My First Order!

So its been pretty quite on the old blogging front for me recently.  There are a few reason's why but the most recent one is this;

This bad boy was my first order for a cake!  The only guideline was it needed to be a giant cupcake (such a shame that this meant I had to go out and buy that giant sized cupcake pan I've had my eye on for over a year now!) and it had to include chocolate.  Such a demanding client lol.

I used the recipe that came with the pan, only because I knew it would make enough batter to actually fill the pan.  By the time I had received the order and purchased the pan there wasn't any time for experimentation so it was a one hit wonder kind of approach which I am pleased to report was very well received by both the client and her boyfriend, who was celebrating his birthday, hence the giant sized cupcake order!  It produce a really good cake for decorating, I much prefer this to any other cake I have used for cake decorating so far and has the added bonus of being really moist and very tasty ;0)

Giant White Chocolate Cupcake
225g butter, softened
110g white chocolate, melted and cooled
400g caster sugar
5 medium eggs
435g flour (I used a mixture of both SR and plain)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
315ml single cream
1 tbsp vanilla

Heat oven to 170C.  Grease and lightly flour pan; set aside. 

In a large bowl, beat butter on medium speed until creamy; stir in melted white chocolate.  Add sugar and beat on medium speed for 5 mins, until light and fluffy, scraping bowl often.  Add eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition. 

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt.  Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually add flour mixture, alternating with cream; mix just until blended.  Stir in vanilla.  Spoon batter into prepared pan, spreading batter up to top edges of pan (batter will be lower in the centre) this instruction made very little sense to me!  Bake at 170C for 65 to 75 mins, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Remove from oven and cool for 10 mins in pan.  Invert onto cooling rack and cool completely.

To assemble the cupcake, return the cake to pan.  Level the cupcake halves by using a serrated knife to cut off the cake that rose above the pan.  Remove the cupcake base from pan.  Spread your chosen filling (I used seedless raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream) over the cut side of the cake that is still in the pan.  Place the cupcake base , cut side down, on top of filling, pressing gently to secure.  Cover and place in the fridge for 1 hour.  Invert cake onto serving platter and decorate as desired.

Serves 16

I made double batches of buttercream in vanilla and chocolate to ice the cupcake and then added chocolate stars for some decoration.  The icing was supposed to look like the piping on the top of a cupcake but unfortunately the butter was a wee bit too soft to hold its shape so I had to take to it with a fork and give it a rustic-iced appearance.  Good thing it didn't effect the flavour!