I flipping LOVE Christmas. It’s my favourite time of the year, and from October I’m ready and waiting to get Halloween out of the way so I can get excited about the build up to Christmas.
Apparently it’s not acceptable to be excited until Halloween is out of the way, which frankly is a shambles. I say when the shops start putting their Christmas stuff out, it’s fair game. I made these in October, because I don’t follow the rules.
First of all, let me say: it’s so hard to take good photos when it’s dark outside and there’s no natural light. I’m not a professional photographer and I take all these photos on my phone, so I’ve had to do a fair bit of editing in the form of Instagram filters to lighten them up.
Anyway here are some Christmas cupcakes I made.
Browsing cake cookbooks on Amazon is a hobby of mine, and when doing so I found this book by Cupcake Jemma, who I watch on YouTube! So I bought it. *Note to self: STOP BUYING CAKE BOOKS, you have far too many as it is.
It has chapters in it for each season, and when flicking through the ‘Winter’ section I saw the recipe for these Christmas cupcakes. They have cinnamon and mixed spice in the cake batter, and brandy in the buttercream. It’s always nice to find Christmas bakes that don’t have dried fruit in them, because dried fruit is not an invention that came from a good person.
I had just bought a load of Christmas sprinkles, because I have no self-control, so I went for it and made these. *Note to self: STOP BUYING CUPCAKE SPRINKLES, you have far too many as it is.
The brandy for the buttercream was procured from my parents; I don’t have any brandy and I wasn’t about to buy a whole bottle just for this. So I went to their house, foraged in their alcohol cupboard, put four tablespoons of French brandy that was lurking at the back into a jam jar, and made my merry way home again.
I’ve not really got much more to say really. Hopefully you don’t expect award winning journalism on this blog.
They were very light and fluffy, and the actual cake batter with those flavours was so tasty. When I tried the buttercream, at first I thought it was quite strong. But when I tried one at work the next day it seemed to have mellowed a bit overnight, and worked really well with the flavours in the cake.
So if you’re making these, or anything similar, I think probably make them the night before and serve them the next day, rather than doing a same-day job.
Comments from people at work included:
- YES
- They smell like the Christmas latte at Starbucks
- I’m living for them
- Superb
- They taste like actual Christmas
- As Paul Hollywood would say, they had a good mix of flavours
- It tasted like a nice carrot cake but without carrot in it
- Can I order some for a birthday party
It may have been the brandy talking, but they were well received. I will probably make them again – as I said, I think they’re a really good alternative to some Christmas foods because there’s no dried fruit but they still taste Christmassy.
I still have a bit of brandy left in the jam jar. Apparently it works well in hot drinks, so I will put the remaining drop in a hot chocolate and see how I get on. No point wasting it I suppose *hic*
Sidenote: I bought the garland in the pictures especially for this blog post, thinking that perhaps I could decorate my TV stand with it. But it smelt so overwhelmingly of plastic so I took it back the next day, whoops