Chocolate Caramel cupcakes

Chocolate is an all time favorite flavor.  Having made caramel sauce earlier, I regretted each day to let it sit idle.  That's when I came up with these Chocolate cupcakes.  These are so soft and moist that they literally melt in your mouth, even when had straight from the refrigerator. These are eggless as well.

CHOCOLATE + CREAM + CARAMEL = HEAVEN!

Need I say more <3  <3

Ingredients required

For chocolate cupcakes
Dry ingredients

• 1/2 cup All purpose flour
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking powder
• 1/2 tsp Baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt

Wet ingredients

• 1/4 cup milk
• 2 tbsp curd
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

others

• 1/2 tsp instant coffee powder
• 1/4 cup of hot boiling water

Topping

• Dairy whipped cream
• Salted caramel sauce

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180-degree celsius.  Take your wet and dry ingredients in two separate bowls.  Sieve dry ingredients once and give them a good stir.

Make a well in the center of dry ingredients and add in our wet ingredients.  

Whisk them gently to combine.  In a separate bowl or cup, mix hot water with coffee.  Add this hot coffee to our batter and whisk them vigorously for a minute.  

And our batter is ready!  I poured them on 11 small cupcake liners

Bake them for fifteen minutes.

TA-DA our cupcakes are ready, let them cool completely for about an hour. 

Meanwhile, I attached my nozzle to Icing bag and filled them with cream using the  spatula.

Giving them a gentle squeeze, I got a beautiful swirl on the top of each cupcake.  Note that the cupcake should not be warm if it was cream will melt right away and won't hold its shape.

After swirling, melt few teaspoons of salted caramel and using a spoon, gently drizzle on the top of iced cupcakes.  

Enjoy!

Happy Baking <3  <3

Eggless Red velvet cupcakes

   Hi, friends!  With the shifting ahead, I completely lost track of my blogging.  And yes, we are  based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.  My new home just got set and for the upcoming festive mode, I dedicate you my eggless version of Red velvet cupcakes with Cream cheese frosting.

Red velvet cupcakes are slightly cocoa flavoured and the mix of baking soda and vinegar are added to help the cake rise and retain the moist texture.  Since I didn't have vinegar at home, I replaced them with lime juice and it worked fine.  Super-moist cupcakes with a creamy, tangy frosting  were a total yum!   My family loved it.  Do try this and let us know your feedback.  

Choco cashew cookies

Hi friends, this is yet another cookie, found in any corner shop Bakery.  I instantly liked the combo of flavour this cookie had to offer. The bitter taste of Cocoa powder combines well with  the sweet crunch of cashews.  We had a big pack of cashews lying on the refrigerator from our Goa visit.  So, fully recharged I tried this yummy cookie, they came out perfectly well.

Yet another special feature is that these cookies are made from whole wheat flour. I have used Aashirvaad aata.  So, this can be guilt-free cookies for both kids and adults.  Do try and let us know.

Chocolate macaroons

Macaroons are lightly baked confectionery.  Remember the ones, we used to avail at Adayar Bakery, Chennai?  Similar to them, yet imagine them with an hint of  chocolate....... Imagining sooo, replace the crunchy cashew pieces with chocolate vermicelli, wonderful them, aren't they?   Any kid would drool over these and by the time, my kid opened her snack-box, everything was gone.... :)  :)  Next time, I am planning to bake an huge batch of these.....

 These macaroons are made from egg whites, which are stiffly beaten and folded with sugar and required essence.  Then, these are piped with foil/ parchment paper lined tray and baked for 100 degree celsius, for about an 80 minutes.  This baking at an slower temperature helps macaroons in gaining an crusty top with crunchy body.  You can skip few minutes, if you wish to have an gooey centre (Like marshmallows).  These macaroons, are best made at summer as humidity or an rainy day would introduce moisture into them, and would make them soggy....

I made them using an single egg white, (as my oven had moderate capacity).  Remember stiffly beaten egg whites cannot be stored and piped again, these macaroons must be baked as soon as they are done with batter.  Exact trick lies in obtaining stiff peaks, also folding other ingredients into stiffly peaked egg whites.  And, after done they can be stored in air-tight container for almost an week.  This hot temperature was easing the macaroons, don't miss them out for an perfect climate.  :)

Chocolate modak - Potluck party, cyber style September 28

   As the name goes by, this can also form one of your kid's favourite snack.  The special filling (Made by adding cocoa powder & choco chips to coconut-jaggery combo) is what makes the chocolate modak even more droolicious and with each bite, we can feel the chocolate flavour oscillating around our head!! :) :)  This modak is tooo tempting for a single try!!!!

I had to make this modak because of this month's pairing in potluck party, guest-hosted by nivedham's food blog and owned by Jagruti mam.  This chocolate modak is from Poornima's blog.  She has an excellant blog with delecious dishes, do go through her blog for the original version of chocolate modak.

Whoopie pie

     Remember our idly-upma from left-over idly's??  Here is the same process of converting left-overs to more yummy snack.  In Pennsylvania, some farmer's wife didn't want to throw away  left-over cake batter.  She inturn, spooned them over parchment paper, baked to form cookie-shaped cake.  After that, two cake cookies were sandwiched with icing.  This initial delight excited the farmer's tastebuds, that he had shouted 'WHOOPEEE' and hence the name.  Slowly, and steadily whoopie pie became popular and lots of people preferred it over cupcakes (because of ease of biting into cake first and tasting icing inside rather than cupcakes toped with icing)  Now, this whoopie pie is declared as US baked good and is made professionally over a lot of eateries....

Quite interesting, isn't it ?  This professionally made whoopie pie, itself is an complex process.  They are actually made from butter, eggs and buttermilk.  But, as the real concept involved is to balance up the left-overs, isn't it ??  So, I just baked these choco whoopie pie as simple as possible.  You can take a look below