if you can't stand the heat

This recipe is modified off a recipe originally provided to me by vegetus. It's a simple recipe that produces a soft cupcake with a mild chocolate flavour. The real punch comes from the choc chips, which is why they're delicious when still warm.




chocolate choc-chip cupcakes

ingredients:
1 and 3/4 cups SR flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp vanilla essence
80g nuttlex or other margarine (melted)
1/4 cup apple sauce
1 cup plain soy milk
1 cup choc chips


method:

Sift the flour, baking powder and cocoa together, and mix in the sugar. Add in the vanilla essence, followed by the nuttlex and the apple sauce, and then slowly add the milk, mixing as you add, until a thick batter forms. Mix in the choc chips, then leave the batter to sit for five minutes.

Divide the mixture into a twelve pan cupcake tray, and bake for 15 minutes at 180C. Eat whilst still warm.




The chocolate squares in the photo are from Carmel Valley Chocolates (in Carmel), they are gluten-free and vegan and quite tasty.

One of the things I did after I started at my current place of employment was occasionally mention the casual baking competition we had at my previous place of employment. I would talk about how great it was, how delicious, how much fun. Eventually, I had enough people convinced that we were able to start a casual baking competition of our own. This week's category was slices, something I had never tried before. And I came second! So, that was cool.

This slice is really easy, and really delicious. I honestly can't wait to try making it again, this or another slice!

This recipe is vegan, and though it is not gluten-free it could easily be so if you use gluten-free biscuits rather than plain wheat-based ones.

Chocolate Jaffa Slice


ingredients:

200 grams of biscuits (I used the Arnotts' Nice)
cup walnuts
300 grams dark chocolate
half cup icing sugar
100 grams butter
1 tablespoon finely grated orange rind


method:

Crush or blend the biscuits and the walnuts. My blender is on its way out, and the barmix was useless for this job, so I found myself on the floor of my kitchen using my mortar and pestle to pound the walnuts and biscuits into tiny pieces. Pour this mixture into a bowl.

Melt half of the chocolate, the icing sugar (sifted) and the butter together. After removing from the heat, add the orange rind to the mixture, then pour into the biscuit/walnut mixture. Stir it all together until combined. Pour this combination into a cake tin that has been lined with baking paper, and press it all down very firmly. Put it in the fridge to set for about ten minutes.

I took this opportunity to do the dishes, freeing up my chocolate melting pot again. Melt the remaining chocolate, pour into the tin to form the top layer. Smooth it all out evenly, and put it back in the fridge to set again, about another half an hour.

Once cut, it looked really awesome. Next time I think I'm going to sprinkle coconut on top of that chocolate layer, but it was delicious without.

I was stressing out about this for a week, trying to create a vegan, diabetic-friendly cake recipe for a coworker's birthday. Finally I baked it last night, and continued fretting all morning until cake time came, and it turned out to be moist and just sweet enough.

sugar-free, vegan, spiced-apple cake


ingredients:

1 cup SR flour
1/2 cup SR wholemeal flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla essence
About 1/2 cup applesauce
1 tsp olive oil or melted nuttlex
1 cup soy milk
1 to 1 1/2 apples (peeled, grated)
1/4 cup sultanas


method:
Sieve and mix all the dry ingredients together. In order, mix in the vanilla essence, applesauce, nuttlex, soy milk, apples and sultanas. Combine well, but don't over mix. I overmixed, and it made the outside a little rubbery when it was cooling.

You can either bake as muffins (15-20 min) or as a cake (just under 40 min) at 180C. You can eat it plain, but it would work with almond flakes sprinkled on top.

This was another one of those times when I feared that The Woman's Weekly had failed me. However, after many attempts, and a few slight modifications to the recipe, I now believe that I can successfully make a mean white chocolate (mudcake) cupcake.

ingredients:
125g butter (coarsely chopped)
80g white eating chocolate
1 cup caster sugar
half cup of milk
three quarters of a cup of plain flour
one quarter of a cup of self raising flour
half teaspoon vanilla essence
1 egg

method:
Combine butter, sugar, chocolate and milk over a low heat until smooth, then set aside in a bowl to cool for fifteen minutes. After fifteen minutes, whisk in the sifted flours, then egg and essence.

I preheated the oven to 150C (I have a gas oven, no fan force or anything), and found that the only way these cupcakes worked was to bake them uncovered for 20 minutes, then I loosely wrapped foil over the top and baked them for another fifteen. After taking them out of the oven the final time, I left them to sit (with the foil off) for ten minutes.


white chocolate ganache
Heat a quarter cup of cream over the stove until it's boiling, then pour over 180g of white chocolate pieces. Stir until smooth (sometimes I had to cheat, and zap in the microwave for two seconds), then cover and set aside in fridge, stirring occasionally, until it's ready to spread over the cupcakes.

This recipe also works for cakes - double everything, and cook for one hour without foil, and one hour with foil. Just remember to line the cake tin with baking paper.

I am enthralled and positively delighted by BabyCakes NYC, a bakery whose cakes are gluten, sugar, dairy, egg, nut and wheat free, but are also apparently delicious and popular. I would try these in a heart beat if I could, but alas, as they are on the other side of the world. I've been looking at some of the ingredients they use: stevia is an obvious choice, but some of the others are less so. Coconut oil, date sugar and agave nectar are the other ingredients that they list, and I'd really like to try using some of these things. I'm not even sure what agave nectar is, though I'll definitely be having a look for it at the health food store down the road. Apparently (according to this site), agave nectar is sweeter than sugar, and you usually require about twenty five percent less in baking.
 
I am obsessed with ensuring that everyone can eat a cupcake at our wedding, and this may possibly solve my "everything will kill B" problem.
 
 

Quick and easy and awesome when you have to take something to work and you want to look super-impressive. And who doesn't?

Ingredients
2 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
1 egg
1 1/2 cups milk
100 g butter, melted
200 g dark cooking chocolate
1/4 cup cream

Method
1. Preheat oven to 200°C. Line 12 hole muffin pan with paper muffin cases.
2. Sift flour and cocoa into bowl, stir in sugar and choc chips.
3. Whisk egg and milk together, add to dry ingredients with butter, mix well.
4. Spoon mixture into muffin cases. Bake 20 to 25 minutes until cooked. Remove from oven, cool on wire rack.
5. Combine dark cooking chocolate and cream in pan, stir over low heat until melted. Allow to cool, spoon on top of muffins.

Or, you could customise, like I did! I made mini-muffins instead, which need a special pan, and are cooked in an oven at the same temperature but for less time (15 minutes, tops).

Also, I took out the chocolate chips and ditched the topping (the melted chocolate + cream is delicious, but I had no cream) and instead put a small triangle of Lindt chocolate on top of half the mini-muffins as they came out of the oven, and coated the rest in a cream cheese mixture.

Cream cheese topping:
Philly spreadable cream cheese.
Lemon juice.
Icing sugar.

Mix together to taste.

It looks awesome if you do a mixture.

And ... you're done!

I have had a culinary success! I had my doubts when a friend told me of this, but:

Bake an orange cake (baked in whatever one's usual manner is). Allow to cool

Combine some orange juice and sugar, and stir it on the heat until it becomes a syrup, then coat the top of the cake with it. After it has cooled somewhat, it should form a slightly crusty layer on the top of the cake.

Melt chocolate, and coat the top and sides of the cake with melted chocolate. Allow to harden. I like to add a tiny bit of milk to the molten chocolate, so that the chocolate doesn't splinter in an unsightly fashion when one tries to cut the cake, but I suspect a solid coating will work just as well.

Result: delicious jaffa flavoured cake.



Please note: This link will tell you what an English Jaffa Cake is. I think they're more like biscuits.