Chocolate & Coffee Cupcakes

Recently Nat had a change of taste bud... Suddenly she just like coffee flavor. Amongst my 3 gals, she is the one who has an exotic taste, like enjoying durian, coffee, enjoying even red wine & beer... Hmmm, that's pretty unusual for a little girl though...

Nevertheless, she had been quite supportive of the bakes that I had tried, and she will always be the one whom is willing to try, unlike Mimi, who used to "test" my cakes, simply just tell me these days that those cakes are not her favourite.. :-p

These Chocolate & Coffee Cupcakes were quite tempting.. Being chocolate & coffee..

But I guess I didn't fare quite well on these cupcakes.

Firstly, I felt that my chocolate flavour wasn't too much

Secondly, the coffee smell was there but not too satisfying to me

Thirdy, my cupcakes came out abit hard

... ...

But the consolation was, the coffee cream was yummy!!!!

I used my own combination of the whipped cream + instant coffee mix, and topped with chopped peanuts!
hahahahahaha.....

If I hadn't mentioned those cons, these cupcakes would look extremely fantastic isn't it???

Recipe as adapted from Kevin Chai:

Ingredients:

250g butter

180g sugar

4 eggs

200g plain flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

150g melted chocolate

2 tbsp canola oil

30ml kahlua

Method:

1. Beat butter & sugar until fluffy. Add in eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

2. Fold in sifted flour, baking powder & soda.

3. Stir melted chocolate with canola oil, then pour into flour mixture with kahlua, mix well.

4. Spoon the mixture into the cases. Bake for 20mins in a preheated oven of 175C. Remove cupcakes & cool on a rack.

Coffee Cream:

200g butter

150g icing sugar

1 tsp instant coffee powder

100g melted chocolate

Prepare the cream by beating butter, icing sugar and coffee powder until light & smooth. Stir in melted chocolate and pipe on top of each cupcake. Decorate with chocolate.

Soft & Fluffy Banana Cake- Yummy!!!

My friend Eileen had passed me a great recipe for banana cake again... As long as it is any banana recipes, I guess it will be anybody's favourite as well.

Eileen had found this great recipe from Wen's Delight, and she told me that I must try this recipe as it was really soft & yummy... Having the basic fruit, banana, at home, I went off to bake this cake. And it was indeed delicious. It wasn't that oily, it was really soft... Hahaha, so I had baked this cake a couple of times as it was quite a hit. The gals liked it too. The 2nd time, I had tried baking with chocolate chip rice, and they were also delicious.. I even had a few pieces myself too...

A nicely baked top and a soft, fluffy texture banana cake...

YUMMY!!!!

Recipe as adapted from Wen's Delight:

Ingredients:2.5-3 Eggs (I used 3 eggs)130g Sugar (I used 125g)200g Banana (Ripe & cut into small pcs)
150g Top Flour (I use cake flour)1/2 tsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Baking soda
100g Corn oil (I use canola oil)

1/8 tsp Banana essense (optional)(I omitted)

Method:

*Preheat oven to 160 degree C.
*Grease & line a 8" round tin with paper.
1. Sieve flour, baking powder & soda together. Sieve twice & set aside.
2. Whisk eggs, sugar & banana at max. speed till stiff/ribbon stage.

3. Fold in flour & mix well. (Can use spatular or hand to mix)
4. Add in oil & mix well till batter is shiny & flowing.
5. Bake for 40 - 45mins.

Steamed Pandan Peanut Cupcakes

I have a busy weekend... I had been to SG Popular Book Fair at the Expo Hall on Saturday. But it didn't thrill me much as the cookbooks were as cheap as they were supposed to be... So yesterday, I headed down to JB and I decided to go to thier Popular Fair at Danga City Mall. I did not know where it was, but luckily the lady boss of the nail shop was kind enough to let me use her wifi to check the location. It was pretty easy to find the mall in the end. And of course I had grabbed at least 7 books which were so valued for money!!! Needless to say, my gals & my niece bought their loot as well...

Adding another steamed cupcake to the November Aspiring Baker's theme, this is a Steamed Cupcake I had gotten from Alex Goh's Steamed Cake.

These cupcakes had caught my attention as it was pandan flavor and they looked very pretty. But of course, Alex Goh put red bean filling whereas hubby suggested to use peanuts instead.

It was a little difficult to put the peanut fillings in the centre as "it" will "run" everywhere else in the cupcakes... So I had actually "dug" a hole in the centre and put in the peanut fillings, and fill them up with the remaining batter.

So, what do you think of them?

Recipe as adapted from Magic Steamed Cake by Alex Goh
(slight modifications)

Ingredients:

(A)

4 eggs

250g sugar

1/2 tsp salt

120ml canola oil

(B)

2 tsps pandan juice

few drops of green coloring

200g coconut milk

(I had used 2 tsp pandan paste instead of the pandan juice & green coloring)

(C)

400g flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

(I had omitted all and used self raising flour instead)

Method:

1. Whip A until sugar dissolves and slightly thicken. Add in B, mix until well blended.

2. Fold in sieved C, mix until well blended.

3. Pour the batter about 1/3 of the 7cm cupcake mould lined with paper cup. Steam for about 2-4mins.

4. Remove from heat and place the peanut fillings in the centre & press lightly.

5. Top with the remaining batter and steam for another 15-20mins over high heat.

Fillings can be omitted or changed to your preferred fillings like red bean paste, etc.

Have Fun:))

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #25 – Steaming Hot Cakes (November 2012) hosted by Miss B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders. 

Steamed Chocolate Cupcakes

Yes, Steam Cakes are indeed in trend this month in my home... And I am enjoying it very much. I had given alot of steamed cakes to my friend, and her hubby mentioned that I seemed to be enjoying doing so... So I told my friend, this month onwards my daughter will be starting her school vacations, plus my boss is not in SG, so taking all these time available to bake again...

I had bought this "Steamed Cakes" recipe book when I was in Penang last October, but I had never tried any of the recipes since I bought it till today.

From this book, I had selected the Steamed Chocolate Cupcakes as the ingredients were rather basic. Some of the other recipes required evaporated milk and condensed milk, which I wasn't too keen in them.

A full ingredients could actually fetch quite a number of cupcakes, depending on the size of your paper cups.

*Note: It is better to use those "paper" cupcake cases as compared to the other cupcake cases as the paper cups will "opened" up during steaming.

These steamed chocolate cupcakes were not too bad. I had modified some of the ingredients. Cutting down a huge amount of the icing sugar, using margarine instead of butter, and replacing the hot water with milk too. The cupcakes did turned out well, soft and moist, but a little not so sweet.. So perhaps I should increase a little more sugar...hehehehe...
The gals loved these cupcakes too. I was glad that they liked it. Mimi had 2 of them and she said it was yummy. My friend who tried the cupcakes said they were delicious as well.

Would you like to try one as well?

Recipe as adapted from the Steamed Cakes by Mdm Zubaidah Bte Chepa

Ingredients:

Yields about 16 medium size cups & 16 mini size cups

250g superfine flour (I use self raising flour)

1 tsp baking soda (omitted)

75g cocoa powder

350g icing sugar (I used 200g)

250g butter (I used margarine)

3 eggs

1 bowl of hot water (I used 250ml cold milk)

Method:

1. Beat butter & sugar until smooth.

2. Add in the egg one at a time, mix well at each addition.

3. Add in the flour+cocoa powder, alternating with the milk. Mix until well blended.

4. Pour batter into the paper cup cases and steam over high heat for about 10mins.

(If you are using my ingredients, you can fill the batter till full as the cupcakes will shrink a little after removing from heat)

I am submitting this to Aspiring Bakers #25 – Steaming Hot Cakes (November 2012) hosted by Miss B of Everybody Eats Well in Flanders