Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world...

Hello lovely readers! As many of you may realise we are now well into the summer holidays and the cup and tail girls are scattered all round the globe (well mainly just Europe but still far away nonetheless!) So as we all sit counting the days until we are finally reunited, baking keeps us sane, even if it is with a little alcohol. For a couple of us girls, the drink of choice is without a doubt the refreshing gin & tonic. We love it so much that our phones now autocorrect ‘got’ to g&t’… we prefer to call it gin enthusiasm rather than ‘a problem’.   

This week is the debut of our first cocktail cupcake recipe- Gin and Tonic cupcakes! Well that’s if you want to classify the almighty G&T as a cocktail (its alcohol all the same right?). If, like us, you prefer your gin with ice and a slice and a small splash of tonic at pretty much anytime of the day then there is no doubt you’re going to love this recipe. In the wise words of W.C. Fields “I never drink anything stronger than gin before breakfast”.

We realise that traditionally a G&T is served with a lime wedge but we tried the lemon slice and now just can’t decide which is better- the struggle is real! So in this recipe we opted for the lemon however feel free to mix it up if you wanna be faithful to the trusty limes!

Unfortunately we cant take full credit for this recipe, we found inspiration in the Primrose Bakery cookbook as shown in the picture below! We tweaked this as their cake recipe was a little complicated (sorry Lisa and Martha!) so we simplified it to work better for us. 

Makes 12 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

170g (6oz) Butter

170g (6oz) Sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

Zest of 2 Lemons

170g (6oz) Plain Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

For the Syrup:

Juice of 2 lemons

100g Sugar

100ml Tonic Water

100ml Gin

1 lemon

For the Buttercream:

115g Butter

60ml G&T Syrup (from above)

500g Icing Sugar

Method:

First make the syrup. In a pan heat the lemon juice (make sure you zest them before you take the juice as the zest is needed for the cake), sugar and tonic water until it boils. Then reduce to a medium heat and simmer for about 5 minutes- it should be syrupy and the sugar dissolved. Slice the last lemon into thin slices and add them to the pan and simmer for 2 more minutes. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the gin. If you can resist the temptation of drinking this straight from the pan, reserve 60ml of the syrup for the icing. Strain the remaining syrup, saving the lemon slices for decoration, and leave to cool.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla and lemon zest. Fold the flour and baking powder in carefully until everything is incorporated. Divide the mixture between the cupcake cases and bake for about 15mins or until they are golden and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and poke holes in the surface with a skewer. Using a pastry brush, brush the remaining syrup over each cupcake while they are still warm until it is all used. Leave to cool completely while you make the buttercream.

With an electric hand whisk, beat the butter, half the icing sugar, the syrup and vanilla. Once all this is creamy, add the remaining icing sugar and beat until super light and yummy looking. Top each cupcake however you feel necessary (we just used a knife) and decorate with the candied lemon slices leftover from making the syrup.

Tips and Tricks:

• Not a fan of gin? Even though you’re probably insane we’ll forgive you, leave the gin out and it still makes a beautiful lemon drizzle cake with a tonic twist.
• Prefer lime? That’s cool, switch the lemons for its greener little brother, works just as well.

We feel these are best served with a traditional G&T for a grown up afternoon tea- why not, you only live once! And it’s a great excuse not to have to share them with younger family members, cake for adults only, what could be better?! Better grab that cooking apron right now.. Enjoy!

Love the Cup & Tail Girls xxxx 

Revision Cocktails

Hello lovely readers! We're sure many of you have heard about the recent craze of detox waters, well so did we and they were an absolute life saver during exams! If like us you've had or are still unfortunately enduring the pain of exam season you'll definitely know the difficulty of actually sitting down and doing some revision (procrastination has evolved into procrasti-baking for us). However not only did these 'cocktails' cure our craving to escape to our favourite bar for a cheeky margarita but they also fulfilled our longing to experiment in the kitchen without taking up too much precious revision time.

Ingredients
Any type of fruit or (some) vegetables and possibly some fresh mint leaves
Favourite glass (or invest in a Mason drinking jar, you know you've always wanted one and here is your excuse)
A straw
Lots of ice!

Method
Slice up chosen fruit and vegetables, add with ice to glass and top up with water. Enjoy!

Tips & Tricks
EXPERIMENT! Be brave, you never know what could work.

Recommendations:

• Citrus Collection - lemon, lime and orange 
• Fresh Daiquiri - strawberry and lime 
• English Garden - cucumber, lemon and blueberries
• Tropical Blast - pineapple and mango 
• Non-alcholic Mojito - mint and lime

Hope this recipe helps you survive exam season, good luck everyone! You'll smash it! 

Love the Cup & Tail Girls 

xxxx

Did Someone Say Salted Caramel?!

Hello lovely readers! Yes, you did hear us right, this week we’ve been baking salted caramel cupcakes! The hype over salted caramel has somewhat erupted recently in everything from ice cream to bath bombs but honestly we believe you never can have too much of this lush combination!

The inspiration behind this recipe comes from an amazing recipe book: Celebrations by Primrose Bakery (if you don’t have it you should definitely add this to the Christmas list!). As a house we frequently fantasize over the yummy things we want to bake. However when this recipe cropped up… well needs must and all that, we just had no choice but to whip out the cooking aprons and get started!

As beautiful as this recipe is, we’ve adapted it to better suit our cooking methods- as students we don’t have copious amounts of spare time OR money so saving the pennies where we can really does make a difference. But fear not! This does not make them any less worthy of sitting on the golden throne to rule the salted caramel phenomenon. But we’ll leave that decision up too you, so here it is. Enjoy!

Ingredients (Makes 16 Cupcakes)

For the cake:

85g (3oz) Butter

85g (3oz) Sugar

3 Eggs

1tsp Vanilla Extract

85g (3oz) Self-Raising Flour

8 Squares of Caramel Chocolate

For the Buttercream:

110g Sugar

3tbsp Water

125ml Double Cream

1tsp Seasalt (plus a little extra to decorate)

100g Butter

200g Icing Sugar

Method:

For the cakes, first preheat the oven to 180 degrees c and in a bowl beat together the butter and sugar. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well after each is added (if you have a hand held whisk this may speed it up however it is not essential!). Mix in the vanilla and then slowly fold in the flour with a metal spoon until everything is mixed together. Spoon the mixture evenly into the cupcake cases (so each is about 2/3 full). Chop each of the chocolate caramel squares in half and push a piece into the centre of each filled case. Bake these for about 20 minutes.

The buttercream comes in two parts, the sauce and the icing. For the salted caramel sauce heat the sugar and water in a pan on a medium heat and let the sugar slowly dissolve. It is important not to stir this mixture with a spoon, swirl the pan gently if required. Once the sugar is dissolved turn the heat up to let the mixture boil until it turns a golden amber colour, then take off the heat. Meanwhile gently heat the cream with the seasalt in a pan but do not let it boil. Now for the fun bit, pour the cream in bit by bit to the sugar stirring it constantly (don’t worry it’s supposed to bubble) until it’s all mixed. Allow to cool.

When cooled, beat 200g of caramel sauce with the butter and icing sugar until smooth. Top each cake generously with the icing and eat before your housemates do!  

Tips and Tricks:
No butter? Margarine can substitute this but ONLY FOR THE CAKE MIX!
Seasalt is sort of essential (sorry but its a good general buy anyway!)
No caramel chocolate? The cakes will still taste just as good without them

Love the Cup & Tail Girls 

xxxx

Sunshine in a glass

Hello lovely readers! For those of you who are reading from the UK you are (hopefully) enjoying your long May Bank holiday weekend. Whatever your plans and whatever the weather (since its the United Kingdom chances of sunshine are slim), this passion fruit collins is sure to brighten your day!

Ingredients
2 shots gin
2 shots lemon juice (or lime)
1 shot sugar syrup
2 Passion fruits (halved)
Ice
Soda Water
Lemon (or lime) slices to garnish

Method
Scoop out pulp and seeds of passion fruits and combine with gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup into a cocktail shaker. Mix together and pour over ice into chosen glass. Top up with soda water, mix and garnish with a lemon slice.

Tip and Tricks
Don't buy sugar syrup! Save money and make your own; slowly heat water and sugar together until its all dissolved.
Too sour? Add more sugar syrup if it suits you
Sugar Alternative: Tesco suggest a squeeze of honey works just as well as sugar syrup
Don't like gin? We are confident that many other types of spirits will also work, try experimenting!

May is a really busy month for us due to exams however we look forward to freedom of summer and blogging to our hearts content. We can't take the credit for this little pick-me-up, the original recipe can be found here (thanks Tesco!).

Love the Cup & Tail Girls 

xxxx

A little dessert never hurt no one...

Hello lovely readers! Everyone knows the classic Sticky Toffee Pudding but did you ever imagine it in cupcake form!? Neither did we until we discovered it on Great British Chefs website. This seems like an extremely lengthy post but the method isn't as tricky as it seems and is ttooottaaallllyyy worth it! Have we ever been wrong before...the correct answer is no.

Remember our first Instagram post?

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes
Ingredients
400g dates (stoned)
2 mugs of fairly weak black tea
200g light muscovado sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
4 eggs
200g unsalted butter (melted)
3 teaspoons of mixed spice
Splash of vanilla extract
350g self raising flour
2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda
Pinch of salt

Method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Roughly chop dates and add to pan with tea. Simmer gently for a few minutes, then blitz until a smooth paste in blender. In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar and syrup until combined, gradually add melted butter. Stir in date paste and vanilla and mix well. Fold in all the dry ingredients and spoon into your cupcake cases. Bake for 15 minutes or until an inserted knife comes out clean. Whilst these are cooking, make the toffee sauce as below. Once the cakes are out the oven, prick each with a fork and pour a little sauce over each cupcake.

Sticky Toffee Sauce
Ingredients
100g light muscovado sugar
50g dark muscovado sugar
30g butter
2 tablespoons of golden syrup
Splash of vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
125ml condensed milk

Method
To a pan add both sugars, butter, syrup, vanilla and salt. Melt together until combined and bring to a gentle boil. Take off heat then stir in the condensed milk. Half is to be drizzled onto the hot cakes and the other is left to cool to flavour the buttercream.

Buttercream
Ingredients 
200g unsalted butter (softened)
400g icing sugar
Half the cold Sticky Toffee Sauce (see recipe above)

Method
Whisk butter until light then slowly add icing sugar until combined. Add the rest of the cooled toffee sauce, keeping a little aside to drizzle on top as decoration, and whisk in. Layer generously on top of cupcakes and drizzle with remaining sauce. Enjoy!

Tips and Tricks
No blender on hand? No need to blend the dates and tea, it will still taste great just with a different consistency.
Buttercream too stiff? Add a little milk
No dark muscovado sugar? Its only for added colour so isn't essential. Just add 50g more of light muscovado sugar.

Makes approximately 20 cupcakes however we created a large sandwich cake with this recipe as we were celebrating another birthday (we just can't get enough of them!). We made these awhile ago however after finishing this blog post we may do some midnight baking, although thats nothing out of the ordinary for us Cup & Tail Girls. We know you'll enjoy them as much as we do. Recipe was originally found here.

Happy 20th Divya (housemate and Cup & Tail girl to be)!

Love the Cup & Tail Girls 

xxxx

Sweet Twen-teen Part 2: The Cocktail

Hello lovely readers! As promised we are finally going to share with you Lizzie's favourite cocktail: the very underrated Purple Dream! We know what you're thinking, milk!? In a COCKTAIL!? HELL NO!? Honestly just give it a try, don't knock it till you try it (Keita's life motto). 

The beautiful birthday gal with her favourite drink in her hand (of course). 

Ingredients 

1 and a half shots of Chambord (or any other raspberry liqueur) 

Half a shot of chocolate liqueur 

175ml of milk (any diary free alternative should work too)

Method 

Add all ingredients into cocktail shaker with ice and SHAKE IT! We would recommend straining into a glass for the best result.

Apologises this is an eeexxxxtremely late post, exam season is upon us (cue crying) but we will try to post a few favourites we've got lined up ready for you. Including salted caramel cupcakes, passion fruit collins and sticky toffee cupcakes. Sorry we've been a bit off the grid but you can still catch us on our Twitter (@cupandtails) and Instagram (@CupandTails). 

Love the Cup & Tail Girls 

xxxx

Sweet Twen-teen Part 1: The Cake

Hello lovely readers! In this house us girls are BIG on celebrations, heck we'll celebrate a Monday if we feel like it! So when it comes to birthdays we go all out, especially on cake and drink. Since February was Lizzie's birthday month we have decided to share her favourite cupcake and cocktail recipes with you, as mentioned in our Introduction blog post. 

This is Lizzie's birthday cake, doesn't it look pretty! It not only tasted amazing but was also the inspiration behind our white chocolate cupcake recipe we're gonna share with you all today! We tried many variations of this recipe until we got it right, it wasn't as easy as we thought. We can't say this is the worlds best, however we think its pretty close.

White Chocolate Cupcakes (makes 10)
4oz Butter
3oz Sugar 
2 eggs 
A drop of Vanilla extract 
4oz Self-Raising Flour 
5oz White Chocolate 

Heat the oven to 180 degrees. Melt 3 and a half oz (100g) of white chocolate. We suggest doing this gently in a bowl sitting over a pan of hot water (a Bain-marie for all you baking enthusiasts!) and stirring occasionally. 

Once complete set aside to cool slightly. In a separate bowl beat together butter and sugar until a lighter colour. Add eggs one at a time plus vanilla, mixing until combined. Then add the flour and once combined stir in the cooled melted chocolate. 

Spoon evenly into the cases (fill 3/4 full) and bake for 15 minutes or until a knife comes out of the cake clean. Please keep an eye on them after 10 minutes as all ovens cook differently (however if you're like us, we like to sit and watch them cook in the oven anyway so this won't be a problem!).

White Chocolate Buttercream 
100g white chocolate 
100g butter 
250g icing sugar 
A dash of milk 
White chocolate shavings for decoration 

Melt white chocolate, using the same method as the cake recipe, and set aside. Then beat butter, icing sugar and milk together until smooth. When you're ready to ice the cakes, beat the cooled melted chocolate into the icing. Use the finished icing straight away because it will set very quickly after use. Decorate with toppings of your choice. 

Tips and Tricks 

• Don't panic if they look too brown! Due to the high sugar content (because of the white chocolate) this is normal. 
• Don't want to eat them all at once? (although we doubt this will happen) Store them in an airtight container for up to a week.
• For the smoothest of buttercream use an electric hand whisk 
• Can't buy chocolate shavings? Put your white chocolate in the fridge for an hour and use a veg peeler to grate curls from the cold chocolate block.
• Make sure the melted is cooled to avoid ruining the icing 

As this was a birthday celebration we modified the recipe to create Lizzie's super awesome birthday cake (see first photo)! For this all we did was doubled both the cake and icing recipe and baked in two round cake tins for 25-30 mins. 

This went down a treat alongside Lizzie's favourite cocktail, Purple dream. Fear not, this much anticipated recipe will be on its way very soon! 

Love the Cup & Tail Girls xxxx