Friday, November 18, 2005

Hay Hay! It's Donna Day - Self Frosting Cupcakes



This month is the launch of a new event called Hay! Hay! It's Donna Day that is hosted by Barbara at winosandfoodies over in New Zealand. I have been a fan of Donna Hay for ages, starting from when she was in Marie Claire and produced those wonderful award winning cookbooks; Cooking, Dining, Flavours and Food Fast (I have Flavours and Food Fast in my collection) Since she started her own magazine, I have been buying issues off and on from the newstand. Unfortunately I do not have the first issue of the magazine (which is where the cupcakes recipe came from), they only started selling them in Malaysia from the sixth issue onwards.

Discovering these self frosting cupcakes was wonderful and the recipe is so simple but brilliant as all Donna Hay's recipes are (now you know why their tagline is "Turn simple into special"). I used Nic's adapted recipe since she has tested and tried them and the results were fantastic as seen above in my Nutella version. Nice swirly action there plus the cupcake was so buttery that I want more! I am already planning my next batch; more layers of Nutella and chopped toasted hazelnuts for the ultimate indulgence. Ever since I made these cupcakes, I have been thinking of more outlandish adaptations compared to the mild tinkering I did below: dark chocolate ones with white chocolate sauce (I wonder if the mixture will be mixed up leaving no white streaks?), dark chocolate ones with orange marmalade (kinda like a jaffa cupcake) and etc etc.



As I was new to the recipe, I wasn't too adventurous with my adaption this round but I decided to give it a bit of a local flavour by swirling in some kaya, a coconut egg jam that is popular in Malaysia. The streaks are lighter since the kaya is light brown in colour. The kaya was a nice touch and I went all out to take pictures of the cupcakes with various items I dug out from the cupboards like this sunflower dish I have.



I stuck a little bear figurine I have (I forgot I had these which I used to collect long long ago in university) on top of the kaya swirled cupcake. Don't he look like he belongs on top of that cupcake?



Even the kitty cat could not resist the cupcake, here he is trying to take a nibble and lick at it in the garden. I took a quick picture of him trying to do that before I shooed him away.

Do head over to winosandfoodies for the round-up. I can't wait to see what other adaptations people will come up with as I want to try them all!

14 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm all for mixing local ingredients (i.e. kaya) into western recipes whenever possible - liked your kaya version very much

FooDcrazEE said...

salivating again......nice lawn u have too..

Nic said...

Nice job with the swirls, boo. And I love the localised touch you gave to your variation!

Babe_KL said...

hmmm lovely swirls you got there... sighhh i dun hv time to enter so many events this month. thank goodness SHF & IMBB have a joint theme this month :(

Thaaniya said...

Boy! Don't they look gorgeous... my eyes are beginngi to swrl also... Such a test of will being on this stupid diet of mine!

boo_licious said...

lavamama - click on Nic's recipe link, it will lead you to the recipe.

Cath - can't think of any other local stuff except kaya. Gula melaka is too sweet to put in cupcakes.

foodcrazee - you love the green lawn rite?

Nic - thanks so much and the adapted recipe is great! A real keeper for me.

babe - maybe next month when you're freer?

thaaniya - You poor thing. Once your diet is over, do bake a batch and you won't regret it.

tiptup said...

looks so cute!!

rokh said...

love the kaya idea boo. is it you just substitute the nutella with the kaya? same amount? i would love to try it out!

boo_licious said...

tiptup - thanks. Long time no see.

Rabbit - your swirls are so pretty.

Rachel - you add the same amount of kaya or depending on how sweet you like the cupcake to be. I saw your pandan ones, they look good.

myCoffee said...

Lovely pictures! The teddies are so cute too...

boo_licious said...

mycoffee - My baking efforts not as brilliant as yours! Whenever I go to your blog, I feel like going to a bakery.

Barbara said...

Hi Boo - I love that little bear! Your cupcakes look great. I'm off to the local Asian food store to look for some Kaya - a cupcake with a tropical twist. Look out for my round up this weekend.

ChichaJo said...

Great looking cupcakes boo! And love those little teddies :) So cute! I really like these cupcakes and have tried them twice already...and will definitely be making them again lots of times I forsee :)

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...