'Saturdays wouldn't be the same without you...'

...So one of my regular customers at Tiverton market told me.  Ahhhhhhhhh, what a lovely thing to say- and bearing in mind this was only my 6th market, it made it all that much more the lovelier.

The weather was awful, high winds, buckets of rain and really cold.  Us stall holders were all expecting a slow, quiet day, but actually, it wasn't too bad.  It was quieter than usual, but those who had braved the elements obviously felt in need of a little treat, or reward for being so daring... and cupcakes and cookies obviously hit the spot.

This week, I had made rocky road (a chocolatey bar filled with marshmallows and crushed biscuits, with added golden syrup) as a new treat on offer- they sold really well, in fact they sold out.  Its always a nice feeling to be able to display a little 'sold out' card each week.

Also on offer were the sticky toffee pudding cupcakes- this week decorated with gold stars.  They are a fiddly and time consumer cupcake to make- but oh so worth the effort.

Next on the horizon for me is a wedding fair at Bickleigh Castle and a christening order - its all very exciting!

Its a tough job

Last night I was dreaming up different flavours of cupcakes to potentially sell at my stall the market. I remembered I had had the notion after making sister in law's Sticky Toffee Pudding birthday cake that it would be entirely scrumptious to have it as a cupcake, but with the toffee sauce inside, like a sort of fondent, gooey surprise of toffee loveliness (the sort that haunt dentists dreams)...Anyhoo, so, I was leafing through one of my recipe books ('500 cupcakes', I think the snappy title was) when I happened to find a recipe for exactly such a beauty. With a few tweaks I think it might just do the trick.
I tried the recipe out tonight, as a sort of science experiment you understand. The batter was supposed to have caramels pushed into the middle, but our local shops didn't seem to stretch to caramels, so some I made with toffees, and some with fudge, and some with a devilish mixture of the two.

Handsome husband and I tried all three versions and our favourite is probably the double toffee, coupled with the chocolate fudge icing on top I adapted from a different recipe. The recipe called for coffee in the batter, which helped to cut through the sweetness. For the next batch though I will reduce the amount to give it a more subtle flavour.

See, this is what you can get up to of an evening when you live in the middle of nowhere...eating chocolate fudgey toffee cupcakes with glasses of cold milk on the side, all in the interests of science. yum.