Pink Vanilla and Rose Cupakes

I love these because they're so pretty!

Ingredients

(makes 6)

For the cupcakes:

50g self-rasing flour

50g caster sugar

50g margarine

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

1 egg

a few drops of red food colouring

For the rose butter-cream topping:

200g unsalted butter

50g icing sugar

1 1/2 tsp rose essence

a few drops of red food colouring

6 sugared rose petals

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C

Whisk together all the ingredients of the cupcakes in a large bowl until smooth

Spoon the cupcake mix into cupcake cases

Bake for about 15 mins then allow to cool.

While the cupcakes are cooling make the topping

Cream the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl

Whip in rose essence and food colouring

Pipe the butter-cream topping onto the cooled cupcakes.

Decorate each cupcake with a sugared rose petal

Lemon and Ginger Tea Meringues

This recipe was inspired by the egg foams part of Dr Heve This's lecture I wrote about in my Science of Cooking post . It makes an amazing amount of the most beautiful melt-in-your-mouth meringues from very little ingredients.

Ingredients:

(Makes about 50)

For the meringue:

100g caster sugar

2 egg whites
75ml hot water
1 lemon and ginger tea bag

2 tsp lemon juice

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 120 C
Make the tea buy putting tea bag in the hot water.

While the tea cools, whisk the egg whites, sugar and lemon into soft peaks.

Then slowly add the tea and whisk until very stiff.

Pipe small whirls of meringue mix (about 6cm diameter) onto a non-stick baking sheet.

Bake in the oven for 1 1/4 mins until the meringue in completely dry.

The Science Of Cooking

Something that I have become interested in recently is finding out about the science of cooking and why ingredients react the way they do to different conditions and processes. I feel that the more I understand this, the more experimental I can be with my recipes, and the greater chance that they will work.

I have just finished reading The science of cooking by Dr. Peter Barham. Dr Barham is at the forefront of scientific understanding of  molecular gastronomy (essentially the science of cooking), yet the science of cooking is a fantastic book that explains the science behind cookery in an engaging understandable way. It also contains great simple recipes to demonstrate the concepts that are explained.

I also just watched this brilliant lecture given by Dr Herve This, another giant of molecular gastronomy given at Imperial College. It is both amusing and enlightening an well worth any hour of anyones time.