Desperate Cupcakes...

Photo credit - http://onlyhdwallpapers.com

Mrudula and Srini's anniversary is a day away and she wanted to make cup cakes because Srini loves them. (Aside...Srini loves most things edible and just about vegetarian). So...

Now. Mrudula bakes in her mom's oven. This is an aluminium round contraption that was born when an electric heater met a largish tin can. A constraint if want to make lot of cupcakes.

After writing her a longish mail to 'help', I realized that it will make for a good read for a whole lot of people. Of course the references are Mumbai (Andheri) centric but that can be easily overcome. So.. here goes.

First I asked her to have a look at http://www.cupcakerecipes.com/ and then I wrote...

"You can (and perhaps will) waste a lot of time looking for recipes and stuff. Here is what I would do:

• Divide the effort estimate into two parts:
1. The cup cake
• I am assuming you have the baking tins for muffins/cupcakes. If you don't:
• Borrow them from me along with the liners today
• Buy them from Arif Le Mould (Get out of Andheri West station at the end of the road that passes by the McDonalds . Please buy normal liners. The fancy liners look pretty when you buy everyone ignores them when wolfing the cup cake down and you are not going to have a photo-shoot... So...
• Please go buy three Betty Crocker instant cake mixes (Suggest 1 chocolate, 1 vanilla or something like that, 1 pineapple cake or something).
  Suggest you don't experiment with the Indian cake mixes. They make drier cakes and are slightly less tolerant to mistakes than Betty Crocker.
  With these:
• It is easy to divide into half or quarter
• Just crack an egg and add some oil and you are done with the batter
• The other easy recipe is to have a 1:1:1 ratio of butter/oil, egg, and flour, add sugar, a pinch of salt and a little baking powder. Mix the solids together and then the liquids/butter separately. Sieve the solids into the mixed liquids and you are ready to bake :)
  Short-cut tip - If you add mashed banana into this, you get banana cup cake :)
  
2. The cup cake decoration:
1. Buy. Don't make as far as possible, since you have a small oven and part of a day:
• I believe people eat cupcakes since they look pretty. So so and buy multiple colours of ready made icing. They squeeze out from tubes like tooth paste, cost quite a bit and save enormous amounts of time
• Buy a can of 'spray-on' whipping cream or a pack of Blue-bird instant cream
2. If really want to make from scratch make a chocolate ganache and dunk cupcake tops into it and put sprinkles or stuff on it.
   This explains how to make it...
   http://eatbhaieat.blogspot.in/2011/04/chocolate-ganache.html
3. Here are some decoration ideas:
• Put whipped cream on top of the cup cakes and:
• Add a couple of pink or other coloured marshmallows on top
• Add a tinned or fresh fruit like cherries, orange bits, banana, pineapple etc.  The fruit crunch and citric element balances the flavours and texture of the cake
• Coloured icing from the tubes I wrote about earlier
• Want to really get the taste-buds go bonkers? Top with canapés (e.g. Monaco biscuit with a lump of cheese etc.)"

It sounds a bit domineering but then...

A Simple Brownie Recipe (2 Variations)

This one goes out to Charu and Swati. 


Here is how I make brownies:


Variation 01 - Brownies with Cocoa Powder 


1 Cup - Unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 Cup - Flour
100gm - Butter (I use this measure since I can just run out and get a slab from the nearest shop :) )
1 - Egg (2 if you want moister brownies)

1/2 Cup - Brown Sugar (You can use plain sugar, but I find it a tad bit too sweet)

1.5 tsp - Baking powder

A pinch of salt (Don't add if you are using Amul butter. It is already very salty)
A pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg powder mix (I don't like the artificial smelling vanilla essence that I get here)


I take the butter (I like Mother Dairy butter since it is not as salty as Amul), and microwave it  in my Borosil dish till it melts. I then add in in the cocoa powder and incorporate the cocoa with the butter. 
(I have tried a variation a very long time back that worked very well... I added a little cocoa butter to the mix and it makes the chocolate much smoother)


By this time the mixture is not so warm so I crack the eggs into the mixture and use a whisk to get everything together.
I mix the baking powder and the flour together and then add that into the mixture. 


By now I have a greased tray lined and ready I pour the mix in and dunk it into a preheated oven after sprinkling some walnuts on top.


I still have not started using the thermometers, but I realized that the trick here is not to have the oven on full blast and to get the brownies out while a skewer insert still does not come out clean

Variation 02 - Brownies with Compound Chocolate  

1 'slab' - (Varies between 100-200gm. More is good :)) - Compound Chocolate. I prefer Selbourne Extra Dark (Still quite sweet at some 30% cocoa :()

1/2 Cup - Flour

3/4 slab of a 100 gm butter pack

2 - Eggs

1/2 Cup - Brown Sugar (You can use plain sugar, but I find it a tad bit too sweet)

1.5 tsp - Baking powder

A pinch of salt (Don't add if you are using Amul butter. It is already very salty)

A pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg powder mix (I don't like the artificial smelling vanilla essence that I get here)

The chocolate and butter is melted in the microwave and then the eggs and flour are added in turn.


Then it is popped into the oven and baked till it of the consistency required.


If you like some interesting banter and want to ogle at some nice photos, here is a nice site that has a recipe for brownies... http://goo.gl/ic0tC

Mango Chocolate Oatmeal Chewy Drop Cookies (No added sugar or fat)

I have been trying out these 'fruit-infused' cookie things for a while. I am usually not very happy with the cookies that are dished out by the standard coffee shops (stale, dry, overpoweringly sugary), or even Subway outlets (limp after being baked a while back and with a greasy aftertaste...).


With the mangoes fast disappearing at the end of the season, I just wanted to bake something with the fruit. And not the standard muck that they give at every confectionery (orange in colour, tasteless, and usually called Alphonso when it is not...).


So I started by trying out a cookie sans all these irritating things. Which did turn out better that I really expected ... But the Sugar, Egg, and Flour-less Cookies were another trip altogether...


 Anyways.... Now that the ranting bit is done....


Guru dropped in for the second last time before he goes away for good to Singapore. So I thought that this was a good time to bake something for him and Shubha.
  
By the time all 'imagin-ing-about-the-food' had stopped swirling in my brain, time had flown and Guru was calling me, irritatedly, asking me when I would land up at his place. <rolling eyes>...


I did not want the standard compound chocolate in the cookies, so I got our some chocolate that some cocoa mass and cocoa butter instead of the hydrogenated fat. I also got out some orange peel.

This had to be done rapidly so I got out some Chitalebandhu Aamras (mango pulp) and squelched out a couple of bowls of the pulp.

Next a couple of cups of oat meal got dumped into my trusty old mixing bowl. (I made a mental note to ask someone to get me some nice steel bowls when they fly in :) )

The chocolate slab got chop-chopped ...

Then the walnut bits also joined the rest in the mixture...

Now, it was time to chop the candied orange peel....

I added a nub of ginger to add a delightful little zing in the cookie just when you were not expecting it... to offset the sweetish richness of the chocolate...

I chopped the ginger in to little bits...

... and then all of this went straight into the bowl.  

I added a teaspoon of baking powder (but you can really bake these cookies without it...)

After a good stir, I added a cup of आटा/ataa (aka whole wheat flour) to add some more 'body' to the cookies...

Once the flour was incorporated into the mixture I poured in the mango pulp. This was meant to have a three fold effect--bind the mixture, add some sweetness and to add that little interesting flavour when you bite into the cookie...

After a good mix....

... I rolled out some baking parchment onto the racks and dropped lumps of the mixture.

Tada! All ready to bake in my preheated oven while I cleaned things up and got ready to get out of the house with the cookies...

And this if how the cookies looked straight out of the oven... Notice how the chocolate looks all gooey... The trick with chocolate (as opposed to compound chocolate) is that the chocolate stays gooey-ish even after the cookie is cooled since the chocolate is not actually tempered. Next I shall try making a nice batch of giant muffins with chocolate sunk into the centre. Should be interesting :)

 

Whole Wheat (आटा) Crusty Bread

Usually the first attempt at baking something 'simple' turns out be anything but that... So when I thought of baking bread, I was sure that something or the other would go boink... This one though, worked like a charm... 

One of the advantages of staying in the 'not-so-affluent' part of the Mahim is the proximity of humbler things like an aata chakki (आटा चक्की). On a lazy Saturday, I started thinking of bread as I dozed off on Friday and finally moved/willed myself to the aata guy late in the morning. I realized that he was scalloping the grinding stones of his mill and would not make flour till an hour later. The laziness took over and suddenly it was evening! I woke up with a start and got myself the flour. It was warm and smelt heavenly.


I came back and got the yeast block out of the fridge...

... I sliced off a bit of the yeast and this weighed in at around 52gm...

... I took about half of this (25gm) and about 10gm of sugar and mixed this with some warm water...

Soon the yeast activated and was ready to mix with the dough...

I measured about 3 and a quarter cups of flour to get 501gm and added some salt to it 

Then a quick knead later it put it in a bowl and covered it with a moist face towel.

This I put in the microwave to give dough some privacy while the Mumbai monsoon moist warmth worked its charm. An hour later the dough had doubled in volume and was airy and sticky.

I kneaded this a little more and oiled the tins...

The dough went into the tins and then I poke them with a fork and started preheating the oven. 

The dough went back into the microwave and before I could pop them into the oven, the dough had risen some more...

After about 35min in the oven my bread came out and tasted awesome... 

I carried some for Titin en route to meeting Chandu... :) 

Chocolate Cakey Brownie Cupcakes

The Mumbai rains have started the steady staccato beats across the senses. Guru and Subha just had a son and the weekend expected that I go an meet the trio. 

I was contemplating what to make and take along when Harini chattered over the phone demanding a birthday cake. This combination sparked the idea of either a cheese cake of some sort of a brownie. The latter was a known devil, so after procrastinating the weekend away I decided that a twist to a know devil would do that trick. 

I pulled out a the bake stuff and took a cup of atta (whole wheat), half a teaspoon of baking powder, and less than a cup of sugar. I also got a couple of sachets of instant coffee to substitute the standard spices.

I cracked three 50gm eggs and ...

...dunked the sugar...

...and the coffee into the mixing bowl...

I washed and got the silicone muffins moulds washed and ready before starting work.

I took about 180gm of butter and 160gm of dark compound chocolate out. (Don't worry about the arbit grammage I just made sure I got almost equal quantities of everything and then weighed them to reassure myself that "all is well" :) )

While the oven pre-heated, I whisked the eggs and the sugar...

... and the butter and chocolate melted in the microwave...

... I stirred the chocolate mix to get rid of any lumps and added it to the eggs and sugar...

... and mixed it in with the atta...

Then I quickly poured the heavenly mix into the moulds and in they went into the oven.

I pulled them out when all of them were a little plump (turning them around once) and soon had Harini calling me to hurry up and get to the car...

Apple Crumble

I have always made apple pies and read how it was simpler to make a crumble. So when I saw the poor apples languishing in my fridge as I attended to the grind at office, my heart went out to them.Feeling for the apples was one thing and baking something is an entirely different thing all together. 
The weekend quickly vanished in a haze of cleaning, stocking up for the week ahead an settling things down to battle the work week ahead. Determined not to abandon my intentions, I pulled out my trusty glass baking dish even as I washed the apples and roughly chopped them. 
Now, the recipe called for "peeled and cored" apples. I've always made my apple pies with the skin on (and it comes out good every time). So to save some time, I left the skin on and chopped the six apples.

I took a cup of brown sugar and put it on the apples while I started preheating the oven.

I quick squish later, the apples were in the pan. I put in some powdered cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg. Soon the apples were bubbling away and stewing in the released juice.

While the oven was being preheated and the apples were stewing, I started making the pastry. I started by pulling out a hunk of butter from the fridge and sliced off 100gm. Next the sliced got cubed...

I took a cup of flour(maida) and a quarter cup of brown sugar...

The pastry is supposed to be kneaded as little as possible and mixed using two butter knives. Of course I did nothing of that sort and just squished things together with a fork. Works fine. As long as you don't knead the flour, we're good for short crust pastry. When the flour mixture looked like crumbly little beads, I knew the pastry was ready.

Next I layered the baking dish, with some oats and a few raisins. This would lift the baked end product better and give a little 'raisiny' surprise at the end of the experience.

The apples were now done well and I quickly forked the it into the baking dish...

The pastry now went on top and the trick here is to resist the temptation to the pat it down.

After baking for about 30 min the apple crumble was done. Eating the crumble while it was  still warmish was a treat. The top layer is beautifully salty and a little crunchy which quickly prepares you for the cinnamonny sweetness of the apple and the plumped little raisin at the end.

It's quite difficult to finish the entire crumble by myself (and uncharitable to boot :P). So, next morning my colleagues at work got little clumps of the crumble (except the ones in the throes of some or the other 'diet').