Red Velvet cupcakes

I was always fascinated by the red-velvet cake and cupcake recipe. The rich deep red colour with the white cream-cheese frosting. I was looking forward to making it for quite sometime now. Finally I decided to bake it on my daughter's birthday. She is fond of cupcakes and I decided the chocolatey flavour and the bright red colour will be to her liking. I was not wrong :).

I adapted the recipe from joyofbaking. The original recipe makes 12 normal size cupcakes. I used mini-muffin pan. So the normal recipe would have made 36 mini-cupcakes for me. I doubled the original recipe to 72 cupcakes. I served her friends who dropped in for the party and sent some to her school too.

Since this is a chocolate cake, and we do not get cream cheese here easily, I decided to frosted the cupcakes with white-chocolate ganache.

Red Velvet Cupcakes:

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons regular or Dutch-processed cocoa powder (I used Cadbury's)

1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk (I used 3/4 cup yoghurt + 1/4 cup water)

1/2 tsp red food coloring paste

1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

1 teaspoon baking soda

Red Velvet Cupcakes: 

Preheat oven to 170 degrees C and line 12 mini-muffin tin with paper mini-cupcake liners.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder.

In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the butter until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes). Add the egg and beat until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla extract and beat until combined.

In a measuring cup whisk the buttermilk with the red food coloring. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.

In a small cup combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to fizz and then quickly fold into the cake batter. 

Working quickly, spoon the batter into the 12  muffin cups and smooth the tops with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 10-12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cupcakes comes out clean.

Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes and them remove from pan. Let cool completely before frosting. Either spread the frosting with a knife or offset spatula, or use a large 1M Wilton open star decorating tip to pipe the frosting.

For the Frosting:

I decided to use the White chocolate ganache frosting recipe from Diana's page.

Ingredients:
4 1/2 ounces white chocolate, finely chopped
1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar (I pulsed normal granulated sugar for 30-60 seconds in the blender. For 1 cup of granulated sugar, I added 2 tbsp of cornflour before pulsing)
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Pinch of salt

Instructions:

1. Melt the white chocolate in a double boiler. Stir until smooth. Let cool to room temperature. 

2. Sift the confectioners' sugar into a medium bowl. Stir in the milk and vanilla. Add the butter and salt and beat until smooth. Stir in the cooled white chocolate. Refrigerate until firm enough to frost the cupcakes, about 30 minutes.

Makes enough to frost 12 normal cupcakes. I did not scale this recipe as I did not plan to make large rosettes or anything. This was sufficient to frost 72 mini-cupcakes. I was in such a rush as the children had already started coming in as I was preparing the frosting. Apologies for this clumsy frosting :(

Verdict: The cake was soft, moist and smooth, very "velvety"; aptly named. The children devoured it. My daughter ate up close to 4 cupcakes, as they were cooling down. The other children picked up one each even before I could start frosting and they could not wait to taste them again with the frosting. This was a hit, just wish I could have made this ahead of time so I could have decorated it better.

Self-saucing Coffee-Chocolate Pudding

I was working from home one weekday. It was a hot sunny afternoon and I was quite sleepy, and bored of work. I was longing for a break. But I resisted, knowing myself very well that a break will only result in binging on unhealthy snacks. After a while I was so drowsy, that I could not put off my break-time any longer. I came up with a better idea. What if I could bake something simple and quick during this break. Anyway I usually get so engrossed in baking and the aroma of baked goods fills me up that I will not end up binging... I then remembered the Self-saucing Coffee-Chocolate Pudding that was our November punch. I had to skip this challenge as I was on business travel for most part of October and early November. I had never made a pudding before and I was tempted to try this recipe and looking at it, it was a perfect fit for my afternoon break.

I also had some ramekins (12 cups - small size) that I wanted to try baking with. Folks at home are put out with the normal sized muffins and cupcakes that I have resolved to bake and serve in smaller portions. I discovered that serving portions of this size works very well, the goods are devoured and there is very little wastage.

Ingredients:

1 cup flour (I used wheat flour)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cocoa
Pinch salt
½ cup brown sugar (I used demerara sugar)
2 tbsp butter, melted
½ cup milk
1 egg, beaten
50g hazelnuts, chopped (I omitted this)

For the topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar (I used demerara sugar)

3 tbsp cocoa1 cup strong black coffee

Method:

1 Preheat oven to 170°C (original recipe states 180 degrees C). I use a convection oven and I usually set it lower than specified.
2 Sift together dry ingredients.
3 Stir through butter, milk, egg and hazelnuts until well combined.
4 Spoon batter into the ramekins (I used 12 small ramekins).
5 Sprinkle over brown sugar and cocoa then pour over coffee but do not stir.
6 Bake for 10-12 minutes. (Original recipe states 20 minutes). The time specified in the original recipe is for large ramekins. I baked for 15 minutes and found the pudding a little too dry.
7 Dust with cocoa powder or cinnamon and sugar; serve with vanilla ice cream.

I just served it plain with no dusting. I warmed it up for 15-20 seconds in the microwave just before serving.

Verdict: The coffee-chocolate combination is unbeatable. It was devoured by everyone at home, particularly my little girl. But she mistook it for a cupcake given the dry texture. I plan to try this again with the right baking time and APF instead of wheat flour.

Eggless Oats Brownies

 I have mentioned in my previous posts that eggless bakes are a hit with folks at home. This one has oats as one of its ingredients, so it immediately took my fancy. I found this recipe on Divya's blog long back. I baked these for my daughters snack time at school.

Eggless Oats Brownies
Recipe adapted from Divya's blog (divyascookbook.blogspot.com)

Ingredients

Whole wheat flour/Atta - 1 1/2 cups

Oats - 3/4 cup

Cocoa powder - 2 tbsp

Baking powder - 1 tsp

Dark Chocolate - 150 gms,melted and cooled

Dark Brown Sugar - 4 tbsp[I used white sugar]

Milk - 2 cups

Sunflower Oil - 5 tbsp

Method

Preheat oven to 180C--Grease/line an 8' square cake pan.

In a mixing bowl, mix together flour, oats, cocoa powder and baking powder.

In another bowl, mix together milk, sugar and oil.

Mix the liquid ingredients into the flour mix slowly.

Fold in the melted chocolate.

Transfer the batter into the pan and smooth the tops with a spatula.

Bake for 25 minutes,the centre will still be soft at this stage.

Place the pan on a rack and cool completely in the pan

When completely cool,cut into 16 squares.

Verdict: This one was a winner from the start. Eggless, whole wheat with dark chocolate. Oats are the added bonus in this recipe. This is definitely on my bake-often list :)