Chocolate Cupcakes

On my niece's birthday, I made some chocolate cupcakes. I used this recipe from MennoniteGirlsCanCook. They share a great range of recipes. It's really a treasure, you should check it out!

Btw, you may notice that my frosting is a bit runny, that's because I used a little too much milk. The recipe doesn't specifically say how much, so better use 1 Tbs first and see if you have reached the consistency you'd like before adding more.

Cookies or Scones?

These are actually scones but for practical reasons I mixed the ingredients in a large bowl and form the dough with hands. That's why the end products looked like cookies. The original recipe calls for apples & raisins but at one occasion I used strawberries and raisins. This has become a new favorite of my family!

Apple Scones
Ingredients:
380 gr flour
1 tsp baking powder
110 gr butter, at room temperature
80 gr icing sugar
1 egg
100 ml sweetened condensed milk
2 apples, diced
75 gr raisins
1 egg yolk, beaten

Method

1. Sift together flour and baking powder onto a clean surface. Push flour outwards o form a 25 cm round wall.
2. Place butter in the center. Add icing sugar and mix well with fingers. Add egg and mix well.
3. Add milk slowly and mix well with the butter mixture and flour to form dough. Add diced apples and raisins and mix well.
4. Roll out dough to 2 cm thickness. Stamp out rounds with a 5 cm cookie cutter. Arrange on a greased baking tray spaced well apart. Brush with beaten egg yolk.
5. Bake in an oven preheated to 200°C/400°F for 15 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

It's perfect for a tea party or just to accompany your quality time at afternoon tea .

Yoghurt Fruit Cake

After a morning visit to the garden, how about making some cakes for tea? Here is the new recipe I tried a couple of weeks ago, taken from Ruby Bakes. This recipe calls for yoghurt, almond oil, blueberries and lemon  rinds. As usual, I can still do without the ingredients I don't have in hand, and this time it's the almond oil wich I substituted with vegetable oil and as for the fruit I used canned peaches and fresh strawberries.

This is one of the most delicious cakes I have made. I really like the texture that's loose and tender. I believe the taste and fragrance will be more interesting with some almon oil. Highly recommended! 

New Recipe To Try - Amish Cinnamon Bread

The productivity continued on till the evening, where I decided to try on the recipe of Amish Cinnamon Bread from Redfly Creations 

This gave me the opportunity to run my still brand new mixer I got from my best friend on one of my birthday several years ago! It hasn't been used at all for at least 6 or 7 years! Amazing that it still works perfectly! I am so grateful for it, since it eased my work very much!

I was actually thinking about baking some banana bread, but then I stumbled upon this recipe and since I have all the ingredients I gave it a go.  As usual, I cut the amount of sugar because I don't have a sweet tooth, so I cut the sugar from 2 cups to 1 1/4 cups only, given that the topping will use another 2/3 cups of cinnamon sugar. And it proved to be perfect for me!

Look at the crumbly and soft texture, it's yummy!

Betty Crocker's Copycat Brownies

Last week, I have finally given a try to a recipe of Betty Crocker's Copycat Brownie I got from Fake it Frugal 

I can not really compare it with the original mix since I tried it many years ago when a friend baked it, but I reckon it's a great one . On my first try, I followed the recipe except for the chocolate powder, I used more than what is suggested (one small packet about 45 gram). It rendered a more bitter taste as dark chocolate does. The texture was dry at the outside but moist in the inside. 

My niece and my maid loved it. The recipe uses vegetable oil and all I have at home was palm oil. The result was pretty okay, but the next day I did a little modification by using half butter and half palm oil and used the chocolate powder as suggested.The fragrance of buttery chocolate  filled the air... hmm... I like it, except that it was less bitter (maybe next time I'd adjust it to 1/2 cup). To my surprise both my niece and my maid liked the previous one better! Oh well...!

Copycat of Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon Rolls is also one of my favorite! I had tasted the sinful Cinnabon Cinnamon Rolls and it had been my favorite ever since. I've been wanting to try to make it myself but has just recently found the recipe on Pinterest. It is indeed very nice when it's still warm. Therefore, at the 2nd attempt I decided to modify the recipe by using 60% of bread flour and 40% of all-purpose flour in order to make the texture softer especially overnight. And it was a success! Fyi, I serve the cinnamon rolls without the cream cheese topping and it's already very yummy!

First Attempt

2nd Attempt

My youngest niece, Isis, was helping to grease the fresh-from-the oven cinnamon rolls.

Recipe taken from The Girl Who Ate Anything

Ingredients:
1 cup warm milk
2 eggs (room temperature)
1/3 cup butter melted
2 1/2 cups bread flour
2 cups all-pupose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup white sugar
1 packet yeast

Filling:
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
2 1/2 Tbs ground cinnamon (you can add if you like)
1/3 cup butter softened
Raisins (optional)

Icing:
3 oz cheese cream softened
1/4 cup (4 Tbs) butter softened
1 1/2 cups confectioners (powder) sugar 
1/2 tsp  vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt

Instructions

1. Microwave milk for 45-60 seconds in the microwave. Dissolve yeast in warm milk in a large bowl. Add sugar, butter, salt, eggs, and flour. Mix well. Knead dough into a large ball, using your hands dusted lightly with flour. Put in a bowl sprayed with cooking spray and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Let rise in a warm place about 1 hour or until dough has doubled in size. *Our house is so cold I have a hard time getting things to rise. If I turn on the oven and then put the rolls on top of the stove, the oven generates enough heat for them to rise.
2. In a small bowl, thoroughly combine brown sugar and cinnamon. Spray surface with cooking spray or sprinkle flour on it. Roll dough into a 16x21 inch rectangle about 1/4 inch thick. Spread dough with 1/3 cup softened butter and sprinkle evenly with sugar/cinnamon mixture. Roll up dough starting with the longer side and cut into 12 large rolls (or 18 smaller rolls). Place rolls in a lightly greased 9x13 inch glass baking dish. Cover and let rise until nearly doubled, about 30 minutes. *After this I would put them in the refrigerator for the next morning if you are doing them the night before.
3. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Bake rolls in preheated oven until golden brown, about 18-20 minutes. While rolls are baking, beat together cream cheese, butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt. Spread frosting on while they are still warm so that the frosting melts into the roll. That's what the Cinnabon people do (I asked them). Makes 12-18 rolls.