The Day Emily Came To Bake...

So now we've covered how it all began, let's skip ahead a bit..
Recently I had my friend Emily over for our first ever 'Baking Day'.
What happened next was one of the most fun days of my life so far. Meeting your baking soulmate isn't like falling in love and meeting your life partner...There's no sexual attraction, no flirting and definitely kissing goodnight (or good morning!). Bear in mind Emily is  a very happily married heterosexual woman and I am a very happily engaged homosexual female, but when we bake together, its like flour fuelled telepathy!
We ended up baking 36 Chocolate Chai Cupcakes, 2 Pans of Levi Roots' Jamaican Pecan Rum Chocolate Brownies, one very large Chocolate Ginger Cheesecake (my own tweaked version) and an open top Apple, Pear and Cranberry Pie. It was a brilliant day and I wholeheartedly recommend baking with friends!

Emily brought me this gorgeous recipe for the Chocolate Chai Cupcakes...Unfortunately the site she got them from, Smitten Kitchen, doesnt seem to have the recipe anymore so I'll post it here...You really have to try these, especially coming up to Christmas (They're really nice with plain buttercream and a little cocoa for dusting):

INGREDIENTS:

Chai Spice Mix:
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cloves
3 tsp ground cardamon

Cake:
110g Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tablespoon Chai Spice Mix
225g Unsalted Butter
200g Caster Sugar
70g Dark Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
235 ml Butter Milk (or semi skimmed soured with 1 tsp lemon juice and left for half an hour)

METHOD:

• Preheat the ove to 180c
• Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt and add the chai spice mix.
• In a separate bowl cream together the butter and both types of sugar until its light and airy (best to use an electric whisk for this part, unless you have the arm muscles of a greek hero!)
• Melt the Chocolate in a heat proof bowl (Emily swears by the microwave for this but I'm a traditionalist and always use a bain marie)
• Add the eggs one at a time to the butter/sugar mixture and make sure they are combined completely before adding the next one (Again, use and electric mixer!)
• Add the COOLED melted chocolate to this mixture and whisk well.
• Now add 1/4 of flour to the chocolate mixture and fold well. Follow with roughly a 1/3 of the buttermilk and fold again. Repeat this process until all of the flour and buttermilk are gone.
• Set out your cupcake capes in a can pan (if you're using silicone cases or a mould then just make sure to put them on a baking tray!
• Fill moulds approx. 2/3 full so that when the mixture rises it doesn't spill over the edge!
• Bake at 180c for about 15 mins or until a skewer (or the like) can be inserted into the middle and pulled out cleanly.
• ENJOY!

Just a Quick note...If these cakes fall in the middle a bit post baking, don't worry, Just cover them with butter cream and eat away, they'll still taste wonderful!

Thats all from the frontline of baking today, Hope you're all having a great week!