White Chocolate Raspberry Scones

Hellooooo!!

It’s been a while!

I’ve been trying to think of an uber cool reason to explain the lack of posts, but the truth is it’s been super cold in Melbourne and the only thing I’ve been wanting to do during any free time is curl up in my warm sofa and watch reruns of the Gilmore Girls  (I still think Rory should have ended up with Jess!).

Anyway, after much deliberation and coaxing from the silly ubiquitous Bubblybaker voices, I finally found the motivation to step into that cold, tiled kitchen to make fluffy white chocolate and raspberry scones – to have with my cup of tea while watching Season 3 (again) of the Gilmore Girls of course (fyi that’s the season where Jess comes to Stars Hollow – my fave! *sighs of content* :P).

The scones I ended up baking were incredibly fluffy and delicious! I had used frozen raspberries for the scones as the fresh variety in winter are ridiculously overpriced and should be made illegal 😦
The frozen variety worked ok, however as you can see from my piccies the raspberries crumbled when I mixed it into the batter creating raspberry seeded specks. I would have preferred nice, whole, chunks of raspberry so I think the next time I make these, I’ll have to use fresh raspberries. *cries*

The scone itself is crunchy on the outside, and delightfully soft and fluffy on the inside. The tartness of the raspberry is perfectly balanced with the sweet, chunks of white chocolate. Sooooo gooooood!
These babies are great served warm, however they taste just as delish at room temperature 🙂

White Chocolate Raspberry Scones
Recipe taken from The Pastry Affair
Makes about 8 triangular pieces

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tblspns white granulated sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tblspn baking powder
1/2 tspn salt
6 tblspns butter, cut into small pieces
170 grams raspberries (fresh or frozen – I used frozen)
1/2 cup white chocolate chips
1 large egg
1 tspn vanilla extract
1/3 cup (80 ml) heavy cream

– Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
– In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
– Add in the butter and mix with your hands until mixture resembles coarse sand.
– Gently fold in raspberries and white chocolate chips. Set aside.

– In a small bowl, beat together egg, vanilla, and heavy cream.
– Pour over the scone batter and lightly mix until the dough comes together. The dough will be sticky.

– Turn out dough on a lightly floured surface, form a circle, and flatten it until it is about 1-inch thick.
– Using a sharp knife dipped in flour, cut 8 equal pie wedges (the dough will be slightly unmanageable, but not adding additional flour results in tender scones).
– Transfer scones to a baking sheet using a flat spatula dipped in flour and sprinkle the tops of the scones with a little granulated sugar.
– Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Enjoy 😀

Milo Cupcakes with Condensed Milk Frosting

This weekend I was forced to bid farewell to daylight savings here in Melbourne. I think it’s such a sad occasion that it completely deserves a proceeding public holiday or at least a Government funded “here, have a free cupcake day” or something.

But in all honesty I can’t complain too much. We did have a pretty spectacular summer here – sunny and beautiful days, warm and balmy nights; summer perfection. Which sort of half explains the lack of posts here – too beautiful outside to spend time in the kitchen and definitely too hot to use the oven! But alas, the all too familiar BubblyBaker insanity has restored itself in the face of the rapidly approaching cold and gloomy Melbourne winter, which in BubblyBaker world can really only mean one thing – the justification for warm and delicious comfort food (huzzah)!

And so by comfort foods, what I really mean is copious amounts of chocolate. And by chocolate, I mean hot chocolate, and by hot chocolate I’m really talking about –

Ok, you get the point 😛

So in preparation for the very cold and dreary mornings ahead, I decided to make these fluffy milo cupcakes frosted with sweetened condensed milk. As recommended by RaspberriCupcakes I left mine in the oven slightly longer than instructed as per the recipe to achieve a more crusty top, and as the batter included sour cream, leaving the cupcakes longer in the oven didn’t affect the moisture of the batter at all – it still came out moist, soft and fluffy! Yummo!
Forewarning though; these cupcakes are ridiculously rich (from the frosting!) and so I highly recommend you down one with either a glass of milk, a glass of water, or if you’re as crazy as myself, a mug of milo 🙂

Milo Cupcakes
Recipe taken from Raspberri Cupcakes
Makes 24 mini cupcakes, and 4 regular sized cupcakes (or approx. 14 cupcakes)

200g plain flour
200g caster sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
100g Milo (I added about 150 grams of milo)
1 tsp vanilla extract
180g sour cream
170g unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs

– Preheat oven to 180 degrees C
– Fill cupcake tray with liners.
– Using a food processor, place  all ingredients into the food processor (flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb, Milo, vanilla, sour cream, butter, sour cream and eggs) pulse until the mixture is combined and smooth
– Fill cupcake liners until 3/4 full and bake for approx 15-20 mins or a skewer inserted into the centre of a cupcake comes out clean.
– Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting the babies

Condensed Milk Frosting
Makes just enough to generously frost the cupcakes

150g unsalted butter, softened
250 g icing sugar, sifted (increase as required)
6 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
milk (as required)

– Beat the butter until fluffy
– Add the icing sugar into the butter and mix to incorporate
– Add condensed milk into the mixture and beat to combine
– If the mixture is too soft then add more icing sugar. If it is too thick to pipe, add milk by the tablespoon to thin the icing out.
– Frost those babies up!

Have fun 😀

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