Another Mix and Match

Wanting to make something different with the current ingredients in my pantry, I found myself this - white choc cappucino muffin with cream cheese topping - from the lazy chef's website. After a bit of tweaking, I've renamed my cupcake. However, I did not quite like the overpowering Bailey flavour and it is definitely not a flavour that I am used to - I don't like coffee unless I am really tired and need a 'ping' to wake me up. The cream cheese was barely tastable but my partner says it is ok, and his paramedic friends lapped it up - but I don't know if it is the "it's free and it's sweet" policy that sees my cupcakes all gone or were they genuinely nice.

Choc Chip Cappucino Muffin with Cream Cheese Topping

Ingredients for muffins:
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cups chocolate chips
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
2 tbsp Baileys
2 tspn instant coffee melted with 1 tbsp hot water.
1/3 cup milk

Ingredients for cream cheese topping:
125 gm cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla essence
60gm icing sugar

Method:

1. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.
2. Add the remaining dry ingredients with the flour - sugar and chocolate chips.
3. In a large cup, combine the remaining ingredients together - vegetable oil, egg, Baileys, coffee, and milk - until well combined.
4. Pour into the dry ingredients and gently mix until combined. Do not overmix.
5. Pour into pre-lined muffin trays and bake in a preheated oven for 5 mins in a 190 degrees Celcius oven.
6. While the muffins are baking, combine the cream cheese mixture ingredients together and beat for 3 mins or until slightly creamy. The topping is a bit runny.
7. Remove muffins from oven and spread some cream cheese mixture on top of the muffins.
8. Replace into oven for a further 20 mins before removing from the oven and allow to cool.
9. Sprinkle some icing sugar and cocoa for decorations.

Mix and Match

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and a Happy New Year. My New Year's resolution to maintain my blog periodically (weekly) went out the window by the first week into January - too much things to do around the house, oh and the cyclone, and the volunteering side of things, partner getting a new job as a parmedic trainee... well it's just been busy, ok?

I am still after a soft, moist cake/muffin recipe that I can rely on but I still haven't found one. This next recipe is ok, but still not soft enough to my liking. But the cream is sensationally devine as it mixes my favourite flavours of chocolate and orange (jaffa).

Jaffa Cupcakes

Ingredients for muffins
2 1/2 cups plain flour
1 1/4 cups cocoa
2 1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda
1 1/4 tsp salt
3 large eggs
1 1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup orange juice

Ingredients for cream
190gm butter
360gm icing sugar
3 drops of orange essence
zest of half an orange
1 tsp chocolate emulco
2 drops of red colouring
4 drops of yellow colouring

Method

1. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and bicarbonate soda and salt into a mixing bowl.
2. Add sugar into the dry ingredients.
3. Combine the rest of the ingredients (the wet ingredients) together.
4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and stir until well combined.
5. Bake in a preheated oven for 25 mins at 170 degree Celcius.
6. Remove from oven and let stand until the cupcake cools.
   
7. Cream the soft butter until slightly pale and creamy.
8. Sift the icing sugar into the butter and continue creaming until texture is soft, pale and creamy.
9. Divide the cream in half.
10. Add the chocolate emulco to one half of the cream mixture.
11. Add the colouring and orange essence to the remaining half of the cream mixture.
12. Place a portion of each mixture onto one side of the piping bag, so that the orange flavoured cream is on one half of the piping bag and the chocolate flavoured cream is on the other half of the piping bag.
13. Fit the piping bag with a star nozzle and swirl it on top of the cooled cupcake.

Niece's birthday

Well, I was busy and will be so until my External Paramedic exam is over. Luckily my niece was adamant that she wanted Patrick (Spongebob's partner in crime) on her cake. At first, I thought Patrick is so boring but in my busy schedule, I think Patrick rocks as he's easy to draw and I therefore, do not need to put too much effort in.


Again, like my nephew's birthday cake, I had to erase her name for privacy on her family's sake.


Will update recipe after December.

Cupcake with Pandan Cream Cheese Frosting

I wanted to make cupcakes, ice them and see how pretty I can make them. But the batch was too much so I had to make the cake as well. But all is good because it is good practice so that I can do my niece's bday cake which is coming up in two weeks. She wants me to draw a "Patrick" from Spongebob Square Pants since his brother got Spongebob for his bday cake. I think Patrick is not appealing but who can argue with a 4 year old?!!!

I am still etchy on making a flat surface on top of the cake without too much cream on the surface. I was so delighted when I found a place that was selling quality icing tips for $0.50 so I bought about $16 worth. Used some of them today but they weren't anything as spectacular as I thought it might be.

The problem is, I got too much cupcakes and cake in the fridge now and I can't make anything else until I finish it.

Cupcake with Pandan Cream Cheese Frosting

Sponge cake
Ingredients:
4 eggs
100gm cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
100gm sugar
1 1/2 tsp ovalette (aka cake stabiliser)
30ml fresh milk
90gm melted butter

Method:

1. Line a 24 small cupcake size tray with cupcake liners, and a 15cm square tin.


2. Preheat oven to 200 degrees Celcius.


3. Sift flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl.


4. Add in the eggs, sugar, ovalette, and fresh milk.


5. Using an electric mixer, whisk / beat mixture until pale, fluffy and the consistency is in the ribbon stage.


6. Fold melted butter quickly but thoroughly through the mixture.


7. Bake cake and cupcakes in oven at 180 degrees Celcius for 25 mins or until skewer comes out clean. (8 mins for mini cupcakes)

Frosting
Ingredients:
70gm butter
125gm philadelphia cream cheese
90gm icing sugar
1/2 tsp pandan paste

Method:

1. Beat butter until pale and creamy.
2. Add cream cheese and icing sugar and beat until mixture is smooth and creamy.
3. Icing is ready to be applied to your cake and cupcakes.

Something sweet and simple

Cupcakes! It started off when I was doing a St John's duty at the Baby expo two weekends ago. There was a cake decorator there and she was selling cupcakes. Since my sponge cake didn't turn out as good as it had looked in the oven when I was making my nephew's cake, and the cupcake was suppose to have used "sponge", I bought one just to taste the texture of it. Their vanilla sponge looked good because a cadet and another adult with me had purchased one each, but mine, which was a caramel cupcake wasn't as soft as I had expected. So I got home and started searching for good-looking cupcakes (no, i don't mean guys, either)!

But it seems that most cupcakes uses a recipe that is not much different to a pound cake recipe. My pound cake recipe works for me everytime, so I decided to give it a go. Thanks BeeChoo YiYi for giving me this recipe.

Pound Cake Cupcakes with Pistachio Buttercream Frosting

Ingredients:

4 oz butter
4 oz sugar
4 oz superfine self-raising flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp fresh milk
chocolate emulco

Method:

1. Cream sugar and butter until thick and creamy.
2. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Add vanilla essence and milk.
4. Sieve in flour and baking powder.
5. Fold the flour into the butter mixture.
6. Scoop out half the mixture into another mixing bowl and stir through the chocolate emulco until thoroughly combined.Fill muffin tray half full.
7. For small muffin trays, bake at 190 degrees Celcius for 15 mins or until skewer comes out clean.
8. For regular muffin trays, bake at 190 degrees Celcius for 20 mins or until skewer comes out clean.

Pistachio Frosting

Ingredients:

125 gm butter
1 egg white
70gm icing sugar
30ml fresh milk
60 pistachios blendered into pistachio meal

Method:

1. Cream butter and half of the icing sugar together.
2. Mix the remaining icing sugar with the milk.
3. Continue creaming the butter while slowly adding the milk, beating well after each addition.
4. In a separate clean greasefree bowl, whisk egg whites until soft peaks form.
5. Fold the egg whites into the butter mixture.
6. Fold the pistachio meal into the butter mixture.
7. Buttercream frosting is ready to be iced onto the cupcakes.

Note: Half of my mixture is mixed with 1 tsp honey, and explains why some of the frosting is white.

The Humble Pancake

Haven't cooked for the last few weeks because I was too busy with work, volunteering, job applications and dad's accounts, and this morning, I woke up itching to do something quick and easy. So decided on pancakes.

Pancakes

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cup self-raising flour
2 eggs
2 cups fresh milk
1/2 Tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Method

1. Combine all the ingredients into the blender or juicer and blend until there are no lumps of flour in the batter.
2. Heat up wok / skillet / frying pan with just enough oil to form a film on the cooking medium.
3. Once cooking medium is hot, pour in some batter (about 2-4 Tablespoon) and swirl your pan if you want your pancake to be thinner.
4. Once the pancake has roughly 75% of its surface covered with holes from the reaction between the self-raising flour and heat, use an egg flipper to flip over the pancake.
5. Cook until the bottom is slightly golden.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 until remaining batter is used up, occassionally spraying some oil on the cooking medium if required.
7. Serve with maple syrup, nutella, jam of your choice, lemon juice with sugar, or even plain.

Say Cheese!

This was made a while back but was never posted up because I didn't get my hands on it until now. This cake is for those who love their cheeses and it is a combination of savoury and sweet.

Double Cheese Cake

Ingredients:
300gm thickened cream
145gm condensed milk
Marie biscuits (chocolate / coffee / cappucino / plain)
125gm cream cheese
1 1/2 tbsp extra condensed milk
30gm shredded cheddar cheese

Method:

1. Lightly mix the cream and condensed milk until it is well combined.
2. Dunk the marie biscuits into the cream mixture and line it in a prepared 6" square cake tin, filling in the gaps between the biscuits with some crushed up marie biscuits.
3. Continue to Layer the cake with the marie biscuits prepared similarly to step 2, until the desired height or when the cream mixture runs out.
   
4. In a clean bowl, combine the cream cheese and the extra condensed milk until thoroughly mixed.
5. Spread the cream cheese mixture over the biscuit cake and decorate with shredded cheddar cheese.

Note:

• For those who do not like cheddar cheese, you can omit decorating the top with shredded cheese.
• For those who are lucky enough to obtain different flavours of marie biscuits, you can also alternate the layers to be of different flavours. I always do that to mine, but unfortunately, I wasn't there to take a picture of it when it was cut.