Molten Lava Cake - Oozy surprise

Welcome to chocolate indulgence. Molten lava cupcake is all about super rich chocolate taste and an encapsulated molten center in its super gooey texture.

Let me begin with asking you a question. Do you like surprises?

Who does not!!! And that’s exactly I adore about lava cup cake. Best enjoyed just out of oven and when you cut into it and molten chocolate oozes out….Yummmm!!

I don’t know why but I just feel excited every single time. The joy get triple fold when your home baked lava cup cake behaves the same. I have to admit I used to intermediated thinking about how the bake such a thing. I have gone through lot of recipes of lava cake but I was just scared to try them as most of them are too technical for me. Then I stumbled upon this super duper simple recipe…and wasted no time in embracing it my own. Simple chocolate cake better play with some simple trick and Viola!!! Done.

Try this out…take my words you will love it.

¼ cup   Chocolate chips

¼ cup   Cherry filling

2 cups   Refined flour

1 tsp   Baking powder

¾tbsp   Sodabi-carb
1cup   curd
A few drops  Vanilla essence
1cup   Milk
¾cup   White butter
¾cup   Caster sugar
6 tbsp   Cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to 170*C. Grease a cake tin and line it with butter paper. Mix the chocolate chips with cherry filling and keep aside.

2. Sift flour, baking powder, soda bicarb and cocoa powder together. Heat the milk till it is lukewarm.
3. Whisk the curd, caster sugar, butter and vanilla essence together till smooth and frothy.

4. Fold in the flour mixture alternating with milk. Mix quickly but gently to a smooth batter.
5. Pour into well-greased muffin moulds and spoon chocolate chips & cherry filling mixture in the centre and bake on the center rack for 8 minutes.
6. Check the cake, remove cake from the oven and after a few seconds, demould it and serve

Oreo Vanilla Cupcake with Tempered Dark chocolate Icing

Do you want to dig into pure pleasure of dark chocolate crunch followed by vanilla sponge and taste gooey dark chocolate Oreo Bites?

Then read on…

Experience is a wonderful thing, irrespective of whether its good or bad. A good one definitely make one feel good but even a not such a nice on leaves with a learning. This goes word to word for me and my baking. To tell you very honestly my equation with cake batter has not changed much, remember my confession here

Kitchen still feels like boxing ring where batter calls me for a face off every time I pick up a recipe to try….But as I mentioned before, experience is teaching me tricks and tip even if batter gets the upper hand some times.

I have learnt the most important thing is that I need to give it love and attention to make it behave. Accuracy in measurement and patience while mixing and baking, is doing wonders. So yes, we are getting better in terms of sweet successes. 

This newly acquired trait “Experience” has given wings to creativity, now when I see some good recipe I don’t hesitate to try and even I think of new recipes and  ideas(Ahuum Ahumm J). As an ardent fan of “Masterchef Australia” I have learnt one thing to look at recipes as building block and use them to create something new altogether.

So what have I done so special that I am writing so much about it..well nothing indeed. Yes really just took my vanilla cupcake recipes and added Oreo and choc chips to have this divine vanilla chocolate cupcake.

Just that?? Yes!!!. Its that simple that indeed it’s feeling silly to write the recipe. Mind you!!! These cupcakes are only simple to make but the flavors are to die for. I am big fan of Oreo and have seen few dishes incorporating it. What is so great about this cookie is when baked it converts into such wonderful soft gooey texture. My plain vanilla cupcake came alive with its dark and dense chocolate taste with vanilla cream melted in the cake to intensify the vanilla taste.

Shall I talk about the dark chocolate icing…Let me do a quick dance first!! I am excited and thrilled to share this here that my first ever Chocolate tempering effort is a success. 

If you are wondering what Tempering is??? Its defined as process of producing small cocoa butter crystals to get the uniform sheen and crisp bite of properly processed chocolate is tempering.

It is actually a simple yet technical thing to do. Chocolate is melted in a double boiler which is not boiling till it reaches 46-48°C (depending on milk or dark chocolate) then a small amount of chopped chocolate is added in the melted hot chocolate. The mix is stirred to maintain the same temperature though out and then again the temperature is increased till 46-48 °C. For Dark chocolate the chocolate is melted at 46-48°C. Tempered chocolate get spread or poured warm and the temperature is maintained placing the pan back on double boiler when ever required.

I tried tempering with a small batch of chocolate  and without thermometer, just going by my instinct.Luck was on my side and my temperature instinct worked. I coated my cupcake with warm tempered chocolate and in the end I had this wonderful shiny and full of bite chocolate layer on top.

It’s a sin full delicious cupcake…don’t trust me??? you have to bake to believe. 

For the cupcake 

1/2 cup  Unsalted Butter, softened to room temperature

1 cup  Granulated Sugar

2 Eggs (use 1 cup curd, if you don’t want to use egg)

1 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1½ cup Flour

2 Teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

1/2 Cup Milk

¼ Cup Chocolate Chips

6 Oreo Cookies chopped in big chunks

For frosting

200 gm Dark Chocolate Chopped

2 Tbsp Milk Chocolate grated (Optional)

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

In a bowl beat the butter and sugar together with a handheld mixer whisker attachment on medium speed for 2-3 minutes until creamed and fluffy.

Add eggs and vanilla and beat on medium speed until everything is combined, about 2 -3 minutes.

In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in 3 additions and stirring by hand after each addition. Mix until just combined, do not over mix. This batter will be thick.

Fold in chocolate chips and Oreo chunks with spatula.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For Tempered Chocolate icing

Prepare a Bain Marie (Double boiler) by placing a saucepan on stove with some water. Take a slightly smaller pan and put ¾ of the chopped chocolate in it.

Place the smaller pan in the simmering water pan, making sure only the bottom of the pan touches the water. PLEASE MAKE SURE THE WATER IS NOT BOILING and you be careful about no water droplet gets into the chocolate pan. PLEASE FOLLOW this to the “T” or else you will not be getting tempered chocolate at all.

When the chocolate is melted remove from heat and add chopped chocolate and stirrer this with a spatula until all the chocolate is dissolved. Place this pan again in the simmering water pan and stirrer gently for 1 min and remove from heat.

Your chocolate must be shiny and super smooth. Cover the top of your cupcakes generously with it and sprinkle grated milk chocolate.

Leave you cupcakes alone to get the chocolate set on the top. You can tuck these shiny babies in the refrigerator for 5 min, if you are in a hurry to eat them: D

Mini Chocolate Loaf - Easy Breezy Baking

My love for tea has incited my interest to explore more around its cup of warmth. I absolutely love English High tea. I feel it’s so classy and luxurious to spend your evening with a cup of tea being served with nice and fresh tea breads, scones, loafs, cookies, pies, cakes and bars…Umm Yummms. Sounds like pampering. 

Basically this concept of high tea was started by British Royal ladies. In those times of tight corsets it was very difficult to eat much during lunch time.  By early evening hunger use to strike back so this routine of having tea  with small treats at 4 o’ clock started. This not only fill the stomach to go till dinner but tasted great with tea.

And now days as I am more inclined to bake bready things I thought of baking a chocolate tea loaf.  I have been very nervous around yeast lately because most of the time it did nothing to my dough. The thing with instant yeast is you get your success sign in the very beginning. If you were ignorant like me, first thing you need to learn is to know whether your yeast is alive or dead. When you put your yeast with warm water, sugar and milk it start reacting to form a foaming mixture. If you see all that had happened and your mixture is bubbly and foamy, you have a alive yeast. On the contrary, if bubbles are not formed or very thin layer of froth has appeared, you very much have got dead yeast. Only thing you could do is to discard this mixture and start with a new yeast. It’s a must to have an alive yeast or your bread will not prove and rise.

To get started all we need is: 

2 tsp active dry yeast

1½ Tablespoons Lukewarm Water

½  Cup Lukewarm Milk

2 Tablespoons Superfine Sugar

50g Unsalted Butter, melted

2¼ Cups (335g) Flour

1 eggs

Dark Chocolate squares – 6

Place the yeast, water, milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a large bowl and set aside in a warm place for 10 minutes or until bubbles appear on the surface.

Add the butter, flour, eggs and another 1 tablespoon sugar to the yeast mixture and use a spatula to mix until a sticky dough forms. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth.

Place the dough in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with a clean, damp cloth and set aside in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic. Make a ball of dough and roll out 1cm-thick to make a rectangle.

Divide it by cutting with a sharp knife into 6 rectangle pieces. Place a chocolate square in the middle and fold the dough inward like wrapping a gift and seal the ends to make loaf like shape.

**Please make sure that chocolate pieces are big enough to get wrapped properly and should not be too small or else you would not be able to get good bits of chocolate.

Place these mini loafs on a baking tray lined with baking paper and set aside for 30 minutes or until risen. Sprinkle some granular sugar on top.

Place them in a pre-heated oven at 220°C and bake for 20 min or until golden brown.

Cool on wire rack and you are ready to enjoy crusty from outside and soft buttery bread with a rich gooey chocolate.

Its a winner….and sure pleasure thing to bake and eat.

Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts

Ever since I have made Doughnuts at home (Yes, I can proudly say that) my husband is just not interested to eat any store brought one (Yes I am writing from Cloud number nine ;)) and Now I am making them quite often.

This time I thought to upgrade them with a glaze and no marks for guess, Chocolate is the most obvious one.

How to make doughnuts part is not changed at all and here is your Recipe of doughnut.

 

Sky is the limit when it come to glaze these doughnuts, its just the matter of what you find handy to play around with. As we don’t get many exiting sprinkle options here in grocery next door or even in Super markets. I would insist on sticking to using only good tasting options rather than anything available.

I used plane dark chocolate glaze which is super easy and taste good.

All you need is:

1 Cup Chopped Dark Chocolate

½ Cup Unsalted Sugar

1 Cup Confectioner Sugar

1 Tbsp warm water

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave for 2 minutes giving a stir every 30 sec .

Add sugar and water in small amounts and mix well after every addition to form a nice glossy not so thik paste.

Dip the doughnuts one at a time and keep on a wire rack to catch the access.

Let it cool for a while, you can place the tray in refrigerator for 5 min for quick set.

If you want to perk them  some little sprinkles, it will be fun.

Peanut Butter, Oats and Chocochip cookies

It’s true that love has no definition, no boundaries, no rule and not even remains the same forever. Look back in your life and you would know what I mean. As a child we loved our parents and thought there in nothing beyond their love, then came our siblings and friends. In our teens we make a picture of love of our life and how we would be when in love. When in love we evolve as well as let go a lot. We always want to be in love yet so much change around this emotion. From one dimension to other love is so dynamic. What is so amazing that I find its true for my love of baking as well (Burrrrrrhhhhhhh…..) Lol!!! I started with cakes, which lead to cupcakes and now I am more drawn to cookies now days. Every cookie I taste, see or read about just want to bake. So I came across this flourless peanut butter recipe and jumped on it.

 

Though I am not a Peanut Butter fan specially the store brought one, but started making it at home for my daughter after one of my friend told me about this super easy recipe she use to make at home. Believe me, I did not know one can make Peanut Butter at home and second it could taste far better than store brought.

 

 

As my Peanut butter was sorted it was so easy to get on to make cookies. What we are aiming is to get thick, soft and chew cookies, which will remain soft even after 3-4 days after baking but I can bet they will not last that long. The key to make chew and soft cookies is to use brown sugar. It not only give a good color but the nice chewy texture too. So please don’t compromise on it. I have used egg, if you don’t want to use leave and use a splash of milk instead.  Cooling the dough is the essential step of making this cookie so please doesn’t skip it and give at least 30 min of chilling in the fridge. 2 hours to overnight rest will be even better.

For Peanut Butter

2 Cups Peanut

1 Tbs Butter

½ Tsp Cinnamon Powder

2 Tbs Honey (Optional)

Heat a pan and melt the butter. Add peanuts and road them evenly. Add cinnamon when peanuts are light brown.

Add honey if desire. It will give nice sweetness to the peanuts and enhance the flavor of cookies. It’s important to keep stirring the mixture till it cools off completely otherwise the peanuts will get stick to the pan and will form big lumps.

So next step process the cooled peanuts in a processor till its smooth and creamy. That’s it, you have a fresh and super tasty peanut butter.

For Cookies

2/3 cup (58g) Rolled oats

1/2 tspn ground cinnamon

1 tspn baking soda

1 large egg

1 cup (250g) Peanut Butter at room temperature

6 Tbsp Brown sugar 

1/2 cup Dark chocolate chips

Mix the oats, cinnamon and baking soda together in a bowl.

 In another bowl beat the egg. Mix in the peanut butter and brown sugar with a spatula until combined. Pour in the dry ingredients and slowly mix until everything is combined. It will a thick mixture, if you use peanut butter at room temperature if will easier to combine everything.

 Fold in the chocolate chips.

Chill the cookie dough for 2 hours ideally and minimum 30 minutes. This step is a must.

Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Line large baking sheets with  parchment paper.

 Scoop the dough, about 1.5 Tablespoons each, onto prepared baking sheet. Place the dough in the form of mounds to get think cookie and do not press them down or spread at this point.

Bake in two to three batches depending upon your tin size, just making sure you are giving enough space for cookies.

Gently press down on the dough mounds with the back of a spoon to slightly flatten.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes for soft yet crispy cookies.

Allow the cookies to cool for 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Keep them in air tight container and they will be fresh for a week. Enjoy your flourless thick and chewy cookies with coffee. Kids will love them with a glass of milk.

 

Chocolate Brownie made super easy

When a girl is not feeling that great well what really perks up her mood..yes we all say loudly Chocolate!!!! (Yet Again).

So yes I have baked couple of intense chocolate things lately. I have a special corner for brownies in my heart, not just because they taste sooo.. good but also for the reason that I have a very simple recipe for that (Because I am just about easy to bake stuff). So I have whipped up and baked these brownies one Sunday morning while making breakfast. Excuse for some not so great pics because before I could click the photograph my two year old would just grab a piece and start eating… :D.

A good brownie has good chocolate flavor loaded with nut and chocolate chunks with this gooey texture and slightly crusty top. Achieving all this not difficult at all. You just need good ingredients and lot of love while handling the batter. Though this recipe is very easy just asks for slightly higher attention while mixing the better. Please do not over mix the better, just enough to bring everything together. Over mixing the batter will spoil the texture of the brownie.

2 ½ Cup Plain Dark Chocolate Chopped

1 Cup unsalted butter

3 Eggs (Use 1 ½ Cup Curd, if you dont want to use eggs and make Eggless Chocolate Brownie) 

1 ¼ Cup Light Brown Sugar

3/4 Cup  Flour

1/2 Tps Baking Powder

1/2 Tps baking Soda

1 Cup gm Walnuts Broken ( You can add chopped milk and white chocolate as well)          

Preheat the oven at 190 ºC. Grease and line a square baking tin.

Melt the plain chocolate and butter in microwave for 2 min but keep string it every 30 sec or you can melt them in heavy base saucepan.

Beat Together eggs and sugar then beat in the melted chocolate mixture.

Shift together flour and baking powder and add this is in wet mixture. Add walnuts and mix to bring everything together.

Pour the batter in the baking tin and bake for 40 minute at 190 ºC until cake feels just firm on the crust but soft underneath.

Please do not overcook or the brownies will be dry.

Leave to cool in the tin and when cooled, turn the cake out and cut square pieces.

Yes, this is it and you will have heavenly chocolate brownies. Believe me you could just keep on eating them and they are so inexpensive as compare to the store brought ones. I hope you would try making them at home, as there is no reason you should not and let me know…who all were drooling after you ;)

Double Chocolate Cupcake with chocolate frosting

In the west you hear lot about comfort food, honesty this term does not make much sense to my Indian foodie heart as I feel everything we cook is comforting and specially what our mother would  cook for us is the ultimate comfort food. With this thought, I was thinking what really pops in our head when most of think of one thing which would bring a smile. Chocolates!!!

I am sure I could not be wrong with that. We all are so obsessed with chocolates and its loved by every age and gender. So I got my sleeve’s up to bake dark, rich, soft and extremely chocolaty double chocolate cupcake with a smooth chocolate frosting. Well I did not made my frosting super chocolaty as I like the chocolate chips to stand out but you can go ahead with adding 2-3 full tbsp of coco powder to intensify the chocolate flavor in the cupcake frosting.

Though I started with a mood to do beautifully frosted cupcake but in the end lost the steam and again washed my hand by rustic look (lazy look, I should write rather) but the taste did the talking and my little one came running for the next one as soon as finished her first cupcake.

Double Chocolate Cupcake

1/2 cup Unsalted butter

80gm Semi-sweet dark chocolate

1/2 cup Cocoa powder

3/4 cup All-purpose flour

1/2 tsp Baking soda

3/4 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup  granulated sugar

1/4 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp  vanilla extract

1/2 cup  buttermilk

Dark Chocolate Frosting

2 ¾ cup Confectioners’ sugar

2/3 cup Unsweetened cocoa powder

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

6 Tbsp heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 cup Semi-sweet chocolate chips for decoration

For the cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 180 °C. Line a 12 cup cupcake pan with cupcake liners. I used a 6 cup pan and baked in two batches.

Melt the butter and chocolate together in the microwave for 2 min and stirring every 30 sec. You may also melt the butter and chocolate over low heat on a double boiler. Stir until smooth and let it cool a bit.

In a bowl, mix the cocoa powder, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together until thoroughly combined.

 In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla together until smooth. Add the cooled butter/chocolate and whisk until smooth.

Add half of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk. (To make buttermilk at home just add a tsp of  white vinegar in ½ cup milk and let it stand for 5-7 min.)***

Repeat until everything is added. Stir until just combined; do not overmix. The batter will be very thick, so don’t worry.

Divide the batter between 12 liners in your cupcake pan. Bake for 18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting: sift together the confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder to assure there are no lumps. Set aside.

 With a handheld mixer, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy - about 2 minutes. Gradually add the sifted sugar/cocoa powder alternately with the heavy cream and vanilla. Beat on low speed after each addition. Once all added, beat on high speed until creamy and combined for at least 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt if frosting is too sweet.

Frost cooled cupcakes and top with chocolate chips and that’s it. You have these lovely cute intense chocolate cupcake inviting to taste them. Do bake them and let me know, how they turned out.