#KitchenClearout Cupcakes

If you've ever looked at my #KitchenClearout badge, you'll have seen what my baking cupboard looked like when I started and why I thought it would be a good idea to have a good dejunk ! Well, the top shelf has now been cleared and refilled with baking utensils but the bottom shelf is still in dire need of a huge dejunk.

As internet was down all of yesterday, I decided to empty everything out of my baking cupboard and see what was lurking at the back. I must admit, I was slightly startled to see just how much was in there !

I found a bag of sponge mix (best before date 2014 - ahem ! It must have been in there for ages because I used to buy them when Pierre was tiny and too impatient to weigh out ingredients !), some rice paper 1D cake toppers  and some random bags of cocoa powder/chocolate icing mix. (I had to have a good think about where these came from, then I remembered - they were in Betty Crocker cake mixes but I had tubs of ready-to-use icing in the fridge so I didn't use them.)

I also found some edible wafer cupcake cases that I had received in a Degustabox ages ago and had been saving for something special ... but that something special never came up !

I had no idea if it would work but I mixed up the sponge mix as instructed with an egg and some water, then just dumped in the bag of cocoa powder. I was slightly concerned it would be too dry but we had a taste and it was really nice.

We used the cake mix to fill the edible cup cakes (plus one paper cupcake case with what was left) then shoved them in the oven for 12 minutes. They were still molten so I left them for a bit longer and kept checking - in the end they needed about 20 minutes.

They had a strange sparkly, crispy top but we nibbled on the bits that had overflowed and they tasted really nice - just like brownies.

We used a tube of glitter icing as "glue" to stick on the rice paper toppers and they were ready to eat.

Verdict : three very happy Madhouse kids.

As is always the way, they actually came out better than when I slave over cakes made from scratch !

And it made some much-needed space in my ingredients boxes ! I now have one box (on the left) with dried fruit and flavoured sugars and another with all my sprinkles, icing, food colouring and flavours (vanilla, rose water, orange blossom water, etc). At least I can now find everything I'm looking for !

What's lurking in your larder/fridge/spice rack? Join in with this month's #KitchenClearout linky.