Angel Food Cupcakes

After finishing work last night at 2am I decided to look for some recipes as you do and came across this devine sponge recipe. I love meringue and basically any excuse to make it I'm all for. They're not perfect, they don't rise....actually the meringue makes them shrink slightly in the oven so they're quite small and next time I think I won't be so stingy with the mix and really fill the cases. The only other problem I encountered was that because they don't really melt (I'm assuming because of the lack of butter)  but the way you put them in the oven is they way they come out, so take your time and flatten all the cakes tops.

The recipes I used was Life Tastes like Food - Angel Food Cupcakes, I halved the recipe and easily got  a dozen small cupcakes out of it. I also didn't use food colouring, I like my cream white! But here we go.

First measure out our dry ingredients, basically taking out 2 tblspoons of plain flour and adding the cornflour creates cake flour...or just use cake flour. Then begin to make the meringue, add the eggs, vanilla, cream of tartar and water and whisk to create a slight foam. Add the sugar gradually keep whisking until the eggs create a stiff peak.

Then sift in half of your dry ingredients and fold in slowly to not over mix, do the same with the second half.

Once incorporated spoon the mixture into the cases, the mixture will shrink slightly so fill the cases more or less to the top and if you wish flatten the mixture, be careful not to get all the air out as there's not really any raising agent other than the eggs.

Pop in the oven for around 16 minutes, until the cakes are golden brown. Once fully cooled frost your cupcakes, you can use buttercream but whipped cream give the entire cake fluffyness and lightness. Garnish with fresh berries (I used strawberries and blackberries). And enjoy.

For the Cake 

• 1/2 cup confectioners sugar
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour (but after you measure it out, remove 1 1/2 tablespoons of the flour)*
• 1 1/2 tablespoons corn starch*
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 8 egg whites from large egg whites, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar

Whipped Cream

• One tub of whipping cream
• Two tablespoons of icing sugar (to your taste)
• Fresh Berries

A little bit of blogs...

I thought I would just let everyone know some of my favourite places where I get recipes from, my baking bible if you will.

First is www.foodgawker.com
This is my first go to place. It’s an accumulation of food blogs, everything you can ever imagine is in there. To my delight one day I was looking for Harry Potter themed recipes not hoping for much and came across page after page of recipes. Granted, there are recipes that I’ll click on and then not follow it up because I don’t like the style of the recipe but it’s great for ideas. It also allows you to create a profile and favourite your recipes so you don’t have to trawl through pages and pages to find the recipe you found on Tuesday but you were in the middle of something and didn’t write it down. LOVE IT.

Secondly I adore http://traceysculinaryadventures.blogspot.co.uk/

Traceys Culinary Adventures. I LOVE IT. Her recipes are exactly the kind of things I like to eat and bake. Her recipes are super duper easy and it’s always one of the first places I check for new ideas. She also does quite alot of savoury foods, I haven't tried them myself but I they look scrumptious.  

http://sallysbakingaddiction.com/

Put a gun to my head and I really don’t know which blog I prefer. Sally Baking Addiction doesn’t have as many entries as Tracey’s but it’s still substantial. The recipes are super easy to follow and taste delicious.

Please feel free to go to any of these blogs and let your mouth water. No doubt I will post ALOT of things I make from this site. 

First you crack your eggs...

For the last two years I have grown to adore baking. I find it the best de-stresser in the world. I spend hours trawling through baking blogs for new recipes - to the point where I rarely use cooking books, just blog recipes. So I have decided to start a blog telling all about my culinary adventures and to share with you when I get it right but most of all to also share when I get it wrong. So many times when I have been creating something, it's went wrong and I have no idea how to fix it. So I promise to show you my baking endeavours - warts and all. Let's get baking!