My Mini Cupcakes La Blanche

Hi Everyone, my name is Ilanit and I love baking. Welcome to my new blog, a place that will be all about the love of baking. Some recipes are my own and some are a family secret, but also I will include a lot of favorite recipes I collected along the years from known chefs and cooks. In every recipe you will be able to find the original source if there is one. All recipes have been tried successfully by myself and tasted by my loved ones. I will try to post my creations, my passion and my love as often as I can. 

So, for a little starter I'm posting one of my favorite cupcakes recipe. The Little cupcake above was one of 50 mini white chocolate and orange cupcakes, I made for a dear friend for her engagement party. They were devoured with there dark chocolate friends by a pack of hungry guests.
Now the recipe dose make a LOT of cupcakes! (100 mini cupcakes or 50 regular size). But it can be easily halved and make 50 mini cupcakes or 25 regular size. Just do the math right and you'll get there. Plus you can never have too many cupcakes! But if you do want to save some for later they are very much freezable. Freeze them as they are and apply icing after defrosted.  

Mini Cupcakes La Blanche

White Chocolate & orange mini cupcakes. Great for Parties and entertainment.

Makes 100 prep: 20min cook: 15min +decorating time

For the cakes: 

450 gr (3 cups)        Self raising flour 

250 gr (1 1/4 cups)  Raw sugar

185 gr (1 1/4 cups)  White chocolate bits

325ml (1 1/4 cups)  Milk

250 gr         Butter

4                 Eggs
1 tsp           Vanilla extract
orange zest from 2 oranges

For the frosting:

200 gr                   White chocolate roughly chopped

265 gr (1/2 cup)    Cream
Sprinkles or lollies, to decorate

Preparation: 

Preheat oven to 200°C/180°C fan forced. Grease a 12 x mini cupcake tray or line holes with paper cases. (If you have two trays, the baking process will be quicker since you can bake two trays at a time).

Sift flour and caster sugar in a bowl. Stir in the chocolate bits. Make a well in the center.

Melt butter in the microwave and set a side to cool.

In the meantime beat the eggs is a small bowl using a fork. Zest the oranges.

Add milk, butter, eggs, vanilla and orange zest to the flour mixture.

Using a large metal spoon, stir gently to combine. Be careful not to over stir.

Spoon mixture into prepared muffin pan. (I fond it easier to pipe them into the casings with a large round spout so he chocolate bits can go through. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

Stand in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

Repeat baking process until the mixture is finished.

To make the frosting:

Place cream and chocolate into a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (Ban-Marie). Stir with a metal spoon until smooth.

Remove from heat. Refrigerate for 30 minutes, or until a spreadable consistency.

When cooled spread the icing over the cupcakes. You can also use a decorating bag with spar spout to pipe pretty little flowers, and place a little sugar flower or lollies on each one.

Notes:
1. You can use soy milk, I did.
2. In my old oven it took 20 min to bake 2 trays at a time. The baking time might change with your oven, especially if you are cooking one tray at a time.
3. You can use a regular size cupcake tray if you want to, it will make about 50 cupcakes and cooking time might vary. 
4. You can make everything a day before an event and decorate on the day. If you do, take the icing out of the fridge about an hour before you start decorating. It will make the icing more comfortable to use.