zomg, how did this happen?!

How has it been over a month since I last posted?

I feel rather like a delinquent and a liar. This is not to say that I haven't been baking --quite the contrary. I've been baking more than ever, just too /insert good reason here/ to do any writing up of my recipes and posting. Well, today I finally found the motivation to spruce up the layout a bit. After all, I've tons of new photos, why not show them off a bit? ;)

So, now the question remains as to when I'll get around to posting my recipes. See, I had it in the back of my mind that they might come in handy this fall when I'm at uni, dirt poor, and too tired to bake anything. So, I think I'll post a few of them up over the next few days and stash a few in reserve for those days when you just can't be assed to turn on the oven.

So what shall it be, folks? Cake? Brownies? Cheesecake? Cupcakes?

Hmmm. Perhaps we'll do this chronologically-ish and start with the "Birthday cake".



I made it for my brother and I's 19th birthday (I have to say I made it for my brother, because really, who bakes their *own* birthday cake?). I found the cake recipe on Allrecipes, and encouraged by it's stellar rating and postive reviews, I decided that I'd try it for my birthday cake. I also liked that it used oil and not very much of it at that. Oh man, did this cake not disappoint!

It was moist, velvety, with rich chocolate flavour. I won't post the recipe for the icing. It was okay, but the cake definitely outshone it. I tried to make some sort of white chocolate icing, based on Nigella's sour cream chocolate icing (which rocks, btw). However, something went awry and I had to add so much icing sugar to get it thick enough to spread on the cake. Still, it was tasty and the cake was beautiful with the chocolate flowers.

I made the flowers about a week before my birthday. They keep well in the freezer and should be kept cold until you are ready to artfully arrange them on top of your cake. Otherwise, they will soften and become very difficult to handle.


So, without further ado, my very awesome, chocolate birthday cake!

Black Magic Cake
adapted from Allrecipes.com

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup strong brewed coffee
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9 inch round cake pans or one 9x13 inch pan.
2. In large bowl combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Make a well in the center.
3. Add eggs, coffee, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Beat for 2 minutes on medium speed. Batter will be thin. Pour into prepared pans.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and finish cooling on a wire rack. Fill and frost as desired.

Perhaps a little later I will post a recipe for chocolate flowers, but I think I have already linked back to the blog where I originally found the recipe.



Cheers and enjoy!

Let’s go bananas!

Well for a start, I’ve got plenty of reason to want to go bananas right now… Yesterday was my final exam of first year uni! Take that organic chemistry! Take that molecular biology! ^.^

O the joys of not having to revise any longer. In truth, perhaps I should be grateful for this year. I have a feeling the workload is going to get a whole lot bigger next year when I start medicine.

And so as I said, my first year here at St Andrews is winding down. Heck, people have already started to go home! So, these cupcakes are a bit of a tribute to the year. Something sweet, chocolatey and a wee bit bananas (get it? ;) ) to share with all my friends who’ve made these past 9 months some of the best of my life.

Since I myself am going home in just under a week and a half, I was a little wary of buying a whole bunch of baking supplies. So these are made from donations of various friends looking to pawn off unused flour etc. So, a big thanks to Andrea for the plain flour, Hannah for the whole wheat flour, Andy for the brown sugar, Sam for the milk, and Craig for the mushy bananas. See, I hardly had to buy anything for these!

The recipe is adapted from the Wholewheat Banana Cake recipe I found on baking bites. As I said, baking supplies are mostly reliant on the good will of others, so I didn’t have brown sugar. Instead, I added ½ cup of caster sugar and ¼ cup of maple syrup, and then reduced the milk from ½ cup to a ¼ cup. Lastly, I bought some plain chocolate, chopped it up and threw it into the batter.



I broke a few rules with the icing. I looked at a few recipes online to get the general idea of what went into caramel icing. Then I just through everything together and went by taste and consistency. So, my directions are a bit vague when it comes to the icing, as I didn’t really measure! It still turned out great, although I didn’t quite have enough to cover the last few cupcakes.

Over all, none of the flavours dominates completely over the others. Upon first bite you get this wonderful melange of the banana mixed with the creamy, brown sugar icing and then a delightful surprise when you come across a chunk of chocolate. I’d definitely use dark or plain chocolate with these, and not milk – the cupcake and icing are plenty sweet enough, and the darker the cocoa flavour serves to cut it a bit. (Trust me this is coming from someone with the biggest sweet tooth in the world!)

These cupcakes are so good that they’re just fine without the icing. The maple syrup I added doesn’t come through too strong, but there is a hint of it. But only without the icing, otherwise all you taste is the banana, caramel, and chocolate flavours (not that that’s bad in the least!)



Mmm. Banana cupcakes with chocolate chunks and caramel icing! What a delicious way to finish the year!

Banana Cupcakes with Chocolate Chunks and Caramel Icing
Adapted from Baking Bites

¾ cup of whole wheat flour
¾ cup of plain flower
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
½ cup of caster sugar
¼ cup of maple syrup
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vegetable or olive oil
2 large ripe bananas, mashed (approx 1-1 1/4 cups)
¼ cup milk (any kind)
2 tsp vanilla extract
150 g or so of plain chocolate, chunked up into bite sized bits

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a large bowl, whisk together caster sugar, maple syrup and eggs until well combined. Whisk in oil, mashed bananas, milk and vanilla extract. Add in dry ingredients and stir until no streaks of flour remain visible. Chop up your chocolate (or you could use chocolate chips) into small chunks and stir into the batter. Carefully spoon the batter into each cup until about 2/3 to ¾ full.
Bake for about 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Let cupcakes cool (if you can wait that long!) and then frost with caramel icing.

Caramel Icing

All amounts are approximate. Feel free to use your own version of the recipe or play around with the proportions.

½ cup of butter
2/3 cup of brown sugar (I used Demerara sugar because that’s what Andy had)
1/8 -1/4 cup of milk
A few cups of icing sugar (Sorry I can’t be more specific. I just dumped the sugar in the bowl until I got a nice thick consistency.)

Heat the butter and brown sugar in a saucepan on low to medium heat. Continue until it begins to bubble and has thickened slightly. Remove from heat and add half of your ¼ cup of milk. Dump in a good amount of icing sugar. Mix thoroughly with a spatula and keeping adding bits of milk and icing sugar as desired.

I made a piping bag out of greaseproof paper and applied the icing by snipping off the end. Apply as much icing as desired and enjoy!

Happy Birthday Andy!

Here's just a quick post to tide me over until Sunday, when I'll be finished my first exam. However, I did take a break from revision today to make something, so they'll definitely be a post coming up soon. :)

This past Tuesday it was my dear friend Andy's birthday! It sucks to have your bday during revision week, but that's how it is and people still managed to get together to have a bit of fun. I know this is a baking blog and what I'm about to show you is not technically baking, but I think it still is fun and creative. :) Andy's mum was up over the weekend visiting and she left him a myriad of cake, icing, and other sweets to decorate said cake. She also left him an amazing card which was our inspiration.

The result? A delicious, sugar headache-inducing cake with no square inch of icing left uncovered. I think if there is a heaven, it will definitely be filled with cakes like this one.

Happy Birthday, Andy!

Revision, late nights, and cake!

This is revision week in St Andrews, the week before exams start where we're supposed to bed down and barricade ourselves inside our rooms or a small corner of the library with all of our textbooks, notes and th disintegrating threads of our sanity.

It's times like these where I really appreciate two things in life: one, the power of a good tkd session to completely destress and wipe any trace of transcription and PCR from my mind; and two, sharing a cake with good friends.

As I said in my profile, I have more than slightly unhealthy obsession with all things chocolate. Literally, 9 times out of 10 when I bake something chocolate is the principal ingredient. Brownies, chocolate cake, chocolate caramel cracker candy... just plain chocolate!

Which is why it's a bit out of character for me to have made something that's not chocolate this week. Although that being said, my friend made some lovely biscuits that did feature my beloved chocolate.

Instead, this week I took pity on the browning bananas that my friend Craig had abandoned last week and that I had rescued by putting them in the freezer. They were freed from their frigid states, mashed up, and metamorphosed into a glorious banana cake with maple icing and walnuts.

It must be said that I baked this cake at half 11 last night and iced it closer to 2 am. Then for some bizarre reason stayed up until 4 am. I know, I'm a student and I keep weird hours!

Still, it saved me from having to bake the cake this morning and it was lovely just to gaze at my maple-y creation all day as I poured over my biology notes.

So, without further ado, my banana cake with maple icing and walnuts!

Cake, Family, and Friends...

Hey there, so I thought I'd kick off my blogging adventures with two of my favourite things in the world: cake and chocolate!

Here in St Andrews we have many strange and odd traditions. This past November I participated in a giant shaving foam free-for all in St Salvator's Quad during Raisin Weekend. Last Thursday I pulled and allnighter than ran screaming into the freezing North Sea with several hundred red eyed, exhilarated, and happy to be alive students. But there is also the Academic family, and that's what this post is about.

Each first year student is adopted by an Academic mother and father, who are third or fourth year students. In a way, it's an informal mentorship, bridging the gaps between years and binding the university spirit together. Literally in St Andrews, you can find a relationship with anyone. Aren't you my third cousin on my dad's side? Academically, speaking of course.

Most babies are adopted during Freshers week, usually under the influence of alcohol. But I was very fortuate and met my mother through Taekwon-do. I also count myself lucky in my mum's other choice of daughter, as my sister, Olivia, is one of the kindest and sweetest people in the world.

But how does this relate to chocolate and cake you might ask? Well, that's simple. You simply cannot have a family gathering without some sort of pudding. Or perhaps it should be you can't have a pudding without a family gathering. :) But bottom line is I love to bake and used this as an excuse to bust out my rusty cake baking skills, non-existent chocolate moulding skills, and have a jolly good time!

I used a Victoria sandwhich for the cake, having half normal and half chocolate. The frosting is adapted from Nigella's chocolate frosting for her old fashioned chocolate cake, and the roses are based off a tutorial found on Baking Obsession's website. Enjoy!