Vanilla and Chocolate Mini Tea Cakes

The theme for this month's Forever Nigella is 'Afternoon Tea'.  I knew immediately that I wanted to use my Williams-Sonoma mini tea cake pan that I bought from America. I made 2 flavours - vanilla and chocolate as you just can't beat the classics. I used Nigella's spruced up vaniila cake recipe and old fashioned chocolate cake recipe both of which I've made previously with good success and this was no exception. The cakes were delightfully moist and tasty but the real wow factor came from the shape of the cakes. How cute are they?

Forever Nigella #16 is being hosted by Fleur from Homemade by Fleur. This month's challenge is to prepare and blog any Nigella Lawson recipe with the theme of 'Afternoon Tea'.  Forever Nigella is organised by Sarah from Maison Cupcake.

 My Williams-Sonoma Mini Tea Cake Pan

 I bought this mini ice cream scoop which is called a cookie scoop from the same store - it's perfect for filling these cakes, 1 scoop per cake! 

 ready to go in the oven 

 fresh from the oven... will they come out of the pan easily? 

 The chocolate version

 hurrah! no sticking to the pan at all 

 a dusting of icing sugar increases the wow factor :) 

Hamburger Cupcakes

This month's AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes is the letter 'H". If you don't already know, AlphaBakes is a monthly baking blogging challenge where we bake from a random letter each month. So far we have had L, M and B. For each of these letters, I could immediately think of a few things to bake but not this month! I came up with 2 ideas but wanted to challenge myself and make something slightly different. So I present you with H for Hamburger Cupcakes! Yes they look like hamburgers but are actually made from cake! Pretty cool, huh? 

I made a vanilla sponge for my 'burger buns' and a chocolate sponge for my 'burger meat'. I then coloured some leftover buttercream icing (from making my Jubilee mini cakes) red to look like ketchup and coloured dessicated coconut green to resemble lettuce. You can also make cheese and mustard if you like. 

 Vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, green dessicated coconut, red buttercream icing, toasted sesame seeds. 

 Slice each vanilla cupcake in half horizontally

 Slice the chocolate cupcakes horizontally and place one piece of top of the vanilla cupcake

 Add a blob of "ketchup" (red buttercream icing)

 add your "lettuce" (green dessicated coconut)

 Top with your "burger bun" (sliced vanilla cupcake) Lightly brush the tops with water and sprinkle sesame seeds on top

 What do you think? Is it  hamburger? Is it a cake? It's a hamburger cupcake!! 

As mentioned in my previous post, Homemade by Fleur is running a Blogging Baking Jubilee Competition until 3rd June 2012.  There is an awesome prize of £100 Amazon vouchers kindly provided by Appliances Online.  I think these mini hamburger cupcakes are perfect for any party especially a Jubilee street party so I'm entering these to the competition. I couldn't resist getting my little flags out to make them look more Jubilee themed :) 

I used my favourite vanilla cupcake recipe to make the buns. I decided to use Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake for the "burger meat" as my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe involved separating the eggs and beating the whites separately. I was quite short on time and had enough washing up to do so I looked for another recipe. It's a really simple all in one recipe and as Nigella says "If you're going to get started, this is the cake you should begin with" It was a really moist and delicious chocolate cake - I'm glad I had extra to munch on :) As it's a Nigella recipe, I'm also entering this to Forever Nigella #15  as the theme this month is The Jubilee. Forever Nigella is run by Sarah from Maison Cupcake and hosted this month by Nelly's Cupcakes.