Moist Carrot Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Carrot cake is one of the easiest recipe around. It is also a personal favorite because of the moist texture and not forgetting the walnuts. So I made some carrot cupcakes for a gathering with some friends last Saturday and feedbacks from them are good. And that makes me happy. Carrot cakes is a really easy cake to make. You should try it. Just mix the wet and dry ingredients. That's it!

So far I have been using cream cheese frosting for my cupcakes because they don't taste too sweet and I do not like the buttery flavors from buttercream frosting.

So, here's the recipe.


Ingredients

1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour or plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
2 eggs
2/3 cups granulated white sugar
2/3 cup canola oil (or vegetable, sunflower. corn oil)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2/3 cup unsweetened applesauce (or grated apple / crushed pineapple)
1 1/3 cups finely grated raw carrots

Directions

Preheat oven to 180 Degree C.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and ground cinnamon.. Fold in the chopped walnuts. I will usually prepare the dry ingredients beforehand where I just mixed them together and store in a container. As for the walnuts, I usually prefer to roast them for a few minutes.

In another large bowl, whisk the eggs until lightly beaten. Then whisk in the sugar, oil and vanilla extract until slightly thickened. Fold in the applesauce and grated carrots. 

Fold this mixture into the flour mixture until incorporated. Evenly fill the baking cups with the batter.

Bake for about 20-23mins or until a toothpick comes out clean,

Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack and let cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting, I always used the cream cheese frosting recipe from Glorious Treats

 

Strawberry Shortcake!

Strawberry shortcake is one of my favourite because of the light texture. The cream is light and not buttery. The sponge cake soft and fluffy. And the strawberries gave a sweet and sour sensation. This cake is well liked by most people.  In one bite, you can experience the cool and lightness of the cream, the soft and fluffy cake and the sweet and sour strawberries, with a hint of rum. It just taste heavenly!

Ingredients:

Sponge Cake

2 eggs (Room temperature)
60g granulated sugar
60g cake flour
20g melted unsalted butter

Syrup

20ml hot water
1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
11 tsp rum

Decorations

Fresh strawberries
300ml whipping cream
1 1/2 tbsp granulated sugar
A few drops vanilla extract
1 tbsp rum


Directions

Sponge cake

Line the side of the  round cake pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 170 Degree Celcius (338F)

Beat the eggs with whisk in a bowl. Mix sugar and place it over a bowl of hot water and melt the sugar and warm them up to body temperature. Remove from the hot water and beat the batter on high speed with an electric mixer until white and fluffy. Then beat on low speed for about a minute to set the texture.

Sift in the cake flour and gently mix the batter with a whisk. Sprinkle the melted butter and gently mix the batter

Pour the batter into a 7 inch pan and drop the pan lightly on the counter to raise the air bubbles out of the batter.

Bake at 170 Deg C for 25 minutes.

Place a cutting board and a paper towel on a wire rack. Purpose of the paper towel is so that the cake doesn't stick. Then place the cake pan upside down and cool with the pan on top

When it is completely cool, wrap with plastic cling wrap and refrigerate for 1 or 2 hours. You may also keep them in the fridge for about 2 to 3 days and decorate when needed.

Syrup

Mix granulated sugar and hot water until dissolved. Then mix in the rum.


Decoration

Combine whipping cream, sugar, vanilla extract and rum in a dry clean bowl. Ensure that your whipping cream is chilled so that it will be easier to whip. Alternatively, you can place your bowl in ice water. Whisk until it forms a soft peak.

Slice the sponge cake into 2 layers. Gently brush the sponge cake with syrup. Brush all the surface which will be coated with the cream.

Place one layer of the sponge cake on a plate. Coat the surface evenly with cream. Place cut strawberries over the creamed surface. Then coat again with cream. Place another layer of sponge cake and frost the top and side with the cream. Garnish with more strawberries!

Refrigerate the cake for about 1or 2 hours before serving. This will enable you to cut the cake more easily.

Now, enjoy!

Japanese Cheesecake

This is a very light, moist and fluffy cake with a sort of cotton-y texture. If there is such a word to describe. Every bite of the cake will simply melt in your mouth. It's a totally different type of texture from the usual creamy cheesecakes that we usually had.

This is my second attempt and it was a success! My first attempt failed because the cake collapsed. That is because I didn't use parchment paper to line the side of the cake tin. Its always a joy to me to bake a successful recipe.

Ingredients (Recipe from The Little Teochew)

140g fine granulated sugar
6 egg whites
6 egg yolks
1/4 tsp cream of tar tar
50g butter
250g cream cheese
100ml fresh milk
60g cake flour (can also use plain flour)
20g corn flour
1/4 tsp salt


Directions

1. Preheat oven at 160 Degree Celcius

2. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler

3. Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, corn flour, salt and egg yolks and mix well.

4. Whisk egg whites with cream of tar tar until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk till soft peaks form.

5. Add egg whites to the cream cheese mixture and fold well.

6. Pour into a 8 inch round springform cake pan or removable-bottom cake pan. Before pouring the mixture, be sure to lightly grease and line the sides of the pan with greaseproof baking paper or parchment paper. This is important! Because the first time I baked without lining with parchment paper, the whole cake collapse!

You may also want to line the bottom of the pan with aluminium foil or parchment paper. I do this because its easier to remove the cake from the pan.

7. Bake the cheesecake in a water bath for 1 hr 10 mins or until set and golden brown.

8. Leave to cool in the oven with door ajar for about 30 mins to 1 hr. This is just so that the cake doesnt come into contact with cold air too quickly and ends up collapsing.

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcake

This is actually my third attempt on making this and this time round it was a success. The first two times, the cake comes out a little bit too hard. It is always challenging when it comes to meringue recipes. It takes practice though. Once you get the hang of it, it is actually very easy. The mixing of the batter plays a part too. So when you are doing the mixing, always remember to fold or whisk them lightly.

Egg Yolk Batter Ingredients
- 6 egg yolks
- 40 g sugar
- 80 ml Canola oil
- 80 ml milk
- 120g cake flour

Meringue Ingredients
- 6 egg whites
- 80 g sugar

Whipped Cream
- 3 cups of whipping cream
- 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sugar



For egg yolk batter
1. Beat the egg yolks and sugar till it becomes pale and like mayonnise.
2. Add canola oil and milk. Add sifted cake flour and mix well with whisk.

For the meringue
1. Whipped the egg whites and sugar. Whisk till stiff peak.

Combine both mixture. Add 1/3 Meringue into the Egg Yolk Batter and blend well with a whisk. Then add the rest of the Meringue 1/2 at a time and mix well.

Preheat the oven to 170C (338F).

Spoon the mixture into the cups about 3/4 full. Before popping them into the oven, remember to give a few taps on the table to let out the air bubbles from the batter.

Bake for 20-25mins, depending on your oven.

Whipped cream
Measure the whipping cream, sugar and vanilla into the mixing bowl, mix on high speed until medium peak form. Fit the piping bag with a narrow tip, and fill it with whipped cream. Pipe the cream into center of the cupcakes after they are completely cooled or refregerated. Dust with powdered sugar.

Look at the cream oozing out! Its yummy and heavenly! I think it is best to eat when its cool and chilled because the whipped cream will give a refreshing texture. This is a very light dessert because its not too sweet and is soft, moist and fluffy.

I love colours!

 

This is taken quite some time back when me and Thomas went to Gardens by the Bay. I love daisies alot and I think it looks good with yellow. :D Hope my week ahead will be as bright as the flowers!

Pre-Wedding photoshoot prep 1 - Painted Alphabets

 

This Friday is our pre-wedding photoshoot and I just started working on preoaring tge props last week?

So I bought some white wooden alphabets from Typo and painted our colour theme. Orange and grey. Looks pretty nice actually,  love the colour.

I am left with just a few more days so hope I am able to finish preparing!

Chocolate muffin

One reason that I like to make muffin is that it is very easy. Just mix everything together and tadaa! Muffins with a glass of milk makes a very good breakfast. You can store them in containers and before you want to eat it, just pop it into the microwave and warm it up a little and it will taste like you just baked them.

So I am craving for something chocolate-y recently... :D


Ingredients

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
1 tsp vanilla essence
2/3 cup milk
2/3 cup unsalted butter (Melted)
Semi sweet chocolate chips (Optional)*


Directions

Preheat oven to 180 Degree C.

Beat the eggs with sugar. Mixed in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, vanilla and milk.
Add in the butter. For me I like to use either whisk or a spatular to mix the ingredients. This can prevent over mixing which will make you muffins comes out too tough.

*Optional : You can add in some chocolate chips if you want, depending on your preference.

Pour mixture into muffin cups, about 2/3 full. Bake for about 20 - 25 mins. Depending on the size of you muffin cups. Mine is about the medium size cups. If you are using bigger ones, you may increase the baking to time to about 30 mins.

For me, I like to eat my chocolate muffins with vanilla ice cream. I think they are really a perfect match. Can't go wrong with it. :)