BakingBoutique!: Recipe Post 2022 - No.1 Happy New Year !!

I am delighted to announce BakingBoutique is back for the New Year, ready to share a fool-proof, quick and easy recipe as part of the celebration of making it to a new year in good health (free of Co-Vid)!!!, Returning back to what feels like my own little corner of the internet, where I can share my creations and inspire others to bake is AMAZING!

One of my New Year Resolutions is re-establishing my hobbies and interests. I am also striving to take care of myself and not to feel pressured or obliged to upload, especially if I am not in the right place to do so. As a result, I am no longer setting a strict upload deadline. I still aim to upload on weekends, however there will no longer be the pressure of posting weekly or bi-weekly. What matters most on BakingBoutique is being able to concoct new and interesting food combinations which are extraordinary and surprisingly goes well together all while sharing my culinary passion through tips and tricks I have picked up along the way :))

I hope you are all well and healthy in the New Year , and would also like to take up baking as a new hobby, or reinforce baking as part of your pastimes, aside from other things like watching Netflix or sitting around. Let's make 2022 count!

Without further ado, let's start with this recipe of chocolate cupcakes:

100g of plain flour

20g of good quality cocoa powder

140g of caster sugar

1½ tsp of baking powder

¼ tsp of vanilla extract

120ml of whole milk

40g of unsalted butter (make sure it's at room temperature)

For the chocolate buttercream:

20g of cocoa powder

100g of unsalted butter

400g of icing sugar, sifted

Method:

Firstly, the cupcakes will not cook themselves, without the oven preheated at 180℃/ 160℃/ Gas Mark 4.

Pour the flour, cocoa powder, butter, caster sugar, baking powder and a pinch of salt with either a free-standing electric mixer or handheld mixer.

Beat on a slow speed under you get a sandy consistency as shown below:

Next, whisk the milk, egg and vanilla extract together in a jug. Be careful not to overbeat this, as it'll cause the cake to taste eggy.

Pour around half the milk mixture into the flour mix. Beat to combine at a high heat Scrape any mixture from the side of the bowl.

Pour in the remaining liquid and continue to mix for a few more minutes until the mixture is smooth. Once again, be carefully not to overbeat as it may cause all the air to be beaten out of the mix.

Distribute the mix into 12 paper cases, around two thirds full.

Bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

I chose to decorate the cupcakes with piping the buttercream onto the cupcakes. For more information on icing techniques, I'll leave a link at the end :)

I then embellished the icing with pearls which adds a extra sweet touch. However, I would believe as it is the New Year, adding sparklers to each cupcake certainly would be an option.

Here are inserts of photos from the method, I have added the photos in chronological order, the first picture being step one and the last picture being the last step.