Caramel Vanilla Cupcakes

I had been thinking of making this crazy delicious cupcakes for quite some time!! I love everything with caramel, from caramel sauce, thru ice-cream, cookies, fudge, just everything! Fortunately it was my birthday so I had a perfect excuse to prepare them :) The fluffy vanilla muffin is just a start when you bite in, then you will discover the soft and sweet caramel hiding in the centre of the cupcake finished with a soft and delicate caramel frosting…hmmmm I was in heaven!!

Ingredients:
Makes approx. 15 muffins

• For the muffins:
• 200g soft butter
• 220g sugar
• pinch of salt
• 1 tsp of vanilla essence or 1 package of vanilla sugar (16g)
• 4 eggs
• 225g flour
• 2 tsp baking powder

For the caramel:

• 500g sweetened condensed milk
• 1 package vanilla sugar

For the Caramel frosting:

• 250g mascarpone
• 100g softened butter
• 200g powder sugar
• 150g caramel 

Preparation:
For the muffins: Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners.

In a mixing bowl beat together butter, sugars, salt until smooth and creamy. Keep steering and start adding eggs one by one until all combines. Add flour and baking powder and whisk until all the ingredients combine. With a spoon scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Remember to fill the muffin cases only 3/4 cavity otherwise they might overflow. Bake for about 15- 20min. You can check if the muffins are ready by sticking a cocktail stick into the centre of each muffin. It should come out clean and not sticky, if it is still sticky just leave it in the oven for 3-5 minutes more.

For the caramel: Pour the condensed milk in a pan, add vanilla sugar and cook on a very low heat for about 1,5h, steering from time to time. You will easily see when the caramel is ready as it will have a creamy light brown texture.
For the caramel frosting: In a mixing bowl beat the butter, add mascarpone and beat all together, add sugar and beat again. Don't get scared if you see that the ingredients start separating from each other forming crumbles, just keep whisking. It might take a while but everything will combine don't worry! Pour the cool caramel and whisk again until everything combines. 

To decorate the cupcakes, I cut out a small hole in order to fill the cupcakes with the caramel. You can do it with a spoon or a piping bag. When all your cupcakes are filled with caramel you can now frost them with the caramel frosting. Again I used a piping bag, but if you don't have one you can use a knife spreading the frosting over the cupcakes. You can also decorate with small caramel candies or spread a bit of sea salt! Enjoy!!!

 Sweet surprise hiding in the cupcake.. 

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookie Bars

OMG!!!!! They are just AMAZING!!!! Crazy how delicious these peanut butter bars are!! I really had to struggle hard not to eat all of them by myself!! They are super easy to make, all the taste you love from the peanut cookies remains the same just the method takes half of the time!! The chocolate makes a perfect combination to the saltish peanut butter, I think I will never stop to combine those two great ingredients!! You really have to try!!! 

Recipe adapted from: Averie Cooks

Ingredients:

• 125g butter, melted 
• 1 large egg
• 150 g light brown sugar
• 50g white sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 200g creamy peanut butter
• 160g all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt, optional and to taste
• 150g dark or semi-sweet chocolate, roughly chopped 

Preparation: 

Preheat the oven to 180°C  Line an 20cm x 20cm baking pan with baking paper. 

Melt the butter and cool it down a bit. Add the egg, sugars, vanilla, and stir to combine. Stir in the peanut butter. Add the flour, baking soda, optional salt and stir until just incorporated. Stir in chocolate. Turn batter out into prepared pan, smoothing it lightly with a spatula.(The dough comes out quite dense so don't get afraid that something went wrong, because it didn't !!) Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until center is just set and golden.

Take the bars out and leave to cool in pan for at least 30 minutes before slicing and serving. Store extra bars in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Valentine's Day sweet vanilla hearts filled with vanilla pudding

No one is never admitting to be waiting for Valentine's Day but somehow everyone is always very happy and excited while receiving a lovely card or a sweet treat! My quote for this day is "All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt." :)

In this case I will treat you with this moist and fluffy vanilla hearts filled with vanilla pudding!!! YUM!

Ingredients: 

For the hearts:

• 4 eggs
• 200g butter, melted
• 250g sugar
• 250 flour
• 1cup of greek yoghurt
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1 package of vanilla sugar (16g)

For the pudding: 

• 500 ml of milk
• 1 spoon of butter
• 1 packages of vanilla sugar
• 2 spoons of potato flour
• 2 yolks
• 50g butter
• pink food coloring

(If you don’t have time you can go for the easy method and use an instant pudding) 

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 180°C . Prepare a baking tin 20cm x 20cm.  

In a mixing bowl beat the yolks and the sugars together until pale. Add the butter, yogurt, flour, baking powder and whisk until combined.

In a separate bowl whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form soft white foam peaks. Now take your dough mixture and start adding the white foam, fold together carefully – without beating the bubbles out of the egg white completely. The egg whites will give the cake this nice fluffy texture. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake in the preheated oven for around 45 minutes until there is a little gold color on the top of the cake. You can check to see that it's ready by sticking a cocktail stick into the centre of the cake. It should come out clean and not sticky, if it is still sticky just leave it in the oven for 5-10 minutes more.

For the pudding: 

If you are using the instant pudding just follow the instruction on the package, after it cools down beat it together with butter and the food coloring. 

If you are doing the pudding yourself first you need to boil 3/4 of your milk together with butter, sugar and vanilla sugar. The remained milk whisk together with the potato flour and egg yolks. Add the mixture to your boiling milk and mix it quickly. Cook it approximately one minute on a very low heat and leave to cool down. When the pudding is cool beat it together with butter and the food coloring, just like you would do using the instant pudding. 

When your cake is totally cool then you can cut with a heart cutter, herts out of your cake. After each heart cut again in half and then from one of the heart parts cut out a smaller heart, in order to make some space to fill it with your pudding. With a piping bag fill it with the vanilla cream and swirl inside the hearts. 

From your cake cut out the hearts:

Cut in half your hearts and cut out a smaller heart: 

 Now just decorate your Valentine Hearts as desired :)

Blueberry doughnut muffins

I am definatley not a morning person so waking up every morning is a big battle between my annoying alarm and my lovely pillow. So I have to use tricks that will help me to leave my warm bed and get up.. The secret of those tricks is a delicious breakfast. Every time I make those blueberry donught muffins I just can't wait until I eat them in the morning  accompanied with a hot cup of coffee. After such a breakfast every morning doesn't seem to be so bad anymore!! I guess they are called donught muffins because they are extremely moist and very soft, little doughnuts caught in a muffin :) Less greasy than doughnuts as they are not fright but the taste is amazing!!! I am sure they will also make your morning a lot easier!!! 
From grace(full) eats

Ingredients:
For 15-17 muffins

• 100g  sugar
• 50g brown sugar
• 60g butter, melted
• 60ml vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 330g flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch of salt 
• 1 cup natural yoghurt - approx. 200ml (can be also 1 cup of milk) 
• 300g blueberries fresh of frozen

Preparation: 

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners. 

In a mixing bowl combine all wet ingredients (eggs, oil,butter and yoghurt). Add sugar and vanilla extract and mix until smooth. Start adding flour together with the baking powder and baking soda and mix until all ingredients combine. At the end gently add the blueberries and give it some whisks until all combines. With a spoon scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Remember to fill the muffin cases only 3/4 cavity otherwise they might overflow. Bake for about 20-25min. You can check to see that the muffins are ready by sticking a cocktail stick into the centre of the each muffin. It should come out clean and not sticky, if it is still sticky just leave it in the oven for 3-5 minutes more. Take out, leave to cool down and enjoy!!! 

 Upppssss…they are just too good :)

Valentines vanilla cookies

Valentines is just around the corner so why not making this lovely day even more sweet!! This vanilla cookies are very simple to make and the rich vanilla flavor is just amazing! I am sure you and your Valentine will just love them!!!

Ingredients:

• 220g flour
• 150g butter
• 100g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 pkg vanilla pudding (apporx 40g each)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 pkg vanilla sugar or 2 tsp vanilla essence
• pinch of salt
• red food coloring - optional

Preparation:

Preheat your oven to 180ºC. You can make your pastry by hand, or simply pulse all the ingredients in a food processor. If making by hand, sieve the flour with the baking powder and vanilla pudding, sugars into a large mixing bowl. Add chopped butter and mix with your hands until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the eggs and gently work it together until you have a ball of pastry dough. If you want you can now divide your dough into 2 pieces.  Put the half of the dough into a separate mixing bowl and add the red food coloring and whisk all together. 

Now you can just use a spoon to form your cookies and put them directly on the baking sheet and put into the owen. 

But if you would like to cut out some hearts, like I did, sprinkle a little flour over the pastry, then wrap it in a cling film and pop it into the fridge to rest for 0.5hour. When the pastry is cool it is much easier to roll it and cut it out. 

Take out the dough from the fridge and on a floured worksurface, roll dough to 1/2 cm thickness and cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter. 

Place your hearts on the baking tin and bake for 10 minutes. You can use any shape you like they will still be delicious!

*Recipe adapted from  Sweet Bella Roos

Idea: You can also put some of your favorite jam in between and make a sweet sandwich :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

This is one of the classics! I just had to include it to my repertoire :) I also have to admit that red velvet cupcakes are one of my favorites!! I could eat them every day!!! Now with the coming Valentines Day this can be a sweet surprise for your beloved <3
Recipe adapted from Averie

Ingredients:

For the cupcakes:

• 1 large egg
• 200g sugar
• 2/3 cup buttermilk (appox 150 ml)
• 120ml vegetable oil*
• 2 rounded tablespoons creamy natural yoghurt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 210g flour
• 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• pinch salt
• 1 to 2 tablespoons red food coloring, or as needed

*Oil will make your cupcakes more moist then if you would use butter. 
For the frosting

• 250g cream cheese (I used mascarpone)
• 1/2 cup powder sugar
• 16 gr vanilla sugar
• 50g butter, sof

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners. 

In a mixing bowl combine all wet ingredients (egg, oil, buttermilk, yoghurt). Add sugar and vanilla extract and whisk again. Start adding flour together with the baking soda and cocoa and mix until combined. At the end gently add the red food coloring and whisk until you get a nice red color. If you get a very pink color you can add another 1/2 tsp of cocoa and then add more if needed. With a spoon scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Remember to fill the muffin cases only 3/4 cavity otherwise they might overflow. You might have some mixture for the 13th and 15th cupcake, depending on the measures of your cupcake tin. Bake for about 20min and leave to cool down. 

For the frosting: With a mixer, beat together cream cheese and butter when it combines add sugars and beat until combined and smooth. Frost the cooled cupcakes as desired. I piped them with a piping bag but you can do it with a spoon it will be equally tasteful! 

Tip: I alsways cut their little heads so it is easier to decorate them with the frosting.

Almond baby shower cupcakes :)

First time in my life I was asked to prepare cupcakes for a baby boy shower party!!! I was so excited I just couldn't wait to finish them! Had a lot of fun while decorating! Apart of looking just beautiful they are of course very tasteful! Moist and flavorful! I have to admit I am in love :)

Ingredients:

For the almond muffin:

• 140g flour
• 100g ground almonds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 175g sugar
• 1/2 tsp almond essence
• 3 eggs
• 100ml butter milk
• 150g melted butter

For the frosting:

• 250g mascarpone
• 100g butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp almond essence (or more if needed)
• 1 cup of powder sugar (approx. 200g)
• Blue food coloring 

* Recipe adapted from not only muffins

Preparation:
Preheat the oven to 190C. Line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners. 

For the muffins: In a mixing bowl combine all the wet ingredients (eggs, butter milk, almond essence and melted butter) and whist until combined. Now add sugar and keep whisking for 1-2 minutes so that the sugar starts to melt.

Add the remaining dry ingredients (flour, baking power, grounded almonds) and mix until just combined, but doesn't have to be too precise. With a spoon scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Remember to fill the muffin cases only 3/4 cavity otherwise they might overflow. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, for me 22 minutes were enough :)

Add the remaining dry ingredients (flour, baking power, grounded almonds) and mix until just combined, but doesn't have to be too precise. With a spoon scoop evenly into the prepared cupcake liners. Remember to fill the muffin cases only 3/4 cavity otherwise they might overflow. Bake for about 20-25 minutes, for me 22 minutes were enough :)

For the frosting: In a mixing bowl combine together mascarpone, butter and powder sugar and mix until smooth and creamy. Add the almond essence and food coloring and combine together. Put the frosting into a piping bag with nozzle and decorate the cupcakes. 

You can decorate them with pearls or like me play with the fondant and use your imagination to create the perfect decoration!!