Strawberry & Peanut butter cupcake

As well as Andy's 32nd Birthday cake, I made strawberry and peanut butter cupcakes for Andy's birthday for him to take to the office.

I asked Andy what he wanted in the middle of the cake, and he said 'strawberry jam and peanut butter'. Since I'd already planed to put fruits and cream in the big cake, we decided to make cupcakes with strawberry and peanut butter for the office.

I made strawberry jam cupcakes (I used the same recipe as the Raspberry jam cake, but replaced the raspberry jam to strawberry jam.). With an apple corer I made a hole in the middle, then filled it with strawberry jam and covered the top with peanut butter icing.

It was like "America in a cupcake!",  I think...
I guess Andy got what he wanted on his birthday. :D

きなこカップケーキ (Kinako cupcake)

きなこ(kinako, soy powder) is one of my favourite food since I was a little kid. I used to sprinkle sweetened kinako on my rice which is for me an ultimate comfort food...

Yesterday I fancied a comforting Japanese sweet so decided to make some cupcakes with kinako. I mixed kinako in my very easy basic cupcake recipe and used dark brown sugar for a rich taste.

It took me only less than 30 minutes to make this cupcakes which is really handy when you have a little baby. These cupcakes are fairy healthy too that is another good thing when you're watching your diet. (I kind of am... because of breast feeding...)

The cupcakes tasted very "homely" which was just what I was looking for... I loved them, but Andy said "it's not for me..." because he doesn't really like kinako... Ok well, if you like kinako, then that's for you...:)

If you like your cupcake sweet then add more sugar (you can add up to 100g or so...)

Ingredients:

Flour 70g

Kinako 30g

Baking powder 1 tsp

Dark brown sugar 50g

Egg 2

Butter 100g

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºc. Melt butter.

2. Beat eggs and sugar together until it's light and fluffy.

3. Mix in melted butter into2.

4. Sift flour, kinako, baking powder into 3.

5. Pour the mixture into cupcake tins and bake in the preheated oven for 15 minutes.

My little assistant - House warming & Wet the baby's head party -

We had a "house warming & wet the baby's head" party this weekend. And here she is..., my little cake assistant, Skyla! Isn't she lovely? :)

She did a great job helping me decorate the cupcakes. We made funny faces on the cupcakes as well as topping them with colourful sugar animals, balls and marshmallows. By the time we finished, we tasted 2..3..4 of them (... can't remember how many...) and we both had sticky hands with icing;)

Oh and, I thought Skyla was a real chef because she asked me "can we try the cupcakes? Because we need to know how they tastes before we serve them, don't we?" I was like... "Sure, yes!"

Well done and thanks, Skyla;D