Vanilla and Poppyseed Cupcakes (with a Halloween Twist)

At work this week I was asked to make some Halloween themed cupcakes for Halloween (obviously). Working in a bakery, it's always difficult to come up with interesting flavours that no where else in the area offers, but also flavours that people will actually like. It always sounds yummy in your head, but in theory, some flavours just don't work. 

So my flavourings for these cupcakes were vanilla and poppyseed. Now, lemon and poppyseed has been a pretty popular combination in our bakery, but vanilla and poppyseed? Who knew if it would work. But thankfully, it was a success (yay). They went down like a storm, sometimes the risk is worth taking! I mean, who thought chilli and chocolate would have worked together? But they did, and here we are with a pretty random but tasty combination. 

These cupcakes were topped with a vanilla buttercream, edible orange and black glitter and some Halloween decs to give it that spooky spin. 

As always, here's the recipe! And definitely leave a comment as to what you think or if you give the recipe a go, comment and let me know how they turned out for you!! 

Ingredients:

250g butter (we used stork) 

250g caster sugar (granular does work but it's just not as coarse) 

250g self raising flour

2 tsp vanilla essence 

5 eggs 

1 or 2 handfuls of poppy seeds (add these by eye. You basically need enough so they are dispersed evenly through the mix, I always find 2 handfuls does the trick). 

Method:

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Fill a cupcake tray with cupcake cases. 

In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, and pale in colour. Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little flour with each addition. (This will help to stop the mix curdling.) Add the rest of the flour and beat well until a batter is formed, it should be quite thick. Fold in your vanilla essence and poppyseeds until well combined 

Using a tbsp, spoon the cake batter into the cupcake cases until the cases are filled three-quarters full. Be careful not to overfill the cases otherwise they'll ruin the finishing effect! Pop in the oven for 20 minutes or until they're golden brown and  a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Transfer to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before decoration. 

Now comes the fun part of decorating your cupcakes! This is always my favourite part of cake making! You can literally do whatever you want! 

For these Halloween cupcakes, I made a vanilla buttercream, but you can flavour it with whatever you like. Here's the basic recipe. 

Ingredients:

250g butter 

500g icing sugar, sieved

2tsp vanilla essence (you can change this to whatever you like). 

Method:

Simply beat together the butter and icing sugar until fully combined. It should be very pale in colour and quite thick. Forgive it a taste, and if you want to add some more icing sugar, go for it! Add in your flavouring and give it a good beat. 

To decorate your cupcakes, level off the tops of the sponges so they are nice and flat. Then spread a thick layer of icing over the top of the cakes, so they are well covered. 

Now for personalisation! You can either leave them looking pretty cute like they are with just the icing or go wild with some decoration. You could add edible glitter, pipe some swirls and shapes or add some other edible delights. The floor is yours! 

And there you have it! 

Cupcakes with a difference. 

Don't dorget to let me know how you get on!

Happy baking. 

Charley.