Bakers United

VANILLA CUPCAKES WITH COFFEE FROSTING.

Ingredients:

400g Self-Raising Flour
1.5 cups of caster sugar
3 eggs
1 cup of milk
200g softened butter
2 tsp of vanilla essence, or vanilla bean paste. [I personally prefer essence, but this is up to you! :)]

And for the icing:

200g icing sugar
300g softened butter
2 handfuls of roasted coffee beans, plus some more for decoration.
[I have a coffee bean grinder at home (I’m a massive coffee drinker/lover) so I ground my beans just before putting them in the icing so that they would taste as fresh as possible. I suppose you could use instant coffee… {but really, instant coffee?!}] 

To do:

1. Preheat oven to 180C (356F) 
2. Line muffin pans with patty cases. (This recipe makes about 24 - so two trays :))
3. Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla essence and eggs. [Normally, one would use an electric mixer. I used my arm.]
4. Add the flour and milk and combine. I don’t suggest using an electric mixer here.
5. Spoon the mixture into patty cases and bake! This usually takes about 20 minutes, but to double check, lightly tap the top of a cupcake - if it springs back up, it’s cooked! :)

YOU NOW HAVE CUPCAKES!

For the frosting:

1. Grind the coffee beans. Or use instant coffee, that’s totally cool too. [Hint: You can buy quality ground coffee at your supermarket. If you want to make your icing legit, I suggest you use it. :D]
2. Combine the icing sugar and the butter until it becomes a paste-like frosting mixture. (There should be seemingly more butter than necessary - if it’s already dry, you’ll need more butter)
3. Put in the ground beans into the mixture. MIX!
4. You have frosting xD

Frost the cupcakes with the frosting and decorate with coffee beans. You’re done! :)

(There is usually more frosting than you actually need - as a result, you have a lovely little caffeine boosting treat to get you [and your friends!] through the day)

Caramel Macarons with butterscotch cream-

• 200g almond meal (preferably dried, either by leaving out on a tray for 2 days, or in the oven at a low temperature for an hour, you’re drying it not cooking it)
• 200g pure icing sugar
• 150g egg whites (that’s 3-4 largish eggs), left at room temperature overnight (yes this is compulsory)
• ¼ tsp cream of tartar
• 200g caster sugar
• 50g water
• Brown food colouring (I didn’t use this, the macarons turn a golden colour anyway)

Preheat oven to 150°.

Pulse almond meal and icing sugar in a food processor to get a finer consistency, then sieve them into a large bowl.

Divide egg whites into two batches of 75g, mix one batch with the almond mixture to make a thick paste. Put the other batch in an electric mixer and add the cream of tartar.

Place the caster sugar and water in a saucepan and stir until the sugar is dissolved. When  the sugar syrup reaches 110° (using a candy thermometer), start beating the egg whites. Continue whipping until the egg whites are thick.

When the temperature reaches 118°, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the mixer while mixing the egg whites on medium speed. Continue mixing for 10 minutes, until the meringue cools. Add food colouring.

Mix the almond paste into the meringue mixture with a wooden spoon or scraper, until the mixture is thick and gooey and fully combined.

Place mixture in piping bag with a one centimetre nozzle (or spoon onto tray if you don’t have a piping bag, they just won’t be perfect circles) and pipe onto a tray lined with baking paper (or a silicone baking mat if you have one, but I have never used one and mine turn out fine).

Rap the tray on the bench a few times to get rid on any air bubbles (this is important) and leave the macarons for about 30 minutes, or until they form a skin (they will no longer feel gooey to the touch) this is important for forming the all-important “pied” (french for foot, it’s the textured part of the macaron as shown in the picture above).

Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until the top is hard but the pied has formed and is still soft.

Remove from oven and leave to cool

Butterscotch Cream

• 300g caster sugar
• 150g thickened cream
• 200g softened unsalted butter

Melt sugar in a heavy-based saucepan, making sure you don’t heat it too fast or it will burn and be gross.

Remove from heat and stir in cream (if it looks weird, don’t worry, just keep stirring)

Set aside and leave to cool, but make sure it doesn’t solidify.

Place butter in an electric mixer and beat until light and fluffy.

Add cooled caramel to butter and whisk until combined.

Place in piping bag and pipe small amount on one macaron and place another macaron on top, twisting to ensure even coverage.

 

Macarons may be hard to master at first, but they are definitely worth the trouble, and once you have the technique down, they’re really not that hard to make, promise. :D

-Isabella

Spinach and Mozzarella Quiche (Tracey)

or, what happens when i accidentally buy too much cheese.

Ingredients:

- 3 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp to melt and 1 tbsp to coat pie plate
- 3/4 cup shredded mozzarella
- 3/4 cup spinach (fresh or frozen shredded)
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 4 eggs
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
- 1 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (or around 180C). Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan, or whatever else that you think fits.

2. Line bottom of pie plate with cheese and spinach. Combine milk, eggs, butter, flour, onion, and salt. Whisk together until smooth and pour into pie pan.

3. Bake in oven for 35 minutes. Serve hot or cold.

recipe sourced from here

Chocolate Cupcakes for Blue Dragon

Baked for a fundraiser for Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. Naturally the icing had to be a worrying shade of blue.

http://www.streetkidsinvietnam.com/

Williams Sonoma Chocolate Cupcakes

2/3 cup plain flour

2 1/2 tbs cocoa powder

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

85g dark chocolate, chopped

160g unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup caster sugar

3 eggs, room temperature

Preheat to 180C

Whisk flour, cocoapowder, baking powder, salt.

Place butter & chocolate over simmering water and melt whilst stirring.

Remove from heat and cool.

Whisk sugar in, then eggs one at a time.

Fold in dry ingredients.

22-24 minutes, test with a skewer to see if they’re ready.

Remove the cupcakes and let them chill out on a cooling rack.

Horrifyingly Blue Swiss Meringue Buttercream

3 egg whites

1/4 cup caster sugar

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

250g butter, room temperature

Vanilla essence

A lot of blue food colouring

Combine sugar, egg whites and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl with a handmixer.

Bring large pan of water to the boil with the water level with the egg whites.

Put the bowl in and whisk until it reaches 60C or the top becomes foamy like a cappuccino.

Move bowl to stand mixer and beat on high for 3-5 minutes.

Transfer 2/3 of the meringue to another bowl and beat together with half the butter until combined. Add the rest of the meringue one spoon at a time, then the butter one spoon at a time. It might look disgusting and soupy at first but it’ll get better.

Chuck in a teaspoon of vanilla essence while the mixer is still running, then a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste if you want.

THEN OVERLOAD ON BLUE FOOD COLOURING.

Pipe like crazy (I used a 1M tip) and eat it all, sharing is not caring when the object is something as heavily coloured as this.

-Clara