Chocolate Tomato Juice Cupcakes!

I had a carton of sour cream that I wanted to use up so I was browsing online for a recipe that might be suitable and found this interesting recipe that calls for tomato juice or condensed tomato soup in the baking.

The cupcake is baked out of flour, brown and white sugar, egg, tomato juice, baking soda, butter, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, vanilla and almond extract, cocoa powder and finally, chocolate chips! The frosting is made out of melted butter, melted chocolate, vanilla extract, icing sugar and sour cream. A bit tedious but the end product is really quite delicious!

As tomorrow is a flexible holiday for the Office which means less people working, I only got 12 cupcakes, so will keep posted about taste then!

Sunny Cupcakes!

Cupcake galore! There are lovely lemon cupcakes with lemon curd filling as once again I have a jar of lemon curd left from last week's baking.

These cupcakes are baked out of sugar, butter, lemon zest, milk, flour and baking powder. A scoop of cake is then taken out of the cooled cupcakes and then topped with lemon curd.

I have yet to taste them so will keep you posted about taste tomorrow!

Chocolate Chip Shortbread Cookies!

These delicious chocolate chip shortbread cookies were really easy to bake although the dough did require an hour in the fridge to chill before it can be sliced and baked. The dough is made out of plain flour, butter, chocolate chips, brown sugar, vanilla extract and 1 tbsp of cornflour! The dough is then gathered and rolled into a log before being wrapped in clingfilm and chilled.

Slicing was a challenge as the chocolate chips were too densely packed in the middle which means the dough is too thin to stay together. Hence, a lesson learnt is to make sure the chips are well distributed and to make sure the log is evenly shaped as one can see, I ended up with cookies that vary in size and number of chocolate chips!

However, they did turned out really well so definitely something to repeat!

Blueberry Lemon Curd Cake with Coconut Topping!

An old favourite! A friend at the Office requested for this traybake for the coming Monday so I decided to oblige with blueberries conveniently on sale as well!

I also brought a few pieces for dinner with the parents-in-law and both of them are great fans of my baking. :)

Raspberry Jam Cupcakes!

Little raspberry jam cupcakes! I was quite in the mood for cupcakes this weekend so found this lovely cupcake recipe! The raspberry jam is baked into the cupcake which is a simple sponge cake and the topping is made out of dessicated coconut, egg whites and sugar.

Reviews were not great though so do not think I will be making them again.

White Chocolate Cranberry Cookies!

These cookies were a hit with the Office as they are chewy, fruity and chocolatey cookies and quite moreish. They are made out of sugar and butter creamed together, egg and melted white chocolate beaten in, flour also white chocolate chips and dried cranberries and smelled lovely while baking.

Due to the volume of cookies, they took three days to finish.

Zesty Carrot & Ginger Loaf!

Baking from a very jet-lagged baker! To stay awake, I wanted to bake something that requires a bit more attention and found this lovely loaf recipe.

Ingredients include 140g of carrot that needs to be grated, 5 stem ginger balls that need to be chopped up into tiny pieces and an orange and lemon that require zesting. Beside the usual flour, butter, eggs and sugar, ground ginger, black pepper and treacle are also added to the batter.

As I am not a fan of ginger myself, I relied on the tastebuds of my colleagues to decide and this has turned out to be a surprise hit!

Comment from a taster: "Gingerbread was very nice. I especially liked the little pieces of ginger through the bread. Just loved the lemon topping." The Husband also stated it was pretty good!

Chocolate Coconut Cake!

In a coconut theme weekend, this chocolate and coconut cake does not look like much but it is surprisingly tasty!

The cake has cocoa powder and desiccated coconut stirred into the batter. The recipe called for coconut essence but I did not have any so I used vanilla essence instead. The cake is baked in a 20cm tin, cut into half when cooled and filled and layered with chocolate buttercream icing.

A good recipe for anyone who loves chocolate and coconut!

Coconut Macaroons!

In an attempt to use up a packet sweetened coconut that I bought accidentally, I found this coconut macaroon recipe which is really easy with just six simple ingredients - 2 egg whites, 100g sugar, 370g of shredded coconut, a pinch of salt, 1 tbsp cornflour and 1 tsp vanilla extract.

Whisk the egg whites, sugar and salt first until smooth, whisk in cornflour and extract and stir in coconut last. Drop tbsp sizes onto the baking tray, bake for 15 - 20 mins at fan oven 160 until golden brown and you get 40 delicious macaroons!

These have turned out so good the Office was scoffing them down like no tomorrow and a couple of colleages also asked for the recipe!