One of my absolute culinary standbys (along with Delia Cooks Nice Things for Whitsun and Jamie Oliver’s Pukka Pies’n’Shi’) is Pamela Spanks’s wonderful book 1,000,001 Cupcake Recipes: Inspirations and Innovations for Everyone’s Favourite Teatime Treats.
I thought I’d share some of my favourite extracts…
Number 1 – The Basic Cupcake (difficulty rating: Beginner)
Here’s where it all begins! Master this and you have the world of cupcakes at your fingertips!
You will need:
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
125g/4oz caster sugar
125g/4oz soft margarine
125g/4oz self-raising flour
Method:
1. Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and beat them together until the mixture is smooth and slightly lighter in colour.
2. Line a bun tin or cupcake tin with paper cake cases and half-fill each case with the cake mixture.
3. Cook the cakes for 18-20 minutes. You can tell they are done when they have risen up, are golden in colour, and spring back into shape when lightly pressed.
Number 2 – The Black Forest Gateaux Cupcake (Difficulty rating: Beginner)
Everyone loves a Black Forest Gateau, and everyone loves a cupcake, so why not combine the two for a sinful teatime treat? Each cupcake serves 12, so 12 cupcakes will serve 144.
You will need:
12 basic cupcakes (see page 1)
12 Waitrose Black Forest Gateaux
Method
1. Make 12 basic cupcakes (as detailed in Recipe 1)
2. Remove each Waitrose Black Forest Gateau from its box
3. Place one (but only one) Gateau on each cupcake and serve
Number 78,034 – The Samuel Johnson Cupcake (Difficulty rating: Novice)
One for the literature-lovers in your family!
You will need:
10kg writing icing
Writing icing tube (fine)
The Life of Samuel Johnson by James Boswell
Method:
1. Make basic cupcake (see Recipe 1)
2. Carefully, use the icing tube to copy out the First Volume of The Life of Samuel Johnson or any favourite passage onto the cupcake
3. Serve
Number 180,669 – Coke-conut Surprise (Difficulty rating: Intermediate)
A delightfully more-ish cupcake - ideal for young adults and teenage parties.
Simply follow the recipe for Coconut Surprise (number 180,668) but substitute 5ml of LSD for the cherry kirsch, and dust with 20g (good quality) cocaine instead of icing sugar.
Number 255,482 – The Turnip and Communist Manifesto Cupcake (Difficulty rating: Improver)
I find the turnip gives the cake a lovely proletarian earthiness and helps balance the papery texture of Marx and Engel’s revolutionary classic!
Number 976, 229 – The Full-Size Model of the Titanic Cupcake (Difficulty rating: Advanced)
You will need:
Basic cupcake
Dry dock facility (preferable)
45,000 tons steel
Three or four large industrial cranes
159 coal burning furnaces
1,178 cabin beds
16 lifeboats
20 billion bolts
Screwdriver (Phillips)
For the decoration: Six restaurants, squash court, Turkish bath and Casino (don’t forget the betting chips)
Method:
1. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4
2. Clear some space in the kitchen.
3. Construct full-scale model of Titanic according to standard principles of shipbuilding
4. Using cranes, lower model of Titanic onto cupcake and serve immediately
12 comments:
Heavens above, you must be having a quiet Friday afternoon.
On the contrary, if you can believe it. I multitask rapidly. Everyone else just wastes time thinking.
Hoho - that had me chortling merrily. And I don't even like cupcakes. A Caffe Nero lemon and poppyseed muffin will do me nicely though...
Missing from the nautical recipe
"To be served on a bed of ice"
It helps, Nige, if you have the exact same sense of humour you did when you were 14. As males this is our birthright.
I'm working on that last cupcake, the one involving the drydock. I've managed to find a facility large enough, but I'm having trouble with the tonnage conversion.
Are we talking Imperial Tonnes, or American Tons?
Thanks.
Also, the Coke-o-nut surprise cupcakes are excellent.
It is universally agreed that banana cupcakes are the best, there is no disagreement in this matter.
I've just eaten an Ayn Rand cupcake and now I merely dismiss the rest as too weak to live. No sprinkles, no future
"I am not primarily an advocate of cupcakeism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently to cupcakeism, all the rest follows."
Excellent. The Martha Stewart cupcake should be: "make a perfect cupcake in the shape of Martha Stewart, then put in the slammer for five months at gas mark "uncontrite".
The Titanic recipe is a masterclass in technical writing, had I not been retired I would have immediately offered you the job, reminds me of that other paragon of instructional clarity, the Service manual for the Willy's Jeep, the best monkey see, monkey do ever "take spanner A and put it on nut B".
Any potential ferrous chef's out there, look no further that Brit's blog for inspiration.
Good evening, that's looks great! Can you please share the recipe for lemon cupcake? Thank you. Adi
Here, I do not really consider it will work.
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