Pat-a-(cup)cake

New day, new post and a step away from the usual. Let's give the stove top a rest today.....it's baking time folks!! I rediscovered baking when I moved here to start grad school. The baking aisles in grocery stores made me feel like a kid in a candy store....so basically I felt like buying baking supplies and using them. Besides, who doesn't like a homemade sweet treat when hit with the 3 pm slump? Yes, the baked goods in stores 'look way tastier' than most things you could bake at home'. But if you have a little bit of time, simple homemade baked goods taste just as good as the store-bought stuff (barring major ingredient mishaps, of course....). As an added advantage, baking at home means being able to put a healthy spin on yummy desserts without really compromising on the taste. 

Anyway, healthy baked goods are for another day. This recipe is for incredibly light and delicious orange cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting. The use of cake flour (or its substitute...more on that later) makes the cupcakes light, while the oranges and cream cheese add enough tang to ensure that the cakes are sweet without inducing a sugar coma. On a regular day, butter and cream cheese in one recipe would be a strict no-no for me.....how easy it is to pile on the pounds with all that fat. But these cupcakes were a friend's birthday gift, so all indulgences were forgiven.

The original recipe for the cupcakes is here and that for the frosting is here.

Orange Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting(Makes 16-17 regular sized cupcakes)

For the cupcakes:
2 eggs
1 stick (or 1/2 cup) unsalted butter
3/4 cup  granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour, sifted before measuring
2 teaspoons baking powder (NOT baking soda....it's different)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon orange zest (from 1 large orange)


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Ingredient notes:
1. If you don't have cake flour, here's how you can make it. Measure 2 cups of all purpose flour. Remove 4 tablespoons of the flour. Replace with 4 tablespoons of cornstarch. Then sift it all together. Alternatively, you could just use all purpose flour in a one-to-one substitution. The cupcakes will still be alright, but probably not as light.

2. Increase the amount of sugar to 1 cup if you like sweeter cakes.....I don't.
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Make sure the eggs and the butter are at room temperature before starting. Line the cupcake pans with liners and preheat the oven to 375F (190C). Add the baking powder and salt to the flour and sift again. Combine the milk and orange juice.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Then add the eggs, one at a time, and beat well. Then add the vanilla extract. Add half of the flour mixture to this followed by half of the milk mixture. Mix well. Repeat with the remaining half and mix again. Finally add the orange zest and mix well.  Pour the batter into the pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean.

EDIT - Cool the cupcakes completely before frosting....or you're going to end up with a melted, drippy mess on the cupcakes.

For the frosting:
1 package of low fat cream cheese (8 ounces)
3-4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1.5 to 2 cups powdered sugar (also called confectioner's sugar or icing sugar)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2-3 teaspoons orange zest

Beat the butter and cream cheese together with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth (about 3 minutes). Add the vanilla extract and mix. Slowly add the powdered sugar in small quantities and mix until you reach the desired consistency. Finally mix in the orange zest. Then spread the frosting on the cupcakes with a blunt knife or use a piping bag.

Notes:
 1. When you mix in the sugar, add it until you reach 1.5 cups. Then add more if the frosting isn't sweet enough, add more. If you want to pipe the frosting, you could need more than 2 cups of sugar to make the frosting stiffer. I don't have the time or skill for piping bags, so I just used 1.5 cups.
2. Sifting the sugar is a good idea to ensure that there are no clumps. Measure before sifting!

It's Photo Recipe Time!!!

And after a long hiatus (#2?), the absconding blogger is back! It would be fun to say that I was busy coming up with new ideas for the blog, but really I was just busy with a ton of school work. Part 2 of the last post will come up soon. Until then, I have a post that’s different from what you’ve seen here so far. The posts are detailed to the last quarter of a teaspoon with notes about oil splatters. Not this one though! This post is all about pictures. I picked a fairly simple recipe and decided to do a photo sequence that takes you through all the stages. And the chosen recipe is…..<drumroll please>…..Fried Rice! Yeah…quite the anti-climax.

Fried rice is unavoidable at any Asian/Indian-Chinese restaurant you go to. Whether people in Asia really eat what we call ‘fried rice’ is a whole different question. Anyway, the point is that fried rice is very customizable with every recipe using different ingredients and in varying proportions. It’s really ‘as you like it’. So I’ll tell you how I did it, but without perfect measurements. Enjoy…..

I decided to go with a vegetable, shrimp and egg fried rice tonight. So step 1 involved dealing with the shrimp egg. I thawed about a dozen medium sized shrimp and gave them a quick 5-10 minute marinade with a tiny amount of turmeric, a pinch of salt and a little bit of ground red chilli pepper. I love spices, but if you don’t feel free to just stick to salt…..and maybe some pepper if you wish. Next, I fried the shrimp in about a spoonful of oil in my fried rice pan. Took the shrimp out and then scrambled an egg in the pan….I added the same spices to the egg. Here's what it ended up looking like.

Step 2 – Added a tad more oil to the pan and threw in some star anise, diced red onion, ginger, garlic and some Thai chilli peppers. Star anise is a great aromatic and gives off a pretty good fragrance and flavor to the food. That said, it’s not a must have. Feel free to use five spice powder….or nothing. Oh and those Thai chilli peppers can be nasty hot….so use with care.

When the onion looked done, I added diced zucchini and carrots and let the veggies get cooked. Covering the pan at this point is a good idea. The veggies took about 7-8 minutes to get done.

Next up, I added some thawed corn and the fried goodness (shrimp and egg). And here’s where the customization fun comes in. I used soy sauce, a pinch of salt and some ketchup. You could use oyster sauce or some stir-fry sauce…..get creative! And the FINAL step……I added cold, cooked rice to all the wonderful things in the pan. And this is what it ended up looking like…..

So that was my dinner tonight…..hope you enjoyed it too. ;)

And yes….COLD RICE is the secret to a great fried rice.

Kitchen Experiments: Paneer

It's not like I need an excuse to cook or bake, but spring break has ensured I have some extra time to carry out experiments that have long been on the back burner. This post is not going to have a recipe as such....it's more about my successful maiden attempt at making paneer. If you're familiar with Indian cuisine, you most likely know what it is. For those who aren't, paneer is a kind of soft cheese that can be compared to queso fresco or queso blanco. Paneer is a really versatile ingredient that can go into curries, rice dishes, desserts and more. And if you're me, you can probably just eat it by itself.

So paneer making is not a terribly difficult task. You just need to be a little attentive and a tad bit patient. It's really as simple as adding an acidic agent to boiling milk so the curds separate from the whey. Then you just drain all the whey off and let the curds sit until they are firm. Make sure you save the whey...more on that in a little bit. Here's how I made the paneer.....and keep watching this space for what I did with this paneer.

Paneer

1 quart (946 ml) whole milk
2-3 teaspoons vinegar

Pour the milk into a heavy bottomed saucepan and bring it to a rolling boil over medium heat. Once the milk comes to a boil, add the vinegar and stir well. As the milk curdles and you see the whey and the curds separating, turn the heat off.

Line a strainer with a cheese cloth or a fine muslin cloth. Place the strainer over a large bowl and pour the contents of the saucepan into the strainer. Let the whey drain off for about 15 minutes. If you want soft, crumbly paneer, you're good to go. If you want it to be firm, make sure the paneer is covered with the cheese cloth and place a heavy weight on top (I used a ceramic mortar and pestle). Let the paneer rest for 2-3 hours and then use it as desired.

Notes:

1. You can use lemon juice instead of vinegar to curdle the milk.

2. Refrigerate the paneer if you're not going to use it immediately. The whey goes in the refrigerator too.

3. The logic behind saving the whey is that it is very nutritious and can be used instead of water in your regular cooking.....while boiling rice or in paratha/chapati dough or even in curries. The whey can also be used to make paneer in the future.

4. If you choose to go the firm paneer way, you can take the bowl with the whey away before you place the weight on the paneer.....whey is nutritious but you don't need to squeeze every last drop of it.