Monday, 8 April 2013

NIGELLA'S LOVE BUNS

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”
― Winston Churchill
 
 
One thousand people looked at the Reluctant Chef's facebook page and hit like! One thousand! Sounds so good I think I'll walk around this otherwise dreary monday morning saying it over and over again to myself. One thousand!
 
We've had lots and lots of cakes up on this blog and not all that many cupcakes so I thought we could celebrate "one thousand" with a week's worth of cupcake recipes. As you can see from my amateurly put together collage up top, it's going to be quite a line up. I'm pretty sure I've got a recipe for everyone's tastes. We're going to have:
 
Nigella's Love Buns
 
Chocoholics can relax. Since a cupcake is basically just a baby cake you can easily plop cake batter into your muffin tray and end up with a whole pile of cupcakes. And vice versa. Bake this cupcake batter in a larger dish and you'll have cakes. So I didn't bother trying out anything chocolate since I already know this dense, fudgey chocolatey explosion would make the perfect chocolate cupcakes. Prefer a chocolate muffin? Try these.
 
So getting to the love buns (name and recipe from Nigella) these are perfect to start off this cupcake party. So bright and cheerful they might even cure my monday morning blues.
 
 

Makes 12
I think the name makes it quite obvious where I got the recipe
What you’ll need:
 
For your buns
125 gms softened butter
125 gms powdered sugar
125 gms flour
3 eggs
½ tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla essence
3 - 4 tbsp milk
 
For the icing
3 egg whites
4 tbsp honey
75 gms icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp salt
Sprinkles

 
How to:
 
1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
 
2. Pop all the ingredients for the buns into a large bowl and mix, mix, mix till you have a smooth batter.
 
3. Butter up your cupcake tray or line with cupcake liners. Divide up the batter between the slots in the tray.
 
4. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes till they’ve nicely risen and they’ve cooked through. Stick a toothpick in to check and see if it comes out clean. Let them cool once they’re done.
 
5. For the topping, you’ll need to put together a double broiler – heat a pan with water and put a bowl on top of this that fits snugly into the first pan.
 
6. With the water barely simmering, put in your egg whites and honey and start to whisk till you have a gleaming white paste. Add the sugar slowly and whisk some more – it should hold peaks. This will probably take ATLEAST 5 minutes of whisking.
 
Note: Okay so I never find this very easy. Things you have to keep in mind (1) don’t let the water get too hot or the eggs will cook, (2) can’t do this without an electric whisk, (3) this takes a while and you need to be careful that your whisk doesn’t tip the hot water over so be very patient – it will be worth it.
 
7. Take the bowl off the pan and keep whisking to cool the mixture down. Add the vanilla.
 
8. Smear the cupcake over with topping and swirl it around the best you can. Add the sprinkles immediately and let them set.
 
 

 

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