Friday, October 29, 2010

Ginger cupcakes

This entry is for Lab Queen Kirstan who greeted my announcement that I was leaving with a cry of, "Oh my god, you're leaving for reals....who's going to make ginger cupcakes?!!?!?" Hehehe. The ginger cupcake recipe comes from the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook that Pooey bought me and which gave birth to those hazelnut cupcakes. A number of people, such as LQK have said that these are their favourite so perhaps they're even tastier than the Nutella ones!

Makes 12
120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter at room temp (Again, you can combine the butter/salt thing by using low-salt butter if you're feeling lazy/can't be bothered sourcing unsalted butter.)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice (I actually use ground nutmeg because I was too lazy to go to the supermarket to get allspice)  

120ml whole milk
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla essence

200g stem ginger in syrup, finely chopped - It really does need to be in syrup rather than the dry sugared version because the syrup is used 
  • Pre-heat the oven to 170C/325F
  • Combine the dry ingredients and butter into a mixing bowl and beat with an electric whisk (or freestanding mixer) on slow speed until you get a sandy consistency and everything is combined.  
  • Slowly pour half of the milk into the mixture, beating until all the ingredients are well mixed. Beat the egg, vanilla essence and rest of the milk together, then add to the batter.
  • Scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side with a spatula and mix until everything is well combined.
  • Add the chopped ginger into the batter and stir through.
  • Spoon the mixture into the paper cases until 2/3 full and bake for 20 minutes. 
  • While the cakes are cooking, add an equal amount of water to the ginger syrup, then boil it down to half quantity. When the cupcakes come out of the oven, spoon some of the ginger syrup on top of the still hot cupcakes.
  • Allow to cool in the tray before turning out.
There is now the question of icing. To be honest, I don't think it really needs icing, and here's a pic of DG enjoying it essentially icing-free.

But if you want icing, there is this recipe:

125g icing sugar, sifted
40g butter at room temp
12.5 ml whole milk
Ginger - either fresh ginger, ginger powder, or the ginger syrup

  • If using fresh ginger, soak the ginger in the milk for a few hours.
  • If using the ginger syrup decrease the amount of milk used
  • Beat the icing sugar and butter together everything is well mixed 
  •  Turn to mixer to slower speed and 
    • slowly pour in the ginger infused-milk. 
    • OR pour in 2 teaspoons of the ginger syrup and make up the rest of the liquid with milk.
    • OR use normal milk and add in ground ginger.
  • When all nicely mixed in, ice the cupcakes to your heart's content!
 So here's the final product - iced with some extra ginger pieces for decoration!
Happy cooking and eating!

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