hummingbird cupcakes

I picked hummingbird cupcakes for my inaugural crabapple bakery cupcake challenge.

It was a good first choice, as I had some ripe bananas in the fridge & I love cream cheese!

Before the bake off I picked up a thermostat for the oven- a tip straight from the opening chapter of the cook book.

Unfortunately, as the day progressed and I started to churn out cupcakes, it quickly became apparent that my trusty new gadget was proving something which experience had already taught me; my oven really only has two temperature settings- ‘hot’ & ‘very hot’!

I piled the kitchen bench full of all the necessary ingredients & baking goodies.

In true Jules form, I adapted the recipe slightly! (didn’t use quite as much veggie oil & I didn’t quite have 2 cups of brown sugar so i substituted with a cupish of caster sugar instead)

Well, I followed the method, and well…lets’s just say, to cut a long story short, temperamental oven equals various shades of brown cakes with very black bottoms!

Really, it was nothing some tasty cream cheese icing couldn’t fix, or hide!

Lesson learnt: Silicon cupcake patties work heaps better than paper patties.