white cupcakes

I've been lazy with the blogging...and the baking now that I think about it...but here are some cupcakes that I baked a while ago.

White Cupcakes
from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

ingredients

3 cups cake flour, not self-rising
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon salt
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
8 large egg whites

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two standard 12 cup muffin pans with paper linters. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl, set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer [i don't have one, so i used a regular hand mixer/beater?] fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and 2 cups sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in the vanilla. With mixer on low speed, add flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until just combined. Transfer mixture to a large bowl, set aside.



In the clean bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat egg whites on low speed until foamy. With mixer running [this was a challenge...cause i don't have an electric mixer] gradually add remaining 1/4 cup sugar; beat on high until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 4 minutes. Do not overbeat.



Gently fold a third of the egg white mixture into the butter-flour mixture until combined. Gently fold in the remaining whites.



Divide batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling each with a heaping 1/4 cup batter. Bake, rotating pans halfway through, until cupcakes are golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer pans to a wire rack. Invert cupcakes onto the rack; then reinvert and let them cool completely, top sides up.

I frosted these with lemon cream cheese frosting.



I did get more than 24 cupcakes, even though I tried to measure my heaping 1/4 cup with a measuring cup.

I did find out that I might be able to make an angel food cake one day because my egg whites didn't fail when I had to fold them into the rest of the batter. Yay!

These were pretty good, and I'm sure they're unhealthy, but I would make them again. Yep...Martha wins over my healthy desserts. Sigh.

Fudgy Brownies

Fudgy Brownies
(From Perfect Light Desserts)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup alkalized (Dutch process) cocoa powder
1 cup AP flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2 large egg whites
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

One nine inch square pan, sprayed with vegetable cooking spray and lined with wax or parchment paper

Set a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Sift the cocoa, flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl. In a medium mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar together with a large rubber spatula. Beat in the brown sugar, egg whites, applesauce, and vanilla, one at a time, beating until smooth after each addition. Stir in the dry ingredients with a large rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake the brownies for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center emerges with moist crumbs clinging to the tester. Cool in the pan on a rack for about 5 minutes then invert to a rack and peel off the paper. Invert again and cool completely.

This was an interesting recipe. I baked the batter in a lined muffin tin, and baked for about 20 minutes until it was done. However, this wasn't the brownie I was expecting. It was more like a moist, dense, chocolate cupcake. It was good, it just wasn't a brownie. So I'm still on a brownie hunt. At least they're kind of healthy!

devil's food cake

Devil's Food Cake
(From Perfect Light Desserts)

1 2/3 cups AP flour
1/2 cup dutch process cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup unsweetened applesauce
3/4 cup dark corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

12 cup tube or bundt pan, sprayed with vegetable cooking spray and coated with fine, dry bread crumbs.

Set a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Stir several times to mix. In another bowl, whisk together the egg whites and buttermilk, just to combine. Whisk in the brown sugar, then the applesauce, corn syrup, and vanilla, one at a time, whisking until smooth after each addition. Soft the dry ingredients over the egg white mixture and gently stir in with a large rubber spatula. Scrape the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick or cake tester inserted midway between the side of the pan and the central tube emerges dry. Cook the cake on a rack for 5 minutes, then unmold onto a rack to cool completely.



I used dry buttermilk and water, and my bundt pan was coated with flour because my bread crumbs were not fine bread crumbs. This cake baked for 40 minutes...and it unmolded just fine. It smells good...and is still cooling. It's tonight's dessert. Hopefully it came out okay. I'm worried that when I was mixing the wet and dry ingredients together that I mixed too much, so we'll see.

cake donuts!

I was lucky and got a mini cake donut pan for my birthday! (thanks much!) This was my first attempt at using it. :)

Cake Donuts
(From the wrapping on a Norpro Cake Donut Pan)
Yield: about 36 donuts

2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Lightly spray donut pan with cooking oil. In bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt. Add butter, eggs, vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Beat until well blended. Fill each donut hole 2/3 full. Bake 8 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Cool. Remove from pan and dip into glaze. When the pan has cooled, wipe clean with cloth or paper towel and repeat process.



Glaze

1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tablespoons HOT water



I didn't have any nutmeg, so that got omitted. I only made half the glaze recipe...which was just enough to have glaze on all donuts, without having too much. Oh, and I made exactly 36!

I also didn't wait for the pan to cool before I took out the donuts and repeated the process. I used a fork to take out the donuts as soon as the pan came out of the oven, and cooled the pan in an ice bath to repeat. I didn't want the oven to be on for forever...and this worked out just fine.

The donuts are a little dry, but they are pretty good, and the glaze helps. It soaks into the donuts after about a day or so.

Popovers x2

I used the same recipe as last time, but I only made 1/4 of it and filled the muffin tin to only halfway. This time they came out better than the last time. No weird, slightly gooey layer in the middle! They were perfectly hollow and crispy. Yum.

Oh, and this time I used a parmesan and asiago cheese blend.

Made 16 popovers.

Sorry, forgot to take a pic. I made them to take to my aunty's house for dinner, and we left as soon as I got them out of the oven so we could eat them warm.

Italian Cocoa Honey Spice Cookies

Italian Cocoa Honey Spice Cookies
Mostaccioli al Cioccolato
(From Perfect Light Desserts)

Ingredients

3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa, sifted after measuring
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 cup (about 4 ounces) whole almonds, finely ground in the food processor
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup honey
1/3 cup water or red wine (I used water)

2 cookie sheets lined with parchment or foil

Set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Combine all the ingredients except the honey and water in a large mixing bowl and stir well to mix. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the honey and water. Use a large rubber spatula to stir them together and then to gradually draw in the dry ingredients, making a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and divide into six parts. Roll each with lightly floured hands to a cylinder about 12 inches long. Press the cylinder with your palm to flatten it slightly, then cut across it diagonally to make six 2-inch diamonds. Place the cookies on the prepared pan, 2 inches apart in all directions, as they are cut. Repeat until all the dough has been used. Save all nondiamonds from the ends of the dough and reroll them into a cylinder to cure more cookies.

Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until they are well risen and feel firm but springy when pressed with a fingertip.



These are pretty good...for healthier cookies. Apparently the only fat in this recipe comes from the almonds. They taste kind of like soft chocolate gingerbread cookies. I don't think I need to make them again unless I want to eat a healthier cookie...but sometimes the point of a cookie is to be unhealthy, so we'll see. They're not bad at all though. They are soft, and slightly chewy, and if you know they are healthier than a normal cookie, it's all good.

Nutella Cupcakes

Nutella Frosted Cupcakes
(From the baker who cooks, link here.)

Ingredients
10 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cups sifted AP flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Nutella, about 1/3 cup

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners. Cream together butter and sugar until light, about 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Don't worry if the batter doesn't look smooth. Add vanilla. Stir in flour,s alt, and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains. Fill each muffin liner to about 3/4 full. Top each cake with about 1 1/2 teaspoons Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the Nutella. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.



I didn't swirl as much as I should have...the Nutella didn't make it to the lower part of the cupcakes. Sad face. The batter was super thick and dense...and it was a bit difficult to get into the muffin tins. These do taste pretty good...but I think I would rather use a different cupcake recipe and then swirl in some Nutella and skip frosting next time. Eh. They were a good experiment though. :)

popovers!

Popovers
(from BLT steakhouse recipe card)

Ingredients
4 cups milk, warmed
8 eggs
4 cups flour
1 1/2 heaping tablespoons salt
2 1/2 cups grated gruyere cheese

Place the popover pan in the oven. Heat the oven and pan to 350 degrees F. Gently warm the milk over low heat and set aside. Whisk the eggs until frothy and slowly whisk in the milk (so as to not cook the eggs). Set the mixture aside. Sift the flour with the salt. Slowly add this dry mixture and gently combine until mostly smooth.

Once combined, remove the popover pan from the oven and spray with nonstick vegetable spray. While the batter is still warm or room temperature (definitely not cool), fill each popover cup 3/4 full. Top each popover with 2 1/2 tablespoons of the grated gruyere.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 50 minutes, rotating pan half a turn after 15 minutes of baking. Remove from the oven, remove from the pan, and serve immediately.



First off, I don't have a popover pan. Nor did I have gruyere cheese. So I substituted a muffin pan and parmesan cheese. And only made half the recipe. This produced 18 muffin sized popovers. While they were good, I think that next time instead of filling the muffin tins 3/4 full, I'll try 1/2 full because there's a layer in there that was a bit mushy, instead of airy and light...and I'm pretty sure it's because the popovers couldn't rise as much as they wanted to in a muffin pan. I don't quite remember how long they were in the oven, but it was definitely less than 50 minutes, and I took them out when they were a nice, toasty, golden brown. :)

Overall, they were pretty good, and I'd make them again. Maybe a smaller recipe...and definitely less batter in each muffin hole.

Chewy Cocoa Brownies

Chewy Cocoa Brownies
(From grouprecipies.com, link here.)

Ingredients
1 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted
2 tablespoons water
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups AP flour
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9x13 inch baking pan. Combine sugar, butter, and water in a large bowl. Stir in eggs and vanilla extract. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl; stir into sugar mixture. Stir in nuts (if you want). Spread into baking pan. Bake for 18-25 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out slightly sticky.

A. and I are on a hunt for a chewy brownie recipe...and so I googled for a recipe that I could use, hoping to compare the two. However, even though I got the recipe from a completely different place, they were exactly the same. BOO.

This didn't come out exactly as I had hoped...while they are slightly chewy, it wasn't quite the texture I was going for. Maybe I need to google fudgy instead of chewy...I am looking for a recipe that produces brownies like the ones from the Ghirardelli box mix. Too bad I didn't think of that before...because a recipe is here. I would need more ingredients than what I had, but maybe it is worth a shot. Without the nuts.

No picture this time. They just look like brownies.

Manju

This entry should be samuraisna and mommy bake, instead of samuraisna bakes. :)

Yaki Manju
(From Women of Nu`uanu Centennial Cookbook Itadakimasu)

2 1/2 cups AP flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup oil
6 tablespoons cold water
1 cup tsubushian
evaporated milk/egg yolk

Combine flour, sugar, and salt. Blend thoroughly. Add oil and water; mix well. Shape dough into small balls. Flatten dough to make circles. Place tsubushian in each circle and pinch edges together to seal. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Brush top of manju with evaporated milk or egg yolk. Bake at 400 degrees F for 30-35 minutes.



We didn't use the tsubushian. Instead, mom made a filling with okinawan sweet potato because we had a lot of it in the house. Recipe for filling as follows:

Okinawan Sweet Potato Filling

1 block butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups okinawan sweet potato, cooked and mashed
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 teaspoon salt

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix. Gradually mix in mashed sweet potatoes. Add evaporated milk, vanilla, and salt. Mix well.

Mom didn't add all the evaporated milk because this recipe is actually for a dessert filling. Leaving out some liquid allowed us to form the filling into balls to put into the crust.



Also, when making the crust, we used two small balls for each manju...one for the top and one for the bottom. Make sure you seal them well, or they will open up in the oven.



I had some dough left over when we were out of filling, so I made some square ones with blueberry preserves in them. :)

Buttermilk Biscuits

Buttermilk Biscuits
(From Epicurious)

3 cups AP flour
2 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda in large bowl to blend. Using fingertips, rub 3/4 cup chilled butter into dry ingredients until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add buttermilk and stir until evenly moistened. Using 1/4 cup dough for each biscuit, drop biscuits onto baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake until biscuits are golden brown on top, about 15 minutes.



I used dry buttermilk instead of regular because we don't keep buttermilk in the house on a regular basis. I picked this recipe because it doesn't use lard...as we don't keep that in the house on a regular basis, like the buttermilk. And hey, a lack of lard might mean a slightly healthier biscuit, right? heh...

I like biscuits. A lot, actually...though I'm not completely sure why. :) And I need to learn to take better pictures.

Oatmeal Cookies

Oatmeal Cookies
(From the back of a Coach's Oats bag)

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 3/4 cup AP flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 cups Coach's Oats
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, cream together the sugars and butter. Mix in the eggs one at a time. Mix in vanilla. Add combined baking powder, baking soda, flour, salt, and cinnamon. Mix well. Stir in oats and raisins. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until edges are golden. Cool cookies on a wire rack.



I have to say that I totally messed up this one. First of all, I put 2 tablespoons of vanilla into the batter, not 2 teaspoons. I don't know what I was thinking...what kind of recipe has two tablespoons of vanilla? Gah. Then I left the first batch in the oven for too long...and they burned. And stuck to the cookie sheets. It says ungreased...but grease your cookie sheets. I lucked out though...my mom helped me scrub them. The next batch that I put in came out a lot better. These cookies spread out a lot in the oven, so leave some space. They are okay...slightly chewy...but very oatmeal-y. Coach's Oats are kind of intense and not like Quaker Oats at all...and that might have been it. I think I am on a lookout for a new recipe though (maybe Quaker Oats next time?). And if I do make these again, I need to add more raisins.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Old Fashioned Peanut Butter Cookies
(From A Taste of HECO)

1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 cups peanut butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugars together. Add peanut butter and mix until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift remaining ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Form into balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 15 minutes.



I have made these cookies before and my family has decided that we really like this recipe. Last time I added some semi sweet chocolate chips to half, and that came out okay. This time I didn't. These cookies are very peanut buttery, so if you don't like peanut butter this recipe isn't for you. Also, the recipe makes a crapload of cookies....so make sure you either adjust for quantity of have lots of friends to share with! :) I learned that I should always grease my cookie sheets though, so I just spray them with some PAM. It's more for my peace of mind and knowing that I won't have to vigorously scrub my cookie sheets to get all remaining cookie bits off of them when I am cleaning up than it is necessary.

baking!

Starting a baking blog. I have been baking lately...and haven't been keeping track of anything. So...here it is. :)