Happy Graduation!

Many months after we started this blog, we finally braved the incredibly long 20 minute drive to each other’s house to bake together. We’ve both recently finished our undergrad degrees and tomorrow is our graduation. As always, baking is an appropriate way to mark this occasion.

Red Velvet cupcakes are really popular right now (we’re still trying to figure out why), so we thought we would bake them and add a little graduation cap on top for some extra excitement! This recipe is from Paula Deen, and is different from the Red Velvet cake recipe that we posted a few weeks ago. The cupcake itself is less chocolatey, but extremely fluffy!

To make the graduation caps, we bought peanut butter cups for the base, and glued chocolate squares on top using Nutella. We then piped on frosting for the tassels.

We thought we should experiment with the frosting and tried a vanilla frosting recipe from The Pioneer Woman. It tasted wonderful, but personally, we would not make it again, purely because of the runny texture.

We’re going to experience many changes in the near future, and it’s going to be exciting! If any of you are graduating this year, congratulations and good luck!

Thanks for celebrating with us, and see you soon!

-S & G

 

Paula Deen’s Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

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Yields: 12 cupcakes

Adapted Slightly From: http://www.pauladeen.com/recipes/view2/red_velvet_cupcakes_with_cream_cheese_frosting/

Cupcake Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder
3/4 cups vegetable oil
3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp red food coloring (Wilton Gel colour)
1/2 teaspoon white distilled vinegar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Cupcakes: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line (12-cup) muffin pan with cupcake papers.

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cocoa powder. In a large bowl gently beat together the oil, buttermilk, eggs, food coloring, vinegar, and vanilla with a handheld electric mixer. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the wet and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined.

Divide the batter evenly among the cupcake tins about 2/3 filled. Bake in oven for about 20 to 22 minutes, turning the pans once, half way through. Test the cupcakes with a toothpick for doneness. Remove from oven and cool completely before frosting.

 

Vanilla Frosting

From:
http://tastykitchen.com/recipes/desserts/thate28099s-the-best-frosting-ie28099ve-ever-had/

Frosts more than 24 cupcakes

 

• 5 Tablespoons Flour
• 1 cup Milk
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla
• 1 cup Butter
• 1 cup Granulated Sugar (not Powdered Sugar!)

 

• Bake your favorite chocolate cake and let it cool.
• In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (If I’m in a hurry, I place the saucepan over ice in the sink for about 10 minutes or so until the mixture cools.) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.
• While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

 

Caramelized Banana Bread with Cinnamon Swirl

Free time is such a beautiful thing! All of a sudden, napping after lunch, watching movies at all hours of the day, and having unscheduled hangouts with friends have become daily activities rather than something I dream about during lectures. You would think that with all this time on my hands, I would be baking up a storm, but clearly that hasn’t been happening. We went on a cruise recently, and in order to offset the gluttonous dessert consumption during our vacation, I have avoided baking at all costs. Alas, the allure of combining simple ingredients into a sweet masterpiece is too strong to resist!

In order to feed my need to bake, I made an extra special banana bread. We do already have a classic banana bread recipe on the blog, but this one is a little more amped up. There’s a boost of flavour from the caramelized bananas and cinnamon swirl-this is no plain jane banana bread!

This recipe has been adapted from a blog called Some Kitchen Stories, which has great recipes, all accompanied by beautiful photographs.

Caramelizing the bananas in sugar and butter adds an extra depth of flavour; this essentially applies to any fruit that you cook over heat. As the sugars cook, their flavour develops, and becomes more intense. At this point, you know how I feel about cinnamon, so do I really need to justify the cinnamon sugar swirl? If you look carefully, you can see that I also sprinkled some white sanding sugar on top, for some sparkle!

Eat a warm slice with Nutella or peanut buttah-your tummy will thank you.

Bake some today!

It was great to see you today, come back soon!

-G

Caramelized Banana Bread with Cinnamon Swirl

Adapted From: 
http://somekitchenstories.com/2012/09/26/caramelized-banana-bread-with-browned-butter-glaze/

Makes one 9×5” loaf pan

INGREDIENTS

4 TBSPs of butter, softened and divided
3/4 Cup of packed dark brown sugar
3 Medium-sized, ripe bananas, sliced
1/2 Cup of buttermilk
3 TBSPs of oil

1 tsp vanilla
2 Large eggs
2 cups AP flour (whole wheat or white)
3/4 Teaspoon of baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon of salt

1 tbsp sanding sugar (optional)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 ½ tsp Ground Cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

Make bread:

1. Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.

3. Add brown sugar and bananas; sauté 4 minutes, stirring occasionally.

4. Remove from heat; cool 10 minutes.

5. Place banana mixture in a large bowl.

6. Beat with a mixer at medium speed until smooth.

7. Combine buttermilk and next 3 ingredients (through eggs).

8. Spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and salt.

9. Mix wet and dry ingredients

10. Scrape 1/3 batter into a 9 x 5-inch metal loaf pan coated with butter and flour.

11. Combine cinnamon and white sugar.

12. Add about half of cinnamon sugar, layer another third of batter, followed by remaining cinnamon sugar and batter. Sprinkle top with sanding sugar.

13. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out with moist crumbs clinging.

14. Cool for 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack.

15. Remove bread from pan, and cool on wire rack.

Red Velvet Cake with White Chocolate Buttercream

I bake for the people I care about, because I want to show them how much they mean to me. This time I baked for M’s birthday celebration- M is my lab colleague/friend/partner in crime. Because she is the epitome of sweetness, I thought a Red Velvet Cake frosted with White Chocolate Buttercream would be perfect!

I know that Red Velvet Cake is a controversial topic-you either love it or you hate it, and I used to be a hater, but no longer! My Dad said this cake was “awesome”, and I had to agree, this is the most flavourful cake I’ve ever made. It was sweet, and scrumptious, and the colour was just stunning.

The white chocolate buttercream is a true buttercream, as it is essentially a combination of icing sugar, butter, and cream, with some melted white chocolate drizzled in. To get the perfect pink, I used Wilton Rose gel colour, and for the purple, I mixed the rose gel with Wilton Royal Blue gel colour.

Recently, I found this super cool and simple new frosting technique, in which you layer different colours to make a water colour-type effect. Here’s the link to the video:
http://sweetapolita.com/2012/06/pastel-swirl-cake-video-tutorial/
. The look is freeform and rustic; ie. it’s hard to mess up. I then piped a border of blossoms on the top of the cake with a 4B tip.

You all know how I feel about sparkles, so used a cookie cutter to make a heart out of pink sanding sugar.

If you are going to try one recipe from this entire blog, I think this should be it! You will be ecstatic with the result!

Thanks to V for the beautiful pics!

Thanks for coming by, and see you soon!

-G

Red Velvet Cake

Cake recipe by Divas Can Cook.

Ingredients for the cake layers:

2 c. plain flour
1 tsp. of baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsps. unsweetened cocoa powder
2 c. sugar
1 c. vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 c. buttermilk
2 tsps. vanilla extract
1-2 oz. red food colouring (I used 2 1/4 tsp. of gel food colouring)
1 tsp. distilled white vinegar
1/2 c. of prepared plain hot coffee (don’t skip this ingredient)

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 325° F/ 170° C.

Grease and flour two 9″ cake pans. I lined the pans with baking paper. Since it is a moist cake, it sticks a bit so prepare the pans well.

In a mixing bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cocoa powder and salt.

Mix the sugar and vegetable oil in another bowl. If using gel food colouring, add it in at this stage. You might want to temper the colour (mine’s too red, I think). Add in the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla and food colouring. Stir before adding the coffee and vinegar. Blend everything together.

Use a large mixing bowl to combine all the ingredients together. Put about a quarter of the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients gradually, alternating with the dry ingredients, mixing after each addition just until combined. The batter will quite liquid.

Divide the mixture equally between the two prepared pans.

Bake for 30-40 minutes or when a cake tester comes out clean. Do not over bake.

Invert on cooling racks. When the pans are just warm, run a knife around the edges to loosen the cakes. Invert onto the cooling racks, peel the lining paper off and leave to cool completely.

Whipped White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Adapted from:
http://comfortablydomestic.com

Frosts 9” 2 layer cake

1 C. unsalted butter, softened

3-3 ½ C. powdered sugar (or more, depending on desired consistency)

Pinch of salt

6 oz. good quality white chocolate, chopped (NOT white chocolate chips or candy melts!)

1/2 C. heavy whipping cream

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Put the chopped white chocolate into a small bowl. Heat the chocolate in 30 second increments in the microwave set to 60% power. Stir after each increment, and continue to heat 30 seconds at a time, until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Set aside and allow to completely cool.
2. Once white chocolate has cooled, sift the salt and powdered sugar over the butter, in a large bowl. Cream the butter and sugar mixture together until light and fluffy, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed.
3. Measure the whipping cream into a cup, and stir in the vanilla extract.
4. With the mixer running on low speed, gradually pour the cream mixture the bowl.
5. Once the cream mixture has been incorporated into the frosting, fold on the melted (but cooled) white chocolate until incorporated.
6. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high, and beat frosting for an additional 3 minutes.
7. Makes enough to generously frost a 9’’ two layer cake.

More Brownies!

Can we have a little celebration right now, please? S and I have officially crossed the finish line of our four year marathon-I’m talking about undergrad! Everything is submitted: exams, posters, theses, and assignments are done done done! What’s that? There’s more school coming up soon?? That’s alright, let’s pretend that’s not true, have a brownie, and then take a loooooong nap!

I made Peanut Butter White Chocolate Brownies-come on now, just judging by the name, you know it will make you giddy with joy! The peanut butter and chocolate combination is a classic, but when you add mini white chocolate chips, vanilla ice cream, and a warm caramel sauce, it becomes a magical experience. 

The brownie recipe and overall inspiration is from a blog called Culinary Concoctions by Peabody, and the caramel sauce is modified from Smitten Kitchen’s Salted Caramel, which I had made for the Caramel Brownies a few weeks ago.

This dessert was the perfect reward for getting through the ordeal that is exam season! Now that this time in our lives is coming to an end, moving on to the next chapter is both scary and exciting. New adventures, new places, new people!

Just to let you know, there won’t be a post next week, but we will be back in two weeks. Don’t be too devastated!

Thanks to V for the stunning photos!

Have a wonderful week, and see you soon!

-G

 

Chocolate-Peanut Butter Peanut Brownies

http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2009/10/03/hello-canada-and-hockey-fans/

4-5 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped finely
¾ cup unsalted butter
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar, lightly packed
½ cup peanut butter
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsalted peanuts, coarsely chopped or white chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350F.

Spray a 9-x-13-inch pan with baking spray, or butter and flour it.

Using a double boiler, melt together the unsweetened chocolate and butter. When both are melted, remove from boiler and whisk together to blend chocolate and butter fully. Whisk in brown sugar and peanut butter until fully incorporated. Set aside.

Using a stand mixer (or a large bowl and an electric hand mixer) with the whisk attachment on medium speed, whisk together the eggs and granulated sugar until eggs become pale in color, about 2 minutes.

Add the vanilla and beat for another 30 seconds.

With mixer turned off, pour chocolate/peanut butter mixture into the mixing bowl. Mix together on medium speed until chocolate/peanut butter mixture and egg mixture are fully incorporated.

Remove bowl from mixer. Add flour and stir using a wooden spoon. You could keep it in the mixer, but I find if you do this step by hand you tend not to over mix. You want to make sure the flour is fully incorporated but not over mixed. Fold in chopped peanuts if using.

Pour into prepared 9-x-13-inch pan and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a wooden skewer or sharp knife comes out with a few fudgy crumbles stuck to it.

Caramel Sauce

Modified from Smitten Kitchen

1/2 cup granulated sugar
4-6 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/3 cup heavy cream

In a medium, dry saucepan over medium-high heat, melt your sugar; this will take about 5 minutes, stirring if necessary to break up large chunks. By the time it is all melted, if should be a nice copper color; if not, cook until it is. Remove from heat and stir in butter. It may not incorporate entirely but do your best. Stir in cream and salt and return saucepan to the stove over medium-high heat, bringing it back to a simmer and melted again any sugar that solidified. Cook bubbling caramel for a few minutes more, until it is a shade darker.

Strawberry Crisp

Hey there! It’s finally getting warmer outside and with the warm weather comes all the wonderful berries, perfect for baking. This week I had some strawberries (from Costco, these things are seriously on steroids of some sort) and decided to bake a quick crisp. This probably took 5 minutes to put together, 45 minutes in the oven, and that’s it. So, here’s all you need to do.

Half a cup of oats, brown sugar, and flour. Mix with a quarter cup of butter or margarine. Put half of this mixture into your pan (no idea why I used a pie pan, it seemed like a reasonable size).

Coat your berries in sugar. This much was probably excessive… but hey, it accidentally (?) slipped out.

Top with the remaining flour, oats, brown sugar mixture.

Bake at 350F for 45 minutes.

And enjoy its simple beauty This would have been much much better with some vanilla ice cream, but I didn’t have any at home. Oh well, next time.

Hope you are doing wonderfully! Enjoy the spring weather (if it’s nice wherever you are).

- S