Orange and Almond Cupcakes

A couple of weeks ago I received my first OFFICIAL cupcake order from my colleague!   Yipppee!!!  It was for my colleague’s mother in law’s 65th birthday!  They mentioned something about a lemony type of flavour cupcake… so immediately my head went into thinking mode of something rather adult yet yummy for a 65th birthday!  Bearing in mind apparently this was a very hip and modern 65 year old!  The thought of orange + almond came into mind… almond meal is quite subtle in flavour and gives the cupcake a slightly rough but yet more solid feel to it, which I felt was more appropriate for such a birthday, rather than for example a more plain flavour, like a vanilla cupcake!

Tonight, I finally got time to bake these orange and almond cupcakes…and I know I know, I should always follow a new recipe first, but I always find it way too tempting to meddle with the recipe, and ended up modifying it quite a bit, haha!  I’m not sure how it tastes yet – it is still sitting on the kitchen top, cooling down!  First impression?  I need to work on it again!   I think I was too generous with the orange juice… creating a citrus chemistry…

Will see how it turns out and may blog the pictures later this week!

Recipe was found from Home MadeS’ blog:

Original Recipe:  Almond and Orange Blossom Cakes

Source: Donna Hay Magazine, Issue 41, October/November 2008

 

125g butter, softened

¾ cup (165g) caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 cup (250ml) plain flour, sifted

1 tsp baking powder, sifted

¼ cup (30g) almond meal

½ cup (125ml) milk

2 tsps orange blossom water

sugar flowers, to decorate

Preheat the oven to 160C (320F). Beat butter, sugar and extract until light and creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beat well. Fold in the sifted flour and baking powder, and then almond meal, milk and orange blossom water. Combine well. Spoon the mixture into 18 x ½ cup-capacity (125ml) muffin tins lined with paper cases.  Bake for 15 minutes or until springy to the touch. Remove from the tins and cool on the wire racks.

Ho Ho Ho!!!

I gotta go to bed now! Boohoohoo!!!   But just wanted to say Hello!  It has been TOO long!!!  I really miss blogging!!!

Cannot believe tomorrow is 1 December 2009!!!  Where did the year go?  That seems to be the general consensus amongst all! 

Just a quick one – our Christmas tree is up! Yay!!! My bro bought the tree, my sister decorated it and I am wrapping up the “presents” to place under the tree haha!

Also, we bought a gingerbread house!  I am SUPER excited!  Cannot wait to decorate it!  It’s a bit smaller than I expected tho!  A suggested we buy two kits and build a double storey house!  A mansion! HAHAHA!

We have stockings and christmasy stuff hanging around the house now!  Hope you have a fun December… Hohoho!!! Stay tuned or more blog posts!

I better dash off to bed now… panda eyes otherwise!

My Favourite Time of the Year…

…. is Christmas!   I love everything about Christmas…!  I love the festive mood in the air, the pretty lights, the glowing decorations and how special everything feels!  I love the big family gatherings, the feasts, the food, the presents, the fuss!!!  Most importantly for us christians, it is a time to remember the birth of Jesus

Christmas every year seems to catch me by surprise!  Yes, I know, it is the 25th December, every single year, so you would think that I would obviously not be surprised when I see all the decorations and christmas carols playing!  Yet, it comes by quicker and quicker each year!  I feel like I dont get to absorb the mood and festivity before everything gets packed away, and I’m left thinking, what just happened?!  Yes, I love the christmas theme, Natalie Coe, Michael Buble’s christmas carols, even Mariah Carey’s christmas songs.  I love shortbread, turkey, the red and green colour, the perfect excuse to eat and not feel guilty (well not too guilty anyway!).  When we were young, it took forever till it was Christmas…. how 365 days nowadays feels quicker than that!

Our young, big eyes would stare at all the glorious presents all wrapped up underneath the tree at my Grandma’s house.  I’m not kidding, I reckon it went for at least 2m around the tree!  It was the best time of the year!  Of course, everyone wrapped mutiple presents for us kids, so that we could keep upwrapping and upwrapping gift after gift!

So, this year, I want to better absorb the Christmas season!  Bonus, we are actually in Australia this year to celebrate, so we can start cooking and baking!!!  Yay!  I cannot wait!!!  Stay tuned – hopefully you will see some christmas goodies emerging from the kitchen!

What are you doing for Christmas this year?  Hope you enjoy your Christmas this year… enjoy it, love it, embrace it and stuff yourselves full of food, fun and laughter!

(Photos courtesy of www.taste.com.au – check it out!  There are lots of great ideas for you to start getting into the christmas mood!))

San Churro… Spanish Doughnuts!

 

Talk about having indulgence, luxury, creamy, heavenly flavours all in one cup … that’s what you get in a sip of San Churro’s Hot Chocolate!   This is not for the faint hearted!

On Friday afternoon, I thought I would make A’s wish come true for a cup of this hot chocolate!  So I asked The Memoir and her husband and our friend G to come along for a night of chocolate adventure.  It has been awhile since we headed into a “happening” spot like Fremantle on a Friday night – JUST for the fun of it!  (Made me realise that we should do this more often!  We are young, we are free, we haven’t got kids yet, we should get out more!!! Haha!)

We had to wait around, despite it being about 9.30pm, and had to hawk around like hungry vultures waiting for a table.  The place was buzzing!  With the deep brown wooden furniture, nicely displaced chocolates lining up the shelves and the energy of a friday night, it felt like a big city cafe!  I really liked the atmosphere!  The service was really quick too!

A ordered the Couverture Dark Hot Chocolate, and oh my, talk about a serious chocolate hit – more like a smash and a bang!!!  It’s like a chocolate bar, melted and sipped!  Even for a chocolate fan like me, I found it too rich – I think shared between two would be perfect! 

I had the Mint Spanish Hot Chocolate – it was nice actually!  It felt a lot less rich than the dark hot chocolate, but if you want a true chocolate hit, go for the pure hot chocolate!!!

We ordered a set for 2 and shared it amongst 5 of us…. it comes with 2 types of melted chocolate and 6 of these spanish doughnuts!  I think it could be more soft and fluffy to be honest!  I still remember having some of these at the Bluewater Grill buffet once, and they were actually better!  These were a little too tough and crunchy!  However, having never actually been to Spain or known a Spanish person, I’m not sure I am a good judge on what it is meant to be, since we have been more exposed to the american type of doughnuts!

Now… Im thinking I should research on how to create these doughnuts!  Yes, just deep fry them – but I’m wondering how do we make them extra tasty!  I expected the doughnut to be more flavoursome – perhaps I should add in some vanilla bean or extract if I ever make it myself!

This says it all…………. !!!  Always enjoy your chocolate!!! 

I shall be back to visit San Churros – if not to have a chocolate feast, but to enjoy a true cafe atmospher (you would struggle to find this type of cafe on a Friday night in a suburban cafe! )

FREMANTLE

91 Market Street,
Fremantle, WA. 6160
p 08 9336 7557

(Thanks to A for these yummy photos!!!)

Sun-Thu 8:30am-10pm
Fri-Sat 8:30am-11pm

Baby Cupcakes!

I’ve received a couple of comments lately that I haven’t been blogging!  Hehehe that was nice to know actually – that meant that people read my blog!  Yes, sometimes I feel like Julie in the movie “Julie & Julia” (btw, you should watch it – sooooo good!  Inspirational and just utterly delicious!), where you write into this empty space out there and you feel like you are talking to yourself!

I love these cupcakes!!!  Thank you to all who gave feedback on them as well!  I was rather pleased that my new recipe created these rather moist little mini cutey cupcakes for R&C’s wedding last friday!  These days, I scribble my recipes and tips on paper around the kitchen – I find that when playing around and experimenting, you never know when exactly that one thing does the trick! 

R&C had the lilac colour theme going!  I made a white chocolate ganache and mixed in a bit of red and blue colouring.  Go easy on the blue – otherwise at first it looks grey!!!  But don’t panick!  Just add in more red till you get the purple shade you want!  I promise you, it will turn purple

I loved the chocolate ganache more than the lilac white chocolate ganache – it was incredibly rich, smooth and creamy, a softer ganache than I normally make – but I think it worked really well with the pale yellow vanilla cupcakes.  Trick is if you want a softer chocolate ganache, go with the single cream/whipping cream.  The thickened cream will make a much stronger and stable ganache, but it is a lot firmer and not as easy and delicate on the tastebuds!!!

*Yawn*  Time for bed – yay tomorrow is FRIDAY!!!  Happy Friday everyone!  Hope you have a great weekend and enjoy the warmer weather that is sweeping over Perth!!!

P.S.  Big Thanks to The Memoir who took these pictures for me!  Aren’t they fantastic?!

A Heartful of Cupcake!

Congratulations Yau Hing & Edwina!

YH & Edwina are dear friends of ours!  We have had many fun double dates, and we were so happy to hear they were getting engaged, and now having an engagement party!  A couple who are so generous, thoughtful and helpful and who know how to enjoy great food and laughter!  It has been particularly fun exchanging wedding stories and tips with Edwina!!! 

I had been thinking for awhile what to bake for YH and Edwina’s engagement party!  They both like chocolate and like the colour red!  So I was on a chocolate mission!

Anyway, this idea hit me whilst busy at work last week!  Perhaps it was my brain trying to calm me down whilst the tasks seemed to go on forever, spreadsheets and documents opened at maximum capacity, when the inbox never seems to decrease in size!  Yes, cake is perspective.  Pretty yummy cakes are great “distractions”!

I baked about 50 mini chocolate cupcakes with double chocolate ganache (Lindt swiss chocolate is the very best!  However, go easy if you use the 70% cocoa, it can get rather bitter – by the way, whilst reading up on the chocolate ganache and properties of this frosting, I found out that dark chocolate is what stabilises a ganache!  How interesting is that!).

I used my previous mudcake recipe for these cupcakes, however very interestingly enough, they came out quite differently!!!  They were more fluffy and light than dense!  Goes to show that depending on the tin sizes etc, it will change the composition and texture of a cake!

We bought red paint and the wooden letters from Spotlight (no we didnt carve it! Haha!) which A carefully painted!  The mini cupcakes and wooden letters were secured with blue tack!  It seemed to do the trick – very stable!!!

Congratulations again, YH & Edwina!  We wish you every happiness and joy for your future together!  Happy wedding planning!!!

P.S.  Stay tuned for this Friday’s wedding sweets creation!!!

Strawberry Heaven!

I love strawberries!!! :)  As I called them in one of my previous entries, they are like “happy fruit” to me!   I love their vibrant colour, their heart shape, their very sweet aroma, it’s like no other fruit!  They are great with almost every dessert and my favourite way to decorate my cupcakes and cakes! 

It was such a different thing to do on a Monday night – to decorate this sponge!  I really enjoyed it!  What a luxury to be able to create cakes on a week night!  I made the sponge the day before but dressed it up after dinner on Monday, before we gave a couple of slices to our flowergirl’s family! (She is super cute!!!)  It was absolutely the best way to start the week and a great way to enjoy a weeknight!

I made the sponge from scratch, using an asian style sponge recipe!  I was inspired,  after stumbling upon Crummb’s “Perfect Sponge Cake” blog entry quite a few months ago.  She totally convinced me to give it a go!  I have made sponges a couple of times, and although they are one of the most common cakes that you can think of, and can buy from any deli and supermarket, to find a truly moist and yet light and fluffy sponge is not an easy task!  The asian sponges are really nice – light and slightly sweet and yet not too airy, and are quite moist!

Here is a slice of the cake, sandwiched with a nice light, slightly sweetened vanilla bean fresh cream, with slices of fresh strawberries! 

Hmmm… how would I rate my sponge… it had a nice texture – light yet the crumb quite close, however it could have been a bit more moist!  I’m not sure how to make it a bit more moist… I wonder if I should brush some sugar syrup on it?

Anyhow – it was a pretty good sponge cake!  Simple and easy on the eye and the tastebuds!

Stay tuned… for last night’s creation!!!

Baking Cupcakes

 

 

 

Hehehe… this is going to be me tomorrow night!!!

Stay tuned!!!

Cupcakes on Show

Why do I like cupcakes? Do you like cupcakes?

As I was thinking of what to write today, I thought of this question! 

Personally, I find cupcakes so cute and pretty, like your very own miniture cake! Literally a mouthful of cake!  Haha!  They are also quicker to bake but in fact are probably more time consuming to decorate!

However, to be honest, I have never actually purchased a cupcake before!  The one time I was going to, the shop was closed    The thought of the sweet, thick sugary topping always put me off, I can almost imagine it permanently sticking to my hips!  EWww!!!

So I hardly ever ever make buttercream (however my Mum tried this recipe that made me change my mind about it!  One day I shall have to make it!)  or those really sweet frostings that is just made of butter and sugar and either milk or water – one look and I flip the page!  I prefer the more creamy and tasty ganache or fresh cream frostings (even though they are no less in calories I’m sure!).

I made the ganache extra “sturdy” this time!  It had to endure a photo shoot!!!  Chocolate to thickened cream 2:1 ratio.  My favourite chocolate ganache still has to be those made with about 70% cocoa type of chocolate!  I used Cadbury’s Old Gold Dark chocolate this time, whilst not bad, it wasn’t as rich and as tasty and satisfying as using Lindt or Green & Black’s.

Thanks to the memoir who took a picture of my cupcake, I present to you my version of a white chocolate mudcake buttercake!  These were the cupcakes I baked for our pre-wedding shoot.  They were more like a vanilla cupcake – but guess what – it was a stir through recipe!  I’m now thinking whether this was any much different to my vanilla cupcakes that use the creaming method!

Photo taken from my iphone…  lately my favourite ingredient has been buttermilk – they seem to tenderise and fluff everything!!!  These were made with buttermilk and cake flour.  They came out nice and light and fluffy – considering it was all stirred together!   I think I should have taken them out of the oven 5 mins earlier, although my bro who is not a cupcake fan said he really enjoyed these ones (because it had a crunchy top, haha!)

Next entry will be on my Strawberry Shortcake… created on a Monday night… the perfect de-stressing after work activity…!

Chocolate Hit!

Your chocolate hit!

Yes this is what you call a piece of chocolate cake!  A yummy, unmistaken piece of “happiness”!  My kitchen hasn’t got the best of lighting so it made it hard for A to take the picture, but here it is…. a chocolate mudcake with a double chocolate ganache!

Thank you to all my tasters who went through my grilling process on the texture, taste, moisture level and richness of this cake!  Haha! 

I’m baking a two tiered wedding cake for my colleague in December, and he requested for a chocolate mudcake.  So I baked this cake for him and his fiance to try – and they loved it! PHEW!!!  To be honest, this is my ONLY recipe that I have now - so I was glad that it seemed to tick all the boxes

What I loved about this mudcake was that it was undeniably a chocolate cake (I know I keep talking about this, but to be honest, I taste too many cakes out there that are supposed to be chocolate but the look and flavour do not match!  I actually am starting to avoid chocolate cakes at cafes these days!  Unless it is a reputable place!) – the richness of a chocolate cake solely lies on the type of chocolate you use… do not be stingy here – if you are, you wont get that same deep flavour!

It was slightly dense as a mudcake should be, yet not too heavy that it gets stuck in your throat, it still had some air in the crumb, so you could eat it comfortably, and the double chocolate ganache truly had the intensity to seal the deal  

Quality of ingredients was not spared haha….. it just isn’t the same without using good quality chocolate and cocoa.  I now use dutch cocoa for my chocolate cakes and high cocoa percentage chocolate bars!  I was telling my friend the other day I might go broke baking for a living!!!  Haha!

Will be baking this chocolate mudcake for E’s engagement party next weekend!   But it will be decorated to her theme colour! Will blog it next weekend!

Next post will be on a white chocolate butter cupcake I made for our engagement shoot……..