Hummingbird Cake ~ Banana w/ Cream Cheese icing (with pecans & pineapple)
It is Yummeh~!
Valrhona Chocolate Cupcakes
Modified the chocolate cuppycake recipe to incorporate strawberry chunks in the cupcake, and cream cheese frosting. Its rich, chocolatey and absolutely ooooh-inducing<3
honey & jam: Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting.
honey & jam: Vanilla Cupcakes with Strawberry Frosting..
Recipe to try next!
Chocolate Cupcake Recipe~ from Cakes to celebrate Love & Life
Fluffy, chocolatey and oh-so-soft. These have to be my favorite chocolate cupcakes ever^^ My family ate them in twos and threes, and HH’s family loved them too. Good enough to eat w/out icing!
I modified them slightly by reducing the sugar amounts, as I don’t like my cake base too sweet. Makes 18-24 cupcakes.
Cupcake Ingredients
2 cups (400g) sugar I use 1 1/2 cups
1 3/4 cups (245g) plain flour
3/4 (90g) cocoa powder I use Hersheys
1 1/2 tsp (7.5ml) baking powder
1 1/2 tsp (7.5ml) bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp (5ml) salt
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup (250ml) milk
1/2 cup (125ml) vegetable oil
2 tsp (10ml) vanilla essence I prefer to use Vanilla Extract
1 cup (250ml) boiling water
Chocolate Buttercream Icing Ingredients
125g butter, softened
2/3 cup (80g) cocoa powder Hersheys ok!
2 1/2 cup (350g) icing sugar, sifted
1/3 cup (80ml) milk I use low-fat milk.
1 tsp (5ml) vanilla essence extract
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Instructions for Cupcakes
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celcius.
Prepare muffin pans with 18-24 paper cups.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, mix together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, and salt.
Add the eggs, milk, oil and vanilla extract.
Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed.
Add the boiling water and stir in – batter will be runny.
Pour the batter into the paper cups in equal measures. I like to use an ice-cream scoop for this.
Bake for 10-12 minutes.
Leave to cool completely before topping with the chocolate buttercream icing.
Instructions for Chocolate Buttercream Icing
Add the butter into the bowl of an electric mixer, then stir in the cocoa powder.
Adding a little of each at a time, add the icing sugar and milk, beating on medium speed until it reaches spreading consistency.
Stir in a little more milk if required.
Finally, add the vanilla extract & mix in.
-> you may now frost the cupcakes! Make sure that they are completely cool first tho!
Strawberry Cheese(cup)Cake ~<3
Korean strawberries @ Cold Storage were on sale yesterday, $5.99 for 2 boxes! How could I resist buying some and making strawberry cupcakes!
Made these from a Hummingbird Bakery recipe, but modified.
I added strawberry puree (after pulverizing some red juicy strawberries in a blender) 1/3cup, and I replaced the 1 egg with 1 banana – so that a vegetarian friend will not miss out (AGAIN) when I bake cupcakes. 🙂
Placed little chopped strawberries in the base, and used some to decorate. I love love love Cream Cheese frosting 🙂
chocolate x chocolate cupcakes
Made these for HH and his office – they went so fast! The sponge was soft and light, and the chocolate buttercream smelled so good. Definitely will make these again soon!
(i forgot a closeup ;_;)
Nantsuttei Ramen @ Parco Marina Bay
I’m somewhat of a ramen-addict – as my bf knows too well. Luckily he loves his ramen too^_^
So when Parco Marina Bay opened with a spanking new ramen place with long queues days after it opened? Yes we need to try this!
With its signature, aromatic black garlic oil in the rich pork broth, with QQ noodles….. yum yum!!!!
I for one, hate bean sprouts, however I didn’t mind them so much in this ramen surprisingly. Of course I’d much rather have my Ajikiku (fungus) at Ippudo instead of tao gey, but the crispness of the tao gey sort of redeems itself.
The meat in the normal ramen ($12) is so-so. much prefer the meat from Ippudo as well.
Noodles-wise I think Nantsuttei shines, their noodles are springy and soft.
Rich pork bone Broth albeit oily with garlic, goes down very smoothly, and it doesn’t have the ‘bite’ of Ippudo’s Akamaru ramen (or the kick), but its good. Definitely one of my favorite ramen places along with Ippudo, Tampopo and Santouka and Mentei ramen. 🙂
One thing that HH and I noted, and liked is that the noodles were not scalding, and could be slurped up immediately.
Definitely worth a try! Its apparently part of another famous ramen chain in Japan.
Nantsuttei Singapore
Parco Marina Bay
#03-02 Millenia Walk
9 Raffles Boulevard
Singapore 039596
Tel : (65) 6337 7166
Opening hours: 11.30am to 10.30pm
Red Velvet Cupcakes~
This was the first ever cupcake recipe that I had tried, previously I had stuck to baking muffins, as I hadn’t realized the insidious allure of these creamy, sweet confections.
The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook is my favourite baking desserts book of all, with everything I’ve made from it (red velvet, green tea cupcakes, carrot cake) -> all so good! I’m going to try to go through more. My other favorite cookbook is “Cakes to celebrate love and life” by Callie Maritz and Mari-Louis Guy.
Having made both versions of red velvet cupcakes, the hummingbird’s recipe is richer and more flavorful as it uses butter AND double the cocoa of the other recipe, and HH has taste-tested both and proclaimed this version his favorite.^^
I’ve made it 3x now, and as long as you follow the recipe, the cupcakes have never dissappointed:)
For 12 cupcakes (note that these are 12 large cupcakes -> like Muffins).
Cream cheese frosting says its for 12 cupcakes, but I usually have a lot left over as I don’t like mountains of cream cheese frosting (but this stuff is SO yummy) on each cupcake. So I refrigerate the rest and eat it on other food, or use it on the next batch.
Red Velvet Cupcake
Ingredients
60 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
150 g caster sugar
1 egg
10 g cocoa powder
20 ml red food colouring (preferably Dr. Oetker Red Food Colouring)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
120 ml buttermilk
150 g plain flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1½ teaspoons white wine vinegar
Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3.
Put the butter and the sugar in a bowl and beat (using an electric whisk) until light and fluffy and well mixed. Turn the mixer up to high speed, slowly add the egg and beat until everything is well incorporated I used my stand mixer and this worked just fine
In a separate bowl, mix together the cocoa powder, red food colouring and vanilla extract to make a thick, dark paste. Add to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly until evenly combined and coloured (remember to scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula).
Turn the mixer down to slow speed and slowly pour in half the buttermilk. Beat until well mixed, then add half the flour, and beat until everything is well incorporated.
Repeat this process until all the buttermilk and flour have been added. Scrape down the side of the bowl again. Turn the mixer up to high speed and beat until you have a smooth, even mixture.
Turn the mixer down to low speed and add the salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar. Beat until well mixed, then turn up the speed again and beat for a couple more minutes.
Spoon the mixture into greased tins and bake in the preheated oven for 20–25 minutes, or until the sponge bounces back when touched. A skewer inserted in the centre should come out clean. Leave the cake to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
300g icing sugar, sifted
50g unsalted butter, at room temperature
125g cream cheese, cold
Beat the icing sugar and butter together with an electric mixer on medium-slow speed until the mixture comes together and is well mixed.
Add the cream cheese in one go and beat until it is completely incorporated. Turn the mixer up to medium-high speed.
Continue beating until the frosting is light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. Do not overbeat, as it can quickly become runny. When the cake is completely cold, spoon half the cream cheese frosting between the layers and the rest on top. What I do in the hot Singapore weather is to put the base of the bowl in a larger container filled with ice and cold water, helps the cream cheese not melt quite as quickly.
Happy Baking! ❤
Moar Lace please 