Spiced Candied Orange Cupcakes

The sweetness of orange, thick juicy syrup, the sharp bite of ginger and hint of cointreau... You definately can't go wrong!! The smells coming from kitchen at the moment are simply to die for! So what am I doing? Experimenting!! I had a lot of oranges that were nearing their useful life and decided to try something a little different with them. Today I am making Spiced Candied Orange Cupcakes! OH MY are they delicious!

Now I need to fess up here before I go any further...this isn't purely down to my genius cooking skills (as much as I'd like it to be!) meaning it isn't ALL my recipe. It's a combination of a few I've found online (will post links back to the original as I go) BUT I have added my own little twists to make them unique and truly DELICIOUS! It combines some of my favourite flavours and I think for an experiment I can say it was a success! Enjoy!!  

For the candied oranges:

(click here for the original recipe) 

• 2 oranges
• 1 shot (30ml) Cointreau
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 sugar

In a small frying pan, combine the water and sugar and bring to the boil. Cut and segment your oranges as best you can, try not to have pieces that are too thick...I found this tricky so mine are various shapes and sizes! Haha Im not too much of a perfectionist though so it's all good.





I suck at segmenting!

Once your sugar syrup is boiling, add your orange slices, cointreau and ginger. Stir gently to combine and let simmer for about 1/2 an hour, stirring occassionally (carefully). The original recipe says 20 minutes but I found mine needed that extra 10 minutes. Your orange slices should be nice and tender but still intact when done. Remove slices from the syrup and let cool/drain on a wire rack. Pour the remaining syrup into a bowl and set aside... taste a tiny bit on a spoon....isn't that divine!?





NOM NOM NOM candied oranges!!!

For the cupcakes

Use your favourite basic vanilla cupcake recipe for this stage... there is nothing new or odd you need to add, just make and bake as usual! I've use the Taste.com Basic Cupcake Recipe today. Just a note if you do use this recipe...the batter will be very thick but when you cook it they even out and the tops round quite nicely :o) Mine are more giant muffins sized than cupcakes but oh well hehe!

For the Icing

One cup of plain 'ole icing sugar with 1/2 a tsp of ground ginger mixed in will make you a divine glaze! Now that syrup you set aside earlier? You'll be using that to mix your icing...Start with one tbs of syrup and combine with water little by little with the icing sugar slowly adding more liquid if needed until your mixture is at the right consistancy. You want it thick enough to coat the top of your cupcake but not so runny that it just falls straight off. Add in a tinsy bit of yellow food colouring... just for the aesthetics!

Top off each cupcake with a candied orange slice and CONSUME PEOPLE CONSUME! I'm not the best cupcake decorator... I'll admit! But they are DEFINATELY tastier than I've made them look here :o) Trust me!

I find they're the perfect combination of everything... love them!!!

Xx