Aperol Spritz Mini-Cakes!

Who's ready for an original recipe?!

Fair warning, this post is quite long!

These past few days have been some of the most anxiety-ridden ever for me. I'm starting a new job (stressful), the interview for which involved a ten-minute presentation (stressful), leaving behind an industry I've worked in for seven years in favour of one I have zero experience in (stressful), and I've finally gone out and got myself a car (extra stressful, considering how much I hate driving!). I've been feeling constantly nervous and anxious for well over a week, and I've been feeling so run down and exhausted as a result...

I needed to do something to take my mind off the changes happening around me. I haven't been able to sit still long enough to focus on a book, and feeling ill once again has made running a challenge. So I decided to do a little bit of baking, and coming up with an original recipe felt like the perfect way to distract myself!

And it worked! The eagled eyed out there will probably realise that this isn't my first Aperol Spritz flavoured bake, but I decided the cupcakes I'd made late last year could be improved upon. Enter then these Aperol Spritz Mini-Cakes!

As much as I love a good cupcake, I've wanted to have a go at a batch of mini cakes for ages. They're basically just a cupcake with the components the wrong way around, but I think they look really elegant and unique. These mini cakes consist of an orange sponge soaked in an Aperol drizzle, and are filled with an orange flavoured buttercream and a prosecco-infused crème patissiere (ever since I taught myself how to make different custards, including crème patissiere, I've been eager to flex these custard making skills!). 

To start with, I prepared an orange sponge traybake. All I had to do was cream together butter and sugar, then add orange zest and juice, eggs and self-raising flour in order to prepare the perfect sponge for these cakes. After allowing the sponge to cool completely in the tin, I cut round outs of the traybake using a 6cm cutter, and halved these rounds horizontally. 

With the sponges ready I turned my attention to the fillings and decorations. A lot of multitasking went into these fillings, but the results were well worth it. I started with the prosecco-infused crème patissiere, as this would take some time to cool. To make the crème patissiere, egg yolks, sugar, and cornflour are whisked together in a bowl to make a paste. It is at this point I added the prosecco to the egg mixture, before steaming (but not too hot) milk is added. The resulting custard is then cooked until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and you can draw a line through it. I always assumed custard would be difficult to make from scratch, but once you get your head around the methods for crème patissiere, creme anglais, or other varieties of custard, it's really not that difficult!

Whilst the crème patissiere was chilling, I started on my decorations. I prepared a simple syrup of sugar and water, allowed it to cool, and then dipped sprigs of rosemary into the syrup. After allowing the syrup to thicken on the rosemary, I rolled the sprigs in sugar to create sugared rosemary, a simple but effective decoration!

Whilst the syrup was thickening on the rosemary, I was also preparing an aperol syrup to brush over the cooled cake rounds. A mixture of sugar and aperol is all that is required to make this syrup, and once it was cooled I simply brushed plenty of the syrup onto each half of the cakes! An easy way to boost the flavours of the cakes. 

Next up was the American buttercream, and let's face it this type of buttercream is about as easy to prepare as it gets. By beating together softened butter with icing sugar and your flavouring of choice, in this case orange zest, you end up with a super smooth buttercream to use for both filling and decorating cake. With the buttercream ready, it was time to assemble the cakes. All I had to do was pipe a swirl of buttercream onto half of the sponge rounds, fill the gap in the middle with the prosecco crème patissiere, and top with the remaining half of the cake rounds. With a swirl of buttercream on top to complete the assembly, I could now move on to the decoration.

To create the cake pops, I shredded the scraps of leftover traybake into a bowl and added any leftover buttercream. I had to mess about a bit with some of the quantities, as some pops were too dry and others were too wet, but eventually I settled on the perfect consistency for the pops. For an extra hit of flavour and to boost their impact as decoration I coated them in white chocolate. Again, nothing complicated but effective nonetheless! 

As ever with my bakes, a few self critiques spring to mind. Considering that the orange would probably only feature in an Aperol Spritz as a garnish, the orange flavour is pretty dominant in this recipe. I'll admit I was hesitant to include alcohol in the actual cake batter, instead opting down the safer route of using zest and juice to flavour the sponge. I'm not convinced I used enough of the Aperol drizzle to really get that flavour in there, and the ratio of buttercream to crème patissiere in the filling was a little off, meaning the prosecco didn't really show up as much as I'd have liked to this one... At least now I know what to do differently in the future!  

I really wasn't trying to reinvent the wheel with these mini cakes, however I'm insanely proud of how well these cakes turned out. Everyone who has tried them has had only good things to say about them, and I can't wait to start trying out more original recipes as the year goes on!

Gibby x