Sweet potatoe cupcakes with cinnamon cream cheese frosting!

With no pumpkin in the house, and not wanting to go out into the cold, I made sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving when we living in London.  It has to be the yummiest thing I have ever eaten, until I made these... drum roll.... I give you.... Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Cinnamon cream cheese frosting!! Ta-dah! You must must must try this recipe.

Ingredients
100 grams of butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
pinch salt
a smallish sweet potato (cooked, mashed and cooled)
1 1/4 cups of self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder


Directions
1. Peel and dice the sweet potato. Cook it until tender enough to be mashed. Mash it and then let it cool. You can't put hot potato in the mixture, it will make the butter melt and the eggs scramble.
2. Cream the butter, sugar and eggs together. A
3. Add the spices, salt, and milk. 
4. Add the cooled potato and mix altogether.
5. Mix in the flour and baking powder.
6. Spoon a tablespoon of mixture into each cupcake case and bake in the oven for 10-15 mins until the centre is cooked. 


Cinnamon cream cheese frosting
Mix together: 80 grams of butter, 200 grams of Philadelphia cream cheese, 500 grams of icing sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and 1 tsp of cinnamon (or two if u love cinnamon). Spread onto cupcakes when they have cooled. 

Ginger bread cupcakes with glace ginger pieces

If you love ginger, you will lurrrve this recipe. I made these for a New Years party and they were so yummy, but just like all good cupcakes, even better the next day!

Ingredients
1/3 cup of dark brown sugar (can cut down to 1/4 if adding glace ginger)
100 grams of butter (or dairy-free margarine)
1 egg
1 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 tsp vanilla essence
1/4 cup of milk or soy milk 
1 cup of self-raising flour 
1 tsp of baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup of glace ginger: hot or mild depending on taste

Directions
1. Beat together the butter, sugar and eggs
2. Add spices, salt, and vanilla and milk
3. Mix in flour and baking powder by hand
4. Add the chopped up glace ginger pieces and mix gently
4. Put a tablespoon of mixture into cupcake cases and bake for 10-15 mins.
6. Test middle of cupcake with knife or skewer.

Coconut cupcakes with vanilla buttercream

The cupcakes in the pictures of my new retro dresses topper range are coconut flavoured with vanilla butter cream. yum yum.

Straight out of the oven, I couldn't taste the coconut and I could smell egg... which is a real no-no for me... if you have read my other posts you will know I hate that eggy smell.

  BUT!..... the next day they tasted wicked... and we tried very hard to leave them for everyone else to eat, but once we started, we couldn't stop! My DH and I ate 3 each!! :} (there goes my diet. again. stop baking cupcakes Janelle!!).

Here is the easy-peasy yummy-scrummy recipe!

Coconut cupcakes!
Ingredients
100 grams of soft butter (or dairy free spread)
1/3 cup of white sugar (or whatever you use to sweeten: syrups etc)
1 egg
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut
2 tsp of coconut flavouring 
a pinch of salt
1/4 cup coconut milk (or milk or soy)
1 tbs of corn flour
3/4 cup of self-raising flour
1 tsp baking powder

Directions:
1.mix butter, sugar, egg, salt, and flavouring together with an electric beater.
2. mix in by hand, the coconut milk and then the flours and baking powder
3. put a small table spoon of mixture into each cupcake paper, 1 1/2 if you want cupcakes to pop up higher.
4. Bake in oven @180dC for 10-15 mins. Test they are cooked inside, don't wait for them to go golden on top as they might go dry. 


Vanilla Butter-cream
Beat with an electric mix: 250gms of butter to 500gms of pure icing sugar (not the icing mixture) and 1 tbs of vanilla extract/essence of flavouring. Your favourite colour and you're good to go! Remember to wait for the cupcakes to cool down!! :)

Pretty princess dress cupcake toppers!

We have a new range of non-edible cupcake toppers! Princess retro vintage dresses! From ballerina to vintage retro polka dot inspired dresses, we have a range of dress cupcake toppers designed to jazz up those yummy cupcakes you make at home. 

Toppers can be personalised with letters or numbers on the tops of the dresses, and the colours can be changed: I just chose red, blue and pink because I love love love those colours together.

 Check out our online shop at www.etsy.com/shop/jamosiesweet! 

The gallery: Black+white=Jamosie!

I just saw Mirka's post on her Kahanka blog... how adorable is little Isabelle! As most of you know I am not a good weekly poster but I am a fan of #thegallery, and like Mirka, I have mixed race children as well.

We call ourselves 'Jamosie' which is a blend of Jamaica and Aussie... Jam-osie...as we are Jamaican and Australian!

So when I read her post I immediately thought of this poem I found a couple of years ago when teaching English. Unfortunately, the words half caste are still widely used in Australia to describe the people who have an Aboriginal Australian parent and a Anglo Australian parent. Racism angers and saddens me. I won't babble on and will close with... I LOVE LOVE LOVE this poem, I love the way it's written, the tone, the message, it's just beautiful.

As for a photo, the first one that popped in my head  was this one of me and my Dear Husband at the Black Heath fireworks for bon fire night (2010).

One day, when Xavier was 4 years old, he asked us why we were different colours. So we explained that we were like chocolate, some chocolate is white, some is brown and some is dark brown, but it's still all chocolate. People are the same. Some are white, some are light brown, some are dark brown, but we are all people.  4 year old Xavier was listening intently and then says 'Janelle is not white, she is peach!' We cracked up.

Half Caste by John Agard

Excuse me

standing on one leg

I’m half-caste.

Explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste
yu mean when Picasso

mix red an green

is a half-caste canvas?

explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean when light an shadow

mix in de sky

is a half-caste weather?

well in dat case

england weather

nearly always half-caste

in fact some o dem cloud

half-caste till dem overcast

so spiteful dem don’t want de sun pass

ah rass?

explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean tchaikovsky

sit down at dah piano

an mix a black key

wid a white key

is a half-caste symphony?

Explain yuself

wha yu mean

Ah listening to yu wid de keen

half of mih ear

Ah looking at yu wid de keen

half of mih eye

an when I’m introduced to yu

I’m sure you’ll understand

why I offer yu half-a-hand

an when I sleep at night

I close half-a-eye

consequently when I dream

I dream half-a-dream

an when moon begin to glow

I half-caste human being

cast half-a-shadow

but yu must come back tomorrow

wid de whole of yu eye

an de whole of yu ear

an de whole of yu mind.

an I will tell yu

de other half

of my story.

Love it.