipan
  1. Put the ground almonds, icing sugar, almond extract and egg white into a food processor and combine until a thick ball of dough is formed
  2. Turn the paste out onto a work surface and knead it a few times. Roll it into a log and wrap in cling film until the cake mixture has been made
  3. Any unused marzipan will keep for a month in the fridge or 6 months in the freezer
For the cake
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 150ºC/300ºF/Gas mark 2. Line the base and sides of each tin with baking parchment
  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy
  3. Add one of the eggs and combine until well mixed. Add the other egg with 1 tbsp of flour and mix again
  4. Stir in the rest of the four and all of the dried fruit
  5. Liberally sprinkle some icing sugar on a work surface and roll out the marzipan. Cut out 8 circles about ½cm thick and the same diameter as the tins
  6. Divide half the cake mixture between the tins and level the tops. Put a marzipan rounds on top of each and cover with the rest of the cake mixture
  7. Bake for an hour or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes away clean
  8. Allow the cakes to cool in their for 15 minutes before remove them to cool completely on a wire rack
  9. Trim the top of each cake with a sharp knife to make them flat
  10. Heat the jam and brush on the top of each cakes before cover each with the remaining marzipan rounds
  11. Make 36 mini balls with the remaining marzipan. Put 9 balls around the edge of each cake, using a little brush of jam to stick them in place
  12. Lightly sprinkle with cocoa powder
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Cakes & Bakes: Jam-filled pound cupcakes

Plate of home-made jam-filled pound cupcakes | H is for Home

Are cupcakes still all the rage? I never really got that into them, perhaps because I’m terrible at decorating them. The icing has to be perfect for me to really enjoy them. Crunchy icing puts my teeth on edge. It needs to be a sweet, flavoursome butter cream or cream cheese.

Separated eggs | H is for Home Whisked egg whites | H is for Home

These jam-filled pound cupcakes don’t need any topping because the interest is all in the middle. I used some of my home-made mixed berry jelly from last autumn – there are always a few jars in the store cupboard. You can use any fruit jam, marmalade or lemon curd instead. Or what about a spoonful of Nutella? Mmmmmmmm…

Putting cake dough into cupcake cases | H is for Home Putting jam into cupcake cases | H is for Home

I used a pound cake recipe I found in Marvellous Mini-Cakes – a little book full of teensy sweet & savoury cakes. I used to think a pound cake was a cake that weighed a pound! In actual fact, it’s a cake traditionally made with a pound each of its four main ingredients – butter, sugar, flour and eggs… so I guess it’s really a 4lb cake!

Home-made jam-filled pound cupcakes | H is for Home

As tempting as they may be, please don’t attempt to eat these straight from the oven. The hot, molten jam will scald the roof of your mouth!

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Jam-filled pound cupcakes
Yields 6
Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
35 min
Prep Time
15 min
Cook Time
20 min
Total Time
35 min
Ingredients
  1. 120g/4¼oz salted butter
  2. 120g/4¼oz caster sugar
  3. 2 eggs, separated
  4. 120g/4¼oz plain flour, sifted
  5. 2 scant tsp baking powder
  6. pinch of salt
  7. jamHome-made jam-filled pound cupcakes ingredients
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Instructions
  1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas mark 4
  2. Grease a muffin tin and dust with flour or add cupcake/muffin cases
  3. In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until the mixture turns pale and becomes smooth
  4. Add the egg yolks, flour and salt and combine
  5. In another bowl, whisk the egg whites
  6. Add them gradually to the mixture
  7. Add the baking powder
  8. As soon as you have stirred in the baking powder, put a dessert-spoonful of cake mixture in each cupcake hole/case
  9. Add a teaspoonful of jam to the centre of each cake
  10. Cover with the remaining cake mixture, ensuring that the jam is fully covered by the cake mix
  11. Put in the oven straight away
  12. Bake for about 20 minutes. Towards the end of the cooking time, prick with a skewer if it comes away clean, the cupcakes are done
  13. Allow to cool slightly before turning them out of the tin
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Adapted from Les Petits Plats Francais: Marvellous Mini-Cakes
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