Archives for December 2010

December 10, 2010

Brownie Cupcakes

I baked these some time ago for a gathering of students at my place. If you are a chocolate fan, these brownie cupcakes will be straight down your alley. Sinfully rich and chocolaty, they are bound to fix your chocolate craving. The best part? They are not difficult to make at all! The ingredients are simple, but the sheer quantity of butter, sugar and eggs may shock you. Well, they are for a large batch of cupcakes afterall, and didn’t I say earlier that these were sinful?

Brownie Cupcakes
(Makes 60 cupcakes)
Recipe adapted from Gourmet, Dec 1999

Ingredients:
16 oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes
8 oz bittersweet chocolate (I use Valrhona equatorial)
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 1/4 cups sugar
8 large eggs

Method:

  1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Line muffin tray with liners.
  2. Melt butter and chocolate in a heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring till smooth.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, salt and cocoa powder.
  4. Remove saucepan from heat and whisk in sugar.
  5. Add eggs, 1 at a time, whisking after each addition until incorporated.
  6. Lastly, fold in flour mixture until just blended.
  7. Spoon batter into muffin liners, filling the liner almost to the top. Bake for 25 – 30 mins. A skewer inserted will have some crumbs adhered when the cupcakes are done.
  8. Cool for 5 minutes in tins and remove to cool on a rack.
  9. Repeat with the remaining batter.
  10. These can keep in an air-tight container for about 2 days at room temperature.
Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Cakes Tagged With: , Leave a Comment
December 2, 2010

Sticky Date Pudding

The dates had been sitting in the fridge, unopened in their package for many many months. It’s a good thing that dates keep well as I have a bad habit of buying stuff and not using them. One Sunday afternoon, after flipping through a few recipe books, I decided that I would use them in a sticky date pudding. The recipe looked simple, and so, thinking that I had ample time to complete it before dinner, I busied myself with other things. To my horror, I realised a few hours later that the chopped dates needed to be soaked in hot water for an hour before they could be used. Processing of the dates (pitting them and chopping them) also took longer than expected. I ended up with a bowl of mashed dates with insufficient time to complete the recipe. So the dates (mashed this time), went back to the fridge, in a bowl covered with cling film.

A few days later (didn’t I say dates keep well?), I finally had the time to finish the recipe. And oh wasn’t it lovely. The pudding melts in your mouth and the aroma of the dates, together with the toffee sauce was simply heavenly. Family members and colleagues all loved it and I believe you would too! This is definitely a recipe worth trying.

Sticky Date Pudding
(Makes 12 small cakes)
Recipe adapted from Desserts By The Yard

Ingredients:
8 ounces pitted Medijool dates, finely chopped
1 cup boiling water
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 tsp grated orange zest
1 tsp Trablit coffee extract
2 large eggs, room temperature

Method:

  1. Place the chopped dates in a bowl and pour on boiling water. Let it sit for 1 hour.
  2. Preheat the oven to 350ºF with a rack placed in the middle shelf. Butter 2 cupcake trays.
  3. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
  4. Mash dates in the bowl with the water. Stir in baking soda and set aside.
  5. Using a stand mixer, cream butter, brown sugar, sugar, orange zest and coffee extract on medium until fluffy.
  6. Add eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition.
  7. Beating on low speed, alternate half the date mixture with half the flour mixture.
  8. Add in the remaining date mixture, then the flour mixture.
  9. Pour into prepared cupcake tray and place in the oven.
  10. Bake for 15 minutes, rotate the pan from front to back and bake for another 10 minutes.
  11. When the cake is done, remove from oven. While the cake is still hot, poke the cake in several places with a skewer and pour on the toffee sauce (see below).
  12. Serve warm, with vanilla bean ice-cream for extra decadence.

Toffee Sauce

Ingredients:
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste
1/4 cup milk
2 tbsp light corn syrup
1 tbsp water (optional)

Method:

  1. Place the brown sugar, cream, butter, vanilla paste, milk and corn syrup in a heavy saucepan.
  2. Simmer over medium-high heat until the mixture thickens and cots the back of a spoon, about 10 minutes.
  3. Continue to cook until golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes more.
  4. Remove from heat and keep warm.
Filed Under: Baking and Cooking, Desserts and Sweet Bakes, Vegetables and Fruit Tagged With: , Leave a Comment
December 1, 2010

Sundried Tomato and Parmegiano Reggiano Bread

I looked through my shelves recently and realised that there were cookbooks I owned, from which I have never tried a single recipe from. I was determined to conquer at least one recipe from each book (so that I could have the excuse of buying more books), and decided to start on a bread making book – Artisan Bread in Five Minutes A Day.

I bought this book because of it’s interesting descriptions, good reviews, and of course, the hope that bread making could indeed be that simple. Well, I was fooled. It didn’t take five minutes a day. But having said that, the book does offer simple and versatile bread recipes, most of which take shorter time than traditional recipes. I decided to try the basic recipe – boule. The boule, otherwise known as an artisan free-form loaf, serves as the basic dough from which a dozen other breads can be made from. After mixing, the basic dough can be kept in a lidded container in the fridge for up to a week. Whenever you feel like making bread, you simply need to pull and cut out a piece of dough, and shape/make it into whatever fanciful (or simple) bread you desire. Using the basic recipe, I was able to make baguette, pita, and the lovely sundried tomato and parmegiano bread pictured above.

Boule:
(makes four 1 pound loaves)

Ingredients:
3 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbsp yeast
1 1/2 tbsp coarse salt
6 cups unbleached all purpose flour

Method:

  1. Warm the water to about 100 – 110 degrees F. Add yeast and salt to the water in a large mixing bowl.
  2. Add all the flour at once and mix with a wooden spoon or a mixer with a dough hook. No kneading is neccessary.
  3. When all the flour is incorporated and the mixture looks uniformly moist, transfer the dough to a lidded container.
  4. Allow the dough to refrigerate overnight, or at least 3 hours.

Sun-dried tomato and Parmegiano Reggiano Bread
(Makes 1 loaf)

Ingredients:
1 pound of Boule dough
Olive oil for brushing the dough
1/2 cup sun-dried tomatoes in oil, drained and roughly chopped
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
Cornmeal for pizza peel

Method:

  1. Dust the surface of the refrigerated dough with flour and cut off a 1-pound piece. Dust the piece with more flour and quickly shape it into a ball by stretching the surface of the dough around the bottom on all four sides, rotating the ball a quarter turn as you go.
  2. Roll out the ball into  a 1/4 inch thick rectangle. Use flour to prevent the dough from sticking to your working surface.
  3. Brush the dough with olive oil. Scatter the sun-dried tomatoes evenly over the dough and sprinkle the cheese over the tomatoes
    .
  4. Starting from the short end, roll the dough into a log and gently tuck the ends under to form an oval loaf.
  5. Allow to rest and rise on a cornmeal covered pizza peel for 1 hour.
  6. 20 minutes before baking time, preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, with a baking stone placed on the middle rack. Place an empty broiler tray below the rack.
  7. Brush the top of the loaf lightly with olive oil and slash parallel cuts across the loaf using a serrated bread knife.
  8. Slide the loaf directly onto the hot stone. Pour 1 cup of hot water into the broiler tray and quickly close the oven door.
  9. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until deeply browned and firm.
  10. Allow to cool before slicing or eating.

Filed Under: Baking and Cooking Tagged With: Leave a Comment
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