Pink Velvet Cuppies

 Selamat Hari Raya!

I'm in still in my raya mood, eventhough I had to get back to work on the 6th day of Raya..Booo. Well. at least I had a great time celebrating Eid with my family. Hope it was great for everyone else too :)
Anyway, it has been a week after my Eid holidays, and my office planned a Pot Luck for Eid. I'm not much of a cook, so I opted to bring desserts.

I used the same recipe as the Red Velvet Cake, but since I'm out of red food colouring, I used pink food colouring instead, hence the name, Pink Velvet cuppies. I doubled the recipe and managed to get about 35 pcs of medium size cuppies (2.5" souffle cups)

Since the the recipe for the cake you can get it from here, I just want to share the recipe for the frosting. It claims to be a pipeable cream cheese frosting and it is easy to make.

Pipeable Cream Cheese Frosting adapted from ThePinkWhisk

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Yields enough frosting to cover about 32 cupcakes

Ingredients:
70 g of butter,soften
250 g cream cheese, cold
200 g icing sugar, sifted (use less if you don't like it too sweet)

Steps:
1. Cream butter and a tablespoon of icing sugar until fluffy and light.

2. Add the cold cream cheese, and mix well. Make sure you don't overbeat the cream cheese, since it will turn runny if beaten too long.

3. Tadaaaaa!

I personally love this recipe, and planned to make swirls as topping for the cuppies, but since my piping skills are crappy, i just spread the frosting with a spatula and decorate with sugar hearts. 

Pack and ready to go!

Here are a few photos from the pot luck. I had fun, and am very very full afterward. 

Food Galore!

Pink Velvet in action! These were gone in a jiffy :P

Me and my colleagues

Till next time,
Happy trying!

Love,
eL

Sardine Puffs

 Salam,
I know I've been lacking in updating this blog, some things came up, and I couldn't find the time to bake anything.

Anyway, we are going into the last week of Ramadhan. Oh my, time sure do fly really fast. I managed to break fast a few times back home in Kota Seriemas, and at my FMIL's house in Kulim. This weekend is actually the first weekend I spend in Kg Wai for Ramadhan.

I've been meaning to bake chocolate tarts today, however, I'm out of flour, so I'll end up making these sardine puffs. This recipe is my own, and I used a ready made puff pastry. It is so easy, and so fast to make too :)

Sardine Puffs

Difficulty level: Super Easy
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Baking time: 20 minutes
Yields : 10 puffs

Ingredients:

1 whole large onion - chopped
1 clove of garlic - chooped
1 red chilli (put more if you like it spicier) - chopped
2 can of Sardines
1 tbsp lime juice
salt to season
1 packet of ready made puff pastry

Steps:
1. Saute the chopped onion, garlic and red chilli until it turned soft and brown.

2. Add in the sardine fillet, without the tomato sauce. Mashed the sardine fillet with the back of a spoon of a fork.

3. Add in lime juice. Cook for about 5 minutes.

Assembling the puffs
1. Take a piece of puff pastry

2. Spoon in the fillings in the middle

3. Brush the edge of the pastry with egg white
4. Fold into triangle, and pinch the edge together. Take a fork, and press into the edge

5. Transfer into baking tray, and brush the top with egg yolk.

6. Bake at 160C for 20 minutes

Taste: Crispy! However, I think the pastry add some saltiness to the whole puff, so make sure the fillings is not so salty. :)

Happy trying

Love,
eL

Lemon Curd

I've bought a few lemons too many in my recent groceries shopping trip, it was on sale, like RM1 per piece and before the lemon are spoiled, I did this simple lemon curd. I'm thinking of doing some macs, but for now, i just prepared the filling first. This recipe is adapted from Alton Brown's recipe (I halved the recipes since I only have 2 lemons)

Difficulty level: Easy
Preparation time: 20 minutes

Lemon Curd

Ingredients:
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/6 cup lemon juice
1/2 tbsp lemon zest
50 gm butter, chilled

Steps:
1. Whisk the yolks and sugar till combine.

2. Add the lemon juice and zest

3. Over a double boiler, whisk the yolk mixture until it thickens, around 10 minutes

4. Take the mixture of the heat, and add in butter bits by bits, making sure that the butter melts evenly.

5. Store the curd in a container, and cover the top of the surface with cling film.

6. This lemon curd can be refrigerated for up to 2 weeks :)

Red Velvet Cake

I've tried a few different recipes of red velvet cake from the internet. Some turn out to be moist, some are dense and one was very uneatable. :(
However, I never did give up. Keep on searching for recipes, until I came across this recipe from Kak Edi's blog. I've ordered my engagement cupcakes from her and it was delish :). She does beautiful cupcakes and I really do recommend her. Anyway, I've tried this recipe twice, and I think I have found it. I love the texture of this cake. It's moist, and it's not too sweet. However, I modified the recipe for the cream cheese frosting, since I don't have whipping cream in stock. Here it goes.

Difficulty level: Moderate
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Baking time: 35 minutes

Red Velvet Cake

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp red coloring
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup buttermilk (I added 1/2 tsp lemon juice to 1/2 cup full cream milk)
1/2 vinegar
1/2 tsp soda bicarbonate

Steps:
1. Sieve flour, baking powder and salt. Put aside.
2. Mix cocoa powder and red coloring to form a paste.

3. In a clean bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add egg, vanilla essence and cocoa mixture. Mix well

4. Add in flour and buttermilk alternately, ending with the flour mixture. Mix well between each addition.

5. Now. this is the last part, and it is very important that it is done quickly. I don't even have time to take a photo, sorry. In a small bowl, combine vinegar and soda bicarbonate and fold into the cake batter quickly.

6.Pour the batter into a baking tin (I used a 7" tin) and bake for 35 minutes at 170C.

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients:
125 gm cream cheese, softened
50 gm butter, softened
1/2 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 tsp lemon juice (put in more if you like a more 'tart' frosting)


Steps:
1. Beat the cream cheese until smooth and light.

2. Add in the softened butter. Beat well.

3. Add in icing sugar, vanilla essence and lemon juice. Mix everything well.

4. Chilled the frosting while the cake is cooling down.

Assembling the cake:


1. Cut the cake into 2 or 3 parts. Do it as evenly as possible.

2. Spread the frosting onto the first layer, even it out with a spatula

3. Put the second layer of cake, and repeat the process.
4. Lastly, put the top layer, and frost the whole cake. Decorate the cake with the crumbles that falls of when you cut the cake. :)
5. Voila!!

Blueberry & Kiwi Cheese Tart

I've been trying to bake these little beauties for a long time now, but couldn't find the time to do it. However, since I just started to share my bakes, decided to give it a try. I love the taste of cream cheese and the sourness of the blueberry. After looking through recipes through Google, this is the simplest (me think!) recipe i could try.

Taken from Inspirasiku ( Thanks :) )

Tart Shell (yields 60 small tarts)

Ingredients:

170 g unsalted butter

50 g icing sugar

1 egg

290 g flour

1 tsp vanilla essence

Steps:

1. Beat the butter and icing sugar well. I used hand-mixer, faster and easier for me :). Make sure you don't  over beat the mixture

2. Add in the egg and the vanilla essence. Beat until the mixture is well mixed

3. Add the flour a little by a little. Roll into a dough. I refrigerated the dough for 15 minutes before using it (just a habit i used to do when I'm baking cookies)

4. Divided the dough to small ball, and press into the tart casing. I think this is the tedious part of making this tart. It took me a whole hour just to do 40 casing. Prick the tart shell with a fork before baking.

5. Bake the shell for 10 minutes at 170C or until the shell turn light brown. Cool the shells before storing it in an airtight container. I did the shell a day before. :)

The cream cheese filling (just enough for 60 small tarts)

Ingredients:

250 g cream cheese ( I used Tartura Cream Cheese)

50 g icing sugar/castor sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

Blueberry & Kiwi fillings. (I bought them ready made from the bake supplies. It is less sweet than jam)

Steps:

1. Cream the cream cheese and sugar until fluffy and smooth

2. Add the egg and vanilla essence. Mixed well.

Assembling the tart

This is the fun part :)

1. Fill the tart shell with blueberry/kiwi fillings. I filled the filling into piping bags, its easier that way.

2. Next, fill the shells with cream cheese fillings (again, using piping bag). Make sure you fill up to the brim of the shells.

3. Now, using your creativity, decorate the top with the blueberry/kiwi fillings accordingly.

5. Lastly, bake in the oven for 5-10 minutes at 170C or until the top of the cream cheese are not sticky to touch.

these are mine..Tadaaaaaaaa....

The taste: Divine!! :D

Footnote: my shells are different in colors due to the time they spend in the oven. i was distracted with Facebook, I accidentally left the shells in the oven a bit longer than they supposed to.