Spiced Christmas Cupcakes with Very Vanilla Buttercream

Since I already have quite a few festive recipes on my blog, I decided this year something simple was in order. 

Basic cupcakes like these are great to make when you don’t have time for more complex baking, and they would be a good thing to make with kids as well since the cook time is short (and the decoration options are endless!).

These cupcakes are spiced with the Gewürzhaus Christmas Cake and Pudding Spice which I was gifted in November when I went to visit the new Gewürzhaus store in Sydney’s QVB. It elevates these cupcakes from basic to festive, and provides all the Christmas-y flavour you could need (with very little effort). Other festive spice mixes can be used - a gingerbread style spice mix would also work really well, or a combination of spices such as cinnamon, mixed spice and nutmeg.

The vanilla buttercream is a favourite of mine and has a great vanilla flavour thanks to both vanilla extract and paste. The recipe makes a generous amount so you will have a decent amount of icing on each cupcake, ready to decorate whichever way you please.

Spiced Christmas Cupcakes with Very Vanilla Buttercream

Ingredients: 

125g unsalted butter, at room temp

95g caster sugar 

70g vanilla bean sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs 

250g self raising flour

3 tsp Gewürzhaus Christmas Cake and Pudding Spice*

105ml buttermilk

Ingredients for Vanilla Buttercream: 

200g unsalted butter, at room temp 

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp vanilla bean paste

240g icing sugar, sifted

festive sprinkles, to decorate (optional)

festive cupcake toppers, to decorate (optional)

Method: 

Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line a 12 hole cupcake tray with cupcake cases. 

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, sugars and vanilla until light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs one at a time and mix well. 

Then add half the flour and mix on low speed until combined. Add the milk and mix on low speed until combined. Then add the remaining flour and Christmas Cake and Pudding Spice and gently mix until everything is combined and there are no lumps.

Spoon the mixture evenly amongst the cupcake cases, filling so the cases are about 3/4 full.

Bake for 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean and the cakes spring back to the touch. Remove the cupcakes from the tray and allow to cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing, beat the butter and vanillas in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment for at least 1 minute, or until the butter is light and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and beat for a further minute or two, or until the icing sugar is well combined and the icing is light and fluffy. 

Spread or pipe icing onto the top of each cupcake, and decorate as desired.

Makes 12 cupcakes, will keep for a few days in an airtight container.

*This spice mix is a mixture of cassia, coriander, ginger, clove, nutmeg, so a similar mix of spices could be used in its place. 

Gewürzhaus Christmas Cake and Pudding Spice was gifted by Gewürzhaus.

Chai Cookies

I was inspired to make these cookies when Gewürzhaus* kindly sent me some of their products last week. I got their Feel Good Hot Chocolate, but since I can’t eat chocolate they generously sent me a couple of their chai products too. Both the Chai Masala and Sugar are caffeine free, if you are making a chai from the powder you add your own tea to the pot. 

I decided to adapt my Grandma’s Gingernut Cookies and make them Chai Cookies using these delicious products. This recipe is quickly turning into a very adaptable favourite, and I can highly recommend making these crunchy chai spiced cookies. I used date syrup/molasses as it goes well with the chai spices, but treacle or golden syrup will work well if you don’t have any. These cookies do taste like chai, but also remind me of gingerbread too. Which is somewhat comforting, especially with a cup of tea (or chai or hot chocolate!). 

Gewürzhaus Masala Chai Sugar, Raj’s Magestic Chai Masala and Feel Good Hot Chocolate

Chai Cookies

Ingredients:

115g unsalted butter 

225g caster sugar

2 tbsp date syrup/molasses

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg, beaten

290g self raising flour

2 tsp Gewürzhaus Raj’s Magestic Chai Masala (ground)

Gewürzhaus Masada Chai Sugar (coarse), for dipping

Method:

Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line three large baking trays with baking paper.

In a small saucepan melt the butter over low-medium heat. Once the butter has melted remove from the heat and mix in the sugar, date syrup, vanilla and the egg. 

In a large bowl whisk together the flour and spice mix. 

Add the butter mixture to the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.

Tip some of the chai sugar into a shallow bowl.

Roll heaped teaspoonfuls of the dough into balls and dip one side into the chai sugar and place on to the prepared trays chai sugar side up. The cookies will spread as they bake so leave enough room in between. 

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Rotate the trays in the oven about halfway through to ensure the cookies cook evenly.  

Allow to cool on their trays, then store in an airtight container. 

Makes about 30 cookies.

*Products Kindly Gifted by Gewürzhaus. 

Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake

I am going to preface this recipe with, this is not a traditional Christmas fruit cake. 

That is the exact reason however, that I love this cake. 

I have always severely disliked heavy alcohol laden Christmas cakes, and this is my much lighter take on the traditional. This cake uses delicious dried fruit, but the cake is more cake-y than fruit heavy. 

This cake is not alcohol free (but could easily be made so), but by using a large quantity of good quality vanilla extract (which contains alcohol) to soak the dried fruit you get an intense vanilla, only slightly alcoholic taste to the cake. All in all a much lighter flavour and texture than a traditional Christmas fruit cake. 

I have cooked it in a particularly skinny loaf tin as this creates the perfect serve when cutting slices of the cake (unfortunately the shape of the cake makes it much harder to photograph!). You could use something similar in size, just keep in mind a different shaped tin may change the cooking time for this cake.

I have used making this Christmas cake as a great opportunity to bake with some really great ingredients from some Australian businesses I really love. 

Riverland Melange and Sticky Quince Syrup from Singing Magpie Produce

The mixed dried fruit is from Singing Magpie Produce and is called their Riverland Melange. It is a combination of sun dried quince, pears, apricots, peaches, black figs and white figs. While I highly recommend using a dried fruit mix like this, you can of course use any kind of mixed dried fruit for this cake. I also used Singing Magpie Produce’s soon to be released sticky quince syrup. As a lover of quince I bought this as soon as I could, when Sue at Singing Magpie Produce put together a limited run of a ‘Christmas Bakers Box’ containing this syrup, dried citrus and the Riverland Melange. It is delicious in both sweet and savoury recipes, and can be substituted with honey or date syrup. 

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I am a big fan of the Ballarat business, Grounded Pleasures and use their panela sugar at every opportunity. So this cake was no exception. Light brown or muscovado sugar could be substituted for the panela however. I also used some of their vanilla extract to soak my dried fruit in. This vanilla has a strong flavour, with the PNG sourced vanilla beans being paired with PNG white rum to create the extract. Any good quality vanilla extract can be used. Alcohol free vanilla extracts could also be used, to make this cake alcohol free.

Finally I used the Gewurzhaus St Nicolas Spekulaas spice for this cake, to give it a lovely festive edge. However you could also substitute with 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp mixed spice.

Easy Christmas Fruit Cake

Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake

Ingredients: 

260g mixed dried fruit (I used Singing Magpie Produce Riverland Melange) 

50ml good quality vanilla extract (I used Grounded Pleasures Vanilla Extract)

75ml boiling water

300g plain flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

1 tsp Spekulaas Spice (I used Gewurzhaus St Nicolas Spekulaas ground spice); alternatively use 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp mixed spice

250g unsalted butter, softened

240g panela sugar (I used Grounded Pleasures Panela), or brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tbsp sticky quince syrup (I used Singing Magpie Produce) or honey

50g mixed nuts such as almonds, pistachios or macadamias

35g (approx.) natural almonds, for decoration

10g blanched pistachios, roughly chopped, for decoration 

Method: 

Chop the dried fruit, and place into a bowl. Cover with the vanilla extract and boiling water and leave to soak for about half an hour. 

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius, and line a 31 x 7.5 x 8cm loaf tin with baking paper. 

Combine the flour, baking powder and spice in a medium sized bowl and briefly whisk to combine and remove any lumps. 

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until well combined and fluffy. 

Add the eggs one at a time, ensuring they are well combined after each addition.

Add the sticky quince syrup and the flour mix and mix until combined. 

Remove the bowl from the stand mixer, add the soaked fruit along with any liquid left in the bowl and mix into the batter using a large wooden spoon or a spatula. Then add the nuts. 

Transfer the mixture to the prepared loaf tin and arrange the almonds around the outside. Sprinkle over the chopped pistachios, and bake for about 1 hour 15min. Check the cake at around 45min-1hour, and cover with foil if necessary. The cake will be ready when the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean. 

Allow the cake to cool in the tin for 20-30mins, then remove onto a wire rack.

Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake

Reference: ‘Piri Piri Starfish - Portugal Found’ by Tessa Kiros (Murdoch Books, 2008), pp.191-2.

Easy Christmas Fruit Loaf Cake