Oooh, look! More cupcakes

The title of this post says it all. I had made some basic vanilla on vanilla cupcakes a while ago and never managed to post pictures of them.

You can find the recipe for both the cake and the buttercream in an earlier post here.

Tell me what you think!

Quick Canapes

I was walking home yesterday and happened to look at the window in the building to my left- and there was a guy in his kitchen, chopping some basil leaves and frying some tomatoes in a pan. I actually stopped and stared and had this intense yearning to go cook something. Sigh. I miss cooking up meals. I love those times when you just have to make do with what's the in the fridge. It fuels creativity. And so today, I created two little bites that would be perfect for a snack- or a canape (I feel like being fancy).

First one is crackers with marmalade and feta cheese. I was so tempted to try the marmalade and feta combination and Yasmin at Red Panda Bakes said she has them all the time! And so I piled them on top of little crackers and bit into them.

Marmalade and Feta Cheese Crackers
Ingredients
1 packet cream crackers
1 jar orange marmalade
40g crumbly feta cheese

Procedure
Spoon a generous teaspoon of marmalade over the cracker and top with crumbled feta cheese. That's it!

Next, I made bruschetta. I was GOING to make risotto and bought all the ingredients for it.. BUT, ended up forgetting the onion and garlic. And right now I'm not bothered to go down to the Tesco Express and buy any. And so I sliced up a mini baguette and spread some basil pesto on each slice. I topped each with a piece of sundried tomato and some feta. I thought the whole thing was going to be rather salty but surprisingly it wasn't!

And they looked pretty cute.. If I may say so.

Basil Pesto, Sun-dried Tomato, and Feta Cheese Bruschetta
Ingredients
1 baguette
1 jar basil pesto
1 jar sun-dried tomatoes
20g crumbly feta

Procedure
Slice the baguette.
Spread a teaspoon of the basil pesto.
Top with one sundried tomato slice
Add some feta.
Eat.

Yes, eating is part of the procedure.

http://redpandabakes.blogspot.com/

Mini Rose Cakes

I haven't had a chance to blog in a while- I've been extremely busy with university work. Last week, we held a Model United Nations conference for high schools around the UAE. We had planned for the event for months and last weekend was the weekend that all our efforts bore fruit. I am extremely happy with the way things turned out- we all are. Everything was fabulous and ran so smoothly. I was Director of Logistics and Event Planning which meant I had a whole lot of running around to do the entire conference. I'm proud to have catered for the coffee break through Spontaneous Euphoria Baking and Dessert Services. I spent two days preparing around 200 cupcakes and was up till 3AM the night before the conference icing all the cupcakes. My mechanical piping machine was getting stuck for some reason so I had to resort to that which I fear most- a plastic piping bag. I'm glad to say I have overcome my fear- and LOVE using a plastic piping bag. You have a lot more control over the way the final outcome looks.

While the opening ceremony speeches were taking place, my friend and I snuck out to set up the table for the coffee break. I would like to ask myself why I didn't take a picture of everything just as soon as we finished setting it up because literally three minutes into the coffee break, EVERYTHING was gone. The only things left were some biscuits and like six mini cupcakes. Which then were all eaten up in the subsequent seconds.

Anyways, I sort of went on a fondant phase two weeks ago.. and I think I'm still on it.. I bought a few cake decorating books from New York City (which weighed a TON) and have been obsessing over every design in every book. One thing I cannot seem to master though is STIFF ROYAL ICING. I bought a flower nail, I bought the parchment, I'm holding my hand at the right angle, everything! but the icing isn't thick enough. And when I pipe on the flower nail, I can't lift the piping bag easily without smudging whatever is on the flower nail or dragging the parchment up with me (yes I stick the parchment on the nail with a little buttercream or icing).  SIGH. So these mini cakes were supposed to have those royal icing flowers on them.. but since that didn't work out, I made roses out of marzipan. These are suprisingly SO easy to make. I could make tons.


I wish I had a picture of what the cake looked like from inside. There were four layers, two pink and two plain vanilla- alternating.

This was another cake which required the same royal icing- but which didn't work out. So I made fondant daisies..

I'm still a bit messy when it comes to fondant.. the fondant seems to overlap and when I lift it up to smoothen it out it creases a bit. But I'm learning!

Candles, flowers, crystal, and fingerfood.

I hadn't seen my friend Khulood in over four months.. we only see each other about three times a year anyways! And so, last week I invited her over for dinner. She loves fingerfood and so I started looking through my cookbook trying to find recipes for bite sized meals and canapes etc.. I've never really made fingerfood so yesterday's cooking experience was something new.. I didn't have to use the stove once! And everything was done in less than an hour.

I made a sweet and sour yogurt dip which I served with some crisps, mini burgers, small pizza slices, bruschetta, and chocolate mousse.

The yogurt dip was delicious (and healthy!). All you have to do is take one cup of fresh yogurt and beat it until smooth with around a third cup of sweet and sour sauce. I added some fresh chives to the mixture and seasoned with salt and pepper. It is SO addictive and works great with just about anything- especially breadsticks. Easy!

The pizza slices were also extremely simple and quick. Just take around four pizza bases and spread each with basil pesto. Sprinkle with some pizza cheese and pine nuts and bake for around 15 minutes at 180C. Cut each pizza base into four equal pieces and further slice each piece into three slices. You get 48 pieces with just four pizza bases.

I love the idea of using lots of glasses in a table setting. I've used them as vases and as candy holders. And now for crisps and the dip!



The Chocolate Mousse

 Enjoy the photos!

Baked Mini Lemon Doughnuts with Vanilla Glaze

Lots of studying to do and a new baking pan I haven't used. That's the perfect combination to get me into the kitchen when I'm stressed.

And so yesterday, I went to make a mini baked doughnuts. BAKED, yes, that's the key word! I love doughnuts but hate myself after eating one, because they're almost always deep fried. As if sugar and butter weren't enough, add oil to that and a whole lot of topping. Umm, no thank you. You might think my reaction is odd- considering I bake and am a food blogger.. but it's important to eat healthy most of the time so you can enjoy cakes guilt-free.

These are adorable and bite sized. Perfect for kids or as a snack with tea. Or coffee. Or just on its own, really.

I wanted to experiment with colouring the glazing and doing some more creative things but funny enough the glazing was not easy. I took a tea spoon and starting dripping the glaze all down the sides of the doughnut but I guess the doughnut itself was too tiny! I got a lot of excess glaze down on the bottom of the wire rack on the newspaper that I kept for easy cleanup.

But these are fairly simple to make and are a melt and mix batter.

Ingredients
1.5 cups cake flour
0.5 cups granulated sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
0.75 teaspoon salt
0.5 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
0.5 cup buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1.5 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Chocolate sprinkles, optional

Ingredients
Preheat oven to 220C and lightly grease a 12 mould doughnut tray.
Sift the flour twice.
Add sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest to flour. Stir to combine.
Add egg, melted butter, and buttermilk to flour mixture and lightly whisk to combine until just smooth.
Take a teaspoon and add the batter carefully to the insides of a doughnut mould.
Bake in preheated oven for 6 minutes until doughnuts spring back at touch.
Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
Meanwhile, make the glaze by mixing together the icing sugar, milk, and vanilla essence in a bowl.
Once doughnuts are cool, drip the glazing over the sides. Quickly add the chocolate sprinkles as the glaze hardens fairly quickly.

 

#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.