How not to cook cupcakes in a BBQ

Hi BBQ Fans, 

Since last Sunday’s epic failure of BBQ White Choc-Chip and Raspberry Cupcakes I have been brooding over whether I should wait until I found a fix for my cupcakes or just blog about what a disaster they were!

So I took it to the streets – the streets of Darwin – the streets of Facebook - the people wanted the details …. ‘Stuff waiting for a fix’ they cried, ‘what should I avoid doing if I bake your potentially delicious cupcakes tonight?’ blared the punters on Mitchell Street and in the internet machine.

So here is the story – fully illustrated with a fair bit of ramble…

First things first, find a kick-ass basic cupcake recipe and add your own cool vibe to make the recipe yours.

I used Joyce Goos ‘Feather Patty Cakes’ recipe taken from my CWA (Country Women’s Association) cookbook and decided to add some white chocolate and raspberries to the mixture to give it some extra sugar – because let’s face it…. 1xcup (250 grams) of processed sugar really isn’t enough to get the heart started.*

Next, I followed the recipe, marvelling at this concoction of butter and sugar…**

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Then I added some white chocolate (cut up into chunks) and forgot entirely about my plan to put raspberries into the cupcakes…. In hindsight, this was probably the beginning of the end, because this is where things started going wrong.

I mixed the crap out of all the ingredients in my sweet stainless steel bowl with my big red spoon, stood back and congratulated myself on my amazingness at creating such a delicious cupcake batter. Then, realising I had not pre-heated the BBQ or prepared my cupcake tray…… I went hunting for the patty cases I thought I had tucked away somewhere….

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20 minutes later, after pre-heating the BBQ, tying my hair up, checking myself out in the mirror (in case I needed to take a victory photo of me with my cupcakes) and dusted the telly, I couldn’t find 1 patty case – let alone the 12 required to fill my cupcake tray. Considering that this was my genius plan to keep the cupcake batter from direct contact with the metal and avoiding burning the cupcakes – you would’ve thought I’d have been more prepared…. You would’ve thought…..

So with no cases or motivation to go to the store I did what I could to salvage the situation, I dropped the temperature of the BBQ to 150 Degrees Celsius and buttered up the cupcake tray***, then I exported the batter into the slots on my metal cupcake tray which fits 12 cupcakes..... After realising I had enough batter for 18 – Doh!

Probably should've read the recipe properly instead of skimming it - no matter, I just scooped more into each slot.

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Anyhoo, while I pretend to wait for these cupcakes to cook this is where you can learn something about BBQ baking, the recipe says to cook the cupcakes at 180 Degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, I cooked mine at 150 Degrees Celsius (lower than the recipe) for 15 minutes, rotated the tray and then cooked for a further 10 minutes – a total of 25 minutes in the hooded BBQ Burner. 

In hindsight if I cooked the cupcakes again in a metal tray I would have cooked them for the 30 minutes on 120 degrees, rotating the tray 4 times.

I have no catering or cooking degrees but I think in my year of cooking cakes on the BBQ that I’ve noticed a definite difference in the temperature of the BBQ compared to a regular oven, if in doubt, go lower than the recipe says, or just don’t trust the  thermometer…

Anyway – you’ve read through enough of my ramblings to deserve this picture…. Of my amazing, mega-failure Cupcake disaster!!!

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Oh yeah, and if my cupcakes couldn’t get any uglier looking I decided to add the forgotten raspberries to my butter cream icing on a couple of the survivors of the Patty Cake Disaster of 2013…. ****

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I think they look worse…..

There is light at the end of the BBQ tunnel, I’m going to give it another crack this weekend for my UK Twitter friend National Cupcake Week @CupcakeWeek
who writes about the fifth National Cupcake Week run from 16-22 September 2013, organised by British Baker magazine it celebrates this glorious sweet bakery product www.nationalcupcakeweek.co.uk

AND FINALLY: To Robert Schuller who according to some internet machine website said ‘What would you attempt to barbecue if you knew you could not fail?’  I say ‘I can accept failure, but I can’t accept not trying’

Wish me luck for next time!!

-the BBQ baker

*Eat cupcakes with side dish of 100 sit-ups!

**Again – take another dose of 100 sit-ups just from having the balls to mix this concoction.

***More butter!!! Why would you do this to yourself!!! That’s 300 sit-ups now!

****if you have never made butter cream icing – look this shiz up – you’ll be doing sit-ups for the rest of the day – but hey, if your BBQ recipe works then you deserve a treat, so tuck in – yum yum! 

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