Red Velvet Cupcakes

I love red velvet cake/pastry/cupcake. Unfortunately, I am yet to find a bakery in Gurgaon which has this. No kidding... Binge, L'Opera, Taj Vivanta etc do not have it. How I miss Rolling Pin at R City Mall, Ghatkopar. I was addicted to their red velvet pastry. Sure, Choco La does have it but it is a little hard.
While reading this month's Femina I came across the recipe for this by Pooja Dhingra (of Le 15 Patisserie fame) and decided to make it this weekend.

What I like about Red velvet is that it is not too sweet... and the cream cheese frosting complements it so well. Unlike a regular pastry which has sweet cake and a sweeter frosting.

Makes 5-6 cupcakes.
Ingredients:
For the cupcakes:
- 55 gm butter
- 150 gm caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tbsp red food coloring (do not use the gel color, use the liquid color)
- 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa
- 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
- a pinch of salt
- 100 gm yoghurt
- 120 gm flour (maida)
- 1/2 tsp cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp baking soda

For the cream cheese frosting:
- 125 gm cream cheese, cold (I used the one from Britannia... it is so much cheaper)
- 50 gm butter, at room temperature
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 300 gm icing sugar, sifted

I was not very accurate with the measurements because I don't have the measuring cups. Weird, I know but I have not baked in a long time. Will definitely buy them now. In fact I just realized that I forgot to add vinegar and baking soda yet the cupcakes turned out fine. And thats why I prefer making cupcakes, unlike a cake where measurements are very important.

Method:
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius. Line 6 cupcake tin with liners
- In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream butter and caster sugar till light and fluffy, for about 5 minutes. Add the egg and beat well.
- In a small bowl, whisk together red food coloring, cocoa and vanilla essence. Add to the batter and beat well
- In a measuring cup, stir the salt into the yoghurt and whisk well. Beat into the batter. Add flour and beat until flour just disappears into the batter.
- In a small bowl, stir together vinegar and baking soda. Add to the batter and mix well. Pipe batter into the cupcake liners till 3/4th full. Bake for 20 mins till a skewer comes out clean
- To make frosting, beat the cream cheese and butter together till smooth. Add lemon zest and beat. Gradually add icing sugar, one cup at a time, beating continuously till smooth and creamy.
- Cover and refrigerate frosting for 2-3 hours before piping on to cupcakes.

Yummilicios red velvet cupcakes are ready.  

Jam filled muffins

I made these way back in Nov'11.

I took the recipe from Anita's blog.

Ingredients

-1 and 3/4 cups Flour
-1/2 cup sugar
-1 tablespoon baking powder
-1/2 teaspoon salt
-2/3 cup milk
-1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
-2 eggs
-1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
-1/2 cup jam  ( I used peach jam)

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 400F
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
3. In another bowl, lightly beat eggs, milk, butter and lemon rind.
4. Pour into the dry ingredients and the stir until moistened.
5. Spoon half batter, make a well, add jam, spoon the remaining batter and bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden.

Tutti Fruti cup cakes

I posted this in Feb'12.

I went shopping for groceries at Modern Bazaar in Gurgaon which stocks a lot of imported stuff... came across tutti fruti.

Few months back I was looking for tutti fruti to add in cupcakes and could not find them anywhere. What a bummer. This time I was inspired- reached home at 8 pm and started making cupcakes batter. The recipe was taken from Maria Goretti's blog (she was a VJ on MTV and is the wife of Arshad Warsi). The batter looked fab and I was looking forward to devouring the cupcakes. Unfortunately, I left the microwave on preheat for a very long time. It conked off and wouldn't turn on. I had to throw away the batter. I was planning to get it repaired on Sunday and resume baking.

But I tried turning the microwave on in the morning and it worked. Yoohoo. I returned from work, did the whole thing again and baked a bunch of lovely cupcakes.
Below is the recipe taken from MG's blog.

Cupcakes
1 1/4 cup , self rising flour
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup whole milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbsp butter
1 cup sugar
3 large egg whites
Tutti Fruti (not in original recipe- added by me)

Method:

Pre heat oven to 250 degrees Celsius for 20 minutes.. Mine took 10 mins only and then I turned it off.

1.Sift the flour and salt in a bowl and set aside.
2.In another small bowl, stir the milk, vanilla and almond extracts together. I used essence instead of extract.
3.In a large bowl, with the hand mixer on medium, beat the butter and sugar, until it lightens in colour about 3 minutes.
4.On low speed, add the flour to the butter mix in 3 additions and the milk in 2 additions, till its just about blended and set aside.
5.In another large bowl , beat the egg whites with an electric beater till it is nice and shiny white , smooth and nice and stiff. Stop beating when it starts looking like snow... you will see the peaks. This is the hardest and most boring part.
6. Stir about 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter, with the electric beater , then stop and with a spatula , just fold the rest of the beaten egg whites in.
7. Take the tutti fruit on a plate... sprinkle some flour and mix them together. This will prevent them from settling at the bottom. Add into the batter with a spatula.
7. Put the batter into your muffin moulds , they make about 6 and cook them at 160 degrees for 17 minutes, and the little white poppykins are ready , take them out and leave them to cool....