Chocolate chocolate cupcakes

It has been a while since I have posted, for a few reasons but lately I have been baking yummy treats that I want to share and record!

My father is partial to chocolate so to celebrate his birthday I thought that Chocolate cupcakes with a chocolate icing would be a good way to go. Topping them off with more colourful chocolate seemed ideal and a hit with the kids.

I didn't want to reinvent any wheels so used the chocolate cupcake recipe that I have <a href="http://kfoodbook.blogspot.com.au/2012/12/short-black-cupcakes-2.html?m=1">used before</a>, and searched for a simple chocolate icing that I could pipe. I settled on <a href="http://www.browneyedbaker.com/best-chocolate-buttercream-cupcakes/?m">this recipe</a> with adjustments for metric (and half of a block of butter) as follows:<p>

<i>Chocolate Buttercream Icing</i><p>

172g pure icing sugar<p>

125g unsalted butter <p>

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract<p>

62g dark chocolate, melted and cooled<p>

Cream butter and gradually add icing sugar. Mix well. Beat in vanilla. Beat in chocolate. Simple and yummy!

Short Black Cupcakes #2

My mixer survived... a set of replacement beaters and it was good to go again! I had mixed feelings about this. On the one hand I think it's great to have such a vintage piece of kitchen equipment, and on the other hand I was wanting to to get myself an up to date machine with all sorts of optional extras.

Cupcakes are my current baking staple, and today I thought to revisit the Short Black Cupcakes.
I (roughly) followed the Donna Hay version again, with the following tweaks.

125g butter, softened
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup natural yoghurt
100g dark chocolate, melted

Preheat the oven to 160C.
Cream butter and gradually add sugar.
Add eggs one at a time. Beat well.
Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder.
Add to butter mix and combine well.
Mix in the milk, yoghurt and chocolate.
Spoon 70g of mixture into cupcake papers and place in a muffin tray.
Bake for 18 minutes.
Cool on wire racks.

I had another bash at the icing, and tried different proportions this time around.

125g butter
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
30mL cup milk
1 teaspoons instant coffee

Cream butter and gradually add sugar.
Dissolve coffee into milk.
Gradually add coffee mix into the butter and sugar, beat until well combined.

I was very happy with this recipe and combination and will definitely make it again!

Lime and coconut cupcakes

A few weekends ago I felt the urge to test the lime and coconut recipe that I received from the Cupcake Class. I had already tried the Vanilla and Chai recipes and decided to experiment with another flavour.

I had thought that the lime and coconut cupcakes that we tried at the class were lovely and lime flavoured but lacking in a coconut hit, so I played with the flavourings to see if I could bring it out more.

I was very happy with the icing. It was so lovely and smooth and had a great texture! I used coconut cream rather than coconut milk as that was all that was in my pantry, and in future will stick with that.

125g butter
220g caster sugar (1 cup)
2 eggs
113g self raising flour (3/4 cup)
94g plain flour (5/8 cup)
63mL coconut cream (1/4 cup)
63mL sour cream (1/4 cup)
1 teaspoon coconut essence
zest of four limes
juice of half a lime
2 tablespoons desiccated coconut

Method here.

The mixture made twelve cupcakes. I used the Fox Run Cup Cake Baking Paper sized cupcake liners in my Analon Commercial Muffin Pan.

The original recipe called for 20 minutes in the oven at 170C. When I checked the cupcakes after 20 minutes I found that they were already overcooked! Next time I will start looking at 18 minutes and take it from there. The cakes were not too dehydrated but were lacking a bit of moistness and were slightly crumbly.

I was also only able to get the zest off three limes and this meant that the cakes did not have the zingy lime flavour that I was expecting. In future I will try to make sure that I use the zest of at least four limes.

I was very happy with the icing that I made. It was so light and fluffy and creamy and when piped it looked so much like soft serve ice cream!

125g butter
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon coconut essence
1/8 cup coconut cream

Beat butter to an inch of its life, until pale and fluffy.
Gradually add the icing sugar, beating well after each addition. Beat some more.
Add the essence and keep beating.
Finally, add the coconut cream.

There should be a lot of beating of the icing to get it nice and light and fluffy.

I finished off the cupcakes with some toasted shredded coconut. It was pretty easy to toast. I put some shredded coconut onto a baking tray lined with baking paper and put it in the oven for two minutes at 170C. It could probably do with only one and a half minutes however my oven timer only works in one minute increments, and I was too lazy to time it any other way.

Berry and white chocolate muffins

Following my efforts with the baci semifreddo I found myself with a surplus of double cream and creme fraiche. I knew just the recipe and pulled out my Donna Hay simple essentials: chocolate cook book. Muffins are simple to make and easy to share with my work mates!

2 cups self-raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon rind
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups raspberries
1 cup chopped white chocolate


Preheat the oven to 180C.

Place the flour and sugar into a bowl and mix to combine.

Combine the sour cream, eggs, lemon rind and oil and whisk together.


Stir the sour cream mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Fold through the raspberries and chocolate. I do not think that I mixed well enough before I added the berries and chocolate, if you look closely you can see a fair amount of flour in the batter.



Spoon the mixture into 8 texas muffin tins lined with paper patty cases.
Bake for 25-30 minutes or until cooked when tested with a skewer.



Notes

• I made 12 muffins in cases in a 1/3 cup tray. Cook for approximately 20 minutes


• I made a few tweaks to the recipe, substituting wholemeal flour and using a combination of sour cream, creme fraiche and double cream, as well as lime rind instead of the lemon rind as we have an oversupply


• For vegetable oil I always use a light olive oil


• The berries that were in my freezer were mixed berries, and quite icy. I tried to pick out the ice as best I could


• For chocolate I had a combination of chocolate melts and white chocolate.

Roasting hazelnuts

The baci semifreddo recipe I made last weekend called for roasted hazelnuts. I armed myself with a packet of hazelnuts and made a beeline for Stephanie Alexander's the cook's companion for advice on how to roast them. It is such a great reference book, with many simple tips and lots of information on all different types of foods.


Roast the hazelnuts at 180C on a baking tray for approximately 10 minutes. Rub them with a clean tea towel to try and remove as much of the skin as you can.

Put them into a sieve and shake to try and separate the nuts and skin. I ended up picking whatever skin was left off by hand.

Baci Semifreddo

After making friands the previous week I was left with a surplus of egg yolks. I considered various recipes to make use of them and kept coming back to custard. In the end I decided that the Baci Semifreddo recipe from Gourment Traveller would fit the bill nicely.

I had six egg yolks and so I adjusted the recipe accordingly.

I really like the hazelnut flavour and the crunch. The Semifreddo also met with my sister E's seal of approval. Yay! I froze this in a loaf tin and have been cutting slices as I go. If I was going to serve this as a fancy dessert I might just invest in some proper moulds...

6 egg yolks
180g caster sugar
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
20 ml Frangelico
140 g dark chocolate, melted
1 1/2 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa, sieved
400 ml thickened cream
180 g crème fraîche
110g roasted hazelnuts, skins removed, coarsely chopped

Line a loaf pan with plastic wrap.

Whisk yolks, sugar, vanilla and Frangelico in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water until mixture is tripled in volume, thick and pale and holds a ribbon (4-5 minutes). I used the stab mixer that we received as a wedding present. It has a whick attachment and it was so much easier than the options of my sunbeam mixer (heavy) or by hand (laborious).

Transfer semifreddo mixture to an electric mixer and whisk until cool (2-3 minutes).

Add melted chocolate and cocoa and mix to combine.

Meanwhile, whisk cream and crème fraîche in a bowl until soft peaks form. Again, the stab mixer came in handy for whisking the dairy products.

Fold one-third of dairy into egg mixture to loosen mixture, then fold through remaining cream and hazelnuts.

Spoon into container, cover, freeze until firm (6 hours or overnight).


Notes

• The original recipe called for a vanilla bean or vanilla paste. I had only vanilla extract or essence in the pantry and so went with vanilla extract


• I bought a 125g packet of hazelnuts and ended up roasting and using the whole packet


• I forgot to adjust the Frangelico amount from the recipe! Yum

Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

The first time I made Nigella's Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake I realised that my food processor did not have the grunt! In December I upgraded to a Kitchenaid Food Processor and last week I finally got around to testing it out on Nigella's cake.

This cake is so easy! Just add all the ingredients to the food processor and mix. Yum.

I have described here how I assembled the cake. If you would like the original Nigella method click here.

Chocolate Cake
200g plain flour
200g caster sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
40g best-quality cocoa
175g unsalted butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons real vanilla extract
150ml sour cream

Chocolate icing
75g unsalted butter
175g dark chocolate
300g icing sugar
1 tablespoon golden syrup
125ml sour cream
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract

Chocolate Cake
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line and grease two 20cm cake tins.


Add all of the cake ingredients to the bowl of your food processor and process until you have a smooth, thick batter.

Divide the batter into the two prepared cake tins. Spread the batter out evenly. I weigh my tins to ensure that the cakes are as even as I can get them!

Bake the cakes for approximately 25 minutes. The cakes will be cooked when a skewer comes out clean. The cakes will also start to come away from the sides of the tins.

Remove the cakes, in their tins, to a wire rack and let cool for 10 minutes before turning out of their tins.


Chocolate icing
Melt the butter and chocolate in a heat proof jug (or bowl) in the microwave. I started with 60 second bursts at 30% power and stirred between each burst with a wooden chopstick. As the chocolate and butter melts I reduced the time of the bursts. You can also melt it over a pot of simmering water.

Sift the icing sugar into the food processor.

Mix the golden syrup into the to the cooled chocolate mixture, followed by the sour cream and vanilla.

Add this mixture to the icing sugar in the food processor and process until well mixed.

Cake assembly
Place one of the cakes upside down on your serving platter. Spoon a third of the icing on to the centre of the cake half and spread until you cover the top of it evenly. Leave a centimetre or so gap between the icing and the edge of the cake as the icing will spread when the top cake is placed on top of the icing.

Sit the other cake on top, normal way up, pressing gently to sandwich the two together.

Spoon the remainder of the icing on top of the cake and spread it over the top and sides of the cake.

Notes

• Nigella recommends taking everything out of the fridge to bring the ingredients up to room temperature


• If you are not fortunate enough to own a decent food processor then Nigella also gives an alternative method


• Nigella decorates the top of her cake with sugar pansies. Making these is another skill I shall have to acquire

Lime friands

My good friend M was kind enough to gift me a friand pan for my birthday this year, and I took the opportunity of afternoon tea to try it out.

I used the powers of the internet search engine to find a recipe, and settled on this lemon friand recipe for inspiration. I tweaked it only slightly to make use of the abundance of limes that we have.

I was very happy with the result, after being concerned that my batter was a bit too lumpy and unmixed. I was informed by BakingN that the lovely crust on the friands is due to the use of butter, rather than oil, to grease the tins. I shall have to remember that for future reference!

I now have to figure out what to make with six egg yolks. Custard springs to mind, or taking that a step further, ice cream. Hmmm, lime icecream sounds good...

185g unsalted butter
2 tsp grated lime rind (approximately two limes)
1/2 cup plain flour
1 cup almond meal
1 1/2 cups pure icing sugar
6 egg whites

Extra icing sugar and lime zest to decorate

Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a twelve hole friand pan with butter.

Melt butter in a large heatproof mixing bowl.

Add lime rind to the butter and sift in plain flour, almond meal and icing sugar. Mix until well combined.

In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg whites with a fork until frothy. This should take approximately thirty seconds.

Fold egg whites into the almond mixture until just combined. Take care not to overmix the batter.

Spoon the mixture into the greased friand pan. Bake for appximately 20 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean and the friand starts to come away from the sides of the pan.

Stand the friand pan on a wire rack for five minutes before turning friands out to cool.

Dust friands with sifted icing sugar and decorate with lime zest.

Notes

• This recipe used the zest of three limes. I made use of one of the limes by slicing it and adding to a glass jug. The jug can be used to serve water or lemonade at your afternoon tea, depending on your fancy


• The original recipe was for ten friands, however I divided my batter into twelve

Pineapple punch

The gym at work put out the following recipe in their Christmas newsletter. I thought that it sounded like a lovely refreshing punch for the summer season, and very simple!

1 pineapple peeled and chopped
1 litre of cold pineapple juice
1 litre of cold ginger beer
Large handful of mint leaves
Ice cubes

Blend pineapple and most of the mint in food processor until smooth.

Pour into a large jug with pineapple juice and ginger beer, mix well.

Serve in glasses over ice cube and a sprig of mint.

Chocolate custard

The creme patisserie recipe that I had used for the profiteroles that I made for E's birthday had not made enough to fill all of the choux pastry I had. To use them up and also not waste any of the egg yolks E had given me I made more filling! This time around I wanted a chocolate filling and I ended up using a mixture of the two creme patisserie recipes (Justin North and Simon Bryant) that I have used previously to get the right mix.

350mL milk
50mL double cream (no gelatine)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 egg yolks (from 59g eggs)
80g caster sugar
40g corn flour
100g dark chocolate, chopped

Put the milk, cream and vanilla into a heavy-based sacuepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 5-10 minutes.

Put the egg yolks and sugar in an electric mixer and whisk to the riboon stage. Fold in the sifted flour and cornflour.

Pour a third of the hot liquid onto the egg mixture and whisk gently to combine. Pour back into the saucepan with the rest of the hot milk and cook gently over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, whisking all the time. The custard will thicken to a stiff and glossy smooth paste.

Add the chopped chocolate and whisk. The chocolate should melt and mix into the custard.

Remove from the heat and stand the pan in a sink of iced water. Whisk vigorously to beat out any lumps.

Notes

• For the second round of profiteroles I topped them with melted white chocolate. I thought that would be a nice contrast to the chocolate custard filling


• I have never used vanilla beans. Both recipes call for vanilla beans rather than extract. Maybe one day I will give it a shot

I did not manage to take any photos of the finished profiterole. The custard was made late on the night before Australia Day and I filled the pastry on the morning before we jumped onto the boat.

Profiterole

My sister's 30th birthday party was a great excuse for me to attempt to make profiteroles. I have made them before but it has been a few years!

I thought that I would try a new recipe, fresh from the French Lessons cookbook by Justin North that Chad and I received as a wedding gift.

I quite like the format of the book. Rather than being just a collection of recipes, it is a collection of techniques as well and gives you the basics for all sorts of different things.

Choux pastry
65g butter
160mL water
100g plain flour, sifted
pinch salt
pinch sugar
four eggs, lightly beaten

Creme patissiere
300mL milk
40mL thickened cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 egg yolks
100g caster sugar
15g cornflour
10g plain flour

Choux pastry

Combine the water, salt, sugar and butter in a lage heavy-based saucepan and heat gently over a moderate heat until the butter melts. Bring to the boil. Add the flour all at once and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until the dough is smooth.

Lower the heat and continue to beat the dough for another couple of minutes. It wil begin to thicken and dry until eventually it will come away from the side of the pan in a ball. Tip the dough into the bowl of your electric mixer and allow to cool for 5 minutes.

With the mixer on low speed, gradulaly add the eggs, a quarter at a time. Beat well after each addition so that it is thoroughly incorporated before you add the next. Continue beating until you have a smooth paste, the texture of a stiff cake mix. Use straight away.


Creme patissiere
Put the milk, cream and vanilla into a heavy-based sacuepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 5-10 minutes.

Put the egg yolks and sugar in an electric mixer and whisk to the riboon stage. Foold in the sifted flour and cornflour.

Pour a third of the hot liquid onto the egg mixture and whisk gently to combine. Pour back into the saucepan with the rest of the hot milk and cook gently over a moderate heat for about 5 minutes, whisking ll the time. The custard will thicken to a stiff and glosy smooth paste.

Remove from the heat and stand the pan in a sink of iced water. Whisk vigorously to beat out any lumps.



Notes

• Previous recipes that I have used have talked about "dropping consistency" for the pastry. I think the pastry I made was too sloppy and it did not pipe very well. Next time I will be a bit more observant as to the texture


• The recipe book did not include cooking instructions for the pastry. I had to scout around to look for some inspiration. I think I cooked for about half an hour at 220C. Once they were cooked I removed them from the oven and cooled them on a wire rack. I used a skewer to push a hole into the side of each puff to let steam escape, supposedly this stops them from getting soggy.


• The pastry cream filled about two thirds of the cases, so I would need to make more if I wish to fill them all! Thankfully E made pavlova and I ended up with her left over egg yolks


• I forgot to add the flour to the egg yolks and instead added it to the mixed custard. There were small lumps in the custard when I had finished. If I was being fussy then I would have sieved it however I figured that they would not be too noticeable hidden in the texture of the pastry


• The cookbook discusses cream and explains that when cream is mentioned in the recipes, the default that they are intending is minimum 35% fat. When I buy thickened cream I check the ingredients and make sure to buy the cream that is not thickened naturally and not using gelatine


• I filled my profiteroles using a plastic icing syringe. Once they were filled I dipped them in some melted dark chocolate and let it set.
  

Nigella's breakast bars

I finally got around to making Nigella's Breakfast Bars. I have been eyeing them off for some months now and have had all of the ingredients to make them cluttering up the pantry.

I did make a few adjustments, although I kept the proportions of ingredients the same.

395g tin condensed milk
250g rolled oats
75g desiccated coconut
100g dried dates
125g mixed seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, sesame)
125g walnuts and almonds

Preheat the oven to 130C. Grease and line a 23 x 33 x 4cm baking tray.

Warm the condensed milk in a small pan. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a large bowl and add the warmed condensed milk.

Spread the mixture into the tray and smooth the surface.

Bake for an hour. Remove from the oven and sit for 15 minutes. Cut into bars.

Notes
- Next time I need to cook the bars for longer. The tops seemd cooked but the bottoms were still rather sticky.
- Yum! The three ingredients that I most notice are the dates, the sesame seeds and the condensed milk, and not necessarily in that order.

Pancakes for one

I thought that I might change from the usual weekend porridge, and made myself a pancake feast! Pancakes are very easy - you need three ingredients for the batter - but do need a little patience, and not too great a hunger, to cook.

1/2 cup wholemeal plain flour
1 egg
1 cup milk (approximately)

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl to make a batter. This mix should be fairly runny. The wholemeal flour requires more liquid than using plain white flour.

Sit batter for half an hour before using.

Heat a pan on a low heat. Grease pan as required with butter.

Pour 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan and allow to spread to a wonky pancake shape. Bubbles should form on the pancake. Cook until these pop and then turn over the pancake.

Once the pancake is cooked, pop onto a plate lined with kitchen paper and cover with a second plate to keep the pancake warm.

Practice makes perfect in getting the heat right and the length of cooking time.

Serve with cut strawberries, banana, caster sugar and fresh lime (or lemon) juice.

White chocolate and Macadamia Cookies

Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day for that matter) is always a good excuse to have the family around for dinner. Of course, a good dessert is essential to finish any dinner and since Dad loves chocolate I thought that I would bake something along that theme. I initially planned to make chocolate brownies and serve with vanilla ice cream, but I ran out of time to make them and thought I would make something simpler and quicker – white chocolate and macadamia cookies. Yum!

I looked to Donna Hay Chocolate for inspiration. I had not tried this recipe before and I was a little skeptical about the amount of flour and other dry ingredients. It seemed like a lot of flour to the ratio of wet ingredients but I pressed on. I ended up using my hands to bring the dough together but it did in the end and they baked beautifully!

125g unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 cup plain flour, sifted
1 cup self-raising flour, sifted
1 cup unsalted macadamias, chopped
250g white chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 180C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Cream butter, vanilla and sugar. Add the egg and beat until incorporated.

Mix in the flours, macadamias and white chocolate.

Form two tablespoons of mixture into a ball, place on lined baking tray and flatten slightly.

Bake for up to 12 minutes or until just golden. Cool on trays

Jamie's roast chicken

Earlier this week I felt like eating roast chicken. We had lamb out so I made do with a lamb stew and saved up the chicken roast until Sunday evening!

I did a quick search of my cookbooks and failed to find a roast chicken recipe, so I turned to the internet and Jamie Oliver for some inspiration. I used his recipe for Roast chicken with lemon and rosemary.

1.2kg free range chicken
900g potatoes
1 large lemon
1 bulb garlic, broken into cloves
handful lemon thyme
olive oil
handful rosemary sprigs, leaves picked
1 carrot


Boil a large pot of water. Preheat oven to 190C.

Cut the potato into golfball sized pieces and cook with the whole lemon and garlic cloves for 12 minutes.

Drain and allow to steam dry for one minute, then remove the lemon and garlic. Return the potato to the pan and toss. According to JO this will help to crisp up the potatoes when they are roasted.

Stab the lemon ten times. Pat the chicken down with kitchen paper and rub it with olive oil. Put the garlic cloves, lemon and thyme into the cavity. Place the chicken on a rack in a roasting tray and bake for 35 minutes.

Remove chicken and rack from the tray. Add the potato, carrot and rosemary leaves and coat with the fat in the tray. Replace the chicken and rack into the tray and bake for a further 35 minutes.

Notes
- JO = Jamie Oliver
- lemon, thyme and garlic all fresh from the garden!
- I skipped the part where JO salts the chicken
- As soon as I placed the lemon in the water I could smell it
- Far too many potatoes! This meal would feed four. JO suggests 2kg of potatoes for the recipe and I used less than half and still think it was too many.

Cauliflower soup

Inspired by the spicy lentil soup that Chad made, I thought that I would try a recipe from the AWW Soup Plus cookbook. The Cauliflower soup stood out for me, and it seemed quite simple so what could go wrong?

I confess to feeling skeptical about the flavours, the ingredients are fairly basic and I was concerned that the flavour in the meal was from the bacon and cheese toasts that you prepare to serve as an accompaniment.

Sadly, I was right and this soup is bland. It tastes like pureed and watered down cauliflower. Personally I prefer my cauliflower with lashings of cheese.

There is leftover stale bread and hopefully I can make some jarlsberg cheesies to go with it... but I have such a huge pot of the soup that I do now know how I will make it through the whole lot. Maybe add some bacon??

1 tablespoon oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 large onion, chopped
1kg cauliflower, chopped coarsely
1 large potato, chopped finely
750mL chicken stock
750mL water

Heat oil in a saucepan. Fry onion and garlic until onion is translucent. Do not brown!

Add cauliflower, potato, stock and water. Bring to the boil and turn down the heat. Simmer for 15 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.

Turn off the heat and stand for 10 minutes. Blend soup and serve.