Alice In Eatland

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White Blueberry Cake With Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

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White Blueberry Cake with Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

White Blueberry Cake with Stable Fluffy Cream Cheese Frosting is the cake of the year for me. It was also my birthday cake this year.

My obsession with white cake means that I’ve pinned almost every white cake recipe on Pinterest onto my White Cake Board and tried and tested more than several white cake recipes over the years.

I adore the white cake recipe by Goodie Godmother and that is the one I’ve used here with a few alterations. You can find the original recipe and photos of her very pretty perfect white cake here.

Fresh blueberries are a fabulous addition, providing a bright, tart flavour and contrasting texture to this tender-crumbed milky vanilla cake.

White Blueberry Cake with Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

Additionally, the deep purple of the blueberries dotting the pale white serenity of the cake in places is quite the visual treat.

I feel baking emulsion works really well for non-cocoa cakes (especially white cakes) and I have used LorAnn’s utterly gorgeous Butter Vanilla Emulsion in this recipe. Obviously any vanilla extract or your go-to vanilla essence is equally good too.

I use the reverse creaming method here created by ultimate cake authority and baking guru Rose Levy Beranbaum whom I hold in divine culinary reverence. Her “The Cake Bible” which my mother has owned since 1989, is one of my most loved and trusted books ever when it comes to baking and cake making.

Good fluffy cream cheese frosting is a thing of joy but can also be a nightmare when it comes to stability.

Add to that the challenge and despair of not being able to find brick-style cream cheese in Lahore and that equals grounds for a possible unstable cream cheese frosting situation.

White Blueberry Cake with Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

I had the very rare good fortune of stumbling upon a couple of Philadelphia Cream Cheese bricks just once at Essajee’s (February 2015 to be precise). I joyously bought them to make the most stable cream cheese frosting ever for the Rainbow Cake at my birthday that year. Sadly I have never come across that product again in Lahore.

Luckily, I found a recipe by the baking perfectionist Cleobuttera, calling for cream cheese squares, easily found at many grocery stores here. The result is a super stable, slightly tangy and ultra creamy frosting. Her original recipe and close ups of her beautiful cream cheese frosting swirls on a delicious carrot cake can be viewed here.

Since special frostings call for special extracts, I have added Nielsen-Massey’s dazzlingly heady Mexican Pure Vanilla Extract to the frosting. I am equally happy adding any other vanilla extract or a beloved vanilla essence to the frosting.

The edible pansies I have decorated the cake with are from Macroorganics, who grow a frankly staggering selection of edible flowers, fruit, vegetables and herbs, both the local and the exotic varieties. The variety of their produce grown in Okara and shipped as fresh as can be to other parts of the country is unmatched.

Thank you if you’ve read the post so far. For those wanting to skip directly to the recipe, I am quite obviously behind times and will upload the “Jump To Recipe” button as soon as I can figure out how to add it.

On to the recipe.

White Blueberry Cake with Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting

 

White Blueberry Cake With Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting 

 

Recipe Type: Dessert
Author: Alice In Eatland
Serves: 8 -10

 

Milky tender white vanilla cake dotted with fresh blueberries & filled and topped with a stable fluffy lemony cream cheese frosting + edible pansies

 

WHITE BLUEBERRY CAKE 


INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tablespoons white vinegar or fresh lemon juice
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 cup cream
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 large egg whites
  • 2 teaspoons LorAnn’s Butter Vanilla Emulsion OR vanilla extract OR vanilla essence
  • 1/4 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
  • 2-4 cups fresh blueberries
  • 3 cups flour
  • 6 tablespoons cornflour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 tablespoon baking powder
  • 1.5 teaspoons salt
  • 2/3 cup oil

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. Line (either with grease proof paper or foil), oil and flour two 8 inch round cake pans (the heavy and deep kind will give the best results).
  3. To make the sour cream, stir vinegar or lemon juice into the milk and then stir this buttermilk into the cream.
  4. Lightly combine the sour cream, 1/4 cup milk, vanilla extract, almond extract (if using) and egg whites.
  5. Toss the blueberries in a couple of tablespoons of the flour until evenly coated. Set aside.
  6. Combine the remaining flour, cornflour, sugar, baking powder and salt.
  7. Beat in the oil and the remaining 3/4 cup milk till combined followed by the egg white mixture in 3 batches.
  8. Finally fold in the flour-dusted blueberries.
  9. Divide the cake batter evenly between the 2 prepared pans.
  10. Bake 30 – 60 minutes or until a cake tester inserted near centre of the cakes comes out clean.
  11. Remove cakes from oven, let cool 10 minutes then remove from pans and cool completely on wire racks.
  12. To frost, thinly trim away any crusty tops and brown bottoms of the cold cakes if you wish.
  13. Slice each cake into 2 horizontally.
  14. Sandwich the layers with Stable Fluffy Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting (recipe below).
  15. Trim sides with a serrated knife (optional).
  16. If you choose to leave the sides of the cakes unfrosted like I did, you may have leftover frosting which can be frozen in an airtight container for another use.
  17. Decorate the cake with washed and dried edible pansies or any other edible flowers.
  18. Keep refrigerated but serve at room temperature.

 

STABLE FLUFFY LEMON CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 – 4 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1/4 cup cream
  • 150 grams Lurpak Slightly Salted Butter
  • 3 cups icing sugar/confectioner’s sugar, well sifted
  • 2 teaspoons Nielsen-Massey Mexican Pure Vanilla Extract OR any vanilla extract OR vanilla essence
  • 400 grams cream cheese squares such as Kiri or Almarai, cool & not at warm room temperature
  • 1 teaspoon fresh lemon rind, very finely grated (optional)

 

METHOD

  1. Combine the lemon juice and milk and stir into the cream to make sour cream.
  2. Beat butter until pale in colour and fluffy.
  3. Add the sifted icing sugar/confectioner’s sugar and vanilla and beat until fluffy.
  4. Beat in the sour cream.
  5. Add the cream cheese squares, one at a time, beating very well after each addition and scraping the bowl from time to time.
  6. Whip the frosting until smooth, lump free and fluffy.
  7. Add the very finely grated fresh lemon rind, if wished.
  8. Use.

Café Con Tres Leches Cake

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Café Con Tres Leches Cake
A hauntingly beautiful plant based Café Con Tres Leches Cake with fresh, tart berries and dark chocolate skulls is just the kind of dessert I need this Halloween. Or anytime of the year, really.

Making and assembling the cake is pretty straightforward, though you do need to plan slightly ahead due to the number to steps involved. A little time consuming maybe but not complicated at all.

Café Con Tres Leches Cake

Use your preferred combination of plant based milks, either store bought or homemade. The milks listed in the recipe are my personal preference and I have made both the almond and pistachio milks myself.

Some may feel that a chilled Café Con Tres Leches Cake is perhaps a little summery for autumn/fall since the season mostly calls for warming desserts and cosy sweets.

Café Con Tres Leches Cake

The cream white pumpkin & dried foliage autumn/fall centrepiece that I made for Halloween 2021

 

If you’re one of those folks, please be assured that this is pretty good enjoyed at room temperature too.

Tips For Making A Stunning Café Con Tres Leches Cake:

  • The cocoa can be omitted from the cake base for an uninterrupted coffee experience.
  • I added cocoa + coffee to the lovely Vegan Tres Leches Cake recipe by Cook’s Hideout for 2 reasons:

Café Con Tres Leches Cake

-For visual drama, since the topping, berries and skulls show up more vibrantly on a darker base

-The flavour combination, as coffee is one of my favourite pairings with chocolate based desserts.

The chocolate skulls are of course, in honour of Halloween though if you’re a true horror fan like me, you wouldn’t mind adding these to your celebratory desserts throughout the year.

On to the recipe for this easy and eerily elegant Café Con Tres Leches Cake.

Café Con Tres Leches Cake

 

CAFÉ CON TRES LECHES CAKE

 

Recipe Type: Dessert    Author: Alice In Eatland
Serves: 6 – 8

 

Milky mocha sponge, creamy topping, tart berries & dark chocolate skulls make this elegant vegan Café Con Tres Leches Cake perfect for Halloween or for any time of the year.


CAKE

  • 1 cup plant based milk (oat, almond, coconut or any milk of your choice)
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice or white vinegar
  • 1 teaspoons instant coffee dissolved in 1 teaspoon boiling water, cooled completely
  • 3/4 caster sugar
  • 1/3 cup oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • 1 1/4 cups plain flour
  • 3 tablespoons cornflour
  • 1/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt

3 MILK SOAK

  • 1 teaspoon instant coffee
  • 1/4 cup sweetened coconut condensed milk *(recipe below)
  • 1/4 cup almond milk **(for homemade option, please see the recipe below)
  • 1/4 cup pistachio milk **(for homemade option, please see the recipe below)

TOPPING

  • 1/2 – 3/4 cup coconut cream, well chilled
  • 1/4 – 1/2 cup sifted icing sugar
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • Raspberries, blueberries or any fruit of choice
  • Chocolate skulls*** (recipe below)

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. Oil & flour an 8” square cake pan.
  3. Stir plant based milk & lemon juice or white vinegar to make buttermilk & set aside for 5 minutes.
  4. Whisk in the cooled coffee, sugar, oil & vanilla until combined.
  5. Sieve flour, cornflour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt together.
  6. Stir dry ingredient mixture into the wet ingredient mixture until just combined. Do not over mix.
  7. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake 30 – 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center of cake comes out clean.
  8. Remove cake from oven and let cool in pan 10 minutes.
  9. Poke the entire surface of the cake with either a fork, a skewer or a toothpick.
  10. For the 3 Milk Soak, stir the coffee, coconut condensed milk, almond milk, pistachio milk & vanilla together in a pan and bring to the boil.
  11. Lower the heat, let simmer 5 – 7 minutes & pour evenly over warm cake.
  12. Let the cake cool completely and then chill covered for at least 2-4 hours. Overnight is best.
  13. To make the topping, whip the cold coconut cream with icing sugar & vanilla until thick and fluffy.
  14. Spread or pipe topping all over the top of the chilled cake.
  15. Decorate with fresh fruit & chocolate skulls, if using. I also added some well-washed leaves of a rose plant from my garden.
  16.  Keep refrigerated.

 

*Sweetened Coconut Condensed Milk

Stir 1/2 cup full fat coconut milk & 4 tablespoons sugar in a pan over medium heat.

Bring to the boil, stirring constantly and then lower heat and cook stirring frequently, until milk thickens & reduces by half ( 20 minutes or so).

Cool completely & store airtight in the fridge.

 

**Nut Milk

Soak 1/4 cup raw unroasted almonds or pistachios in 1 cup water for 8 -12 hours.

Drain, rinse with clean water and add to blender jar with 1/2 – 3/4 cups drinking water.

Blend until smooth and then strain through a nut bag, cheesecloth or muslin, squeezing all the milk out.

Save the leftover nut solids airtight in the freezer and add to things like roti dough, pizza dough or cookie dough for a nutty flavour & texture.

Stir a drop or so of vanilla extract into the strained milk, if you wish.

Cover airtight & store in the fridge.

Stir before using and consume within 2-3 days.

 

***Chocolate Skulls

Break a bar of vegan friendly chocolate (I used a bar of Nestlé Bourneville Classic Dark Chocolate) into pieces.

Microwave on high in 20 second increments, stirring every time until the chocolate is completely melted, being careful not to burn it.

You can melt the chocolate on top of a double boiler instead of using the microwave.

Pour melted chocolate into silicone skull moulds (I purchased my skull mould from Darak.pk) and freeze for an hour.

Unmould and store chocolate skulls in a paper towel lined airtight container in the fridge.

 

The raspberries & blueberries adorning this Café Con Tres Leches Cake were purchased from Al Fatah Gold Crest Mall, Lahore.

AUTUMN APPLE CARAMEL CAKE

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Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

Autumn/fall is well and truly here and as the temperatures fall, for me nothing feels cosier than pottering about the kitchen in general and some good old-fashioned baking in particular.

So here’s my Autumn Apple Caramel Cake, which can obviously be made any time of the year but is special particularly during the beautiful season it has been named in honour of.

And with classic autumnal things like pumpkins, caramel apples, falling leaves and Halloween in the air, I feel this is one of the most perfect cakes to celebrate the fall season with.

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

A classic bundt cake is as old-fashioned as it gets. Add a retro style apple cake into the equation and you have all the makings of my ideal way to spend an autumn/fall afternoon.

I will admit that I am a bit obsessed with bundt pans which is frankly, a rather tragic obsession as at the moment I own just two bundt pans in total. Boo hoo!

I would love to get my hands on a couple of those intricately sexy Nordic Ware bundt pans but in the meantime, my trusty old and much less intricate no-brand-in-particular bundt pans will have to suffice. And honestly, they don’t do a bad job at all.

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

This Autumn Apple Caramel Cake is moist, fragrant and nutty and can actually hold its own without the caramel drizzle.

My family loves this cake either with or without the caramel drizzle and we enjoy it cut into generous slices with cups of hot tea.

There is a subtle hint of cinnamon in there too – you can tell it’s somewhere in the background but just enough so as not to overpower the delicate apple taste and fragrance.

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

And of course, the dehydrated apple wheels on top transform this simple cake into a stunning masterpiece.

This Autumn Apple Caramel Cake is also a fond reminder of two food related memories from my childhood.

One is of a cookbook brought from London by my eldest maternal Aunt back in the ’80s that had, amongst some rather imaginatively named recipes such as “Lightning Cake” (with the tag line ‘Made in a moment, gone in a flash!’), an old-fashioned “Farmhouse Apple Cake”.

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

I loved imagining myself in a rustic English farmhouse and munching on slices of that apple cake with a thick caramel icing atop.

The other memory this cake triggers is that of a cooking class in Daharki during the early ’90s.

A group of French engineers were on a visit to the Engro (Exxon back then) plant and their wives held a cooking class for the colony ladies, teaching them some French recipes.

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

There were two types of quiches, a basic quiche and a mushroom quiche and two kinds of rustic cakes – an almond cake and an apple cake.

I still have those recipe printouts somewhere and this apple cake reminds me of that time.

I hope you enjoy making this Autumn Apple Caramel Cake as much as I do. Thanks to STL Cooks for the apple cake recipe, Cooking With Ruthie for the recipe that I based the caramel drizzle on and to Entertaining With Beth for the decorating idea.

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake

AUTUMN APPLE CARAMEL CAKE

 

Recipe Type: Dessert    Author: Alice In Eatland
Prep Time: 20 Minutes    Cook Time: 40 Minutes    Total Time: 60 Minutes
Serves: 6

 

Autumn Apple Caramel Cake – moist, fragrant & nutty with a hint of cinnamon & a beautiful caramel drizzle. Perfect for autumn / fall!

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup caster sugar / superfine sugar
  • 1 large egg (or 2 small eggs)
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • 1 1/2 cups plain flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/2 cups grated apples*
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. If using a small bundt pan (around 5″ or so in diameter) please refer to the note** below in which I also detail the pan size and shape I used to bake the cake in these photos.
  3. If using an 8″ round pan, a 7″ square pan or any other similar sized pan of your choice, oil it evenly.
  4. Sprinkle some plain flour and shake and tilt the pan until it is evenly coated. Tap off any excess flour.
  5. Now on to the cake batter. Toss the nuts in a few teaspoons of the flour until well coated***. Set aside.
  6. Beat the oil, sugar, egg(s) and vanilla until thick and pale.
  7. Stir the flour, salt, baking soda and ground cinnamon together and fold into the wet mixture.
  8. Stir in the grated apple followed by the flour dusted walnuts or pecans.
  9. Pour mixture into your prepared pan.
  10. Bake 30 – 40 minutes or until skewer or toothpick inserted near the centre of the cake comes out clean.
  11. Remove baked cake from oven and cool on a wire rack for 10 – 15 minutes.
  12. Loosen the edges of the cake slightly with a knife, turn upside down onto the cooling rack, gently removing the pan as the cake inverts out onto the rack.
  13. Cool cake completely to room temperature.
  14. Store airtight.

 

DEHYDRATED APPLE CHIPS

 

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminium foil.
  3. Place 1 medium or large apple on its side on a chopping board.
  4. Using a sharp knife, slice the apple as thinly as possible into wheels.
  5. Place the apple wheels in a single layer on the prepared baking sheet.
  6. Place in preheated oven.
  7. Keep an eye on the apple chips. They should begin to turn a pale brown, look dryish and the edges should begin to curl up in places.
  8. Make sure they don’t over brown or burn!
  9. Once this stage is reached, flip them over with a pair of tongs.
  10. Continue baking until the other side is also brownish, dry and curling up.
  11. Remove from oven, transfer the apple chips to a wire rack and cool completely to room temperature.
  12. Store in an airtight jar if not using right away.

 

CARAMEL DRIZZLE

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 1/4 cup light or dark soft brown sugar, packed
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • 1/4 cup icing sugar, sifted

 

METHOD

  1. Place the brown sugar, butter and milk in a pan and stir over medium heat.
  2. When the butter and sugar have melted and the mixture reaches the boil, remove from heat.
  3. Stir in the vanilla.
  4. Whisk in the icing sugar until smooth.
  5. Place cake on a wire rack with a parchment paper lined tray underneath to catch icing drips.
  6. Spoon the warm caramel drizzle all over the top of the cake so that it runs down over and drips down the sides.
  7. I pour the warm caramel drizzle in a Pyrex measuring cup and pour it all over the cake. I find this much easier and quicker than the spoon method.
  8. If using dehydrated apple chips / wheels or any other decoration (such as nuts), place them into position immediately after pouring the glaze so that they adhere to the cake before the icing sets, which it does rather quickly.

 

NOTES

 

*I used two kinds of apples to make this cake – one and a half each of Granny Smith apples (my favourite) and local red apples.

I did not peel the apples and used a box grater to grate them.

Peeling the apples before grating makes the process easier so it is definitely recommended.

 

**Oil your bundt pan very well, using a pastry brush if you have it, making sure you reach and coat all crevices, nooks and crannies evenly.

Place your well greased pan upside down on a rack with a parchment paper lined tray underneath to catch excess oil.

Oil begins to pool inside bundt pans once they’re greased so this step will prevent it from doing that while you finish preparing your batter.

You can spray your bundt pan with a cooking spray containing flour instead of oiling it.

I do not flour my bundt pans because I find that the baked cakes seem to crust in places if flour is used.

I have used a 10″ silicone bundt pan and double the recipe to make the cake in the photos.

This particular bundt shape is known as The Cathedral.

A cake baked in a silicone bundt can take longer to bake compared to a metal pan.

If using a silicone bundt, place the prepared pan on a baking sheet before pouring in the batter and place it in the oven on top of the baking sheet.

The baking sheet will provide stability to your silicone bundt pan which can sometimes be a bit wobbly and unsteady.

 

***This step of tossing the nuts in a little flour will prevent them from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking.

Gothic Chic Cupcakes

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Gothic Chic Cupcakes

Post Updated: 11.03.24

Gothic Chic Cupcakes have been my favourite Halloween dessert idea since 2017! Moist vanilla cupcake base topped with a very chocolatey black cocoa fudge frosting, these are perfect for any special occasion during the year and absolute showstoppers especially at Halloween.

The first cupcake recipe on my blog was for Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes for Halloween 2016. Check that one out too for a fun but sweetly spooky Halloween cupcake recipe.

The first Halloween cupcake recipe had a chocolate cupcake base topped with vanilla frosting. The Gothic Chic Cupcake recipe is the other way around – my favourite moist vanilla cupcake recipe with a very old fashioned and very delicious cocoa fudge frosting.

As mentioned in my previous Halloween post, I did not grow up celebrating Halloween except for one year in the ’90s. As an adult now, I have been getting more and more excited about Halloween each year.

Gothic Chic Cupcakes

Instagram and Pinterest with their fabulous Halloween related food, decor and craft posts are definitely to be credited for making Halloween popular in parts of the world where it isn’t really celebrated as such.

I had decided that along with food, I would do some sort of Halloween DIY craft or decor project as well this year.

I had a very clear idea of something very chic and very minimalistic Gothic in mind hence the black, gold and silver theme for my Halloween.

Not being very “crafty” as such, I wanted to do something simple but effective so I chose the very aptly titled Creepy Black Twig Wreath – thanks to Earnest Home Co. for the fabulous idea and the easy tutorial.

I collected the branches and twigs off a basil plant and a rose bush – both from my garden and both completely dried up. I then put the twig wreath together bit by bit according to the step by step tutorial.

My brother says the finished wreath looks like something out of the horror movie “The Ring” – target achieved!

Gothic Chic Cupcakes

Pumpkins were next and after trawling through various pumpkin ideas on Pinterest, I decided on simple painted pumpkins for Halloween 2017.

Pinterest has a photo of a large pumpkin painted matte black sitting on a chair and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to have a black pumpkin this Halloween. I was finding gold and silver painted pumpkins on Pinterest quite appealing as well.

So my sister-in-law and I spray painted a few pumpkins black, gold and silver. I could not get hold of perfectly shaped pumpkins but after they were painted and were sitting in all their beautiful painted glory, I felt the irregular shapes, indents and imperfections here and there somehow added to the Gothic appeal that I was after.

And lastly, the Gothic Chic Cupcakes. I adore this moist vanilla cupcake recipe so much and for the life of me I can’t find the link to the original recipe because I wrote the recipe down the old fashioned way in my crumbling old recipe diary.

Like a fool, I completely forgot to write down the name of the blog where I took the recipe from. I am trying to search for that particular blog and hopefully if I find it I will update this blog post with proper credit to the original creator of this wonderful recipe.

Gothic Chic Cupcakes

The frosting recipe comes via My Gluten Free Kitchen with a deep cocoa flavour and dreamy pipeability. The idea was to dye the cocoa fudge  frosting a jet black with food colour.

As I was adding the black food colour to the frosting and mixing it in, I stopped when the icing reached a deep dark charcoal gray. It looked incredible and very broodingly sexy – so much cooler than the flat black I had intended to achieve.

I used gold and silver cupcake liners / paper bake cups for my Gothic Chic Cupcakes.

I wanted the vanilla part of the cupcake to show very clearly so instead of covering almost the entire top of the cupcakes with frosting, I opted to pipe rosettes that would leave room for the vanilla part to show.

I have been ‘piping partially’ this way lately and liking it. You can obviously cover the entire tops of your Gothic Chic Cupcakes in frosting like it is usually done.

Happy baking and frosting and a very happy Halloween to all!

Gothic Chic Cupcakes

Gothic Chic Cupcakes

 

Recipe Type: Dessert    Author: Alice In Eatland
Prep Time: 30 Minutes    Cook Time: 20 Minutes    Total Time: 50 Minutes
Serves: 8 – 10
Keyword: Gothic Cupcakes Recipe, Goth Cupcakes Recipe, Halloween Cupcakes,

 

These moist & fluffy Gothic Chic Cupcakes are perfumed with vanilla & frosted with a dark & intensely chocolate cocoa fudge frosting – so tasty & so chic!

 

INGREDIENTS FOR MOIST VANILLA CUPCAKES

  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 tablespoon white vinegar
  • 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup cream
  • 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon flour
  • 1/8 cup cornflour or cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon + 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon oil
  • 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup + 1 tablespoon caster sugar or superfine sugar
  • 1 medium egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • 1/8 teaspoon almond extract or essence (optional)

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. Line a standard size muffin pan / cupcake pan with gold and silver paper baking cups / cupcake liners. Set aside.
  3. Stir the milk and vinegar together to make buttermilk.
  4. Add prepared buttermilk to the cream and stir together to make sour cream. Set aside.
  5. Combine the flour, cornflour or cornstarch, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.
  6. Beat the oil and sugar together for 30 – 60 seconds.
  7. Add the egg and extracts and beat until combined.
  8. Beat in the combined dry ingredients until smooth.
  9. Lastly beat in prepared sour cream until just mixed.
  10. Pour batter into a glass measuring jug.
  11. Fill the paper baking cups in the muffin pan between 1/2 – 3/4 full.
  12. Bake 18 – 20 minutes or until the cupcakes turn slightly golden and a wooden pick inserted into the centre of cupcakes comes out nearly clean. Do not overbake.
  13. Remove baked cupcakes onto a wire rack. Cool completely before frosting.
  14. Store cool unfrosted cupcakes airtight until ready to frost.

 

INGREDIENTS FOR COCOA FUDGE FROSTING

  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/4 cup cocoa
  • 1 1/2 cups + 1/3 cup icing sugar or confectioner’s sugar
  • 3 tablespoons milk
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or essence
  • Black gel food colour (prefereably from Wilton or AmeriColor)

 

METHOD

  1. Put butter in a microwave safe bowl and microwave uncovered on high 10 – 20 seconds or until almost melted.
  2. Remove bowl from microwave and stir until butter is completely melted.
  3. Whisk in the cocoa and then microwave uncovered again on high for 30 seconds.
  4. Remove from microwave and beat in icing sugar and milk alternately until creamy.
  5. Beat in vanilla.
  6. Lastly add the black food colour, a little at a time while beating until desired colour is achieved.
  7. Frosting dyed with black food colour deepens in hue as the frosting sits, so wait 10 or so minutes after adding food colour to see how much the colour of the frosting darkens before adding more.
  8. Make sure the frosting is completely cool before piping onto cupcakes.
  9. Use a Wilton 1M tip to pipe rosettes of cocoa fudge frosting onto the cupcakes.
  10. Store your Gothic Chic Cupcakes airtight. These can be refrigerated but make sure you bring the cupcakes completely down to room temperature before serving.

How To Make Hot Cross Buns

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‍Hot Cross Buns are just what one needs when Easter is around the corner. It would be very hard to imagine Easter time without these delicious dried fruit studded, fragrantly spiced sweet buns! (Post Updated: 25th March ‘23)

I can hardly remember any Easter from my childhood where Hot Cross Buns did not feature. Even when we were living in Daharki, with nary a Hot Cross Bun providing bakery anywhere, my maternal Grandmother would either send or bring us the buns from either Misquita Bakers or sometimes from Lawrence Bakers, both in Karachi, so we could have them for Good Friday.

 

Hot Cross Buns

Dough for the Hot Cross Buns after the first rise

 

Easter in Lahore meant that my paternal Grandmother would get Hot Cross Buns for the family from Mohkam Din Bakers. I believe Shezan Bakers too used to make Hot Cross Buns around Easter time though I’m not sure.

This year I decided to have a go at making homemade Hot Cross Buns and to make it a yearly Easter tradition, provided they turned out well.

 

Hot Cross Buns

The dough cut into pieces for forming the buns

 

I’m happy to say that my family and I quite loved my homemade Hot Cross Buns and I shall try to make these every Easter from now on.

I followed respected British food expert Delia Smith’s Hot Cross Bun recipe. Miss Smith’s cookery shows on BBC Good Food are some of my earliest memories of British tv cooking which is why I decided to follow her traditional Hot Cross Bun recipe.

 

Hot Cross Buns

The dough balls placed well apart in a buttered pan, to allow room for expansion

 

Thoughts And Tips On Making Hot Cross Buns

  • There are some very deliciously innovative variations of Hot Cross Buns now, including the savoury variety.
    I made a Savoury Hot Cross Bun Ring for Easter ‘22, using this same base recipe but by giving it a savoury twist. I will share that version soon hopefully.
  • This one here is perhaps one of the most traditional Hot Cross Bun recipes out there and it is spicy and fruity in that comfortingly old-fashioned sort of way that is hard to beat.
  • I like to bake these Hot Cross Buns until they are deep golden brown so that the pale pastry crosses show prominently against the dark bun tops in stark contrast.
  • The sugar glaze brushed on the buns at the end is essential in my opinion as it provides the final shining touch.
  • Hot Cross Buns can easily be frozen if you decide to make them in advance, thus leaving you time to do other things during the busy week leading up to Easter.
  • Simply thaw frozen Hot Cross Buns completely in the fridge and reheat in the oven for a few minutes before slicing.
  • Hot Cross Buns taste best spread with soft butter and enjoyed with a cup of hot tea.

 

Hot Cross Buns

The dough balls after the second rising; they have almost doubled in size, have the pastry crosses pressed onto them and are finally ready to go into the oven

 

The recipe has quite a few steps, but I assure you that it is not difficult at all and every point that has been listed down at each stage is just to make it easier for you and to ensure that your Hot Cross Buns turn out wonderful.

 

Hot Cross Buns

 

Hot Cross Buns

 

Recipe Type: Breakfast & Brunch    Author: Alice In Eatland
Prep Time: 1 – 2 Hours    Cook Time: 15 – 20 Minutes
Serves: 8

 

Fruity, spicy & utterly delicious, nothing says Easter more than these easy to make traditional Hot Cross Buns spread with butter & enjoyed with tea!

 

INGREDIENTS FOR THE BUNS

  • 2 (around 3″ each) cinnamon sticks
  • 6 – 8 cloves
  • 1 blade mace
  • 250 grams flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt OR regular salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ginger powder
  • A good grating of nutmeg
  • 55 grams black currants, stemmed if necessary
  • 25 grams candied peel, chopped
  • 25 grams soft butter
  • 2 1/2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 egg
  • 1/3 cup water
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 2 teaspoons instant yeast *
  • Extra flour
  • Extra milk

 

INGREDIENTS FOR THE CROSSES

  • 20 grams flour
  • 5 grams butter, soft but cool
  • A few teaspoons cold water

 

INGREDIENTS FOR THE GLAZE

  • 1/2 tablespoon granulated sugar
  • 1 tablespoon water

 

METHOD

  1. Put the cinnamon sticks, cloves and mace in a small coffee grinder and grind as finely as possible. Sieve.
  2. Stir flour, salt, ginger powder, nutmeg, currants and chopped candied peel and sieved ground spices until combined.
  3. Heat the butter and milk in a small pan or in a microwaveable bowl until butter melts. Cool 5 minutes and quickly whisk in the egg. Make sure the liquid isn’t too warm or the egg might scramble in it.
  4. Heat the water until warm enough that you can comfortably submerge your finger in it (about 105 degrees F – 110 degrees F).
  5. Stir in the sugar and then sprinkle the yeast on the surface. Let sit without stirring 2 – 5 minutes or until the mixture smells yeasty and begins to form a creamy foam around the edges.
  6. Once that happens give a quick stir and let sit another 2 – 5 minutes or until the yeast begins to gently bubble up in places and the mixture begins to foam up. This stage is crucial and if it doesn’t happen, your buns may not rise.
  7. Stir yeast mixture into the butter, milk and egg mixture until combined.
  8. Make a well in the centre of the combined dry ingredients and pour in the wet mixture. Mix with a large spoon or spatula or with a dough hook if using a stand mixer.
  9. When the ingredients are mixed, the dough should come together, be elasticky and the bowl should be clean. If the dough is too sticky, add some of the extra flour. If it seems too dry, add extra milk, a teaspoon at a time.
  10. Knead 1 – 2 minutes by hand on a floured work surface and then put dough into a large oiled bowl.
  11. Brush oil onto the entire surface of your dough ball to prevent any skin from forming, cover tightly with a tea towel or plastic wrap and let sit in a warm, draft free place (like in a switched off oven or in an off microwave) for 1 – 2 hours or until dough rises to almost double its size.
  12. Turn out the risen dough onto a lightly floured work surface.
  13. Punch out the air from the dough, roll it lightly into a longish oblong between your hands on the work surface and cut into eight roughly equal pieces.
  14. Roll each piece into a smooth round ball and arrange all the dough balls in a buttered baking pan, leaving enough room between the balls for expansion.
  15. Cover the dough balls in the pan loosely with plastic wrap and let sit again in a warm place until they almost double in size.
  16. To make the crosses, rub the butter into the flour until like breadcrumbs. Add a little cold water, a bit at a time, mixing until the dough comes together. Roll out thinly, using a little flour to stop sticking if necessary and cut into 16 strips, each strip about 3″ – 4″ long.
  17. Preheat oven to 220 degrees C / 428 degrees F.
  18. Once the dough balls have risen, brush the pastry strips with water to make them stick and place on top of each dough ball, making crosses and pressing lightly.
  19. Bake the buns until golden brown. This can take anywhere from 15 minutes to more depending on your oven.
  20. While the buns are baking, make the glaze by swirling the sugar and water together in a small pan until the sugar has dissolved and a clear syrup forms. Remove from heat.
  21. When the buns are done, remove from the oven and brush immediately with the prepared glaze.
  22. Cool completely on a wire rack and store airtight. The buns can also be frozen airtight at this point.
  23. Serve warm, lightly toasted if wished, with butter.

 

* Proofing instant yeast may seem unnecessary but personally I have never had an entirely satisfactory rise using this type of yeast without proofing / blooming it in warm sugared water. Hence the additional proofing step in the recipe.

This step also ensures that you know that the yeast you are using is active and not dead, thus saving you from ruining your buns and wasting your ingredients, time and effort. Trust me –  I know from personal experience.

Katharine Hepburn’s Mint Chocolate Brownies

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Katherine Hepburn's Mint Chocolate Brownies

Katharine Hepburn’s Mint Chocolate Brownies are just what you need when looking for a decadent brownie fix – intensely fudgy brownie base, topped with a creamy cool peppermint frosting and drizzled with melted chocolate!

Anyone who knows me well enough is well aware of my fascination with Classic Hollywood – the time roughly from the late ’30s to the early ’60s when the Golden Age of Hollywood regretfully came to an end.

Other than famous Classic Hollywood films, I have this fondness for discovering obscure and relatively unknown old Hollywood movies and stars. YouTube has a staggering choice of such movies to choose from and I’ve found out about quite a number of long forgotten but good movies and little known yet talented stars there so a big thank you to all you wonderful classic movie uploaders!

I love all things Classic Hollywood, be it the movies, the stars, the fashion – you name it. I named my beautiful tortoiseshell cat Harlow because Jean Harlow was the original platinum blonde bombshell. Also because of the ’90s supermodel Shalom Harlow but that’s another story.

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Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

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Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

Post Updated: 07.12.23

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: come fall in love with the dreamiest doughnuts ever!

These romantically named little beauties really do live up to their name: stunning in appearance and a sheer delight taste wise.

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: The Discovery

I first came across Persian Love Doughnuts in the dreamy party and entertaining book “Celebrate” by the lovely Lauren Conrad and they had me intrigued so much that I decided there and then that these would be my next Valentine’s Day dessert.

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: The Inspiration

Turns out that these little doughnuts are derived from classic Persian Love Cake, a delicious pistachio and rose water flavored cake.

Add other additional variations to the mix such as cardamoms, saffron etc. and you have what I like to call “Eastern Exoticism” in dessert form. Bliss.

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: The Recipe

The base recipe for these is by Aimee Twigger of Twigg Studios in which she makes a Persian Love Cake recipe and instead of baking it in a cake pan, pipes it into doughnut molds – genius!

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

So I adapted the recipe for her Persian Love Cake Doughnuts (which you can find here) very slightly and I am very happy with the results.

The cake part has classic pound cake proportions of equal amounts of butter, sugar and flour that make for a universally pleasing cake.

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: The Flavours

The combination of pistachios, rose, cardamom and saffron take this simple cake to an entirely different level.

It may sound fanciful but honestly, these ingredients gives these little Persian Love Cake Doughnuts incredible depth and a pleasingly heady scent, both of which, conjure up images of what in my mind, were exotic, far flung places such as Isfahan and Samarkand that I would read about in books as a child.

 

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: The Adornment

The Lemon Glacé Icing provides a wonderfully tart contrast and helps the toppings stay in place.

The fresh rose petals on top obviously make things more aromatic and I’ve used homegrown roses from my garden to decorate the doughnuts and as “props” for the photos.

The chopped pistachios that these beauties are topped with give a nice extra nuttiness while providing vivid green adornment.

Savour these Persian Love Cake Doughnuts on Valentine’s Day or any other special occasion.

Make them with love and eat them with joy!

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

‏

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts

Recipe Type: Dessert    Author: Alice In Eatland
Prep Time: 30 Minutes    Cook Time: 20 Minutes    Total Time: 50 Minutes
Serves: 10 – 12

 

Persian Love Cake Doughnuts: easy recipe for these incredibly delicious, gloriously fragrant and absolutely stunning beauties.

 

INGREDIENTS

 

  • 50 grams pistachios
  • 1 tbsp warm milk
  • A big pinch of saffron strands
  • 100 grams flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 6-8 pods green cardamom
  • 100 grams salted butter, soft
  • 100 grams caster sugar or superfine sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp rose water OR 1/4 tsp rose essence

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F / 180 degrees C.
  2. Butter and flour a 12 hole mini doughnut pan.
  3. Grind the pistachios in a coffee grinder or food processor until finely powdered. Set aside.
  4. Add the saffron to the warm milk in a small cup and set aside.
  5. Combine the flour and baking powder in a bowl.
  6. Grind the cardamom pods in a coffee grinder. Sieve.
  7. Cream the butter and sugar a few minutes until creamy. Add rose water or rose essence and eggs one at a time alternately with flour mixture.
  8. Add remaining flour, powdered pistachios, ground (and sieved) cardamoms and the saffron milk mixture.
  9. Put this mixture into a piping bag snipped at the tip or fitted with a plain round nozzle (I used a large Ateco 809 tip) and pipe the batter into the doughnut molds.
  10. You may have some leftover batter after filling all the mini doughnut molds. I used mine to bake a few Persian Love Cake Cupcakes!
  11. Bake 15 – 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the doughnuts comes out clean.
  12. Remove from oven and cool 5 minutes.
  13. Loosen the edges with a small knife and invert doughnuts onto a wire rack.
  14. Re-invert and cool completely.
  15. Trim any edges if necessary to get a neat round shape.

 

To decorate with Lemon Glacé Icing:

  1. Stir 100 grams of icing sugar with 1 – 2 tablespoons or more of fresh lemon juice until of pouring consistency.
  2. Place a sheet of wax paper or parchment paper on a cookie sheet, tray or flat work surface.
  3. Place the cooled doughnuts onto the sheet.
  4. Drizzle the Lemon Glacé Icing with a spoon over the doughnuts.
  5. Decorate with fresh snipped or chopped rose petals (thoroughly washed and dried) and finely chopped pistachios.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Christmas Cake Recipe

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christmas cake

Christmas Cake Recipe (updated 18.12.23)

A classic homemade Christmas Cake has to be one of the nicest gifts you can give your family and close friends.

It is the ultimate Christmas present and people are always pleased that you went the extra mile and baked them a Christmas classic.

A rich fruit Christmas Cake is great for gift giving but also great to have on hand at home during the festive season.

Like many families that celebrate Christmas, it is an important part of our festive Christmas table that is especially set up for guests visiting during this very special season.

christmas dessert recipe

Christmas Cake: The Inspiration

Since Christmas time can be crazy hectic for many people, you want a no-fuss recipe that requires minimal effort and delivers maximum results.

For me, a good Christmas Cake recipe is fuss-free and makes a cake that tastes something like a good rich fruit wedding cake or an old-fashioned Plum Cake. Bonus points if it looks like a traditional Dundee Cake.

Rich Fruit Celebration Cake recipe by Mich Turner of the fabulous “Little Venice Cake Company” is the basis of my Christmas Cake recipe.

I discovered Mitch Turner, and a few other skilled wedding cake bakers, on the tv show “The Great Cake Bake” on the now defunct channel Wedding TV UK, over a decade or so ago. What a master of her craft!

Her recipe promised a deep, dark, moist fruit cake with a flattish top ready to be covered in marzipan and that is exactly what it delivered.

Rich Fruit Christmas Cake

I have adapted this Christmas Cake recipe very slightly from Mich Turner’s. A photo of this lovely retro looking Dundee Cake on Pinterest inspired this almond and glacé cherry cake pattern.

Rest assured that this Christmas Cake recipe gives you a deep, spicy and decadent cake that tastes of Christmas itself!

Christmas Cake: When Good Things Come In Small Packages

My reason for making smallish Christmas Cakes is a fairly practical one; a well made rich  fruit cake is a joy to eat, but is best enjoyed in small quantities as it is indeed, quite rich.

I don’t know anyone who eats Christmas Cake in copious quantities.

Moreover, I’ve seen leftover Christmas cake lying around and drying around far too many times and in far too many homes and it literally breaks my heart.

Also with quite a few other delicious Christmas goodies and treats competing for attention at homes celebrating Christmas, I feel small sized cakes are best for gift giving.

However, you do you, so feel free to bake a bigger cake should you wish, adjusting the ingredients, cake pan size and baking time accordingly.

Christmas Cake: Spreading Joy Beyond Christmas

This cake makes a pretty awesome New Year’s celebration cake.

Or any special occasion celebration cake really; a milestone wedding anniversary such as a silver or golden one, calls for a uniquely special cake, such as this one.

Christmas Cake: Where To Buy The Ingredients From

As far as sourcing some of the special ingredients required to bake this Rich Fruit Christmas Cake such as the glacé cherries & the orange peel, online stores are your best bet.

In the US, you may find everything you need on Amazon.

Daraz.pk most probably has every ingredient available to make this cake in Pakistan.

Sethna Store in Empress Market is the place where Karachi folks can find them.

I have vague memories of a few stores in Saddar that stocked these supplies – I will ask my Mother if she remembers the names of those shops and will update the post if she does.

For people wishing to bake this cake in Lahore, head to The Bake Shop or Metro and you will find most ingredients called for in the recipe.
Treacle and molasses can be found at Esajee’s (DHA).

Christmas Cake: Fruit Soak Options

Your choice of the liquid that is used to steep the fruit will give it a slightly different flavour profile and affect the colour of the cake somewhat as well.

Lighter coloured juices will obviously give the cake a lighter tone whereas darker juices, tea and coffee will obviously impart a deeper hue.

However the colour turns out, be assured that your cake will look and taste wonderful.

Christmas Cake: Patience Will Be Rewarded

This is an ingredient heavy (read “chock full of dried fruit”) Christmas Cake recipe.

Hence the cake is pretty delicate when freshly baked so I would suggest that once completely cool, let it sit airtight and uncut for 2-3 days.

That not only makes the cake a bit firm and easier to cut but also gives the many flavours of the different fruits and spices time to harmoniously blend and settle together.

The taste improves and gets far deeper, complex and better after a few days.

Christmas Cake: A Note On The Recipe Update

Originally, I would bake half the recipe in a 6” cake pan. The baked cake, though absolutely delicious, was on the thinner side as can be seen in the photos.

While this was fine with me, and was actually perfect for cutting dainty bite-sized Christmas Cake pieces to serve to guests, I began baking the full recipe in a 6” cake pan for a taller cake (and a more substantial slice when cut).

A taller cake definitely makes for a better presentation and that is my preferred way to bake this cake now.

I have updated the ingredient amounts to reflect that, which is something I regretfully forgot while updating the original post a few days ago, sorry!

Christmas Cake: Video Tutorial

I have very recently uploaded a video of the recipe on YouTube which can be viewed here.

Rich Fruit Christmas Cake

 

Christmas Cake

Recipe Type: Dessert    Author: Alice In Eatland
Steeping Time: 4 – 12 Hours
Prep Time: 20 Minutes    Cook Time: 60 Minutes    Total Time: 80 Minutes

 

Dark, moist and fruity – this easy and delicious Christmas Cake is the ultimate traditional holiday classic!

 

INGREDIENTS

  • 200 grams glacé cherries, chopped
  • 300 grams raisins, stemmed
  • 300 grams black currants, stemmed
  • 20 grams candied orange peel, chopped
  • 1/2 cup fruit juice (apple, orange, pineapple, grape or cranberry) OR black tea
  • 1 tbsp treacle or molasses
  • 160 grams butter
  • 160 grams brown sugar
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla essence or extract
  • 2 large eggs
  • 160 grams plain flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 2 (1/2″) sticks cinnamon (daarcheeni)
  • 1/4 of a whole broken nutmeg (jaiphal)
  • 2 small (1/2″ or so) blades mace (javitri)
  • 4 whole cloves (laung)
  • 1/2 tsp ginger powder
  • Whole blanched almonds, to decorate
  • Halved glacé cherries, to decorate

METHOD

  1. Pour your choice of liquid onto the raisins, glacé cherries, black currants and candied orange peel. Mix well, cover and let stand 6-12 hours or overnight at room temperature, stirring the mixture once half way through.
  2. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C / 338 degrees F.
  3. Line a square 6″ x  2″ pan or a round 6″ x 2″ pan with grease proof paper or foil. Butter and flour the lined pan well. Set aside.
  4. Place the cinnamon stick, nutmeg, mace and cloves in a coffee grinder and grind to a fine powder. Sieve through a fine strainer.
  5. Combine flour with the baking powder, ginger powder and the sieved ground spices and set aside.
  6. Put the butter and brown sugar in a small pan over medium heat and stir until butter melts. The butter and sugar will appear separated at first so keep stirring for a few minutes until they both become uniform.
  7. As soon as you see the mixture beginning to bubble gently in places, remove from the heat and pour into your mixing bowl.
  8. Cool mixture 5 minutes and then beat in the treacle or molasses until combined.
  9. Next beat in the egg and vanilla essence or extract.
  10. Mix in the combined flour, baking powder and spices.
  11. Finally fold in the soaked fruit with any remaining liquid.
  12. Turn mixture into your prepared pan and level the top as much as possible with the back of a tablespoon.
  13. Press the blanched almonds and halved cherries on the surface in flower shapes or any other decorative pattern.
  14. Bake around 40 – 60 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean and the top is brown and set.
  15. Remove cake pan from oven and place on a wire rack to cool to room temperature.
  16. Let cooled cake remain in the pan, cover airtight with foil and let sit overnight at room temperature.
  17. Remove the cake from pan, peel off the paper or foil lining and store airtight.
  18. This cake is best cut and eaten 2 – 3 days after being baked.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

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Chocolate Fudge CakeThe moistest chocolate cake and the fudgiest chocolate frosting come together to make this super delicious Chocolate Fudge Cake. If you are a chocolate lover, then this cake will take you straight to chocolate heaven!

My previous post was about chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream. I try to vary my posts as in one sweet and then one savoury post and so on and so forth but then this chocolate cake happened and I felt it was too yummy not to be shared. Hence here I am with another “sweet” post and another chocolate post at that which is funny considering what I’m going to reveal about myself in the next paragraph.

Unlike many women, I am, perhaps shockingly, not crazy about chocolate. As a child chocolate was admittedly, the ultimate flavour for me and chocolate bars, chocolate cakes and basically chocolate anything was my first love. Not anymore. I do like chocolatey things once in a while but it’s not something I would have all the time. Unless it is white chocolate, which I hopelessly adore to bits.

This Chocolate Fudge Cake is one of those few chocolatey things that even someone not fond of chocolate would find hard not to like. The cake part is deeply chocolate and moist plus the chocolate fudge icing is like eating a softened bar of milk chocolate; what’s not to love!

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Normally, I like to pair my chocolate cakes with contrasting flavoured frostings such as vanilla or coffee but this cake was requested by a close friend for his Mom’s birthday and the only cake that that particular family eats is chocolate cake. So I made them the one chocolate on chocolate cake that I really like which is this Chocolate Fudge Cake. It did look quite lovely in my humble opinion and I felt I must share it on my blog.

The chocolate cake is made using my all-time favourite moist chocolate cake/cupcake recipe that I wrote about in detail in my previous post. It is an easy, straightforward and foolproof recipe that results in amazingly moist and lusciously chocolatey cakes and cupcakes.

The chocolate fudge frosting is actually a cocoa-based frosting and is a breeze to make plus it tastes wonderful. I have adapted it very slightly from this recipe by “Chocolate, Chocolate and More”. I am not a big fan of ganache type frostings and call my taste buds unsophisticated but my heart still belongs to the basic old-fashioned cocoa frostings of childhood.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

I came across a photo of Pink Cherry Cake with Fudge Frosting by the bake queen “I Am Baker” sometime last year and instantly fell in love with how she had iced her cake. The frosting was done in an elegantly minimalist way with fudge icing rosettes crowning the cake and I knew I was going to try frosting a chocolate cake the same way one day. Well, I got my chance when I baked this Chocolate Fudge Cake; I am working on honing my cake frosting skills so one day I too can ice my cakes as flawlessly as “I Am Baker” does.

The best thing about this Chocolate Fudge Cake is that it reminds me of the chocolate birthday cakes my Mom would bake for my brother and I when we were kids. Since my Mom’s chocolate cake is the best chocolate cake in the world for me, anything that reminds me of it has to be a close second.

Chocolate Fudge Cake

 

 

Chocolate Fudge Cake

Recipe Type: Desserts    Author: Alice In Eatland
Prep Time: 10 Minutes    Cook Time: 50 Minutes    Total Time: 60 Minutes    Serves: 6 – 8

 

Chocoholics, one bite of this sinful Chocolate Fudge Cake will take you straight to chocolate heaven! Moist chocolate cake & fudgy chocolate frosting – yum!

 

MOIST CHOCOLATE CAKE:

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup milk
  • 4 tbsp white vinegar
  • 2 cups caster sugar or superfine sugar
  • 1 cup + 3/4 cup plain flour
  • 3/4 cup cocoa
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract or essence
  • 2 tsp instant coffee
  • 1 cup boiling water

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. Grease a deep round cake pan (I use an 8″ by 3.5″ round cake pan) or two 8″ or 9″ round cake pans (cake pans should be a bit deep as this batter rises!) and line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the paper. Or line cake pan(s) with aluminium foil and grease and flour the foil. Set aside.
  3. Stir the milk and vinegar together in a small cup or bowl to make buttermilk. Set aside.
  4. Combine all the dry ingredients, except coffee, in a bowl.
  5. Whisk the eggs. Stir the buttermilk and add to the eggs along with the oil and vanilla.
  6. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until well mixed.
  7. Stir the instant coffee into the boiling water and carefully stir into the cocoa mixture. Batter will be quite thin.
  8. Pour batter into prepared cake pan(s).
  9. Bake 30 – 40 minutes or until the cake has risen and a wooden pick inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean. This can take up to an hour depending on your oven.
  10. Let cake(s) cool in pan(s) for 10 minutes then turn out onto a wire rack. Invert so that the top of the cake(s) is up and cool completely.
  11. Your cake(s) might have a domed top so trim it off carefully with a long serrated knife and discard (by “discard” I mean eat with chai like I do).
  12. Now your flat topped cake is ready to be frosted.

 

CHOCOLATE FUDGE FROSTING:

INGREDIENTS

  • 1/2 cup salted butter (I use Lurpak’s Slightly Salted Butter)
  • 1 cup + 4 tbsp cocoa
  • 5 cups icing sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract or essence
  • 4 tbsp cream
  • 4 tbsp milk
  • Extra milk

 

METHOD

  1. Melt butter in a small pan over low heat.
  2. Stir in cocoa so that the mixture forms a thickish paste.
  3. Add the remaining ingredients except extra milk into a mixing bowl and add the cocoa mixture.
  4. Beat well until smooth.
  5. Add extra milk if needed, a teaspoon at a time until frosting is of spreading consistency.
  6. Sandwich the cake(s) with about a third of the frosting and use the rest to frost the top and sides and to pipe out rosettes at the top.
  7. Pipe an additional layer of rosettes directly on top of the first set of rosettes for added height and a gorgeous effect. This is what I did.
  8. Store frosted cake airtight and serve at room temperature – please do not serve it cold straight from the fridge!

 

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

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Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

Trick or treat! These chocolate cobweb cupcakes are absolutely delicious and a confirmed crowd pleaser. Make these for Halloween or for any day of the year really – they are as good to eat as they are to look at!

I adore this chocolate cupcake recipe because it is so easy and incredibly delicious plus it gives me the moistest chocolate cupcakes ever – dry cakes and dry cupcakes are one of my pet peeves!

The creamy vanilla frosting that these chocolate cobweb cupcakes are topped with is actually a crusting buttercream that tastes really lovely and is perfect for piping swirls, rosettes etc as it really holds its shape while remaining soft and creamy inside – this has to be my favourite recipe for pipeable frosting.

The fun cobweb toppers that the cupcakes are crowned with are made from melted chocolate and are a breeze to make!

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

Growing up, Halloween was something we’d just read about in books or comics or watch on tv or movies. Thanks in most part to Hollywood, many of us knew of Halloween as the spookiest time of the year when folks don scary costumes and kids dress up in adorably spooky costumes or as their favourite characters from books, cartoons or tv shows and movies and go trick-or-treating for candy.

I am a big fan of all things “horror” be it scary movies, creepy stories, haunted houses – you name it. So you can imagine how the spookiest time of the year makes me feel. The late October autumn/fall weather adds an additional something to the atmosphere; I love it! Even if Halloween isn’t celebrated in Pakistan as such, at least those of us who want to enjoy it can do so in ways that make us happy, be it pumpkin carving, making scary costumes or coming up with cutely creepy food!

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

The only time we actually kind of ‘celebrated’ Halloween was in the early ’90s in Daharki. A few Canadian engineers had been emlpoyed by Engro to help set up its new fertilizer plant that had been shipped from Canada. So they, along with their families, had relocated to the Engro Colony in Daharki from Canada until the new plant was up and running. It was Halloween, and the Canadians thought why not celebrate Halloween with the Pakistani residents of the colony and it was a great idea indeed.

Since there was obviously no “trick-or-treat” culture in the colony, the Canadian families arranged an evening Halloween party at the colony’s Club and everyone was invited. The Halloween celebration was more of a fancy dress party for us non-Canadians and it was a lot of fun.

There were some really nice things to eat at the party, made by the Club and I think some made by the Canadian ladies. As there are none of those huge gorgeous orange pumpkins growing in the middle of Sindh, the Canadians made do with what was available; they carved those classic scary Jack-o’-Lantern pumpkin faces on stocky little roundish green kaddus from the vegetable shop at the local Gulnar Market. Necessity truly is the mother of invention!

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

The party was arranged within a day or so of being decided which left almost no time for anyone to think of or make any elaborate costumes. All the kids were in costume and by costumes I mean all of us more or less improvised with whatever we had lying around at home or could borrow from friends.  I went to the party dressed as a fairy. That decision was based solely on a shimmery green (the hue of green that was known as “bottle green” back then; haven’t heard that color described as such in decades!) dress that I owned and I think we created a makeshift wand for me to hold from a small cane stick with one of those decorative stars that you get at party decoration stores stuck at the top. So I was a fairy and a wingless one into the bargain as there was absolutely no time to make any DIY fairy wings.

Fast forward to the present and with that one Halloween celebrated long ago, there was not much after that and frankly there are still no Halloween celebrations as such apart from a few parties here and there. But in the last few years, social media and Instagram and Pinterest in particular, have literally brought Halloween to the rest of the world with the celebration becoming something exciting to look forward to. There is an amazing array of wonderful Halloween ideas such as for food, decor and makeup shared by bloggers, makeup artists and other insanely creative folks that has made the countdown to Halloween one of the most exciting times of the year, for me at least.

This year, I have decided to do the creepy-cool half skull makeup look made popular by the uber talented makeup artist Chrisspy that she posted on her YouTube channel back in 2014. Though I obviously cannot come even remotely close to matching her finesse and experience as a makeup artist, I think I did a pretty okay job practicing getting the half skull look to look decent enough, haha!  Fingers crossed for the final look on the day! You can watch Chrisspy’s tutorial here as she uses her mastery over makeup to transform her look in minutes.

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

Just like Chrisspy, the sheer scale of talent and creativity of ideas, be it makeup, costume design, baking or anything really, on social platforms such as YouTube, Pinterest etc is nothing short of staggeringly impressive; so many great ideas and the fact that people share them in near microscopic detail to make it as easy as possible for anyone who might want to try them – how amazing is that! Thank you kind, helpful and crazily talented people for sharing your wonderful ideas and techniques so wholeheartedly!

I too wanted to do something in the spirit of Halloween (pun intended, hehe!). I had been wanting to put my go to chocolate cupcake recipe on the blog for a while so thought of making some Halloween-ish cupcakes to accommodate that idea. So I started browsing Pinterest for some spooky cupcake ideas and came across so many amazing Halloween cupcakes! It was hard to choose just one idea but these Pumpkin Chocolate Spiderweb Cupcakes by Bright-Eyed Baker frosted with orange colored frosting and topped with chocolate spiderweb toppers stood out as they were so arrestingly beautiful! So I decided that these would be my food inspiration for Halloween this year and that is how my chocolate cobweb cupcakes came to be.

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

The chocolate cupcake recipe I use most is a chocolate cake recipe that was shared by someone back in Daharki during the late ’90s – early 2000s and was titled “Deep Chocolate Cake.” It is such a flavourful and supermoist recipe that I instantly fell in love with it. Years later I discovered it is actually the recipe for Hershey’s Black Magic Cake. It is pretty much the same recipe that Ina Garten used to make “Beatty’s Chocolate Cake” on an episode of “The Barefoot Contessa” so, if the recipe has her approval, then you know it must be pretty good.

The vanilla frosting recipe is a very slight adaptation of the wonderful Crusting American Buttercream Icing by Peggy Does Cake. It is a very good recipe, not overly sweet or too intensely buttery and the original can be found here.

I used orange coloured frosting for my Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes plus the classic bewitching purple of Halloween, thanks to a post on Wilton’s Instagram earlier this month of chocolate cupcakes with purple frosting topped with mint green spiderwebs! Wilton has been posting some really fun Halloween ideas this month so you might want to check them out.

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

So before we go on to actually making and decorating the cupcakes let’s keep the following in mind:

  • The first time I made orange icing for these cupcakes by mixing red and yellow gel food colors (both by AmeriColor) I added the red a little too enthusiastically which meant that I had to use A LOT of yellow to bring it to any semblance of orange. I did end up with a very vibrant, heart-stopping orange but also ended up thinning my frosting a bit – yes, even gel food colors, when used in copious amounts, can affect the texture of your frosting so note to self: Practice restraint when using food colors! You can obviously use orange food color for the frosting. AmeriColor’s “Electric Orange” seems to be a popular choice for bright orange frosting.
  • The chocolate cupcake toppers are very delicate. If you live in a place with a warmer climate it would be best to freeze the toppers until ready to serve and add them to complete your chocolate cobweb cupcakes right before serving. They’ll soften to room temperature fairly quickly.  Literally seconds after being placed on the cupcakes, the toppers began bending at the base which is the point where they’d been pushed into the frosting and finally, gently toppled over. The toppled cobwebs then softened and meltingly drooped over the frosting which kind of gave them a fairly cool look in a creepy sort of way, which if less pretty, was actually far more realistic as you can see in the photo above.
  • I discovered, rather very late in the day (after 2 attempts at making the chocolate cobwebs and having them topple over the cupcakes both times) that it is best to use chocolate that contains no cocoa butter to make the toppers as that kind of chocolate sets up firm and is not prone to softening just seconds after being placed on buttercreamed cupcakes. I used Hershey’s semisweet chocolate chips to make the cobwebs, which obviously contain cocoa butter, hence the super quick softening and yes I wish I had researched more before attempting to make the toppers. Candy coating or candy melts might work well too in creating firm toppers. I would still place the toppers atop the cupcakes just before serving to be on the safe side.
  • Serve the frosted chocolate cobweb cupcakes at room temperature. Store them airtight and if they’ve been in the fridge, allow them to come to room temperature before serving. Cold cupcake and cold frosting are not very nice, unless it’s a whipped cream frosted cupcake.

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

 

 

Chocolate Cobweb Cupcakes

Recipe Type: Desserts    Author: Alice In Eatland
Prep Time: 30 Minutes    Cook Time: 20 Minutes    Total Time: 50 Minutes    Serves: 10 – 12

 

Moist chocolate cobweb cupcakes with swirls of creamy vanilla frosting – perfect for the spookiest time of the year or for any time of the year!

 

CUPCAKES:

INGREDIENTS

  • Around 12 – 14 (1.5″ base) cupcake liners/paper bake cups
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 2 tbsp white vinegar
  • 1 cup caster sugar or superfine sugar
  • 1/2 cup + 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup plain flour
  • 1/4 cup + 1/8 cup cocoa
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract or essence
  • 1 tsp instant coffee
  • 1/2 cup boiling water

 

METHOD

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F.
  2. Line cupcake/muffin pans with the cupcake liners/paper bake cups and set aside.
  3. Stir the milk and vinegar together in a small cup or bowl to make buttermilk. Set aside.
  4. Combine all the dry ingredients, except coffee, in a bowl.
  5. Whisk the egg. Stir the buttermilk and add to the egg along with the oil and vanilla.
  6. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and beat until well mixed.
  7. Stir the instant coffee into the boiling water and carefully stir into the cocoa mixture. Batter will be quite thin.
  8. Pour batter into a measuring jug.
  9. Fill cupcake liners/paper bake cups with batter almost 3/4 full. I fill them nearly to the top with less than an 1/8 of an inch to spare at the top as I like my cupcakes to have nice high domed tops but if you’re making these for the first time, fill them 1/2 or 3/4ths full to see how they bake in your oven as every oven is different and you don’t want your cupcake batter spilling out and over while baking.
  10. Bake 18 – 20 minutes or until cupcakes are risen and a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out almost clean. Its okay if a few crumbs are sticking to the wooden pick. Try not to overbake.
  11. Remove baked cupcakes to a wire rack.
  12. Cool completely before frosting.

 

CREAMY VANILLA FROSTING:

INGREDIENTS

  • 200 grams salted butter (I use Lurpak’s Slightly Salted Butter), soft but cool
  • 1 tbsp water, at room temperature
  • 1 lb (around 450 grams) icing sugar, sifted/sieved
  • 1 tbsp cream
  • 1/2 tbsp vanilla extract or essence
  • Orange food colour (I used “Super Red” and “Electric Yellow” both by AmeriColor to make orange)
  • Purple food colour (I used “Violet” by Wilton)

METHOD

  1. Cream butter until creamy, fluffy and pale in colour.
  2. Add the water and beat until combined.
  3. Add the rest of the ingredients, except the food colours, and beat until smooth, thick and creamy.
  4. Divide the frosting equally into two and colour each half with the food colours.
  5. Pipe onto cooled cupcakes and store airtight.
  6. If storing in the fridge, allow your frosted chocolate cobweb cupcakes to come down to room temperature for 10 or so minutes before serving.

 

CHOCOLATE COBWEBS:

  1. Print out cobweb templates (I used the one available here by Candiquik – there are some cute bat and cat templates as well and these too would make pretty awesome chocolate toppers).
  2. Tape the cobweb printout on a flat cookie sheet or the backside of a flat tray.
  3. Lay a sheet of greaseproof or wax paper on top of the printout and tape it flat on top of it. You will be able to see the template design below.
  4. Fit a piping bag or a Ziploc bag snipped at one corner with a small plain writing nozzle/icing tip (I used tip number 4 by Ateco).
  5. Put 1 cup of dark or semisweet chocolate chips or chopped chocolate (whichever chocolate you use, make sure it has NO cocoa butter in it) in a bowl and microwave on high for 20 seconds. Stir and microwave again in 10 second increments, stirring every time until the chips are melted and smooth.
  6. Cool the melted chocolate a few minutes and put into the prepared piping bag.
  7. Carefully pipe out the chocolate over the wax paper covered templates, tracing out the pattern beneath. Don’t worry if you’re not super neat, as long as all the lines of each cobweb are connected by the chocolate.
  8. Once all the cobwebs have been piped, put the tray or cookie sheet in the fridge to set for at least half an hour.
  9. To remove cobwebs, carefully slide a thin spatula or thin flat butter knife under the cobwebs to dislodge them and carefully and quickly place them on top of the frosted cupcakes just before serving.