Easy Chocolate Cake aka Disaster Cake!

A friend asked me to bake a chocolate cake for his little girl's birthday party at the end of March, so I have decided to spend the next few weeks trying out different types of chocolate cake until I find one suitable. Unsurprisingly, googling chocolate cake resulted in lots of different recipes but one thing I find interesting is most of them are for chocolate fudge cake i.e. a chocolate sponge with fudge icing. I will definitely make a chocolate fudge cake in due course but for the first sample, I tried this easy chocolate cake made out of buttermilk and chocolate icing. I was disappointed when the cake sank while cooling which can a sign of underbaking, the tin was too small or the cake was cooled too quickly. The Husband tasted the first slice without icing and said it was bland. As you can see, I have filled in the sunken centre with more chocolate icing. Will have another taste when the cake has settled but in the meantime, I don't think I'll make it again.

The cake has been rated 3.5 out of 5.

Update: This cake has turned out to be a surprise hit with my father-in-law stating that it was very good. The Husband also agreed the icing made a huge difference and asked why he was given the first piece without! :) Lesson learnt - there is always a reason why icing is included in recipes and usually, it is to make the cake taste better!

Red Velvet Cupcakes!

What is red velvet cake? According to Wikipedia, "a red velvet cake is a sweet, moist, rich cake that is a dark red, bright red or red brown colour. It is usually prepared as a layer cake somewhere between vanilla & chocolate in favour, topped with a creamy white icing." It is believed to have originated from South America. Its recent popularity is attributed to its role in the 1989 film "Steel Magnolias" where a red velvet cake appeared as a wedding cake in the shape of a armadillo with grey icing.

I wanted to bake something red this weekend as it is Valentine's Day so I found this red velvet cupcakes recipe, which turned out to be quite a challenge. This was the first time apple vinegar and cake flour were called for in my baking. Since apple vinegar is not readily available in the supermarkets, the Husband rose to the challenge and found me a bottle from a healthstore after much googling. As cake flour is also not easily available, I made a substitute from plain flour and cornflour (known as cornstarch in the US). I do not know if sourcing for these ingredients would have actually been easier in London but it does show the variety of ingredients one can get easily in the States.

These cupcakes turned out a beautiful red-brown colour and were iced with a mascarpone cheese icing. As described, these cupcakes are really sweet and the icing made them really creamy. The Husband was not keen as he found the icing too creamy.

This session also taught me 2 lessons - 1) Do not bake cupcakes on 2 different shelves in the oven at the same time, they will not rise enough and you can end up with dents on top. 2) An American recipe usually calls for too much icing, so halving the required amount of icing will be wise. You can always make more!

Just Flowers!

My Valentine's Day present from the Husband! He can be really sweet and romantic when he wants to be! :) And his rationale for not getting me a card is because he can say Happy Valentine's Day in person!

Lemon & Chocolate Chip Heart Cookies!

Happy Valentine's Day! Since I don't get to celebrate Chinese New Year in Edinburgh, I have decided just to make a huge deal of Valentine's Day instead, which is also the first day of the Year of the Tiger! My husband is also a Tiger, so here's hoping he will have a brilliant year!

So the treat for Monday will be these delicious lemon hearts with lemon icing and chocolate chip hearts. They are both made from the same shortbread dough and I just divided the dough into 2 - adding lemon zest to one and chocolate chips to the other portion. I used to find cutout cookies a hassle but I think maybe I just need to be in the right mood to be patient and a really good cookie cutter! Making 2 different types of cookies also make it less monotonous when you have to cutout 24 cookies.

The husband is a huge fan of these shortbread cookies and has managed to eat 4 in a row when I was not looking. Will see how quickly they go in the office on Monday!

Blueberry Lemon Loaf!

An old favourite! This is the third time I have baked this fruity loaf and each time it turns out perfect. As blueberries are on sale recently, I really enjoy baking with them as they are really yummy. The icing with fresh lemon juice helps to enhance the lemony flavour. The last time I baked this was for a new year's day lunch with the family and Husband's 3-year old nephew ate 2 slices all by himself! We were very impressed with his appetite. Anyway, this loaf vanished in a day at the office!

Cinnamon Chocolate Bread with Sugar Crust!

This week's treat! The gray skies make me long for something warm and comforting, so I found a chocolatey recipe which was surprisingly delicious although it was quite a bit of work. The bread is made of buttermilk so it turned out really light. The sugar crust was made separately out of sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon and cloves. Husband said he thought the cinnamon taste was really strong but other tasters said it was fine - wonder if I just gave him a slice that was too cinnamonney. Anyway, this took 2 days to finish.

Seed, Oat & Fruit Bar aka Granola Bar!

Might be a reflection of the dark and depressing weather in Edinburgh today as this turned out to be quite a disaster. The whole baked product basically fell apart when I started slicing it up. Out of 20 bars I should have got, I ended up with only 14 bars. They were also not as tasty as I expected despite the high fruit and nut contents. The husband kindly asked me to put all the fallen bits into a bowl and he ate them just like granola, which is why I gave them another name in the title! I suspect if I just broke the bars into pieces and passed them off as homemade granola, I would not feel as bad about the lack of shape! And here's a picture of my homemade granola!