Gloverly Cupcakes

It was my Birthday last week, so it was time to bake myself a cake and try out some new recipes. I really don’t mind making my own Birthday cake and it gave me the opportunity to try something new. Click

My hubby is gluten intolerant and one of my friends who was coming over for tea and cake isn’t eating dairy at the moment, so I needed to find a suitable recipe for them both. Most cakes can be made with gluten free flour and lots of recipes for cakes with vegetables in (such as carrots or courgettes) use oil instead of butter. So I found a spiced butternut squash cake recipe which sounded delicious. I used 1.5 times this recipe to make a large 8″ cake and one mini loaf cake for my dairy free friend – as I was going to cover the cake with buttercream I needed to keep some cake separate. I made some maple syrup flavoured buttercream to cover the cake. Here’s the recipe:

Spiced Butternut Squash Cake:

300g Doves Farm self raising flour

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground nutmeg

240g peeled butternut squash (prepared weight)

1 really ripe banana

150g unsalted butter or 150ml vegetable oil to make it dairy free

150g light brown muscavado sugar

75ml vegetable oil

2 eggs lightly beaten

Topping:

50g pecan nuts

4 tbsp maple syrup

Maple Syrup Buttercream:

500g icing sugar

160g butter

50ml maple syrup

1. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees C, tip the nuts for the topping onto a baking tray and bake for 5 mins until lightly roasted. Cool slightly, then finely chop and set aside.

2. Grease and line your cake tin.

3. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder and spices in a large bowl.

4. Grate the squash and put in a clean tea towel and wring to remove any excess moisture. Mash the banana in a small bowl and mix with the squash.

5. In the mixer, cream together the butter (or oil) and sugar, stir in the oil, squash and banana mixture. Then fold in the flour mixture a few spoonfuls at a time alternating with the eggs.

6. Pour into the baking tin and bake for approximately 35-45 mins, until a cake skewer comes out clean.

7. Once baked, leave to cool in the tin for 10-15 mins before removing to cool on a wire rack.

8. While the cake is cooling, make the butter cream. With the mixter on low, mix together the icing sugar and butter until you get a bread crumb texture, then slowly add the maple syrup. Once combined, turn the speed up and mix for 3-5 mins, stopping to scrape down the sides a couple of times. If the buttercream is too stiff, add a bit more maple syrup or a drop of milk to loosen it to make it easier to spread.

9. Once the cake was baked I sliced it into 3 layer and covered the top of 2 of the layers with the buttercream, then spread the toasted pecan nuts and maple syrup mix on top before placing the next layer on top. I then covered the whole cake with buttercream and smoothed it all out before putting in the fridge to harden.

I chose a design that I could make in advance and in stages. I used sugar florist paste and cut it into strips to roll up to make the quills. I used two different colours which I stuck together by dampening on side lightly with some water. These were then rolled up into the shapes. The cake went down well and looked pretty cool too!