...from college yesterday.
I swear I didn't do anything, it turned pink on its own!
Tadaaaa!!
Showing posts with label photo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label photo. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
on my way back...
Sunday, 5 August 2007
Coffee & Walnut Ring
Coffee and Walnut Ring
Whitworth's Cookery Handbook
125gm (4oz) butter or margarine
175gm (6oz) dark soft brown or dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs, beaten
45ml (3 tbsp) instant coffee powder
45ml (3 tbsp) hot water
125gm (4 oz) self raising flour, sifted
40gm (1.5 oz) chopped walnuts
75ml (3 fl oz) milk
Glace Icing
5ml (1 tsp) instant coffee powder
15ml (1 tbsp) hot water
50gm (2 oz) finest icing sugar
Lightly grease a 1.25 litre (2pt) ring mould.
Cream the butter or margarine with the sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs. Mix the coffee powder and hot water and beat into the mixture.
Whitworth's Cookery Handbook
125gm (4oz) butter or margarine
175gm (6oz) dark soft brown or dark muscovado sugar
2 eggs, beaten
45ml (3 tbsp) instant coffee powder
45ml (3 tbsp) hot water
125gm (4 oz) self raising flour, sifted
40gm (1.5 oz) chopped walnuts
75ml (3 fl oz) milk
Glace Icing
5ml (1 tsp) instant coffee powder
15ml (1 tbsp) hot water
50gm (2 oz) finest icing sugar
Lightly grease a 1.25 litre (2pt) ring mould.
Cream the butter or margarine with the sugar until light and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs. Mix the coffee powder and hot water and beat into the mixture.
(This is what happens to the batter when you add the hot water and coffee, it curdles big time, but doesn't lose volume)
Fold in the flour and chopped walnuts, then stir in the milk. Spoon into the prepared mould and smooth the surface.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for around 40 minutes, until well risen and firm to the touch. Cool slightly before carefully turning out of the mould onto a wire rack.
To make the Glace icing, mix the coffee powder with the hot water. Add to the icing sugar, mixing well. Carefully pour over the ring, allowing some icing to trickle over the side. Decorate with walnut halves.
Fold in the flour and chopped walnuts, then stir in the milk. Spoon into the prepared mould and smooth the surface.
Bake in a preheated oven at 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 for around 40 minutes, until well risen and firm to the touch. Cool slightly before carefully turning out of the mould onto a wire rack.
To make the Glace icing, mix the coffee powder with the hot water. Add to the icing sugar, mixing well. Carefully pour over the ring, allowing some icing to trickle over the side. Decorate with walnut halves.
And as you can see, instead of glace icing I used melted chocolate. I've tried both, and though am not one of those people who believe chocolate makes everything better, but chocolate definitely does make Coffee and Walnut Ring better!
Monday, 30 July 2007
and... the cake!
This cake was a Martha Stewart recipe from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook. And really surprisingly simple. You just mix the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately and then mix them together. Once baked, its nice and moist, and tastes great with chocolate sauce, though the recipe calls for Swiss Meringue Buttercream (without the food colouring). I didn't try it, though the picture sure looked cool because of the contrast, white on black. I made a layer cake, sandwiching the layers with melted chocolate, and then topped it with some nougat.
One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes
Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder*
2 1/2 cups sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoon salt*
2 large eggs, plus one large egg-yolk*
3/4 cup warm water
1 1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups warm water
Preheat oven to 350F.
Line two standard 12 cup muffin pans with paper liners.
Into the bowl of an electric mixer, sift together flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Attach bowl to mixer fitted with the paddle attachment; add the eggs and yolk, the milk, oil, vanilla, and warm water. Beat on low speed until smooth and combined, about 3 minutes; scrape down the sides occasionally.
Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling each about two-thirds full. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.
Layer Cake Variation
Coat two 8 by 2 inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Line bottoms with parchment paper, spray the parchment as well. Follow the above instructions. These may take longer to bake, about 45 minutes. Though I would recommend checking after 30 minutes.
I don't have dutch process cocoa, so I made do with ordinary cocoa. If you like you can do a Google search for 'dutch-process cocoa substitute' there are a lot of conversions out there, adding and subtracting baking powder and baking soda, I find them all a little confusing.
And if you don't want some egg white lying around, then use three whole eggs. I have tried the recipe both ways and the difference wasn't perceptible, at least to me.
And I don't like it so salty, so I used just half a teaspoon salt. Also I simply lined the baking tins with parchment paper, not bothering to spray it with nonstick cooking spray.
The chocolate sauce was melted semi-sweet chocolate, some water and confectioner's sugar. I won't mention the amount because of two reasons, one that different people would want different amounts depending upon how rich they like it, secondly I didn't measure how much I used. Just about enough to make the five layers and dabble some on the top. After that I covered it with nougat and put the remaining chocolate in a piping bag and made these funny crisscrossing lines on it!
Friday, 20 July 2007
the cupcakes...
I had promised to post the recipes later, so shall do that now. When am not baking some special kind of cupcake then I usually use the Madeira recipe, which I have already posted in the pineapple upside down cake post.
I prefer cupcakes (as they bake more quickly and are easier to store) so I often use a muffin tray for baking my Madeiras. Making little changes such as adding a few semi-sweet chocolate drops/pieces; adding some cinnamon, nutmeg and walnuts; or just leaving them plain; or piping some whipped cream on top. And everyone has their favourites, my father loves nuts, my brother maintains whipped cream or frosting destroy a cake(!) though he likes the other variations and the plain one, I like all of them! I once even tried this technique, but believe me the inside doesn't look like a triangle!
For a birthday I thought the best would be plain cakes with cream on top. Kids love cream anyway, and whoever said you feast with your eyes first, was in my opinion quite right! I put a little food colour in the batter (with the result that my mother, who hates anything artificial, including people, didn't touch them), but I like such little touches. Though am such a stickler (only for certain things), I just had to put the green batter in green paper cups, the yellow in yellow and the red in red.
Aah, these beautiful cracks! Previously I used to be quite upset whenever this would happen, but then my brother told me that whenever my mother baked a cake there would a crack running across it. Though by the time I grew up mom had stopped baking, having passed the reign to my elder sisters, I knew from what I had heard and from old pictures, she was quite a pro! So this piece of information, very wisely dropped by Khaiba, pleased me no end!
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
pineapple upside down
A google search for madeira cake threw up alot of results like this, this, this and this (all of them more or less alike). Not surprising though, since Madeira is perhaps the oldest and best loved of cakes. My mother says it a base cake for many cakes, i.e. that you can bake them just by altering the madeira recipe a bit.
Our Madeira recipe comes from the McDougalls Better Baking cookbook. Ammi got a quite a few copies of this by collecting a certain number of McDougalls' product wrappers! All but one of which she distributed among my aunts, and that one one is our copy. Its really a pretty good book with all the sorts of recipes and simple, easy to follow instructions.
Here's the Madeira recipe
Madeira Cake
100 g butter or margarine
125 g caster sugar
200 g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
30 ml milk
a few drops of vanilla essence OR a little grated lemon rind
thin strip of citron peel (optional)
Madeira Cake
100 g butter or margarine
125 g caster sugar
200 g self-raising flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
30 ml milk
a few drops of vanilla essence OR a little grated lemon rind
thin strip of citron peel (optional)
Grease and line a 15 cm round cake tin.
Prepare by creaming or one stage method.
Prepare by creaming or one stage method.
Place the mixture into the tin, smooth level and lay the strip of citron peel on top.
Bake at 180C till golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
For this pineapple upisde down I (as must be obvious to you by now) used the plain ol' madeira recipe and just added some drained pineapple and cherries to it. Since this recipe of pineapple cake calls for buttermilk, I used buttermilk and milk in equal proportions, 2tbsp milk and 2tbsp buttermilk, instead of all four tbsp milk as in madiera (I doubled the quanity, it was a good 400gm cake). Though I used fresh butter and didn't use baking soda, adding the pineapple and the cherries at the last stage, after tossing them in some flour.
I used around 450gms of pineapple, and around 350gm of cherries, would have preffered fresh ones, but had to make to with canned. After setting aside a few of the slices for the upside down thing, I cut the remaining slices into slivers and let them drain. The cherries were seeded and halved. Then I proceeded to make the batter.
Then, greasing a bundt pan, layed down the pineapple slices before pouring the batter over them and baked at 180C. Will avoid mentioning for how long since I feel it keeps changing.
The cake turned out moist and rich Though I feel I over baked it a bit, and hence the slightly darker tone. You can always vary the amount of fruit you want to put in your cake depending upon how rich you like it.
Bake at 180C till golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.
For this pineapple upisde down I (as must be obvious to you by now) used the plain ol' madeira recipe and just added some drained pineapple and cherries to it. Since this recipe of pineapple cake calls for buttermilk, I used buttermilk and milk in equal proportions, 2tbsp milk and 2tbsp buttermilk, instead of all four tbsp milk as in madiera (I doubled the quanity, it was a good 400gm cake). Though I used fresh butter and didn't use baking soda, adding the pineapple and the cherries at the last stage, after tossing them in some flour.
I used around 450gms of pineapple, and around 350gm of cherries, would have preffered fresh ones, but had to make to with canned. After setting aside a few of the slices for the upside down thing, I cut the remaining slices into slivers and let them drain. The cherries were seeded and halved. Then I proceeded to make the batter.
Then, greasing a bundt pan, layed down the pineapple slices before pouring the batter over them and baked at 180C. Will avoid mentioning for how long since I feel it keeps changing.
The cake turned out moist and rich Though I feel I over baked it a bit, and hence the slightly darker tone. You can always vary the amount of fruit you want to put in your cake depending upon how rich you like it.
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