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CAKE!

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Cupcakes!

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Earl Grey Tea Cupcakes

My friend Jennifer came over to do some baking with me. She looked through my baking books a few weeks ago and wanted to try out these Earl Grey cupcakes from the Hummingbird Bakery book. I love Earl Grey tea but wasn't sure what it would be like as a cupcake. As always the Hummingbird Bakery recipes are super easy to make and we only added an extra teabag to the recipe. Not only was it was an easy recipe but it was very yummy. The cake had a subtle Earl Grey flavour, I would use more teabags and possibly infuse them with the milk mixture as well next time. The frosting had a wonderful Earl Grey flavour and really complimented the cake. We even sprinkled some of the dried tea on the cakes, we liked a stronger Earl Grey flavour. Try this recipe out yourself and I am going to try out their suggestion of using pepermint tea instead, which I imagine will be just as yummy as well. Can you think of any other teas which would be nice as a cupcake?

Ingredients:
Cake:
4 Earl Grey teabags
3 tbsp just boiled water
80g unsalted butter, softened
280g caster sugar
240g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt
200ml milk
2 large eggs

Frosting:
50ml whole milk
500g icing sugar
160g unsalted butter, softened.

Steps:
Preheat oven to 190C/375F and line a muffin tin with muffin cases. Place the teabags in a small bowl and add the hot water, allow to infuse for 30 minutes. In a medium bowl, whisk together the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt on a low speed until the ingredients resemble fine breadcrumbs. Place the milk and eggs in the bowl with the tea and whisk together by hand. Add 3/4 of the tea mixture to the dry mix and combine together, then increase the speed and add the remaining milk mixture. Continue to mix until smooth. Divide the batter between the cases, fill them to two-thirds full. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes. Leave to cool slightly before removing from the tin, then place them on a wire rack to cool completely. FROSTING: Place the used tea bags in a small bowl with the milk. Mix the icing sugar and butter until no lumps of butter remain and then gradually add the tea infused milk. Once this has all been added increase the speed and mix until light and fluffy. Top each cake with a generous spoonful of frosting and smooth with a palette knife or pipe frosting on and decorate.





I love Chipotle Chiles!!

I love chipotle chile peppers so much!! I discovered them a few years back and love adding them to recipes, I just love the smoky subtle heat that these chiles add to a dish. I use all versions of the chiles from its natural dry state to powder to sauce! It can sometimes be hard to find chipotle chile in shops in the UK, but you can easily find them on the internet. I just found one seller saying they can even be used in dessert recipes, I have yet to try that but really want to find a good recipe to try out... Chipotle Chile Chocolate cupcakes maybe?? Ok back to the reason why I am mentioning these chiles in a post. Have you ever heard of Chef John and Food Wishes? Well he is a very popular blogger and creates really great video recipes. I have been watching for a while now but just got around to actually making one of his recipes. We were having a Halloween get together this past weekend and I wanted to make chili again for it but wanted to try a new recipe out. I was watching Chef John's YouTube channel and found Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili, and it had CHIPOTLE CHILE POWDER in the recipe, so I decided to make it for the party. I pretty much followed the recipe and only changed a few things. In place of water I used pale ale and just over 2 cups of it, which is equal to a pint. I also wasn't watching the video when I made them so had to remember what to do from memory. Well I forgot to add the chipotle powder to the sweet potatoes when roasting them, so I decided to add them in when I was frying the onions up and I used about a tablespoon of it and less of the other chile powder added in later. Everything else I did pretty much followed the recipe. I had it simmering for quite awhile allowing all the flavors to come together and for the chili to thicken up! It was so GOOD! Everyone enjoyed it and it is a great vegetarian option to chili con carne! Try this recipe out... I need to make more of Chef John's recipes!

Check out Chef John's video recipe for Sweet Potato and Black Bean Chili.