This is a recipe from January 2012, so apologies if it’s a bit rusty.
So I had been back from Australia for around a month. I’d made the call to stay in the UK rather than return down under. I was living at home with my parents, and as a result had a lot of time to myself. Any time I didn’t spend job-hunting, was time spent by myself. So I found myself baking a lot. It was January, what else is there to do? It was my friend Siobhan’s birthday (you should check her out, she does awesome Cross Stitch designs, which you can find here), and she’s a bit of a fan of the bearded gentleman. Thus, these were born.
Bearded Cupcakes
Ingredients
- Cupcake ingredients:
- 115 grams (1/2 cup) unsalted butter at room temperature
- 130 grams (2/3 cup) granulated white sugar
- 3 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 195 grams (1½ cups) all purpose flour
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 60 ml (1/4 cup) milk
- Topping:
- 200g (one large bar) White Chocolate, melted
- Icing:
- 110g/4oz butter, softened
- 170g/6oz icing sugar
- 55g/2oz cocoa powder, sifted
- 1-2 tbsp milk
Instructions
- For the cakes.
- Preheat the oven to 180 °C (16°C fan oven), and line your muffin tray with cases.
- In the bowl of your electric mixer beat the butter and the sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs, one by one. After each addition, beat well. Beat in the vanilla extract.
- Separately, whisk together the dry ingredients.
- Put your mixer onto low speed. Alternate between adding the milk and the flour mix. Beginning and ending with the flour, this should be done in 3 additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl from time to time.
- Divide the batter out evenly amongst the lined cases and place in the center of the pre-heated oven. Bake for 17-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from the oven and set to cool on a wire rack.
- While they are cooling, you can start on the topping. Take the white chocolate, and melt it. I don’t have a microwave, so use a bowl over hot water. The better quality chocolate, the better results you’ll get. Spread the chocolate out on a sheet of greaseproof paper, until it’s smooth. Place another piece of greaseproof paper on top and sandwich the chocolate between two flat objects. Put it somewhere cool to set.
- While this is setting, make the buttercream. Cream the butter, add half of the icing sugar and beat until smooth. Add in the cocoa powder and the remaining icing sugar. Add 1tbsp of milk, only adding the rest if it’s needed.
- To decorate, cut out small circles from the set chocolate, using a sharp knife. Stick the circles to the tops of your cupcakes using a small amount of the buttercream. I had to cut the tips off a couple of cakes to make them flat enough.
- Pipe on your desired facial hair. I also used a small amount of white piping icing that my Mother had in her cupboards to draw details. I also added silver sugar balls as eyes.
