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So I've been off work for the last 2 weeks, and I'm SO BORED.
With it being winter in Winnipeg and all, our highs for a while there were dropping all the way down to -45°C (with the windchill, that is). Well one of the pipes in the kitchen decided it was going to freeze, crack and gush water all over the place. Long story short, the kitchen flooded and it was raining down in the basement over the hot water tank. The tank now needs to be replaced and you can't run a restaurant without hot water. The hope is that we'll be back to work this weekend.
Well naturally the first thing I gravitate towards when I'm bored is the fridge. Ben is starting to get mad at me because he's going to the gym and trying to watch what he eats, and instead I'm doing nothing but baking! So far I've made banana, oat and walnut muffins, chocolate terrine, orange puff pastry rolls, cracker jack cookies, chocolate cherry cupcakes...I know I'm forgetting something. I should have taken more pictures, haha
Well tonights challenge was to make Boston cream pie, which as far as I'm concerned is one of the most underrated desserts of all time. A tasty combination of sweet yellow cake, vanilla custard and chocolate ganache...HOW can you go wrong?! Well as always, I have to miniaturize any dessert I possibly can, so I made mini Boston cream pies!
I couldn't find any recipe I liked, or any that didn't have reviews claiming that the cake was too dense or the ganache was too bitter...so I just put together my own combination of cake, custard and ganache.
This yellow cake recipe made some of the best cake I think I've ever had. It's sweet and rich but it's still light. Then I made the standard dessert custard as found on the side of the Bird's Custard can but I added a vanilla bean to the boil, and then made a sweetened dark chocolate ganache using heavy cream, butter, unsweetened cocoa powder and icing sugar. Using a mini cheesecake pan I bought AGES ago and had been meaning to use, I baked 24 little cakes, which after cooling I leveled and assembled 12 mini BCP's.
They're soo cute, yummy and just the perfect size! I was very pleased with how they turned out!!
Orders out the wazoo! 3 this week! Things are starting to move :D
The first was for 6 for a friend's, friend's birthday. Chocolate with orange cream cheese and chocolate cherry filled with Godiva white chocolate liqueur buttercream; apparently a delicious success.
The second was for 2 dozen miniatures for a wonderful lady. She lives in the same building as the restaurant I work in and it was her birthday today. I sort of half worked her party in the wine bar (I bartend), but was sent home early since the other bartender was also working incase things got crazy. After being sweetly invited to join them for a drink, I sat down and enjoyed a beer.
Her order included chocolate with strawberry buttercream, all natural red velvet with cream cheese icing, coconut with lime buttercream and lemon with blueberry cream cheese icing. I had a lot of fun with this order!
Now the third is for Saturday, which I believe is for a first anniversary. My services were enlisted after a local bakery that just opened up disappointed her by some expensive, not-so-special cupcakes for her last party. I'm going to do my best to wow her with some fancy little concoctions for a much cheaper price.
I'm LOVING the direction things are going in! I also have another order for a wedding shower in August, including cookies, a cheesecake and maybe a pie. YUMMY!
Best. Job. Ever.
So my latest delve into my creativeness was last weekend when I was invited to my aunts annual Curryfest. Every year she throws this party which essentially turns out to be a 30 person curry potluck. Way too much food, far too much fun.
Every year I've had to miss it because it's been held on a Saturday and I've had to work (servers don't tend to get Saturdays off very often!) Well this year I was told a couple weeks in advance and was able to go! So naturally what do I decide to make?
Curried Cupcakes.
Yes you read right. I figured there would probably be a lack of desserts considering curry doesn't usually translate to sweet, and as soon as I walked in the door with my tray the first thing out of my aunts mouth was "Of COURSE you brought baking!" followed by a huge hug.
When it came time to serve dessert, everyone was shocked/surprised at these miniature cupcakes that were apparently curried. Several of the East Indian party-goers were even more shocked and proclaimed "I have NEVER heard of a curried cupcake before!"
This really excited me.
They went over a HUGE hit. Everyone went back for seconds, let alone thirds!!
I was very skeptical about my adventure and planned on making a back-up batch of good ol' chocolate, but was pleasantly surprised by the final product, and apparently so was everyone else! They were sweet and savory at the same time. A really wonderful flavor combination.
So what did I do? I took my trusty white cake recipe and tinkered away.
I replaced the milk in the recipe with almond milk, which I just barely brought to a boil with approximately 2 teaspoons of curry powder mixed in. I allowed that to cool while I prepared all the other ingredients. I also used packed golden brown sugar instead of white sugar and added a dash of cinnamon.
I was a little disappointed when the cakes fell, but I assume with was probably from over creaming the butter and sugar together (waiting for the milk to cool!) Thankfully they still turned out light and fluffy.
I topped each one off with a dollop of lemongrass buttercream which I made by mixing in about a teaspoon of lemon juice and probably 2-3 tablespoons (I did it by taste) of lemongrass paste which I found in the produce section of my local grocery store.
Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of them (silly me and my dead camera battery...teach me to be prepared!), but imagine the cupcake as a greenish yellow reminiscent of curry with a bright white dollop of icing on top. Although a greenish yellow cupcake sounds more like something that's gone bad sitting in the back of the fridge for ages (not that a cupcake would ever sit there for long enough to go bad!), they were actually quite pretty!
I'm really looking forward to playing with more savory cupcake concoctions, especially after the success of these!
My most recent order was for a friends birthday who is a self-proclaimed choco-lover. He requested 2 dozen, so I made him Chocolate Chocolate Chip with Cream Cheese Icing and Chocolate Strawberry filled with Strawberry Buttercream coated in Coconut. I brought them in and his mom just about died when she saw the latter of the two! I hope he had a happy birthday!
After much trial and tribulation, I've finally discovered the secret to an all natural red velvet! With so many people having allergies to the dyes in food colouring nowadays, I wanted to create the classic favorite that everyone could enjoy!
I'd tried using muddled raspberries and pomegranate juice and it barely gave the cake any colour, if any at all. After reading about beets being used in the batter, I was still skeptical since every picture I saw of the end result was more of a reddish-brown than a nice, bright red. Plus the colour in beets can easily be altered with any pH change in the batter, so that too made me a little leary.
There were dozens of different methods for using beets; grate them and mix them in, use beet juice, boil the beets and use the water...but I wasn't happy with the results of any of them. Finally I tried boiling about 4 medium sized beets for almost an hour. After that I reduced the water until there was approximately 4oz left; what was left over was a concentrated natural dye that was as dark, if not darker, than any red food colouring I've ever seen. After letting it cool, I mixed it into the batter and success! I was left with the gorgeous red colour I had been after.
The only thing I was surprised at was after baking, the inside of the cupcakes reverted back to the light brown colour of the batter before I added the colouring. The outside, however, stayed that nice red. I still have a little tweaking to do, but overall I'm very pleased with how they turned out!
I had another order! Yay! This time it was for 5 dozen mini assorted cupcakes. I decided to go for a couple old standby's and a few new ones; Chocolate Cherry Filled with Cinnamon Cream Cheese, Vanilla Brownie Surprise! with Buttercream, Lemon with Blueberry Cream Cheese, Raspberry Red Velvet with Cream Cheese and Vanilla Chai with Espresso Buttercream.
From what I hear they were a huge hit, which makes me oh so happy. I was a little pressed for time so I didn't get a chance to take pictures of all of them, but I got a few.
Lemon with Blueberry Cream Cheese, lemon zest and a blueberry to top!
Vanilla Chai with Espresso Buttercream dusted with cinnamon and the Raspberry Red Velvet in the back.
I have another order for 2 dozen regular cupcakes for a couple of chocolate lovers this Sunday! Things are starting to pick up!
Well after discovering those adorable rainbow cupcakes, I thought I'd give it a try with pastels for Easter. I certainly learned my lesson with portioning the batter to color it; in this case, less is NOT more. If and when I make these again I'm going to double the batch to make certain that I have enough of every colour to make enough cupcakes...I had a couple fall short of a few layers. Also, instead of using a spoon to drop in each color I'm going to use a piping bag next time. I'm sure it'll go a lot quicker, more cleanly and allow for better control of how much hits the pan.
The colours darkened as they baked which was a little disappointing (and surprising...) so they weren't as pastel as they were in the bowl, but I still think they were cute!
Just how FANTASTIC are these? I stumbled upon these Rainbow Cupcakes today and I want so badly to make them because they look like so much fun! The youngest in my family is 19 (with the exception of my newborn cousin, Brett) and I think they'd be perfect to make with/for kids, but oh well. I guess I'll just have to make them for my own amusement :D
They'd probably look great in pastel blues and pinks for Easter...I think I just figured out what I'll be bringing for Easter dinner!
This was my first attempt at making red velvet (and also my first experience eating it!). It seemed to be so popular I figured I should finally try it myself and see what all the fuss was about.
Although it was quite tasty, I really don't think it lived up to the hype. To me it just tasted like a barely-chocolate-chocolate cake, plus all the red food coloring kind of put me off. I think next time I'm going to use the juice from muddled raspberries for colour (and flavor obviously!). I mean, how delicious is raspberry and chocolate together? Plus this way they're made with nothing artificial, which is what I want the core of TC to be.
Regardless, the cake was really moist and still had a lot of flavor. I topped off the little cakes with cinnamon cream cheese icing.
Thanks to Bakerella for the recipe!
