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.

Christmas Hat Strawberry Cupcakes

Happy Christmas everyone! May everyone have an enjoyable time with their family and friends on this festive season. For Christmas, I've always dreamt of having a special feast with my family, hanging up stockings in my bedroom, having a massive tree in my house with presents underneath and dressed up warm and cosy, drinking hot chocolate around a fireplace. Unfortunately, that is never the case for me. First of all, Christmas down in the southern hemisphere is summer and therefore hot chocolate would be out of my list and I'd rather prefer to have a cool and refreshing dessert on my christmas menu like a strawberry cupcake. Secondly, christmas is never celebrated in my family although I very very much would like to celebrate it. It would never go according to plan unless I make it come true myself and I haven't been so motivated. I guess baking christmas desserts, being a little Miss Santa and singing some christmas carols with my sisters is as christmas I can get it to be.

I love this strawberry cupcake.The best cupcake I've ever tasted. It's pink, sweet and full of pure strawberry flavour. It can't get anymore organic than this. This recipe uses fresh strawberries in the batter giving out that fresh aroma of strawberries when you bite into it. Sweet and succulent where I ask for more after the first cupcake.

 As you may have noticed, I haven't blogged for a while now. December was just jam-packed with important events for me going from weddings to conferences to preparing for my 6 month candidature review of my PhD. I was especially nervous with my preparations since I haven't done public speaking for over a year now. My heart was beating fast, I couldn't stand in one spot for long and my hands were shaking which has never happened to me before. But at the very least, I'm glad that was over and done with.

But I guess the best thing that has happened during my absence from blogging was attending my family friend's wedding. As bizarre as it sounds, I've never been through an entire wedding ceremony although I'm already in my 20's. It was a very different experience compared to just showing up to a banquet. I was right behind the scenes where I first got to watch the bride and bridesmaids getting their make-up and hair done. It was also my first time helping out before the tea ceremony began with doing last touch-up's on the food to be served to family and guests and then to the fun part where the groom comes to pick up the bride. For Singaporeans like us, we definitely will not let the groom and groomsmen off so easily to see the bride. The bridesmaids came up with a specially brewed cocktail (diluted soy sauce with wasabi) to serve the guys for each answer the groom gets wrong about his dear bride. Surprisingly, the drink didn't affect the groom as he skulled it down as manly as he could but the groomsmen sure did have a hard time drinking it.

I had to say I cried during the wedding ceremony when the bride and groom were exchanging vows. For the first time, I witnessed such a magical moment. Deep down I felt really happy for them since the bride and I have grown up together. Now that she's stepping into the next chapter of her life, I wish her a blissful marriage and in the very near future, start her next chapter into motherhood.

Christmas Hat Strawberry Cupcakes

(adapted from An Edible Mosaic)
  
2½ cups plain flour
2 ⅛ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
⅛ tsp bicarb soda
9 oz hulled fresh strawberries, coarsely chopped (about 2 cups chopped strawberries, lightly packed)
112.5g (½ cup/1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups caster sugar
2 large eggs
¼ cup milk (any kind)
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 tsp strawberry extract (if available)

1. Preheat oven to 180° C/160°C fan-forced and line cupcake tins with paper liners.

2. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside. Puree the strawberries in a blender or food processor (you will get about 1 1/4 cups of strawberry liquid); set aside.

3. Cream together butter and sugar, then cream in the eggs; mix in the milk, vanilla extract, strawberry extract, and pureed strawberries. Use a wooden spoon to stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients all at once, stirring just enough to combine and being careful not to over-mix.

4. Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake wells (filling each about 1/2 to 2/3 of the way full) and bake until a toothpick inserted inside comes out clean, about 20 to 24 minutes. Cool completely before frosting.

Yields about 24 to 28 cupcakes

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Citrus and Candy)

100g white chocolate (containing cocoa butter), chopped
170g cream cheese softened
25g unsalted butter
a spoonful of sour cream (approx. 2 tsps)

1. In a bowl over simmering water, melt the white chocolate. Remove and set aside to cool.

2. Beat the cream cheese, butter and sour cream until smooth. Scrape the sides down with a rubber spatula to incorporate everything. Add in the cooled white chocolate and beat until smooth. If the mixture is too soft, allow it to become firm in the fridge for 5-10mins before piping it onto the cake.

Banana Cake Mini's with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Here's my banana cake...so call me maybe? I think I'm going crazy with this song stuck in my head by Carly Rae Jepsen all thanks to my sister, S. Before she ate her banana she was using the banana as a phone and sung "Call me maybe?". But then her playful acts had reminded me that I was supposed to bake a banana cake. 2 weeks ago, I bought some extra ingredients home to bake some banana cake for my family and only to find out that I was missing the main ingredient...the banana. Luckily, bananas are slowly getting back in season and my mum has been bringing home heaps of ripe bananas from the market. It's funny how I started with no bananas to having more than enough bananas at home.

I've never been much of a banana cake fan as I just prefer eating bananas the way it is. But months ago, I made a deadset decision that I must bake 'that' banana cake from my recipe book one day. Everyone in my family is quite a big banana fan, especially my little sister, Pearl. She can easily eat 5 bananas at one go ever since childhood. So I was pretty positive that Pearl and everyone else in my family will definitely go bananas over this cake.

I wanted to get a little bit creative this time and make banana cake mini's with a frosting on top. But the next hurdle for me was, what frosting should I use? The classical passionfruit icing combination with the banana cake didn’t quite cut the mark for me although many people use it. First of all, I really detest passionfruit pulp. It’s not that I dislike passionfruit flavours but I can’t stand the pulp's presence in the food I eat. I would always pick it out or just avoid eating it completely if I ever see it. Secondly, there was no passionfruit available in my pantry and I’m not going to make the effort to go to the shops to buy something that I don’t like. So then I was on the search for a frosting that would be applicable to what I already have in the kitchen and most importantly the flavour must impress me (you’ve probably realised by now that I’m quite picky with frostings). Finally, I found one that I extremely liked...white chocolate cream cheese frosting! Chocolate always satisfies me and I know I can’t go wrong with this combination. Oh! Karen you've saved my day again.

My hunch was correct! The white chocolate cream cheese frosting was a beautiful combination with the banana cake and what's so good about this frosting is that no icing sugar is required. You get an ultra smooth, silky and light texture of the frosting compared to the overbearing sugar overdose from the ones containing icing sugar. For those who don't like white chocolate, you can barely taste it. It's hidden beautifully within the tangy cream cheese with a pinch of sweetness.

I can see myself making this again in a larger batch! The batter seemed rather a little bit too small for my liking and I knew that my parents would be asking why I didn't make a bigger batch because of the chuck loads of banana and flour that we've got at home if I just presented it the way it is straight from my lamington tray. There are probably a few things that I wished I could've done differently to this banana cake but I guess I'll do all that next time! Right now I'm gonna get my hands on some cake before it's all gone tonight!

Banana Cake Mini's with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

Cake
(adapted from Women's Weekly MIX)

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup (165g) firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1½ cups (225g) self-raising flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 cup mashed banana (I used 3½ of medium ripe bananas - 460g)
½ cup (120g) sour cream
¼ cup (60ml) milk

1. Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease and flour a lamington tray; you may line the base with baking paper.

2. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar in a small bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. At low speed, stir in the sifted dry ingredients, banana, sour cream and milk until completely mixed. Use a spatula to scrape the sides of the batter down as well as the bottom of the mixture and mix until everything is completely incorporated.

3. Spread the mixture evenly into the lamington tray and bake for 40min. (The original recipe suggested 50min but I figured because of the low depth of the cake mixture, it'll cook much faster). Stand in cake pan for 5min then turn top-side up onto a wire rack to cool.

White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Citrus and Candy)

I didn't have enough white chocolate so I've re-formulated the recipe to suit myself. So if you want the original recipe, go here.

100g white chocolate (containing cocoa butter), chopped
170g cream cheese softened
25g unsalted butter
a spoonful of sour cream (approx. 2 tsps)

1. In a bowl over simmering water, melt the chocolate. Remove and set aside to cool, without it going back to form the solid hard chocolate though.

2. Beat the cream cheese, butter and sour cream until smooth. Scrape the sides down with a rubber spatula to incorporate everything. Add in the cooled white chocolate and beat until smooth. If the mixture is too soft, allow it to become firm in the fridge for 5-10mins before piping it onto the cake.



What do you do with the remaining pieces of banana cake after when all the circles are cut out?
You chop them into smaller pieces and put them into a pretty cup. Add ice-cream to it if you like.
Voila!