Toffee Cupcakes and a bit of Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon

I baked these absolutely delicious cakes to fill an afternoon while looking after two gorgeous little dogs, I had the idea pop into my head the day before and was dying to try it out. The sponge has a wonderful toffee flavour from dark muscovado sugar and has small pieces of fudge studded in it. The fudge pieces did have a tendency to sink to the bottom of the cakes but everyone who had one seemed to like that! The cakes are topped with buttercream which has been made with toffee sauce, the kind of sauce you get poured over sticky toffee pudding {that’s where the idea came from!}, then more sauce has been drizzled over the top, followed by a sprinkle {make that careful placing} of more fudge pieces. Rather pleased with myself I shared them out to rapturous approval. Put it this way, you have to make these!

We are back in Yorkshire now, we had a lovely quiet time down in Warwickshire catching up with my family and having fun with all those lovely animals mentioned in the previous posts. We didn’t get up to much blog-worthy stuff really and it passed so quickly. One thing we did do though was go to see a play in the riverside gardens behind the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Dell is the RSC’s free open air theatre, a stage really, on the banks of the River Avon under the shadow of the Holy Trinity Church. We went along to see the play as one of our friends, from London, was acting in it. It was very fortunate that we happened to be in the area, they were only doing two performances there. The play we saw was The War of the Waleses, set in the 90’s complete with Britpop, Tony Blair, Princess Di and the odd Shakespearian line! It was great fun, you can read more about the play and the theatre company who performed it here. being a 90’s teen, this was well up my street, love a bit of Pulp {‘e’s and whizz’ on a Sunday afternoon}. Plus, I love these gardens. I had the pleasure of working and living in Stratford-upon-Avon back in the late 90’s/early 00s and these gardens were a lovely detour on my walk home on sunny days.

Toffee Cupcakes

Oven 180 C / gas 4

12 hole muffin pan lined with paper cases

  • 125 g unsalted butter, softened
  • 80 g Dark Muscovado Sugar
  • 45 g golden caster sugar
  • 2 free range eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 140 g self-raising flour
  • 4 tbsp milk
  • 150 g fudge

Chop your fudge into 5 mm square pieces, set aside.

Place the dark muscovado sugar into a big bowl and rub it through your fingers to break up any solid clumps, add the caster sugar and the butter. Cream for a couple of minutes until paler in colour and fluffy using an electric mixer.

Add an egg then beat well using a wooden spoon, add the other egg and beat that in too. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Sift in the flour then fold into the mixture with a metal spoon, gently stir in the milk then stir in 100 g of the fudge, save the rest to decorate your cakes. Divide the batter between the 12 paper cases then bake for approximately 25 minutes, until a cake tester or skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

While the cakes are baking, make the toffee sauce for the buttercream as it needs to chill.

Toffee Sauce

  • 70 g unsalted butter
  • 100 g dark muscovado sugar
  • 4 tbsp double cream

Put the butter and the sugar into a pan and place of a low heat until they have melted together and the sugar has dissolved. Take of the heat and stir in the cream to make a wonderful thick sauce. Transfer to a bowl and set aside to cool. Once cool enough pop it in the fridge to cool down completely and get very thick.

Toffee Buttercream

  • 100 g unsalted butter, softened
  • 450 g icing sugar
  • 3/4s of your cooled toffee sauce
  • 50 ml milk
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the butter until pale and well whipped with an electric mixer, spoon in the 3/4s of your cooled toffee sauce and beat until well mixed in. Save the rest to drizzle over your finished cakes.

Sift in half your icing sugar and beat in on a low speed. Once well beaten in add the milk and beat again, sift in the rest of the icing sugar and beat that in. Finally mix in the vanilla extract.

Pipe onto your cakes however you like, I used a large star nozzle so that the drizzled sauce and fudge bits would have ridges to pool and rest in.

Take the remainder of your toffee sauce and warm it in a microwave until it is thin and runny. Add a bit more cream if you like to thin it even more. Drizzle it over your frosting with a spoon. Decorate with more of the pieces of fudge as a final flourish.

23 Responses

  1. K says:

    OMG these look ridiculously delicious!! Cannot wait to try these bad boys out!

  2. Love Stratford-Upon-Avon!

  3. Offmotorway says:

    Stickey toffee pudding is one of my favourite things, so these ahve to be tried!

  4. Rachel Logan says:

    Oh my. These look absolutely decadent. Delish!

  5. sweetcraving says:

    Oh myyy mmmmm, sounds so good. I love your pictures! What camera do you have?

    • I have a Canon 5D mark II, it’s my precious! I love using it, it was the camera of my dreams for years. Glad my pictures fill you with joy. I love your retro-ey light and airy food pics xxx

  6. Those look incredible! I love the photos! 🙂

  7. We have theater in the park a few steps away from the house. Now if I had the cupcakes. They look wonderful.

  8. Jorie says:

    This sounds like a lovely recipe, and very British, indeed. Your blog is dangerous to look at before lunch! The picture of the fudge being chopped….YUM!

  9. And if any of your London readers liked the look of the show, it’s in the Camden Fringe this year! 🙂 http://www.ticketweb.co.uk/user/?region=gb_london&query=schedule&venue=piratecastle&month=7&day=14&year=112&interface=camdenfringe

  1. August 20, 2012

    […] start, we welcome The Vagabond Baker and her deliciously entertaining post on Toffee Cupcakes and Park Theatre.  Rachel is one of our absolute favorite bloggers living in the UK, in a van no less, and able to […]

  2. August 27, 2012

    […] and hope for the best.” Rachel The Vagabond Baker and her deliciously entertaining post on Toffee Cupcakes and Park Theatre. Amy Hull presents Raspberry Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream | SnazzyBiscuits posted […]