Baking with Trex - Part 1, Choc orange cupcakes

I’m sure loads of people have heard about Trex but until last week (during my cupcake course) I’d never heard of the stuff. Well this has now become a must in my baking going forward!

It was my birthday last weekend so I wanted to take cakes into work. I wanted to get Trex to make the frosting I’d learnt in the cupcake workshop.

On the Trex packaging though it said it was perfect for all sorts of baking so instead of buying butter I thought I’d use Trex for EVERYTHING!

At £1.28 for 500g it also works out much cheaper than butter (£1.19 for Sainsburys basic unsalted 250g). This makes me like it even more!

I wanted to make chocolate orange cupcakes and strawberry fondant fancies.

In part 1 of Baking with Trex I’m going to show you how I made my chocolate orange cupcakes.

I used a basic Victoria sponge recipe for the basis of each recipe.

• 150g Trex

• 150g Caster Sugar

• 3 eggs

• 150g Self raising flour

Cream the sugar and Trex together. As you can see, when it came to creaming the Trex and sugar it doesn’t look very appealing! It is softer than butter though so that makes life easier!

Once creamed add the other ingredients (as per my cupcake course post I whisked the eggs first and added a spoonful of flour to stop the curdling which always seems to happen to me)!

I then added the rind of two oranges to add the orangey flavour.

I added my mixture in to these cute cupcake cases that I found in TK Max- £3.99 for 80! They’re really good quality too.

In my cupcake course post I also said about getting to know your oven. Most recipes call for 180degs to bake cupcakes but I did a couple of test cakes and mine baked evenly and flat at 150degs! Quite a difference.

Then the rest went into the oven for 20-25 minutes.

Then my favourite part, the icing! I got to use my new icing set which also came from TK Max. This is a Wilton set which had the nozel that creates cute icing roses (Wilton 1M). This set was £9.99 but came with 4 nozels and 8 good quality icing bags so I didn’t think that was too bad.  

I then made the icing with…Trex!

• 200g Trex

• 500g Icing sugar

• 4 table spoons of milk

• Freshly squeezed orange juice

• 50g Cocoa

To create the rose use the 1M nozel and start in the centre and swirl out to the edge.

I then added little sugar paste flowers to hide where the icing swirl finished!

I personally think that the cakes I've made with Trex tasted nicer than with butter. I think Trex gives a smoother batter and a "softer" spongier cake! Trex is the way forward people!

Part 2 – Strawberry fondant fancies will be on the way soon!