CulturalFest Cupcakes - part 2

I told you about the cupcakes I made for CulturalFest last week, right? Read my previous, previous blog entry if you haven't. Long story short, so we promised an additional 1-dozen of cupcakes for future occasion to the auction winner, in addition to 1-dozen cupcakes they get on the day of. Anyways, I heard back from the cupcakes auction winner, and we happen to work on the same building! We've been communicating through email for her other 1-dozen cupcakes. We decided that I would make her 6 each of triple chocolate cupcakes and dulce de leche cupcakes.

I started with devil's food cake batter for the triple chocolate, and yellow butter cake for dulce de leche. Now here are the fun parts (these directions are for 12 cupcakes each):

For triple chocolate, I dipped the devil's food cupcake into warm chocolate ganache (1 cup bitter sweet chocolate, melted, and stir in 1/3 cup heavy cream), and frost them with chocolate ganache buttercream (the rest of the cooled ganache, whipped with 1/2 cup of softened butter and tiny pinch of salt). (left: cupcakes dipped in ganache before frosted; right: frosted cupcakes)




For dulce de leche, I cored each cupcake and filled they with caramel, and frost them with caramel swiss buttercream (recipe from Martha Stewart). From the same recipe, I made full recipe of caramel sauce, use 2/3 to fill the cupcakes, and 1/3 for buttercream (just third the rest of the recipe). Drizzle the leftover caramel sauce on top.

Glazed Cinnamon Chip Loaf

To celebrate the return of our morning lab meeting, I decided to bring a breakfast sweet loaf last Wednesday. The creation of this loaf was inspired by Great Harvest Bread's cinnamon chip bread that Kristina brought couple of times to the lab a while back, which I love. The cinnamon chips scattered throughout the bread result in pockets of sweet cinnamon goodness (think chocolate chip cookies, but with cinnamon flavor); it's not sticky like cinnamon roll, and not dry like those grocery-store style cinnamon swirl bread either. It's just perfect.

I must say I'm pretty stingy and not going to pay $5 (or whatever it is) for a loaf of bread, and I've been planning on recreating this loaf for a while. I've been looking for these cinnamon chips on the grocery store, but found out that they're not so easy to find (every time I passed by the baking aisle, I looked for these guys). Not too long time ago, I went to the Metropolitan Market in Wedgwood looking for non-ultra pasteurized heavy cream (as a poor grad student, I don't normally venture to upscale grocery), and stumbled across a full shelf of cinnamon chip bags, ON SALE, so I grabbed 3 bags (made a giant batch of pumpkin cinnamon scones, recipe from King Arthur's). And now, I have my stock of cinnamon chips, ready for making the cinnamon chip loaf! I made this recipe with cottage cheese for extra moisture and soft texture and yogurt which gave a nice tang, reminiscent of sourdough (sadly I killed my sourdough starter a while back, despite my cell culture experience, so I had to find other way to create tangy bread). I think you can replace the cottage cheese with more yogurt too if you like it more sour, never tried it, but don't see why it wouldn't work. If the dough turns out to be too wet, just add more flour.

Cinnamon Chip Bread Loaf

1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/2 cup honey or plain yogurt
1/4 cup water
2 eggs
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups bread flour
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
2 tbsp instant potato flakes (if you don't have any, just add extra flour)
2 tsp SAF yeast
1/2 cup cinnamon chips

*) Mix and knead dough (all ingredients minus cinnamon chips), by hands, stand mixer with dough hook, or if you're lazy like me, use your bread machine on dough cycle. Your bread machine will time the rise for you; if you don't use bread machine, shape dough into ball, cover with oiled saran wrap, and let rise for 1 hour at room temp. Punch down and flatten into roughly a rectangle using palm of your hands. Sprinkle cinnamon chips and briefly knead by hands to lightly disperse the chips. Shape dough into loaf, tuck the ends under. Let rise again for 1 hour, until double the size. Bake the loaf in preheated 350F oven for 1/2 hour. It's a sweet loaf, and it'll brown fast due to the sugar content, so watch for over browning (my loaf browned too much).

Cinnamon Glaze

1/2 cup cinnamon chips
2 tbsp milk

*) Melt the chips by microwaving them with milk, at 50% power for 30 seconds. Mix well and drizzle on top of loaf. Let cool to set.

Valentine's day butter cookies

Happy Valentine's day, people!! Much love and hugs first.

Anyways, on to the baking stuff. These are my thoughts about V-day baking and confections:
1. I think chocolate and valentine's day combination is slightly overrated. Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate, but just not in the mood of having chocolate today.
2. Valentine's day cookies do not need to come in heart shape. But just for the sake of it, I put some red heart-shaped sugar ornaments (leftover from the cupcake project).

So, I made these simple butter cookies (you seriously only need few ingredients). Took a plate of these babies to the blue house (thought Hula and Nanna might need some cookies), there rest will go to my tummy! Haha kidding, Kim's tummy too.

Simple butter cookies (make 36 small cookies)

200 gr butter
150 gr sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
275 gr all-purpose flour

1) Preheat oven to 350F. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg until mixed. With wooden spoon, mix in dry ingredients slowly until well combined.
2) I used cookie gun (sometimes is also called cookie press). Extrude dough through the cookie gun into greased cookie sheets, and decorate the top with heart-shaped sugar decoration (you can use any cookie sprinkles). Bake at 350F for 15-20 min, until edge is browned.

Cupcakes, finally! FIUTS CulturalFest 2011

I guess, I'm overdue to post something about cupcakes. I made three different kinds of cupcakes for two big events this week: CulturalFest 2011 and Cafe Newman.

I don't quite remember my first CulturalFest, I'm guessing the first one I've been to was in 2004(?). It was very small, well compared to what we had yesterday, and was held in the old HUB ballroom, which is not even existed anymore. I remembered the old cultural show was done while the booth exhibition was happening in the same room! Anyhow, a couple years back, my student board team decided to change the format of the show, and made it into a more proper, seat down, theater-kind of experience, which are more conducive to both performers and audience. We started small, by having the show done at the Ethnic Cultural Center Theater, which seats around 250. For two years in a row, we had sold-out audience. Then we thought, we should make CulturalFest even bigger, and that it can potentially be a great venue to do some annual fund-raising for FIUTS. We had this idea brewed for about 6 months; it finally came into reality last night (Stacy- I'm trying to use more semicolons on my writings!). CulturalFest is now a day-long grand festivity that involves around a thousand or so people, including both domestic and international students, scholars, and community members. We almost filled the entire Meany Hall last night, which was such and accomplishment (Meany is a huge two-levels theater).


In addition to the cultural exhibition and show, we also had a VIP reception and a silent auction, hence the cupcakes. I (well I means my dad) contributed the "Balinese experience" auction item, which includes 5 nights stay at our property in Ubud, Bali (Biyukukung Suites and Spa), a Bali travel book, and a personal 1-hour long travel advice from... ehmm... ME! Okay, wondering where the cupcakes come into play here? I also contributed 2-dozens of cupcakes for the baked goods package auction item (also includes a homemade pie by Anita Croft, the former FIUTS executive director back in Hula's and Koko's old days...). In all, I can (and shamelessly will) bragged about generating around $340 for the silent auction income: the Bali package pitched in $300, while the baked goods generated ~$40. If you're interested in reading more about FIUTS mission, visit their website here. And for those who lost the Bali auction, check out the website above, or give me a call / e-mail.

Oh right, since this is my baking blog, I should tell you more about the cupcakes; after all, they are why you're reading this blog, right? So as I mentioned, I made three kind of cupcakes (notice the Valentine's day theme here):






Peanut Butter Chocolate Cupcakes
Eggless chocolate cake (which amazingly moist), recipe here, with Reese's peanut butter cup sneaked inside the cake.
Topped with peanut butter frosting and adorned with Reese's Pieces.









Pink lemonade cupcakes
Lemon cake, topped with lemon cream cheese frosting, and adorned with pink sugar and candied pink lemon.










Traditional Red Velvet Cupcakes
Southern red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting, adorned with heart shaped sugar decoration.









Ahhh.... I feel like those bakers describing their cupcakes creation on Cupcake Wars.

These cupcakes also made it into Friday evening's Cafe Newman bake sale (proceed goes to Newman Grad-young adult and music ministries). I haven't heard how they went, but I hope they generated some money for the ministries!

Happy Chinese New Year!

Here comes the year of the rabbit! I terribly failed at collecting even a single red envelope this year, but that did not stop me celebrating the New Year's with the Chan and the Katdhare (not exactly Chinese, but they have a nice kitchen and very cute new baby). Kim and Susan did most of the cooking, mainly the seaweed dish that suppose to bring good luck and stir-fried noodle, with a little help from Ani. I just brought the usual suspect, dessert. For me, when you combine these words- desserts, Chinese, yummy, and sweet stuff- only one thing comes in mind, the Hong Kong style egg tarts (yep, like those you get at the dim sum place).

Okay, this sounds a bit odd, but I actually have been busy with Lab works. So I decided to make the tarts the cheating way. For the crust, I used store bought puff pastry sheet (I'm still amazed that I actually found an unused sheet in my freezer) that I rolled thinner, then cut in circles to fit my tartlett tins. I found that it works better to press the crust up higher than the side of the tins, since the crust will shrink and slide down as it bakes (sorry, I was in hurry and didn't take picture to illustrate this). I managed to get enough dough for 12 tartlettes from 1 sheet of puff pastry. After shaping, I chilled the crust while making the custard filling. I used the recipe from a blog posted by Christine for the custard (hers look gazillion times better than mine, and I'm sure her crust works wonderful too!). Her custard recipe ended up more than enough to fill my 12 tartlettes (I probably can make 20 from this recipe, with the size of tins I used). Then I thought about what can I make with the rest of the custard (see below for what I ended up making). But now, the tarts, I baked them following Christine's direction and behold... the egg tarts!




Alright, now back home and on to the rest of the custard. After much deliberation, I decided on turning it into flan. Yes, flan, it should work, right? It's just baked custard, after all. However, this would make eggier and less creamier flan than the normal recipe, but at least I don't have to dump the rest of the custard down the sink. I placed ~1tbsp of sugar onto the bottom of 4 custard dishes and put them in the 375F oven until all sugar melted and turned into caramel (how long will depend on the size of dish you're using and how much sugar, so you just need to watch them). Carefully I took them out of the oven and swirled the caramel to cover the bottom of the dishes (as always, caramel is super hot), then I poured the rest of the custard into each custard dish (humm, I wonder why people call these custard dishes). I put the dishes onto a cake pan and poured boiling water until ~1/2-way up, covered it (I just placed cookie sheet on top), and put the whole contraption into the oven for 30-minutes. Let the flan chill in the fridge overnight before you enjoy them to let the caramel soften. Run knife around the side and flip onto plate.

Pear upside-down cake

I successfully resist the urge to bake for... er... almost a week! Okay, okay, not really. I actually did a couple of small baking, which I'll post later this week (another loaf of bread and crepes although you can't really call that baking).

So, the reason behind today's baking is to celebrate my dad's birthday!!!! Oh, wait, but my parents live 24-hours flight away from me, so technically he won't be able to enjoy this particular cake (love you dad, so I'll do rain check cake and make it for you in about a month!). Okay, so the real culprit is this super-ripe-almost-rotten pear. First I sliced it hoping to eat it as is, but then I decided that it's probably better turned into something else. Pear upside-down cake it is! The 'bottom' of the cake consist of caramelized pear, while the cake part is actually gingerbread cake. I made a version of it last Thanksgiving (it was Martha's recipe), my dear friends Vaibhav and Sudip, who sworn they hate hate spices (mainly cinnamon) on sweet stuff, devoured this cake with a little help from whipped cream. I decided that Martha's recipe is too complicated for an impromptu baking night. So I made little modification, scale it down, and simplify the recipe a bit.

blame this guy....

Pear upside-down cake (make 1 loaf pan size)

Caramelized pear layer:

1 tbsp salted butter
1 ripe bartlett pear
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp dark rum

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Put butter and sugar into loaf pan, and put in pre-heated oven until butter and sugar turn into caramel (~10 min, but watch it). Be careful, caramel will be super hot!
2. Meanwhile, slice the pear lengthwise to eight. When the caramel is ready, carefully lay the pear slices on the bottom of the pan with caramel (it'll be hot!!). Splash the rum over the pear, and bake it for 5 minutes until pear is browned.


Gingerbread cake:

4 tbsp butter
2 tbsp packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg
1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp grated nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda, resuspended in 1 tbsp of boiling water (can't find better word than 'resuspended', oh science...)
1/4 cup candied ginger, chopped (more or less depending how you like them)

1. Cream butter and sugar, then beat in molasses and egg until combined.
2. Sift dry ingredients: flour, all the spices, and salt. Fold half into butter mixture, then fold the other half in until well combined. Lastly, fold in candied ginger and the resuspended baking soda.
3. Pour batter into prepared pan with caramelized pear on the bottom. Bake 350F for 15 minutes, then turn down the oven to 325F and bake for another 15 minutes, until toothpick inserted come out clean.
4. Let the cake cool down for 10 minutes before inverting onto a plate. Now the pear becomes the top part of the cake. Enjoy it while warm, serve with scoop of vanilla ice cream or dollop of whipped cream!


ps: I wrote this blog while the cake was baking. I just had a slice........ oh my, it's sooo freakin good! Okay, if you haven't try any of my recipes I posted so far, don't!! This one is much better, go make this first! Now, should I finish the entire cake, so should I bring some to lab?

Cream Puffs

I was NOT planning to bake tonight, just to let you know. But my housemate Citra found me while I was watching the newest episode of 'White Collar'-- "Aren't we suppose to make cream puffs today?" she asked. Uhm... actually I did promise to show her how to make cream puffs last night. Long story short, Citra had made some vanilla custard, er... more like vanilla pudding (she found the recipe from the internet, so don't ask me how she ended up with the custard). She was planning on eating the custard with some white bread. Okay, let's imagine that: custard sandwiched between 2 pieces of white bread...... nahhhh!! I'd like to believe that I have saved her (and the custard) by stopping her from doing just that. Then I promised her that I would show her how to make cream puffs, so she can make better use of the poor custard. There you go, my excuse of baking tonight! And no, I do not bake every day.




The custard she made turned out a bit eggy, so I whipped some heavy cream, folded the custard in, and (okay, here comes the magic) some of my precious stash of aged Puerto Rican rum, turning them into my rendition of light pastry cream. Citra and I then made pâte à choux (recipe below), but couldn't decide whether to make it into choux cream or eclair shape- we made one choux cream and the rest were eclairs. After the shells were baked and cooled, we filled them with custard cream, and dipped them in melted chocolate (because I'm turning into chocolate snob, I only have 60% cocoa Ghirardelli baking discs on my stash).


Basic pâte à choux:

200 ml H2O
100 gr butter
110 gr flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

• Preheat oven to 375F.
  
• Put water, butter, and salt into saucepan. Heat until boiled and butter melted. Remove from heat and immediately stir in flour and mix vigorously using wooden spoon (it will resemble mashed potatoes). Set aside until mixture is cool to touch. Beat eggs in, one at a time, mix vigorously again (you can utilize the electric mixer here) until dough turns smooth and shiny.
  
• Pipe dough into tall round shape (to make choux cream), or lengthwise (to make eclairs). Bake in preheated oven for 35-minutes until puffed up and golden brown. Note: I recall when my mom taught me to make cream puffs long time ago. She told me not to attempt peeking into the oven until the puffs turn golden brown or they will deflate. So make sure not to peek or take them out until your 35-minutes is up, otherwise you'll end up with deflated shells that cannot be filled!
• You know the drill, cut open the shell and fill them with the filling. Dip into melted chocolate, or if you're too lazy, dust them with powdered sugar.