cakebaked

Momofuku Chocolate Chip Cake

2013-10-07T18:20:00.002+11:00

Last week I made a Momofuku Chocolate Chip Cake for me and my sister's birthday. This cake is delicious and the effort put into making the cake is all worth it in the end.

For our birthday, we decided to go out to dinner with a couple of friends. I shared a skewer of rump steak, sausage, bacon and lamb and sides of wedges and salad with my sister. We also ordered a garlic chilli pizza to share with everyone, which was yum.

(everyone's got their phones out!)

If you're not familiar with Momofuku's cakes. They have unfrosted sides because owner Christina Tosi spent a lot of time thinking and developing the layers of the cake, and to cover it would be a shame. This particular cake is a buttermilk choc chip cake, with a passionfruit soak, passionfruit curd, chocolate crumbs and coffee buttercream. She bakes the cakes in a quarter sheet pan, which I didn't have. The cake needed a few pieces of bakeware such as:

quarter sheet pan (I had to buy one)
ring mould (ommitted, but my sister made an "apparatus" to replace it (image below))
blender (I have a dodgy one, which I used anyway)
acetate (bought at an art shop)

No shop I visited sold ring moulds, or even a 6 inch springform pan. I didn't have time to order one online, plus they aren't cheap. So my sister made a thing by taping the acetate to a 6 inch cake board, as you can see it worked perfectly fine. Although dropping the cake into the mould was challenging. I dropped most of the cake circles (which I cut by using a knife and tracing the bottom of the board) on its side, so when I pushed it flat, curd squished out on the side , that's what is evident on the left of the first image.

I used Hummingbird High's post on her cake as my main reference and this youtube video of Christina assembling the cake herself.

DAY 1 / (Mon): chocolate crumbs (can be refrigerated for up to 1 month)
DAY 2 / (Tues): passionfruit puree (can be refrigerated for up to 1 week)
DAY 3 / (Wed): chocolate chip buttermilk cake (to be refrigerated overnight)
DAY 4 / (Thurs): coffee frosting (to be used immediately) + cake assembly
DAY 5 / (Fri): EAT CAKE!

(copied straight from Hummingbird High, but since our birthday was on Friday, I adjusted the days to suit me)

The chocolate crumbs was easy enough to make. But on day one I used dutch processed cocoa, and I thought the end result was a bit bitter, either that or I burnt it slightly (right). Anyway, I decided to remake it with normal cocoa, which tastes better (left).

The curd was a challenge, because everywhere I read the recipe calls specifically for passionfruit puree and all I had was passionfuruit pulp. It was liquidy but I took a chance anyway. I was seriously doubting this decision because when I put the curd in the fridge it was almost like water and not thick at all. I was researching other recipes for passionfruit curd but thankfully the curd thickened after a few hours in the fridge.

The coffee buttercream was annoying to make because of incorporating coffee and butter without a stand mixer was exhausting. The buttercream was also very soft and velvety.

I didn't take many "proper" photos since I was so excited for the cake and couldn't wait another second to eat it. I love this cake so much that I will probably make it again in the near future. Since I now have a bottle of grapeseed oil that has to be used up.

RECIPE @ Hummingbird High

Cupcakes x2

2013-09-13T23:07:00.000+10:00

Cupcakes are the best. So are hazelnuts, honey and Chinese food. I made Honey/Hazelnut Cupcakes for my dad on father's day, two weeks ago. We both love honey so obviously I had to make honey cupcake. And man, do these cupcakes have a lot of honey. The bottom picture are obviously Chinese food cupcakes, my sister and I made them to celebrate the end of our Chinese sacs, which have caused too many sleepless nights.

I think most of us will know which recipe I used, the Honey/Hazelnut cupcakes have been trending in the blogmesphere, mostly on pinterest. But for those who don't know I used Half Baked Harvest's Honey Toasted Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes with Boozy Honey Buttercream Frosting. Of course I omitted the booze, what was I going to do with a bottle of hazelnut liquor other than use a few tablespoons of it for this recipe. Instead I used two teaspoons of vanilla essence, you can adjust to your own preference of how strong you'd like the vanilla, I personally like a lot of vanilla.

Even though I made these cupcakes for my dad, I think I ate most of them. If I remember correctly I ate 2.5 each day because they were that good! (the half because 3 sounded too excessive) The chocolate chunks really added texture and a different flavour compared to the rest of the delicious honey cupcake. The best part was the extra crunch the honey toasted hazelnuts. If you like honey or eating in general, make these cupcakes! I know I definitely will again.

YUMMMM!!!

The Chinese food Cupcakes are a beaut aren't they? When I brought them to school people thought I put real broccoli on it :O.

I took inspiration from this site. I follower her method, but substituted different lollies since I did not have access to taffy. I used fizzers for the broccoli, natural chews for the egg, the pink section of rainbow strips and skittles for peas and corn.

I used my favourite vanilla cupcake recipe and this eggless cupcake recipe for my Chinese class. The frosting is a cream cheese frosting, which had some cocoa powder and yellow food colouring to give it that noodle-y appearance. I'll admit everyone was so excited and confused.

Well that was fun, hopefully I'll be posting more yummy food this month :)

CRED:

Honey Toasted Hazelnut Chocolate Chunk Cupcakes with Honey Buttercream Frosting @ Half Baked Harvest

Chow mein cupcakes @ somethingwittyaboutcupcakes
Golden Vanilla cupcake @ Woodland Bakery
Vegan Vanilla cupcake @ cupcakemerchant
Cream cheese frosting @ glorioustreats

Cream & Lemon Curd Layered Sponge with Berries & Meringue

2013-08-28T19:42:00.001+10:00

I haven't blogged in a month? maybe two? Because I've been "studying". I actually made this cake a week ago for my mum since it was her birthday, and haven't got around to blogging about it until now. Well, actually that's a lie, I had time on Friday night, Saturday and Sunday but I'm lazy.

Today was a pretty good day. It was the championships for GSV athletics. Now don't get mislead by the word "championships", it just signifies the final carnival rather than all of us being "champions" which some are, though I'm far from it. For me, the morning started with 800m, followed by Long Jump in the afternoon and 1500m 4x100m 4x400m. I can't say I placed considerably well in the events compared to the prelim carnival, but I did beat my PB. So the whole day was a win!

Anyway, I remember this cake like it was yesterday. It was the first time I made meringue, which tastes delicious and added an ultimate edition of crunch to the cake. The berries. Oh my god the berries. They were so expensive. $7 a (small) box. But since it was a special occasion the $14 had to be spent. The layers of whipped cream and lemon curd gave the spongy cake an even lighter taste which was great for my mum, since she can't handle decadence like me.

Also, make sure the curd is spreadable consistency before filling in between the cake layers. As you can see from the photo lemon curd squeezed out and slightly degraded the aesthetics of the cake. :( But it still tasted amazing.

There aren't other photos accompanying this post because none did it justice. The lighting was horrible so I kinda gave up before I grabbed the camera.

The cake is from raspberricupcakes I didn't make any adjustments but 5/6 the sponge recipe since I made a 6 inch cake. Also I had double amount of whipped cream left, which I later used for scones with jam. Yum. So if you want use half of the written recipe for whipped cream.

Mocha Macarons - almost fail

2013-07-14T20:03:00.000+10:00

WOAH, that was quick. Holidays are almost over. I haven't done a lot of things I wanted to do, one being more baking, since once school starts I will be spending most of my time "studying". Something I wanted to make in the holios was Momofuku's Chocolate Chip Cake, but was too lazy to plan and buy the ingredients and special equipment. I also wanted to make a croquembouche and Gary's Black Forest Cake from Masterchef. As you can tell I'm a very wishful baker. Although, I did make homemade Pizza, lemon merigune pie, melting moments and two layered cakes. Oh look, I did make quite a lot of things. But everyone of those things were impromptu and made half-heartedly, so no photos and bad presentation :(.

Anyway, back to the macarons. My sister and I had a craving for macarons, and conveniently Almond meal was on sale at Coles and lately I've been into mocha flavoured things, hence Mocha flavoured macarons.

I used Raspberri Cupcakes' chocolate macarons and Whisk Kid's mocha ganache. This was the third time I've ever attempted to make macarons and it didn't go so well. I followed the instructions carefully, folded the batter to a lava consistency. After I piped them, everything seemed good. The macaron's had smooth and shiny tops. They looked like they should've turned out well but they came out with cracked tops. (I think it may have been because I didn't tap out all the air bubbles.)

The only reason why I didn't deem these macarons as a total fail was that the flavour was amazing. Ganache is always delicious, but this coffee/chocolate ganache and chocolate/almond macaron shell pairs together really well.

I'd recommend anyone to try these and hopefully you'll have better luck with the macarons!

Chocolate macaron recipe @ raspberricupcakes

Mocha Ganache recipe @ whisk-kid

Awesome Oat Cookies

2013-07-05T13:59:00.003+10:00

A week into the holidays, and I haven't had a canteen cookie in ages. Canteen cookies are these delicious, oaty fat cookies. When I say fat, I mean it is thick, very thick, unlike these Awesome Oat Cookies. Sometimes they are chewy, sometimes they are crunchy, it really depends on what time you buy them or if the canteen ladies baked them a little longer or shorter. I was really craving one, so I looked onto my Cookies board and chose to make Awesome Oat Cookies.

These cookies were very easy to make. They are very much like ANZAC cookies, having oats, golden syrup, bicarb soda and the average butter, sugar and s-r flour.

My cookies flattened and didn't hold it's rounded shape like Five Euro Food, which was sad. But it doesn't matter because they taste amazing.

I'm a lazy baker, who likes to try and bake all the cookies/cupcakes or even cake layers in one go. So if you're a perfectionist, leave about 5cm of space between each cookie because they will spread.

I made eight small cookies (pictured above) and five large ones (pictured below).

These cookies are full of butter, sugar and oats, giving it a nice crunchy and chewy texture.

The recipe can be found HERE.

Red Velvet Strawberry Supreme Cake

2013-06-29T23:43:00.002+10:00

First day of holidays. YAY! I have a whole list of things to bake and equipment to buy. Today I made a Red Velvet Strawberry Supreme Cake which is pretty much Sweetapolita's Raspberry Supreme Cake but with Strawberries. I used strawberries since raspberries aren't in season (neither are strawberries, but they were cheap!)

This is a 6 inch cake as opposed to Rosie's 8 inch cake. I followed her recipe but halved it (the cake and frosting) and replaced raspberries with strawberries. Also being in Australia, there is no marshmallow fluff available at Coles or Safeway, so I just used more cream cheese and extra icing sugar to sweeten it up a bit.

The cake is 3 layers of moist red velvet cake. The secret ingredient is mayonnaise (:o I know right?). I'm a huge batter eater and after tasting it I was a bit nervous since I could taste the mayo. But never fear, after being baked the cake did not taste mayonnaise-y at all. The first layer of frosting is cream cheese frosting. The next is stabilized whipped cream with strawberries in the middle. The whole cake is then covered with chocolate buttercream and topped with some fresh strawberries and a little dusting of icing sugar.

To decorate I used Wilton 1M nozzle to pipe the border and cut little strawberry top hats to garnish. To make the indents into the side, I used my offset spatula and ran in across the cake. Make sure to apply a thick layer of frosting, as most of the frosting will come off. I also don't own a turn table, so I had to stop and rotate my plate.

I don't really know how to describe this cake except that it is delicious and that I had two slices.

RECIPE HERE @ Sweetapolita

Chocolate Mousse Cake

2013-06-23T01:20:00.002+10:00

So, today was the first time I've ever made mousse.

What a big fat lie. Technically my sister made the mousse yesterday. BUT I planned everything else and gave her specific instructions to follow, obviously she didn't. The mousse had to be refrigerated overnight, and since I was at work after school until nine thirty yesterday and all of this morning, she had to make it. The recipe "I" used was Gretchen's Rich French Chocolate Mousse. I told my sister to buy dark chocolate and if she needed extra to use the Old Gold 70% cocoa I had hidden as a snack. What she heard was use the Old Gold 70% cocoa and the normal dark chocolate if needed. Therefore the mousse still tasted good but a little less sweet, which isn't bad, just means I have no more dark dark chocolate.

Before I totally went crazy about baking and started this blog, I watched a series called Unique Sweets. And on one of the episodes "Updated Classics" was a birthday cake from The Harrison.

It is a chocolate layer cake, moistened with cola (I know right?) with a layer of blackberry jam, followed by a boozy mousse which is topped with crushed malt balls. I was intrigued by this combination and decided to try replicating it without every tasting the original (meaning I can't really compare!)

I used a jam called Bonne Maman: Fruits of the Forest Conserve and regular malted chocolate balls from Sweet As.

For the chocolate cake, I used Sweetapolita's Rich & Ruffled Chocolate cake (I halved it, to make a 2 layered 6 inch cake). The cake is just as Rosie says it is; moist and easy to make. I pretty much put all the ingredients into a bowl and mixed it with my ancient hand mixer.

Once the cakes were cooled, I cut the domes off and started layering. I placed the first layer back into the pan, brushed it with coke, spread 1/3 cup of jam and 1/2 cup of mousse and sprinkled around 50g of crushed malt balls. I was a bit too ambitious and crushed 150g, so I only used a third of what is pictured. The last step was to place the second and final layer into the pan and then refrigerate it, so when it was time to take it out, the mousse and jam wouldn't squeeze out. Since I was baking for my great aunt, aunty and cousins for that night, patience was not present in the kitchen. I took the cake out of the refridge after 15 minutes thinking it was firm enough to frost (it wasn't but who cares). I used the remaining mousse and smashed up the domes of the cake and garnished the sides with it.

Overall, the cake was nice, though I still need to work on my decorating and photography skills. The mousse and cake paired really well. I think the jam was a bit too out there, the flavour was quite dominate, so I think in the future if I was to make this cake again I would omit the jam and maybe just use mousse. Obviously, you can experiment and try with different jams, store bought or homemade.

I made a 2 layer 6 inch cake - it fed 10 people, though my family and I ate it after eating a massive dinner, so the pieces were relatively small.

CAKE RECIPE HERE (I halved it)

MOUSSE RECIPE HERE (I also halved it)

Vanilla Cupcakes with Swiss Meringue Buttercream

2013-06-15T20:01:00.001+10:00

Cupcakes!!! Yum. This cupcake recipe is by Gretchen Price from Woodland Bakery, you can find her on Youtube here or check out her blog. I've been watching Gretchen for ages, back when she was known as "Crumb Boss", but I have never tried any of her recipes... until now!

I think this recipe for the Golden Vanilla Butter Cake recipe is quite unique in how butter and cream cheese are used in the creaming method. It is then followed by 8 eggs, making the cupcake really moist and full of flavour.

This was the first time I ever made Swiss Meringue Buttercream or SMB. It's good if you're looking for something that is fluffy and not too sweet, which my mum loved. But personally I love sweet frostings, so in the future I might add more sugar and slightly less butter since the butter flavour was quite dominate.

Mid-year sales, led me to buy 150 medium-mini cupcake liners. In the above photo I crammed a medium-mini cupcake liner into mini cupcake pans, the edges were just squished together a bit more, which in my opinion looks slightly better than the surrounding large diameter tops.

The recipe for Gretchen's Golden Vanilla Butter Cake is here.
Her famous buttercream is here.

Triple Lemon Blueberry Cake

2013-06-09T22:24:00.000+10:00

The Queen's birthday is tomorrow, what better way to celebrate than with a cake?

Well that was a joke, because this cake wasn't for the Queen. (Sorry). Friends came over for dinner so obviously I was going to make a cake, duh! This is a Triple Lemon Blueberry Cake from Rosie of Sweetapolita. Okay, I'm going to be honest, and I feel really weird addressing Rosie since I've never met her (though she seems amazing) but Sweetapolita is a mouth full, so Rosie it is. The triple comes from the lemon cake, lemon curd and finally the lemon frosting. oo So zest-y.

Urghh, my stomach is about to erupt, I just downed two pieces and the amazing dinner my mum made; chicken wings, two types of tofu (I love tofu), prawns, veges + other chinese dishes. I definitely need to go running tomorrow.

I actually made this cake yesterday along with the lemon curd and refrigerated them both over night.

Might I just add, that the lemon curd is amazing. I could have eaten the whole bowl and I would've if the cake didn't require it.

So today I made the lemon frosting. I'm still trying to figure out the perfect buttercream to frost cakes. I'm starting to doubt that it isn't the recipes that I'm trying since other people have been successful in icing their cakes but my method. Being 16 and set in my ways *sarcasm* I only own a hand mixer. Hence the creaming of the butter and sugar/zest (for this recipe) goes like this:

It is very messy and time consuming. Kitchenaid: WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE SO EXPENSIVE?

Now, stacking. I made a dam wall for the curd as stated by Rosie.

But as you can see, lemon curd was still oozing out of it. So inevitably when I was trying to apply the crumb coat, it all squeezed out. I was very sad. So I immediately put it in the fridge to let it cool without finishing the coat properly. After 30 minutes I finished icing the cake, it was a bit lopsided and not very smooth but hey, I just need a little more practise right? More cakes *hint hint*

Oh no, I see a crack. Don't worry, cover it up by cutting into it!

It was delicious. The lemon curd was tart, the frosting was sweet and cake was dense. All together balanced really well.

FOR THE RECIPE @ Sweetapolita

Chocolate Cupcakes with Malted Chocolate Frosting

2013-06-01T16:44:00.002+10:00

Winter = Chocolate
and lots of it.

Oh my god, it's already June... ahhhh. One week until exams.
So the logical thing to do is not study but to bake.

This cupcake uses my favourite chocolate cupcake recipe from Brown Eyed Baker and is covered with a Malted ~~Belgium~~ Chocolate Frosting from Sweetapolita. I didn't use Belgium chocolate as the recipe states since I only decided to makes these yesterday, so I just used normal Cadbury milk chocolate.

The cupcakes are very moist and compliments the frosting very well. Fill free to use your favourite chocolate cupcake recipe, but this is my favourite one.

I also got creative and decided to stuff these cupcakes with random bits of chocolate. M&Ms, a Snicker bar, half a block of Milky Bar and Cadbury Caramello Nibbles have been sitting in my cupcake for quite a long time. What better use for them but to add more decadence to these already fabulously chocolatey cupcakes?

Oh and I went to University Hill today, that's where my awesome little cupcake holders came from. Original price was $20 but dropped down to $4, obviously I bought two. My sister said they only pretend its original value is $20 to let you think you save more money, I think she's right. But who cares.

Now if you'd excuse me, I must go for a run in my new awesome red Nike shorts that I also bought at Uni Hill.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Malted Chocolate Frosting

INGREDIENTS
For the Cupcakes: ADAPTED FROM BROWN EYED BAKER
8 tablespoons (1 stick)(113g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces
2 ounces (57gm) bittersweet chocolate, chopped
½ cup (1.5 ounces) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
¾ cup (3.75 ounces) all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
¾ cup (5.25 ounces) granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon table salt½ cup (4 ounces) sour cream
Chocolate bars to stuff the cupcakes (if desired)

FOR THE FROSTING: ADAPTED FROM SWEETAPOLITA
1 cup (2 sticks)(227g), at room temperature
2 cups (250g) icing sugar
1/3 cup (38g) Ovaltine Classic (brown in colour) *
1 1/2 teaspoons (7.5ml) pure vanilla extract
pinch of salt **
125g quality Beligian chocoalte, chopped, melted and cooled
1/4 cup (60ml) whipping (35% fat) cream

12 Maltesers
Grated Dark Chocolate

*I used Ovaline Energy Drink Powder, it might not be the same as Ovaline Classice, since my frosting wasn't as dark as Sweetapolita's
** I know bakers always say that adding salt brings out the flavour of things, but I still can't bring myself to do it (not a fan of salt).

METHOD:TO MAKE THE CUPCAKES:

1. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and preheat to 350 degrees F. (If you are using a non-stick muffin pan, heat the oven to 325 degrees F.) Line standard-size muffin pan with baking cup liners.

2. Combine butter, chocolate, and cocoa in medium heatproof bowl. Set bowl over saucepan containing barely simmering water; heat mixture until butter and chocolate are melted and whisk until smooth and combined. (Alternately, you can microwave the mixture at 50% power, stirring every 30 seconds until completely melted.) Set aside to cool until just warm to the touch.

3. Whisk flour, baking soda, and baking powder in small bowl to combine.

4. Whisk eggs in second medium bowl to combine; add sugar, vanilla, and salt until fully incorporated. Add cooled chocolate mixture and whisk until combined. Sift about one-third of flour mixture over chocolate mixture and whisk until combined; whisk in sour cream until combined, then sift remaining flour mixture over and whisk until batter is homogeneous and thick.

5. Divide the batter evenly among muffin pan cups. If using, press chocolate bars into batter, ensuring covered completely to achieve a perfect dome. Bake until skewer inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes.

6. Cool cupcakes in muffin pan on wire rack until cool enough to handle, about 15 minutes. Carefully lift each cupcake from muffin pan and set on wire rack. Cool to room temperature before icing, about 30 minutes.

TO MAKE THE FROSTING:
1. In a bowl, combine the icing sugar and butter and beat on low speed for about 1 minute.

2. Add malt powder, vanilla and salt, and beat on low until well combined. Add the melted chocoalte and beat on medium speed until smooth (about 2 minutes).

3. Add whipping cream and beat on med-high speed for another minute.

4. Best used right away.

TO ASSEMBLE THE CUPAKES:
1. When cupakes are cooled completely, fill piping bag with frosting using any star tip you like.

2. Pipe high circles of frosting (you will have left overs)

3. Sprinkle grated dark chocolate over the cupcakes and finish with a Malteser.

Peanut Butter Snickers Cookies

2013-05-25T22:00:00.000+10:00

URghhh, I hate my orange table. It does not photograph well, not that I know anything about food photography.

But it doesn't matter. The cookies look sensational. They are Peanut Butter cookies with bits of Snickers and choc bits.

(P.S there are no mandarins in this cookie, just on the table)

This week, I was actually planning on making White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies since I had a block of white chocolate and nuts at home. But as I was walking around Coles during my half an hour break at work, I saw that the snicker bars were half price and couldn't resist.

I've made these cookies in the past (Novemeber 2012) and turned them into ice cream sandwiches (I used cookies and cream). Man, they were good!

Anyway, I was at Coles, I ended up spending around $20 on ingredients, which was about half as much as I would've made. Totally worth it.

The method to these cookies was pretty much the same as any cookie. Cream the butter (but this time with Peanut Butter), add sugar, egg, vanilla extract & a splash of milk. Then flour and chocolate.

How awesome do they look?

I used my trusty ice cream scoop to make uniform cookies

Now I must stop procrastinating, and go do some homework.

RECIPE FOR PEANUT BUTTER SNICKERS COOKIES CAN BE FOUND HERE

Chocolate Orange Cake

2013-05-12T15:20:00.001+10:00

Happy Mother's Day!

I made this Chocolate Orange Cake for my mum and grandma yesterday. The cake is chocolate, dabbed with an orange syrup, filled with chocolate orange ganache and covered with orange buttercream.

I'm going to be honest, I wasn't entirely happy with this cake, it doesn't taste bad but not as good as I would've liked. Also the presentation was not what I had planned in my mind. I wanted to pipe a flower border but failed epically, resulting in covering the top with left over ganache.

During the baking of this cake, I almost had multiple hard attacks. The chocolate cake was this cake by Bake Noir (Martha Stewart Chocolate Cake). The batter was very liquid-y. I also had alot of it, since the recipe was for a 24cm cake and I only had two 20cm cake pans I also made 8 extra cupcakes. It was very nerve-racking putting the pans into the oven. I filled it to the top since my pans weren't very tall and I didn't want multiple thin layers but two thick ones. After 20 minutes I started to pat myself on the back. The cake was forming and the was level, but then..... oh yes, it rose. The cake domed. Oh WELL.

I made this cake a day in advance, wrapped it and placed it into the fridge [which also made trimming the tops of easier the next day]. The ganache was easy enough, I won't go too much into detail. But the buttercream. It called for corn flour, which I thought was strange but tried it anyway. I had way too much fun playing with it. As we all know from Doctor Who, corn flour is tough when it is penetrating forcibly but liquid when gently swirling it. Instead of resembling a thick custard, I found lumps of solid corn flour in the buttercream which eventually looked like curdled egg. So I scrapped that and made a simple Orange Buttercream which I doubled to cover the cake.

I decorated the sides with Lindt Dark Chocolate Intense Orange (it was on sale!) and topped it of with 5 little orange pieces. I was intially planning to candy them, but I got lazy. ah life...

Hummingbird Bakery: Black Bottom Cupcakes

2013-05-03T23:02:00.000+10:00

What are Black Bottom Cupcakes I here you ask? Well they are a chocolate sponge cake (hence the "black") with a cheesecake topping. YUM! Like it couldn't be decadent enough, cream cheese icing is added to it. *swoon*

I've been thinking about cheesecake for almost this whole week, ever since the year 12's at my school held a bake sale to fund raise for their chosen charity, Y-House Foundation who help young people living in aged care facilities.

Someone (I don't know who) made these most delicious caramel cheesecakes, that I could not stop thinking about, even now. I would've eaten the whole tray but I didn't have enough money.

These cup/cheesecakes are just as good! Maybe even better (ehehe)...

Here's an individual photo of the cupcakes. Hey look, it's my dad in the background with his laptop. You didn't see that.

& here's what they look inside. The photo's a bit blurry since I was in a hurry to take the photo so I could give it a taste. Absolutely amazing!

I didn't cut it very well, in the photo you can only see chocolate cake, but really the cheesecake does take up quite a bit of the cupcake.

Check out the recipe at Delicious Magazine

First Post: (woop!) NY Times Chocolate Chip Cookies

2013-04-26T23:39:00.000+10:00

I've heard about these infamous Chocolate Chip Cookies by Jacque Torres from the New York Times. But I've never decided to try making them since they required bread flour.

What the hell is bread flour?

My answer is, I don't know.

Anyway, these cookies do not disappoint! They are crumbly, soft and chewy. So good that I can't even begin to describe.

Though these cookies do take some time to prepare. When I first told my friends that they had to be "marinated" for 24 - 72 hours, they were a bit sceptical. I'd like to prove them wrong, but honestly these cookies won't last past the weekend and those suckers will just have to miss out.

After the dough sat in the fridge for about a day and a half, I rolled them into balls with my trusty cookie scoop.

Then I flattened them out with the bottom of a cup.

And then I baked them.

And look at that! They came out perfectly!

I also halved the recipe below, because I thought 60 cookies was too much. I made wow, exactly 30 cookies roughly 8cm in diameter. But if you want, you can make the full batch and bake them in separate days like butterbaking did below.

Phew. First post over. Stay tuned (to the zero people who are reading this) for plently of more baked stuff to come! :)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

NEW YORK TIMES CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIESAdapted from the recipe by Jacques Torres in the New York Times via butterbaking

2 cups minus 2 tbsp cake flour (8 1/2 oz)
OR 1/4 cup cornstarch + 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tbsp plain flour
1 2/3 cup bread flour (8 1/2 oz)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp sea salt (plus extra for sprinkling)
275g unsalted butter, softened (1 1/4 cups, 2 1/2 sticks)
1 1/4 cup light brown sugar (10 oz)
1 cup plus 2 tbsp white sugar (8 oz)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups chocolate chips or chunks of your choice [* I used dark chocolate baking bits]

In a large bowl, sift together the cake flour (or combination of cornstarch and plain flour), bread flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Mix to combine and set aside.

Using an electric mixer, beat together the butter and both sugar for about 5 minutes, until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.

Turn the mixer speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Now, Jacques Torres says that the cookie dough needs to sit in the fridge for a couple of days to marinate for the best flavour, and he is absolutely right. So put it into a large bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing it down onto the top of the cookie dough and refrigerate for 24 – 72 hours. The flavour develops and they become even more deliciously delicious (if that is possible).

36 hours is the ultimate marinating time, but this recipe makes such a large amount of cookies that I never stick to the rules. I always bake a batch straight away, then another the next day, and a third one the day after that. The flavour of the cookies intensifies and is fantastic.

So whenever you are ready to bake, Take your dough out of the fridge so it can soften a little. [*I forgot about this step, so the dough was a bit hard to work with. Probably take them out 30 minutes ahead of time] Preheat the oven to 175 C and line a few trays with baking paper. Use a cookie scoop to scoop rounds of the dough onto the trays, allowing room for spreading.

Sprinkle lightly with sea salt and bake for 9-11 minutes, until lightly golden around the edges. Makes about 60 cookies.