Carrot Cake

Carrot cake! Carrot cake used to bother me because of my dislike for carrots. I think it was out of hunger desperation one day that I actually got around to trying one and realized it tastes nothing like carrots. And the cream cheese frosting is just my favourite.

Besides, it could just as well be an apple cake or pineapple cake, right? Just substitute portions!

Unfortunately, my sister took our nicer camera with her to New York so these photos are far less impressive. Nonetheless:

Makes 2 8-inch or 9-inch layers or one 13x9 cake

Cake ingredients:

- 3 medium carrots

- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar (I used 1 cup because I'm not too big on sugar)

- 1 cup vegetable oil 

- 3 large eggs

- 2 cups all-purpose flour

- 1/2 tsp cinnamon

- 1 tsp baking soda

- 1 tsp vanilla

- 1/2 tsp salt

- 1/4 tsp nutmeg

- 3 tbsp applesauce

- 2 tbsp milk

- 1 cup coarsely chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Cream cheese frosting: (with frostings I recommend doubling up on ingredients in case you mess up)

- 8 ounces (1 cup) room temperature cream cheese

- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

- 2/3 cup cold heavy whipping cream
- 1/2 confectioners' sugar (icing or powder), sifted

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit. Spray down your cake trays with a cooking spray/ butter and flour them/ or if you're like me and super paranoid, butter them and line with parchment paper. 

Peel your carrots with your fruit/vegetable peeler and grate them down with the large grater holes.

I originally used 4 carrots which was way too much! 

Not a good carrot to grate (it's too thin!) but makes for a good wizarding wand

Separately, beat your sugar, vegetable oil, and eggs with your eggbeater. Once well mixed, add in everything else except the carrots and nuts. 

Mix those in nicely, then add in the nuts and carrots. I used full walnuts rather than buying the already cracked sets since they're actually quite pricey! I cracked about 10 walnuts, you can use more if you like more crunch in your cake. 

If you're doing layers, divide evenly and flatten out the batter, that's important!

If doing layers, bake for 25-35 minutes. If doing one cake, bake for 45-55 minutes. Make sure you check on them so they're not too hard/burn. Let it cool for about an hour. I've had cakes break on me from being too hot and it's a horrible feeling.

You can see why I used parchment paper to line my trays. Comes off nice and clean.

Carefully cut across the tops of the cakes to make sure they're flat. The difference between a slightly lopsided cake and a perfectly flat cake is that each of your layers are flat. I have a giant knife that I use to cut across. A tip would be to measure down the sides of your cake, then place toothpicks around your cake to show where you want to cut it to.

Now comes the frosting. Frosting/icing has always been the thing that pushes me far far away from doing cakes or cupcakes. This is the same recipe I used for the red velvet cupcakes (because it's absolutely delicious), but it's a bit of a hit or miss. I had to make 2 batches last time to get a good one and I had to make 3 batches this time around to finally get a good one.

Start with your whipping cream. Beat that with an eggbeater (I suggest a hand one since you keep a better eye on it) for about 5 or so minutes. Note that it's not a precise time that you should beat it, you really do have to keep watch. You want it just so when you lift up the cream with the eggbeater, it'll stay in that position. It's alright if it's a soft peak (softly holds that peak when you lift it up) because you will beat it with the cream cheese later.

Separately, beat your cream cheese, vanilla extract, and icing sugar. You don't really have much time to beat it when it's mixed with the whipped cream, so beat it meticulously now. Have your cream cheese at room temperature because it's much easier to get lumps out. Once it's soft and whipped, lightly fold in your whipped cream, beat for about 15-30 seconds. You really just want it mixed. What you should see is the ripples from the eggbeater actually staying in the frosting batter and not sinking away. If not, either beat it for 15-30 more seconds, or you've over beat it already. That's why it takes me 2-3 times to get this frosting right, it's so easy to mess up yet hard to tell, so give yourself time to get it right.

Your frosting batter should come out like this. It should be fluffy and light, but holding all the shapes you make in it.

Frost the layers of your cake, starting from bottom to up.

Don't mind mine, it's really not cut flat, I was losing patience. As well, there's my giant knife that I use to cut the tops of my cakes. This was my 2nd batch of frosting which was way too runny (as you can see).

Assemble your cakes and frost all over. I stuck mine in the fridge overnight after frosting and piping it completely.

And a lovely day of baking was over. My new piping tips and coupler, ahh! 

In the morning, I took my cake out from the fridge, and look!

You can see the original (and runny) frosting on the sides, which irks me to no end, but the 3rd batch of non-runny frosting is what I piped with. And it actually doesn't move in the least bit (I'm just not a good piper).

And that's a carrot cake! Enjoy baking!

- Jane

Red Velvet Cupcakes & Cream Cheese Frosting

Cupcakes have always driven me crazy. Always. Which is why I NEEDED to get them right this time, for my own sake.

My cupcakes have always turned out too stiff, didn't rise enough, or the frosting didn't set right.

This recipe made the cupcakes turn out just the way they should! The original recipe stated 12 cupcakes but it really only makes about 9. However, it does make 9 of the most delicious fluffy cupcakes with the creamiest frosting. 

What makes the difference is mixing baking soda and vinegar at once into the cupcakes and the whipping cream in the cream cheese frosting.

For the cupcake you'll need:

(check out the note right under the ingredients list)

• 1 1/4 cups sifted cake flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cups granulated white sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon liquid red food colouring
• 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Note: 

No cake flour? Substitute 1 cup of cake flour for 1 cup of all-purpose flour minus 2 tablespoons

As well, if you can't find buttermilk or can't be bothered to: Substitute 1 cup of buttermilk for 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar and use milk for the rest to achieve 1 cup, and let it sit for 5-10 minutes!

For the frosting, you'll need:

• 4 ounces (1/2 cup) cream cheese, room temperature (this has been recently changed, I halved the quantity of the cream cheese)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup confectioners' (icing or powdered) sugar, sifted
• 2/3 cup cold heavy whipping cream (double cream) (35-40% butterfat)

Okay! Start with preheating you oven to 350 F or 175 C. Line your muffin tray with your baking cups (cupcake liners?)

In a large bowl, sift your flour, baking powder, salt, and cocoa powder together (especially that cocoa powder)

In a separate bowl, use a mixer and beat your room temperature butter at low-medium speed until soft. Add in your sugar and continue beating for a minute or so until fluffy and well-mixed. Add in your egg and vanilla extract.

In a measuring cup or small bowl, mix your buttermilk with your red food colouring. Be careful to put a towel under because red food colouring stains horribly. 

With your mixer at low speed, alternate between your flour mixture and buttermilk + food colouring mixture in three additions. Start and end with your flour mixture.

Mix the baking soda with the white vinegar in a small bowl. It should fizz up nicely or else your baking soda is a bit too old. Working quickly, mix into your cupcake batter. From there, divide your batter up into the muffin tray.

The batter should be a brilliant red like so:

Here's how important that baking soda and white vinegar mixture is:

The one on the left is with, and the one on the right is without

Pop your tray in the oven and bake for 18-23 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Meanwhile, clean up and make the frosting!

The original recipe calls for beating your in all your ingredients with the whipping cream going in last, where it will whip up and become thick and hold well.

However, that method is way too easy to mess up. So I somewhat worked backwards.

In one bowl, beat your cream cheese until very smooth. You don't want any cream cheese lumps in the frosting. Mix in your icing sugar and vanilla extract.

In another bowl, beat your cold whipping cream on high speed for a couple of minutes until it turns into a light whipped cream consistency, holding soft peaks. They don't have to be stiff peaks just yet because they will be beat a little more.

Once it's holding it's peak, mix in your cream cheese mixture and beat quickly until the lumps are out, and it holds it's shape. Don't over-beat because it may turn into an even runnier consistency.

Here's what the frosting should look like:

After that's done, put it into a piping bag with any piping tip, be sure to squeeze out the excess air, and have fun with it. For reference on how to assemble a piping bag, look at the last post!

Enjoy and good luck!

- Janeator Bakin'

Assembling a Pastry Bag

Here's something I found from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook that ought to be useful: assembling a pastry bag:

Hope that can be of help! Enjoy baking.

- Janeator Bakin'

Vanilla Macarons

Vanilla Macarons!

This was my first time making them, and if you've heard they're tricky, it's true. But they're definitely doable.

For that reason, I've tried my best to make this recipe as straight-forward and explanatory as possible!

Here's the recipe i used:

• 1¾ cups whole or sliced almonds
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 7 egg whites
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped or 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Food colouring (if you'd like)

Note: you can choose to reduce the amount of powdered sugar from the given recipe, but none less than 2 cups, as it does keep the almond flour drier.

Grind the almonds through the food processor with a couple tablespoons of powdered sugar to keep it dry. You can choose to do this in portions if your food processor is small, like mine. Add in the remainder of the powdered sugar. If you don't have a good processor, you can run it through the blender, as long as you can really get it grounded down. Grind up the almonds until fine enough to run through a sift like flour. Sift the almond flour into a mixing bowl.

Separate your eggs so you have a bowl of egg whites. Since we will be beating the egg whites like a meringue, my tips are:

• Don't get any yolks into your egg whites while separating! The fat of the yolks can very well mess up your meringue.
• If you get shells in while separating, do not fish them out with your fingers! Same goes, the oil from your fingers can mess up the meringue. Instead, take a spoon (or chopsticks) and attempt to get the shell pieces out.

Separately, set up a double boiler. Fill the bottom pot with water, not reaching the bowl placed on top, and  boil the water. Place a bowl (make sure it's safe to do this with) or another pot on top of the first pot. Heat your egg whites until lukewarm in the bowl (around room temperature). Picture below:

The reason we warm up the egg whites to room temperature is because when beating, they can gain about 5 times the volume compared to beating cold egg whites, if not more.

Once you've warmed up the egg whites, move it over to a mixer (or use the same bowl for mixing). Use the whisk attachment for your mixer. Beat the egg whites until foamy.

Once the egg whites are foamed up, proceed to add the sugar. Don't add the sugar in beforehand. Beat the egg whites and sugar on medium-high speed until stiff peaks. This can take anywhere from 5 - 10 minutes depending on your mixer.

More tips for beating egg whites:

• Don't take a break while beating your egg whites! 
• The mixture will start runny, turning increasingly thicker
• Once it turns into a thick cream consistency, but doesn't hold onto your whisk, it's about halfway

This would be an example of stiff peaks: 

If you're still not sure whether your egg whites beat correctly, you can test it by placing a small amount onto a sheet, giving it a couple minutes, and seeing if the egg whites spread out. If they spread out, they're too runny and need to be beaten more. If the egg whites have a creamy consistency, but hold their peaks, they're perfect! A sign that it's been over-beaten is if the egg whites turn almost into clumps, and no longer look creamy.

It's important to test the egg whites because we don't want the macarons to spread out and fall apart if the egg whites don't hold.

If you choose to use food colouring, add one drop (or two, depending on the saturation of the food colouring) to your egg whites now. Fold it in carefully until the colour spreads out evenly.

Next, fold in your almond flour in small portions. In case you've never folded, simply take a spatula (not your whisk), gently slice through the centre of your mixture, then make a sweep around the side of the bowls, thus, folding in your mixture. You want to fold it in and not whisk it in because you want to keep all the air in the beaten egg whites locked in. 

This is the best picture I could find to slightly explain that:

Do this repeatedly until all the almond flour has been mixed in. You can add in your vanilla extract now, folding it in as well. 

Line cookie trays with either silicon sheets or parchment paper. I used parchment paper for convenience sake, but I've heard it makes the edges much cleaner for macarons. Either way, both are great to use.

Put the mixture into a pastry bag with any large round tip. To put mixture into a pastry bag, roll down the sides of the pastry bag until halfway down the bag, and put the mixture in. I have a cover type of thing to put in front of my pastry tip that came with the pack so that the mixture doesn't just pour out the other end. If you've got one, stick that in front. If you haven't, put the mixture in quickly and over the bowl to avoid a mess.

Once you can fit all the mixture you can into the pastry bag, squeeze out the excess air, roll in the top, or put an elastic band on it. Use pressure at the top of the pastry bag while controlling the piping near the bottom.

Note that in this picture, the pastry tip is MUCH too small for macarons. You want to go for about a #9 tip to a #12 tip.

Pipe your macarons into small circles about 1 - 1.5 inches wide. Any larger and they don't look nearly as cute. Things to be careful about:

• Pipe the circles equally on all sides as they may not rise on the heavier side.
• Don't layer on top if you notice the circle doesn't look quite right. Because of the egg whites, macarons tend to keep their shapes even when baked, and it doesn't show up nicely. 
• Try to match sizes up with each other well since you will be sandwiching them together

Once they're all piped out, put them in your oven for 16-18 minutes at 275 to 300 degrees F. I used 290 in my standard oven for 16 minutes. Make sure to check on your macarons when they hit 16 minutes. You want a soft macaron crispy, not a crunchy, hard to chew one! 

Finished macarons are tough on the top, almost hollow sounding when tapped lightly. (I used a chopstick, it went very well.)

Let them cool, and remember that they can break very easily, so be sure to let them rest. 

For the centre, you can use anything from buttercream, jam, nutella, ganache, etc.

Here is a great and simple recipe for Chocolate Buttercream

For mine, I used jam and nutella:

Do you see what i mean about the lopsided macaron shells and using the right pastry tip?

Note that no matter what you do, some macaron shells will go wrong. Your success rate will vary with each batch.

These were my failed macarons, and even then I'm pretty proud:

Have a ton of fun making them, and keep in mind all the small tips and pointers. Done right, they're delicious and extremely rewarding.

Greatest of luck! Enjoy.

- Janeator Bakin'