Mango pudding

Spring has come and time to have some cold dessert that keeps me cool. I fancy some mango puddings with some fresh and sweet mangoes. Can't believe it's actually super easy and quick to make but I have never done it before.

The mango puddings are so yummy and keep me cool and calm. Definitely gonna make it again and again in summer. I love to eat it with lots of evaporated milk and top up with some extra fresh mango. Snowy loves mango too, but he can only eat little bit of mango and not the pudding.

Serves 3 cups

Ingredients 

Mango jelly powder 1 box
1 egg
Hot water 300ml
Full cream evaporated milk 1/3 can, 100g
2 fresh mangoes, diced

Directions

1. Add egg into jelly powder and whisk to mix
2. Pour hot water into the jelly mixture while whisking quickly to avoid curdling
3. Pour in the evaporated milk and mix well
4. Put the diced mango in the mixture
5. Pour the mixture into glass and keep in fridge to chill

Chocolate cheesecake cupcakes

Filling:

225g 70% semisweet chocolate, melted
225g cream cheese at room temperature
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/3 heavy cream
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt

Ganache:

1/4 cup cream
110g semisweet chocolate


Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 175C
2. Stir chocolate in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove bowl from over water. Cool chocolate until lukewarm but still pourable.
3. Blend cream cheese, sugar, salt and cocoa powder in processor until smooth.
4. Blend in eggs 1 at a time, then heavy cream, and finally chocolate. Blend until smooth.
5. Pour filling onto biscuit base and bake for 20mins or until set.
6. Spread chocolate ganache on top and done.

Strawberry cheesecake cupcakes

I haven't been baking for 5 whole months since I adopted a dog, Snowy. I decided to start baking again in 2014! My first bake in 2014 was chocolate cupcakes and hubby totally missed and loved them. He requested to bake it again but I feel like baking cheesecakes which are yummy and super easy.

This time I tried to bake strawberry cheesecake cupcakes. The recipe is basically the same as normal cheesecake except that I used Philadelphia strawberry cream cheese instead of normal cream cheese. It tasted so yummy and strawberry-ish. Love it!

The cheesecakes are very creamy and luscious but I found them a bit too soft for appearance. Maybe I should add less hot water in the water bath to avoid too much moisture.

Snowy always suffer when I bake coz the house smells so good but he can't have any human cakes with the butter, cream and sugar in it. I want to bake some dog cheesecake but I can't find any recipes I like. Snowy wanted some cheesecakes so badly.

Vanilla panna cotta

I fancy making a dessert on a Sunday afternoon but don't want to go through too much troubles. What could be more perfect than a panna cotta with strawberry coulis on a boiling hot summer day? First time for me to make panna cotta. It's surprisingly easy and even simpler than creme brulee! It was fun to play with the leaf gelatine though I may have soak them for too long and they turned jelly in the bowl.

The panna cotta was so wobbly and creamy! I'm very happy with it. Next time I want to make a chocolate panna cotta.

Black sesame macarons with chocolate ganache

Today I continue my experiment on making macarons. Since I have a pack of black sesame seeds that will go off soon, I decided to make some black sesame macs. I actually love the aroma of black sesame a lot. Without any black sesame powder, I had to ground it myself with food processor. I knew it would be a problem coz even after processing it for 5 mins, the sesame seeds just wouldn't turn into very fine powder. That affected the smoothness of the shells.

Another problem is the color of the shells again. I just couldn't get it cooked perfectly without slightly browning them. So instead of grey color, they kind of became brownish for my first batch at 160C for 12mins. I turned down the temperature to 140C and baked for 16mins for my second batch and even kept a wooden spatula on the oven door to release some heat. However, they just didn't cook through and crisp up like the first batch. 

Unfortunately, the macs had the same problem as my second attempt with strawberry macarons. The shells were sloped so the feet got ugly. I checked the macaron book that it was due to uneven oven heat. But I didn't have this problem with my very first attempt on chocolate macarons!!

Even with all these problems, the macs tasted wonderful with the lovely aroma of black sesame and tasted yum with obvious sesame flavor in it. I just used the leftover chocolate ganache as filling, which always tastes good with any flavor of macaron shells :)

The batter looked beautiful in grey but when they are baked, they aren't so grey anymore!

Make 9 macarons

Ingredients

1/2 cup icing sugar (64g)

48g almond flour

16g finely ground black sesame

3tbsp egg white

pinch of salt

25g granulated sugar

Adapted from black sesame macarons

Strawberry macarons with strawberry cream cheese filling

My first chocolate macarons was so yummy! I'm tempted to make some strawberry macs today. The recipe for the meringue is the same, and I just added some strawberry powder to the dry ingredients. However something went wrong in the process and it became a total disaster!

The first batch with 9 mins was burnt! Tried to bake the second batch with shorter time. It wasn't fully done yet but the shell was already turning brown on 6mins, so I immediately took them out. Tried the third batch and it was even worse. The feet is spilling everywhere. I was staring at the oven when that happened and it was painful to watch! I think one of the problems is the uneven heat inside the oven because of the baking tray I used. I think it would be much better with a silicon mat. 

Now I know why people say macaron is very troublesome. Any minor variable will affect the outcome. Luckily a few macarons managed to survive so I can still enjoy the fruits of my labor. Love the strawberry cream cheese filling, though the shells were more chewy than crispy. I suggest to pipe the filling only when serve to avoid the shells getting soggy with the moisture of the cream and strawberries.

Make 18 macarons

Ingredients

Macaron shell

83g almond flour

83g icing sugar

10g strawberry powder

75g granulated sugar

60g egg white

1/4tsp cream of tartar

Strawberry cream cheese filling

100g strawberry cream cheese

3 tbsp quality strawberry jam

4 strawberries hulled and diced

Directions

Same as the recipe of chocolate macarons

except that bake for 8mins at 160C. Mix the cream cheese, jam and strawberries to make the filling. Put the filling on macarons before served.

Chocolate macarons with ganache filling

I love macarons! They are so cute and elegant at the same time. Baking macarons is rather simple yet quite technical. After baking so many cupcakes, it's time to learn something new. Since I have leftover egg whites from making creme brulee, I decided to try to make macarons today.

I have heard that it's very difficult to get the perfect texture for the macaron shells. I was staring at the oven while it's baking to see if the feet rise. That moment was magical when I saw them rising. The shells were so crunchy and slightly chewy when you bite into it. I was surprised how perfect it turned out on my first attempt! It made me so happy. They tasted so yum and I had to stop myself from eating all of them so I can give some to my friends.

Makes 34 macarons (17 one inch sandwiched macarons)

Ingredients

Macaron shells

73g almond flour

73g icing sugar

13 unsweetened cocoa powder

75g granulated sugar

60g egg white (aged egg white is better)

1/4tsp cream of tartar

Chocolate ganache filling

1/2 semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/4 whipping cream

Directions

1. Mix almond flour, icing sugar and cocoa powder, then sift it.
2. Whisk half the granulated sugar and cream of tartar with egg white for about 5 mins or until sniff peak. merigine
3. Use spatula to quickly fold the sifted ingredients into the meringue until the batter drops off the spatula when it holds up.
4. Let the batter sit for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 105C.
5. Spoon the batter in a pipping bag fitted with a 1/2 inch round tip. Pipe the batter on baking paper with 1 inch away from each other. Slam the tray to remove excess air.
6. Bake for 15mins at 105C to dry out the shells. Then turn up the temperature to 175C and bake for an additional 10mins.
7. Put the baking paper with macarons on cooling rack when it's done baking to cool down completely.
8. Put the cream and chocolate chips in a bowl on top of simmering hot water to melt for the ganache filling.
9. Cool down the ganache filling and put it on one macaron, then assemble with another macaron.

Crème brûlée

One of my new year's resolution for 2013 is to learn one new dessert recipe a month but I haven't baked once since I was back from Italy in Jan! Baking is not only time consuming, it can be very frustrating too if you fail after putting so much effort in it. So the first dessert I make this year is the simplest dessert, creme brulee.




All you need is 4 ingredients and half an hour baking time. I was very excited when I saw the beautiful egg yolks and smell the fragrance of vanilla and cream while heating. But when I opened the oven after the cooking time, my heart sank coz the egg custard looked like the surface of the moon, rugged and ugly! I think I probably put too much water into the pan, or used slow bake mode instead of convection mode or overcook it slightly although the recipe says 40mins and I only baked for 30mins. I was upset until I tried a spoonful of it. Yum!! It tasted exactly like how it should be. So that wasn't a total failure.

Serves 6

Ingredients
600ml thickened/whipping cream
1 vanilla bean, split, seeds scrapped or 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
6 egg yolks (I checked other recipes, looks like 4 yolks is also ok)
1/4 cup caster sugar
120g demerara sugar or white sugar if you don't have any

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 120C and boil some water for the deep roasting pan.
2. Place the cream, vanilla extract over small heat and bring to scalding point, then remove from heat.
3. Whisk together egg yolks and caster sugar in a bowl for 2-3 mins or until pale yellow.
4. Pour hot cream over egg yolk mixture, continuing to whisk until well combined. Strain mixture into a jug, evenly divide between 6 ramekins.
5. Place ramekins in the pan. Pour boiling water into pan to come halfway up the sides of ramekins. Cover pan loosely with foil.
6. Bake in the oven for 30mins or until the custard has just set. Remove ramekins from the water bath, and set aside to cool on a rack. Put it in the fridge for 4 hrs to cool and set.
7. Before serve, sprinkle demerara sugar evenly over the surface of the baked custards. Run a blowtorch over the custards, or place under a preheated grill until the sugar bubbles and caramelises.

Source: http://www.masterchef.com.au/recipes/crme-brulee.htm

James Bond cupcakes

Normally I make plans for baking cupcakes at least a few days ahead so I can think about the recipe and decoration. But today I just suddenly wanted to bake some coffee cupcakes. I also wanted to bake some James Bond themed cupcakes for our movie night with friends watching Skyfall. I was wondering how to combine coffee cupcakes with James Bond. Then an idea just popped up. I created the stencil by printing out some bond images on card then used a cutter pen to cut out the parts I wanted to display on the cupcakes. The lines are very fine so it was quite difficult to cut. I was worrying it might not work after all these efforts but OMG! It worked just as what I expected. I just put the stencil on top of the icing, then sprinkled some cocoa powder. When the stencil was removed, Bond was on the cakes haha.

It was a bit messy and ugly with cocoa powder everywhere but I thought the cupcakes looked quite cool.

The cake toppers even have Bond's catch phrase printed :) We ate the cupcakes while watching Skyfall. The movie was just awesome! I know hubby must be secretly hoping he is Bond haha.

Mocha cupcakes with espresso buttercream frosting. I only made half a dozen with Bond and the rest piped with frosting. I think this is the best frosting I've ever done. Consistency was perfect to pipe, firm enough to stand but also soft enough to eat. The cupcakes were quite soft and moist. You can definitely taste coffee in the cupcakes. 

Mocha Cupcakes

Yield: 12 cupcakes (I got 12 overflowing cupcakes and some extra batter for one more)

1-1/3 all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup whole milk
½ cup strong brewed coffee (I just bought a cup of brewed coffee at Starbucks)
1½ teaspoons espresso powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
120g unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup light brown sugar
1 egg, at room temperature

1. Mix the espresso powder into the brewed coffee until dissolved; set aside to cool to room temperature.

2. Preheat the oven to 180C. Line a standard-size muffin tin with paper liners.

3. Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

4. Beat the butter and both sugars together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add the egg and beat until combined. In a measuring cup, combine the milk, brewed coffee mixture and vanilla. Slowly add the flour mixture, alternating with the coffee mixture, ending with the flour mixture.

5. Divide the batter evenly between the 12 liners. Baking for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting cupcakes.

Espresso Buttercream Frosting

Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes

200g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
1½ teaspoons espresso powder

1. Mix the espresso powder into the vanilla until dissolved; set aside.

2. Using the whisk attachment of a stand mixer, whip the butter on medium-high speed for 5 minutes, stopping once to scrape the sides of the bowl. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the powdered sugar a little at a time, waiting until it is mostly incorporated before adding more. Once all of the powdered sugar has been added, scrape the sides of the bowl and increase the speed to medium-high and whip until fluffy, about a minute or two. Add the espresso and vanilla mixture and continue to mix at medium-high until it is completely incorporated, scraping the sides as necessary.

*Note: To make the swirls on the cupcakes, I used a 1M decorating tip.

Recipe adapted from http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2010/08/13/mocha-cupcakes-with-espresso-buttercream-frosting/

Dexter cupcakes

I normally like to make beautiful looking cupcakes but for Halloween, I want to make them look a bit spooky and creepy. As a big fan of Dexter, it comes naturally that my halloween cupcakes have to be Dexter themed. His collection of blood slides inspire me to make cupcakes with broken glass and blood. Of course they are both edible haha. For broken glass, I used sugar and corn syrup to make some sugar glass. For blood, I made some raspberry coulis and added a tiny bit of cocoa powder to make it more real. The tartness of raspberry is great to cut the sweetness of the white chocolate. To make the cupcakes more halloweeny, I designed some pumkin cupcake wrappers and bat shaped cards to put on the cuppies.

So many disasters happened to my halloween cupcakes. First, I went to two different supermarkets to buy raspberries but they don't have it. I had to go all the way to Harbour City to get them. Fine.
Second disaster was melting the white chocolate. I read a few recipes but one recipe just said melt the white chocolate without adding any cream in it. It seized and looked gross. I tried to save it by adding some cream in it. Not working. I put it in microwave hoping to melt it and of course it failed brutally. It's actually funny coz the white chocolate turned so hard that I couldn't even scrap it out of the bowl so I had to discard the white chocolate with the bowl!! I melted a new batch with hot cream and it turned out fine. Then the next disaster was I happened to set aside 1/4 cup of cream for melting the white chocolate but I didn't use it for my first batch. So I thought it was the melted white chocolate and accidentally poured it all in the cream cheese batter... The batter turned out very runny... I quickly improvised and added 1 more tablespoon of flour hoping to make it set a bit. The cheesecakes actually turned out ok. Thank god!

Here comes the worst nightmare. I was petrified of getting burned while I cooked the sugar coz it has to reach a temperature of 150C!! haha I even wore long sleeves and gloves to avoid getting burned. Fortunately I didn't get burned. The sugar cooked fine until it got to 140C. It started to caramelize and got brown. But it hasn't got to the target temperature yet and it was only 35mins after cooking so I let it cook a bit more. When it got close to 148C, I turned off the fire and added some blue coloring. I added way too much and the sugar turned really dark! My heart just sank. But I'm very happy that I tried something new and hopefully next year I will get it perfect.

This is what I hoped to achieve.

And this is what it turned out ... brown glass!! But oh well, halloween is supposed to be bloody and ugly.

Some pretty ones with raspberry swirls.

Dexter cupcakes for our halloween party. This year I'm dressing up as Lady Gaga. haha

Yield 16 cupcakes

Ingredients
For the crust
10 chocolate digestive biscuits
40g unsalted butter, melted

For the filling
450g cream cheese
1 tbsp all-purpose flour, sieved
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream

Sugar glass
2 cups water
1 cups corn syrup
3 1/2 cups white sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Raspberry coulis (yield 1 cup)
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp water
1 box fresh raspberries
1/2 tbsp lemon juice

Directions

For raspberry coulis

1. Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat, stirring from time to time, until the sugar dissolves completely, about 5 mins.
2. Put the raspberries, lemon juice and sugar syrup in a blender and puree.
3. Strain through a fine mesh sieve to remove the seeds.
4. Transfer bowl of puree to fridge and let it cool.

For cheesecake

1. Preheat the oven to 160C. Line cupcake pan with paper liners.
2. Crush the digestive biscuits in a food processor (or put in a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin). In a small bowl, combine the crumbs and melted butter. Stir together with a fork until well blended and all the dry ingredients are moistened. Put 1 1/2 tbsp of the mixture into the bottom of each cupcake liner and evenly press the crumbs down by the bottom of a glass. Chill and let it set.
3. Melt the white chocolate and cream in a small bowl over simmering water. Set aside to cool slightly.
4. To make the cheesecake, beat the cream cheese on low speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy. Blend in sugar, flour and vanilla until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each one. Beat in the melted chocolate.
5. Pour the batter over the crust. Add 3 drops of raspberry coulis on each cupcake and use a knife to swirl through batter to create marbled effect. 
6. Bake for about 20 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Transfer to refrigerator and let chill for at least 4 hours before serving.

For sugar glass

1. Mix water, corn syrup, sugar and cream of tartar in a pot and heat them slowly on low heat. If you heat it too rapidly, it will caramelize (become yellow & burnt). 
2. Use a candy thermometer to bring the mixture up to the hard crack stage, around 290-300 F, which should take at least an hour to reach. (optional: Mix in food coloring to create a stained-glass appearance.) If you don't have candy thermometer, you can use cold water method by dropping a spoon of syrup in cold water. It's done when the sugar forms brittle and crack if you try to mold it.
3. Cover the sheet pan with tin foil and spray it with non-stick cooking spray.
4. Pour the mixture into the pan quickly and evenly as it will start to set as soon as it is removed from the heat. Be careful and avoid being burned.
5. Shake the pan to get even coverage and to level the mixture. Wait an hour for the candy mixture to cool completely. Refrigerate the sugar glass until ready to use. Smash it to serve.

Cheesecake recipe barely adapted from raspberry swirl cheesecake cupcakes
Raspberry coulis recipe adapted from raspberry coulis

Lemon blueberry cheesecake cupcakes

I suddenly have a craving for lemon today so I decided to make some cheesecake cupcakes with them. Can't believe the first and the last time I made cheesecake was already 5 months ago! Since my first cheesecake didn't look that nice, I hoped they would turn out nicely this time after several months of baking practice.

I was so excited when I thought of using blueberry puree to make some beautiful dark purple marbling on the cheesecakes. But the puree was more like reddish brown color which was far from what I expected! I saw people's blueberry puree was quite purple. Wonder why mine wasn't purple at all. I tried to rectify it by adding some lilac food coloring and hopefully they would turn out beautifully like how I wanted but it still stayed ugly brownish. So instead of putting the puree on top of the cheesecakes, I just hide them sadly in the cream cheese batter. I would recommend to skip the blueberry puree step and just use fresh blueberries to garnish.

I should have filled the cupcake liners to almost full as I knew cheesecakes won't rise much but the recipe said fill it to 3/4 full. That makes my cupcakes look so small. I filled the second batch to almost full and baked for 20 minutes. They came out a bit too soft. Need to bake for probably 3 more minutes with more batter in it.

Apart from all those negatives, the cheesecakes this time do not break or sink and are much smoother and creamier compared to my first attempt. I'm not sure whether it's because I beat the batter as little as possible, added cream in the batter, hit the cupcake pan hard on table to get rid of extra air bubbles, use a hot water bath to increase the moisture in the oven or a combination of all of the above. Overall, hubby and I loved the cakes very much. The clean lemony flavor was impeccable with the creamy cheesecakes!

Sharing with other lemon and cheesecake lovers.

Make 10 cupcakes

Ingredients

For the crust

7 digestive biscuits

30g unsalted butter, melted

1 tbsp sugar

For blueberry puree

100g blueberry

some extra blueberries for garnish

For filling

335g cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp finely grated lemon zest

1 tbsp lemon juice

12 lemon slices for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 160C. Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
2. Crush the digestive biscuits in a food processor (or put in a plastic bag and bash with a rolling pin). In a small bowl, combine the crumbs, melted butter and sugar. Stir together with a fork until well blended and all the dry ingredients are moistened. Put 1 1/2 tbsp of the mixture into the bottom of each cupcake liner and evenly press the crumbs down by the bottom of a glass. Bake until just set, 5 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack.
3. To make the blueberry puree, blend it in food processor and pour through fine mesh sieve.
4. To make the cheesecake, beat the cream cheese, heavy cream and sugar on low speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until fluffy (do not overbeat it).
5. Add the eggs, one at a time, followed by vanilla extract, lemon juice and lemon zest, mixing well after each addition.
6. Rap the mixer bowl hard on your counter to knock out the air bubbles trapped inside the filling.
7. Spoon the mixture over the crust bases to almost full. Dot a 1/2 tsp of the blueberry puree in a few dots over the cheesecake filling. Use a toothpick to lightly swirl and create marbling effect.
8. Put the cupcake pan in a hot water bath about halfway up (use a larger pan containing boiling water in which to place the smaller cupcake pan) and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Let cool for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack and let cool to room temperature. Transfer to refrigerator and let chill for at least 4 hours before serving.
10. Serve with lemon slice on top.

Recipe barely adapted from lemon cheesecake cupcakes

Tips of baking cheesecake to avoid cracking and sinking

http://www.dianasdesserts.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/bakingtips.cheesecakes/Cheesecakes.cfm

chocoholic pistachio cupcakes

These cupcakes are specially baked for my chocoholic friend, Momo's birthday. I originally planned to surprise her with my homemade chocolate cupcakes on her birthday dinner, but she must be reading my mind and asked me to make her cupcakes!! To make it super chocolatey, indulgent and delicious, I tried to use as much chocolate elements as possible in the recipe. So I come up with the idea of chocolate cakes x chocolate chips x chocolate ganache x chocolate fudge frosting x chocolate sprinkles and some pistachios to add texture and color. To avoid overly sweet, some of the cakes have chocolate ganache and the others have chocolate fudge icing. You can also have a little bit of both on the cakes.

To make her cupcakes look even prettier, I designed some personalized cupcake wrappers and lollipop sticks with her name on it.

Then I just found out it is also my other friend, Andy's birthday! So I made some extra lollipop sticks with his photos. This is the first time I baked two dozen cupcakes! But you can never have enough chocolate cupcakes haha.

Yield 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

Chocolate cupcakes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Van Houten cocoa powder)

• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 90g butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar, plus 2 tbsp
• 1 egg, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup milk, at room temperature
• 85g cream cheese, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp mini semisweet chocolate chips (I used Hershey's)

Chocolate ganache  

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

OR

Chocolate fudge frosting

100 g dark chocolate (70%)
150 g butter, softened
4/5 cup icing sugar, sifted
3 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Place rack at the bottom of oven and preheat to 180C. Line cupcake baking pan with 12 cupcake liners.
2. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt, set aside.
3. Using a mixer, cream the butter and 3/4 cup sugar until pale yellow, about 1 minute. Add the egg and stir until just combined. Gently add half of the flour mixture and stir until just incorporated. Mix in the milk. Add the remaining flour mixture and stir until combined. Set aside.
4. In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese, 2 tablespoons sugar, and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Fill prepared cupcake liners with enough chocolate batter to just cover the bottom. Add a dollop of the cream cheese filling to each, then top with remaining chocolate batter (cream cheese filling should not be visible).
6. Bake for 20minutes. Let cupcakes stand in the pan for 3 minutes and then remove and allow to cool completely on a rack.
7. For chocolate ganache, place a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water, and whisk together the chocolate and heavy cream. Continue whisking until chocolate is melted and the mixture is thick, about 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.
8. Dip each cupcake into the ganache, forming an even layer of frosting.
9. For chocolate fudge frosting, place a heat-proof bowl over a pot of simmering water to melt the chocolate and let it cool. In a separate bowl, beat the butter until light and creamy. Add the vanilla extract, icing sugar and cocoa powder and mix until smooth. Add the melted chocolate and beat until creamy. Pipe onto cupcakes.
10. Add chocolate sprinkles and chopped pistachios to decorate.

Chocolate cupcakes and ganache recipe from chocolate cream cheese cupcakes with ganache frosting
Chocolate fudge recipe from chai cupcakes

Bailey's Irish Cream cupcakes

Bailey's on the rocks is used to be one of my favorite drinks in the bar. Being a Bailey's lover, it makes me smile when I found this cupcake recipe.

I modified the recipe by substituting some all purpose flour with cake flour to hopefully get a lighter texture. Also, I couldn't find any baking powder so I used baking soda and added 2 parts of cream tartar with 1 part of baking soda. Some cakes turned out a bit ugly on the first batch but the second batch looked all fine. Wondering if it had anything to do with the chemical reaction with the leavening of the batter.

The cake definitely smells and tastes of baileys but the sweetness of the icing sugar was overpowering the baileys flavor. But with more icing sugar, the icing is a bit harder so it looks prettier after piping. Not sure how to get the perfect balance between presentation and taste. I added some pink coloring on the icing and not completely mixed it so the roses look more natural on the cuppies.

This one is just to practice piping one of my favorite piping styles.

Makes 12 cupcakes

For the Bailey's cupcakes
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup granulated sugar
85g butter, at room temperature
1 whole egg + 1 egg white, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup Bailey's Irish Cream

For the Bailey's buttercream
115g butter
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tbsp Bailey's Irish Cream

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 175C. Line muffin tins with 12 cupcake liners.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
3. In another bowl, use electric mixer to cream together sugar and butter until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
4. Add egg and egg white one at a time, beating on low between each addition. Add vanilla.
5. Add flour mixture slowly in 3 additions, alternating with Bailey's, starting and ending with flour.
6. Fill cupcake liners about 2/3 full and bake 15-17 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow to cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
7. For the frosting, beat butter in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time, until completely mixed. Add the Bailey's and beat until well combined.
8. Poke holes in the tops of the cupcakes and brush some Bailey's on each before frosting.
9. Load frosting into a piping bag and decorate as desired.

Adapted from http://www.ericasweettooth.com/2011/03/baileys-irish-cream-cupcakes.html#uds-search-results

Triple lemon cupcakes

I didn't realize my love for lemon until I started to learn cooking, specifically this dish chicken piccata. Lemon is so zesty, refreshing and tart that makes me think of a sunny breezy summer day, which unfortunately is not very common in Hong Kong. I asked hubby what cupcake he liked to try next and he said lemon cupcake. Cool! How come I never thought about it before? With autumn approaching real soon, I grab this chance to make these delicious lemon cupcakes with creamy lemon curd filling and pillowy lemon cream cheese frosting. 

First time I used a mix of plain flour and cake flour together. The cake came out much softer and fluffy, almost a bit too soft but it got denser after storing in fridge. For the lemon curd, it was very tangy and lemony but it was too thick and hard with the medium high heat cooking suggested in the recipe. Maybe I should try cooking it in a bowl on top of simmering water next time. Frosting is so velvety and smooth. The frosting didn't stand very well coz it was quite soft and the lemon zest blocked my nozzle when I piped. Overall, it was lovely and satisfied my crave for fresh lemony cake.

Make 12 cupcakes

Ingredients
For the cupcakes:
¾ cup all-purpose flour
¾ cup cake flour
1½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
115g unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp. lemon juice
½ cup plus 2 tbsp. milk, at room temperature

For the lemon curd filling:
4 egg yolks
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup sugar
70g unsalted butter, cold, cut into small pieces

For the frosting: (half of the recipe should be enough to pipe 12 cupcakes coz i had so much leftover)
8 oz. cream cheese
70g unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 tbsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
Zest of 1 large lemon
Additional fresh lemon slice, for garnish

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 175˚ C. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. 
2. In a medium bowl, sift the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking powder and salt; whisk together and set aside. 
3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the butter, sugar and lemon zest. Beat together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, blending well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and lemon juice.
4. With the mixer on low speed, mix in half of the dry ingredients just until incorporated. Blend in the milk. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients, beating just until incorporated.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the prepared liners, filling each about ¾ full. Bake 20-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in the pans 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. For the lemon curd, Combine everything but the butter in a sauce pan and whisk together. Cook over medium high heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, scraping the sides of the pan often until thick enough to coat the back of the spoon, about 8 - 10 minutes. 
7. Remove pan from heat and add butter, 1 piece at a time, stirring until incorporated. Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a bowl. Press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the lemon curd and cover with a lid. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before using.
8. To make the frosting, combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat on medium-high speed until well combined and smooth, about 2-3 minutes. 
9. Mix in the lemon juice and lemon zest. Gradually beat in the confectioners’ sugar until totally incorporated, increase the speed and then beat until smooth.
10. Frost cooled cupcakes as desired. Garnish with fresh lemon slices.

Cake and frosting recipe adapted from lemon blueberry cupcakes

Lemon curd recipe from martha stewart

Donna Hay's double chocolate cupcakes

This is bake for my friend, Ban's birthday. I'm very tempted to bake my favorite chocolate cupcake again but I decided to try Donna Hay's double chocolate cupcake recipe this time coz I like the way she cooks and who knows, maybe I will like this recipe even more?
The recipe is very easy to follow and perfect for novice baker like me coz it tells you exactly how long you have to whip the batter or buttercream for. I'm not sure whether it's because I sifted the flour, cocoa powder and baking powder two times, so the cake turned out too flaky and loose. So, I have to say I still prefer the other chocolate cupcake recipe I have. But I was so thrilled when I nailed the chocolate buttercream icing coz I had disasters when I tried to make icing before due to the wrong temperature of the butter. Blame the summer weather in Hong Kong! I used my new Wilton nozzle 1M to pipe this icing. It looks a bit different from what I expected but it still looks good.

The boys with the cupcakes haha

Make 15 cupcakes

Ingredients

125g salted butter, softened (oops I just used unsalted)

1 cup plain flour

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1.5tsp baking powder

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1tsp vanilla extract

150g dark chocolate, melted

Chocolate buttercream frosting

250g butter, softened

2 cups icing sugar, sifted

1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted

1/4 cup milk (I didn't use it all coz I want the icing to be less runny)

Directions

1. In a bowl, sift together plain flour, cocoa powder and baking powder
2. In another bowl, whisk together butter, sugar and vanilla extract for about 10-12 mins until pale and creamy. Add in eggs one at a time and beat until well combined.
3. Add in milk and flour mixture alternatively in 3 additions, mixing well in between each addition.
4. Fold in melted chocolate thoroughly.
5. Fill cake mixture in cupcake liners until about 2/3 full. Bake in a preheated oven of 160C for 20 mins or until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool on wire rack.
6. To make the chocolate buttercream icing, whisk the butter in bowl for about 6-8 mins until pale and creamy.
7. Add the icing sugar, cocoa powder and milk and whisk for another 6 mins until fluffy and creamy. Pipe or spread onto cooled cupcakes.

Adapted from http://bossacafez.blogspot.hk/2010/04/donna-hays-double-chocolate-cupcakes.html