I made Gingersnap Cookies during the weekend and they came out REALLY GOOD – crispy on the outside and chewy inside.  Last weekend, I made some gingersnaps too but used a different recipe which I was not completely satisfied with. This one uses powdered ginger, fresh ginger and crystallized ginger which gave it  the “punch” of ginger flavor that I am looking for. I found this recipe from Baking Obsessions, a nice-looking blog.

Normally, I’m not a fan of Gingersnap cookies. But last Christmas, when I failed to bake delicious Gingersnap cookies at a friend’s requests, I was challenged.  The ones I made around Christmas lacked the “umph!” taste of ginger and they turned out too soft.  The following week I went to do more online research. I also asked a Baker (She’s of German-Swiss decent) at Sur La Table why my Gingersnaps were soft. She said I probably didn’t roll it thin enough and advised me get good quality cookie sheet pans.    Later, I saw followed a recipe written at the back of a sugar syrup I got from Ikea’s food mart.  Despite adding triple the suggested amount of ginger powder and cloves, it still lacked the powerful ginger taste that I’m looking for.

This morning,  I googled “Gingersnaps fresh ginger” and found this recipe from Baking Obsession’s blog. It is my first time ever using or tasting crystallized ginger.  The texture and aroma of crystallized ginger after pulsing in a food processor is quite nice, It was VERY YUMMY! I added ground cloves to the recipe to make it even tastier.

Ingredients:

2 cups (9 oz) all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground allspice
¼ tsp salt
8 tbsp (1 stick; ¼-lb) unsalted butter, melted and just warm
¼ cup unsulfured mild or full-flavored molasses (I used organic blackstrap)
½ cup sugar
1/3 cup (2.3 oz) firmly packed brown sugar or light muscovado sugar
2 tbsp finely minced or grated fresh ginger root
1 large egg
¾ cup (4 oz) finely chopped crystallized ginger (1/4-inch dice)
1/2 tsp ground cloves

Preparation:

Center an oven rack and preheat the oven to 350F. Line the baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves, allspice, and salt and whisk to combine. Set aside.

Combine the warm butter, molasses, both sugars, fresh ginger, and the egg in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the flour mixture and chopped candied ginger and stir until incorporated. The dough will be soft.

Form the dough into 1-inch balls (1/2 oz of dough for each). Roll the balls in the Demerara sugar and place them 2 inches apart on the baking sheet. Bake, in batches (form the rest of the balls while the first batch is baking ), for 10 to 12 minutes, or until they puff up and crack on the surface and then begin to deflate in the oven. For chewier cookies, remove them from the oven when at least half or more of the cookies have begun to deflate; for crunchier edges with chewy centers, bake a minute or so longer.

Slide the parchment sheets of cookies onto cooling racks or use an offset spatula to transfer the cookies, and cool completely. Stored in an airtight container, gingersnaps keep for several days.

It’s been snowing so much here in Virginia since last night. 2 ft of snow! Brrrrrr!!!!  It’s the worse I’ve seen it here so far. It almost feels like I’m back in the Midwest. Brrrr…  We’re snowed in and can’t go nowhere.

M&M Chocolate Cupcake

I bought a bag of Christmas M&Ms (red and greens 2 weeks ago and have been wanting to decorate Christmas cupcakes with them. Getting snowed in yesterday and today is the perfect time to get inspired and complete this fun project!  I used Chocolate Egg-white Buttercream which came from Rose Rosenbaum’s “Heaveny Cakes”. I used 5 ounces of a combination of Ghirardelli 60%  and Lindt 70% cocoa. These two, in combination with 1/2 cup of super fine sugar and 3 egg white and 2 sticks of butter created a wonderful chocolate buttercream flavor.    To make it look more festive, I sprinkled red and green sugar granules!

Yesterday morning I woke up at 7:30 am to bake 3 dozen cupcakes for a client’s holiday party.  It was hard to get up and even harder to think about driving with the snow outside.

I made gingerbread cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting which went really well together. It tasted like holiday with spices that went in the gingbread (nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger etc). The frosting made it even better.  I love orange cream cheese frosting these days. It tastes  refreshingly citrusy with the help of a few teaspoons  of orange extract.

I am more and more  with extracts lately and personally, I think they are better than flavored oils  that are used for making candies.  Extracts are made of ingredients such as herbs, nuts, berries and others that are chopped and soaked containing alochol-soluble compounds in ethyl alcohol or a combination of alcohol and water. Although extracts also contain oil, it is most likely in smaller quantity, thus retaining more the “natural flavors”.

When I was developing my Strawberry buttercream, I was advised to use strawberry flavored oil because it was said to be stronger in flavor. Unfortunately, the strawberry oil did not give me the fresh strawberry flavor I wanted in my Swiss meringue buttercream. Instead, it has a rather strong chemical flavor.

I want to share this key lime cupcake recipe which I got from Sarah of Baking911. I used fresh key lime which made the cupcake taste awesome! The texture turned out moist and a little bit dense. I struggled a little bit making this Coconut whipped cream. The first time, I whipped heavy cream with 3 tbsp. of powdered sugar. Then I added the coconut milk and continued whisking. I think I had whipped the cream too much before I added the coconut milk so it started to curd.

Cupcake

INGREDIENTS

1 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour; spoon into measuring cup and level to rim
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk; well-shaken
2 1/2 tablespoons fresh lime juice or key lime juice
1 tablespoon finely grated lime peel
1/4 teaspoon neon-green food coloring, optional

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter; can be cold from the refrigerator
1 1/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs; can be cold from the refrigerator

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Position an oven shelf in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 350°F. Line standard muffin pan with 12 paper liners and set aside.

2. Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. Add the fresh lime juice, lime peel, and food coloring to the buttermilk and stir and set aside.

3. With a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or a hand-held mixer fitted with beaters, cut butter into large pieces and beat in large bowl on low until softened.
Add the sugar in a steady stream at the side of the bowl. Increase speed to medium and beat for 1 minute until the butter is lighter in color and aerated.

4. With the mixer on low, add the eggs one at a time and beat for 20 seconds after each addition.

5. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in 3 equal portions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture in 2 equal portions, beginning and ending with the flour. (If the buttermilk mixture is cold, the batter will curdle slightly. It’s ok. It will come together when you add the flour.)

Add the flour and liquid ingredients in increments quickly; do not wait in between additions too long as you don’t want to overmix the batter.

After completing the last addition of flour, stop the mixer, and scrape the side and bottom of the bowl with a large rubber spatula. Then, let the mixer run for 30 seconds on LOW. The batter will be very thick and form ridges on the side of the bowl as the beater pulls through the batter. STOP the mixer. Do NOT overmix.

6. Spoon scant 1/3 cup batter into each cupcake liner. Bake the cupcakes 20 to 25 minutes or until the tester inserted into center comes with a few moist crumbs but not batter. Cool 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool on a wire cake rack.

Coconut Whipped Cream

1 cup of heavy cream

3 tbsp of sugar

1/2 cup of coconut milk

Steps:

1. Whip heavy cream with sugar until soft peak.

2. Add coconut milk and mix.

Aside from baking, another passion I have since I was young is watching Asian dramas. Recently, I have been ADDICTED to a Korean drama called “You’re Beautiful”.  The leading guy always comment about how the lead girl resembles a rabbit – she looks cute and adorable but can actually be dangerous (he was bitten by a rabbit before). He calls her piggy too because she pokes her nose a lot in front of him (the naive young lady believed that if she does this in front of someone she likes, she’d be able to tap her pressure point and thus, control her feelings).    One day, he decides to surprise her by making a plush toy for her. He conducts an “operation” by transplanting a pig’s oink to a rabbit’s face. The result is a a pig rabbit, or “dueji toki” in Korean. This plush toy is very in demand now. Fans are looking everywhere to get a hold of one.   I’m think I’m a little too old for plush toys, but I thought a “dueji toki” cupcake would be interesting so I decided to make one.

This one is made of vanilla cupcakes with fondant.  I think it came out nicely.  Compare it to the actual “pig rabbit” on the left.

Making it the “Pig Rabbit” cupcake was fun, albeit time-consuming. Last night, I baked the vanilla cupcakes and rolled the fondants to condition them.  This morning, I woke up at 6 am and watched the next episode of the show live online. I resumed to finish my cupcake project and added food coloring to the fondant. To make sure that I have the right image of this “dueji-toki”, I had my laptop sitting in front of me on the dining table.  Hope you guys enjoy it!

Fall is almost over but I can’t seem to have enough of these pumkin cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting. This flavor combination came out really well. The pumpkin was fresh and ripe before it was pureed in a food processor which resulted to unmistakable pungent pumpkin taste in the cupcakes. I brought it to share at my friend’s birthday party and it was a hit.

Cupcake:

Ingredients:

4 cups cake flour, sifted

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 tsp of ground cinnamon

1 tsp of nutmeg

1 tbsp of ground ginger

2 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 cup of buttermilk

1 3/4 cups fresh pumpkin puree

Steps:

1. Preheat oven 350 F degrees. Line cupcake tins with paper liners. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices. (or, mix them in food processor)

2. With an electric mixer on medium, cream butter and brown sugar until it becomes pale and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a tme, scrape down sides of the bowl to make sure everything is included.  Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with two additions of buttermilk and beating until they are combined.  Add pumpkin puree and beat until just combined.

3.  Divide batter evenly among lined cups.  Fill each liner three quarters full as batter will rise as it cooks.  Bake for 15 – 18 minutes.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

1 tsp of orange extract

12 ounces of cream cheese, room temperature

1 pound  (4 cups) of confectioner’s sugar, sifted

Steps:

1) With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter and cream cheese until fluffy, this takes about 2 – 3 minutes. Reduce to low speed. Add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time.

2) Add orange extract and mix until smooth and combined.

You can refrigerate this up to 3 days.  Before using, bring it to room temperature and beat in mixer on low speed until it is smooth again and ready for use.

So, why is the first recipe not a cupcake recipe? Well, I decided to share this one first because it’s a wonderful tasting cookie.  It’s very easy to make, yet very “dolicious”!  You kind of get a little bit of everything good in one cookie.

This recipe is my own twist of  Martha Stewart’s Kitchen Sink Cookies featured in her Everyday Baking TV program.  I added dates, raisins, and dried cranberries which I think really enhanced the flavor of the cookies. You can pretty much substitute it with any other kind of dried fruit you have in your pantry. I think next time I’d try it too with dried mango and apricots. Also, my version are much thicker than Martha’s, such that the same amount of ingredients only yielded a dozen and a half (Martha’s recipe says it can make up to 4 dozens). The photo on the left are the ones I made and the other ones are Martha’s.

Now for the recipe:

Makes 1 1/2 dozens

* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1/2 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar
* 2 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 2 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
* 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
* 1 cup dried cranberry (I used Craisins brand)
* 1 cup raisins
* 1 cup dried dates

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with Silpat baking mats or parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl with a wooden spoon, beat butter, sugar and brown sugar together until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Beat in eggs, one at a time, until well blended. Stir in vanilla.
3. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Gradually stir into butter mixture until well blended. Add oats, chips, dates, cranberries, raisins, and walnuts, and stir until well blended.
4. Drop batter by heaping tablespoons or with a 1 ounce ice-cream scoop onto silpat about 2 inches apart. Press tops down with the bottom of a glass to flatten cookies evenly. Bake until golden, about 16 to 18 minutes. Cool on pan for 2 minutes. Remove from pan, and finish cooling completely on wire rack.

Let me know what combination  you created and how it works out.  Enjoy!

Hello Readers!

I’m finally online after a month and a half of preparation.   I’m excited to share with you my baking adventures and recipes.  If you have comments and suggestions, please feel free to contact me.

Thanks for stopping by!