Sunday, November 11, 2007

The Swirl that got in me into a swirl

YAY! The exams are over!

While others choose to celebrate the end of an exam with parties and booze. My celebration of choice is to B(C)ake! But as a start, I decided to do something quite simple to practice my skills that has been left un-honed for the past few months. My choice was plain ol' vanilla cupcakes. The baked cakes came out perfect! It has the perfect combination of moistness and sponginess and the perfect domes. But, it went all downhill with the icing. I was trying to imitate the 'swirl' done in the recipe book but as you can see below, It was a disaster !



1. Icing done too thinly + visible cake = FAIL
2. BLOB = FAIL
3.Thin edges = FAIL
4. Incomplete swirl = FAIL
5. Too much + too flat = FAIL

After practicing the swirl on 12 cupcakes, i decided i wasn't meant for the swirl! I flatted all the swirls and converted them into what is known as the easy peasy ' flat spatula'. YAY!



Plain ol' vanilla cupcakes
24 cupcakes


2
¾ plain flour
2teaspoons baking powder
200g unsalted softened butter
1¾ caster sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk

  1. Preheat oven to 170°C
  2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy
  3. Add vanilla
  4. Mix in eggs one at a time
  5. Mix in flour and milk (start and end with flour)
  6. Spoon batter into cupcake tins
  7. Bake for 20 minutes
  8. Cool for 30 minutes before frosting
Vanilla buttercream frosting
200g unsalted butter
½ cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
8 cup icing sugar

  1. Cream butter
  2. Mix in milk, half of the sugar
  3. Add in remanding sugar (add more milk and sugar to desired consistency)
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Thank you for your contributing gifts to my baking 'foundation'! :D

Saturday, November 10, 2007

so i've been away for a while..
BUT
i'm going to get meself and kitchen aid.. and when i do!!
you watch out you!! self proclaimed king of the oven.