Blue Velvet Oreo Cupcakes

A new twist on red velvet cupcakes? Not really, it's really just a different food colourant!
Having said that, I decided that my first batch of blue velvet cupcakes needed to be unique, I mean a blue velvet cupcake is really just a different colour red velvet cupcake (which I have baked a dozen times before!)...My blue velvet cupcakes had to have a real twist to them!! Oreos!! The original twist, lick, dunk cookie!! :)

As promised in my previous post, here it is, the recipe for my blue velvet cake/cupcakes.
This is the exact recipe that I use when making my red velvet cakes and cupcakes, the only difference being the colour of the food colourant. This recipe makes 30 cupcakes or 2 22cm cake layers! When I made the cookie monster cake and these cupcakes I got 24 cupcakes and the 20cm cake, I'm quite sure that the yield was so high because the cookies took up quite a bit of the batters place!

What I love about these cupcakes is that they are moist and not too sweet, perfect with a cup of tea or coffee if you're into that - I am more of a cuppa tea kinda girl!! I didn't tell everyone that there was an Oreo at the bottom of the cupcake. SURPRISE!!! Much to everyone's delight!!

So this is how it goes:

What you're gonna need:

Cupcakes
2 1/2 Cups of Flour
30 ml Cocoa
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking soda)
1/2 tsp Salt
1 Cup Butter (Unsalted, Softened)
1/3 Cup Cooking Oil
2 Cups of Sugar
4 Large Eggs
1 Cup Sour Cream
1/2 Cup Milk
30 ml Red Food Colouring (for blue you could use less, my cupcakes came out really dark when I used 30mls)
2 tsp Vanilla Essence

Cream Cheese Vanilla Frosting
250 grams Plain Cream Cheese
1/4 Cup Butter/White Margarine
2 tbsp Sour Cream
+/- 600 grams Icing Sugar (Sifted)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

How you're gonna do it:

Cupcakes/Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180° C. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a medium sized bowl, set aside.
2. Beat the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time. Mix in the sour cream, milk, oil, food colouring and vanilla essence until well blended.
3. Gradually beat in the flour mixture on a low speed until just blended. Do not over blend.
4. Line your cupcake pans with paper cupcake cups, place one oreo cookie in each cup, spoon the batter into the cups filling each one 2/3rds full. If you're baking a cake, spray your cake pans generously with spray and cook before splitting the batter between the two pans.
5. Bake the cupcakes for 20 minutes/until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. If you're baking a cake, bake for 30 - 40 minutes. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool before icing.

Cream Cheese Vanilla Frosting
Beat the cream cheese, butter, sour cream and vanilla in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the sifted icing sugar until smooth. Decorate cupcakes/cake as desired. I used a Wilton 1M tip to pipe my icing onto the cupcakes.

So that's that! It's almost as easy as it is delicious!! I'd love to hear what you think so please feel free to give me your thoughts and feedback on this recipe!

So, I can't bake this weekend...

Hi Everyone!!

Deciding what my first post would be about was quite a process, I couldn't decide whether to tell you whats going on in my life right now or to start at the beginning.
I then decided that since I gave a bit of an insight in our about us page that present beats past, and I will tell our story as we go along!

As you have probably read . . . or know, I love baking, I like to try out new recipes every now and again, or to challenge myself to a new cake decorating session. This weekend's request, put in by my dear mom-in-law (Mama Vos), was "Chewy rolo cookies", from a recipe she found in a food magazine. I was so excited to try them, they looked divine!! But mother nature had other plans for me this weekend...Bed rest!

After a week of fighting what I thought was the flu, I visited my Doctor on Friday (thank goodness I'm not a Doctor because my diagnosis was WAY off!)... Bronchitis, so it was either a course of antibiotics AND two injections on Friday AND ANOTHER two on Saturday or off to hospital. I opted for the painful but much preferred injections and bed rest in the comfort of my own home!

Hopefully I'll hit the ground running again on Monday morning, but for now I will share last weekend's request from my little brother-in-law (Hanroux), A cookie monster cake!

This cake really was a pleasure to bake, and was easily one of the easiest decorations I have done!
I made a blue velvet sponge cake in a 20 cm round cake pan. (I promise to share the recipes ASAP!!)
I then went on to make the perfect frosting for a velvet cake - Cream Cheese Vanilla Frosting!YUM!!
I got Riaan to roll out some white fondant and some black fondant and cut out the eyes and mouth while I started to pipe the frosting onto the cake - Shame I really do ALWAYS manage to rope him in on the decorating front!
We placed the mouth first and cut a slit for the cookie, I then piped the entire cake using a Wilton 233 Grass/Hair Piping Nozzle, squeezing and releasing on the piping bag for each tuft of hair, we then positioned his eyes, I piped a few final tufts of hair, we broke the perfect cookie and stuffed it into his mouth and VOILA! A really cool cookie monster cake - All in less than an hour and a half!!

So that's it from me for now, as promised I will be posting this recipe as soon as possible the recipe is up ;) and I hope you enjoyed the post!