Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

Batch 2 boxed up

I don’t think I have the sweetest tooth, but there are too things I love, dates and sticky toffee pudding. Perhaps the reason why I love the sticky toffee pudding is because it contains dates, but who really knows.

The best sticky toffee pudding I’ve tried is a ready made variety I tried at the Real Food Festival here in London’s Earl’s Court. Here’s a link to the supplier’s website if anyone is interested. The pudding was deliciously moist, sweet from the toffee with a lip smacking sticky texture in your mouth. It was to utterly divine! I have been trying to figure out the secret behind this amazing pudding ever since I tried this brand.

Batch one

Sticky Toffee Pudding is ridiculously easy to make at home, you just have to make sure you don’t overcook the cake otherwise it will be too dry even for toffee to save. That was my dilemma with this sticky toffee cupcake; I had to make sure the cake mix was moist enough with the toffee sauce to go over it. I wasn’t worried about the sweetness because the frosting was sweet enough to compensate. I think it worked out fine in the end, it was much drier than regular sticky toffee but I think it held its in the cupcake containers, and it meant that I could easily transport them to my colleagues at work and my boyfriend’s family.

I know dates are sticky and I know this pudding would result in a sticky mess, hence the name. But I was thinking of ways to get around the amount of mess made from chopping up the dates. That’s when I found these ready chopped dates coated in rice flour to stop them sticking from each other. Looking at the packet spells out sticky toffee pudding without the actual stickiness on my hands and chopping board! Perfect!

I used them in the same way I would use fresh dates, just put in them in a dish with warm water and bicarbonate of soda for half an hour. This removed much of rice flour and returned them to their sticky state by the time they went into the cake mixture. I must have knocked off at least 15 minutes from the preparation time using these.

The insides

My frosting was caramel buttercream and I guess a shortcut would be to purchase ready made buttercream frosting from the supermarket and pipe them straight onto the cakes. But with nothing but a bowl, some icing sugar, butter, caramel and a hand whisk, I guess that’s where my masochist tendencies display itself! There is a lot of satisfaction sweating out (not from the oven heat) in the kitchen to produce tasty sweetstuffs. Besides, making it yourself means you have to taste the frosting to ensure you’ve got the correct balance of sweetness and caramel flavour ;).

These were utterly delicious in the end and definitely worth all the effort. The cake mixture is fairly light so it does feel like you’re eating healthy food, I mean dates count as one of your five a day, I’m sure! You can also change around the mixture a little bit. Add a bit of banana instead of dates to the cake mix and change the topping slightly. I’ve been meaning to make mocha cupcakes, which are basically chocolate cupcakes with a creamy coffee frosting. The ways to change things up with cupcakes are endless and although they seem to be the biggest baking fad at the moment, it’s because they’re so simple to make, taste amazing and make you look like a domestic goddess. Everyone needs to try making them!

Ingredients

180g Dates, chopped

1 tsp Vanilla extract

180g self-raising Flour

1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

80g Butter

2 Eggs

for the caramel

125g caster Sugar

80ml double Cream

½ tsp Salt

for the buttercream

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp Vanilla extract

160g Butter

200g icing Sugar

Recipe

Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees. Prepare the dates by pouring 180ml of boiling water over them and sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda. Leave to soak for 30 minutes. Add vanilla extract too.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Make a well to add the eggs, and then fold in the flour. Add the date mixture and mix well to combine. Fill cupcakes about 2/3 full and leave to cool.

For the caramel, add sugar to a saucepan then add boiling water, just enough to cover the sugar. Turn to a simmer and watch carefully as the sugar mixture turns to a darker caramel colour and texture turns syrupy. Remove from the heat then add the cream. Mix well and stir in salt. Leave to cool completely.

When the cupcake mixture has cooled, place in the oven and cook for 12-15 minutes. Test for doneness by putting a skewer through the centre to check if there are any wet mixture in the centre. If done, leave to cool completely on a rack.

Make buttercream by creaming butter and icing sugar. Add a little icing sugar at a time to avoid creating a white cloud over the mixture. Add the caramel and then continue adding the icing sugar until it has become stiff.

When cupcakes have fully cooled, pipe frosting over the top and sprinkle with chocolate. Enjoy. :)