STRAWBERRY BUTTERMILK CUPCAKES with STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

I know Summer is almost a year away (sadly!) but that doesn't stop me from baking with berries as long as I can get hold of some good ripe ones. I've been eyeing these Fresh Strawberry Cupcakes from Jaclyn's blog for the longest time now and there's no other perfect time to bake them than October as it's the breast cancer awareness month.It reminds me of all the pink goodies I used to see back in the day,when my blog was little during October. Now, I honestly get zero time to blog hop which in a way is good,since all those posts would make me want to recreate them all at home and everything eventually will find it's way to my hips!

These cupcakes are very moist and so full of fresh strawberry flavour,both in the cake and frosting. They are light and uses two egg whites along with a whole egg in the cupcake batter,which I think is a smart move to make some very light cupcakes. I tried them straight out of the oven,literally burning my hands as I held them...they were so good! Light and fluffy like clouds! Recipe testing with Amma is always fun as we hold our breath together while tasting what we made, to see and feel if it has turned out the way it described itself to be. These cupcakes were worth it's time and effort.

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STRAWBERRY BUTTERMILK CUPCAKES with STRAWBERRY BUTTERCREAM FROSTING
Makes 16 cupcakes

Ingredients:
Cupcakes
1 2/3 cup cake flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 large egg
2 large egg whites
1/3 cup fresh strawberry puree
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
5 drops red food colour (optional)
1/2 cup diced fresh strawberries

Buttercream
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoon strawberry puree
3/4 cup unsalted butter
a pinch of salt
2 1/2 - 2 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
4 drops red food colour (optional)

Method:Preheat oven to 350F and prepare a muffin tin.

Cupcakes:In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Mix together buttermilk, colour and puree in a another bowl.In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar on high speed using your KitchenAid hand mixer until creamy and pale. Add in the whole egg and mix well to combine. Add in the egg whites one at a time and beat in well. Add the flour and buttermilk mixture alternately and gently mix it in. Fold in the diced strawberries and divide the batter among the lined muffin tin (about 1/3 cup full) and bake for 18 - 20 minutes.Let the cupcakes cool in the tin for several minutes, then transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Frosting: Cook the strawberry puree in a small sauce pan over medium low heat until it reduces to 3 tablespoons, about 15 minutes. Chill it well.
Cream butter and salt until almost white. Add the strawberry puree, 1 cup of powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat well to mix. Add in the remaining sugar and beat well.If your buttercream is stiff, adjust the consistency with heavy cream. Frost the cupcakes as desired.

Ian has his favourite flavour picked out for a cake,which by the way is Chocolate. He asks for the same old chocolate cake and chocolate brownies,so I rarely make any other flavour these days . If it's a Marble Cake,it's okay with him but other than that, if I were to give him a choice, he would always go with his most favourite flavour. So when I baked these, I made a separate batch of chocolate cupcakes for him. Even then, when he saw these pink cupcakes, he grabbed one and then he ate another one before bed. Today, as soon as he was back home from his Montessori, he casually walked past by the cake box and picked out one for himself.

I think that can only mean one thing, these turned out pretty good!

DOUBLE ORANGE CAKE with MARBLED ICING...for me from him!

There is a small tradition we had started between the two of us. Some of you might already know about it. It's a simple one,we bake each other's birthday cakes. Last year it was Real Tiramisu and the year before that it was Finnegan's Chocolate Cream Cake.This year was no different and I LOVE the fact that it's no different when it comes to our little tradition :-) A week before May 31 he starts asking me what I want him to bake as my birthday cake and it's not that I haven't been thinking about it since May 4 but still, I tell him,'I'll think and tell you!'. I love the entire one week when he asks me again and again if I have decided what I wanted :-) I feel like a child all over again!

This time, I was a bit confused because I wanted something very simple, very home-y, very soft and something with fruits in it. So when he got back from work yesterday, I told him I wanted an orange cake with a simple icing. I used to call a frosting an icing before my blogging days began and never noticed that it changed along the way. Whenever I say icing, it has a very warm feeling...that's the word Amma uses whenever she iced a cake :-)

Last evening, I was sitting on the couch browsing through my favourite navy blue recipe diary and wondered if I ever had a storemade/bakery made cake for my birthday at home. I really couldn't recollect even a single birthday which had nothing but Amma baked cakes!

When I was small, she baked me all sorts of good looking cakes like Hickory Dickory Clock Cake, Castle Cake etc. Seriously, she had the patience to hunt for things in Kannur and bake it that many years ago! Even now, Kannur is not a place where you can find everything that you want, even if your wants and wishes are as simple as marshmallows!

DOUBLE ORANGE CAKE with MARBLED ICING
My own recipe

Ingredients:
Cake
100g flour
100g butter, softened
100g sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp orange zest
3 tbsp orange juice

Method: Pre-heat the oven to 350 F and line a 6 inch cake tin.
In a medium bowl, beat together flour,butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder & baking soda on high for 2 mins.Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the zest and orange juice. Beat on high for another minute. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 mins. Let it cool in the tin for 10 mins . Unmould and cool completely over a cooling rack.

Marble Frosting
60g butter
1 1/4 c icing sugar
1 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp orange zest
1 tbsp cocoa powder

Method: In a small bowl, beat butter and orange zest together until light and fluffy. Add orange juice and icing sugar little by little and beat till smooth. Divide the batter into 2 and whisk in cocoa powder to one half. Spoon out the icing alternately over the cake and marble it using a toothpick.

Our birthday routine is the same, always. We wake up early and go to church for mass . Once we are home I  make the breakfast and when we are done with it, we get ready to cut the cake :-) I couldn't help poking into this cake every now and then because it was so so soft and moist that I kept telling Jobin,'This cake is so soft!' and he always answered back,'Who baked it!' :-)

Trust me people, this is one really good cake! The icing is a perfect combination of chocolate and orange. This is not the kind of cakes you get in patisseries, it's the kind you get to eat only at home! It has such a comfort factor attached to it!I really don't know what's with me and citrus cakes! I LOVE them and maybe that's why I end up making my own proportions for them. The last time, it was my Lemon Yogurt Cake and this time it's a Double Orange Cake with Marble Frosting! :-)

FROSTED OREO COOKIE CAKE SLICES ...delicious!

Are you all Oreo lovers? I bet many of you just shook your head and said, No! I was one among you all till I tasted the ones we get in US. It is very delicious and just cannot be compared with the ones we get in India. I have no idea how can you make it so tasteless, it really taste like chalk to me, not that I've eaten chalk before, you know,just for you to get an idea! :)

I baked this cake 2 months ago and it was photographed with an intention of making an appearance here which it never did until today. It's a very basic cake recipe where in the cookie crumbs are added. When I took a bite of it, I thought to myself that it would have been 1000 times better if I had made with the REAL Oreos, the ones which tastes like a piece of heaven in your mouth. I love the double stuff! Nevertheless this cake and the yummy icing tasted fabulous!

Look at how grainy the cake is! I absolutely loved the colour the cookies gave to the cake and the icing. I got this recipe from Amma's twin sister Daisy a.k.a Daisy Mummy . She got it from someone whom I've never met so cannot give you the exact source of it. Now you must be wondering why do I go in detail to tell you the source of each recipe. It's just because I've been taught to give credit where and when it's due ;) I always write the name of the person from whom I got a recipe, next to the recipe. It's a habit that I cultivated from a very long time, even before these food blogs came into existence! :)

FROSTED OREO COOKIE CAKE SLICES 
Ingredients:
For the cake:
1/2 c butter
1 c sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp Vanilla
1 1/2 c flour
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 c milk
7 Oreo's crushed with hands

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line a 9x9 inch square tin.

Sift together the flour & baking powder.
In a large bowl, beat together the butter, sugar till creamy. Add the eggs and Vanilla and beat till fluffy.Add the dry ingredients and milk alternately ,starting and ending with flour. Fold in the crushed cookies.Pour this batter into the prepared tin and bake for 25-30 mins or till done.

For the Oreo butter frosting:
1 c sugar, powdered
1 c butter
4 Oreos, crushed with hands

Method:
In a small bowl, beat together sugar and butter till fluffy and pale. Stir in the cookie crumbs and spread it evenly over the cake. Cover the sides too, if you'd like .

Verdict: A very good cake with an equally good easy icing! Try it, dear Oreo lovers and be Oreo happy!

So as I mentioned in my previous post , there was a Cook-Out with me, planned by the YWCA,Kannur. It was  a fund raising event and I am so happy that I could contribute. There were 51 attendees for my class (my biggest number till date!) and I was very happy to cook for all of them!! :)  This time around, Amma was my assistant! :-D

Menu: Mini Cheese Pasta Rolls ,Easy Rice Roti's,Murgh Methi Malai ,Coffee-Chocolate Triangle Cake  & Vanilla Pannacotta with Pomegranate Sauce .

Tomorrow would be my last session of classes in Kannur and I am ending it on a sweet note with a luscious Cheesecake,layered and filled Shortbreads,some Scones and a creamy Pudding with a fruit sauce! A reader of mine, Maya, will be joining us tomorrow to learn from me :) I sincerely hope she finds what she came looking for :)

A CAKE FOR A BABY SHOWER

Iam mighty pleased with what I have done with this cake.This cake kept me awake for many nights and finally now that I am done with it, I can sleep in peace. Zzzzzz (not really!).This is for a couple here in Minneapolis and everything was left upto me to decide. All they wanted was a chocolate cake with a chocolate frosting. So after a few days of brainstorming session with Jobin & myself, I was able to decide how I wanted the cake to look like in the end.

So what do you guys think about my cake? I really don't think my heart can bear to see that being cut :-)
And for your kind information, I'm not a Wilton Cake Decoration class product :-)

My blog is loading very slow for the past 2 weeks and that's why you are not able to see the comment section. Can I request you guys to please wait for the blog to load completely so that you can tell me how you like this cake? Pretty please? Thanks so much! I am working on getting it back to normal soon!

A reminder: I am giving away some cookies, so don't forget to claim it!

VANILLA CUPCAKES WITH GLOSSY CHOCOLATE FROSTING

The first batch of cupcakes that I ever tried baking were for my brother when he was as little as 6 or something. Now he is writing his 12th std board exams! Time sure flies!  I got a recipe for Chocolate Cupcakes from 'Hindu'(an Indian Newpaper) and I promptly cut that out and stuck it on my mother's recipe book since I didn't own one then. We didn't have cupcake liners at home then, so I made the whole thing as a cake. There was a recipe for a frosting too which called for 'cooking chocolate'. Even today, it's hard to find 'cooking/baking' chocolate in Kannur, so you could have imagined the situation 12 years ago! So, we went with my favourite chocolate, Cadbury's Dairy Milk  and tried melting it in the microwave. I had no idea that the chocolate will maintain it's shape unless we stir it...sadly it was burnt in the centre.

But, I didn't give up, I scraped out the good parts and made the frosting with it. It came out really good.He loved the cake and from that day on he used to ask me to bake the same cupcakes and I always ...always postponed it. I have made him so many other stuffs, but never got to baking those chocolate cupcakes as 'cupcakes'. I will bake it for him the next time I'm home :) You will see the recipe here, very soon! :)

Those cupcakes look cute, don't they? I made these cupcakes for Jobin to take to work last week. They smelt so good while they were baking and was even more tempting after I pulled it out of the oven. I really couldn't resist clicking a picture of these cuppiecakes!

I frosted them with a simple frosting which was so glossy that I could see my reflection on it. I kept everything simple even though I wanted to do those fancy swirls with the 1M tip, but then he would have had a hard time taking it to office . Actually, I would have given him a hard time saying, 'Keep the box straight, okay? No,no! Don't press on that! Argh! You are not going to keep the swirls in place...Just give that box to me...I told you not to do that!' Blah Blah!

So to prevent all that, this the best frosting I could do. You let them set for a while and then it doesn't even stick to your fingers nor leave a mark on it unless you poke your fingers into it like I did later just to see whether the glossy frosting can yield at some point,atleast! :) The recipe for these cupcakes was in my recipe diary from a very long time, even before I started blogging and I have no idea where I got it from. I am sure it's from some aunts of mine :) Whoever it is, Thank you so much! I had used the same recipe for my Craisin-Orange Squarecakes where you also get to  see a step-by-step process of how these babies are made.

VANILLA CUPCAKES with GLOSSY CHOCOLATE FROSTING
Recipe source for frosting- Alice Medrich (She calls it Fast Fudge Frosting)

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
2 c all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt (omit if you are using salted butter)

1 c sugar
1/2 c unsalted butter ,room temperature
2 eggs
1/2 c milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Glossy Frosting: (I made only half the amount and I still had some left over)
6 tbsp unsalted butter
1 c granulated sugar
1 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1 c heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
Salt (omit if using salted butter)

Method:
Cupcakes:
Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F and position the rack in the centre.
Prepare a 12- cup muffin tin by placing the cupcake liners in it.

Sift the dry ingredients together, if possible, thrice.
Cream the butter and sugar for 3 mins.Add in the eggs one by one and beat it will for 1 minute after each addition.
Next with the motor running,add the flour and milk alternately starting and ending with flour.
By now the batter should be light and fluffy.
Spoon it into the cupcake liners, about 2/3 rd's full, which will be about 2 1/2 tbsp.
Bake for 20-25 mins or till the top is lightly golden brown in colour and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Remove from the tin immediately and let it cool completely before frosting.

Frosting:
In a saucepan,melt butter. Stir in the sugar and cocoa. Gradually stir in the cream.
Heat over medium heat, stirring till everything is mixed well and is smooth and hot but not boiling.
Remove from heat and stir in vanilla and a pinch or two of salt, to taste.
Set aside to cool. Dip the cupcake upside down in to the frosting and let the excess drip off.
Turn the cupcake and place it on a plate/rack and let the frosting set.

Verdict: Very soft buttery cupcakes! The frosting is such a charm to work with...gives you perfect shiny results every time you dip the cupcake into it! :)