First Cupcake Venture

Thanks to dear2, my blog is increasingly getting more visitor hits after he introduced several of his friends to my blog. :) I was overwhelmed when one of his good friend, Yan Li wanted to show me support by asking if I would like to bake a birthday cake for her son's first month celebration. When I heard that, I was like.....huh... she's making such a rash decision! :P

Well, I think she was being too kind and overly supportive! LOL.. Dear2 and I knew I'll definitely not be able to cope with such a BIG project. All along, I've only been baking cakes for my friends and family. I've never dare to consider selling cakes yet (except for cookies which I'm more comfortable at) even though I've dream of it. hehe...Eventually, Yan Li asked if I'll then like to make some cupcakes for her guests.

After much consideration and with dear2's support, I finally decided to give it a go. (He said if nobody eat he will finish all!) :D I knew I should be more confident, but to really bake and sell is a different thing altogether.

Weeks before the event, I already started doing 'intensive research'. I test baked a few recipes (vanilla and chocolate flavour) to find the best ones... blog-hop here and there... to get inspiration on the type of design...recipes of buttercream and icings. Have also emailed Ovenhaven and Happy Mrs Kwok for their advice. Really thanks so much for their replies and guidance! :)These were some of my testings and playing around with royal icing. Having not done any proper courses on cake decoration, I just have to make do with simple designs. I tried this baby nib and smiley bird design but I found it too heavily loaded with buttercream and I wasn't able to get it frosted professionally. The idea comes from here. I learnt how to pipe this cute baby booties from here. Actual day arrived!
I spent the entire evening baking 40 cupcakes in three batches and by the time it was done, it was already past 8pm. Mum was forever right. I should started the cupcakes much earlier. (I wanted the cupcakes to be fresher so I thought the later I started it would be the better).

These were the final products.. :) sunflower cupcakes - chocolate butter cupcake with vanilla cream (tinted with orange colour) and chocolate chips. This was the easiest design. The piping wasn't good because somehow some cookie bits got stuck inside the nozzle so the entire pattern could not be piped out properly. :(

This should be the most delicious! Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate ganache and the letterings were written using royal icing.The blue patches were supposed to be foot prints but the icings were a tad too stiff so I had problem making dots for the toes so I just leave the patches as it was. :P

butterfly cupcakes (vanilla flavour) - I like this too. I sliced the top of the cupcake to leave a hollow depression, filled it with vanilla cream and cookie chunks, and placed the sliced sponge cake (split into half) on top to create a butterfly design.

Baby Booties! Vanilla cupcake with tnted buttercream, decorated with piped baby booties and sprinkles of colourful stars. As you can see, the booties were not very nicely done. The royal icing turned hard (should have covered with damp cloth or plastic wrap) and my hands ached after I finished with the piping.

When everything was done, it was already 4am in the morning! Just in time to handover next morning. :)

I still have not heard from the host the verdict but a few who went to the celebration said the cupcakes were delicious. :) I do hope the guest enjoyed the cupcakes and also apologize for the 'not so neat and professionally done' frostings/decorations.

Thanks Yan Li for giving me the opportunity! This little venture made me realised that yes, I do have a passion in baking, it's not a 3-minute passion only. I don't feel tired from working on the cupcakes even till the wee hours (of course I will feel tired but you just won't want to give up) and I don't feel bored having to try out so many recipes and done so much cleaning and washing till my hands became dry.

I don't think I'll be doing any cupcke venture for now but I'm now beginning to focus on baking a certain item so that I can improve/perfect my skills at it instead of merely doing everything but aren't able to bake something I'm really good at. For a start, I'm working on buttercakes, kinda of working through wat I've learnt in my baking class at Creative Culinaire. Even though I don't really like butter cakes, this is the most basic that I think I should be able to bake without failing, as i failed in some recipes during my trial and errors.

Wish me luck then and Happy Baking! :)

Cocoa & Vanilla

Some time back last month, my dd and I paid a visit to Shermay's Cooking School which is situated in Holland Village. I'd thought of joining their classes previously but it was always full house by the time I wanted to sign up. They also have a small retail shop selling baking/cooking ingredients and bakewares and that's the main the reason I wanted to go and have a look! I was so happy to have FINALLY got myself a bottle of vanilla extract and Valrhona cocoa powder at Shermay's. Heh probably there's nothing to boost about but this is the first time I bought a good quality pure vanila extract; previously I've always been using only vanilla essence. :P I had also heard much reviews about valrhona cocoa so I must not give that a miss!

I was surprise to find that Pantry Magic is also located around the vicinity. There are lots of colourful silicon bakewares and other quality kitchenwares and I'm really tempted to bring them home. Well, I didn't buy in the end as they were too expensive; I don't think it is neccessary for me to own them.

I've been eager to try out the vanilla extract but didn't get a chance to bake anything out of it during the Chinese New Year festive period. I baked a batch of vanilla cupcakes for my cousin's baby shower two weeks ago and got to put it to good use. I tried a new basic vanilla cupcake recipe and the texture of the cake was very soft and fluffy, definitely a keeper for cupcake recipes. ;)

This is the first time I experimented with royal icing pipings, using meringue powder. I'm not sure whether I've beaten it to the right consistency as the piped letterings actually became soft when I left it at room temperature. Nevertheless I had fun piping the letters. I think it was the first time I managed to get some decent letterings though I still had much more room for improvement! :)

These chocolate muffin cupcakes were baked prior to Valentine's Day for my colleagues. I took this opportunity to try the valrhona cocoa powder and oh my gosh they smell so wonderful even when I was only mixing the batter! Even though no melted chocolate or chocolate chips were added, the smell, taste and colour of cocoa were intense enough. Recipe from Florence's dark chocolate muffins.

I made some simple swirls of nutella and decorated with little white chocolate hearts to make a simple sweet cupcake. :) I think the little hearts did put a smile on some faces. :)

Let me share the vanilla cupcake recipe here ;)

Ingredients:

180g butter, softened to room temperature

1 cup caster sugar (I usually would reduce by about 1/4 of it)

1 1/2 cup self-raising flour, sifted

1 cup milk

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract/essence

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170°C
2. Place all the main ingredients in a deep mixing bowl, beating on low speed until well combined and the batter is smooth (note: I've never use such method before. For me, I cream butter with sugar, added in eggs in stages till well mixed, and finally add milk and flour alternately. You may want to try their method to see if it produces a soft texture as well)
3. Spoon batter into cupcake patty case until 2/3 full.
4. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until light brown. Allow to cool before frosting.

Recipe Source: Food & Travel - Oct 2008 Issue (pg 51)

Mini Chocolate Cupcakes

Whenever I see bloggers posting pictures of beautiful cupcakes, I'm always tempted to bake those. Yet there wasn't really any occasion for me to bake cupcakes, and given that I've so many things that I wanna try out on my 'to do bakes/cooks', so cupcakes would be lower on my priority list :)

A week after I baked the strawberry swissroll for Kexian came just at the right time! I had a fair bit of leftover buttercream chilled in the fridge. I don't think buttercream can be kept too long in the fridge so I had to use it. My cousin invited us for his housewarming on the same weekend, so I baked a batch of mini cupcakes frosted with buttercream to bring to his housewarming. The cupcakes were well received. :D :D

The chocolate cupcake recipe, taken from Baking Bites, uses a simple mixed-in method and the texture was just perfect. It had the right degree of compactness I would say, without being too dense or too light and soft for cupcakes. It wasn't too buttery also which I felt was good cos' it was already frosted with buttercream. Of cos' if you like a richer chocolate cupcake, just feel free to try any chocolate cake recipes.

For the buttercream, I had to let it stand in room temperature for a while, and re-whipped again, adding more sifted icing sugar in order for it to hold its shape well. For the pink strawberry portion, as there was already some strawberry chunks in it, it was more watery thus when I tried piping, it began melting. I had to spread it instead of piping as the shape can't hold. I love minis cos' they are just so cute and won't make one feel too full and will wanna come back for more variations! :)

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp coffee powder (I omitted this)
• 1/2 cup sugar (I reduced to about 1/3, still fine but not so sweet)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 90 ml milk
• 1/4 cup (62.5ml) oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract/essence

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 175°C. Line mini muffin trays with paper cups.
2. In a large bowl, sift together flour, cocoa power, instant coffee powder, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together milk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract.
4. Pour into dry ingredients and stir until just combined and no streaks of flour remain.
5. Distribute batter evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
7. Turn cupcakes out onto a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Recipe: Nic - Baking Bites

Low fat Vanilla Yoghurt Cupcakes

I was sorting out my photos the other day when I saw this picture and realised that I'd forgotten to post this which I had intended to. I mentioned in my previous post that I'm in search for some good basic vanilla cupcake/muffin recipes. Having tried a few recipes, I find that different recipes can come in handy depending on the occasion I am baking it for, or the preference of the recipients, since most of the time, I don't bake solely for myself. Sometimes I like the richer, more buttery ones while at times I may just go for a lighter version and will go well with chocolate chips or nuts (previous post). Thus, it's good to have a few recipes suited to different taste buds. Some recipes called for milk, some buttermilk, yoghurt, sour cream...the list goes on. I have not tried out all but they do differ in taste and texture. I'll have to test one using sour cream one day.

This one that I am blogging about here uses yoghurt and lesser amount of butter. You can't really consider it's a healthier version as it still contains about 8g of butter fat per cupcake but as compared to most butter cupcakes, the content is considerably lesser. I like how the cake turned out soft, fluffy, with just the right amount of richness; neither too rich nor too light and dry. The texture is somewhere between a butter cake and a sponge cake, if you can see from the interior shots, though it was not taken that well. The top also rised nicely, with no obvious cracks. This one below is actually a mini sized cupcake. Doesn't it look cute? :P


If you had been blog hopping often, I believe the source of recipe ain't unfamiliar to you. It's from Alice Medrich's low fat chocolate marble cake recipe. I simply omitted the chocolate portion, and used only the yoghurt batter. The original chocolate marble cake recipe is a good one, I can assure. If you are interested, you may go to here.

Meanwhile, you may use this as a base for any basic vanilla cupcake recipe! I modified the recipe slightly though, as I halved the recipe and reduced the amount of sugar.

Ingredients:

1 cup cake flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 whole egg
3 tbsp unsalted butter (approx 45 g)
1/2 cup nonfat plain yoghurt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method:

1. Have all ingredients at room temperature. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Use a wire whisk to combine all dry ingredients. Set aside.
3. Whisk whole egg and set aside.
4. Cut butter into pieces, beat for about 1 minute to soften. Gradually add remaining sugar and beat at high speed for about 3 minutes.
5. Dribble eggs in slowly, about 1 tbsp at a time, beating constantly for 2 minutes.
6. On medium-high speed, beat in half of the yoghurt. On low speed, beat in half of the flour;
7. On high speed, beat in the rest of the yoghurt and vanilla.
8. On low speed, beat in remaining flour.
9. Scoop into lined muffin tins.
10. Bake for about 15-20 minutes and a tester inserted comes out clean.

Recipe Source: Chocolate and the Art of Low-Fat Dessert by Alice Medrich

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The muffin is actually made of egg white, flour and sugar only. It was intially intended to be baked as almond crisps. But somehow I lost court of the number of leftover egg whites I had, after all the CNY baking, which was probably the reason why I could not get my almond crisp correct. Thus, in order not to waste the remaining batter, I poured it into muffins liners and tada..! some simple muffins were born! LOL. The texture isn't that fabulous, but it ain't too bad either. Non fat, had the texture of a 'Huat Gao', and crunchy sliced almonds on top.

So, don't attempt to throw any unpromising raw materials; you'll never know what surprises it could turn into! ;)

Girly High Tea = Nice food and cupcakes!

Once in a while, it's good to stay away from shoppings or chill outs in town and have some mini girly high tea sessions in the comfort of our homes. This not only saves unneccessary spending, saves the hassle to dress and doll up, can engage in longer talks, watch cheaper movies..etc and of course the opportunity to whip up nice, inexpensive food and bakes!

Last Saturday, four of us gathered at xian's house. She had planned some finger food for us...she's good at it..:) had made bento sets for us before; while ling and mei bought some drinks and tibits. As for me, of cos' I would take this opportunity to bake some goodies ;P Mini cupcakes would be perfect, so dainty and beautiful, Hehe..got this idea from CLEO magazine October issue ;)

Another reason for baking cupcakes is because I am also in the search of a good basic vanilla cupcake recipe. I browsed through several recipes and found that basically some of the most common ones are roughly 1 1/2 to 2 cups flour; 1/2 cup milk; 1/2 cup butter; 2 eggs; 1 cup sugar; extracts, baking powder and so on for a 12 - muffin recipe. These are the common proportions that I've seen though some may vary in terms of using self-raising flour or slightly more or less flour.

I searched through several websites, food blogs, and my recipe collections and finally decided on this vanilla cupcakes found at Joy of Baking. Unlike the rest, this recipe uses 3 eggs instead of 2 and 1/4 cup milk, which I guess would make the cake richer. I've tried those previous recipes using 2 eggs and somehow the cake always turned out a bit dry and dense.

I baked them in mini muffin tins which I jus bought. Really like the cute tins and I think cupcakes look cuter in mini size. Moreover mini size can control the amount you eat and you tend to eat lesser. hee.....

The cupcakes puffed up well with a nice golden colour... :) These may appeared medium size but they were mini size only, very cute.

As I was cooling the muffins waiting to be 'doll up' , I decided to try another batch for my mum to bring to her ktv session with the aunties. It was an impromptu decision as she only decided to go on that day. I eagerly told her I'm going to bake for them a batch but she told me to be quick la as she did not want to be late cos' of waiting for my cake. I promised her no worries although i knew it would be quite rushed...:p cos' I was really eager to try another recipe...and to be able to share my bakes with others.

The second recipe which I tried, I would say is a reduced fat version, as it uses only 1/4 cup butter but 1 cup of buttermilk. I am always looking for reduced fat alternatives but I realised that the taste and texture often have to be compromised. I wanted to see how much difference it would make just by substituting for less butter. Indeed, the muffins overall pales in comparison as compared to the previous one. It was less rich and crumbly, less tasty overall. I added some walnuts and chocolate chips as I did not plan to add any frosting. Overall, I would say it's still a good recipe, soft and fluffy and would make a good base for muffins with added nuts or any ingredients. Only thing was I did not like the almond taste, but that boils down to individual preference as my mum told me most of her friends commented that they were nice!! The recipe was from BakingBites - Vanilla buttermilk cupcakes. This is how it turned out.

Yup, so I have tested 2 basic vanilla cupcake recipes. The verdict is I prefer the one from Joy of Baking. After I refrigerated, it tasted just like those Sara Lee Pound cake. It was rich, soft and fluffy. Highly recommended! I will continue to test other recipes, with yogurt and sour cream next time. :)

Okok I think I have side track too much from my main topic. Back to our high tea, I frosted the mini cupcakes with vanilla butter cream, recipe also from Joy of Baking. Tinted some with pink colour, and another mixed with oreo biscuits. Here comes my creation...

Here are some of the food xian prepared.........

This egg/tuna mayo with prawn on cheese crackers is my favourite! I never knew prawns can go so well with egg mayo. It's really a simple finger food, but very nice! Haha maybe it's nothing new to people out there but I've not tried something like this before, so really like it. Shall try this combi for my sandwich next time.

A platter of colouful fruits ..........