I, for one, love Autumn. Cosy jumpers, thick woolly socks, irrationally high boots, huge swishy coats, CAPES, for god’s sake! Capes!! Ahem…but non-sartorially speaking, it’s also lovely foodwise. And this week, I feel we’re finally there. The air has gained that crisp feeling, that hits you at the back of your throat and takes your breath away, and is just cold enough to make your eyes hurt. So, while I sat down in my strawberry print apron and rearranged my rollers, I pondered…what cupcake could I possibly make that would celebrate the autumnal equinox fast approaching us? And of course, it goes without saying, I wanted to avoid anything with spiders, little graves fashioned out of royal icing, or any other such (trick or) treats.

Then, it hit me. A blackberry cupcake. I recently did a rather gorgeous raspberry cake and was delighted with the little pockets of juicy explosion that took one by surprise – almost like a mirage spied while navigating the cakey desert planes. Too fanciful? Go and read one of the other blogs out there, not written by an English and Drama graduate.

I had my base. But what to top it? A cream frosting? No….apples done in a tarte tartin style, with a salted caramel glaze. I’ve been looking for an excuse to shoehorn this, my current favourite flavour, into a cake, and here, it had just landed in my lap. (Metaphorically. Please don’t go around hurling cupcakes at your knees.) By the by, I used half this quantity for my cakes, and came out with 10. It’s up to you, but I’ve put the full measures in, so it’s all in your hands. Just think of the power…

Blackberry cupcake ingredients (in cups)
2 ½ cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp salt
½ cup unsalted butter, room temp
1 ½ cups caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsps blackberry juice (I’ll explain all later)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups chopped blackberries (unless small…then leave them be)
1/2 cup milk

1.Preheat oven to 170C, and line two cupcake pans of with 24 cupcake cases total (You may, or may not, use all of these. Ooh, how wonderfully vague)

2. In a bowl, sift together flour, salt and baking powder and whisk together.

3. In another bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar until it holds together, and starts looking lighter in colour.

4. Add eggs one at a time to the sugar mixture, whisking after each addition.

6. Get your milk and your dry flour mixture at the ready. Ready? Alternately add them, whisking on a low speed.

7. Gently, veeeeeeery gently, fold the blackberries into the mixture. Try not to bash them too much, poor babies.

8. Oh, go on then. Fill your cases. I’d say probably just over two thirds full – you want them to rise, as there’s no frosting to disguise any TERRIBLE MISTAKES YOU MIGHT MAKE.

Caramelised apples:
65g unsalted butter*, cut into small piees
4 eating apples, peeled, cored and cut into 16 (cut each quarter into four equal pieces, lengthways)
4 tbsps caster sugar
*I actually used salted. I’m a huge fan of salted caramel in chocolates and whatnot, so I thought…why not? But as ever, you may do as you please.

1.Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the pieces of apple, and turn to cook them on both sides. When they begin to look golden, start singing a la Mika “we are goooolden, we are GOOOOLDEN’, and sprinkle with the sugar, then remove the pan from the heat.

2. Arrange them on top of the cupcakes, four apple sections per cupcake, laid out like a courtesan’s fan. (You have to be poetic about these things.)

Caramel glaze
65g unsalted butter
50g soft light brown sugar
225g icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp milk

1.Melt the butter in a heavy based saucepan over a low heat. Add the brown sugar and stir until it melts.

2. Remove the pan from the heat, and add the icing sugar, vanilla extract and milk. Beat together until smooth and well mixed, then drizzle around a tablespoon of the glaze over each cupcake.

Apologies for the atrocious picture below. I am not technically minded enough to crop.

Happy baking my darlings!

Now, I’ll admit, this is from the Hummingbird Bakery cookbook. I held off on buying this book for ages, because everyone has it, and also when I said I liked making cupcakes, the first question I was always asked was “ooh! Do you have the Hummingbird Bakery book???!” Other cupcake books are available. So, I kept my head down and refused to look at it. Anything that widely owned can’t be good, and I’m a great one for avoiding trends until they’ve JUST gone out of style, and then I’ll jump on that bandwagon, goddammit it. I did it with GHDs. I did it with Ugg boots. (Ssh. I threw them away, ok? I am not, and never will be, an Australian surfer, which is the only way wearing them would be ok.) In fact, the times I get swept up on the ol’ bandwagon before it left the station (c.f. Lady Gaga, tops with crazy shoulders a la Rihanna, 80s revivals etc), I get so jealous and annoyed when other people discover MY new thing too, I can’t bear it and I run away crying.

That’s enough about my neuroses. Enough time had elapsed between the HBB madness and now for me to pick it up and scrutinise it with my beady eyes. In the end, it wasn’t the recipes that swayed me, it was the 100 free beeeeautiful cupcakes cases that came with it. Actually, the week before last, I popped into Hummingbird for a red velvet cupcake. It was good. Not mind-blowing, but satisfactory. I was a bit disappointed in the limited flavours they had on offer, but the nice little box they packed my cake in won me over. Fickle, me.

Today I’m road testing their lemon cupcake with lemon icing. ‘BORING’, I hear you cry, slapping your head and gurning in irritation. ‘Where have your weird alcoholic cakes gone? Your ugly meringues? Your floral fruity frippery? You used to be cool, man!’ Well, children. I shall be cool again, but not today. (Nota bene: I read Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck cookbook. Prepare yourselves. I have some crazy plans for cakes. That WILL be cool.)

Cupcake ingredients
120g plain flour
150g caster sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest, plus extra to decorate
40g tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temp
120ml whole milk
1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 170C.

2. Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, lemon zest and butter in a bowl and beat on slow speed until you get a ‘sandy consistency’. Sand, eh? Nom nom nom. Actually, Hummingbird suggest you put it in your ‘freestanding electric mixer with a paddle attachment’, which we all know means…..*angelic chorus, drums beating, clapping, cheering* A KITCHENAID MIXER. Rub it in, Hummingbird. You know I don’t have one. You know I want one more than I want a cat. (i.e. REALLY BADLY.)

3. Ahem. Back to life, back to cupcakery: gradually pour in milk and beat until just combined. (HB say: ‘incorporated’, but that sounds like business jargon to me)

5. Spoon mixture into paper cases until two thirds full and bake for 20-25 mins, or as HB says, until the cake ‘bounces back’. Bounces back like Wayne and Colleen post-major cheating allegations…

Ta da!!

Lemon frosting ingredients
250g icing sugar, sifted
80g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 tbsps grated lemon zest
Couple of drops yellow food colouring (optional)
2 tablespoons whole milk1.Beat together the sugar, butter, lemon zest and yellow food colouring with your handheld whisk. Or Kitchenaid, yes yes yes, I heard you. Anyway, mix on a medium-high speed.

2. Turn the mixer to a slow speed and slowly pour in the milk. Ha – I just typed ‘milky’. Tired? Or is my language slowly peeling away?

3. Beat for about 5 minutes, while singing my classic whisking anthem, ‘beat it’.

4. Wait till the cupcakes are cold, then spoon lemon frosting on top and decorate with a little zest.

Gosh, what a terribly long blog for what was a terribly short recipe…

…and Sunday in the kitchen with me. Today I will be making three types of cupcakes, because one doesn’t quite seem to satisfy. You know how it is…you start out with a fairy cake, maybe a butterfly cake, if you’re pushing the boat out. Next come the fancifully decorated cupcakes. And then, one day, they find you, cake wrappers all around you, icing sugar smeared on your face, buttercream icing clinging to your fingers, spacing out on spacedust, all pie-eyed and drunk on ganache.

Um, anyway….on today’s pink glittery menu is lemon cupcakes with lemon icing, blackberry cupcakes with a caramelised apple topping and caramel glaze, and vanilla cupcakes with a mystery topping that I haven’t decided on yet. I’ll be doing an X-Factor style campaign to decide, so the result will be in in a couple of months. Votes in now.