Daily Unadventures in Cooking » Cake

Miniature Spiced Pear Coffee Cakes

katerina — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:51:02 +0000

These little spice cakes are well suited to a leisurely aristocratic tea break, but work equally well for a rushed breakfast eaten with a takeout coffee. The recipe adapts well to being baked in a variety of different shapes and sizes and though the mini tarts are adorable, the muffin-sized cakes are perfect for a grab and go.

Despite their low calorie count they are light and fluffy, with chunks of pears and walnuts creating natural breaks and allowing you to tear the cake apart with your fingers. Try serving with a bit of butter and a good read.

Cadbury Creme Egg Cupcake Recipe

katerina — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 12:17:04 +0000

Sweet mother of all things that are merciful on this planet, make these cupcakes at your own peril. Your teeth will hurt, your entire kitchen will be sticky, and you will need to buy new jeans.

But if you do make them, and I am not saying you should, you will have a gooey chocolate cupcake with a luscious sugary center and a caramelized sugar bottom. 100% inspired by my favorite novelty candy – the Cadbury creme egg.

This cupcake recipe was adapted from a homemade Cadbury Creme Egg recipe and an older chocolate cupcake recipe. By baking some filling inside the cupcakes you should end up with a caramelized sugar lined hollow cupcake to fill with the icing. If anyone can think of another way to elegantly hollow out the cupcakes, I would love to hear it.

Now, if you are really brave, put one of these cupcakes in the microwave for 15 seconds and then top it with banana ice cream. I double dare you.

Coconut Cupcakes Recipe

katerina — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 13:14:42 +0000

I have a severe addiction to one of the most luscious edible substances on earth: coconut cream. Whenever I am on a tropical vacation I order fresh pina coladas in pairs and fantasize about living in a country where they sell coconut cream by the litre. (They really do sell it by the litre in Mexico you know.)

For now my daydreams will have to be satisfied by these fluffy coconut cupcakes. For those of you with a penchant for frosting, I would double the icing recipe as I like my cupcakes light on the icing. These coconut cupcakes are gently frosted with an icing which is light on the sugar but heavy on the fruit giving them a natural coconut flavour without any of that super-cloying sweetness available in coconut flavoured items. Thank you once again, coconut cream.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes Recipe

katerina — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:52:08 +0000

These carrot cake cupcakes are a healthier form of classic carrot cake. Traditionally, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger are added to a cake batter along with grated carrot and the resulting cake is topped with a thick cream cheese icing. As a child, it was this thick cream cheese frosting that turned me off of carrot cake — I don’t think I’ve had any for more than a decade.

However, when I saw this recipe in Women’s Health magazine (March 2010), I was intrigued because the icing was light and seemed to drip right off of the cupcakes. Plus this recipe is made with whole wheat pastry flour, something I am just learning about.

In the end I actually weaseled out of making the cream cheese frosting for these carrot cake cupcakes anyways. The cream cheese I was intending to use had gone bad so I substituted sour cream instead. A delicious alternative and interesting in itself. I have left the recipe as it is with cream cheese. Let me know if you make the icing with cream cheese, as I intend to next time.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes
(makes 18 cupcakes)
Adapted from Katie Lee recipe

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (can substitute 2 tablespoons flour for ground flax)
1 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1/2 cup plain yogourt
1 lb carrots, grated
1/2 cup golden raisins
6 tablespoons (4 oz) light cream cheese at room temperature (or sour cream!)
1 cup icing sugar
1/4 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl combine flours, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon.

In a second bowl beat together brown sugar and canola oil for 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time. Stir in a yogourt, carrots and raisins. Mix in the flour mixture until just combined.

Spoon batter into paper lined muffin tins and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Using an electric mixer, whip cream cheese and sugar. Spread over each cupcake and top with walnuts.

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes Recipe

katerina — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:36:00 +0000

Who doesn’t love the seasonal pumpkin flavour that appears in the Fall? Pumpkin flavour is generally associated with Pumpkin Pie Spice, a mixture of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves. The pumpkin itself complements those spices but has quite a mild flavour. These flavours are the basis for the pumpkin cupcake recipe which I found on Meet Me in the Kitchen.

The last time I made cupcakes I got scolded for not including icing. Muffcakes, I believe was the expression used. So this time I made a pumpkin spice buttercream to go with the cupcakes. More pumpkin pie spice, how can you go wrong?

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes Recipe
(makes 12 cupcakes)
Adapted from Meet Me in the Kitchen

1 1/2C flour
1t baking powder
1t baking soda
1t salt
1 1/4t cinnamon
1/2t nutmeg
1/4t ground cloves
3 eggs
1C pumpkin puree
1/2C canola oil
1C sugar

1 batch pumpkin pie icing or whipping cream.
a pinch of nutmeg for garnish

Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. In a large bowl or stand mixer beat together eggs, pumpkin, oil, and sugar. Stir dry ingredients into wet being careful not to over mix.

Grease a muffin tin and line with muffin cups. (You can skip this step if you are using a silicon muffin tray.) Pour batter into tray 1/2 to 1/3 full. Bake for 12-22 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting. Frost with pumpkin pie buttercream or a dollop of whip cream. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Pumpkin Pie Buttercream Icing Recipe

katerina — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:34:00 +0000

I know real buttercream involves eggs and a double boiler, but this is an easy way to make a cheater buttercream icing or frosting that is a fun topping for pumpkin cake or cupcakes. If you have pumpkin pie spice you can substitute for the cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and cinnamon as that is what the combination creates. Add more spices to taste if you want a zippier icing.

Oh and speaking of things with zip? I don’t own a pastry bag, I use ziploc bags, put your icing in, cut a hole in the bottom and start squeezing. Works very well in a pinch.

Easy Pumpkin Pie Buttercream Icing Recipe
(makes ~2 cups frosting)

Adapted from this simple buttercream recipe

1 cup soft butter
3 cups icing sugar
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
red and yellow food colouring (optional)
~1 tablespoon milk (optional)

In your stand mixer or using a hand mixer whip the butter until soft and even. Add the spices and icing sugar on low. When combined turn up the speed to medium and mix for 2 mins. Add in vanilla and milk if necessary to get the consistency you are looking for. Add in food colouring to get a sight orange-y colour. (For me the ratio was ~5:1 yellow to red.)

Chocolate Coconut Zucchini Cupcakes Recipe

katerina — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:30:00 +0000

Is a cupcake a cupcake without icing? Personally I think that a cake or a cupcake, is still a cake even if it isn’t frosted. Unfortunately my friends do not, so these have currently been dubbed “muffcakes” until I make them again and frost them.

I thought they were lovely without frosting but I think they would be super fabulous with an icing made with coconut milk. I am sure the vanilla buttercream frosting I have made before would also work well. They are also really good heated up a bit in the microwave and served with a scoop of ice cream.

Chocolate Coconut Zucchini Cupcakes
(makes 12 medium cupcakes)
Adapted from the Rebar Cookbook as shown on 101 Cookbooks

1 1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup coconut oil
3 eggs
3 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
2 cups zucchini
1/2 cup yogourt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup chocolate chips

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
icing sugar

Preheat your oven to 350F. Prepare a muffin tin by lining it with muffin liners and greasing it, I used a non-stick spray. Beat together the brown sugar, butter and coconut oil. Beat in eggs one at a time. Stir in yogourt, vanilla, coconut, zucchini, and chocolate chips.

In a separate bowl combine flour, cocoa, salt and soda. Fold the wet mixture into the dry. Spoon into the muffin tins and bake for about 35 minutes.

Move tin to a cooling rack and let cool for 10 minutes, then remove cupcakes from tin and put on cooling rack. Dust with icing sugar.

Dreaming of Caramel with the Daring Bakers

katerina — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:04:00 +0000

Usually I am most impressed with the savoury challenges of the Daring Bakers and less impressed with the sweet ones. Well, I think I am slowly learning the ropes of this group, because I feel like I totally got this recipe. For one thing I only made half of the icing and for another I turned the caramel cake recipe into caramel cupcakes. Way easier to share and freeze. Plus, call me crazy but everything tastes better in cupcake form, right?

So these were totally a hit! Maybe it is because I have been going easy on the fattening items recently or maybe it is cause I was fighting a cold but I loved them! I added a few good helpings of salt to the icing which really transformed it (thanks Daring Baker Kitchen).

They were just so damn pretty I took like, a zillion pictures, so humour me.

Would I make these again? Not sure, I really liked them but they were a lot of work. The caramel sauce was unnecessary, IMHO, but it was amazing in the icing and cake.

If you do want to make them you can check out the original recipe on creator Shuna Fish Lydon’s website here, it came from Bay Area Bites: Caramel Cake, The Recipe.

Great thanks to our hosts this month: Dolores of Culinary Curiosity,
Alex of Blondie and Brownie and Jenny of Foray into Food. I liked it guys, I am just not dedicated enough!

The Opera Cake

katerina — Wed, 28 May 2008 07:00:00 +0000

This month’s Daring Baker challenge was something I hadn’t even heard of before. Opera Cake. This is a serious cake to make for someone whose dessert baking is generally brownies or cookies. I liked what a marathon it was but as a disclaimer I am really more of a bread baker. In fact I think it was the pretzels that made me want to become a Daring Baker in the first place so this challenge really isn’t my style or forte. That said it wouldn’t be very Daring to not try.

I always have such troubles with these writing up these challenges because it is usually weeks after the fact that I try and remember exactly what happened. So this time I planned ahead and did a little diary which is below.

Thursday 12:30pm -1:30pm: Made buttercream. Isn’t this supposed to be easier? Its not like this is the first time I have.. Oh I see, it is real buttercream a little different then the kind I have made before.

1:30pm: Licked bowl and whisk. Stirred cream to keep it thick and let it set.

1:45pm: Don’t feel so good. Damn my lactose intolerant love of dairy. Suddenly realize that something called buttercream probably is the definition of what I should avoid.

Friday 6pm: Crap, have I really not gotten any further with this cake thing? Guests coming in 4 hours, so decide to attempt to make the cake.

6:20pm: I have two 17×11 pans and no 12.5×15.5 pans. Screw it, this is fine.

6:25pm: Whites done and the rest is whirling away, ahhh now I feel calm and totally in control.

6:26pm: Shit, forgot to add sugar to whites, whisk it in by hand.

6:35pm: All done, ready to add melted butter. Darn it the recipe calls for cooled melted butter. Put butter outside.

6:40pm: Add in butter, cakes in oven. Time for a glass of wine!

9:00pm: Made syrup. Even I could do that.

9:15pm: Assembled cake and put in fridge after some very creative re-arranging. Actually quite easy to get cake assembled and move around the large pieces.

9:45pm: Made glaze, also easy and Tasty.. hmmm…

All and all this wasn’t a hit for me or my household. I liked it but not enough to eat more then a small piece or two. I have also never been a big fan of white chocolate so I think if it was coffee or dark chocolate flavoring it would have been more to my taste. I should have adapted it more to my tastes as some of the other bakers did. Ultimately half of it went in the trash.

I have already seen several posts with fabulous pictures go by, and you should check them out to so check out the blogroll.

Tags: Baking, Cake, Dessert, Chocolate

Apple Cinnamon CoffeeCake

katerina — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:47:00 +0000

Ivonne from Cream Puffs in Venice had a brilliant idea to try and get through some of the recipes in her stock pile – Magazine Mondays. I also have a stack of magazines which seem a mile high and which I never cook out of, so I am going to join her this week a day early. I even made an effort to do some organization, going through some of my old magazines and clipping out what I wanted to make – and even better finally making one!

This came from the November edition of Cooking Light. It is the first time I have ever bought the magazine but I really liked it. It had lots of good ideas and recipes to be inspired from. The cake was good and reasonably healthy, my only changes next time would be to cut back a bit on the brown sugar in the streusel – I found it a but sweeter then necessary.

Apple Cinnamon Coffecake
(makes 8×8 cake)

Cake:
1.5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1 cup apple, peeled and diced
cooking spray

Streusel:
¼ cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons chilled butter, cut into small pieces
Preheat oven to 350F.

In a large bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt for cake with a whisk. In a separate bowl combine milk, melted butter, vanilla and egg. Make a well in the flour mix and pour liquid mixture in. Combine with the whisk just until moist. Fold in apple. Pour batter into a sprayed 8-inch square baking pan.

To make streusel combine the remaining brown sugar, flour and cinnamon. Using a pastry blender add in the butter. Sprinkle streusel over batter and bake at 350F for 45 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 10 mins before serving.