Devil's Food Raspberry Cupcakes

I had chocolate cravings over the blazing hot weekend. I missed having cake, especially David Lebovit's Devil's Food Cake. This is probably the third time that I've made it and still love the overall texture of the cake. And I always get nice compliments about them.

Devil's Food Raspberry Cupcakes

(adapted from David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake Recipe)

9 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ cups cake flour (It's not self-raising flour! I used plain flour)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb soda
¼ tsp baking powder
112.5g (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups caster sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
½ cup strong coffee (or water)
½ cup whole or low-fat milk

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease and flour two 20cm cake pans; line bottoms with circles of baking paper.

2. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, salt, bicarb soda, and baking powder in a bowl. Using an electric mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar about 5 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time until it's fully incorporated.

3. Mix together the coffee and milk. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then add the coffee and milk. Finally stir in the other half of the dry ingredients.

4. Divide the batter into the two prepared cake pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Makes approximately 30 cupcakes. Store in an airtight container.

Raspberry Buttercream

200g unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup icing sugar

2 tsp milk

½ tsp vanilla extract (I used vanillin)

pinch of salt

15ml raspberry puree (push through fine mesh to remove seeds)

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter till pale and creamy. Add the remaining ingredients except the puree. Mix on low speed for 1 minute to incorporate everything then beat on medium speed for approximately 6 minutes. Add the puree and beat until incorporated.

Chinese New Year Baking Project 2013!

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes and Dark Chocolate and Cherry Brownie Tarts

Gong Xi Fa Cai! Happy Chinese New Year! May the year of the snake be a prosperous year where you'll be entwined with good fortune, good health and happiness. One other good news that I'd like to share with everyone is that I finally got myself a DSLR! I'm so happy with my upgrade from a 5 mega pixel digital camera (yes it's old!). I've always been envious of the high quality shots with the fine resolution and focus in the photos that people take, and now I can finally say that I've joined the pack. Exposing myself into the new world of photography is like learning a completely new language. My head gets confuzzled with all the jargon used in photography and therefore it'll definitely take me a while to try and configure everything. But otherwise, I'm filled with the excitement of becoming a pro shutterbug.
For weeks I have been brainstorming for ideas of what I should bake for chinese new year and in return that nearly made my head explode with the infinite choices that I can decide on. A lot of things did not go into plan on my new year's eve baking bonanza and most of it was due to my lack of organization and foresight. Cheesecakes were originally part of the plan but the refrigerator was jam-packed with groceries which will then be filled with food leftover from new year eve's dinner. Well, I'm not surprised here since history repeats itself every year. It was always a nightmare for me to feed on the same dishes for a whole week as my parents crazily cook more than our stomachs can handle. Luckily, the handbrake was pulled this year and we only have a reasonable amount to deal with.

I had to say that most of the things I baked were decided in a spur of a moment during the day as I was trying to work with what's already in the pantry and what nibbles would be suitable for guests who will come over to celebrate new year with us. My sister, S and I made a batch of honey joys where the majority were shamefully finished by us instead of the guests. The honey joys were nostalgic to have. It's one of those easy-to-make and simply delicious sweet treats that we had to learn to make back in the days of high school.

Cupcakes are always a must in my list to do's for chinese new year as it's simple to serve to guests and this year I decided on making white chocolate raspberry cupcakes. I love the combination of those two flavours together. The natural pinkish-red colour of the raspberry was one of the main reasons chosen as to fit in with the CNY theme. It's definitely no chinese new year treat unless you have some red colour in your desserts...at least in my opinion. These cupcakes are made by simply grabbing a trustworthy plain vanilla cupcake recipe that you have and then just add in white chocolate bits plus a cup of raspberries.

Disasters tend to befall when I'm not organised with anything and same goes with the dark chocolate and cherry brownie tarts. When I started cooking the butter and chocolate, I realised that I ran out of brown sugar. Panic, self-blames and cursing (oops no cursing on CNY) all took place in an instant. But then I decided to take a gamble and use caster sugar instead and luckily the brownies still worked out well. Appearance wise, I realised it probably wasn't the best decision to use cherries as the skin looked old and wrinkly after some harsh exposure in the oven. Otherwise, the texture was smooth and very delicious to eat.

Baking continued to go downhill when I overmixed my macaronage a little where the macarons turned out to be pink rather than red. In my mind I thought this batch had to be thrown away as they looked like flat pancakes when piped out. But these little babies rose to my surprise and actually had 'feet'.

Dark Chocolate and Cherry Brownie Tarts

(recipe adapted from Donna Hay's magazine 10th birthday collector's edition, Issue 59)

200g dark chocolate (70%), chopped
60g butter
½ cup (90g) brown sugar (I used caster sugar instead)
¼ cup (60ml) thickened cream
3 eggs
¼ cup plain flour
250g cherries, pitted and halved

1. Preheat oven to 150°C/130°C fan-forced. Lightly grease 4x10cm-round springform cake tins lined with non-stick baking paper (I used 2x10cm-round cake tins and a 20cm square springform cake tin).

2. Place the chocolate, butter, sugar and cream in a medium saucepan over low heat and stir until melted and smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and flour until well combined. Whisk in the chocolate mixture until combined.

4. Pour mixture into the cake tins and top with the cherries. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean. Serve the tarts with chocolate ganache or fresh cherries.

Honey Joys

(recipe adapted from Kellogg's Cornflakes)

90g butter or margarine
⅓ cup sugar
1 tbsp honey
4 cups corn flakes

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. Line a patty pan with paper cases.

2. Melt butter, sugar and honey together in a saucepan until frothy.

3. Add in the corn flakes and mix well.

4. Working quickly, spoon mixture into the paper patty cases. Bake for 10 minutes. Cool before serving.
 

White Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes

Standard plain cupcake recipe (that makes approx. 20-25 cupcakes)
100g white chocolate, roughly chopped
1 cup raspberries, fresh or frozen, roughly chopped (optional)

 

Macarons

Please refer to this post for the macaron recipe. Filling was just whipped cream topped with a raspberry. Sorry, I forgot to measure how much cream I've used here.

Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Compote

TGIF! I finally was able to take a deep breathe out of my busy week to meet up, sit down and relax with my high school friends. We haven't had a full house in ages due to everyone's busy schedule from work/studies and it was really sweet to see everyone again...and to have our dosage of gossip of our lives. We went to Tsindos, a Greek family restaurant. The interior design provided a warm family atmosphere catching glimpses of the mediterranean Greece (with my impression of Kalokairi, filmed in Mamma Mia). It was smooth and relaxing to dine in this place as there were guitarists playing Greek songs the whole night to entertain us. Although we couldn't understand a word, the music was soothing to listen to.

To top off the weekend and before I go on a skinny diet, my mind was set to make these chocolate mousse cups accompanied with raspberry compote and fresh blueberries on top. These were amazing. I knew I had to make these when I saw this on Steph's blog. Chocolate mousse or any mousse I should say has always been non-existent in my menu because 9.999999/10 times, I couldn't eat the ones served outdoors. So here's my first official chocolate mousse, and hurrah! I'm not a mousse virgin anymore. It's such an easy thing to make that I can't believe that I didn't make this any earlier! It's rich in chocolate flavour and fluffy in texture. It felt like I was swinging amongst the clouds as I was eating this. This mousse isn't sweet at all because of the dark chocolate with no added sugar. The raspberry compote was a perfect combination with this mousse as I personally find that the mousse might be a bit sickening by itself. I wished I had added more of the compote to each cup because I had leftovers and in my biased opinion, I really liked the compote. This dessert can definitely do with some more sweet fillings, hence I added some fresh blueberries on top.

Hope everyone had a happy weekend. Adios amigos!

Chocolate Mousse with Raspberry Compote

(adapted from raspberri cupcakes)

Raspberry Compote
300g raspberries, fresh or frozen (I used frozen)
¼ cup (55g) sugar
½ tsp vanilla extract (I used vanillin)

Chocolate Mousse
180g good quality dark chocolate, finely chopped
3 large eggs, at room temperature and separated
pinch of salt
225ml thickened cream

1. Prepare the compote first (you may use any berries you want). Place berries, sugar and vanilla in a medium saucepan. Stir regularly on low-medium heat. Simmer until the sugar completely dissolves and the mixture thickens slightly, about 5-10 minutes. Remove from the heat and strain seeds if you prefer. Set aside to cool.

2. For the chocolate mousse, carefully beat thickened cream in a medium-large mixing bowl with an electric mixer till soft peaks form. Place in fridge until ready to use.

3. Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Remove from the heat and add yolks and salt and stir to combine.

4. Fold whipped cream into mixture. In a separate, medium-large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. Carefully fold egg whites into chocolate mixture until combined. The mousse should be smooth and even in colour.

5. Spoon about 1 tbsp of cooled berry compote into the bottom of each serving glass. Finish off with a layer of chocolate mousse over the top of the compote. Chill in the refrigerator for 3 hours or until set. Top with more berries or popping candy or fairy floss right before serving.

Celebrations with a Vanilla Butter Birthday Cake

Monday was the celebration of Kris' birthday and I volunteered to bring cake. The week before I asked her what flavour would she like and she happily said vanilla or anything else nice but NOT mango because her family's already getting her a mango cake. Vanilla cake is such a simple and classic dessert that can undergo so many frosting makeovers (or eaten raw) and taste just as great. I've nearly forgotten how fond my memories of vanilla cakes were. One year, I opened the door to welcome my papa home from work and the first thing he said to me was 'Happy Birthday' with a vanilla cake covered entirely with colourful sprinkles. I was completely surprised and delightfully happy.

I've made vanilla cakes a couple of times before but I was still stressed about baking it. Instead of staying in my comfort zone, using the recipes I used to use, I decided to venture out and try a new recipe myself. There was no better person to go to than the vanilla cake guru, Sweetapolita. Gosh she's made so many stunning vanilla cakes that I was blinded by the choices that she's offering. I decided to go with her classic vanilla butter birthday cake as it fits the aim of my baking mission.

One thing that wasn't within my calculations was how much cake I was going to get out of this batter. This recipe could give you 3 individual cakes, and the main point was that I didn't need so many in the first place. I should've read the recipe carefully in the first place. The first time I have to admit that a cake monster like me was feeling so overwhelmed by the amount of cake I get from a recipe.

From reading my previous posts you probably would know that I'm scared of sugary, deadly sweet buttercreams. Normally by looking at a colour-tinged buttercream frosting outside a cake, I would shun away from it as far as I can. Luckily, Sweetapolita has also given me a fruity buttercream recipe that doesn't require any artificial colouring. I love this raspberry buttercream where it gives off the natural pinkish colour and the raspberries mask the deadly sweet flavour of th buttercream. Therefore, I was able to add more icing sugar than usual at ease.

This cake completely suits Kris as she's such a cute and bubbly person with a teenage girl still living inside her. This celebration was rather funny as nobody brought candles along so she had to blow them out with imaginary candles. How dreamy...

Classic Vanilla Butter Birthday Cake with Raspberry Buttercream

(adapted from Sweetapolita)

4 large eggs (separated), at room temperature

3 ½ cups (420g) sifted cake flour*

4 tsp (20g) baking powder

½ (3g) tsp salt

1 cup (227g/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups (400g) granulated sugar, divided

2 tsp (10mL) pure vanilla extract (I used vanillin)

1 cup (250mL) milk, at room temperature

¼ tsp cream of tartar

 

*1 cup of cake flour = (1 cup plain flour - 2tsp) + 2tsp cornflour. Sift mixture 4-5 times till it's fully incorporated with each other.

 

1. Preheat oven to 180° C/160°C fan-forced. Butter and flour three - 8 inch round cake pans. Line bottoms of pans with parchment/baking paper and grease and flour parchment paper.

2. While eggs are still cold, separate them, placing the yolks in one bowl and the whites in another bowl. Cover the two bowls with plastic warp and allow the eggs to come to room temperature before using, about 30 mins.

3. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until soft (about 1-2 minutes). Add 1½ cups of the sugar and beat until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes).

5. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the vanilla and beat until combined.

 

6. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour.

 

7. In the clean bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar and continue beating until soft peaks form. Gradually add the remaining ½ cup sugar and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

 

8. With a rubber spatula gently fold a little of the whites into the batter to lighten it, and then fold in the remaining whites until combined. Do not over-mix the batter or it will deflate.

 

9. Divide the batter evenly between the three prepared pans and smooth the tops with an offset spatula.

 

10. Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Place a wire rack on top of the cake pan and invert, lifting off the pan gently. Once the cakes are completely cooled, wrap in plastic and place the cake layers in the freezer for at least an hour (to make filling and frosting the cakes easier).

 

Raspberry Buttercream

200g unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup icing sugar

2 tsp milk

½ tsp vanilla extract (I used vanillin)

pinch of salt

15ml raspberry puree (push through fine mesh to remove seeds)

 

Using an electric mixer, beat the butter till pale and creamy. Add the remaining ingredients except the puree. Mix on low speed for 1 minute to incorporate everything then beat on medium speed for approximately 6 minutes. Add the puree and beat until incorporated.

 

Note: This amount is a bit more than enough to frost one standard 8 inch cake. I sliced the cake in half and frosted the inner layers as well. You might want to double up the amount if you want to frost the whole three layered cake. You may add more icing sugar to get your desired sweetness.

 

Chocolate Chip Raspberry Cheesecake

I've been itching to try out this recipe for a while now. The only thing different was that I replaced it with raspberries and drizzled white chocolate on top and here you go Chocolate Chip Raspberry Cheesecake with White Chocolate Drizzles *swoon*. Cherries aren't in season yet in Australia although summer is coming in a month-ish time and I was not going to go out and get myself an expensive batch of cherries. I like recipes that are relatively easy and economical. I mean if you want to compare baking a cheesecake to a standard cake which mainly contains butter, eggs and flour, then of course the cheesecake is more pricey. However, you definitely get more value out of it by baking it yourself rather than buying one from the cake stores.

My mother creeped out when she saw me pulling out the frozen raspberries for baking this cheesecake. She has low tolerance for sour berries especially, but this cheesecake surely did not disappoint her. The sourness of the raspberries compensated for the sweetness of this cheesecake and the white chocolate drizzles on top made it a perfect combination. Insanely delicious. I wouldn't omit the white chocolate for this recipe. Never! I would love to try the original version as well once the cherries are cheaply available in the market.

Baking this cheesecake was the death of me because I did another late night baking session - the ninja style. It was wayyyy past my bedtime by the time I finished baking and cleaning up my mess. Although I could've easily taken my time to bake this cheesecake on the following day, time constraints did not permit me to do so. It is my little sister's sweet 16th birthday and sadly I had to pop into uni on the same day to do some work for my weekly meetings.

My little sister loves her cheesecakes. Actually we all do. My papa once bought a kilo's worth of marie biscuits from Costco just for me to bake a stash of cheesecakes. No I'm not exaggerating here. This cheesecake is a winner, I mean how could you not love the refreshing taste from the raspberries, the tangyness of the cheesecake and the chocolate amongst everything? Less than a quarter was left by the end of the night amongst 7 people. Many went for seconds and one went for a third...

One of the troubles I had with this cake was cutting it and the crumbs would fall apart easily. I should've made more biscuit crumbs for the base on the corner of the tart tin to be more thicker and bake it in the oven for more stability. I placed it in the freezer instead thinking it'll do the same thing...I guess was wrong.

Chocolate Chip Raspberry Cheesecake

(presentation inspired by Eat, Little Bird and recipe adapted from raspberri cupcakes)

2 cups (about 200g) of crushed digestive biscuits (I used arrowroot biscuits)
1 tbsp sugar
100g butter, melted
150g raspberries (fresh or frozen)
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tbsp cornflour (cornstarch) + 2 tsp cold water
150g finely chopped dark chocolate, or 3/4 cup mini dark choc chips (I blitzed my chocolate in the food processor to make the pieces really tiny)
300g cream cheese, softened
60g (about 1/2 cup) icing sugar, sifted
1 tsp vanilla extract
250ml thickened cream
50g white chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 160°C/140°C fan-forced . Line the base of a 20 to 22cm loose-base flan tin or tart tin with baking paper. Mix crushed biscuits and 1 tbsp sugar together in a medium bowl. Add the melted butter and stir until well combined. Press the mixture into the base of the tin forming an even layer, then using your fingers to gently push the mixture up to the sides of the tin, leaving a sufficiently thick border. Bake the biscuit base for 15–20 minutes. Place the tin on a wire rack and allow it cool completely.

2. Place raspberries, lemon juice and 1 tbsp sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat. Crush the raspberries until they're pureed and stir until the sugar dissolves. Add the cornflour mixture to the saucepan and continue stirring over heat until mixture starts to thicken, then set aside to cool.

3. Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, icing sugar and vanilla at high speed until it becomes smooth and creamy. At low speed, gradually add the finely chopped chocolate and beat until it is evenly distributed. Add the raspberry mixture to the cream cheese filling and stir until combined.

4. In a separate mixing bowl, carefully beat the cream to stiff peaks (keep a close eye on this as the thickened cream is easy to overbeat). Fold cream into the rest of the mixture and then pour over the cooled crust. Chill in the fridge for at least 3 hours or overnight.

5. Melt the white chocolate either in a small bowl over a pan of simmering water or carefully in the microwave. Pour the melted chocolate into a small plastic zip-lock bag, snip off a corner and slowly drizzle the melted chocolate over the cheesecake. Return the cheesecake to the fridge to set for about 15 minutes before serving.

Devil's Food Raspberry Layer Cake

This post is a special one as I'd like to dedicate it to my brother (cousin). Happy birthday! Although we are oceans apart, your presence is still muchly missed. I would sometimes address older guys that I know as ‘brother’ out of politeness (as it’s common in our Asian culture to do so) but I’ve always naturally called him brother since a little girl. I never call someone 'brother' as effortlessly as I do with him. We may have only seen each other no more than 10 times in our life, but we would always hit off when we see each other. I miss our casual stroll down to the park on a nice sunset evening, sitting on the swings and talking mindlessly about anything that comes to mind. I felt safe and secure during those timeless moments. I also miss the deep and meaningful conversations that we had which could've possibly lasted till 5am in the morning if our parents didn't nag us to get some sleep.

I was inspired to do this cake when I stumbled upon it on Gourmet Traveller. Despite how amazing it looks, the recipe looked overwhelming and impractical due to my diet restrictions. I can't imagine cutting a slice from an 8-layered cake, although I'm confident that I could finish a slice myself, hehe. In my mind I was imagining how the layers will fall apart as I'm cutting it and that would be my worst nightmare. So then, I thought I'd come up with my own smaller version of that chocolate raspberry layer cake.

I was tempted to try David Lebovitz's recipe for the first time. What not better to start off with his Devil's Food Cake that is full of chocolatey goodness. The cake is smooth and delicate in texture and is not overbearingly sweet in taste. However, I guess I could've used milk chocolate ganache or even buttercream instead of dark chocolate ganache to marry the sourness of the raspberries since the cake is not that sweet to begin with.

There are so many things that I wished I could've done differently to the assembly of this cake. The first mini kitchen disaster was leaving the cake a little bit longer in the oven as I didn't hear the alarm ringing the second time round. It certainly would not do any justice to a cake that's meant to be moist in the first place. The next few events didn't go as well as I had planned. I probably shouldn't have made a 4-layered cake but just keep the 2 layers of cake as it is and have one generous slab of whipped cream in between. Next the frozen raspberries starts dripping out on the cream as they thaw. Lastly, the chocolate ganache on top drooped down in quite an ugly way. It wasn't even meant to droop down in the first place. Gahhh what could get worse here on.

Well, given that my brother is not around to see me hang my head in shame on the appearance of this cake, I do however have one last message for him: "Please come back to Australia again! Although it should be my shot to come visit you overseas this time round" =P

Devil's Food Raspberry Layer Cake

(adapted from David Lebovitz's Devil's Food Cake Recipe)

9 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1½ cups cake flour (It's not self-raising flour! I used plain flour)
½ tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb soda
¼ tsp baking powder
112.5g (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups caster sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
½ cup strong coffee (or water)
½ cup whole or low-fat milk
Optional: 1-2 punnets of raspberries

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease and flour two 20cm cake pans; line bottoms with circles of baking paper.

2. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, salt, bicarb soda, and baking powder in a bowl. Using an electric mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar about 5 minutes until smooth and creamy. Add the eggs one at a time until it's fully incorporated.

3. Mix together the coffee and milk. Stir half of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then add the coffee and milk. Finally stir in the other half of the dry ingredients.

4. Divide the batter into the two prepared cake pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Dark Chocolate Ganache
Please refer to the original recipe if you want to cover the whole entire cake with ganache.

100g dark chocolate, finely chopped
¼ cup water (or cream)
50g unsalted butter, chopped

In a mini saucepan, bring the water to boil with small-medium heat. Add in the chopped chocolate to the water, stirring occasionally till it's completely melted. Remove the saucepan from heat and add in the butter. Whisk them into the chocolate until completely melted and smooth in texture. Cool ganache at room temperature for approx. 1 hr or wrap up with cling wrap and leave in the fridge to set.

Whipped Cream
300g thickened cream
1 tbsp icing sugar

Beat the thickened cream with electric mixer for approx. 2mins and then add in the icing sugar. Continue to beat the cream until stiff peaks start forming.

Assembling the cake
For both of the cakes, slice them horizontally across into two equal parts to get 4 layers (you may want to trim the tops off a bit if you want straight even layers). Crumb coat the first layer of cake with cream, then cover the cake with some more cream, smoothing out with an offset spatula. Distribute some raspberries on top. Add the next layer of cake on top. Repeat the same steps for the second and third layer of cake. The cream should be fully used up by the third layer. For the fourth layer of cake, spread the dark chocolate ganache on top using an offset spatula and top up with some raspberries.

Serve immediately. Store in an air-tight container at room temperature and keep it away from sunlight.