Lemon-blueberry cake

Lemon-blueberry cake:

3 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
zest from two lemons
1 1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups blueberries

1. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

2. In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to beat the butter and sugar together. Beat on high speed for about 5 minutes, until the butter is fluffy.

3. Preheat your oven to 350 around here. Prepare your pan--spray or butter it. Add one egg and beat on high until incorporated, then mix in the next egg. Add the oil, vanilla extract, and zest and mix. Alternate between adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk (I separated it into buttermilk-flour-buttermilk-flour-buttermilk). Then beat for 3 more minutes to get it nice and aerated.



4. Gently mix in the blueberries. Pour the batter into your pan and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

Sorry...I don't remember if this recipe fills up a whole 13x9 pan, or if I doubled the recipe to fit that pan. You will have to eyeball it...maybe it fits a round pan better >.<

Carrot cupcakes

Here's the continuation of what I did with carrot pulp. I made carrot cupcakes. I would have to say, I really liked the cupcakes more than the cookies. With or without the frosting, these cupcakes are tasty. Also from King Arthur Flour.

Recipe:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
¼ cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup golden raisins (optional)
1/3 cup diced walnuts (optional)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup grated carrots, lightly packed; about 2 medium-large carrots

1. Add all of the wet ingredients in a mixing bowl--the eggs, water, and oil--and mix by hand or with an electric mixer on medium. By the way, if you want to frost your cupcakes, take out your cream cheese and butter to let them reach room temperature. It helps to break them into smaller pieces.

2. Add all of the other ingredients, minus the carrots. Mix until combined.

3. Stir in the carrots.

4. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

5. Line your cupcake tins with paper and fill the papers, leaving 1/2 inch room at the top for expansion. (That makes me think about Starbucks...would you like room?).

6. Bake for about 12-14 minutes. To test if the cupcakes are done, insert a toothpick, knife, or fork. If it comes out clean, the cupcakes are done.

7. Take the tins out of the oven. Turn the cupcakes on their sides to let steam escape, or else the bottoms can become soggy. Let them completely cool to room temperature before frosting.


Cream cheese frosting: this made too much frosting for me, because I like my cupcakes with only a little frosting. I would say cut this by 1/3 or 1/2 and you'll be good.

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
one 8-ounce package cream cheese
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 cups powdered sugar (aka Confectioner's sugar), sifted.
milk or cream to adjust consistency of frosting, if necessary

1. Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese (make sure they are room temperature) on high until mixed. Add the salt and vanilla.

2. Add 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar in small batches. Beat on low at first, otherwise the sugar will go flying. Increase the speed to high until well mixed. Add more sugar if you want the frosting to be thicker/sweeter.

3. Frost your cupcakes.

Delicious!

Another cake

So my mom's birthday was on 4/20 (she's 51 now). We celebrated her birthday the weekend before the actual day because my sisters were in town. I decided to try making the Asian Fruit Basket Cake again. I used a different cake recipe from http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/golden-layer-cakebr-recipe. I think I overbaked it a little bit, because the cake was a little dry. It tasted really good the next day though!

My mom always lets my cousins blow out the candles. It's hilarious to watch my youngest cousin Dylan because he sways side to side when people sing the Happy Birthday song.


Lots of layers... I got help from Lionel and my sisters with decorating. I baked the cake in two round pans. Lionel sliced the cakes into two layers each. The strawberries in the filling are chopped into small cubes and mixed with whipped cream. Then we just built the cake, frosted the outside with more whipped cream, and topped with strawberries.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

I felt like baking something for my coworkers because I haven't baked anything in a while. I was going to make oatmeal cookies, because I bought this bag of special oatmeal. It's a patented preparation to make the texture better...oooohh, fancy! But, I ended up making cake, because one of my coworkers was talking about how she likes soft cakes. I had this recipe saved for a while; it's about time that I made it. Incidentally, it was a green cake just in time for St. Patrick's Day. Pandan is a leaf, the juice of which is used in a lot of Vietnamese desserts.

Sorry, it's in metric...and I'm too lazy to convert it. I got it from http://roseskitchen.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/pandan-chiffon-cake

Pandan Chiffon Cake
225 grams cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoons salt
8 eggs, separated
300 grams sugar, separated in two
170 mL coconut cream
125 mL vegetable oil
2 tablespoons pandan juice
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1. So the real first step is to blend 12 pandan leaves with some water and strain out the juice...I used artificial flavoring so I skipped this.

2. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder in a smallish container.



3. In a medium bowl, mix the egg yolks and 150 grams of sugar with an electric hand blender.


4. When it's mixed, add the coconut cream, oil, pandan juice and a little bit of green food coloring.


This is what I used instead of pandan juice, for reference. I tried using just one tablespoon of this stuff (it's thick and goopy) and 1 tablespoon of water.


5. Add in the sifted flour and mix well until smooth.


6. Preheat your oven to 350 right now. In a separate large bowl, beat the egg whites on high speed until it's foamy. Add the cream of tartar and beat for another minute.


Add in the rest of the sugar until the egg whites are shiny and stiff.




7. Scoop one third of the egg whites and mix it into the batter, the way you would normally mix. Then, add the rest of the egg whites and fold it in.


Pour the batter into a greased pan. I used a bundt pan. Look how pretty and green it is!


I baked it for 40-50 minutes or until a fork inserted comes out clean. If you the pat the cake it will be light and springy.

Asian Fruit Basket Cake

Last week was my uncle's birthday. We didn't celebrate in big way, just his family plus my mom and I. I've been wanting to try making an Asian Fruit Basket Cake. I don't even know if anyone know what I'm talking about...anyone? Say so and it will make me feel better. When we order birthday cakes in my family, oftentimes it's this one...fluffy, with layers of whipped cream and fresh fruit. Here we go...

Chiffon Cake
adapted from kingarthurflour.com
fills one 9" cake pan

3 eggs, separated
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/8 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cups sugar
1 cup cake flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 1/2 cups chopped fruit
1 pint heavy cream
1/4 - 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 325. Beat oil, milk, egg yolks, and vanilla until the mixture is pale yellow.

It almost looks like art!

2. Sift in the flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar. Beat until well blended.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar on high speed. When it gets foamy, start adding 1/4 C sugar a little at a time (it separated into three additions). Keep going and it will transform into stiff peaks--when you flip the whisk upside down, the egg whites will stand up and doesn't wilt onto itself. It took me around 5 minutes.

Weird how it looks like whipped cream...but I wouldn't eat it.

4. Fold the egg whites into the batter. First, take 1/4 of the egg whites and mix it into the batter with a spatula like you normally would. Then, dump the rest of the egg whites into the batter. Gently scoop the spatula underneath all of that batter and you sort of slip the batter on top of the egg whites. The point is not to deflate all of the air you just incorporated in the egg whites. It took me around 8 or so turns to mix the whites into the batter. It's okay if there are small bits of white left.

5. Pour into an ungreased pan and bake at 325 for about 20 minutes. Then, bake at 350 for 10 minutes. When the cake is done, it will be golden brown and springy when you press on the center of the cake.


6. Cool the pan upside down for thirty minutes. I was really skeptical of this step, because I thought the cake would slide down for sure. But, it didn't, so thirty minutes later, I took the cake out and let it cool on the rack until it was room temperature.


7. Chop up your fruit. Use whatever you want...I used dragonfruit, bananas, canned peaches, and oranges. Also, get your whipped cream made. Beat the heavy cream on high until it almost looks like whipped cream, then add enough powdered sugar (or regular sugar) until it's sweetened to your liking.

8. Slice your cake into however many layers you want it to be. I was really horrible at this...they were not level at all. And I kept hacking at it too...first I sliced it in half, parallel to the board. It was so horribly unlevel, I kept trimming more and more off. Oh and as an afterthought, I should have trimmed as much browned stuff as possible. No waste though...the trimmings became breakfast.


9. Spread the first layer with some whipped cream. Sprinkle your fresh fruit on top of the whipped cream. Then add your next layer of cake. Keep going until you have all of your layers.

Told you it wasn't level

10. Frost the outside of the cake. Put a big glob on the cake, and then smooth it out. You have to put enough on it the first time, because if there isn't enough, and you try to add more, you'll get a mess and the crumbs will show through. As illustrated in my cake.

Doesn't look too bad huh?