New Tricks: Asda Cupcake Maker

I'm a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to cooking. Unless I really am in a rush, the whole 'saving time' thing is not necessarily a positive for me; spending time in the kitchen is a great therapy to me personally, and if it wasn't for those little obstructions like work and money and personal life, I would probably spend every day and night coming up with new dishes and just generally breathing in the surroundings of my 'safe place'.

However, because of my not exactly unknown love for the kitchen and creating new things, people kind of expect me to love the kind of kitchen gadgets that do things for me (think bread makers, ice cream machines etc), and henceforth buy me these things as presents. I'm not opposed to this, as it's my dream to have cupboards (plural) full of all the things you could possibly want in the kitchen. But when it comes to using them, I feel slightly hypocritical. We don't want to lose the cooking and baking methods that got us to the stage today where we have beautifully creative chefs and bakers creating unworldly new works of culinary art every day. It's not a hidden fact that we've all become lazier as a nation, and a little kneading by hand or manual chopping here and there might do their bits to not completely strip us of our being active and doing things for ourselves.

I'm digressing. The item that is in question today is a very pretty Cupcake Maker from Asda. I can't seem to find it on their website so I'm not sure if it's been discontinued, but I think it was a decent £10. This Cupcake Maker seriously played with my conscience. I have always been known as the resident cake maker, and have always delighted in coming up with these creations all by myself, using my own pale hands. So giving the control to a machine put me on edge a bit. However, any excuse to make a cake...

The first thing to note about this Cupcake Maker is that it holds 12 very little cupcakes, so if you want to make regular size you'd need to look elsewhere. It's a very cute size though, so would definitely be ideal for certain displays, or for littler eaters.

It can't be denied. Use was very easy - I just plugged it in for about 5 minutes to warm up, lined the moulds with some cases and filled with my mixture. The instructions recommended you use cases to line, to avoid difficult cleaning, burning of the cakes, and probably burning of yourself.

Then you close and wait. It recommended 8-12 minutes, but I found my first load were a bit underdone in this time, so I went up to 15 minutes. Make sure you test yourself and don't trust the manual timing.

And that's it. I burnt myself continuously when trying to remove the cakes - I'm not sure whether this was my own clumsiness or a downside of the maker or a little bit of both, but be careful, anyway. Obviously, the biggest problem with something like this is that it only makes 12 - tiny - cupcakes at a time, so you're constantly waiting to put in your next batch (because you definitely want more than 12 mini cupcakes, right?!). It wouldn't be very useful for a cake making marathon. But it could be handy to take along to a cake stall to replenish your stock on site - you wouldn't be able to decorate them, of course, but you could literally sell, like, hotcakes.

It was really easy to clean too. Just let it cool (which took a good while, fyi) and then wipe over with a damp cloth. So I'm kind of finding it hard on what to conclude here. Yes it was quick and easy, but I'm worried the beautiful and traditional method of cake baking is slightly threatened. Perhaps you'd better work out your moral stance on the ever changing act of baking before you decide whether to go ahead and purchase.

Very quickly, this was how I made the mix for 36 cakes - they were Mini Lime Cupcakes: Mix 125g butter and 125g light muscovado, then beat in 2 eggs. Add a wee capful of vanilla extract and the zest of one lime. Add 125g wholemeal self-raising flour and a tsp baking powder, then mix well and you're ready to go. If you like, you can make a syrup out of the lime: juice it, add 4 tbsp demerara sugar and mix up so the sugar dissolves. When the cakes come out, skewer them with a cocktail stick and spoon in the syrup. Fast food, baked goods style!

Oh, one more problem with baking such minutely sized cupcakes. It really does feel OK if you eat 6 of them.

'I solemnly swear I am up to no good' mug from the Harry Potter Warner Bros Studio Tour - YES I HAVE BEEN AND YES YOU SHOULD ALL GO.