The best pancakes ever

There are pancakes, and then there are crispy-edged, light and fluffy American pancakes.

My flatmate shared this recipe with me, and it has been somewhat of a morning mantra – a guarantee of no more lousy breakfasts, as long as we've got eggs and milk in the fridge, and I'm willing to get out the mixing bowl.

This recipe is the one. If you're still looking for the perfect recipe, look no further than below.

Ingredients:

135g/4¾ oz plain flour

1tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

2 tbsp caster sugar

130ml/4½ fl oz milk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking

Instructions:

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and caster sugar into a large bowl. In a separate bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the milk and egg, then whisk in the melted butter.
2. Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture, and using a fork, beat until you have a smooth batter. Any lumps will soon disappear with a little mixing. Let the batter stand for a few minutes.
3. Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add a knob of butter (or olive oil). When it's melted, add a ladle of batter (or two is your frying pan is big enough to cook two pancakes at the same time). Push fruit into the batter in the pan now if you wish. It will seem very thick but this is how it should be. Wait until the top of the pancake begins to bubble, then turn it over and cook until both sides are golden brown and the pancake has risen to about 1cm (½in) thick.
4. Repeat until all the batter is used up. Add butter or oil to the pan before each pancake for a better result.
5. Serve immediately with maple syrup, chocolate, or extra butter.

New York Style Cheesecake

This recipe produces a perfect cheesecake – creamy, sweet, and addictive. I mean. Check. It. Out. New York Style, no less.

This sunshine circle of happiness is brought to you (and me) by Chef John from foodwishes.com.

New York Style Cheesecake

(recipe from foodwishes)

Ingredients:

3 tbsp melted butter

18 graham crackers/digestive biscuits, crushed finely

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 cup sour cream

1 tbsp vanilla extract

4 8oz packages of cream cheese

1½ cups white sugar

⅔ cup milk

4 eggs

1 tsp finely grated lemon zest

1tsp finely grated orange zest

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 175ºc.

2. Lightly grease a 9-inch springform pan.

3. Mix crackers/biscuits and melted butter in a bowl until evenly moistened. Press crumb mixture into the bottom and about half an inch up the sides of the springform pan.

4. Whisk flour, sour cream and vanilla extract in a bowl, and set aside.

5. Stir cream cheese and sugar with a wooden spoon in a large bowl until evenly incorporated, about 3 to 5 minutes.

6. Pour milk into cream cheese mixture and whisk until just combined.

7. Whisk in eggs, one at a time, stirring well after each addition.

8. Stir in lemon and orange zests, and sour cream mixture. Whisk until just incorporated.

9. Pour mixture into springform pan and bake for about an hour, when the edges have puffed up slightly and the surface of the cheesecake is firm except for a small spot in the middle which should jiggle when the pan is gently shaken.

10. When the baking time is over, turn off the oven and let it cool in the oven for 3 to 4 hours to prevent cracks in the cheesecake.

Frozen Cream Cheese Frosting Sandwich

So you made some pumpkin cupcakes or carrot cake last night, and topped it with cream cheese frosting, which everybody knows is the best thing ever.

And then...

...plot twist: There's leftover cream cheese frosting.

But wait! Before you stick your finger into the bowl or hold the piping nozzle over your mouth, run out to the shops (or open your cupboard if you're lucky enough) and grab a packet of digestive/tea biscuits – that's all you need for these frozen cream cheese frosting sandwiches.

Frozen Cream Cheese Frosting Sandwiches

makes ~15 sandwiches

3 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 oz cream cheese, at room temperature

¾ cups icing sugar

¼ tsp vanilla extract

¼ tsp cinnamon (optional)

~30 digestive/tea biscuits

OR

how ever much cream cheese frosting you have left

how ever much digestive/tea biscuits is available to you

Instructions (really?)

To make the frosting:

1. In an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, (I used whisk attachments and it was fine) beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.

2. Reduce the speed and gradually add icing sugar, beating until just incorporated.

3. Add vanilla and cinnamon until well combined.

4. Increase speed to medium high and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.

Assembly:

1.Pipe or spread cream cheese frosting generously on the flat side of one biscuit, leaving a little bit of space on the edges for the frosting to ooze out with pressure, and cover with the flat side of another.

2. Freeze for at least an hour.

The end product will be a sweet, delicious and moreish dessert snack which is super easy to make. The frosting hardens into an ice cream-like texture which holds itself well between the biscuits. Really, there's no excuse not to make these.

Oreo Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake Bars

If there's one thing I know for sure, it is that baking is not for people who can't handle mess. These tediously-named Oreo Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake Bars will piss you off if you're not careful enough!

Fresh out of the oven, they look fine and dandy, and smell inviting as well. A little handling makes you realise that Oreo crumbs are falling everywhere like goddamn apocalyptic mudslides.

Crises aside, the Oreo Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake Bars were a good turnout. Initially, I assumed that the bars would be some sort of cookie-but-a-cake-too baking breakthrough, with the bonus aspect of Oreo cookies. I'm not too familiar with Snickerdoodle cookies either, so I wasn't too sure what the cake version of it was supposed to be.

This is pretty much a butter cake with crusty outsides and additional Oreos, cut into little blocks for bite-sized enjoyment. The Oreos do more for its presentation rather than its taste, which is mainly of butter cake.

Before things started getting messy

The edges and corners are the best, be sure to keep those bits for yourself!

Oreo Snickerdoodle Cookie Cake Bars

(adapted from little accidents in the kitchen)

Ingredients:

12 oreos (double stuff, obviously, if you can help it.)
192g flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
85g butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar (don't reduce this, it won't turn out too sweet, trust me.)
1/8 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 egg

Instructions:

1. Pull apart the Oreos by twisting them. Set aside the cookie with the cream layer attached. Crumble the layer without the cream into fine crumbs.

2. Sieve and whisk together flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.

3. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add milk, vanilla essence and egg and beat till smooth.

4. Fold in the flour mixture till just combined. Your batter will be pretty stiff and airy.

5. Spread a thin layer of cookie dough onto a 8x6 inch baking dish (mine was a little glass casserole) lined with baking paper.

6. Arrange the side of the 12 Oreo cookies with the cream layer onto the cookie dough, cream side up. (They'll probably overlap a little) Spread the rest of the cookie dough on.

7. Sprinkle some of the Oreo crumbs over the dough (don't use all of it, otherwise your Oreo crumbs will avalanche all over your kitchen table. I learned the hard way.) and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 40 to 45 minutes.

8. Remove from the baking dish and allow to cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares and serve.


I wonder whether, if we mix the crushed oreos with butter and keep it in the fridge for a bit, we could form a sort of Oreo-spread for the top, which would stay together in the behaviour of a cheesecake crust. That would be a good solution to an ineffective sparse sprinkle.

It's Singapore's annual 'Teacher's Day' tomorrow, and I'll be heading to my previous school with twelve pairs of these bars to hand out to certain teachers and friends. They look pretty enticing, don't they?

Princess of Wales

The Princess of Wales Pub is located near Primrose Hill, on a bright, wealthy residential street. A little challenging to get to, especially on a hot summer's day with the London Underground acting up on a typical weekend, forcing you to squeeze on replacement bus services with sweat clinging on to everything.

Colourful nearby houses

I decided to pay this particular pub – which is quite out of the way for me – a visit as a result of winning Zomato's weekly Write-For-A-Bite contest. (They did originally offer me £50 off my bill at Bacco's, but there was some complication with the restaurant, so they gave me £30 off The Princess of Wales instead.)

The view from atop Primrose Hill

The pub was quiet upon our arrival at 1.30pm. (The transport delayed us for an hour. Welcome to London!) The sun was shining, and the shutters were wide open. The place is wood-panelled all over, with the bar in the middle, and there's a cosy garden-basement just down the stairs.

English pubs are great for getting, well, English food. My sister ordered some chicken with gravy and a Yorkshire pudding, as it was Sunday, and they had roast specials with a live jazz band playing at 4pm! The chicken was tender, the gravy just-right, and the veggies soft and generous.

Her husband got a prawn salad with beetroot, which was part of the Sunday specials as a main, but it was quite a scarce portion for the price. (approx. £13)

I got grilled sea bass with potatoes, sliced courgette, and smoked mackerel pâté. The sea bass was very impressive – it had a tasty, crispy skin, and soft meat. The mackerel pâté was particularly interesting – smoky, fishy, tasty, but rather oily – and went well with the cool courgette salad.

By the time the jazz band started playing, the pub was filled and buzzed with summer, pint-induced liveliness. Dessert was a scoop of salted caramel-flavoured ice cream atop a nut-filled brownie. The brownie had rather hard edges, but a soft, cake-y inside. The salted caramel ice cream was so good, I was tempted to lick the plate clean.

We ended up with a bill of about £60, but the voucher helped to pay half of that. The Princess of Wales is a great place to chill and have drinks with friends. Sunday brings you more reasons to visit, due to the roast specials and the live jazz band. A walk afterwards on Primrose Hill followed by a nap under a tree – there was no better way to complete this particular summer Sunday.

The Princess of Wales

22 Chalcot Road

London NW1 8LL

0207 722 0354

Flor Patisserie by Chef Yamashita

Flor Patisserie is a little bit of a trek for those who don't know the area well. Its closest MRT (stands for 'Mass Rapid Transit' – Singapore's version of the Tube/Underground) stations are Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar, but Janice, Venetia and I unknowingly took a long walk from Outram Park Station with the help of a smartphone.

The patisserie is small – there's a capacity of six diners within the shop, with another three or so additional sets of tables and stools outside along the walkway. A few shelves affixed on the wall holds little bags of special cake-slices and cookies which are up for sale, such as walnut cookies, chocolate madeleines, butter cakes, coffee biscuits, sesame cookies, etc. Most of these have a covered bowl of sampling pieces by their side, which is great for curious tasters like myself.

The three-tiered display cabinet by the cashier was empty other than the top shelf, which was quite a shame, as options were limited, and it showed. Janice and I went for the mont blanc (above) for SG$6.95. (£3.50) After unwrapping the surrounding foil, there lay a light yellow sponge cylinder topped with chestnut cream, pierced by chocolate curls and a flaky pastry shard. Unfortunately, the latter was soggy and papery, and I felt that the dessert should have done without it.

The taste of the entire cake was extremely subtle, a la Japanese baking style of Chef Yamashita. The first bite didn't speak much, but the light chestnut flavour came through with more bites, and a single sweet chestnut is later revealed under the carefully-piped cream. Both the texture of the sponge and cream was light and airy, very easy to eat. It was my first time trying a mont blanc, and I quite enjoyed it, but I must say that it was overpriced for its size.

On a side note, check out this video of a Japanese YouTuber mum making 'dessert soba noodles'! (Actually a giant mont blanc) Watch until the end, her daughter's reaction is priceless.

I had a bit of Venetia's Wakakusayama, [pause to catch breath] which is a green tea Swiss roll filled with red bean cream, topped with fruits and sweet chestnuts. (SG$7.30, £3.65)

Janice is busy Insagramming her mont blanc too. A table full of mentally unstable people.

The flavour of green tea was strong in this cake. Rather heavy, almost bitter, not for those who usually stick to sweet treats. The red bean cream had a lot of authentic red bean taste, which is special to taste. 

My friends and I decided to share an 'Ice Cheese Tart' out of curiosity. Each tart costs SG$3.40 (£1.70), and has varieties of strawberry, green tea, maple, mango, chocolate & orange, yuzu and caramel, which we ended up choosing.

The 'Ice Cheese Tart' turned out to be pretty much a frozen mini-cheesecake stuck fast to a paper mould, with an almond biscuit base. It was pretty annoying trying to bite or cut through the rock-solid cheesecake, but we didn't have patience to wait for it to thaw either.

The taste of the cheese tart was striking, and absolutely great. There's a distinct saltiness in the cream cheese which really improves the flavour of it. I didn't notice any obvious caramel flavour, but I'm guessing it was infused into the cream cheese somehow. I wouldn't mind going back to try the other flavours, especially maple, but I do wish they would sell these un-frozen!

Just when the three of us thought that we'd had enough cake for the day, a tray of Strawberry Soufflé (SG$6.60, £3.30) magically appeared on the only-occupied shelf in the display cabinet when it wasn't there before, threatening to become dessert for our dessert!

Gotta have it, we thought. It was okay height-wise, but was a narrow slice. Piled with blueberries and strawberries encased in clear jelly, the cake is made up of a thick middle layer of light, aerated cheesecake topped with chantilly cream and strawberry chunks, all sandwiched between light sponge cake, plus fine biscuit crumbs stuck to the side.

It was a very impressive cake, and I loved the hint of lemon in the cheesecake, which gave it a quiet, pleasant tang. Despite it being cheesecake, it was not too rich at all, because of the soufflé technique used to create an airy texture. The other two girls commented on sour strawberries, but the ones I ate seemed fine. This is a cake I'd come back for, it's delicious.

Due to the long walk under the hot, late-afternoon sun, we each got iced tea to cool ourselves down and quench our thirst. Janice went for green tea, Venetia a peach tea, and for myself, a mango tea. (SG$4.50, £2.25, except for the green tea which was slightly cheaper)

The teas were very pure – teabag, water, ice cubes, and no added sugar. I could barely taste mango in mine, but it was refreshing, nevertheless. The staff at Flor gladly lets you top up the water in your cup, so you can maximise the use of the teabag.

We each ended up spending about SG$15 (£7.50) per person, with all the drinks and shared cakes. Not somewhere one would frequent as a student, but a nice, quiet place to go for an occasional dessert-escapade, especially if you're into Japanese desserts.

Flor Patisserie
#01-01
2 Duxton Hill
Singapore 089588
+65 6223 8628
http://www.cakeflor.com.sg/

(Another branch at Siglap, plus a Takeaway at Takashimaya too.)

IKEA

I had never realized how much strategic planning goes into the layout of every IKEA megastore. When I was younger, my route simply headed straight up the escalators and into the ballpit-playground for about two hours, making friends and enemies within the mass of multi-coloured spheres, before coming out into reality and heading home in a car full of large cardboard boxes and plastic things.

The food bit didn't seem relevant to me until I sat down in the IKEA Resturant one day with my mum and had some poached salmon slathered with what I know now as hollandaise sauce, and it absolutely blew my mind and made me fall in love with salmon fillets. My mum also started to buy a seemingly never-ending supply of Swedish meatballs, as well as lingönberry jam and that creamy, brown, magical gravy. She'd pop them in the oven and I'd have about fifteen of them for dinner, with fries and hot gravy. Mmm.

About two weeks ago, my friend, Esther, and I, shared a few plates of food picked out from the various 'stations' in Wembley's IKEA restaurant which vaguely resembles an Oliver Twist-esque food queue, with the generic grey trays and all. However, the place had a lovely, large and homely interior with golden wood, and simple but chic lighting.

Esther is a queen.

Ten meatballs were £3.89, and they came with gravy, a free flow of jam, as well as mashed potatoes and steamed carrots. Some other customers had fries with their meatballs, but I'm guessing that they came with the larger quantities. The meatballs were bouncy and tasty -- flawless, and never failing to impress.

The salad bar had a small variety of beans, leafy greens, beetroot, giant couscous,coleslaw and cucumber. For a the size of a soup bowl, it was somewhere between £2-3. (There was a fixed price but I can't remember it now.)

The salmon and spinach lasagne was a generous portion, and tasted so good. Warm, browned lasagne layers encompassing fluffy salmon bits and fragrant spinach -- it was quite filling as well!

There is also a free flow of coffee, which one has to pay (If I remember correctly, it was about 95p per cup or something like that) for per possession of mug, unless you have IKEA FAMILY membership -- then you get free coffee on weekdays!



And of course, who can resist their desserts?

No, salad leaf, you are healthy, get out of the picture.



Filled with whipped cream and held by a yummy shortcrust pastry, this strawberry tart was simply heaven.

Their quality-control is really good as well. Every tart looks the same, and just by looking, you can tell that each one tastes absolutely yummy. I guess it is due to the fact that we are talking about IKEA, and they probably handle their food like their generic, please-all furniture.

The almond cake with chocolate and butterscotch pieces (£1.75) was too good-looking to resist. The layered, nutty sponge cake has a lovely caramel-like flavour, and when topped with butterscotch, whipped cream and chocolate, there is a rich blissfulness which is not overpowering due to the presence of the almond sponge layers. 

There is a lot of apple in this Swedish Apple Cake (£1.45), which is great. At a glance, one would think that the apple in encased in shortcrust pastry, similar to the likes of an apple pie, but upon closer inspection, the 'pastry' is actually a firm cake, which I guess is what makes it Swedish. Customers are promised vanilla sauce, but I guess they ran out, because we got a blob of whipped cream instead. I would have preferred the cake warm, rather than cold from being stored on the chilled shelves. It's alright, but I'm not a huge fan of this one.

The Chocolate Truffle Cake (95p) was what you'd expect from a truffle – rich, dense, and chocolatey. It might be a bit too rich for an entire bar, but it was alright when served with whipped cream and shared with a friend.

This pretty much sums up our IKEA trip.

After the long and tedious journey through the land of beds, tables, plates, potted plants, toys, and the final showdown of the ceiling-high shelves of brown boxes, we made it to the cashier, which felt as good as reaching the finish-line of a marathon track. All I checked out was a bottle of Dryck Bubbel Apple & Lingön, which is a sparkling drink made of apple juice and Lingönberries. (£1.89) It is a sweet and satisfying drink, and both flavours compliment each other well –neither overpowers the other.

My bottle is green, though.

Like a drink stall for the said marathon track, there is a bistro just beyond the cashiers which sells hot dogs for 60p along with soft drinks, soft-serve ice cream cones, cinnamon buns and doughnuts. Perfect for the exhausted shopper. Sneaky.

Next to the bistro is the Swedish Food Market, which sells Swedish food (no shit, Sherlock.), some featured in the IKEA restaurant earlier on, such as the apple cake and the almond-layered cake thing. Of course, there are frozen meatballs, packets of gravy mix, jars of lingönberry jam, and packets of vanilla sauce mix for the cakes. Other popular Swedish items such as herring roe, cod roe, salmon, and oat biscuits (I sampled some of these – really really nice.) were aplenty on the shelves.

Like Choccie Dodgers, Kakor Choklad (50p!) is a sandwich biscuit filled with chocolate ganache, with a portion of it peeking out through a heart-shaped hole in the top biscuit, which is a plain butter biscuit, while the bottom one is a chocolate biscuit.

Wow. The chocolate filling really is something. It is thick, creamy, and has a fragrant chocolate taste, without the sweet, milky, artificial THIS-IS-CHOCOLATE-DO-YOU-HEAR-ME flavouring you sometimes get in other cookies. 

See that map on my screen? I'm planning world domination at the moment.

Also sold at a great price of 50p, Kex Äpple looked interesting to me. I bought it thinking that it would contain an apple-flavoured filling, but the biscuit sandwich was filled with vanilla-flavoured filling, while an apple-flavoured candy occupies the heart-shaped hole. What?

Okay, the filling was good and the biscuits had a good, firm texture without being too crumbly.

The candy did have a lovely apple taste, but that little centre is the only instance during which you have any apple taste at all – the rest of the biscuit is a normal vanilla sandwich cookie. The apple taste didn't even spread. Furthermore, that candy was hard. Not hard like rock-hard, but more gooey-hard, like a licorice stick. Determined to prolong the lifespan of the apple flavour to last throughout the entire biscuit, I bit into half of the candy bit and had to wait a good 4 seconds wiggling the biscuit about, trying to rip apart that damned heart. IKEA could have been much smarter with this biscuit.

I can't wait to go back to IKEA to try the rest of their budget-priced foods!

IKEA - Wembley

2 Drury Way

North Circular Road

London

NW10 0TH

0845 355 1141

Opening hours:

Monday to Friday	10:00 am – 10:00 pm
Saturday	9:00 am – 10:00 pm
Sunday	11:00 am – 5:00 pm

La Creperie Bretonne Part 2

Click here for part one.

I didn't take a picture of the crêpe which I had for lunch, because I gobbled it up in what felt like three seconds.

This was my second time in La Creperie Bretonne, the humble café situated next to the St Margarets Railway Station. I'm with Emma this time, who also happens to be the lucky recipient of my best Drawsomething attempt ever:

I can't believe I didn't take a picture of my crêpe pancake, but you should have seen it. It was big and drizzled with light-coloured maple syrup and powdered sugar, with a light, spongy texture despite its thinness. Emma thought it was rather sweet, but I really enjoyed it.

Emma had a Chicken and Mushroom Panini, which was cut into quarters and served with potato chips.

It was so. Good.

The white bread was grilled to perfection – crispy (but not too crispy) on the outside, with dark grill-lines, and the chicken and mushrooms were simple but tasty, and there may have been some cheese in it which caused a real melt-in-your-mouth effect.

It's hard to resist dessert in a café with a display cabinet. I chose some sort of honey layered sponge cake, while Emma got a classic Billionaire Shortbread Slice.

The cake wasn't made by the café, as there was a label with a brand name in the display cabinet which started with an "M", but I simply can't remember what it was. (Update 11/16/13: This is called Medovik, and is a Russian Honey layered cake.) Anyway, this was one of the fluffiest cakes I've ever had. The fork squeezes the cake about three quarters of the way down before anything is cut. The cake is moist and delightfully fragrant, and the icing on the top creates a nice...

I never know what the word for it is. It isn't a crunch, but you can still hear something when you bite into icing.

... er, texture. 

A Millionaire Shortbread Slice can almost never go wrong. For those who are unfamiliar with this British/Australian triple-threat, it is basically a layer of shortbread, soft caramel and chocolate, all combined into a calorific slice of death. The texture of the layers go brilliantly with each other, with slightly crunchy chocolate, smooth caramel and soft, crumbly shortbread. It is decadent.

La Crêperie Bretonne hasn't disappointed me yet, and I can't wait for my next visit. 

La Creperie Bretonne

113 The Broadway
St Margarets

United Kingdom

Click here for part three!

Maple and Pecan cupcakes

Recipe from abakedcreation

Get some pretty cupcake liners and place them in a patterned order for no particular reason.

Chop up some pecan nuts, then realize that crushing them in a plastic bag would've been easier, quicker and less messy.

Add some maple syrup to cupcake batter and take a big sniff.

Put in more stuff, as well as the pecan nuts, and wonder why the batter looks like a puddle of sick.

Make a cool-ass caramel and pecan card and hold it up in wonder.

Wonder why caramel is so magical.

Like, magic.

Take more pictures because you can't believe it.

Think that it looks like a nut army swimming in beer.

Take a deep breath and try to crack the card evenly.

Tell yourself that you succeeded,

sort of.

Eat some bits of caramel.

(I'm running out of instructions)

...

Stop playing with the caramel and fetch your cupcakes from the oven.

Slab maple buttercream on the cupcakes and stick the caramel and pecan chunks on them.

Feel proud.

Very proud.

Take pictures from all sorts of angles.

MAPLE AND PECAN CUPCAKES

(adapted from abakingcreation)

To make the [12] cupcakes:

Ingredients

60g of pecan nuts
110g unsalted butter, room temperature
40g brown sugar
160 ml pure maple syrup
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour

Instructions

1. Put the pecan nuts in a plastic bag and crush them with your fingers or a rolling pin, but not too finely (see photo above). If you want to look more like a professional and less like an angsty madman, you can use a knife to chop them up.
2. Preheat your oven to 180°C and line your tray with cupcake liners.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until smooth.
4. Pour in the maple syrup and mix well.
5. Add in the eggs one at a time and mix until incorporated.
6. Gently fold the sifted self-raising flour into the batter until well incorporated.
7. Fold in the chopped pecans.
8. Use an ice cream scoop to evenly distribute your batter into the liners, filling them about 2/3 full. (I just poured them, it will come up to the right amount for 12 cupcakes if you have functional estimation skills)
9. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a cake tester (i.e. toothpick or a stray fork) comes out clean.
10. Let the cupcakes cool while you make icing and toppings.

To make the caramelized pecan toppings:

Ingredients

60g granulated sugar

12 pecan halves (what you get in packets are already halves)

Instructions

1. Pour the sugar in the middle of a heavy-based saucepan and heat it until it turns a pale golden-brown colour. Do not stir with a spoon, but you can tilt the pan to spread the caramel. Do not let the caramel burn into a dark-brown colour.
2. Spread the pecans on a non-stick pan or a silicon baking mat, and evenly pour the sugar over the pecans immediately after removing it from the heat.
3. Leave it to cool and harden. Once caramel is ready, remove from mat/pan and break into even pieces.

To make Maple syrup buttercream icing:

Ingredients

110g unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups icing sugar

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

Instructions

1. Using a mixer, beat the butter and icing sugar until smooth.
2. Gradually add in maple syrup and continue mixing until it becomes smooth buttercream.

And we put it all together!

If you have a piping bag, you'll have prettier cupcakes. As you can see, this isn't in the recipe's font because I trust you should know what to do with the three components which you've got. But if you have no basic common sense, what you do is you spread/pipe the buttercream on top of the cupcake, (try not to spread them all the way to the edges like I did) and stick the caramelized pecans on top of the icing, as well as remaining caramel bits.

I have reduced the amount of sugar in the cupcake recipe, to play it safe when faced with maple syrup.

These cupcakes are absolutely delicious. The combination of maple and pecan never fails to impress, and the nuts in the cupcake give a delightful crunch to it. It is so much fun to make, especially with the caramelized pecans. I'm definitely doing this again, when I have recovered from my sugar rush.