The Baking Diaries since March 30th, 2011

Rainbow cake!!

Recipe: one 8 in cake +6 cupcakes. Although if you want just cake use 8in, but put more quantity of colours. The The colouring can be omitted for just vanilla cake. -it’s taste is very good for vanilla cake.

3c flour

1.5tbsp baking powder

235g butter softened

1 1/2c sugar

4 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla

1c milk

For rainbow cake: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple food colouring. (the amount depends on how concentrated your colouring is, and how concentrated you want the colour to be. I put a few drops in for each.

180C. Line bottom with baking paper, oil sides.

Sift flour, baking powder, mix.

Beat butter until creamy and smooth, add sugar, eggs, vanilla. Beat.

Alternate flour mixtureand milk, starting and ending with flour.

For rainbow cake: separate batter into 6 bowls, one bowl (for purple) should ahve more than any other bowl (because you’ll put this at the bottom of cake pan, and if you donth ave enough the other colours will cover the purple. trust me). The quantity of each bowl should go in descending order, so one bowl has most batter (for purple), then blue, then green…with one bowl with the least (red.)

If you want the colours to be the other way around, so bottom is red, then orange, and whwat you see on top is purple. Thats fine too.

Add the colourings to each bowl, mix.

For the cake: Add huge huge spoonfuls of purple on the bottom of cake pan which is lined with baking paper. Tap cake mould on bench so that the colour spreads bit more to the side. Then add the next colour (blue), add enough so that it covers most of the purple, but a rim of purple can still be seen. Tap the cake mould. Repeat for other colours. At the end you should end up with big red colour in the centre, covering the orange, and the orange covering the yellow etc.

If you’re doing the other way around, you’ll see purple in the center on top, covering the blue, which covers the green…and the outer most rim is the red.

For cupcakes- its much simpler. add a small spoonful of purple on the bottom (SMALL- or else you wont have enough space for other colours), spread so that it covers entire cupcake liner. Add some blue…and then finally red on top.

To get that swirl effect (not the layered colour on) use the method for the cake one. Where u add a drop of the purple, then a drop of the blue…but don’t spread it.

Bake for 25 min around.

(Source: Flickr / bakingexplosion)

mint chocolate cupcake with mint buttercream frosting :) 

man i haven’t baked in a long time!

Recipe- makes 18 cupcakes

1 1/2c flour

1c +2tbsp sugar

3tbsp oil

2 eggs

1 1/2 tsp baking soda (+1 tsp)

3/4 tsp baking powder (+3/8 tsp)

3/4c buttermilk

3/4c cocoa powder (if you don’t have enough, melt some dark chocolate and mix it in, just a bit)

3/4c warm water

80ml peppermint liqueur (mine was 24% alcohol- u can replace this with extract, i added quite a lot because the taste wasn’t so strong, so adjust the amount according to the peppermint concentration)

3/4tsp salt

180C.

Put cupcake liners in tray.

Mix flour, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, baking powder, baking soda together, mix with electric mixer until combined.

Add eggs, buttermilk, oil, warm water, peppermint liqueur and beat until combined. (it was at this point that i saw that it was way too watery, so i just added lumps of flour in, literally spoonfuls until it was slightly thicker, so that’d be around 1/3-1/2c more flour.

So with that i put in brackets how much more of the raising agents i added.) Beat, and pour into cupcake liners, it should be of pouring consistency but not water consistency.

Bake for 20 min. Take out cool.

Frosting:

150g butter softened

amount of icing sugar really depends on you, but i used half cup, sifted

3 tbsp peppermint liqueur (depends on how concentrated u want the frosting to be)

Beat butter until creamy and soft, sift in icing sugar, beat until fluffy, add the peppermint, it should turn whiter and slightly green.

Frost!

(Source: Flickr / bakingexplosion)

Red Velvet Cake with Cream cheese frosting:

Recipe: makes 3 thin layers of 6in cake or 18 cupcakes

1 3/4c +2tbsp flour

1.5tbsp cocoa powder

pinch salt

1c sugar

263ml oil

1.5 eggs room temperature

Red food colouring

3/4tsp vanilla

3/4c buttermilk (or 3/4c milk+ 3/4tbsp vinegar-mix, let it rest at room temperature)

1 1/8tsp baking soda 

1/4tsp baking powder

(1.5tbsp vinegar+ 1/4tsp baing soda + 1/8tsp baking powder)

180C

Grease pan. Sift flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder, baking soda (the ones not in brackets)

Beat sugar, oil, eggs, vanilla until combined. Add food colouring until red (will add more later(

Beat in flour, but alternating with the buttermilk, so flour, buttermilk, flour, buttermilk, flour. Add more food colouring until it is really red. Stir together the vinegar+baking soda+baking powder in brackets. Fold into batter quickly. Pour into pan (or if cupcakes-3/4 full) bake 20 minutes. After cooled, cut into three layers, or two if you wish.

Cream Cheese:

136g cream cheese softened

80g butter softened

1 1/4c icing sugar- really depends on how sweet you want. 

1/2tspvanilla

(if you want a whiter frosting, use less butter and more cream cheese)

Beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth„ sift in icing sugar, beat. Add vanilla, mix. Frost

lemon glazed pistachio cupcakes

recipe= makes 14 cupcakes

118g butter

75g cream cheese

2.5 eggs

1/2+1/8tsp vanilla

1tsp salt

1 1/4c sugar

1 1/4c flour

1/2+ 1/8 tsp baking powder

75ml shelled pistachios

1/4c slivered pistachios (or chopped)

180C. Grind shelled pistachios in food processor until paste (it’s more like powder that can be patted into a solid, not literally a thick paste- do not add anything to this)

Beat butter, cream cheese, paste together for three minutes. Add sugar, beat, add eggs, beat, vanilla. Beat in flour, salt, baking powder.

Fold in slivered pistachios. Spoon into cases.

Bake 30 min.

Glaze:

1/3c icing sugar sifted, 75ml cream, 2 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice.

Mix all together until smooth. Use immediately

(Source: Flickr / bakingexplosion)

chocolate cupcakes with ganache

credits

made by mee!

cupcakes!

owned 

owned by mee

credits.

cupcake

credits

oh this looks goood

i couldn’t agree more

good thing they don’t have these in HK, or else i’ll be obese before i become an adult!

:O