Happy Thanksgiving!!!

It's my first year in the United States and this also marks my very first Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is definitely my kinda festive day - any festive day filled with loads n loads of food is my kinda thing. *grins* I have my stomach full from steak and now I am going to dig into a huge tub of ice cream!

This will also mark my very first Black Friday. I am still contemplating if I should hit the stores at 4am. I have never done shopping at 4am, I'm not sure if my shopper's instincts will kick in at the wee hours of the morning. However, I am hoping I can snag maybe an ice cream maker. Being able to make and eat all the ice cream in the world is enough inspiration to get up at 4am!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Black, White and Pink Cupcakes

I saw this recipe on TV while I was on the treadmill over the weekend. Talk about exercising while drooling over baked goods, now that's what I call my kinda TV while exercising! I tried to remember as much of the recipe as I could and I think I did pretty well since the cupcakes turned out good!

And yes, I made cupcakes again to practice my frosting. This time I used a slightly bigger star tip and I think I did better today. Or maybe it's self-consolation. Even though the frosting isn't the prettiest thing, the color of the frosting makes up for all the prettiness! It's raspberry buttercream frosting in a lovely pretty pink! Love the frosting! Love love love.

Sorry, got so distracted from the pretty pink that I forgot about the cupcakes. They are chocolate and vanilla cupcakes all rolled into one! See, I like chocolate better than vanilla but sometimes, midway through a chocolate cupcake, I crave for a mouth of vanilla cupcake. So when I saw this on TV, I had to bake them!

Here's what you'll need for these pretty cupcakes!

Vanilla Cupcakes:

- 1 3/4 cups flour

- 2 teaspoons baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter

- 3/4 cup white granulated sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 1/2 cup milk

Chocolate Cupcakes:
- 1 1/4 cups flour

- 1/2 cup cocoa powder

- 2 teaspoons baking powder

- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter

- 3/4 cup white granulated sugar

- 2 eggs

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 1/2 cup milk

Raspberry Buttercream Frosting:

- 3/4 cup unsalted butter

- 1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 3 teaspoons seedless raspberry jam

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 muffin trays with paper liners.

2. Vanilla cupcakes: Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt. Set it aside.

3. Beat the butter and sugar together.

4. Add the eggs, one at a time and mix well. Then add the vanilla extract and mix well.

5. Add in half of the flour mixture, followed by the milk and the remaining half of the flour mixture. Mix well after each addition.

6. Scoop 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter into the muffin cups filling half of the cups only.

7. Chocolate cupcakes: Whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

8. Cream the butter and sugar together.

9. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well. Then add the vanilla extract and mix well.

10. Add half the flour/cocoa mixture, followed by the milk and remaining half of the flour/cocoa mixture and mix well.

11. Then scoop 1 1/2 tablespoons of the chocolate batter into the muffin cups, filling up the other half of the cup.

12. Bake for 22 - 24 mins until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Leave it on the wire rack to cool completely before you frost.

13. Raspberry buttercream frosting: Cream the butter until smooth.

14. Add in the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time and mix well after each addition. Then mix in the vanilla extract.

15. Beat in the raspberry jam.

16. Once the cupcakes are completely cooled, filled a pastry bag with the frosting and fit it with a star nozzle tip and frost the cupcakes.

This is the reason why I run on a treadmil. I eat waaaaaaaaay tooooooooooo many cupcakes.

Black Magic Cupcakes

I have to start with a disclaimer - I am a super new baker and I bake from home without experience nor training. And this will be very apparent as you see my frosting today. HAHAHA! It's my first time using a pastry bag to frost cupcakes, needless to say, they look like quite a mess. It's definitely not as easy and smooth-flowing as what you see on tv. Oh well, practice makes perfect, so here's to more cupcakes for me to frost!

Anyway, today I attemped a chocolate cupcake that goes by the fancy name of black magic cupcakes. A very rich chocolate cupcake laced with a hint of coffee as the recipe calls for strong black coffee. What I love about this recipe is there's only 2 steps to mixing the batter. It's almost like pouring everything into a bowl and mix!

The cupcakes are then frosted with a really easy chocolate buttercream. I dare say this buttercream is so yummy you can use this on any cupcake or cake and it will instantly yummify it! I admit I wanted to lick the mixing bowl clean even before I started to frost...

This recipe will bake 24 cupcakes. I halved it for 12 cupcakes. Here's what you'll need:

Black Magic Cupcake

- 2 cups granulated white sugar

- 1 3/4 cups flour

- 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

- 2 teaspoons baking soda

- 1 teaspoon baking powder

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 2 eggs

- 1 cup buttermilk

- 1 cup strong black coffee
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter

- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

- 2 cups confectioner's sugar

- 1/4 teaspoon salt

- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

- 1/4 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tray with paper cups.

2. Cupcakes: Whisk together the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt.

3. Mix in the eggs, buttermilk, black coffee, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. The batter will be very thin.

4. Fill the muffin cups with the batter until 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 35 - 40 mins and until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Let the cupcakes cool completely on a wire rack before you frost them.

6. Frosting: Beat the butter until smooth.

7. Mix in the cocoa powder, sugar and salt. The mixture will be crumbly.

8. Add the vanilla extract and milk and beat for 4 mins.

9. Then frost the cooled cupcakes with a pastry bag fitted with a star-shaped nozzle, or you can spread the frosting with an off-set spatula.

To end it off, eat 2 cupcakes immediately! That's what I did anyway.... *grins*

Dorset Apple Cake

Recently I discovered tastespotting.com...and boy oh boy, it has opened doors to a gazilion and one recipes accompanied with mouth-watering photos. I am secretly addicted to the website. I visit it 2-3 times a day just to see what new recipes have been added. And through that, I am attempting a apple cake adapted from technicolorkitchen.blogspot.com. I changed the recipe a lil by having less butter - this made the cake more apple-ish but less tall.

The cake is yummily sweet with apples but has a hint of lemon from adding lemon zest into the batter. It is also very very moist and smells rather different from a usual apple cake. I can't quite decide what is it yet, could be the lemon zest or the ground almond. Whatever it is, this cake is sooooo good. Have it as an afternoon snack or a breakfast dessert!

Let's start baking! Here's what you'll need:

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter

- 1 cup white granulated sugar

- lemon zest of 1 lemon

- 3 large eggs

- 1 cup flour

- 2 teaspoons baking powder

- 2 tablespoons ground almond (I made this from pulsing sliced almonds in a food processor)

- 2 cups chopped apples

- 1 tablespoon brown sugar

- powdered sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 355 degrees F. Butter a 9 inch springform pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

2. Cream together the butter, white granulated sugar and lemon zest.

3. Add in the eggs, one at a time. And add in a pinch of flour with each egg. Mix well.

4. Sift in the flour and baking powder and mix.

5. With a spatula, fold in the ground almond.

6. Fold in the chopped apples.

7. Spoon the batter into the pan.

8. Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top.

9. Bake for 1 hour until an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

10. Dust the top with powdered sugar before serving.

I'm giving away the rest of the cake, so I had an extra large slice this afternoon. Oh, and I am nursing a slightly twisted foot so I deserve the extra large slice!