Maple Apple Cupcakes

I was recently surprised by one of my classmates at school with a cupcake from a bakery in Ponsonby as a thank you/inspiration for all the cupcakes that I bring into school for everyone. I was so surprised and delighted, completely made my day! Anyway the cupcake inspired me to make these cupcakes. Perfect for this cold fall (autumn) week here in Auckland. 

They are a cinnamon cake with cinnamon apple filling and maple cream cheese buttercream.

Chai Cupcakes and Samoa Cupcakes

I have been so busy lately riding my horse and doing heaps of school work preparing for the upcoming exams next week, so I haven't had a ton of time to bake recently. Anyway, this afternoon I set some time aside to do what I love and bake until my heart was content. So, me being me I got ambitious and decided to make two flavours today. I made a chai cupcake and a samoa cupcake.

Chai Cupcake: Chai cake with cinnamon sugar crust and a chai swiss meringue buttercream, sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. 

Chai Cupcake

Samoa Cupcake: Coconut cake with chocolate ganache filling, caramel swiss meringue butter cream and topped with toasted coconut.

Samoa Cupcake

Samoa Cupcakes

Perfectly accompanied by coffee.

On another note, I made this cake for my godmothers partners birthday. He is really into sailing, so I made him this cake. It is a red velvet cake with vanilla bean cream cheese frosting.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Ganache Cupcakes

Over the past few times I have tried to make chocolate cupcakes, I have had somewhat of a fail and they haven't risen the way they should, they sunk in the middle, or they were dry and crumbly. So I have decided to discard/dispose of all other chocolate cake recipes now and have found the perfect chocolate cake recipe thanks to the utter perfection of my Little and Friday cookbook. This has now become my bible (along with Magnolia Bakery's cookbook) and my favourite recipes.

My cupcakes are inspired by the Little and Friday cake transforming it into a dark chocolate cupcake with raspberry marscapone filling and covered in chocolate ganache. These are rich and decadent, fulfilling the chocolate desire of anyone.

Chocolate Hazelnut Caramel Slice

Over the past few weeks I have been introduced into the most mouth-watering, crave-worthy cafe here in Auckland called Little and Friday. So after much anticipation, we made our way down the backstreets of Newmarket to find the little hole in the wall beauty that was Little and Friday. It is quite unique in the sense that their little cafe is located inside a fabric store which gives it a bit of a homey feel. Mom and I ordered our cappuccino and just had to try the orange almond rosewater cake...my god...that was the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth. How could one little bite of cake be that gobsmackingly good? Well without further question, it was that good. So we just had to get both of the cookbooks so I could attempt to make those perfect little creations myself.

So after sitting down and marking everything that I could possibly want to make, I decided to make the caramel slice. It was a chocolate base with creamy caramel filling, studded with roasted hazelnuts and smothered in chocolate ganache. What more could you want from a caramel slice? This was the perfect caramel slice and my new recipe! I can't wait to try making the chocolate cake today! :)