Tips On Making Perfect Cupcakes

I'm having a special guest, Ivy from Little Bertha - a specialty bakery shop all the way in Australia, share with us some tips on making the perfect cupcake!

Ivy got in touch with me while she was doing a search online and found relevant posts about my recent interest in baking. (I guess she sensed that I could really use some tips about baking cupcakes thus she got in touch with me!!)  

I cannot be happier but to have her contribute this post on my blog and share with my readers about making THE perfect cupcake because I know a lot of us are fans of it! Heads up everyone! I hope this article would motivate you to start baking more! Happy baking!

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Cupcakes are one of those foods that should be enjoyable, both to make and to eat. Of course, they're a culinary delight as well, so they have to follow all the golden rules of baking. That means that they have to taste good. Here are my top tips for making beautiful cupcakes every time.

Temperature

This is crucial. Cooking is chemistry after all. Begin by making sure that your ingredients are the right temperature to begin with. Butter, milk and eggs should all be room temperature when you use them, not straight out of the fridge. Let your cupcakes cool before the icing and decoration begins. Otherwise your icing will melt and it will ruin the look of your cakes.

Carrot cupcake from Little Bertha bakery

Freshness
Freshness is not quite taste, it's taste's older brother. It's a feeling and a sensation as much as anything else. Freshness means superior cooking and baking. Begin with fresh ingredients. This will out you at an advantage. You can test the freshness of your eggs by placing them in a bowl of water. If they sink, they are fresh. If they rise to the surface then they are full of air, and stale. You can store un-iced cakes in air tight containers for up to three days and they will preserve very nicely. Icing and frosting tend to age worse than cake itself, so if you know that you will be saving the cake for later, consider holding off on the icing until you're ready to serve.

Flavour
This is where you can have fun with cupcakes. You can make them any sweet flavour that you like. Classics like chocolate and vanilla flavour can be made original with updates like peanut butter and lime. The icing element of cupcakes is a great opportunity to make great flavour combinations. Not every type of baking incorporates two definite elements.

Decoration and presentation
The cupcake isn't like all the other types of food. The way it looks matters a lot. It is a party food, a pleasure food, and it's also a decorative food. It's supposed to look festive. So that's why your icing and your decoration matter. The rules with decoration are that there aren't any rules. As long as it's edible, and it looks beautiful, you can do what ever you want. Decoration with lollies is really popular, sweet fruits, biscuits, icing sculptures, salted butter caramel and other pastry creations are also common. Invent your own if you want! Presentation is relevant too. Buy a cake stand or a pretty cake dish, or a board or something that you think will do your cakes justice. Use a pastry brush to clear away any cake crumbs from your presentation. Jazz up your presentation with non-edible decorations if you like. Tie it in with the theme of your occasion.

Leaving you this post with more yummy pictures from Little Bertha bakery for your drooling pleasure!

 

Choc Mint Yoyos

Chocolate orange tart

Brownies

  Till the next post, have a blessed week!

The Hungry Ang Mo Contributes A Recipe!

I met Luke, the 'Hungry Ang Mo' last year when my family and I went to explore Sungei Buloh. It is pretty embarrassing that this 'ang mo', which he declares as his race, is a volunteer nature guide at our wetland park! (seriously, do we have our own local guides?)

Anyway, we found out that Luke is always on the prowl for good vegetarian eateries and helms Singapore's first vegetarian food blog. Which is no doubt, serves as your best guide to local vegetarian food! Oh yes... did I mention he is vegan?

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1) Tell us what you do and maybe some interesting bits about yourself.

I am currently working as Motivational Trainer for Adam Khoo Learning Technologies Group, which involves visiting many Primary and Secondary schools in Singapore, and giving workshops on how to become motivated to study, and also practical study skills that can help for PSLE and O-Levels.  In my free time, I love to run with my dog (we aim to run at least 40km per week); I am also a Nature Guide at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve (where I met Adeline!).   But the bulk of my free time is spent on my vegetarian food blog –hungryangmo.com.  This blog has been running for over three years, and has built up a steady following.  I do my best to post twice a week on this blog.

2) When and how did you decide to go vegetarian?

I became a vegetarian when I was 11 years old.  Both my parents were meat-eaters, and were extremely against the idea of me becoming a vegetarian.  Back then, my primary reason for being a vegetarian was because I did not want to contribute to animal suffering/cruelty.  As I have grown older, I discovered many extra reasons – Such as the health benefits of a diet that doesn’t include meat.  As well as the environment damage that the meat industry causes.  In 2012, I became a vegan, which means I now no longer take any animal products (milk, eggs, cheese etc.).  This was purely for health reasons, after discovering how harmful and unnatural these products are – Think about it, why are humans drinking a cow’s milk!?

3) How is life in Singapore compared to England, where you were originally from? What do you miss about your homeland?

I miss very little from England, as I did not enjoy living there.  I was always more intrigued by Asia, and feel more much comfortable and ‘at home’ in Singapore, compared with the dangerous and dirty streets of Manchester.

4) What's your favourite local dish?

If you ask a true food reviewer this question, then they should never be able to answer.  I like too many, so it is very difficult to narrow it down to one.  Having said that, some of my favourites are vegetarian zhu jiao chu, fried hor fun (with strong wok hei) and vegetarian ayam masak merah.

5) If you ever opened a vegetarian restaurant, what would you name it?
Hungry Ang Mo’s Vegan Delights – A pure 100% vegan North Indian eatery.

Sharing An Indian Dish Recipe – Vegan Palak Paneer

Since my transformation from vegetarian to vegan.  I have been painstakingly cooking my favourite Indian dishes at home, and converting them into completely 100% vegan dishes.  This can sometimes be incredibly challenging, as Indian food depends a lot of animal products.  Nevertheless, it is not impossible.

‘Palak’ means ‘Spinach’ and ‘Paneer’ means ‘Indian cheese’ – But for this, I will be replicating/replacing the cheese with tofu.  There is another dish called Methi Chaman, which follows the same general cooking principles, only difference is the addition of fresh kasoori methi (fenugreek) mixed together with the spinach.

Ingredients

·         Mustard Oil – 3 TBS

·         Palak (Indian spinach) – Bunch

·         Fresh methi/fenugreek leaves (optional - If you are making methi chaman) – Bunch

·         Fresh coriander – Handful

·         Onion – 1 large

·         Tomato – 3 medium

·         Cashew nuts and Watermelon seeds (finely blended until ‘cream’ texture is    
          achieved) – ½ cup cashew & ¼ cup watermelon seeds

·         Ginger garlic paste – 1 TBS

·         Turmeric – 1 TSP

·         Cumin seeds – 1 TBS

·         Coriander powder – 3 TBS

·         Cumin powder - 2 ½  TBS

·         Garam masala powder – 2 TBS

·         Hing – Pinch

·         Pepper powder – 1 TBS

·         Firm tofu – 2 blocks

·         Nutritional yeast – 4 TBS

·         Salt – To taste

·         Sugar – 1 TBS

*All these spice powders can be bought from Mustafa or any Indian grocer.*

Instructions

1.      Slice the firm tofu into cubes and drain as much excess water from the blocks as you can.  After which, place in a bowl and add nutritional yeast (this gives the cheese flavour) and salt together and let it sit for about one hour.

2.      Soak cashew nuts and watermelon seeds for around one hour in warm water.  After, blend them together until cream-like consistency is achieved.  Set aside.

3.      Roughly chop the spinach and then blanch for one minute in hot water, then place into the blender. 

4.      Blend the spinach roughly and set aside.

5.      In a pan, add mustard oil.  Once heated, add cumin seeds and cook until aroma comes out of the seeds.

6.     Add finely chopped onion, and cook until onions become golden.

7.     Add ginger garlic paste, and cook until raw flavour goes away.  Then add turmeric and hing – Very little hing.

8.     Add finely chopped tomatoes and cook until tomatoes are very soft.

9.     Add the spinach mixture into the pan and cook for at least 15 minutes, constantly stirring during that time.  After adding the mixture, sprinkle a little sugar (this helps retain the bright green colour).

10.  Once this mixture is cooked, add cumin powder, garam masala powder, coriander powder, pepper powder and more salt.

11.  Once mixture becomes slightly dried out, add the cashew nut and watermelon seeds mixture into the curry (do not add it all) and mix.  This nut/seed paste replicates cream.

12.  Cook for another 5 minutes, and then serve.

13.  Sprinkle fresh coriander on top, and add more cashew nut and watermelon seed paste on top.

14.  Done!

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  Thanks Luke! For sharing this recipe!   Read more about Luke here. Site :  hungryangmo.com Facebook :  Hungry Ang Mo     Till the next post, have a blessed week!

Linking up with : 

[Entrepreneurial Mama Series] Get To Know Evelyn Tan-Rogers

I'm so pleased to have Evelyn Tan-Rogers featured and interviewed over at my blog today, for my Entrepreneurial Mamas series that is an ongoing feature.

When I first met Evelyn, she strikes me as a very soft spoken and lady like person. But behind that petite frame lies a pretty dynamic personality with a zeal for life! She is also, probably the most retrolicious looking mother I know!

I've also been admiring the inner creative streak Evelyn possesses - the little nifty craft work and her abstract photography - which I hope to see more of.

Thank you Evelyn, for gracing my blog with this interview so that we can all get to know you a little bit more and what you do. I sincerely wish you the best in your future business undertaking!

p.s. Now now people, you know who to go to for photo booths when you have an event!

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Tell us a bit about yourself.

I'm a blogging mom of two and you'll find me at thebottomsupblog.com. I'm also a freelance writer and editor, and once in a while you'll catch me at an event manning a printer (or printers) to deliver photos to guests quickly!

When and how did The Party Paparazzi came about? 

We did our first official shoot as The Party Paparazzi in late 2009--it was for a secondary school's graduation event. Before that, my sister-in-law Jac ran a mobile portraits service where she'd go to people's homes, set up a backdrop and shoot them but it stopped being fulfilling for her and she was looking to do something different. I think the fake mustache photo prop trend took off in that year, and that led us to have a conversation about getting people to goof off in front of the camera and printing those pictures as keepsakes for them to bring home. We tested the idea on our cousins and they seemed to like it, so we bought a few printers, set up a website, and we were ready to roll!

Did you face any challenges while setting up The Party Paparazzi? 

Our biggest challenge was (and still is) marketing: Apart from putting up a website and posting in a few forums, neither of us knew how to go about getting the word out to as many people as possible. And we were a bit late in getting on Facebook. Back then I wasn't as active on it as I am now and I didn't realise its value as a relationship-building and publicity tool. We were one of the first few budget-friendly photobooth providers around but we didn’t capitalise on that and now photobooth services are really common (and getting more cost friendly by the day) and it probably won’t be long before the DIY trend takes over! Also our party booth business wasn’t the only thing we were preoccupied with because I had regular freelance editorial projects to manage while my sis-in-law was exploring other photography business channels at the same time.

What themes do you offer at your photo booth? 

When we started out, The Party Paparazzi stood out as a budget-friendly service and our clients so far have preferred to use a standard set of props--mustaches, glasses, wigs, hats and headgear--because customisation would result in extra costs. We do put in additional props according to the seasons, e.g. Halloween and Christmas. We also replace props when they get worn out or (in our minds) lose their appeal, and we look in thrift stores, flea markets, bargain bins, the party shops, and Daiso for new items that we think would be fun to pose with.

What events do you usually cover?

 

We’ve done D&Ds, weddings, school graduations, and small home parties for kids and grown-ups. This year, my sister-in-law and business partner has announced that she's relocating to another country, and until she moves in June, we'll be focusing only on small home parties. I’m currently making plans to continue in this direction after she leaves, with a new partner, as well as to offer a printing-only service.

List one thing you wish you had done sooner in your business and why.

We neglected to think ahead to a time where everyone would be offering a similar service, and possibly at a lower cost. We could've done with a lot more discussions on how to differentiate ourselves and revamp our pricing structure! The other important thing we didn't do was to move ourselves into managerial and trainer roles and hire junior staff members so we could accept more assignments and cover more ground. I've been home minding baby #2 and my photographer sister-in-law returned to full-time work last year. We've had to turn down a number of assignments as a result.

How do you manage your time with family and work demands?

My mom-in-law looks after the kids whenever I have shoots or any sort of work--she's a godsend! Our shoots don't happen every weekend; before we scaled down our service we had about two shoots a month, so it didn't take away a significant amount of time from the family. I also decided to say no to most freelance writing work offers when I had baby #2 in '11, but I should probably start making some work calls soon! Before, with just one kid who wasn't in school, my schedule was flexible and I spent the mornings with my daughter, with my mom-in-law taking over in the afternoon so I could head out to get my work done in peace. That routine worked well for me for several years!

Could you share two of your favourite photos from your shoots?

These photos are from the first party that we shot, for a birthday girl named Kateryna. We're still very grateful to her mother for taking a chance on us although we didn't have a party portfolio or much of a client list at the time! She liked what she saw on our website and hired us with no questions asked, and it was the confidence booster that we needed to keep going. Till this day, we have great memories of the party and we're still in love with the pictures.

Like this interview? 
Support Evelyn with what she does by sharing this post or her website for  more information on what Party Paparazzi can offer and staying in touch via her FB page.  

Website: http://www.partypaparazzi.com.sg

Client List: http://www.partypaparazzi.com.sg/clients.htm

FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/thepartypaparazzi

    Till the next post, have a blessed week!