Pumpkin Cranberry Cupcakes

Even with the holiday season newly over, we were still receiving guests from time to time. This time, one of my indirect cousins came over to our house for an afternoon. For lunch, I made a pot of veggie spaghetti sauce, and my aunt helped me cook the spaghetti while I went and handled dessert. While we're on the topic of leftovers, I still had some ingredients left from the pumpkin cake roll. I still had about 3/4 of a cup of pumpkin puree left, along with half a jar of applesauce, and half a tub of cream cheese.

To make it manageable, I decided to make cupcakes. Due to shortage of time, I couldn't do very extended research, so settled for one of the first things I could find: a pumpkin muffin recipe from Vegan Richa.

As I did not have a full cup of pumpkin puree, I filled in the remaining volume with applesauce. In lieu of chocolate chips, I went for a handful of chopped dried cranberries. I did not want to deal with filling the inside with a cream cheese mix, so these were topped with cream cheese frosting. I wanted to play around a little with decorations, so went with a flower. The center is a trimmed dried cranberry. I used dairy milk this time because that was all I had. I also do not stock molasses, so I used some reduced sugar syrup I had.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup pureed pumpkin
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 tbs molasses
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 handful dried cranberries

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 200˚C.
2. In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
3. Add in wet ingredients. Add in a tbs or 2 of milk as necessary.
4. Fill cupcake pans 3/4 full.
5. Bake for 15 min, then lower heat to 180˚C for another 5 mins.
6. Cool, frost, and enjoy.

Murder Mystery Carrot Cake

This week, an event that was a collaboration between two societies at the university (cooking and games) occurred. This was a Murder Mystery Dinner! I was asked if I wanted to bake and thus contribute to the dessert spread, and as I was being flooded in schoolwork, I (of course) decided to jump on it!

I wanted to "catch up" on the lack of frosting and layering from the last cake I made for Cooking Society, so I went all out. I made a double batch of carrot cake in a 24 cm springform pan. The next day, I cut it into 2 layers, and made a frosting out of cream cheese, Greek yogurt (to increase the volume), and icing sugar. I spread this between the two layers, and on top of the cake, and piped some dollops with my new silicone piping bag and some piping tips that I never got to use before. Unfortunately, the frosting had warmed considerably at that point, and was not so firm.

To keep up with the theme, I piped "Murder Mystery" with the crossed fork and knife logo of the cooking society, and added a smattering of powdered cinnamon on top.

The baking paper is still visible, as I delivered it in the springform pan covered with a sheet of aluminum foil to keep dust and the like at bay. I decorated the cake during my lunch break, then went to class, while the cake rested in the fridge. I then came back to pick it up, and decided not to risk biking with a cake in my hand.

Orange Zest Cupcakes

For a quick brunch between friends, I decided to make some cupcakes (mostly because I've been wanting to bake something, but didn't have the opportunity to). I still had some candied orange peels from the last candied orange cupcakes, so I opted for an orange-y cupcake. Good thing I still have some oranges sitting in the fruits basket!

I baked a half batch of basic vegan cake (this time, it yielded 6 cupcakes), in which I added about 2 tbs of candied orange zests, and grated in the zest of an additional orange.

I made a batch of frosting with some orange blossom aroma, and then decorated with an orange supreme and some more candied peels.

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BASIC VEGAN CAKE RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup unsweetened soymilk
• 1/2 cup oil
• 2 tbs vanilla extract
• 1 tbs white or apple cider vinegar

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C. Grease and flour a cake pan. Alternatively, use cupcake liners.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
3. In another bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients.
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones.
5. Mix well, ensuring there are no dry pockets of flour.
6. Pour into pan.
7. Bake for 30 mins (for a whole cake) or 20 mins (for normal-sized cupcakes), or until a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Let it cool and ice/top it however you want.

FROSTING RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 5 tbs flour
• 1 cup soymilk
• 1 cup butter, softened
• granulated sugar, to taste
• 1-2 tsp of flavor

  Procedure

1. In a saucepan, whisk together flour and soymilk. Heat until thickened to a batter-like consistency.
2. Add in the flavor.
3. Cool to room temperature. 
4. Beat together butter and sugar until fluffy, and no graininess from the sugar remains
5. Add the flour/soymilk mix, and beat until it reaches a frosting consistency.

Lemon cupcakes

I wanted to give something to some family friends for bringing me to a rally yesterday. I also wanted to treat my cousins who are in Belgium for a weekend. This lead to me baking up a batch of cupcakes~

I made them in 2 half batches (with my little cousin's help), due to restricted baking space in the oven. I made my basic vegan cake recipe, adding about 1.5 tsp of lemon zest to the dry ingredients, and subbing 2 tbs of lemon juice for the vinegar per half recipe.

My brother had giving me a pastry filling syringe last Christmas, and I wanted to try if it would work with this recipe. So I made some vegan lemon curd (recipe below). Verdict: it only worked for the taller cupcakes, and was not much of a filling, more like a moistening, as this recipe does not create a hole in the middle like choux dough would.

I mixed some leftover lemon juice and zest into my frosting recipe. Due to my decorative piping syringe tip going missing, I had to borrow my cousin's, which I was not accustomed to. This led to uglier than expected frosting arrays, and I ended up going with my original idea of piping chocolate hearts on top, using my decorating pen.

I made a total of 24 cupcakes, 12 of which were in paper cups, for easy delivery. Some went to family friends, some to cousins next door, and the others for my visiting relatives and my parents.

The only non-vegan aspects are the frosting and chocolate (dark).

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Cupcakes

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 3 tsp lemon zest
• 1 cup unsweetened plain soymilk
• 1/2 cup neutral oil
• 2 tbs lemon juice

     Lemon Curd

• 1/4 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 tbs cornstarch
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (~1 lemon)
• 2 tsp grated lemon zest
• pinch of salt

     Frosting

• 2 1/2 tbs flour
• 1/2 cup milk (I used soymilk)
• vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup softened butter
• 3 tbs sugar
• some lemon juice and zest

  Procedure

     Cupcakes

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. Line tin(s).
3. In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients
5. Pour the wet into the dry and wisk until just combined. Do not over mix.
6. Pour into tin(s) and bake ~15 mins for cupckaes, or 25 mins for a cake, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

     Lemon Curd

1. In a saucepan, whisk together water, sugar, cornstarch, and salt until the cornstarch is dissolved.
2. Bring mixture to boil, then simmer until thickened stirring constantly.
3. Add in lemon juice and zest.
4. Let mix cool and thicken.

     Frosting

1. In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk. Place on stovetop and heat until thickened. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Add in some vanilla.
3. In a mixing bowl, whip butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add in the completely cooled  milk-flour mix and beat until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream.
5. Whip in lemon juice and zest. 
6. Spread or pipe onto cupcakes of choice.

Birthday Cupcakes and Truffles

June 9, 2013

June 8th was the birthday of someone who is very important to me. I wanted to give her something special, but had no chance to make anything intricate. So I settled for cupcakes. The recipe for the cake is this basic vegan cake recipe (it's almost my go-to recipe for cakes nowadays), except without the matcha. I made some large cupcakes as well as some mini ones.

The frosting is the same as well, except that I tried to give it a slight strawberry flavor by mixing in some strawberry jam. The difference in moisture content (as well as a lack of time resulting in insufficient cooling of the mixture) led to it having a weird, almost unmixed aspect >.<

Some of the mini cupcakes fell apart when I tried to take them out of the silicone mold, so I thought I would try to make some impromptu cake truffles that I've read about on so many blogs. I put the broken cupcakes in a blender to turn it into cake crumbs, and mixed in leftover frosting to make it stick together. I formed little balls, stuck toothpicks in them, then dipped them in melted chocolate.

I had a few issues with the cake balls not staying on the toothpick while dipping in the chocolate. After looking it up, it would seem that it's best to refrigerate the uncoated truffles before dipping them. It will be worth trying another time (with maybe less sugar in the cake/frosting mix).

For the end result, I packed a couple of large cupcakes with a few of the mini ones, and a bunch of truffles, into an aluminum pan (kind of like those that pre-cooked lasagna comes in at the store, because that's all I had), decorated it all, and gave it as a present, with a card.

Vegan Matcha Cupcakes and Cake

I had this urge to bake something, yesterday... So I went online and looked for a good vegan cake recipe, seeing how my last few batches of cupcakes were too dense. I came across a Very Vanilla Vegan Cupcakes recipe from Whipped Baking, and I knew I just had to try it.

Due to the necessity for speed when dealing with recipes using the chemical reaction between vinegar and baking soda, I couldn't just stand there and wait for my first batch of cupcakes to be done before finishing the batter, so I poured it all into a small cake tin.

Recipe~
Ingredients:
- 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup unsweetened plain soymilk
- 1/2 cup neutral oil
- 2 tbs vanilla extract (I didn't have extract, so I used a vanilla syrup... 2 tbs is fine, and not too strong)
- 1 tbs white or apple cider vinegar (I used white so that it didn't interfere with the matcha)
- matcha powder

Procedure:
1. Preheat oven 180°C
2. Line tin(s)
3. In a large bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients.
4. In a medium bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients.
5. Pour the wet into the dry and whisk until just combined. Do not over mix.
6. Pour into tin(s) and bake around 15 mins for cupcakes, or 25 mins for a cake, or until a toothpick comes out dry.

I used around 30g matcha powder, but the flavor was very subtle... So I'll have to test some more to find the right proportions.

The only non-vegan aspect is in the frosting.

Frosting recipe~
Ingredients:
- 5 tbs flour
- 1 cup milk (I used soymilk)
- vanilla extract
- 1 cup softened butter
- sugar

Procedure:
1. In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk. Place on stovetop and heat until thickened. Let cool to room temperature.
2. Add in some vanilla.
3. In a bowl, whip butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
Note: I tend to estimate the amount of sugar differently each time, to ensure it's not too sweet. This time, I made a quarter of a batch of frosting, with about 2 tsp of sugar.
4. Add the completely cooled milk-flour mix and beat until it reaches the consistency of whipped cream.
5. Spread or pipe on cupcakes of choice.