Two is company

So I've had a little shuffle around. Like all new ventures, it takes me a while to settle into something. I need to rearrange the furniture, put new pictures up, make endless 'to-do' lists until I've calmed down enough to relax into it. So sit tight, and I'm sure I'll smooth things out. Like once, I decided to start ironing for mum. It meant a complete sort out of the understairs cupboard, aquiring three new laundry baskets (stuff to be washed, stuff to be ironed, stuff to be put back in the cupboard). In the end, mum decided it would be more helpful If I just didn't bother. (Which of course was my plan all along...)So here we go, a novel idea. Not one but twhit-twoo blogs!Which means my life stuff doesn't get cluttered with cakey-stuff and my cakey-stuff doesn't get cluttered with life. Entirely unrealistic of course, seeing as one is practically the other. But there we go, this isn't real life anyway!

Discovery No. 2: Never smile at a crocodile.

What Maddie Baked

Wow, wow, wow

So, earlier this morning I got into battle with a high hat (the cymbal shaped thing on a drumkit ya know?). Anyway, between you and me, things were said, and somebody got a bit out of hand and I came off with a bashed-up toe (and the High Hat, annoyingly, scarless). So I was ranting and raving, charging around the house a bit. Mum, with her usual knack for calming the waters put The Crabapple Bakery Cupcake Cookbook into my hands and told me to 'get on and bake something before you do yourself a damage'. I was greatful, and refrained to tell her that I'd sustained an injury already this morning.

So, without further ado I present to you : Ginger Fluff Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Although, being English, should I perhaps call it 'Cream Cheese Icing?', ho hum!

This recipe is a little adapted, like most favourites. I've fiddled with the frosting to make it paler and more snow-like, and I've used salted butter cause that's what I had to hand , a bit of the syrup that goes with the ginger also improves it. But that's all beside the point. These are SO yummy. The kind of 'mouthfeel' they talk about in books, that you never really believe in. And i'm SO pleased that I happened to come accross them just as I was planning my next post. Sometimes, life is lovely!

How to:

4 cupsPlain white flour
2 tsp ground ginger
400g butter
1.5 cups dark muscavado
3/4 cup black treacle
1 1/4 cup milk
4 large beaten eggs
1 heaped tbsp ginger in syrup

Oven at 180 degrees C,

• Melt the butter, sugar, treacle slowly- or else it catches and burns at the edges. Nightmare to clean!
• Keep stirring, and don't let it boil.
• Once it's all melted, then you can turn the heat off, give it a final stir and leave it to cool a bit.
• Meanwhile, you can sift together the flour, ginger and a pinch of salt
• Stir the milk carefully into the buttery treacle (It'll begin to smell oh-so-divine, I'd like to see you try to resist a lick!)
• Now stir in the eggs, make sure you keep stirring until well combined.
• And stir in the ginger- you can stir as much as you like at this point but once you've added the flour, ease off a bit or It'll toughen up.
• So now add the flour, softly softly now!
• Pour into cupcake papers, any size you fancy really. The one above is a little tiny mini one (which means you can eat five, of course)
• Bake for 15 mins. Do not open the oven until the time is up! They'll probably need about 5 more mins, but prod them lightly on the top with your finger to test. If the sponge doesn't spring back, it's not ready. If it does, get them out!
• Pop them on a wire rack to prevent them carrying on cooking in the tins residual heat.

Note: They have to be cold before icing! Don't risk it. I did, and it was such a fail I didn't even bother taking a picture! You have been warned.

Icing

Cream 125g of butter, soft at room temp, until it is pale and fluffy. Add in 400g cream cheese and 3 cups of icing sugar and cream until it is light and airy. Add 3 more cups of icing sugar, a cup at a time. It'll be of a 'dropping' consistency, you'll see when you make it. Use a pallet knife, or a butter knife and free-form swirl it whichever way you fancy! I topped with another piece of preserved ginger, but you could sprinkle with powdered ginger, or leave the snowy peaks just as they are.

B.e.a-utiful

Got to start somewhere eh?

So here we go- my first foray into the world of Blogging, and possibly into the world in general. Scary stuff. I'm feeling hugely unprepared, especially seeing as I've had to Google 'Define: Foray' and I've discovered that it means 'a venture or an initial attempt', so does this mean that I ought not to put 'first' in front of 'foray'? Anyway, that's a petty worry, I have considerably more important things to concern myself with:

Like what am I going to do with no white sugar in the house?

(Okay, so that is a stupid question- flapjack of course. Well, duh.)

So this. THIS. Is why I've started this blog. I'm 16, I need to be something. Do something. I'm sure I'm not the only teenager who's felt this. In fact, I'm sure there isn't a teenager who hasn't. But there we go. It's the feet of my adolescence stepping proudly from a room that has far too many clothes on the floor and not enough desk space to actually write on. And a really gorgeous collection of photos on the wall (Tim Minchin featuring heavily, but I can wait to unleash that in another post). This is also an outlett for my absolute addiction to baking, cooking, eating. And recipe books. Who needs Austen when you've got Lawson?

I am not wise beyond my years. I'm 16 and that, blissfully, qualifies me to fail sometimes. Not huge crises, just little ones; staying up until 1am watching comedy repeats on Dave when I've got work the next day, for example.

And so I was stuck at home all day today, just dithering! And I decided it was time to get a project together. So here it is. Here's a little bit of me, not everything- I wouldn't want to worry you now would I?

I will leave you with discovery No .1 : Jamie Oliver is too heavy to have with you in the bath.