St Patrick's Day green velvet cupcakes and shamrock cookies

Yes, I'm aware that this post is a few days late; one day I'll make it on time. In all fairness I did make the goods before St Patrick's Day, does that count? And I've been a bit busy, packing up and moving from the countryside to north London and then unpacking and getting used to a new kitchen (and new oven, which does now work). All these things take time, and yes, good things come to those who wait!  Haha, pun intended and yes I did get to enjoy some guinness over the weekend.

So, green velvet cupcakes... my goodness. What a pilaver. I ran out of green colouring and it ended up looking like pond green sludge. But from the outside it still looks alright, well sort of. Had to hide the cupcakes with lots of yummy cream cheese frosting. But the main thing is, they tasted amazing.

Not to forget the shamrock cookies, the dough I used, meant that you have to chill them overnight. So that took some time, but you know what, sandwiched together with buttercream frosting and these little beauties are worth all the time spent.


Ingredients for the cupcakes:-

350g plain flour
400g castor sugar
1 tblsp cocoa powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
2 eggs
200ml oil
200ml buttermilk
1 tblsp vinegar
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 tblsp green colouring (possibly more)

Method:-

Preheat the oven to 180C or gas mark 4.

Fill your muffin tin with cupcake cases, I used green and white spotty ones.

Whisk the two eggs in a bowl, add the buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla essence and oil. Put to one side.

In a separate bowl, blend together the flour, castor sugar, cocoa powder, salt and bicarb of soda. Lastly add the green colouring, its supposed to look bright and colourful not sludgy!!

Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 20-25 minutes or untila knife inserted into the cakes comes out clean without any squidgy bits on.

Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Cream cheese frosting:-

225g philadelphia cream cheese medium fat
1 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla essence
250g icing sugar
milk if needed

Blend all together with your mixer and pipe onto the cooled cupcakes. Decorate as desired.

Ingredients for the shamrock cookies:-

200g plain flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
100g butter
100g castor sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence

Method:-

In a mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

Add the egg and vanilla essence and beat to combine.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and bicarb of soda.

Add the flour to the egg mixture until you have a firm dough. Wrap in clingfilm and leave to chill in the fridge overnight.

24hrs later...

Preheat the oven to 170C or gas mark 3-4. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Remove the chilled dough from the fridge and roll out about 0.5cm thickness. Cut out the cookies using a shamrock cookie cutter. If you don't have one, you can cut out a stencil and use this instead - although it takes longer. Transfer cookies to the prepared baking trays and chill in the fridge for about 10 mins. This will prevent the cookies from spreading and losing shape.

Bake cookies for about 10 minutes - you don't want them too brown!

Remove from the oven and leave to cool.

Buttercream icing:-

230g icing sugar
115g butter
1 tsp vanilla
2 tblsp milk
drop of green colouring

Blend together all the ingredients with your mixer until your frosting is firm. Spread onto each cookie and sandwich together. Noms!!

Hope you had a happy St Patrick's Day and got to enjoy some Guinness or some cider!! Or what's your preferred tipple, do tell....