June 1, 2013

Baking | Coco turns 2 … a doggie birthday cake

“The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.”
Johnny Depp

Coco turned 2 today. TWO!! She is the cutest creature on the face of this earth and the daughter decided she would bake her a doggie birthday cake last night. I thought the ever lazy teen was talking off the top of her head again. Don’t bother, my inner voice told me!

She asked me to get her carrots and peanut butter. We’ve been through this drama last year as well, and no cake ‘happened’. I didn’t get her the ingredients. Late in the evening I get a call from her. She was shopping for vegetables for the first time in her life. “How many carrots should I buy for 1 cup carrots?”

Obviously meant business! She was soon home grating carrots. Another first and oh the protests. “My arms are gone, how difficult is this, will you grate them, can you please grate them…”! I wasn’t moved! All she had was Coco at her feet, eyes transfixed as her name popped up now and then. {“You’d better eat my cake Coco” she muttered incessantly!}

Doggie birthday cake Oh the drama, the messy counters, grated carrots everywhere. The batter finally made its way into the oven. The dishes were done by her since I threatened to turn the oven off if she didn’t clear up. Then she put up her feet and talked on the phone endlessly. I caught the cake just in time … the top prettily browned! Yet, amazingly, we had cake! Rather Coco had a birthday cake!

Coco’s morning began well. She was spoilt silly. By afternoon it was time to cut the doie birthday cake. BUT NO! Have to frost ‘she’ hollered!! ’twas my turn to protest. “Cocos fine with a cake sans icing”…blah blah blah. We met halfway through. She decided to skip the cream cheese frosting {?????} and do a simple peanut butter topping.

Doggie birthday cake Maybe she picked up some tips watching me all these years, maybe it is her interest in art, so she asked for my tiny cookie cutters. Soon we had carrot stars and ribbons… TADA! Coco couldn’t believe her eyes. She had never been that close to a cake before.

Doggie birthday cake Coco is a good dog and doesn’t even eat out of her bowl without permission. So she waited patiently, amidst puddles of drool, with a few wardrobe malfunctions … Finally had her cake, and ate it too!

Must admit that I’ve had these Best Dog Biscuits Ever from White on Rice bookmarked since I saw them in my inbox in April. I contemplated baking a batch for Coco yesterday but never quite got there. Hopefully the teen will bake up some soon! Or maybe the lad, since he made brownies all by himself a few days ago!

So here we go… for a first on PAB, it’s a doggie birthday cake. And yes, the daughter did have a bite and she said it was good! The kids joined the party with pizza followed by a ginger lemon crème brûlée … and that is another story!

Recipe: Doggie Birthday Cake

Summary: A simple one bowl doggie birthday cake which is easy and fun. Tastes good too I hear! Adapted minimally from here

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients:

Cake
1 egg
1/4 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup cooking oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 cup honey
1 cup shredded carrots
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
Frosting
2 tsps peanut butter
Carrots and dog biscuits to garnish

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C . Line the base with parchment {I used a 7″ tin}
Place everything in a large bowl and mix well to combine {use a hand beater on low speed}
Bake for 40 minutes. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes; then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Frost with peanut butter. Garnish with carrot cut outs, ribbons and dog biscuits.

Don’t miss a post
Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

May 27, 2013

Baking | Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes … Daring Bakers serve up royally delicious cakes!

“Cake is happiness! If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have a cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy!”
C. JoyBell C.

Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes … the best BEST cake we’ve eaten of late. Perfect balance of flavours, moist, flavourful, addictive good, non chocolate … PERFECT! It’s been a while since I enjoyed a Daring Bakers challenge so immensely. Everything was good about it. I have to admit that I veered off the basic recipe … but need to blame the treacherous North Indian summer for that!!

Come May and I got a very excited call from local DB Ruchira. “Guess what the challenge is? A Princess Cake! Wheee… I love it!” I was equally thrilled. A Princess cake is junior teens most favourite cake of all time. Years ago I did a recipe testing for Helene of Tartlette which included a Bavarian cream. That was a princess cake of sorts.

Swedish Prinsesstårta, princess cupcakes To date, it’s been the best ever cake for the kidlet. He repeatedly tells me how good ‘that Bavarian cream‘ was! Talk about love for food and good taste. Everything Helene does has the midas touch. The months challenge was partly inspired by her recipe.

Swedish Prinsesstårta, princess cupcakes

Korena of Korena in the Kitchen was our May Daring Bakers’ host and she delighted us with this beautiful Swedish Prinsesstårta!

A little research revealed that the original recipe was created in the 1930s by a Swedish home economics teacher named Jenny Åkerström, who taught the three Swedish princesses of the time. She published a series of four cookbooks called “The Princess Cookbooks” and in one of the editions, there was a recipe for “Grön Tårta” (green cake). One story is that this later became known as “princess cake” (prinsesstårta) because the three princesses are said to have loved it so much.

Another story is that Ms. Åkerström actually created three very elaborate “princess cake” recipes – a different one for each princess – and that the current version is a simplified combination of all three. That explains the princess connection, but the reason for the cake being green still seems to be a mystery.

I got to the challenge very very late. It was the 25th already. And the weather? Hot as hot can be, threatening to get worse by the minute! It was 46C at 6pm day before. Fry the eggs on the sidewalk hot, maybe bake the poor princess there too! Plans for a Princess cake were rapidly demolished. Yet I am very nostalgic about the Daring Bakers, a journey that has been long and fruitful. I have been with them for 5 years maybe, and it’s the only baking group I have continued with. I owe them most of what I’ve learnt. The journeys been full of ultimate highs, and a few heartbreaks too; entirely memorable.

Swedish Prinsesstårta, princess cupcakes Besides, the challenge this month was not just one of being a ‘baker‘. Bakers as you know double up quite often as patisserie chefs too. A finger in every pie, and so on! It was a test of skills at many different levels. I had to make something. That came by way of these sweet Princess Cupcakes that I’ve had bookmarked for years! {I baked the cupcakes the previous evening and completed them at the crack of dawn. You can find a few grainy pictures taken in a hurry to guide you through}

The components are quite the same. There is cake, pastry cream, whipped cream, jam and marzipan. A petite version in this blistering heat which hitting 48C is much easier to handle. I had some balsamic cherries from the two ingredient dark chocolate mousse. Cherries make life a lot more worthwhile.

The Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes turned out excellent. The cupcakes are layered about the same way as you would a Swedish Prinsesstårta. In 20 minutes, spared of a power cut, I was past stage one. Cupcakes done! While they baked, the pastry cream was stirred in the Thermomix. 7 minutes to perfect pastry cream!

I made the pastry cream a little thicker as it’s so hot. I didn’t get to the marzipan though I have made it several times in the past. It was far too hot to attempt marzipan from scratch. A special gift from my dear friend and Daring Baker Finla came to my rescue. She sent me marzipan with a truckload of stuff a few months ago. I use it very sparingly and was thrilled to have some on hand for the princess cupcakes.

This was the best part! Such fun dressing the little ones up. I did the flowers and leaves out of trimmings and it reminded me of my first and only fondant cake, the Tea Rose Fondant Cake, I made a while ago. The cupcakes were patched together on fast track as everything threatened to melt. The end result isn’t as neat as I would have liked it to be, but the marzipan was going too soft.

Thank you Korena was such a beautiful and eye opening challenge. I intend to make the priginal Swedish Prinsesstårta once the weather gets cooler. Thank you as always Lisa of La Mia Cucina and Ivonne of Cream Puffs in Venice for hosting this fab kitchen!! Do stop by here and check out some more royalty!

Recipe: Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes

Summary: Swedish Prinsesstårta Cupcakes… the best BEST cake we’ve eaten of late. Perfect balance of flavours, moist, flavourful, addictive good, non chocolate … PERFECT! Recipe adapted from The Cookie Shop. Makes 5 cupcakes

Prep Time: 15 minutes Total Time: 40 minutes Ingredients:

Vanilla Cupcakes {can be made up to 2 days ahead}
100g all purpose flour
85g sugar
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
50g – room temp. and cut in pieces
1 egg
80g milk
1/2 vanilla bean
Pastry Cream {can be made 1 day ahead. Only less than half quantity needed}
200ml low fat/single cream
50ml milk
1 egg
50g sugar
12g cornstarch
1/2 vanilla bean
20g butter
Filling
1/2 recipe pastry cream
200ml low fat cream chilled
1-2 tsp sugar
Rum syrup
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp sugar
1 teaspoon rum
For assembling
5 vanilla cupcakes
1/2 cup pastry cream
sugar syrup
low fat cream, chilled
1/2 cup balsamic cherries {1/2 portion chopped fine}
300g marzipan approx
food coloring
confectioners sugar

Method:

Vanilla cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Line 5 cups of a muffin pan, or 5 individual muffin tins with paper liners.
Place milk, egg and 1/2 scraped vanilla bean in a small bowl. Whisk to mix with fork.
Place flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in bowl of electric mixer and pulse to mix.
Add the butter pieces to the flour mixture and process briefly until it resembles coarse meal {the larger pieces should be the size of peas}.
With the processor on medium speed, add the milk mixture in three additions, and beat only until incorporated.
Distribute the batter evenly in the prepared tins. Bake for approximately 20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted in the cupcakes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before proceeding with the assembling.
Pastry cream
In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat milk and cream just until it simmers.
In a small bowl, whisk together egg and sugar until light and fluffy. Add cornstarch and continue whisking until smooth.
Slowly pour the hot milk/cream mixture into the egg mixture. Whisk until completely smooth and free of lumps. Return the mixture to the saucepan, and place over medium heat. Bring the mixture to a boil, whisking constantly, and cook for another 2 minutes, or until it thickens. Remove from heat and add the butter, whisking well to incorporate.
Thermomix : Place all ingredients in bowl of TM. Pulse at speed 6 to mix for 10 seconds. Then cook at speed 4, 90 C for 9 minutes.
Remove the pastry cream to a bowl. Place a sheet of plastic wrap directly on top of the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate until ready to use.
Syrup
Place water and sugar in a small saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Remove from heat and add the rum if using. Let cool completely before using or refrigerating.
Marzipan
Divide the marzipan into 5 portions.
Mix the marzipan with the 4 different coloring and knead until the color is uniform. Leave one natural off-white. If it gets sticky, sprinkle a little confectioner’s sugar. Wrap with plastic.
Assembling
Cut off the domed tops of the cupcakes, and peel off thee liners.
Invert cakes and cut into 3 layers.
Whisk the cream and sugar until soft peaks form.
Brush the layers with sugar syrup.
Over removable bottoms of tartlet tins, start assembling the cupcake layers.
first, a very thin layer of chopped balsamic cherries {or jam/preserve}
over the jam, a teaspoon whipped cream;
cake + syrup;
a teaspoon of pastry cream;
last layer of cake + syrup;
Place a few cherries on top to help build the ‘dome’ if you like.
Whip the remaining cream with the remaining pastry cream.
Cover the whole cupcake with whipped pastry cream, trying to make the rounder the top you can. Refrigerate while you complete the next.
Over a working surface, sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, roll out the marzipan.
Put the rolled out marzipan over the cake making sure to cover the entire cake and cardboard. When finished, some marzipan should drape onto the work surface all around the cupcake. There will be folds on the sides. To remove them lift the outside edge of the marzipan with a hand on either side of a fold and, without tearing or stretching, gently pull the marzipan out and down until the fold disappears. {It was too hot for me to attempt this}. Trim any extra marzipan and reserve for flowers etc.
Stamp out flowers, leaves and stems from the trimmed marzipan and place on cupcakes.
Sift a little confectioner’s sugar over the cakes and transfer to the serving dishes or cake stand.
Note: These are best eaten the same day they are assembled.

Don’t miss a post Also find me on The Rabid Baker, The Times of India

April 30, 2013

Baking | Traditional Savarins with Crème Patisserie : Daring Bakers – you win some, you lose some!

“Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.”
Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Traditional savarins Savarins. It was the Daring Bakers time of the month on the 27th. I missed posting. Missed not because I didn’t complete the challenge, but despite baking very early in the month, something didn’t quite work out right. I lost the steam to post it. Yet, as a part of this fantastic group, I have a larger responsibility so here goes. Better late than never I guess!

Traditional savarins 3

Natalia of Gatti Fili e Farina challenges us to make a traditional Savarin, complete with soaking syrup and cream filling! We were to follow the Savarin recipe but were allowed to be creative with the soaking syrup and filling, allowing us to come up with some very delicious cakes!

Time to share something that didn’t quite work out right, yet was pretty to photograph. Also time to ponder why. You win some, you lose some. I often lose some but that doesn’t reach my blog. The amount I experiment at home gives me huge ground for failure. Thankfully you are not at that receiving end as who would like to read about the ones that went wrong?

I loved baking these. The dough seemed good too, maybe didn’t pass the windowpane test. They came out looking rustic pretty. I made half the recipe suggested. Even half made loads of mini savarins. Where did the problem lie? Not sure what I did wrong, and why things went astray, but the savarins refused to ‘drink up‘!

I soaked the little ones in an Orange Spice Tea Syrup, then filled the centres with pastry cream. Some were topped with balsamic strawberries and others with candied kumquats. They looked irresistible.

We ate them. They were OK. The kids didn’t ask for seconds immediately. Quite perplexed at the fate as they were rather dry inside. Maybe I should have dunked them in hot spiced tea syrup.

I reserved the larger ones for later. They went into a filter coffee syrup, hot this time, and I had plans for Tiramisu Savarin. I was sure I had figured out the issue. Sadly I hadn’t. The blighters didn’t drink up the coffee and get soaking good! For a paired pastry cream, I had lofty ideas. I added some espresso and homemade irish cream to the pastry cream and whipped up some delicious Tiramisu pastry cream.

Didn’t hit the ball out of the park. At all. The good bit was that I used the little savarins for a food photography 30 day exercise I was part of with Neel @ Learn Food Photography. So many savarins on hand ensured that I had something to shoot for 3-4 days! The above pictures explore depth of field {f2.8/f11/f22}. Today is the last day of the exercise. It was a fabulous learning experience.

Did I regret that the savarins failed? I did feel sad, but didn’t regret it. No! Baking is always a learning experience, this was just a little steeper! I might not try the recipe again since it was quite involved. You can view it here, and I am sure you will have better luck. A lot of Daring Bakers certainly did. Check them out here.

I have included the Crème Patisserie recipe below, and balsamic strawberries too. It is one that I make in the Thermomix and it takes me all of 7-9 minutes. You can try making it the traditional way keeping the ingredients the same. It’s a yum recipe. I put it to good use on the Bittersweet Dark Chocolate Fallen Gateau. Was delicious!

Recipe: Crème Patisserie

Summary: Simple, easy and delicious, a crème patisserie recipe which is very versatile. Pour it over desserts, add whipped cream to it and fill a cake, or pipe into choux pastry.

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes
Ingredients:

Crème Patisserie
200ml milk 2%
60g sugar
1 vanilla bean
1 1/2 tbsp {10g} cornflour
1 egg
150ml low fat cream
Balsamic strawberries
200g strawberries, sliced
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped {optional}
1 tbsp aged balsamic vinegar

Method:

Crème Patisserie {can be made the day before}
Stove top method
Bring the milk to a simmering boil. Reserve.
Whisk the egg yolk and sugar with a wooden spoon in a big bowl until the mixture becomes pale and light. Stir in the flour slowly until it is thoroughly mixed with the egg mixture.
Pour the boiling milk into the mixture a little by little while whisking continuously to avoid curdling. Then stir in the cream until the mixture is well combined.
Transfer the whole mixture into a pot, with the seeds scraped from the vanilla bean, and heat it under low setting. Stir it constantly with the wooden spoon or spatula scraping the sides and bottom until it has thickened.
Once the custard has thickened, take it off the heat, and strain / pour it into a clean bowl. Cool, cover and chill.
Whip the low fat cream to soft medium peaks. Gently fold into chilled cream patisserie.
Thermomix Recipe
Place sugar and vanilla bean in TM bowl, and process for 30 seconds on speed 10. Add remaining ingredients, plus vanilla bean shell and cook on 90C/Speed 4 for 7 minutes {until thick}. Strain into a bowl immediately to cool. I chilled it overnight.
Balsamic Strawberries
Place all ingredients in saucepan and simmer for 2-3 minutes until the strawberries soften. Strain strawberries, transfer to bowl. Return syrup to pan and reduce to a thick syrup. Pour back over strawberries and cool completely. Can be stored in a jar in the fridge for 4-5 days.