#BakefestDXB

Does anyone actually eat cupcakes like this? (I don't).

I haven't blogged in ages and I miss it entirely! I actually miss cooking and baking for the PURPOSE of blogging about it, and I miss spending ages taking photographs of my food, and I miss writing these posts and reading your lovely comments. Mostly, I miss reading through all your blogs and getting inspired by each and every post. The creativity, innovation, talent, and love that goes into each of your posts is just phenomenal and I quite love being part of an international community of food bloggers. I feel as if we all share something special and can relate to each other in a way not many other people can!

I also miss taking part in all the amazing blog challenges that go on every month- the creativity in them is wonderful and the best part is the round-ups where we see all the pictures!

My awesome new invention of serving cupcakes in drinking glasses.

Attempting food photography

I've been baking and cooking quite a bit recently- I had a couple of dinner parties and one afternoon gathering that kept me busy in the kitchen. And today, I took part in Round 2 of #BakefestDXB which you might remember from an earlier blog post.  The event was lots of fun with a few familiar faces from last time and lots of new ones.

My dessert table.

I made raspberry cream sandwiches, chocolate shortbread drops, a three toned pink layer cake, vanilla cupcakes, chocolate cupcakes, and some mini cupcakes (made from left over batter and frosting!) -That's why I love mini cupcakes so much.

You can find the recipe for my raspberry cream sandwiches here. I made them early this year and they were a huge success. The cream is made out of pureed raspberries and white chocolate and the cookies have vanilla beans in them (which, in my opinion, make ALL the difference).

And here's the recipe for the vanilla cupcakes with vanilla frosting.

Oh, and GUESS WHAT? My mixer broke. Again. The new one. So all of this I made by hand. I also made risotto yesterday after baking the cupcakes so my arms got one hell of a workout. It's a handheld Kenwood electric mixer- just like my old one.. very basic, no fancy attachments or anything.. and now the whisks just won't move.. I think it's the icing sugar. The last one stopped working as I was making frosting. And my cute mechanical sifter also gets jammed with icing sugar! SIGH.

Anyways, here are some pictures from the event. As you can tell (I hope you can- it's not too subtle!), I went on a pink theme. Mainly because Spontaneous Euphoria (both the catering business and the blog) are pink. And also because I had been coming across lots of pink dessert tables recently and was just INSPIRED.

 

Maple Mousse in an Edible Chocolate Container, A Daring Bakers Challenge

The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at  http://thedaringkitchen.com

So I made these today. On the day we had to post them. The actual recipe called for maple mousse in ham containers... and since I don't eat ham and to be honest found the meat/maple taste mixture a bit odd, I opted to make edible chocolate containers.

I had seen a technique for this in one of my many cookbooks and decided to recreate it with some variations of my own.

For the edible chocolate container:


200g milk chocolate (I used Van Houten's baking chocolate)

Turn small glass bowls upside down and place on a tray.
Scrunch up some baking paper and form it over the upside down bowls.
Melt the milk chocolate on a double boiler and leave to cool for five minutes.
Pour the melted chocolate over the bowl covered with baking paper. Use a spatula to evenly coat the bowl with the chocolate. Leave to set for half an hour and then place in a fridge for two-three hours to completely form.

For the maple mousse:

Ingredients: 

1 cup (240 ml/ 8 fluid oz.) pure maple syrup (not maple-flavoured syrup)

4 large egg yolks
1 package (7g/1 tbsp.) unflavoured gelatine
1 1/2 cups (360 ml. g/12 fluid oz) whipping cream (35% fat content)

  

Directions:

1. Bring maple syrup to a boil then remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to
temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle).
3. Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
4. Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5
minutes. Place the bowl in a microwave for 45 seconds (microwave for 10 seconds at a time and
check it in between) or place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, stir to ensure the
gelatine has completely dissolved.
5. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
6. Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten
raw egg white.
7. Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the
remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
8. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

The maple mousse was heavenly. I don't think I've had anything moussey apart from chocolate or lemon mousse and this just gave me the idea that I can make tons of different types of mousse! And all sorts of flavours! The more cream I added, the lighter the color became, but the taste stayed wonderful.

Here are some pictures, which I'm not too happy with.. they took me a total of 3 minutes to snap. I'm still horribly jet-lagged and just wasn't bothered to spend lots of time taking photos. But enjoy.

OH! And the edible containers? Yeah, make sure you pop them back in the fridge after each attempt to peel the paper off. Chocolate bits kept on breaking off and the entire thing was starting to melt in my hands, so I put them in the fridge after every attempt to peel and eventually peeled the whole thing off while it was all still the fridge.. I was half in the fridge as well...

Double Chocolate Cinnamon Muffins

Why is that whenever a recipe has the word "cinnamon" in the title, only 1/2 a teaspoon or 1 teaspoon of it is listed in the ingredients? In my opinion, for a dish to have the word "cinnamon" in the title- it needs around a tablespoon- at least!

And so when I read the recipe for 'chocolate "cinnamon" muffins' in my Marks and Spencer cookbook, I scoffed.  Half a teaspoon? Really? Ohh no, I'd add three more teaspoons, yes I would.

And that's what I did. Cinnamon works really well with cocoa powder.. And makes your kitchen smell like heaven. I just wish our oven was in the inside kitchen so that the whole house could smell like muffins. Or whatever it is that I'm baking. But an outside kitchen does have its benefits- especially when you have guests over and don't want the house smelling like onion and garlic.

But back to muffins, I love making them, perhaps because I don't make them that much. And also, the super-risen texture of it makes them look wholesome. There are so many ways that you can vary muffins, and make them savoury, unlike cupcakes, so that muffins make a great snack any time of day.

Anyways, without further ado, I present to you my modified version of chocolate cinnamon muffins.

Ingredients
butter, for greasing
225g plain flour
55g cocoa powder
1tbsp baking powder
4tsp ground cinnamon
pinch of salt
115g soft light brown sugar
160g chocolate chips
2 eggs
250ml milk
85g butter, melted and cooled

Procedure
Preheat oven to 200C. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Sift together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and chocolate chips.

Lightly beat the eggs in a large bowl then beat in the milk and butter. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the beaten liquid ingredients. Stir gently until just combined. Do not overmix.

Spoon into prepared muffin tin and bake in the preheated oven for about 20 minutes until well-risen and firm to the touch. Serve warm, dusted with icing sugar if desired. (which I did but didn't take pictures of because the muffins were already in my tummy).

*

I got an idea for "gourmet" muffins.. I wanted to serve these with a scoop of vanilla icecream and some caramel or butterscotch (or even chocolate) sauce drizzled along the middle of the muffin and ice cream scoop....something like my version of a peach melba.

Quadruple Chocolate Madness

Close your eyes and imagine this: three layers of chocolate cake, filled with chocolate mousse in between, topped with a rich dark chocolate ganache with some milk chocolate shavings. Oh, and some dark, milk, and white chocolate truffles. Something akin to heaven, is it not?

Yesterday at a cake decorating class that some of us food bloggers are taking, our lovely instructor/chef gave us the idea of using chocolate mousse between cake layers instead of buttercream. And so I closed my eyes and imagined this. I also imagined something else, but that's going to be in another post.

I had some leftover cake I wanted to use up so what I did was whizz it in a food processor until I got cake crumbs. With those crumbs, I made truffles. And then the rest of the cake came together. I made the chocolate cake and the truffles last night and made the mousse and ganache and shavings this morning.

My favourite caster sugar to use is Tate and Lyle. But for some reason, the packet I used yesterday was rock solid. The sugar was one huge block and not grains of caster sugar. I placed it in a sandwich bag and beat it with the bake of a measuring cup. Very effective at stress-release by the way. That technique was somewhat effective but there were still some major cubes of sugar. And oh, I'm still mixer-less. I tried my best to break up the sugar cubes with my whisk while I will creaming it with the butter and that broke it down further although not completely. Anyways, this sugar cubiness somehow resulted in the cake not being cut evenly. So instead of having three neat layers filled with lots of mousse in between, I ended up with something very droopy. But it tasted wonderful. And it looked home-made.

Here's the recipe:
For the chocolate cake:
125g unsalted butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup cream (preferably Nestle)

Preheat the oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm round cake tin. 
Beat butter and sugar until creamy. Add egg and extract, beat until combined. 
Add sifted dry ingredients and cream and beat on slow speed until combined. Increase speed to high until mixture is smooth. 
Spoon mixture into tin and bake for around 45 minutes. 


For the chocolate mousse:
300g plain chocolate, in pieces
 284ml double cream
250g mascarpone
3tbsp cranberry juice
1tbsp vanilla extract

Put the chocolate in a double boiler until it's melted and smooth. Remove from heat. 
Add cream, mascarpone, juie, and extract to the chocolate and mix well until smooth. 
Refrigerate for five to ten minutes. 


For the ganache:
200g dark chocolate (preferably 70%)

Melt the dark chocolate on a double boiler until smooth.


For the truffles:
300g vanilla cake crumbs
2 tablespoons strawberry jams
3 tablespoons cream (again, preferably Nestle)
60g melted unsalted butter
300g dark chocolate
2 tablespoons cranberry juice
100g milk chocolate
100g dark chocolate
100g white chocolate

Mix together cake crumbs, jam, cream, butter, chocolate and juice; stirring until moistened. 
Refrigerate for half an hour. 
Roll teaspoons of mixture onto a baking sheet lined with foil. Refrigerate for a further 10 to 15 minutes. 
Melt the white, milk, and dark chocolates separately. 
Dip a third of the truffles into the melted white chocolate, a third into the melted milk chocolate, and a third into the melted dark chocolate. 
Leave to cool for 10 to 15 minutes. 
Refrigerate until firm and needed. 


For the chocolate shavings: 
50g milk chocolate

Melt the chocolate until smooth. Spread evenly over a piece of baking paper. Allow to cool for 15 minutes and then refrigerate until firm. With a flat bladed spatula, gently scrape at the stiffened chocolate to create chocolate shavings. 


To assemble:
1. Cut the chocolate cake into three equal layers. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
2. Place half of the chocolate mousse mixture on top of the base cake, top with another cake layer, the remaining chocolate mousse mixture and the final cake layer.
3. Prepare the chocolate shavings mixture except for the part of scraping off the shavings themselves.
4. Melt the dark chocolate, leave to cool for about 3-4 minutes and then pour all over the chocolate cake, allowing to drip down the sides.
5. Then, create the shavings and quickly place over the cake. They melt in your hands.
6. Place three truffles of different colours over the cake and serve!

The cake is best served immediately while the chocolate mousse mixture is still cold and while the dark chocolate ganache hasn't hardened.

  

Random Recipe #2: Brownies

Dom's blog challenges are fun! This month's Random Recipe challenge was to pick out our 18th cookbook and make something randomly from there.

Luckily for me, I organize my cookbooks according to cuisine/course etc.. So my first forty or so are just desserts or baking cookbooks. My 18th cookbook happened to be this lovely little one called "101 Chocolate Treats" by BBC Books/Good Food magazine. I love the 101 series by BBC Books/Good Food.. The books are very cute and tiny and the recipes are extremely simple. Plus, there are pictures for every recipe! Which I love. Anyways, my random recipe turned out to be brownies.

After that I started flipping through the cookbook and came across a recipe which used brownies. It was a trifle with layers of brownies, strawberries, and mascarpone and cream. I wanted to use some of the brownies and make the trifle... but alas, academic responsibilities prevented me from doing so... (you can sense some of that academic feel through my pictures....)

The recipe is fairly simple- I adapted it slightly from the original:

Ingredients

190g dark chocolate, chopped

190g unsalted butter

3 eggs

275 caster sugar

85g self raising flour

45 cocoa butter

60g milk chocolate, chopped

50g white chocolate, chopped (the supermarket was out of white chocolate [!] so I used Cadbury milk chocolate buttons.. luckily I bought two packs since I ate one entire one before I even attempted making the brownies....)

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease and line a 20cm square tin.

Melt chocolate with butter.

Whisk eggs and sugar until thick and creamy.

Pour over chocolate and fold together.

Sift flour and cocoa and fold into chocolate mixture.

Stir in chopped chocolate.

Pour evenly into tin and bake for 25 minutes. Remove from tin when completely cold and cut into individual squares.

Cappuccinos and Cupcakes

Or both in one.

The minute I spotted these adorable silicone cupcake cases by Fred at Selfridge's, I snatched them. I could just imagine all the different scenarios I'd create with these teacups: elegant garden parties, a breakfast snack, an optical illusion..

Last week, I got this idea to make cupcakes in them and frost them in a way so that they look like the froth on a cappuccino. I was extremely adamant to capture them in natural light and so I baked the cupcakes last night and made the frosting this morning. Well, I didn't make the frosting. I bought the frosting. Shocking, isn't it? I had a huge internal battle with myself over that. But the pros outweighed the cons and so I crossed over to the dark side. Just for today though. I didn't have much time, and I really wanted the frosting to be perfect.. so I opted to use ready frosting. The idea of it is so appealing to the time-constrained.. Just frost it on! No mess, no dishes to wash, no consistency to get right. But no, I will not use ready frosting again. SIGH. Anyways, I frosted the cupcakes with Betty Crocker's rainbow chip frosting.. The pastel multicoloured quality of the frosting made the cupcakes look super cute.

I sort of compensated for using ready made frosting by using a recipe that I had developed myself.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

120g butter

120g caster sugar

120g self raising flour

2 eggs

1 and 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract

3 tablespoons milk

2 tablespoons cocoa powder.

Procedure:

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time and beat well. Sift flour into mixture and fold in. Add vanilla extract, stir. In a small bowl mix cocoa powder with milk and stir (not thoroughly though... do not dissolve the cocoa entirely..) Add cocoa/milk mixture to batter and stir well. Yields about 9 cupcakes.. (five regular paper cased ones, and four silicon cupcake mould ones) Baking time around 12-15 minutes at 180C.

I had a lovely time styling these today though. Sorry if the pictures are repetitive.. I'm really proud of them though! There's nothing like using unobstructed natural lighting! Whenever I manage to take pictures of food it's always at night.. or outdoors with sunlight that's too harsh.. or in rooms where the sunlight enters but isn't that bright. I used the window of my bedroom for these shots today. I didn't add a diffuser with a soft sheer curtain either. I just positioned the table in such a way it caught the best lighting. And I experimented a lot with shutter speeds, ISOs, exposures, and apertures..