My First Culinary Creation

Looking back on my posts I have realised that all of them involve recipes from other chefs or people so I wanted to try out one of my own creations. I love unusual flavour combinations and trying out new things so when I discovered a white chocolate and cardamon mousse which tasted fantastic, I immediately wanted to try making some cupcakes in the same flavour. I looked about on the internet for some white chocolate cupcake recipes but they are a little hard to come by. I eventually did some mashing together of different recipes to ensure I had the right components in, especially milk so that i could infuse the cardamon with it. I also wanted to try out a new kind of icing that I discovered and I'm really glad I did. It is the most amazing icing I have ever had and is definitely worth the effort. Its called Italian meringue butter-cream and you can find the recipe on thepinkwhisk which is a blog by one of the runners up in the first Great British Bake Off (best program ever?) I'm glad to say the cakes turned out nicely and so did the icing though it was a little runny to start with, I just added some extra butter and 70g of melted white chocolate and it stiffened up to perfection. I have yet to get feedback from people at work but the boyfriend says they are my best cakes ever (he says that about all my cakes though because he is lovely.)

White Chocolate & Cardamon Cupcakes

100g butter, softened

170g caster sugar

2 eggs

200g plain flour

1tsp baking powder

125ml milk

8 plump cardamon pods (green cardamon)

100g white chocolate

• Preheat the oven to gas mark 3/160°c. 
• Take your butter and sugar and beat together until pale and fluffy then add in your eggs and mix until combined. 
• Put the milk and cardamon in to a saucepan and gently heat through until it simmers and the milk has taken on the flavour of the cardamon. 
• Whilst doing this put your chocolate in a Bain-marie or a bowl over a saucepan of water (make sure the water isnt touching the bottom of the bowl or the chocolate will burn.) Heat until the chocolate is half melted and then take off the heat and keep stirring. The residual heat will finish melting it. 
• Strain the milk through a sieve in to the melted chocolate and stir together but make sure the milk isn't boiling or the chocolate will burn. 
• Once this is done combine a third of the flour with the egg mix and then add a third of the chocolate milk once mixed in. Repeat this until everything is fully combined. 
• Fill your cupcake cases 2/3 full and put in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Once cool, top with your choice of icing.