I’ve just listed my first screenprinted cards on my brand new etsy shop More cards will be listed soon.

I’ve decided to call my shop ‘zɛsti, which is zesty phonetically spelled, meaning with great enthusiasm and energy, having a zest for life, a quality of excitement and piquancy.
Definitely the way I want to live my life…

This week I ‘m making Carrot Banana Cupcakes with mascarpone honey frosting, a recipe I found on one of my favorite food blogs: 101 Cookbooks. She made it as a big cake, and I had to make a few alterations since I didn’t have all the ingredients, but I think they turned out great!
I was looking for a classic carrot cake recipe, but I should warn you that this is a bit different, but still it’s delicious and probably as healthy as a cupcake could get. I also discovered that mascarpone with honey is possibly the best frosting ever, and I could just eat it like that, really no need for cupcakes

ingredients (for about 18 cupcakes)
260 g whole wheat pastry flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
100 g finely chopped walnuts
110 g unsalted butter, heated until just melted
1/2 cup dried dates, seeded and finely chopped into a paste
3 ripe bananas, mashed well
2 medium to big sized carrots grated
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (2% or lowfat is ok)
2 eggs, lightly whisked

frosting
170 g mascarpone
3 tablespoons honey (or to taste)

Preheat oven to 180°C.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the walnuts and set aside.
Stir the dates into the melted butter, breaking up the dates a bit.
In a separate bowl combine the bananas and carrots. Stir in the date-butter mixture, breaking up any date clumps as you go. Whisk in the yogurt and the eggs. Add the flour mixture and stir until everything just comes together. Spoon into the prepared pan. Bake for about 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick tests clean in the center of the cupcake. Remove from oven and let cool.

While the cake is baking whip together the mascarpone and honey. Taste. If you like your frosting sweeter adjust to your liking. When the cake has completely cooled frost the top of the cupcakes with an offset spatula.

This week’s cupcakes are Lemon Lavender Cupcakes, quite haute couture don’t you think? I was intrigued by the lavender in the recipe, having tried lavender chocolate before, which was very good.

Ingredients (for 12 small cupcakes)
125g white whole-wheat or all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons dried lavender buds, roughly chopped
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
50g unsalted butter, cubed and brought to room temperature
80g granulated sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tablespoons lemon juice (about half a lemon’s juice)
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1dl lowfat buttermilk (I used rice milk because I didn’t have buttermilk)

Ingredients for the icing
60g loosely packed confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice (about half a lemon’s juice)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
Fresh lavender buds for garnish

Preheat oven to 180°C and place cupcake liners in a 12-cup muffin pan. To make the batter, whisk together flour, lavender, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed for 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, lemon juice, and zest. Beat in one-third of the flour mixture until just combined. Beat in half the buttermilk, followed by another third of the flour, then the remaining buttermilk and flour. Fill cupcake liners about two-thirds of the way up and bake for 24 to 26 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on a wire rack.
To make the icing, stir together confectioner’s sugar and lemon juice until smooth. Stir in zest. Drizzle over cupcakes and garnish with lavender. (Let frosting set for 30 minutes before packing or serving.) Serve right away or store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

The verdict :**** very good, they didn’t rise much, but I wonder if that’s because I used rice milk instead of buttermilk. The lemon and lavender taste fresh, definitely something to make in spring or summer.

Some more work in progress. Still thinking about a name for my etsy shop…

I’ve started screen printing the first batch of postcards to be sold in my future Etsy shop. I hope to finish printing several different designs this weekend so I can start up my shop next week, though I’m still thinking about a good name for my shop.
Anyway, I’m very happy with the result of this first batch. The colours, silver and turquoise are looking pretty nice together. I still need to cut them to the right size, and find some envelopes to go with them, but then they’re ready to be sold…

I’ve started a new experiment today. Since I’ve been baking a lot of cupcakes recently, mostly Raspberry Frangipane cupcakes, which are delicious and extremely easy to make (I make them from a frangipane flower mix, so I just have to ad butter, eggs and raspberries). But I read an article last week in Delicious magazine (the Belgian february edition) about couture cupcakes, and thought it could be a good idea to try out some new cupcake recipes.

I found a recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes on Allrecipes.com that I’m trying out this week. The first batch is in the oven right now. I’m very curious to see how they will taste. I’m not used to using zucchini for sweet recipes, but that’s probably the reason why I wanted to try this recipe.

Ingredients (for 12 cupcakes)
190 g all-purpose flour
150 g sugar (I used 100 g sugar cane sugar and 50 g white sugar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
120 ml vegetable oil
60 ml cup milk
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
125 g shredded zucchini
45 g miniature semisweet chocolate chips
30 g chopped walnuts

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a bowl. Combine the egg, oil, milk, lemon juice and vanilla in a seperate bowl; mix well. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in zucchini, chocolate chips (keep some chocolate chips aside to sprinkle on top) and walnuts. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups two-thirds full, and sprinkle the rest of the chocolate chips on top. Bake at 180°C for 20-25 minutes or until cupcakes test done.

And the verdict is :***** very good, mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm