Hand me those cupcakes, I need my sugar fix! Well, it certainly feels like that there are a whole load of cupcake junkies out there at the moment. A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that everybody in Paris is cupcake crazy. Well the proof has definetly been in eating the pudding! So much so that I’m doing another “Pimp my cupcake” session. It’s already booked up with a waiting list. Wahey!
Like every blogger I check my stats regularly. I’m less bothered about it, then when I first started. It’s a hobby not a career (hence me not always blogging, if I don’t feel like doing it, I just don’t). My no. 1 search engine term seems to be 80s. I think it’s because I mentioned it a few times and even made 80s biscuits a while ago. Anyway, this got me thinking about what 80s food I could eat today without having to wear a shellsuit.
You say tomatoe (just imagine the yankee accent 
) I say tomato (and a brit one here). The same could go for cupcakes or as us Brits call them fairy cakes. I was doing some research for my next cookery class. The theme is cupcakes which is all the rage in Paris and I found a few interesting titbits…
According to the “The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America”, cupcakes were originally just small cakes minus the icing, that came in the 1950s. The “cup” derived from two origins:
1. The switch from weighing to using cup measurements in the 19th century American households.
2. The practice of baking in small containers or cups. Large cakes were often burnt in the the hearth ovens.
Brits use the term “fairy cakes”, as you normally scoop out the top, fill that with buttercream and jam and then cut the top into two wings which you place on top. Hence them looking slightly fairy like. I would normally call those butterfly cakes and all the plain iced cakes, fairy cakes.
Anyway, at the end of the day they taste delicious and bring back memories of sticky little fingers at birthday parties (well, that is if you had an anglophone childhood).
Right now I’m busy prepping for my first cookery class @ La Cocotte this Thursday. I’ve been busy researching, testing, tasting, doing all things muffiny…so much so I think I’m actually becoming a muffin. I found out the word muffin comes from the old french term “moufflet” (=soft). And that the American muffins did originate from the English ones but quickly developed their own style.
I realised after I shot* this, that the raspberry coulis looked rather “blood like” and I even subconsiously made bloodlike splatters.
* Shoot/blood = Hmmmmmmm, maybe I have murder on my mind
I also made a lychee version of this for an event at La Cocotte. I chopped up tinned lychees and placed them at the bottom of the ramekins, poured the panna cotta on top.
3 gelatine leaves
250ml almond milk
250ml double cream
2 tsp almond essence
25g sugar
4 ramekins
Soak the gelatine in cold water until soft. Heat the all the other ingredients in a pan until it comes to the boil. Take off the heat. Squeeze out the water from the gelatine, add to the cream mixture. Stir well until all the gelatine is disolved. Pour into ramekins and leave to cool. Once cool put into the fridge and chill for at least 4 hours (or overnight).
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