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.  

Caramel Pudding/Custard

I have almost given up on baking because I am on a healthy eating mission and desserts are rarely low calorie/healthy. But I have a lot of baking ingredients and so decided to finish them off. Also, baking is very precise... any mistake or change in measurement and the dish goes poohh... It happened last weekend when I tried making coconut mousse. It tasted amazing but did not set. Oh well, I am going to try it again.

I follow the instagram feed of passionforbaking and decided to check out the blog and found a recipe for caramel pudding.

You can check out the recipe and step by step pictures here. The only problem- the blog is in Nowergian language so I had to use google translate it. The good part- newer posts have an English translation.

I have halved the recipe to make a smaller pudding meant for 4 people.

Ingredients:
- 1.5 cups sugar for caramel
- 300 ml milk
- 150 ml cream
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 4 eggs

Preheat oven to 125 degree Celsius

Method:

- Pour 1.5 cups sugar in a saucepan and put it on medium heat. Let it melt and become caramel.

- Pour the caramel in a cake pan (the one in which you want to make your caramel custard). If you want to make smaller cups of the custard, pour the caramel into such pans. Move it around to coat the sides

- In another bowl, beat the eggs with hand. No need to use an electric beater

- In a saucepan, heat milk, 1/2 cup sugar, vanilla essence and cream. Turn off the gas when it comes to a boil

- Once the mixture cools, add the beaten eggs to it

- Pour the mixture on top of the caramel in the cake pan

This is where the recipe gets confusing... when I researched online, Indian recipes suggested cooking in an oven while international recipes recommended cooking in a water bath.

- What I did was... boiled water... poured it into a glass vessel and then placed the cake pan into it

- I placed the glass vessel (with hot water and cake pan) into the preheated oven at 180 degree Celsius and baked for 30 mins

- Its done when the top becomes brownish... you can use a knife to check it

- When it cools, overturn it onto a plate and refrigerate

Yum... love the custard/pudding... tastes so good.

Cranberry Molasses Cake (but without the molasses)

I came across this recipe few days back here. I had purchased cranberries for a smoothie and decided to use them for this cake instead.

Ingredients:

• Olive or canola spray oil - I used regular cooking oil
• 2 cups whole wheat pastry flour - Maida
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 cup plain full-fat Greek yogurt - Used sour cream instead since greek yoghurt was not available
• 1/3 cup molasses - Too expensive (400 bucks)... used castor sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cup fresh cranberries or thawed frozen cranberries

Method:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-inch round cake pan with oil, and then line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper. Spray the parchment paper with oil; set the pan aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and baking soda. In a separate bowl, whisk together sour cream, castor sugar, honey and eggs. Gently whisk flour mixture into sugar mixture just until blended and smooth. Fold in cranberries.

Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes, then remove cake from the pan and peel off parchment paper. Continue to cool completely on the wire rack.

I do not like cranberries and I realized that now. The cake turned out to be ok.

Nutella Lave mug cake

This is the easiest cake I have made. It was quite a rage last year with many food blogs featuring it.

Ingredients:

 - 4 tablespoons self rising flour (maida), sifted

- 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

- 4 tablespoons caster sugar

- 1 medium egg

- 3 tablespoons Nutella

- 3 tablespoons milk

- 3 tablespoons olive oil

- 2-3 teaspoon chocolate chips

Method:

- Combine all ingredients except chocolate chips.
- Beat well with a whisk till smooth and blended.
-  Put the batter in 2-3 mugs 3/4th full. Mine was enough for 2 small mugs.
- Add 1 tsp of chocolate chips in each mug and push it through the batter.
- Microwave on high for 1.5 mins. I did it for 1 min and the bottom half was not completely cooked... which was ok since I liked the oozing chocolate. If you microwave for a longer time, it will become completely cooked and lose the oozing chocolate.

You can even add whipped cream... or strawberries and jazz it up a little bit.

Birthday Cake

I made this cake for my hubby's b'day in June last year. I have never tried a cake of this level... with frosting and everything. Instead of the usual cakes I wanted to try something new. I decided on a 2 cakes- one on top of another and red velvet cake. I used a heart shaped pan and a round pan.

Please don't mind the juvenile looking frosting. It is my first attempt.

Cake: Recipe taken from here 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 cups of sugar
1 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 1/2 tbsp liquid red food coloring
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tbsp cider vinegar

Method:

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
- Grease and lightly flour 2 or 3 round 9" cake pans.
- Sift flour and salt together, set aside. 
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugar.  Mix until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs one at a time.  Mix well after each addition. 
- Add the flour mixture to the bowl alternately with the buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.  - - Blend in vanilla.
- In a small bowl, mix the 1 1/2 tbsp red food coloring and 1 tbsp cocoa powder until a paste forms.  Add to the sugar and butter mixture.  Mix well.
-  In a small bowl or condiment cup, stir together the baking soda and cider vinegar.  This will foam and should be put into the batter immediately after well mixed.  After adding the foam mixture, blend on medium-high speed until batter is consistent.

- Spoon batter evenly into pans - batter will be very thick!  Level  top of batter with an offset spatula.  Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

- 1 - 8 ounce (227 grams) cream cheese, room temperature

- 1 - 8 ounce (227 grams) tub of Mascarpone cheese, room temperature

- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

- 1 cup (115 grams) confectioners' (icing or powdered) sugar, sifted

- 1 1/2 (360 ml) cups cold heavy whipping cream (double cream)

METHOD...

- In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese and mascarpone cheese until smooth.
-Add the vanilla and confectioners sugar and beat until smooth.
-Using the whisk attachment, gradually add the heavy cream and whip until the frosting is thick enough to spread. Add more sugar or cream as needed to get the right consistency.

The cream cheese frosting was perfect for it since the cake was sweet and the cheesy, not so sweet frosting balanced that. A regular frosting would be a bad idea with this.

I used red readymade icing (or is it marzipan) in a tube for the decorations. Too tacky, I know. I do not like marzipan and will avoid it in the future.

Chocolate Cookies

I came across the recipe for chocolate cookies online. It is extremely simple and made with ingredients at home. I came home and within half an hour had a plate of beautiful, tasty, soft and gooey cookies.
I am posting the recipe below... will have to search where I copied from.

Ingredients:
- 2 egg whites
- 1 cup ground almonds
- 3 tbsp cocoa
- 1 and half cup powdered sugar

Method:
- Preheat oven to 400 degree F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. I did not have any so used oil. I think parchment paper would have been better. I used a muffin tray since I did not want the batter to spread out and become one flat cookie.
- Mix all the ingredients till it becomes a cohesive mixture.
- Fill a large bowl with cold water and wet your hand before rolling the mixture into small balls.
- Arrange on the tray and bake for 11 mins.

I prefer the soft and gooey texture compared to hard one. Must try.

Carrot Cake

I baked this cake in August. The recipe has been taken from Anita's blog.