Substituting cake and pudding mix in cupcake recipes

My super flatmate and his lovely girlfriend gave me this very cool book for my recent birthday:

41 cupcake recipes that feature alcohol in one form or another! From cupcakes based on all sorts of sweet and fruity cocktails to some rather intriguing entries including hot toddy cupcakes, Bloody Mary cupcakes, wine and cheese cupcakes, dark stout cupcakes – even Jägerbomb cupcakes!

I baked my first batch of Intoxicated Cupcakes on the weekend: Tooty-Fruity Sangria Cupcakes. Both the cupcake and the icing feature red wine, and the fruit comes from fruit cocktail in the cupcakes and chunky marmalade in the icing.

The only trick was the recipe called for 1 box of of yellow cake mix and 1 package of instant vanilla pudding mix. I turned out to be correct in my assumption that these were too American for any of my local supermarkets to stock so I hunted down some alternatives on the good old interwebs.

For any UK bakers who want to make one of the few recipes in this book that call for either of these mixes, you can successfully substitute them as follows:

Substitute 1 (18.25 ounce) box yellow cake mix
with Suzanne McMinn’s Homemade Yellow Cake Mix
+ 1 tsp vanilla extract

Substitute 1 (5 ounce) package instant vanilla pudding mix
with 1.5 cups of Brown Eyed Baker’s DIY Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix
(I used 1 tsp vanilla extract instead of real vanilla beans)

Both of these call for dried milk powder which you can buy from Tesco, Sainsbury’s or Waitrose.

The sangria cupcakes went down a treat with both friends and work colleagues. :) I look forward to trying some of the other recipes soon!

Anzac biscuits

I made Anzac biscuits on the weekend. :)

Ingredients

• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 cup rolled oats (whole ones! these don’t seem to be as common in the UK as they are in Aus)
• 1 cup desiccated coconut
• 3/4 cup sugar
• salt
• 1/4 cup golden syrup
• 125g unsalted butter, cubed
• 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 2 tablespoons boiling water

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper. (Work in batches if you only have one.)
2. Combine the flour, oats, coconut, sugar and a pinch of salt in a mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre.
3. Place the golden syrup and butter in a small saucepan and stir over low heat until the butter has melted. In a cup, dissolve the bicarb soda in the boiling water and add to the butter mixture. The mixture will foam a little.
4. Pour the butter mixture into the well in the centre of the dry ingredients and stir until combined. The mixture should hold together but be slightly on the crumbly side – add a little extra flour if it’s too wet or a little extra water if it’s too dry to hold together.
5. Roll tablespoonfuls of the mixture into balls and place on the prepared trays. Leave at least 3cm between each to allow for spreading.
6. Bake for 12-15 min or until golden. Allow to cool on the trays for a few minutes before transferring to wire racks to cool completely. Story in an airtight container for up to 2 weeks. Makes about 30 biscuits.

Recipe from “The Perfect Cookbook” by David Herbert.