In the mood for Cupcakes - Red Velvet and Chocolate Mud Cupcakes

After two bake-less weeks, it is time to ride on the baking mood. Somehow, I am very much into the making of cupcakes this week. It might come across as a little late for Aspiring Bakers, but I am enjoying myself to the brim nevertheless. So far the count is three, and I have a good feeling the number will be on the rise. 

 

Once again, I have been tasked to help with cupcake making. Due to my friend's relentless nagging for Red Velvet Cupcakes, I finally threw in the towel and decided to embark on this activity that somewhat spells 'Radioactivity', due to the awkwardly deep red colour of these cupped treats. The colour of my cupcakes did not turn out as truly red as I only had 'Xmas red' Wilton gel colour on hand. 

Using the recipe from my newly arrived Martha Stewart Cupcakes from Amazon, the texture turned out to be amazingly fluffy even though there is no creaming of butter involved in the entire mixing process. Texture wise, it is definitely a yes from me. Taste-wise, I wished it had been richer or more vibrant. Then again, I have not had much encounters with Red Velvet cakes hence little room for comparison to know what is considered to be a good one. Perhaps the cream cheese frosting will give it a more rounded flavour on the whole. 

For the cream cheese frosting, I confirmed my hypothesis that Tatura cream cheese (from Phoon Huat) is indeed not a good brand for use in frostings. It created a messy lump when I tried to do peanut butter cream cheese frosting and the cream cheese frosting for the red velvet cupcakes looked kind of lumpy/ somewhat curdled/ loose (a little dough like) and did not pipe out as ideally as I would like it to be, compared to when I was using Elle & Vire cream cheese. However, when doing cheesecakes using Tatura cream cheese, the results are not too shabby.

I made a astounding discovery relating to these red velvet cupcakes. When eaten straight from the fridge chilled, the cupcakes remained tender and fluffy like they just came out of the oven. Because of the chilling, the cream cheese frosting has a nice firm texture, almost like a cheesecake layer which makes the cupcake even more so enticing.  

Besides acceding to my friend's request for red velvet, I managed to convince him that these Chocolate Mud Cupcakes are truly to die for. The texture is moist, fudgy and it resembles a cross between a fluffy cupcake and a souffle, due to its flour-less nature and the incorporation of beaten egg whites. To go along with the chocolate cupcakes, I piped 'piles of chocolate dung' and spooned spiked piles (for a simple homemade look) onto them, which are actually Dark Chocolate Frosting from Martha Stewart Cupcakes.

Comparing this Dark Chocolate Frosting with the Bittersweet Chocolate Frosting, the former is a dark chocolate buttercream that holds its shape well when piped while the latter (much higher chocolate content) is a fudge-like chocolate goodness that spells awfully chocolate.

Hmm.. After taking a bite into one of the chocolate mud cupcakes, I realised the frosting layer is too thick and it overshadowed the richness of the chocolate mud cupcakes. The frosting by itself is actually not too shabby. However, the morale of the story - keep these chocolate mud cupcakes unfrosted and frost other less rich cupcakes instead. Lesson learnt. Apparently, stacking one rich flavour onto another rich flavour doesn't quite work out!

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting ( recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes)
Serving size: Makes 9 standard size cupcakes
Taste and texture: Fluffy and moist cake texture.
Equipment and Materials:

• Standard size muffin tin
• Cupcake liners to fit
• Flexible spatula
• Handheld beater/ stand beater
• Wire rack
• Wooden skewer/ toothpick/ cake tester
• Flour sieve
• Piping bag
• Large round piping tip
• Mixing bowls

Red Velvet Cupcakes

• 150g cake flour
• 1 tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 150g caster sugar
• 180 ml vegetable oil
• 1 egg, at room temperature (55g to 60g with shell)
• 1/4 tsp red colour (gel)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 125ml buttermilk
• 1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp distilled white vinegar

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 120g unsalted butter, softened
• 240g cream cheese, straight from the fridge
• 100g - 200g icing sugar (or add more if desired to obtain firmer but sweeter frosting)
• 1/2 tsp + 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Making the cupcakes

Prepare oven and muffin tin - Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Prepare flour mixture - Sift cake flour, cocoa powder and salt into a large bowl. Using a balloon whisk, whisk to combine and allow the dry ingredients to be evenly distributed.

Mixing oil, sugar and egg- In a mixing bowl, beat oil and sugar until combined on med-high speed. Add in the egg and continue beating until mixture is smooth, for about 1 minute. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl well with a flexible spatula.

Alternating flour mixture and buttermilk - Turning the mixer to low speed, add 1/3 portion of the flour mixture to the oil-sugar-egg mixture and beat until well combined. Next add in half the buttermilk and mix well. Continue the alternating addition of flour (3 additions) and buttermilk (2 additions), starting and ending with flour mixture. Batter should be well combined and smooth. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl well with a flexible spatula during the mixing process to incorporate loose ingredients.

Adding baking soda and vinegar mixture - In a small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar. The mixture will foam. Add it to the batter and mix for 20 seconds on medium speed. 

Baking the cupcakes - Spoon batter into cupcake liners until 4/5 filled. Bake the cupcakes for 25 minutes at 180 degrees C or until an inserted cake tester comes out clean. 

Preparing Cream Cheese Frosting

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy and smooth on medium speed. Turn to low speed and add in 100g of icing sugar. Mix to obtain a smooth frosting. To obtain a firmer frosting, add more icing sugar to desired firmness at the expense of sweetness. Add in vanilla and mix well. Frost red velvet cupcakes as desired. 

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Chocolate Mud Cupcakes (recipe adapted from Tempt: Cupcakes to Excite by Betty Saw)
Taste and Texture: Tender, gooey with tiny bits of almonds.
Serving size: 9 standard size cupcakes
Recipe: Refer to Chocolate Mud Cupcakes

Dark Chocolate Frosting ( recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Cupcakes)

Quantity: Makes enough to frost 16 cupcakes

Taste and texture: Chocolatey and buttercream-like. 

Ingredients:

• 30g unsweetened cocoa powder
• 80ml boiling water
• 300g unsalted butter, softened
• 70g icing sugar
• pinch of salt
• 450g dark chocolate (50-60% cocoa mass), melted and cooled

Making the dark chocolate frosting:

In a small bowl, mix together the cocoa powder and boiling water to obtained a smooth cocoa liquid. In a large mixing bowl,  beat butter and icing sugar on medium-high speed until butter mixture is pale and fluffy. Turning to low speed, add the cooled melted chocolate and mix to obtain a smooth mixture. Lastly, add in cocoa mixture and beat well. Frost cupcakes as desired. 

Notes:

1. Red velvet cupcakes frosted with cream cheese frosting need to be kept refrigerated. 
2. Leftover/unused cream cheese frosting and dark chocolate frosting should be kept refrigerated in freezer bags/ piping bags/ ziplock bags. 
3. Serve red velvet cupcakes chilled. The cream cheese frosting will be firm and the cake will remain moist, soft and fluffy. However, allow the chocolate mud cupcakes to rest at room temperature for some time to allow it to soften before serving.
4. Chocolate Mud Cupcakes will shrink in size when cooled, creating a sunken crater. This is perfectly normal. 

Instagram link: http://instagram.com/bakertanbakes

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes - Chocolate Fever

As I am writing this post, I am impatiently waiting for my Google Chrome browser to be allowed access to my blog. It turns out that I have to rely on my backup browser, Mozilla Firefox, to sign in to my blog. 

Sometimes, I wonder. Have we become slaves to technology? Access to the internet and the use of cell phones have officially become our next basic needs after water, food and air. Sadly, I am guilty of being enslaved to technology myself. When my internet lines are down, I feel helpless without access to my Windows Messenger, Hotmail and Blogger. Luckily, I am not much of an addict to Twitter and Facebook yet. Perhaps one reason would be that I am at present not an owner of a smart phone. I have to admit that I am slow in catching onto the technology train, for I am still using a Sony Ericsson non touch-screen flip phone. 

Now that my cell phone is sending me hints of retirement having served a two-year term, I am evaluating my needs and the functionality of various smart phone models available on the market. Apart from the search for a new phone, I am also toying with the idea of getting a new camera. 

My point and shoot digital camera (Sony DSC-T2) has been serving its purpose well when it comes to food photography. There is little need to adjust the manual settings and all I have to bear in mind is the minimizing of camera shake which will cause pictures to lose focus. What caught my attention initially is the touch screen capability which makes navigation throughout the interface a breeze. However, there seem to be a limit to the level of sharpness. Even with the aid of digital enhancement (I do simple edits in Photoshop), some pictures still look a little blurry.

As mentioned previously, I am in quite a chocolate mood these days since May is a month of Chocolate Delights, the theme for Aspiring Bakers May 2011. My idea of an ideal chocolate treat is one that is moist and fudgey/gooey. This Chocolate Mud Cupcake fits the description aptly, with its light moist gooey texture. When eaten warm, it is particularly comforting and even more so when accompanied with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. 

I am submitting this entry to Aspiring Bakers #7 - Chocolate Delights May 2011, hosted by DG from Tested and Tasted.   

Chocolate Mud Cupcakes (recipe adapted from Tempt: Cupcakes to Excite by Betty Saw)

Taste and Texture: Tender, gooey with tiny bits of almonds.

Serving size: 10 medium sized cupcakes

Equipment and materials:

• Cupcake liners
• Medium size muffin tin
• Electric beater
• Spatula
• Mixing bowls
• Measuring scale
• Wire whisk

Ingredients:

• 30g cocoa powder
• 120ml boiling hot water
• 110g dark chocolate, melted and cooled (I used 63%)
• 110g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 165g brown sugar
• 100g ground almond
• 80g egg yolks
• 120g egg whites

Making the Cupcakes:

Preparing muffin tin - Line muffin tin with cupcake liners.

Preparing egg-yolk batter - In a large mixing bowl, combine the hot water and the cocoa powder. Stir well to remove the lumps and ensure cocoa is well dissolved. Next, add in melted chocolate, melted butter, brown sugar and ground almonds. Stir to obtain an evenly mixed mixture. 

Using an electric beater, beat in egg yolks on medium low speed, one at a time, ensuring each egg yolk is well combined before adding the next.

Beating egg whites - In a separate clean metal bowl, beat egg whites on low speed until it turns foamy. Gradually increase the speed to medium high when the volume increases. The egg whites should stiffen in the process and the volume will increase about 6 times. Continue to beat the egg whites until they form medium-firm peaks. This is when the beaters are lifted from the egg whites, snowy egg white peaks are formed and they are slightly wobbly when the bowl is shaken.

Folding egg whites into egg-yolk batter - Fold one third of beaten egg whites gently into egg-yolk batter to lighten. Incorporate the remaining egg whites and fold gently to obtain a smooth, watery-foamy batter. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl to ensure even mixing.

Baking the cupcakes -  Spoon batter into cupcake liners until they are nearly filled. The batter will not rise much. Bake cupcakes at 175 degrees C for about 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Cupcakes will sink noticeably in the middle when cooled.

Notes:

• There is no gluten in this recipe. Hence, it might be one factor why the cupcakes tend to sink and shrink.

Almond Cookies

Finally! I finally managed to do some cookies Chinese New Year cookies. My idea is to work on either cashew cookies or almond cookies for a start and I settled on the latter. This almond cookie recipe requires no butter but uses oil instead. Hmm.. no butter? I normally wouldn't go for cookies that are butterless. No harm trying out the recipe since the dough seems easy to make with no creaming required. The best part about making it is that the dough requires no chilling at all!

It wasn't such a bad idea working on these cookies. Even though they lacked the buttery fragrance, the cookies tasted decently nutty and crunchy. After a few days of storage, they still keep their crunch really well. Neat! With the absence of butter, these cookies do not prove to be overly rich to the palate. I do find it a good change from the usual rich buttery cookies that are abound during the Chinese New Year period.



I know it is less than a week to Chinese New Year. I am still holding on to the possibility that I might be opening my 'mini pineapple tart factory' before sunday. Its either pineapple tarts or butter cakes, see how it goes... This might possibly be my final post before CNY, so I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year! Huat ar!

Note:  I will be attempting to improve on the recipe. Find that there is a little something lacking in its taste. Texture wise it is pretty good. Will try to either do a butter version or substitute part of the flour with same weight of ground almond to improve the flavour.

Almond Cookies (recipe adapted from Delicious Nyonya Kueh and Desserts by Patricia Lee)
Serving size: about 50 cookies, fills one small CNY plastic cookie tub
Taste and Texture: Crunchy-crumbly, nutty, non-buttery
Equipment and materials:
1) Mixing bowl
2) Flour sieve
3) Baking/cookie trays
4) Wire rack
5) Measuring spoon set
6) Baking paper
7) Wire whisk

Ingredients:
120g diced almonds, toasted
220g plain flour (try substituting some plain flour with same weight of ground almond for richer flavour)
100g icing sugar
105g corn oil
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt + a pinch more
2 egg yolks for eggwash

Making the dough:
Toasting the almonds: Place diced almonds in a single layer on a tray lined with baking paper. Toast the diced almonds at 160 degrees C for 20- 25 minutes until lightly browned. This will improve the fragrance of the almonds.

Prepare dry ingredients: Sift flour, icing sugar, baking soda, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix dry ingredients evenly with a wire whisk. Add in the almonds and mix well.

Forming the dough: Add corn oil to the dry ingredients. Gather the mixture to form a dough. Gently knead the dough to incorporate dough crumbs.

Shaping cookies: Roll cookie dough between 2 pieces of baking paper to about 1cm thick. Cut out cookies with desired cutters. Gather scraps and continue cutting out dough until dough is used up.

Baking the cookies: Brush eggwash onto cut out cookie dough. Bake cookies at 160 degrees C for about 20 minutes. Remove baked cookies and allow them to cool on wire rack completely before storing in air-tight containers.

Notes:
1) Try substituting some of the flour with ground almond for richer flavour. This may make the cookie melt-in-the mouth since there is less gluten due to less flour used.
2) Cookies taste better the next day.

Instagram link: http://instagram.com/bakertanbakes

My 1st Heavenly Cake - Gateau Breton

This is the very 1st cake I attempted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's - "Rose's heavenly cakes". Hence, the entry is titled as My 1st heavenly cake. When I first browsed thruough this baking bible at borders weeks ago, I immediately decided that it would be a book I would want to keep. Having read raving reviews about this author and baking compendiums under her from Amazon and Sunday Times, I understood why she is named the queen of cakes.

As described by Rose, a Gateau Breton is a pastry like crispy on the exterior and has a soft, dense and moist texture. It is a cross between a shortbread and a pound cake. To me it is more like a marriage between the pie and the butter cake. While the pastry was baking in the oven, I could sniff the aroma of  rum when actually the amount of rum included was only a miniscule tablespoon.

When I popped the first morsels into my mouth, I could feel sweetness of butter and rum permeating inside. Hidden among the buttery rum fragrance was nutty hint due to the almonds. Definitely, this is one recipe I would re-cake again.

Among the vast varieties of recipes included in "Rose's heavenly cake", the Gateau Breton is one of the easiest. There are plenty of other recipes which span more than 3 pages and I could imagine the number of hours required to assemble the cakes. Nevertheless, the effort should pay off well.

I shall look forward to my next heavenly cake - apple upside-down cake.

The recipe can be found in the following blog:

Gataeu Breton recipe

Basic Macarons

I attempted to bake macarons for the 2nd time last week. On my 1st bake, i took the opportunity to polish my piping skills. At first i made quite a mess with the batter while piping. However, i soon got the hang of it after some practice.

Making macarons certainly was no easy task. I read that macarons have a high failure rate especially when using the french meringue method. In both my 1st and 2nd attempts, I managed to get the right consistency of the batter - shiny flowing lava. The tough part was the oven temperature and baking time.

During the 1st 8 mins on my 2nd attempt, my macarons developed 'foot'. I sure was excited about that. However, I had difficulty in getting the base of the macaron to be cooked. I baked the macarons for nearly 25mins before the base was nearly dry when the recipe stated only 10 -11 of baking time. Due to the long baking time, my macaron browned when they were supposed to look shiny.

Even though the macarons on my 2nd attempt were like 80% successful, the taste was quite ok. it tasted chewy on the 1st 2 days. After a few days in the fridge, they tasted better without the chewiness.

I shall attempt baking macarons another time. Its nice to see the macarons you bake turn out crispy, moist and colourful. The best thing about learning to bake macaron is that you get to save a lot if you are good at it. Macarons are quite pricey and one macaron sells for $1.60 at Bakerzin.

Here are some sites which i referred to when baking the macarons:
1) how to make macarons
2) basic technique and simple macaron recipe

3) coffee macarons

For those who are interested, refer to link 3 for the baking timing and temperature control. Read links 1 and 2 for basics on macaron making. Good luck!