Another GIANT XXXXL Cupcake !

Yup - it's another GIANT cupcake. The 2 litre milk carton is there to give you an idea of the size of the cake

This is an very popular mould in our collection and I know many out there are looking for volumes, recipes and cooking times for this really really HUGE jumbo sized cupcake mould.

Our mould isn't just big - it's MASSIVE and totally dwarfs both the Big Top Jumbo Muffin Mould and the Wilton Giant Cupcake pan.

I've been having a play over the weekend and have a recipe that has turned out very well which I can share. It WAS my second attempt. The first attempt was thwarted after almost 2 hours cooking time. I HAD to go out and the cake was nearly but not quite cooked. The only option was to turn off the cooker and leave the cake in. Unfortuantely, by the time I got back it was way over done. The recipe volume was spot on and I do believe it would have been really good had I been there to keep an eye on it.

This recipe includes a lot of pureed apple. This is to retain the moisture in the cake during a long baknig time and also to keep fat content as low as I could. I used sunflower oil for speed. You need to make two big batches of cake mix before you can put the mould in the oven, so speed is of the essence. I really didn't want to spend ages creaming butter !

Recipe

you will need to do this twice. If you do not have american measure cups, use a standard teacup.

2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups apple puree

1 cup of vegetable oil

3 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 1/2 cups plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp of bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp of cinnamon - if you really like cinnamon, double it !

1 tsp nutmeg

1 cup of sultanas or raisins

Add all wet ingreditents together and beat with electric hand mixer. Sift dry ingredients (apart from raisins) into wet. Combine and beat in until smooth - then stir in raisins.

Lightly butter giant muffin mould and then dust with flour - tipping out any excess. Put mould on a baking tray. It must be supported at all times.

Pour first batch of mix into base side. Make 2nd batch of mix. Add about 2 cups of the mix to the mix in the base side.

CAREFULLY Put into a preheated 180deg C fan oven for 30mins.

Remove from oven and pour rest of batter into top side of mould. Put back into oven for 1 hour. After 30mins, put a piece of greaseproof paper over the base side only and tuck round to stop the top darkening too much.

When cooking time is up, check cake with a tester. Be careful not to puncture your mould or it will rip ! I like to use a cake tester which is not sharp and has a colour changing tip to tell you when the cake is cooked. I think mine needed a further 10 > 15 mins.

Remove from oven and allow to cool until just warm before turning out and cooling fully on a rack. The good thing with this cake is that it did not get a big domed top. This meant the tops of each part did not need cut off . They natuarally say nicely together which was actually a big surprise !

The cooked cake filled 3/4 of each side of the mould. The finished height of my cake was 12.1/2" and it weighed just a snitch under 4kg as you can see further down.

When cooled try the pieces together to make sure they sit straight. The top will need carved off a little to give a point instead of a foot / stump.

For the icing, I used :

 250g of softened, salted butter

1kg of icing sugar

250ml double cream

cream butter and then CAREFULLY add in icing sugar and cream. I say carefully - or you'll end up with a kitchen full of white clouds of sugar. Mine was still too dry, so I also added a good glug of white rum. Rum, sugar, butter and apples was a classic combination.

Instead of piping, I simply applied the frosting to the top of the base and covered the top part using a normal table knife. For decoration, I kept it simple and simply used a scattering of sugar nibs. We now have sugar nibs available. I'll add them to the website shortly.

Finished cake was just shy of 4kg. It COULD have been bigger if I totally filled up the mould using another batch of mix and spliting it between the sides - but cooking time would be increased to over 2.5hrs ! I'd say this is big enough ! If everyone had a 100g portion - which is a reasonable sized bit - you'd have 40 portions.

I then cut mine into slices.... Enough cake to feed and army  ! Slices were the almost the width of a full sized dinner plate.....

One slice is enough to feed several people. I wrapped the slices in greaseproof paper and have shared much of it around the neighbours. If they weren't in , they didn't get any !

The following photos are not mine, but have been sent to me of cakes that customers have made. Thank you to both Louise and Lorraine for allowing me to share your photos.

Sarah-Jane Nash, August 2010 - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - THE silicone bakeware moulds cook shop.