NPR interviewed How to Be a Domestic Goddess author Nigella Lawson (and has some recipes) and here's what she says about cupcakes. Click through for her recipes for chocolate cherry cupcakes, butterfly cakes, and love buns.
"I just had to call them love buns," she said. "For me, part of writing recipes is the joy of giving titles."
Lawson's love buns are "simply cupcakes with a sort of easy-whip meringue topping."
The topping is fairly simple: egg whites, sugar and corn syrup, along with a touch of salt and cream of tartar to help it maintain its shape.
After that is swirled atop the cupcakes, Lawson adds a gimmick: "these rather fantastic little heart-shaped sprinkles, which I let fall flutteringly onto the cloudy peaks. They almost look like prop cakes, they're so perfect."
And that perfection doesn't have to be stressful, she said.
Valentine's Day recipes "can get so fussy and fernickity," Lawson said, "that actually you do not feel loving toward your loved ones – you just feel vaguely hostile, that you've been doing something so complicated and challenging."
Instead, she recommends aiming for simpler, yet rewarding tasks, like making chocolate cherry cupcakes.
The assembly is easy, as all the ingredients are stirred together in a saucepan before being poured into a cupcake tin. And the recipe can use cherry jam or, even better, candied cherries.
"If you can get those candied cherries, that haven't been dyed rather an alarming bright red, and you can get the ones that are a natural dark red, you've got something rather sultry and enchanting, rather than cute."
And with a topping of heavy cream and bittersweet chocolate, the cupcakes can let anyone join in the recent surge in cupcakes' popularity.
"I just had to call them love buns," she said. "For me, part of writing recipes is the joy of giving titles."
Lawson's love buns are "simply cupcakes with a sort of easy-whip meringue topping."
The topping is fairly simple: egg whites, sugar and corn syrup, along with a touch of salt and cream of tartar to help it maintain its shape.
After that is swirled atop the cupcakes, Lawson adds a gimmick: "these rather fantastic little heart-shaped sprinkles, which I let fall flutteringly onto the cloudy peaks. They almost look like prop cakes, they're so perfect."
And that perfection doesn't have to be stressful, she said.
Valentine's Day recipes "can get so fussy and fernickity," Lawson said, "that actually you do not feel loving toward your loved ones – you just feel vaguely hostile, that you've been doing something so complicated and challenging."
Instead, she recommends aiming for simpler, yet rewarding tasks, like making chocolate cherry cupcakes.
The assembly is easy, as all the ingredients are stirred together in a saucepan before being poured into a cupcake tin. And the recipe can use cherry jam or, even better, candied cherries.
"If you can get those candied cherries, that haven't been dyed rather an alarming bright red, and you can get the ones that are a natural dark red, you've got something rather sultry and enchanting, rather than cute."
And with a topping of heavy cream and bittersweet chocolate, the cupcakes can let anyone join in the recent surge in cupcakes' popularity.
Comments
love
Alison
x