Showing posts with label Cupcakes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cupcakes. Show all posts

Monday 10 February 2014

[CNY Bakes] Mixed Fruit Pastry Cake, Chocolate Beetroot Cupcakes and Honey Joys

During this Chinese New Year I did baked quite a few items such as Cheesy Pineapple Rolls, Matcha Butter Cookies, Kueh Bangkit and etc as new year gifts which you can read more about it here (with recipes). Whereas for our family gathering (with recipes on savory dishes) I also prepared some tea cakes which our guests can enjoy them with coffee/tea after the savory dishes.

And in this post I would be sharing 4 recipes on the items that I had prepared for the dessert corner during our family lunch gathering.

Tuesday 30 April 2013

8th Anniversary of Cuisine Paradise

Today Cuisine Paradise adds another year onto the blog stats where we celebrate our 08th Anniversary. Time flies and it's seems only a few weeks ago when I wrote about our 07th Anniversary flashback post and yet now we are into the eighth years of blogging.

Although there were ups and downs along the way during these 8 years but I am thankful for a group of supportive friends and readers who are always there to show us full supports as well as their kind words and encouragements which makes us grow stronger each year.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

Quick Easter Bunny Bento

With Easter Sunday coming up this weekend, I prepared a quick Easter Pizza Bento for my boy as his breakfast.  Actually there are nothing complicated about this bento, what I did was transformed the pizza toast which I had made previously into something Easter themed with Bunny and Easter Egg.

After which just use your imagination to decorate the bunny as well as the oval shape so that it would resemble Easter egg design.

Monday 25 February 2013

Lemon Butter Cake With Chia Seeds & Pistachio Nuts

This Lunar New Year, I have come up with 2 similar cakes using orange and lemon rinds plus Chia Seeds to enhance the taste of the cakes. And for festive flavour, I also used dried longan (龙眼) which represent "many good son" and pistachio nuts (开心果) which is often given as a gift to symbolize health, happiness and good fortune.

Wednesday 6 February 2013

Longan And Cranberry Yogurt Cake

Chinese New Year (CNY) usually cannot go without some auspicious cakes like Kueh Lapis Legit (千层糕), Kueh Baulu ((鸡蛋糕), Walnut Cake and etc. This year, I have come up with a something new apart from the usual CNY cake using "orange zest, dried longan, cranberry, chia seeds, yogurt and Cointreau" to bake this Longan And Cranberry Yogurt Cake for Chinese New Year.

Sunday 5 August 2012

Zespri Kiwifruit, Your Daily Scoop Of Amazing

I am sure recently when you are doing your daily or weekly groceries shopping, you would notice that most supermarket are storing or having promotion on Zespri® Kiwifruit such as Zespri® Gold, Green or Organic which are available in their peak season.

So with Zespri® Kiwifruit as a great source of fibre which is essential in maintaining a healthy digestive system. I decided to take up the Zespri® 14 days Daily Scoop of Amazing Challenge which I am sure it will helps to improve my health (which I always have indigestion problem) as well as in-cooperate a balance diet and at the same time boost out our family immune system too.

Eating and bring Kiwifruit around is such a breeze with a handy kiwifruit container like this (I got this from last year Zespri® event but sometime you can get this free during Zespri® Kiwifruit promotion in the supermarkets too). As you can see from the photo above, it comes with a 2-in-1 plastic spoon and knife which enable you to cut and eat the fruit without having a mess.

As most of us know, Zespri® Kiwifruits is low in calories and fat which is a perfect snack to eat every day too. So when I post a photo on instagram and facebook page yesterday evening asking which kiwifruit I should bring along for dessert when dining out,  I received quite a number of suggestions from readers, where most of them prefer Zespri Gold (I guess they have impression that Zespri Gold is sweeter than the Green). So below I include a chart comparing both Zespri® Gold and Green for your leisure read up and better understanding of these two kiwifrutis.

Photo Credited to Zespri®


Other than serving it as snacks or desserts, Kiwifruit can also be a great breakfast choice especially for many Singaporean who are caught up in the morning rush like school kids or working adults. To eat this fruits, all you need to do is cut it into half and scoop to enjoy. Moreover kiwifruit has dose of Vitamin C, fibre and anti-oxidants which will help to promote good health and directly benefits the body.

And as usual for this year blogger's introductory pack, we also received quiet a number of interesting cute kiwifruit items such as keychains, recipes booklet, pens, lunch box, fresh kiwifruits and etc like what we get last year (HERE, if you still remember the Zespri® Goodie Bags Giveaway). So please stay tune for this year's Zespri® Goodie Bags Giveaway (more details will be reveal soon) if you are interested to win some of these lovely items.

Since I have extra supplies of kiwifruits (on top of those that I bought weekly) from Zespri® I decided to share the goodness of this amazing kiwifruits with some of my besties and other family members whom I know they would definitely love them to bits.

Emmmm! Even Mum's Beagle is curious about the taste of the kiwifruits


RECIPES USING ZESPRI KIWIFRUITS


Below are some of my Zespri® Kiwifruit recipes that I have shared last year using Zespri® Gold and Zespri® Green Kiwifruit which you might be interested to read more about it.


MENU
Kiwi, Lime And Mint Cooler
Avocado with Gold Kiwifruit Salsa
Pan-fry Salmon with Green Kiwifruit



DESSERT / TEA 
Kiwi And Lime Cupcakes


Lastly if you like to try other new dishes or bakes using kiwifruits, do stay tune for my upcoming post(s) on how/what I am going to create for this year using these amazing kiwifruits from Zespri®.

Thursday 2 August 2012

Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes - 北海道蛋糕


Hokkaido Chiffon Cupcakes (北海道蛋糕) is one of the popular cupcakes that many home bakers had made. In Singapore you can find this soft and fluffy cupcakes selling at some of the housing estate bakeries or brands such as Polar and Puff.

This recipe has being in my "keep in view (KIV)" list for quiet sometime and is only until about 2 weeks ago when Joyce bought a box of this similar Hokkaido Cake (read more here), it actually triggers our baking bug to try making it on our own.

Monday 9 July 2012

Magic Of BOSCH MCM4100 Food Processor - Part II, Baked Mini Lemon Cheesecake


This is a super "over due" recipe which I found in my "draft" a few days back while sorting out some my posts. I guess it has being almost 6 months since the other related Part I post had being published. So please accept my sincere apologies if you are waiting for this recipe.

I love cheesecake especially those that are baked rather than the non-bake type. And out of all the different types of cheesecake, New York and Boston Cheesecakes are two of my favourite because I love its thick and creamy cheesy flavour.

Friday 13 April 2012

{Photo Friday} Red Velvet Cupcakes Using Beetroot Powder & Puree

A Red Velvet Cake is a popular cake with it's unique colour varies from dark red, bright red or red-brown depending on the ingredients used. It is usually baked and topped with a creamy vanilla icing or the popular cream cheese icing. This reddish-brown color cake was originally from a reaction of the cocoa powder with an acidic ingredient such as buttermilk but however, "red food coloring"(as much as 2 tablespoon or more) is often added to achieve that unique "red colour effect".

But for this recipe that I am sharing with you today, my friend Celes did not used any "red colouring", instead she replaced the colouring with healthy ingredients such as "Organic Beetroot Powder" and "Fresh Beetroot Puree" to achieve it's natural red colour texture.


RED VELVET CUPCAKES
using Beetroot Powder And Beetroot Puree


From the photo above, you will notice that the texture of the cupcake is moist with a bit tender crumb due to the adding of buttermilk and when you have your first bite you would also experience a mild beetroot aftertaste in between the cocoa flavour cake.


Recipe adapted from Celes of Celestial Delish, HERE.

(Make: 12 medium cupcakes | Preparation: 15 minutes |    Baking: 20 - 25 minutes)

Ingredients:
260g All-purpose Plain Flour
4 Tablespoons Beetroot Powder
1 Teaspoon Salt
3 Tablespoons Natural Cocoa Powder
1 Teaspoon Baking Powder
250g Caster Sugar
1.5 Cups(300ml) Vegetable Oil
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 Large Eggs, room temperature
1 Teaspoon White Distilled Vinegar
1 Cup(200ml) Buttermilk, room temperature
1/2 Cup Beetroot Puree, blend from 1 medium beetroot

Method:-
~ You can refer the steps on making the above red velvet cupcakes plus cream cheese frosting over at Celes's post HERE.

Cream Cheese Frosting:
250g Cream Cheese, room temperature
113g Unsalted Butter, room temperature
215g icing sugar
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Method:-
~ Steps on making the cream cheese frosting can be found HERE.

Overall I have learnt something new while making this Red Velvet Cupcakes as I have never tried whisking oil and sugar together with eggs in a cake batter before folding in the dry flour ingredients. And Celes told me this method is a good way to achieve soft and yummy cupcakes too but most important steps is not to over mixed the batter or else the cupcakes texture will be dense.

Friday 6 April 2012

{Photo Friday} Easter Cupcake Baked In Egg Shells

(photo credited to Celes from Celestial Delish)

Hi everyone, hope you have a wonder Good Friday! Today's post is slightly different as it consists of Photos, Guest Post(from Celestial Delish), and team recipe. Since Easter is this coming Sunday, Celes from Celestial Delish ask whether I am keen to do a Easter Cupcake Project together with her. And my answer is definitely "YES" when she brief me on the plan. So without hesitate, we start sourcing the necessary ingredients and as well as testing some of the egg dying process before the actual baking.

And guess what! After almost about 6 hours in the kitchen starting off with draining the eggs from the shells, washing and drying the shells, preparing colours to dye the eggs, getting the egg batter and filling ready. Finally you can see what we have achieve at the end of the day from the photos shown in this post.

Monday 14 November 2011

Nutella Cupcakes with Chocolate Chips

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There are so many versions of Self-frosting Nutella Cupcake recipes available online whenever you do a goggle search. Here I am using a recipe from Camemberu with slight changes by adding my son's favourite mini chocolate chips to make it more chocolatey on top of the Nutella used.


NUTELLA CUPCAKES WITH CHOCOLATE CHIPS


For the recipe of this Nutella Cupcakes with Chocolate Chip you would notice that I have used 2 types of flours like what I did for the Kiwifruit and Lime Cupcakes as i prefer a lighter texture by in-cooperate some self-raising flour. But if you find it too troublesome, you could always follow the original recipe and use 100g of plain flour plus 1 teaspoon of baking powder instead.

Recipe adapted and modify from Camemberu Self-Frosting Nutella Cupcakes.

(serves: make 6 | Preparation: 10-15 minutes | Cooking: 20 minutes)

Ingredients:
70g Plain Flour
30g Self-Raising Flour
70g Unsalted Butter, soften
70g Caster Sugar
2 Eggs, 60g each
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1/4 Cup Mini Chocolate Chips
Pinch of Salt
Some Nutella Spread


Method:-
1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy(about 2 minutes on medium speed)

2. Add egg one at a time and beat till no trace of egg mixture.

3. Next add vanilla and stir in flour mixture until flours are full in-cooperate before toss in the chocolate chips and mix well.

4. Fill each cup with 1/4 of the batter, add in 1 teaspoon of Nutella each before covering it with batter to fill 3/4 full.

5. Give the mixture a quick swirl using toothpick and bake in preheated 180 degree celsius oven for 20 minutes or until skewer insert and comes out clean.

These are some of the Mini Nutella and Peanut Butter Cupcakes which my boy would occasionally request as his tea snack or breakfast. And I guess these mini version would be great for kids to bring to school or outings compared to the normal size cupcakes above.

Lastly I would like to submit this Nutella Cupcakes with Chocolate Chips for Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog. Enjoy everyone!



DOUBLE CHOCOLATE NUTELLA CUPCAKES


This is another version of our Double Chocolate Nutella Cupcakes which is filled with lot of Dark Chocolate and Chocolate Chips. You can find the recipe exclusively from Cuisine Paradise Facebook page, HERE.

Friday 11 November 2011

Kiwifruit & Lime Cupcakes

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As much as you read about my passion on using fresh fruits in both my dishes and bakes I am rather excited with my new love on using "kiwifruit" as one of the key ingredient. Before my recent encounter with ZESPRI kiwifruit, I didn't know that kiwifruit has so much health benefits or rather it could be so versatile to use in creating our daily meals.

Below is another way that you could in-cooperate kiwifruit in baking some delicious cupcakes to impressive your guests with minimum steps and effort. These serve great for afternoon tea with cup of fragrant tea to balance it's zesty taste.


KIWIFRUIT AND LIME CUPCAKES


We love the texture of this cupcake which is soft, moist and infuse with hint of sweet and sour zesty flavour from the green kiwifruit and lime syrup. And it really taste great while eating it warm as a tea-cake or as after meal dessert which gives you a refreshing taste and comfort feeling especially during cold nights.

(makes: 6 | Preparation: 10 minutes | Cooking: 25 minutes)

Ingredients:
75g Self-raising Flour
40g Plain Flour
50g Ground Almond
80g Caster Sugar
62g Unsalted Butter, melted and cooled
1 Large Egg
60ml Milk
1 1/2 Ripe Green Kiwifruit, cut into cubes
1/2 Green Kiwifruit, sliced for garnishing


Method:-
1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Place combined flours, almond meal and sugar in a large mixing bowl. Stir well.

2. Whisk egg and milk together with melt butter and slowly stir into the flour ingredients follow by the cubed kiwifruit.

3. Using a spatula, mix well and spoon mixture into paper cases and bake in preheated oven for 25 - 30 minutes till golden and skewer inserted and comes out clean.

4. Cool in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto wire rack to cool further.



LIME SYRUP


Lime syrup is great to act as an addition toppings to enhance the flavour of  many dessert dishes or as an accompaniment to certain drinks which needs a zesty lift. This syrup can be served warmed or cold with desserts or cold. For a combination you could also used half portion of lime juice mixed with lemon juice instead of using one type of fruit.

(Preparation: 5 minutes | Cooking: 10 minutes)

Ingredients:
Zest of 1 Lime
90ml Lime Juice(about 2 - 3 limes)
80g Caster Sugar


Method:-
1. To make the lime syrup, place lime rind, lime juice and sugar in a small saucepan. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves.

2. Simmer over medium low heat for 8 - 10 minutes until thickened.

3. Cool the syrup slightly. Use a skewer make holes over the cakes before spooning the sryup over cakes and top with sliced kiwifruit.

4. You could also un-mould cake on serving plates, spoon over extra lime syrup and serve warm.

It has being a few months since my last submission for the monthly Aspiring Bakers event and since this month's theme is pretty easy which base on cupcakes. I would like to submit this quick and easy Kiwifruit And Lime Cupcakes for Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog.


ZESPRI KIWIFRUIT GOODIE BAGS GIVEAWAY
(SINGAPORE ONLY)


Lastly I have a good news for all my Singapore readers. The folks from ZESPRI and Edelman team are giving us some complimentary ZESPRI Goodie Bags for 3 Lucky Winners which includes fresh kiwifruit, 2GB Kiwi thumb drive and etc delivered to your doorsteps.

In order to win a set of this goodie bag, leave a comment stating 2 Goodness of ZESPRI kiwifruit(answer can be found from my ZESPRI kiwifruit post HERE) together with your name and a valid email address. To double up your chance, you could also pop over to my facebook page HERE and "Like" the photo together with a comment on how you usually eats your kiwifruit.

Closing Date for this giveaway will be on Monday, 14 November 2011(Noon).

~~~~~~~~~~~
(updated on 14 Nov 2011)


GIVEAWAY WINNERS




Friday 29 July 2011

{Recipe and Game} Chocolate Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes With Vanilla Ice Cream Plus Blind Taste Test

Isn't these "ice-cream cone cupcakes" look great for special occasions such as Birthday party, school function or even tea-time. I am sure not only the Kids fancy this,  Adults like us will also love eating our favourite cake in a cone instead of on a plate too. So why not give this a try and start making your favourite cupcakes in ice-cream cones instead of paper cases. Or just like us if you don't fancy frosting your cupcakes you can even eat it on it's own or top it with an extra scoop of your favourite ice-cream.

I always love dessert such as Chocolate Brownie or Molten Chocolate Cake that serves with a generous scoop of premium Vanilla ice-cream. And when compared to other flavour, vanilla ice-cream is said to be the most popular flavour like by most consumers which is why you can always see vanilla ice-cream appears in most dessert corner or menu in major cafes/restaurants.

Since I am making some ice-cream cone cupcakes for my neighbours as one of our tea snacks we decided to play a small game while waiting for the cupcakes to cool off. To start off we gathered 3 different brands of vanilla ice-cream to do a blind taste test and see which is the most popular choice among us. In this game, each family contribute one of their favourite brand of vanilla ice-cream and I would scoop it into 3 different cups and let all the participants take a blind taste test on each of them.

For this test we had 9 participants from 3 different families with age group ranging from the youngest; 5 years old to the oldest 60 plus. Each participants will get to sample the prepared Vanilla Ice-cream from Haagen Dazs, New Zealand Natural and Ben And Jerry's without any knowledge of which brand they are tasting. So can you make a guess which is the most popular choice out of the 3 brands that most of them pick?(result is shown at the end of this post) But before we scroll down to read the "taste test" result, let's take a look at the Chocolate Ice-cream Cone Cupcakes recipe shown below first.


CHOCOLATE ICE-CREAM CONE CUPCAKES
WITH VANILLA ICE CREAM


I have bookmarked this recipe for quite sometime but was not very keen to attempt due to the frosting part. So with some read-up and brainstorm with my facebook friends, I decided to give it a try without doing the frosting and replace it with a good scoop of Vanilla Ice-cream.

Recipe adapted from Donna Hay

Ingredients: (make 8 flat base ice-cream cones)
60g Butter, soften
80g Caster Sugar
1 Large Egg
50g Valrhona(Guanaja - 70%)Dark Chocolate, melted
95g Plain Flour
1 Tablespoon Dutch-process Cocoa Powder
1/2 Teaspoon Baking Powder
50ml Fresh Milk
8 Flat Base Ice-Cream Cones
40g Valrhona(Guanaja - 70%) Dark Chocolate, extra

Topping:
Premium Vanilla Ice-cream


Method:-
1. Melt 50g of dark chocolate in microwave on High for 40 seconds with an interval of 20 seconds each.

2. Arrange ice-cream cones on baking tray and place 2 feves of dark chocolate at the base of each cone.

3. Preheat oven to 160 degree. Beat butter and sugar in a bowl till light and creamy, add in egg and beat till well mixed.

4. Next sift over flour mixture(plain flour, baking powder and cocoa powder) and continue to beat until mixture became a gluey batter.

5. Fold in milk and stir with either a spatula or hand-held whisk till combine before stirring in the melted chocolate.

6. Spoon batter into each cone and fill up 0.5cm away from the rim. Bake in preheat oven for 15 minutes; increase oven temperate to 170 degree and continue to bake for another 10 minute or when skewer insert and comes out clean .


7. Allow cupcakes to cool for 10 minutes, running a small knife round the "hump" on top of the cake and remove it before stuffing it with a scoop of Premium Vanilla Ice-cream.

8. You can either drizzle extra melted chocolate, sprinkler or use the cut-off cake to place on the ice-cream to act as toppings.

Chocolate Ice-cream Cone Cupcakes on FoodistaChocolate Ice-cream Cone Cupcakes

These cupcakes taste great even without any frosting. The cake itself is soft, moist and infused with "Triple" chocolate content. With each bites you can taste 3 different texture in one mouthful such as the crispy ice-cream cone, moist chocolate cake and cold ice-cream all mingling in your mouth.

For your information these cupcakes are best to be eaten within an hour or warm so that the ice-cream cones will reminds crispy instead of soft and soggy after a few hours. But if you intend to keep for longer time you might want to consider reheat it in a 200 degree oven for about 3 minutes to revive the "crispness" of the ice-cream cones.



Result Of Our
BLIND TASTE TEST



Tata!!!!! Have you make the correct guess? Or you are surprised with the result shown above? Yes! I myself was surprised when I saw the results; out of the 9 participants, 4 voted(2 Young Adults, 1 Teenage and a Kid) for New Zealand Natural immediately after they tried all the 3 different cups of ice-cream whereas the other 5 participants still took sometime to decide which product to cast their vote.

As for products wise you can still see tiny bits of vanilla pods in both New Zealand Natural and Ben And Jerry's. But in term of taste New Zealand Natural has the smoothest texture and mild creamy taste which does not overpower the vanilla fragrance. So if you like vanilla ice-cream perhaps you can also gather a few brands and do a blind taste test like us, have fun and enjoy the process as well as the eating those cold and delicious ice-cream especially during hot and humid days.



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