Clementine Cake

I only used four clementines.

Cut

Ready to be processed

Clementine paste

Ready to be baked

Right out of the oven

Browned edges and slightly sunken center... :(

Powder-sugared

This cake is like the fourth season of Sherlock Holmes - it's been waiting for forever to be made.  Like Smitten Kitchen, I was fascinated by the recipe.  Cake with no butter and no flour.  Could that work?  It was my first time making this cake, but I braved it and made this for a dinner invite.  (I also took back-up cookies and a good bottle of wine just in case.  I am actually not that brave...)

The total time invested in this cake was three hours.  Two hours to boil the clementines and about an hour to put all the ingredients together and bake it.  I was very happy with the outcome.  The cake was dense, very moist, had just the right amount of sweet, and it was delicious.  The flavor of the clementines were very evident and, strangely, the cake felt very velvety as if it had chock full of butter...it had none.  

I highly recommend the sliced almond topper and powdered sugar finish as the cake itself is not very sweet.  (Another option is to make the glaze like Smitten Kitchen to pour over the cake) This is a very 'adult' cake so I would not recommend this for your child's birthday party.  Everyone at the dinner table seemed to enjoy the cake and I certainly did too.  I made my husband promise to tell me the absolute truth about this cake and he swears it was delicious for him too so I think it's safe to make this cake again.


The Recipe
Clementine Cake adapted by Smitten Kitchen

Sunken Center

• I don't know if you can see it in the pictures but I actually had a slightly sunken center.  I've baked quite a few cakes in my life and have never had that happen before.  Eeeek~!  I quickly searched the internet for what might have caused it.  Here's what I've found.  
• I believe my culprit was the baking powder.  Smitten Kitchen's recipe calls for 'heaped' teaspoon full of baking powder.  But, the original recipe asks for just one teaspoon of baking powder.  I went a little overboard with the 'heaped' spoon.  I will go with just one flat teaspoon of baking powder next time.  

Variations & Tips

• Do not use 'heaped' spoon of baking powder but just a teaspoon as it may cause the cake center to sink.
• I added sliced almonds and powdered sugar and I will do this every time I make this cake.  Or, I will definitely try the clementine glaze from Smitten Kitchen.  
• Add the sliced almonds right before putting the cake in the oven.  Add the powdered sugar after the cake has cooled, preferably right before serving.  
• Since the size of clementines differ, it would be helpful to use a kitchen scale to ensure you don't put too much or too little clementine.  
• I only used the food processor for the clementines.  I used a handmixer to beat the eggs and the sugar and I folded the rest of the ingredients with a spatula to avoid over-beating.  (Make sure that your baking powder is mixed it well and is not clumped.  This will be disastrous for your cake!)
• I checked the cake after 30 minutes and my toothpick came out clean so make sure you start checking your cake after 30 minutes.  
• Ensure you implement the step of tin foiling your cake after 20-30 minutes - put foil over your cake to protect the top from over-browning.  I put foil over the cake after 30 minutes and put it back in the oven for an extra 10 minutes. 
• My total cooking time was 40 minutes.
• I used an 8x8 square pan instead of a round pan. My batter would not fit into an 8 inch round pan. 

I'm Famous!

Well...not really.  But it certainly feels awesome to have this happen to me.  Allrecipes.com, aka one of my favorite recipe sites, featured the one recipe that I posted on their site on their Youtube channel and created a recipe video out of it.  This is monumental for this teeny tiny blogger.  I'm stoked.  I feel special, famous, awesome, and all of the above.  Here's the original recipe for the lemon cupcakes.  PS - This is still my absolute favorite lemon cupcake recipe.

Cream Cheese Pecan Banana Bread with Streusel

Unfortunately, I did not take any pix of my finished product so this photo was borrowed from the blog:  'Sugar & Spice' where I got my streusel topping recipe.  

This banana bread was made with a mission in mind.  A mission to butter up my boss and my co-worker for some favor.  Seriously.  The best way to a person's heart is food, don't ya think?  Food made with lotsa love and lotsa sugar.  :P

Anyhoo, I pinned a few banana bread recipes but could not land on one recipe so I did what I could and combined two.  I used cream cheese banana bread recipe from here and used the streusel topping recipe from this blog.  I've baked a few banana breads in my life but have never used cream cheese to bake one so I wanted to try this recipe and wanted to know how it would do.  Also, one of my absolute favorite pound cake is the cream cheese pound cake.  The recipe yields two banana breads.  You can probably bundt cake it, too.  ;)  The streusel recipe is only for one banana bread so double it if you're making two pans.

The Bread:

• I reduced the sugar from 2 cups to 1.5 cups and it was still very sweet so I would definitely stick with the lower sugar content.
• I baked the bread for an hour but I think I'll take it out after 50 min next time.  
• Toasting the pecans before baking it is crucial in my opinion.  It makes a huge difference in the flavor of the pecans. 
• Would I bake this again?  Yes!  
• Did it work in buttering up the boss and the co-worker.  I think the cake did its job.  :P

Streusel Topping:

• This was the bomb streusel topping.  It made the cake that much more special and everyone who tried the bread asked me about it.  Use it! is my advice.  
• Do not toast the pecans for the topping since it is on top of the bread, it will toast itself in the oven.  

Moist Chocolate Cake - The Best!

I really hope I don't get in trouble for this.  :(  But here goes.
Last year, sometime near the end of the year, I had to bring some morning snacks for the staff at our school.  I really really really wanted to bake some yummy and super moist chocolate cake so I went a searching for a recipe online.  All I did was type 'moist chocolate cake' on google.  There were quite a few recipes, as you can imagine, so I did my research and sifted through a few recipes and landed on this one.  The ingredients and the how-to just looked like they would work beautifully.  I baked little moist chocolate cupcakes out of them and they really were the best kind of chocolate cake.  They almost tasted like one of those high-end chocolate cakes that you get from really expensive pastry shops.

I was utterly pleased with them.  But I could not blog about them because I forgot the site.  I know.  This is very very bad.  I took screen shots of the recipe but could not find the original site for me to let you know where I got the recipe from.  Bad. Bad.  But I will keep searching and let you know the original site when I find it.  But in the meantime.  Enjoy them.  They will be certain to brighten up anyone's day.

Pumpkin Cupcakes

So.  The other day, I was faced with a problem I'd never had.  Bags of ground pumpkins.  The story is, is that Mum was here in Auckland for a little while to take care of me while I was in the hospital and was busy making me all sorts of stuff with all sorts of stuff which included pumpkins.  She bought one huge pumpkin and had just too much leftover so froze all of it and left me with it.  I scrap a lot of recipes but never anything to do with pumpkins.  But I was up for the challenge.  Lucky for me, it is autumn in the Northern Hemisphere which means many pumpkin recipes floating around the foodie blog world so it wasn't hard to score some scrumptious-looking recipes.  I went with How to Eat a Cupcake's pumpkin cupcake recipe.  And I am now in love with pumpkins in bakings.  Yu-Ummm.  These were unbelievably moist and I absolutely loved the spice it had with all the cinnamon and the etecetra's.  I added white chocolate bits to half of the recipe and toasted walnuts to the other half.  How to Eat a Cupcake had toasted pecans which I imagine would be divine as well.  These will also go fabulous with cream cheese frosting.  


Pumpkin  Cupcakes
Cupcake recipe adapted from How to Eat a Cupcake who adapted it from Cupcakes by Shelly Kaldunski

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground allspice
Pinch freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsely chopped or white chocolate

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350°F. Line a standard 12-cup muffin pan with paper or foil liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg. In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, sugar, oil, and eggs. Add the flour mixture and whisk to combine completely. Stir in the chopped walnuts or white chocolate.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, filling each about three-fourths full. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 22-24 minutes (my oven took 17 minutes).  Let the cupcakes cool in the pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack and let cool completely, about 1 hour.
Spoon the glaze over the cupcakes and serve.

Banana Butterscotch Syrup Cake

This happened to me.

But don't you feel bad about me.  The absolute deliciousness of this cake made up for it.  Big time.

I finally got off my butt to bake something out of my beautiful book: "Classic Cakes"  by the Australian Women's Weekly and, just as I imagined, the book did not disappoint.  My very first cake out of this book was a huge success, even though the cake decided not to stay in tact as a cake.

This is another classic 'moist' cake.  It freezes well and it stays moist all the way through for a long long time.
A note:  I used roasted walnuts (chopped of course) because I prefer them with my banana cakes.  They were gorgeous.  I know I say this a lot but trust me.  You want to bake this cake.

Banana Butterscotch Syrup Cake
from "Classic Cakes" by Australian Women's Weekly

• 125g butter, softened
• 3/4 C (165g) caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 C mashed banana (about 2 large overripe bananas) *I used 3 to get rid of all of my overripe bananas.  I kinda liked it!
• 3/4 C (110g) self0raising flour
• 3/4 C (110g) plain flour
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 3/4C (110g) hazelnuts, roasted, chopped finely ( like I said, I used walnuts and they were divine!)
• BUTTERSCOTCH SYRUP
• 1/2C (110g) firmly packed brown sugar
• 30g butter, chopped
• 3/4 C (180ml) water

The Cake

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C/160 degrees C fan0forced.  Grease deep 19cm-square cake pan; line base with baking paper.
• Beat butter and sugar in medium bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs, one at a time.  Stir in banana, then combined sifted flours and soda, and nuts.  Spread mixture into pan; bake about 1 hour.
• Meanwhile, make butterscotch syrup.
• Stand cake in pan 5 minutes before turning, top-side up, onto wire rack set over tray.  Drizzle hot syrup over hot cake.
• BUTTERSCOTCH SYRUP:  Combine sugar and butter in small saucepan; stir over heat until butter melts.  Add the water and bring to the boil, stirring; remove from heat. 

Lemon Cupcakes with Yogurt Marmalade

Straight to the cupcake talk.  :)
Here is a repeat of one of my lemon cupcakes that I made when I first started baking.  These are officially my favourite lemon cupcake recipe and if I want an idiot-proof lemon cupcake recipe, this will be the one I'll go to.  They are exactly light and fluffy and moist.  They - like any good cupcake - taste much better the next day, especially if they've been in the refrigerator.

My original plan was to try out this (apparently) amazing frosting to go with these cupcakes but I just did not have the time for it so I used a quickie-fix topping which was a guaranteed yum-ness:  yogurt marmalade topping.  :)  Remember that one from Pioneer Woman? 

Trust me.  These will not disappoint you.

Cupcake Recipe:  Clicke here!
Yogurt Marmalade Topping:  Clickity click!

Tollhouse Brownies

I knew that if I made a batch of brownies, that I would probably eat the entire batch on my own..not that I do not enjoy sharing but because I've been that brownie-hungry.  I had been restraining myself from baking brownies because I was worried about my expanding waist line (they are worse in the winter!  have you noticed?) but in the end I gave in.

I read up on 'brownies' and apparently there are three types of brownies in general.  The fudgy kind, the cake-y kind, and the chewy kind.  I vote for the chewy kind - always.  And that is what I got.  Crispy top and the chewy, chewy middle....
ahhhhh.......the joy............

The Tollhouse Brownies

• 1 2/3 C granulated sugar
• 3/4C cocoa powder (I used a brand called Sun Valley - these have worked really well in all my brownies and other bakings)
• 3/4C butter (170g)
• 2 Tbsp strong coffee or water (I made very strong coffee with instant coffee)
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsps vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 ts salt
• 3/4 C chopped walnuts
• 1/4C chocolate chips or coarsely chopped chocolate bar (I used Nestle dark choc bits..they were awesome! I also added more than what's asked)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (176 degrees C).  Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan.

Combine butter and cocoa powder in a small bowl, and place over a pot of simmering water.  Ensure that the water does not touch the bottom of the bowl.  Add the coffee or water and stir to melt the ingredients.

In a medium sized bowl whisk together the eggs and the sugar.  Add the vanilla.  When the butter and chocolate have melted and come together, slowly stir the chocolate mixture into the sugar mixture.  (Have the chocolate mixture cool down a bit before you do this so the eggs don't cook when you mix  them together)

Add the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl.  Stir this into the chocolate and egg mixture and combine.  Fold in the nuts, saving a handful to sprinkle on top.

Pour the batter into the pan, sprinkle chocolate chips or chocolate chunks and walnuts.  Bake for 18-25 minutes depending on your oven.  Remove from the oven and let it cool down before cutting it into bars.

The Best Ever Banana Cake

So, I was in charge of bringing cake for my friend's birthday.  Ever since I've known her she has sung about banana cake.  Yes, her and banana cake are in a deep, meaningful relationship.  And so, even though I could have bought a perfectly edible banana cake from an awesome cake store, I thought I'd brave my months of bake-break and create one for my lovely friend.  I had scrapped a few banana cake recipes but they weren't good enough so I went a-searching for the perfect cake.  I stumbled upon the below and it was an absolute winner.  Friends who said they weren't banana cake fans were gushing over it and a guy who's never baked in his life asked for the recipe.  
So, here it is from me.  to you.  

The Best Ever Banana Cake
adapted from My Baking Addiction who adapted it from Recipezaar

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 C bananas, mashed, ripe
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 3 C flour (I used all-purpose)
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 C butter, softened, room temp
• 2 1/8 C sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temp
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 C buttermilk, room temp

Frosting

• 1/2 c butter, softened
• 1 (8oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 1/2 C confectioners' sugar

Directions

• Preheat oven to 275 deg F (150 deg C).  Greese and flour a 9X13 pan.
• In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice.  set aside
• In a medium bow, mix flour, baking soda and slat.  set aside
• In a large bowl, cream 3/4 C butter and 2 1/8 C sugar until light and fluffy (this'll look like crumbs).  Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla
• Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.  Stir in banana mixture
• Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes.  This will make the cake very moist.  (And folks, this works!!!!)
• Frosting:
• Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Beat in 1 tsp vanilla.  Add icing sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth.  
• Spread on cooled cake.  

PS - there's a bit of a discrepancy in the pictures.  i baked TWO banana cakes.  one was square, the other one was round.  both delicious! ;)  

Wicked Chocolate Brownies

Hello.  How have you been?
I'm great.  A bit busy but fantastic.  You know why I'm great?  I have two weeks until my summer vacation starts.  Oh~ Yeah~~~~ :)  If I may, I do have a grumble, though.  The weather is totally playing mind games with me.  It's like summer is playing babyish peek-a-boo, ya know?  I'm over it.  But what can I do?  I can't force it out of its peek-a-boo state.  I just have to be patient and let it come when it's ready.  But I know when it does come, it's going to be fantastic. 

I've realised that I talk about weather a lot here.  They say, that one of the best small talk topics is weather.  Small talk = Convo with strangers.  I'm trying to think how I can get past being acquaintances with you so we can get past the small talk phase.  It'll come.  I'm sure.  :)

In the meantime, I've got a recipe for ya. 

As novice baker, I try to follow the footsteps of the greats.  There are a few (as you've noticed) that I totally look up to in the baker's blog world.  And there's something that I've noticed about these bakers.  It is that they get their amazing recipes from almost anywhere including....food packets.  It is not the 'where' that counts but the final product, right?  So...that's what I did.  There was a chocolate brownie recipe that I've noticed on the packet of Champion Flour and I decided to try it out.

Apologies for the shaky photos.

I seem to have shaky hands these days.  

I'm wondering if I'm lacking in certain nutrition.  Hmmm...

 

This recipe is chock-full of cocoa and sugar (dang, it had a lot of sugar!) and I absolutely loved the texture of it.  A bit of moist and gooey with a crispy top...my kinda brownie, baby~ 

Enjoy.  :)

Wicked Chocolate Brownies

From Champion Flour packet

•  200g room temp butter, softened (I used unsalted.  Packet didn't specify)
• 1 1/2C sugar
• 1C cocoa
• 3 eggs - room temp
  
• 1/2C standard flour (I sifted)
  
• 150g roughly chopped white chocolate or 3/4 C roughly chopped walnuts (I used 3/4C of chopped macadamia nuts because it is what I had.  It was awesome but I would definitely add the chocolate next time)
  
• Icing sugar to dust

1.  Preheat oven 150 degrees C (about 302 degrees F) and grease a 20cm (about 8 inches) baking tin/pan.
2. With an electric mixer on high speed beat butter, sugar and cocoa for 4-5 minutes until creamy.  (The batter will be super crumbly but it'll come together)
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Stir in flour and chocolate (or nuts) and transfer mixture to greased baking tin.
5. Bake for 1 hour or until the surface of the brownie appears cracked.  The centre should appear almost uncooked.
6. Cool in the tin and cut into squares.
7. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
   

Chocolate Yogurt Cupcakes

So. I am not done with my quest. The chocolate cupcake one. :)

Today's cupcakes are secretly my second attempt. I didn't even blog about my very first test drive of this recipe coz my failure was too embarrassing for me to present on this public arena of a blog. :( (I still have my pride..yes I do yes I do...)

Today, I am happy to say that these were diddly-licious. "Moist" seems to be the buzz word for cupcakes but seriously. I do not enjoy cupcakes that are unnecessarily moist to the extreme, ya know? Luckily, these are fantastically 'just right' in its moistness. They are soft, light, a little sticky on the outside and gentle on the chocolate flavour.

I used Whittaker's milk chocolate just coz I wanted to try them out. (Although these were delicious, next time, I'll probably bake it with Whittaker's 62%) I also sprinkled chopped up roasted, salted peanuts on just four of the cupcakes - just in case they didn't taste right. :D

I think I may ban myself from making these cupcakes for awhile. These are too delicious for my weak will power. And I can't handle that when summer is lurking around the corner.

Yeah Yeah...I spilt some of the batter - which, by the way, is super delish.

Chocolate Yogurt CakesFrom simply recipes who got it from David Lebovitz's book "Sweet Life in Paris"

• 1 ounces (200g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 1/2C unflavoured vegetable oil, divided (Didn't have unflavoured so I used regular.)
• 1/2 C plain, whole-milk yogurt
• 1 C sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract (I didn't have almond so I used vanilla)
• 1 1/2C flour (I used all-purpose)
• 1 1/2tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• (I had some chopped roasted, salted peanuts)

1. Preheat oven to 350deg F (or 180 deg F). Line muffin tins.
2. In a heatproof bowl set over simmering water, melt the chocolate with 1/4C vegetable oil until smooth. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk baking powder, salt and flour.
4. In another bow, mix together the remaining 1/4C vegetable oil, eggs, sugar, yogurt, vanilla and almond extract.
5. Form a well in the four mixture and stir in the yogurt mixture then the melted chocolate. Stir until smooth.
6. Divide the batter into the muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes or until the centre is barely set. (I baked for 22 minutes) - I sprinkled four cupcakes with the chopped peanuts before baking them.
7. Serve with whipped cream or your favourite frosting.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

Introducing the 'it' cake of the pound cake world.
Peeps of the blog world, if you're reading this, first, thanks for scootin' by my humble blog, and second, you are about to witness me blog about one of my greatest finds since I started baking.
Presenting -----> (insert drum roll)"Cream Cheese Pound Cake!!" (Take a bow, cake, take a bow)

This cake is the Queen. It is tender, moist, and I could taste the subtle and beautiful flavour of cream cheese quietly coming through. How lucky am I that I found my favourite pound cake recipe in the second recipe I tried? I am Luck-eeeee.

Thank you thank you thank you Miss Smitten Kitchen for introducing this cake to me. Here's a 'fried blue' quote: "The key to successful baking is not in the baking itself, but knowing the right recipes and having a solid go-to baker." haha~ (May not be entirely true for all, but is currently true for me as a novice baker....I wonder when I stop being a novice baker...hmmm...) Smitten Kitchen is such a baker/blog/recipe for me. Even though she has no idea of my existence - I will thank her every time I bake this glorious cake. *Sigh*

LOOK at that texture!!
Look at that golden crispy top!!
*Sigh*

I was baking these for a fondu party my friend was having
so I chopped them up into fondu-able sizes.
Here they are ready to be transported to the party and fondued.

Can you tell? They are just dying to be eaten.

If you go to the Smitten Kitchen site, she has a strawberry coulis recipe to go with it. I'm sure it will be amazing. As for the fondu - this was PERFECT for fondu-ing. So, I imagine these will go great with chocolate ganache.

I halved the recipe but I'm going to write out the original.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake
From Smitten Kitchen who adapted it from Staff Meals from Chanterelle

• 1 1/2 C unsalted butter at room temp (I used 'less salt softened butter' because they were easier to cream - can't seem to find softened unsalted butter...do they not exist? I reduced the amount of salt because I used this butter)
• 8 oz Philadelphia brand cream cheese at room temp
• 3 C sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract plus 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (I just used all vanilla which is what the original original recipe had according to Smitten Kitchen.)
• 3 C all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven 325 degrees F. Lightly butter a tube pan or a bundt cake pan. Sift flour and set aside. (I used a loaf pan)
2. Place the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add the sugar. Increase the speed to high, and beat until light and airy, at least five minutes.
3. Add the eggs one at a time beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed.
4. Add the vanilla, almond, then the flour and salt all at once. Beat until just incorporated.
5. Pour the batter into the pan and even out the top with a spatula or by shaking the pan. bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean. 1 1/4 hours.
6. Place the pan on a cake rack and cool for 20 minutes then remove the cake from the pan and let it cool.

*Note about the raw dough: try it.

Yogurt Marmalade Cake

Pioneer Woman - one of the earlier blogs I discovered when I embarked on this magical journey of baking. Pioneer Woman's recipes cast a spell on me. When I see a new recipe on her blog, I think to myself, I must must must make that NOW. It's not because of her pizzazz of writing. And it's not because of her photography - although she takes amazingly beautiful pictures. The charm about her recipes is her passion and love for what she makes. In almost all of her recipe entries she commands the readers to immediately rush into the kitchen and make whatever it is she made that day. She tells us that it's the bestest and that we'll regret it if we don't. And as someone who does not want to go through life counting regrets (no no, I want to count many many cake and cookie triumphs) I feel a strong compulsion to do as I'm told and make her recipes. So, when the time came for me to bake for my co-workers, I turned to this yogurt marmalade cake that I'd been dreaming about since its been blogged.
I. was. excited.

I graciously made some mistakes while making this cake. I overbaked. :( How come no one tells you this? I used a chopstick to test the cake and the chopstick didn't come out clean. So even though the top of the cake looked finished, I left it in the oven a bit longer and BAM~! it turned brown on me. :( :( :( The chopstick still came out wet when I poked the cake, but after it cooled, the interior of the cake was perfect. Tse! So, I guess with pound cakes, the cake testing method isn't always accurate? I should judge by the exterior of the cake? What is up with that?

I doubled the recipe since I was feeding a lot of people. I had a very loooooooooong deliberation about whether to double the baking powder or not. I had hesitations because I couldn't remember seeing any recipe with that many teaspoons of baking powder. I google-researched and decided to go with the four teaspoons of baking powder. It was fine. :)

Anyway, even with my little mistakes, the cakes turned out fantastic. They were delicious and well-received by my friends at work.
Peeps.
If I may...
In the spirit of Pioneer Woman...
I command you to make this cake...NOW!? please..???

Even with its browned sides...isn't it BEA-U-tiful???

Yogurt Marmalade CakeFrom Pioneer Woman

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 heaping cup of plain, lowfat yogurt
• 1 C sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Zest of 1 lemon
• 1/2 C Canola oil
• Icing
• 1/2 C prepared orange marmalade
• 1/4 C yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray (or butter and flour) a loaf pan with nonstick baking spray.
2. Sift flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside
3. In a separate bowl, mix together yogurt, sugar, eggs, vanilla, lemon zest, and canola oil until just combined. Pour over dry ingredients and mix until just combined. Do not overbeat.
4. Pour into loaf pan and bake for 45 minutes. Remove and allow to cool for a bit before taking the cakes out of the pan.
5. While cake is cooling, pour marmalade into pan. Heat until melted, stirring occasionally.
6. Add yogurt to pan and turn off heat. Stir to combine, then pour slowly over the top of the cake, allowing icing to pool around the side. (This will be an awesome sight)

Chocolate Cupcakes

I'd like to let you in on one vigorous quest I've embarked upon in the last few days. The quest to find a yummmy-licious chocolate cupcake recipe. A very very valuable and an important quest. The world is always a better place with more chocolate cupcakes.

In the span of two days, I baked three different types of chocolate cupcakes. One that used sour cream, one that used vegetable oil, and one that used butter. Once again, my electric hand mixer overworked itself but boy was this experiment fun. Excellent for my waistline.

As it happens on quests, I have learned many valuable lessons about myself and cupcakes. For one, my doubts about veggie oil in baking have been overthrown. I know that for veteran bakers this is more than obvious information but for me, this was a great relief. Veggie oil works. Two, it isn't only lasagna that tastes better the next day. Despite the numerous disclaimers that say that the cupcakes taste best the day they're baked, I've found that every cupcake that I've baked tasted better the next day. Third thing I learned is that I'm a bit of an arrogant baker. Considering the fact that I've only just started baking, I take wayyyy too many liberties with the ingredients. The sour cream cupcakes probably didn't taste right because I made too many changes. Lesson learned. Add 'humility' to my next quest.

A quest for an important recipe is not complete without 'quality' judges. So I gathered a panel of highly qualified judges to present my bakings. (These people are skilled eaters and have been eating their entire lives.) The verdict was this: the butter cupcakes were totally 'rockin' but were overshadowed by the veggie oil cupcakes which were deemed 'amazing' by the panel.

Anyhoo,
Here are some pix for your amusement.

As you can see, I'm very skilled at frosting cupcakes.
If you need any badly iced cupcakes, please. Give me a buzz.

So I present to you Veggie Oil Cupcakes

Official Name: Black Magic Cake
from the Hershey's site

Ingredients:

• 2 C sugar
• 1 3/4 C all-purpose flour
• 3/4C Hershey's Cocoa
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 C buttermilk or sour milk
• 1 C strong black coffee or 2 tsp powdered instant coffee plus 1 C boiling water
• 1/2 C vegetable oil
  
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• **I added about 2/3 C of chocolate morsels to the batter (folded them in at the end) but they all sank to the bottom of the cupcakes. It still tasted good and my judges loved picking them off the paper cups.

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour muffin pans
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, coffee, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes (batter will be very thin). Pour batter into pans.
3. Bake for 22-25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean.
4. Cool and frost as desired.

I used vanilla whipped cream to ice the cupcakes which people LOVED. They look amazing together, too.

Vanilla Whipped Cream

1. Beat 2 cups of heavy cream (fresh cream) in a chilled bowl until it thickens.
2. Add 3/4 cups of icing sugar (confectioners sugar) gradually as you continue to beat the cream.
3. Add 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla essence and keep beating until soft peaks form.
4. After you frost the cupcakes, if you're not eating them right away, make sure you keep the in the refrigerator as the cream will soften up and lose its form.

(Butter) Chocolate Cupcakesswiped from Joy of Baking (A genius site for baking and presented with very kind and detailed instructions)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup dutch-process cocoa owder
• 1C boiling hot water
• 1 1/3 C all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 C unsalted butter, room temp
• 1 C granulated white sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Frosting

• 4 oz unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
• 2/3 C unsalted butter, room temp
• 1 1/3 confectioners sugar, sifted
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line muffin cups with paper liners or butter them
2. In a small bowl stir until smooth, the boiling water and cocoa powder. Let cool to room temp.
3. In another bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. In a bowl of electric mixer or hand mixer, cream butter, sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time beating until smooth. beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture and beat only until incorporated. Then add cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.
5. Fill muffin cups two-thirds with batter and bake for 16-20 minutes or until risen, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into cupcake comes out clean. Frost when the cupcakes have cooled.
6. Makes about 12 cupcakes (I came out with 15)

Frosting

1. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl placed over a saucepan of simmering water. Remove from heat and let cool to room temp.
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a handmixer, beat the butter until smooth and creamy (about 1 min). Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 2 min). Beat in vanilla extract. Add the chocolate and beat on low speed until incorporated. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until frosting is smooth and glossy (about 2-3 minutes)

Life is great when you can have this much fun with cupcakes and chocolate. :)
Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.

Lemon Cream Cupcake Recipe

Last Sunday, we were introduced to a missionary who had just lost his wife and thus had to come back to New Zealand. He was having the funeral at our church today and we (the congregation) received an email for help - for baked goods for their afternoon tea. I, very happily and respectfully, volunteered and planned to make cupcakes for this occasion.

I absolutely loved my first lemon cupcakes but came across this other lemon cupcake recipe that was getting rave reviews. So, I decided to venture out and bake this one.

With frosting, I also decided try something I haven't before - Dark Chocolate Ganache. This was another interesting experience.

Here's the recipe - adapted from "Hometown Cooking"

Cupcake Ingredients:

• 3 1/2 C all-purpose flour/cake flour (I used this)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 C (226g) butter softened and at room temp
• 1 1/2 C granulated sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract (I used 1 tsp only)
• 3 eggs
• 8 oz (226g) dairy sour cream
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• (I also added 2 Tbsp lemon juice just because I wanted to taste the lemon more strongly)

Dark Chocolate Ganache Ingredients

• 1 C thickened cream
• 400g bittersweet dark chocolate

Cupcakes

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Line cupcake pans with paper cups.
• Combine flour, baking powder + soda, and salt. Set aside.
• In a large bowl, beat butter with a mixer then add sugar and vanilla. Beat until well mixed.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour mixture and sour cream (and lemon juice if you're adding it) alternately to beaten mixture, beating on low speed after each addition is just combined. (Do not overmix!) Stir in lemon peel. The batter will be very thick)
• Spoon about 1/4 cup of the batter into each cup. Bake about 18 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

• Break chocolate into small pieces and put in a small bowl.
• Put the crea into a saucepan and bring to boil.
• Pour cream over chocolate and stir until chocolate has melted.

The cupcakes were not as light and fluffy as my other lemon cupcakes. It also lacked a lot of lemony flavour. It was still light and fluffy but more dense and very soft. The texture was definitely completely different. Also, my lemon cupcakes had a very buttery aftertaste but with this cupcake, I could not taste the butter as strongly. I know which one I personally prefer but I think it comes down to preference.

The Chocolate Ganache - now I know that I need to use fresh cream (heavy whipping cream) rather than the thickened cream (and most Ganache recipes call for heavy cream unlike this recipe). The thickened cream was so thick that the frosting started hardening a lot faster than I was ready for - I could not use my piping tube! I also ended up having bits of unmelted chocolate in my frosting.. :(
I've seen other Ganache recipes using butter (probably about 2-3 table spoons - melted in with the cream) but I opted not to do that. Other than the mistake of using thickened cream this is a great chocolate frosting. It's pure chocolate unlike 'chocolate butter cream frosting' and the like.

A little story. I had to drop these off in the morning before work so the frosting was made in the morning but the cupcakes were made last night. I was in the middle of prepping my ingredients to bake the cupcakes and as I was spooning my butter, I realised I didn't have enough. I had all my ingredients laid out (eggs cracked and everything) and was short of butter. I had a tub of shortening but could not bring myself to use it so, I stopped, left all my ingredients out in the open, drove out to a supermarket and bought the butter, came back and continued baking. :D Ahhhh the joy of living with my anal-retentive self. :)

I was disappointed I could not use my new piping tube but I know I'll get to use it in the very near future...hopefully... :)

How to ice a cupcake

Great tips on how to prepare the piping bag with icing as well as basic 'how-to' for icing a cupcake. Useful for real baking novices. :)

Lemon Cupcakes to die for~

So. Today I was in charge of lunch for my church small group. This taking-turns-to-make-lunch tradition had started before I joined the group so I was thrown into the deep end with my non-cooking self...nonetheless, I've decided to take full advantage of this chance to cook for about 18 people and practise my baking. So I tried out my slight variant of Martha Stewart's Lemon Cupcake recipe...the result? Amazing! I know I should be more modest about my cupcakes but they really were really yummy!! Yum~ Yum~
So without further ado, here's my beautiful recipe:

Ingredients:

3 Cups of self-rising flour
230g softened unsalted butter (room temperature)
2 Cups of caster sugar
4 eggs (room temperature)
1 Cup of whole milk (close to room temperature)
2-3 Tablespoons of lemon zest
2 1/2 Tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to about 190 degrees Celsius. Line your pan with paper cupcake liners. Sift flour and salt.
2. With an electric mixer cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs one at a time. (Crack the eggs on a separate bowl first so that you can fish out any shells) Beat each egg until fully incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
4. Beat in zest and vanilla.
5. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of milk and lemon juice. Mix until the mixtures are just combined. Do not overmix as that will create very tough cupcakes.
6. Fill the cupcake liners only three-quarters full.
7. My oven baked for about 17 minutes. To test if the cupcakes are ready, insert a toothpick in the centre of a cupcake and the toothpick should come out clean. Or push down on the cupcake - if the bread springs back up right away, they are ready.
8. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan before taking them out to put on a cooling rack.

**Use the upper part of the oven
**Turn the pan around half way through the baking to ensure even baking
**If baking with one pan, ensure that the pan has cooled down before putting it back in. I used two baking pans and put the remaining one in the fridge for it to cool down faster.

Frosting:
Ideally, you should use buttercream frosting or cream cheese frosting. But I didn't think buttercream frosting would have done well with a Korean crowd, so I decided to improvise and create a lemon whipped cream. They went very well with the lemon cupcakes and I think it was quite well received by my Koren friends.

Lemon Whipped Cream Icing

Ingredients:

2 Cups Heavy Cream (I used fresh cream which I found is virtually the same thing) - make sure the cream is cold
3/4 icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
1 1/2Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

1. At low speed, beat cream in a chilled bowl until it begins to thicken
2. Gradually add the icing sugar and lemon juice
3. On high speed beat until soft peaks form.

*If the cupcake is to be served hours later, they must be refrigerated because of the frosting...or did everybody know that already? Apparently, the whipped cream does not do well being out for too long
**For baking novices (like moi) 'beat until soft peaks form' means beat until you can create a soft, stable peak when scooping the cream - (I had to look up what this meant. :P)

Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy~ Ahhhhhhhhhh..............