A month back I was asked to bake a tiered wedding cake… after my experience with the castle cake, I wasn’t too keen to attempt dowels and seperator plates again. Eventually, we decided to go with three cakes placed on a tiered cake stand. It turned out quite pretty… even through it wasn’t the “conventional” wedding cake setup. The smallest cake was a blueberry cheesecake, and the remaining two were 2-layered chocolate fudge cakes with an almond & hazelnut meringue base. Since the cakes had to be out on display for a while before they would be cut into and served, I couldn’t use whipped cream to frost them. I decided to use buttercream instead.

The recipe I used was not my usual swiss meringue buttercream… Instead, I discovered a American buttercream recipe that calls for whole eggs. This was more convenient because I didn’t have to worry about what I would do with the many leftover egg yolks, which is the case when I make meringue buttercream. As for the taste, this buttercream has the same rich smoothness and is not too sweet either. Since it uses egg yolks, the resulting buttercream is a distinct ivory/pale yellow colour, something to keep in mind when you plan your colour scheme.

In this case, the theme for the wedding was ivory and champagne. I left the buttercream in its original color (ivory) and piped swirls and rosettes in the same shade up the the sides of the cake. Each cake was topped with a bunch of fresh champagne roses (my favourite). Working with the flowers was tricky because I had to be careful not the let them touch the frosting/cake… I wasn’t sure if roses were toxic and didn’t want to take any chances. Eventually I ended up inserting the stalks into a round styrofoam board cut-out and, lining the board with cling film, and them placing the whole set-up onto the cake. It was not easy and I didn’t really like that from certain angles, you could see the styrofoam. I’m still trying to figure out how one would go about using fresh flowers to decorate frosted cakes without having the flowers touch the frosting or cake… any ideas?

My grateful thanks to Brindha and Aarthi for allowing me to use these gorgeous pictures!

 If you look closely enough at the cake in the bottom tier, you can see the styrofoam placed in the middle, into which the roses are inserted. sigh… 

This cupcake is yet another winning recipe from this fantastic book. The recipes in it have been foolproof and the chocolate cupcake has become my vegetarian/vegan chocolate cake stalwart.This time, I decided to try a slightly fancier recipe, for maple walnut cupcakes. What makes the cupcakes unique is that the walnuts are coated with a maple syrup and cinnamon shell before being chopped and folded through the batter. Which means you get a crunch of candied walnuts with every bite of fluffy maple-flavored cake. Yum. And although the original recipe recommends a vegan maple syrup and magarine frosting, I’ve decided to pair these slightly spiced cupcakes with a cream cheese and mascarpone frosting drizzled with maple syrup. I know this disqualifies the cupcakes as vegan but they remain vegetarian.

And delicious.

Vegan Maple Cupcakes

(makes 14 regular cupcakes)

(adapted from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World)

for candied walnuts:

1 cup walnut halves

1/3 cup granulated sugar

3 tbsp maple syrup (use dark amber, grade A syrup)

a pinch of salt

a large pinch of ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 275F. Arrange walnut halves on a tray and toast walnuts for 10 minutes, until the are fragrant and golden brown. Cool nuts completely.

2. Line a baking tray with aluminium foil or silpat. If using foil, grease foil lightly.

3. In a large saucepan, combine sugar, maple syrup and salt. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring with a wooden spoon. The sugar should melt and the mixture bubbling. This will take about 5 minutes. Continue to boil for 3-4 minutes, until the mixture is a dark amber colour, thick and smells like caramel. Remove from heat and stir in walnuts and cinnamon. Coat nuts evenly with maple mixture.

4. Spread nuts out onto the lined baking sheet or silpat and allow to cool.

5. Measure out 1/2 cup sugared walnuts and chop finely to use in recipe. Extra walnuts can be used as decoration after the cupcakes are frosted, eaten or stored in an airtight container and refridgerated.

for cupcakes:

1/2 cup soy milk, at room temperature

1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar

1 1/3 cups flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 cup maple syrup (use dark amber, grade A syrup)

1/3 cup canola or soybean oil

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup candied walnuts, chopped finely

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Whisk together soy milk and vinegar. Cover and let stand at room temperature for 10 mins to allow milk to curdle.

2. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutemg into a large bowl. Whisk together oil, maple syrup, vanilla and brown sugar into the soy milk mixture. 

3. Make a well in the dry ingredients and whisk in the wet ingredients in two batches. Whisk just until no large lumps remain, a few small lumps are okay. Do not overmix. Fold in chopped candied walnuts.

4. Pour mixture evenly into liners, filling up to 2/3rds of the liners, and bake at 350F for 20-22 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.

Cream cheese and Mascarpone Frosting

3 oz cream cheese (Philadelphia), softened to room temperature

1.5 oz butter, softened to room temperature

1/2 tsp vanilla 

1/2 to 3/4 cup icing sugar, sifted

3 oz mascarpone, chilled

maple syrup, to drizzle

candied walnuts, to decorate 

1. Cream together cream cheese and butter with electric beaters on medium speed until smooth, about 45 seconds. Do not overbeat the mixture.

2. Add in icing sugar and cream until combined, about 1 minute on med-high speed. You can add either 1/2 cup or 3/4 cup of sugar, depending on how sweet you like your frosting. Add vanilla and cream to combine, about 20 seconds. Do not overbeat.

3. Add cold mascapone (straight from the fridge) and beat on low speed to combine. Stop when everything is mixed in, it should take about a minute. Again, do not overbeat the mixture or it will get runny. Use frosting immediately or place into an airtight container and refridgerate.

4. Pipe swirls onto cupcakes, drizzle with maple syrup and top with a candied walnut half. Serve immediately.     

A long time ago, I started looking for the ultimate butter cake recipe. You would think something as basic as a butter cake would be easy to master but no, it isn’t. I could never get the proportions, nothing tasted rich enough. And I didn’t want to have those cakes from my neighborhood bakeries as a yardstick because I knew they were made with magarine and not real butter, and likely had preservatives and flavorings in them… but the truth was, they tasted good. And my trial butter cakes were not matching up to them.

Then I came across a post on someone’s blog -it slips my mind who- and he had said that his aunt, a legendary butter cake baker, swore by the tinned Golden Churn brand of butter. So I promptly when out and bought a few tins. Fyi, these tins are REALLY expensive. Look for Golden Churn, not Golden Fern which is cheaper. The Golden Churn tin butter has a very distinctive bovine smell, almost like pure ghee. Its butterfat content (the thing that makes butter creamy and rich) is also higher than the normal block Golden Churn butter.

Okay, so now that I had my superior butter, I went searching for a fantastic recipe to use it in. After much online browsing and sending a few pleading email for people to share their recipes with me, I decided to try out 3 versions. They all worked wonderfully, but each had their own unique flavor. Before giving you the lowdown on each contender, let me share a few butter cake tips I picked up:

1. Use good butter. Pretty obvious but I still have to point it out. Look for tinned Golden Churn or European butters like Lurpak or President. The higher the butterfat content (above 82% is good), the richer your cake. I like the taste a little salt gives so if you’re using unsalted butter, remember to add a small pinch of salt in your batter. 

2. Room temperature is your best friend. Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature. Anything cold will cause the batter to curdle. Take butter, eggs, milk etc. out of the fridge at least 30 mins ahead of time. 

3. Cream the mixture evenly. Uneven creaming causes some pockets of the baked cake to be darker than others, because bits of sugar that have not been creamed well with the butter and eggs cook faster than the rest of the cake. Most electric beaters do not reach the corners and bottom of the mixer bowl, so you have to stop the machine every 3 minutes and scrape down the sides and bottom with a spatula. Do this 3-4 times during the creaming process to ensure that the batter is even. Also, make sure to cream the butter and sugar long enough. You want it to be a very pale yellow, almost white.   

4. Do not use dark or non-stick cake pans. They cause the cake to brown too much and develop a tough and chewy crust. Not what you want in a moist, fluffy butter cake.

5. If you find your cake cooking too quickly, i.e. top is brown but the inside is still wet and uncooked, cover the top of the cake loosely with a large piece of aluminium foil. This prevents the top from getting darker while the rest of the cake continues to cook.

6. Slice your completely cooled butter cake with a serrated knife, in a slight sawing motion to retain its fluffy texture. If you cut it with a flat edged knife, the delicate crumb gets compacted and the cake becomes dense.   

Okay, that’s all I can think of for now. Here are the cakes, with a short commentary for each.

NgShanna’s Ultimate Butter Cake

This was the butter cake I was looking for. SiNfULLy rich, moist and deliciously fragrant. Can you imagine 10 egg yolks and 375g of butter in one puny 8″ cake?? And I think the addition of melted butter made the cake even more moist. When I pressed down a little on a slice, I could almost see the butter oozing from the crumb. *immediate coronary* But it tasted divine and the texture was perfect. Although I won’t be making it too often, because of health concerns (I don’t usually bother about calories but this IS a little overboard), this is the recipe I’d go to for a special occassion.

The recipe: 

375g butter

10 egg yolks

1 cup sugar

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla

1. Melt the butter in the microwave or over gentle heat on the stove. Leave to cool.

2. Lightly grease and line the bottom of an 8″ round cake pan. Preheat oven to 165 degree C.

3. Cream yolks and sugar until creamy and pale yellow. Remember to scrape down the sides and bottom periodically.

4. Add in the cooled melted butter and vanilla.

5. Sift the flour and baking powder (and a pinch of salt if using) and fold carefully into the creamed mixture.

6. Scrape into pan and level surface. Bake for 45-60 mins until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Yochana’s Butter Cake

This was an interesting recipe that called for the eggs to be seperated and the yolks to be added to the butter mixture. The egg whites are then whipped and folded into the batter. The resulting cake is light and fluffy, with a delicate buttery taste. Yummy but not as rich as the previous version. I think this would taste good with a buttercream frosting, because the cake is not too heavy. 

The recipe:

250 g butter

100 g sugar

1 tsp vanilla Essence

90 g egg yolk

1 tbsp evaporated milk

200 g cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

a pinch of salt

160 g egg white

100g sugar

1. Cream butter, sugar, salt and vanilla essence until light and creamy, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl a few times.

2. Add in the yolks one at a time and beat until creamy. Add in evaporated milk.

3. Fold in seived cake flour and baking powder.

4. Whisk egg white and sugar until it holds soft peaks and fold gently into the creamed mixture

5. Pour into a 20 cm round tin (lightly greased and bottom lined) and bake at 175C for about 45 mins or until a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

Doris Greenspan’s Butter Pound Cake

This was a pound cake recipe so it wasn’t all that light. And it was the driest cake of the lot. But I must say that it was delicious when the slices were warmed up and slathered with some butter and jam. This wasn’t really a butter cake, but on the whole, it was a good cake.  

The recipe:

I’ve followed this recipe from Sugar and Spice, which I think is superbly detailed.  

I’m usually not for show-stopper kinda cakes. I figure as long as it tastes good, I shouldn’t worry too much about how it looks. A few swirls of chocolate ganche, a scattering of rossettes, maybe a dash of sprinkles and dragees… that’s about it. Looks appetizing, tastes great- that’s more than enough for me.

But when you have a little girl in the family who oh-so-adorably asks you for a giant castle cake so she can feel like a princess on her 5th birthday, you can’t help but agree and throw all notions of making a ’simple’ cake out of the window. My cousin was so excited when I started collecting paper towel rolls to make the castle towers. She had all sorts of ideas on how big the cake should be (4 tiers!!), what the color theme would be (predictable, pink and purple), and the overall look of the cake (a giant castle with 4 towers, turrets, a landscaped garden and a prince and princess- undemanding little angel isn’t she??) Of course, I explained that I couldn’t do all of that but I promised her it’d be a pretty cake, she just had to trust me.  And with the implicit faith in her elder sister that only a 5-year old could muster, she said okay and returned home.

And I freaked out as soon as she was out the door.

How in god’s name was I gonna do this???

So in the next three months, I looked through endless cookbooks, browsed through sites for ideas and instructions on how I was gonna manage this. I wanted a tiered cake, a smooth finish and something that would be sturdy enough to hold up the towers and decorations. There were so many firsts for me here: first time I would be doing a tiered cake, at making fondant, working with pastillage, and assembling something with so many components.

And to make it all more challenging, the entire cake had to be vegetarian.

Okay, by now I was having a panic attack.

But eventually it all came together. It was not perfect but the birthday girl was ecstatic and that was all that mattered. I made an 8″ vegan chocolate cake for the base tier and sanwiched with buttercream. The top tier was a maple pecan cake frosted with buttercream. I made a batch of marshmallow fondant, colored it a pale yellow and rolled it out to cover the tiers and towers. The turrets were shaped with pastillage, and I used the pastillage to make tons of pearls and tiny roses to adorn the castle walls.

The cake could not be refridgerated because that would cause the fondant to lose its smoothness so I had to store the cake in my bedroom, with the air-conditioning turned on at its fullest. It was the scariest night of my life. I kept waking up to check on the cake, to see if any the towers had come apart or the entire thing had melted or collapsed. ”Never again” was my mantra that night.   

But all things said, I was proud of myself. It took so much work and research to get it right and I did it all without resorting to buying anything pre-made. Everything was done by hand and that made it all the more special. And I probably would do it all over again just to see the smile on the birthday girl’s face when I brought in her cake.

Here are a few pictures of the finished cake. I originally intended to take photos of the assembly process but I was too stressed with all the work I had to do. If anyone needs details on how things were done because they are crazy enough to attempt this, feel free to mail me. I would be glad to share my experiences –mainly of what NOT to do– with you

The castle in all its glory

The back of the cake. Can you see that a little bit of the fondant tore, and I had to patch it up and do some cover up work with the vines? sigh…

Check out the unicorn candles! I thought they were perfect for this whimsical cake. The vines and leaves were piped on with buttercream. And I placed the little roses all over the cake randomly. It was quite fun making the roses and dusting them with pearl dust, although they took forever to dry

The castle doorway. The door was made with a piece of fondant and I worked the details in with a toothpick. I also liked the look of the rope of pearls around the base of the castle

The smile/grin that made it all worthwhile

Both of us. Happy that the birthday was gonna be a success, at least cake-wise. heh  

I’ve been swamped with work, so much that I have not even had the time to take pictures of all the stuff I’ve been baking these past months. But the year is coming to a close and I’ve resolved to make time for this blog in 2008,  no matter how busy I may get. For now, here is a hodgepodge offerring of some of the cakes I’ve made in 2007, that I never got a chance to write up in proper posts.

Enjoy, and here’s hoping that the new year brings more sweet treats and delicious fare to everyone! 

This was my very own birthday cake (yes, I am such a loser that I bake my own birthday cakes). It was a sponge cake sandwiched with strawberry and white chocolate mousse. Meringue buttercream, fresh strawberries and caramel almonds topped it off.

Delia Smith’s wholemeal carrot cake with mascarpone frosting and pecans. 

Vegan vanilla cupcakes. So incredibly moist and fluffy, you have to taste it to believe it.

Oreo cheesecake. It turned out a little more dense than I would have liked… still hunting around for that perfect oreo cheesecake recipe. 

Delia Smith’s very sticky prune and date cake. Almost pudding-like, this had a gorgeous ’dark’ flavor.

Vanilla cupcakes made to look like a flower garden

Coffee cake sandwiched with coffee buttercream. How cute were the words in tamil… for a special granny so she could read the words on her birthday cake!  

A chocolate raspberry confection for 2 special ladies in my dance class. I loved this cake, it looked and tasted so darn good.

My darling younger brother’s birthday cake. I came up with the combination myself, and it was soooo delicious, if I may toot my own horn. But really, this I was really proud of. A hazelnut and almond dacquoise for the base, chocolate truffle layer made with Varlhona Manjari, a sheet of devil’s food cake for the top, and everything encased with sweetened cream, chocolates and raspberries.   

I tried out Ovenhaven’s melting moment’s recipe a few days ago and I think the super hot weather must have softened the butter too much because the dough did not become stiff enought to roll into balls. So I decided to pipe the cookies dough into tiny swirls and top them with colored gumpaste bits.

I loved the taste of these buttery cookies, they are amazingly crisp and crumble so quickly in your mouth. I like them really tiny (mine were less than 1/2 an inch across) but I guess you can pipe them out bigger, or make them into drop cookies and still get great results. Here is my version of the recipe for deepvali:

Melting moments

(makes about 150 tiny cookies)

100g salted butter, softened

75g unsalted butter, softened

heaped 1/4 cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup + 2tbsp flour

1/4 cup cornflour

1 tsp lime/ lemon zest (finely grated)

gel or powder food coloring, if desired

1. Preheat oven to 180C.

2. Cream butter for 20 seconds with electric beaters. Add sugar and vanilla and cream with butter for a minute, until smooth and light. Beat in lemon/lime zest.

3. Sift flour and cornflour. Stir flour mixture into creamed mixture until combined. 

4. If desired, seperate the cookie dough into portions and color with gel or powder food coloring (don’t use liquid coloring because that will thin the dough too much).

4. Spoon dough into piping bag fitted with nozzle and pipe out rossettes or stars onto cookie sheets. Top with mini m&ms, candied fruits, cherries, chopped nuts or gumpaste toppers. 

 5. Bake at 180C for 9 mins (for small cookies), 12-15 mins (for larger cookies). The cookies will still be pale when they are done. I find checking the underside of them a good way to tell when they are done. Using a spatula, carefully flip one of the cookies over, if the bottom looks porous and firm, it’s time to take the batch out of the oven.    

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Since the melting moments’ dough was too soft to be shaped into balls, I couldn’t stick with my plans to use half the dough to make doggie cookies. So I decided to try another butter cookie recipe which holds its shape much better. I liked how this turned out… I definitely will make some of these for the festivities. But I’ve also decided to use the original recipe for these cookies, with Milo instead of Horlicks ‘cos nobody in my family likes the strong malt taste of Horlicks. That means the Milo doggies will be brown and the normal ones wil be beige, which I think will be a nice contrast…

Butter dough for Doggie Cookies

(makes enough for about 35 cookies)

200g plain flour

50g pure icing sugar or powdered caster sugar

125g butter, chopped and softened

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tbsp very cold water

1. Sift together flour and sugar. Add chopped soft butter and rub in with fingers. Once the dough forms large clumps, sprinkle cold water and vanilla over the dough and knead lightly until a soft dough forms. Do not overwork the dough or it will be tough.

2. Let the dough rest at room temperature for about 10 mins.

3. Preheat oven to 325F.

To assemble cookies:

Semisweet mini chocolate chips

Regular size milk chocolate chips

Chocolate rice

Koko Kruch cereal 

1. Pinch off about 2 teaspoonfuls of dough for each cookie. Embed 2 milk chocolate chips in the center of the dough.

2. Place the ball of dough on the baking tray. Use 2 Koko Kruch cereal pieces to form the ears, chocolate rice for the eyes and a mini chocolate chip for the nose.

3. Bake at 325F for 20 mins until the cookies are light golden brown.  

Another post on Deepavali sweetmeats. This is a cashew rava (semolina) treat that is really quick and easy to put together. And shaping the the laddus is so simple, you can do it while watching TV or talking on the phone. Or you can follow what my grandmother used to do. She’d call all her daughters (6 of them, mind you… of course, if you’re not as prolific, you can call your other family members and friends to make up the numbers), get them to sit in a circle, place a large mound of laddu mixture in the center and ask them to pinch off bits and shape the mixture into balls.

This particular laddu is made with very fine rava/semolina and has a lovely cashew and ghee taste that is slightly laced with cardamon. The cashew-rava mixture is bound together with diluted condensed milk so you also have a creamy milk flavour. These can stored in an airtight container for up to a week.

Cashew Rava Laddu

(makes 30-32 small laddus)

1/2 heaped cup of cashews

1 1/2 tbsp ghee (use QBB brand for best flavor)

3/4 very fine rava/semolina (use PRIMA brand semolina. If using normal rava, grind in coffee grinder until fine)

1/2 cup + 2 tbsp caster sugar (it is important for the sugar to be very fine. Use only caster sugar, not fine grain or granulated sugar. If caster sugar is unavailable, measure out granulated sugar and grind briefly in coffee grinder until very fine)

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cardamon, freshly ground with pestle and mortar from about 8 green cardamon pods

3 tbsp condensed milk

2 tbsp hot water  

1. Using a small knife, split cashews into halves. Dry roast nuts in a wok until light golden brown and fragrant. Or you can spread split cashews in an even layer on a baking tray and toast in a 375F oven for about 6-8 minutes, shaking the tray halfway. I prefer to use this method because the nuts brown more evenly.

2. Cool cashews completely and grind in coffee grinder or food processor until powdery. Use the pulse mechanism to ensure you don’t overgrind the mixture and end up with cashew nut butter.

3. Heat ghee in a wok. Add rava and stir fry over medium-low heat for about 6 minutes until the rava loses its “raw smell” and darkens slightly. You’ll know the rava is cooked when it stops sticking together and becomes slightly crumbly.

4. Once rava is ready, add ground cashews and mix quickly. Add freshly ground cardamon and mix thoroughly.

5. Turn off the heat and stir in sugar and salt.

6. Dissolve condensed milk in hot water. Mix in about 4 tbsp of this milk mixture into the rava and cashew mixture. Stir in and see if the mixture can be pressed into small balls with your fist. If the laddus disintegrate when you try to press it into a ball, add more milk mixture, a teaspoon at a time, until the right consistency is reached.

7. Shape about 2 tespoonfuls of mixture into small laddus and store in an airtight tin. 

Cooked rava. The grains should become powdery and stop clumping together…

This is one of the cookies I plan to make for Deepavali this year. I had made some almond praline a few days back and decided to try to incorporate it into a cookie recipe. And I always like those chocolate-topped almond cookies that are so popular in the Deepavali fairs so I decided to work on that concept.

Dark chocolate chunks and praline were folded through the buttery dough. Topped with a swirl of melted chocolate, I thought these cookies looked good. But funnily enough, the praline gave them a milky scent that I really wasn’t expecting… I liked the overall taste, because it was something different. They tasted like a cross between chocolate chip and milk powder cookies. But my brother didn’t fancy it too much so I decided that for Deepavali, I’ll do away with the praline and just add plain roasted almonds to the dough. Remember to chop the almonds and chocolate very finely because if they are too big, they will form ‘pockets’ in the dough and cause the cookie to sink in places when they bake… which is fine, except that it’s difficult to pipe neat chocolate swirls when the cookie surface is uneven. And a note on the chocolate swirls: I usually just melt plain dark chocolate but Phoon Huat sells this chocolate topping (the brand name eludes me now, but i know it is NOT the Tulip brand. When I visit the store again, I’ll check it out) that sets well at room temperature and tastes quite good. When I’m making 100s of these for Deepavali and am pressed for time, I use the Phoon Huat’s chocolate because it sets faster.     

Almond Chocolate Cups

(makes 90 mini cups)

2 oz almond praline or plain roasted almonds, chopped finely

6 0z unsalted butter, softened

4 oz sugar

1/8 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1/4 cup dark chocolate, finely chopped or mini chocolate chips

7 1/2 oz plain flour

melted dark chocolate, for topping 

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Place mini paper cases on baking tray. 

2. Cream butter with electric beaters for 30 secs. Add sugar and salt and cream on med-high speed for 2 mins.

3. Add vanilla, chopped almonds and chopped chocolate and mix on lowest speed until combined with dough.

4. Add flour and mix on lowest speed until just combined. Roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and place in paper cases. Bake at 350F for 13-15 mins until light golden brown. 

5. Once cooled completely, drizzle or pipe swirls of melted chocolate onto cookies.  You can also coat the entire top of the cookie with chocolate if desired.

6. Let chocolate set before storing the cookies in between layers of greaseproof paper in an air tight container. These cookies taste better after a day or two. 

Almond Praline

1/2 cup caster sugar

25g salted butter

1/2 cup coarsely chopped almonds

1. In a small non-stick saucepan, place suagr and butter. Melt over med heat, swirling pan occassionally. If neccessary, stir lightly with a wooden spoon. Cook until a dark caramel color.

2. Stir in nuts, take pan off heat and pour onto a Silpat or onto a tray lined with greased aluminum foil. Spread praline with wooden spoon or silicon spatula and let cool completely.

3. Break into shards and store in airtight container. Can be used as cake decoration, chopped and pressed up the sides of frosted cakes or stirred through cookie batter.   

This one is for you Nithya!

After a request to share the list of treats I’m planning to make for Deepavali this year, I decided I better post it up soon so that for those interested, there will be enough time to buy ingredients and experiment with a few trial batches.

This is the ’sweets’ section of the Deepavali menu at my house. I’ve tried to get as many varieties of cookies as I can. There’s chocolate, non-chocolate, various nuts, baked cookies, cooked candy bars, fried biscuits, flour-based cookies, meringues, vegetarian and non-veg…

In the list below, there is a short description of each cookie and how I plan to serve/decorate it this year. For those who are wondering, yes, this is really how I plan my Deepavali menu each year. I have a file on my laptop named Deepavali 2007, which is edited every day or so when I get new menu and design ideas. I’m freaky like that :P

I’ve provided links to those recipes that I’ve blogged about before, and links to recipes that I’ve bookmarked but have yet to try them myself. I hope I can try all the new recipes out at least once and blog about them before Deepavali rolls around.. *crossed fingers*

The list is also arranged according to how early you can start on the cookies. There’s no way I can bake all these cookies in a day or two so I have tried to put all the cookies that keep well at the top of the list so I know which ones to start on first, up to a week before the actual festival.  

Deepavali sweets 2007:  

1. Mexican wedding cookies

- A melt-in-your-mouth butter cookie with chopped pecans. Tastes better with age. Heavily dust with icing sugar and cinnamon and place in mini paper cases. Get dark colored cases (dark brown?) to contrast with white sugar.  Vegetarian.

2. Indian sugar cookies

- Crisp fried sugar cookies. Keeps well in airtight tin. Divide dough in half. Color one half red and the other green before rolling out. Cut into triangles so they curl in when being fried. Vegetarian.

3. Sugee biscuits.

- Fragrant with ghee (use only QBB) and finely ground semolina. Make them very small (half-teaspoonfuls of dough) and don’t overbake. Vegetarian.

4. Pineapple tarts

- Make closed tarts studded with cloves. Stores well in airtight container.

5. Cashew sugee balls

- A no-bake sweet with roasted cashews and semolina. Vegetarian.

6. Chocolate praline cups

- A crisp almond and chocolate cookie baked into mini paper cases. Use light colored cases (white/ pale green?). Drizzle or coat top completely with melted chocolate. Sprinkle with hundreds and thousands. Vegetarian.

7. Maple butter cookies

- Maple flavored cut-out biscuits. Pipe patterns onto cookie dough before baking (use white/red flour ‘icing’). Vegetarian.

8. Peanut cookies

- Meltingly rich cookie. Roast peanuts at home to get best flavor. Use milk glaze to keep it vegetarian. Top with peanut half/ diced peanuts. Vegetarian.

9. Korova cookies

-Delicious double chocolate chip cookies. Use Cadbury Old Gold 45% for the ‘chips’ and varlhona cocoa powder. Roll dough into miniature logs and slice the cookies thickly so they bake up short and fat. Prepare dough ealier and freeze until ready to slice and bake. Vegetarian.

10. Cornflake cookie cups

-Crisp cornflake cookies studded with dried fruit and baked in mini paper cases. Add grated orange zest to dough. Bake in light colored cases (pale yellow/orange?). Vegetarian.

 11. Melting moments
- I want to make half of these the way Ovenhaven has, with a colored ‘flower topping’. It looks so elegant. With the other half of the dough, I plan to make “doggies“, those koko krunch- toppped cookies that are so popular now. I know those will be a hit with the kids. Vegetarian.    

12. 7-cup sweet

- A classic Indian sweet with fresh coconut, ghee and besan. Cut into tiny squares and maybe top with silver leaf if I can find it. Vegetarian.

13. Coconut candy

- Traditional Deepavali sweet in my house. And we must have them in two colors, green and red. Vegetarian.

14. Chocolate meringues

- Bake in mini paper cases (light colored), top with grated chocolate or chocolate rice. Bake last so that meringues remain fresh.

Okay, so that’s it for this year. 

Some things I like in my festive cookies:

1. Variety. That’s why I have a crazy number of treats planned. I like to taste a bit of everything. 

2. Bite-sized. On normal days, I adore big, chunky cookies but on festival days when you’re already bloated on food, I like my sweets to be pop-into-the-mouth  tiny. That way, you get to  eat more and  also, not dirty your expensive new clothes with crumbs!

3. Vegetarian options. Alot of people don’t eat meat or eggs on Deepavali so it’s only nice that you have a good spread of eggless treats for them.

4. Color. I wouldn’t normally add food coloring to my cookie dough but on Deepavali, when you place trays of cookies on the serving table, it’s gonna look boring if everything is uniformly golden brown. That’s why I like decorating festive cookies with toppers like chocolate or colored rice, bake them in interesting shapes like the doggie cookies or simply serve them in different colored paper cases. It brightens up the serving tray and guests are immediately drawn to the bright hues of your treats.  

5. Not too sweet or rich. Okay, I’m all for using the best chocolate, butter and sugar you can afford. But to tell the truth, when you present guests with 14 different kinds of sweets, they will stop noticing the Varlhona Guanaja that you have devotedly used for your chocolate chip cookies. After the 6th or 7th cookie, they can’t really tell the difference between premium French butter and Australian butter. So don’t worry, break out the Cadbury Old Gold, use your Golden Churn butter, and forget about the expensive creme fraiche to serve alongside your cakes. I’m not saying stinge, you should still buy good-quality ingredients… (and Cadbury and Golden Churn are not exactly cheap either), but you can afford not to use the premium stuff. And nothing too sweet please, because it does get to be a sugar-overload after some time. I try to focus on other flavors like nuts, fruits and chocolate so that people don’t really notice that my cookies are slightly less sweet than usual.  

Have you guys tried the Chocolate Truffle Cake from Cedele? Not their Pistachio Truffle or their Chocolate Banana- although those are delicious in their own right- I’m talking about their plain truffle cake.  It is a decadent slice of pure chocolate bliss, on a bed of crushed graham cookies and topped with a heavy dusting of cocoa. The concept of the cake is simple and I have been trying to recreate it for some time. But most of the recipes I see for chocolate truffle cake are too dense. I don’t know if I can explain it in words, the amazing texture of the Truffle cake from Cedele. It is fluffy, light almost, but at the same time, so intensely chocolate-y. There is nothing that detracts from that hit of cacoa flavor, save for the thin graham crust, which compliments the smooth chocolate with a bit of crumbly crunch, a textural contrast made in heaven. My quest was to replicate this experience but first, I needed a truffle recipe that promised lightness in texture, but an strong chocolate flavor as well.     

I chanced upon Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Chocolate Oblivion recipe on many websites and food blogs and it seemed to be just the thing I was looking for. And with my spanking new Kitchen Aid mixer, aka Miss Purple Sunshine, raring for a go, I thought, why not?

With only four of the most basic baking ingredients: chocolate, butter, eggs and sugar, you really want to get the best stuff you can afford. For me, I used French butter and of course, chocolate of the same nationality  I recently bought Varlhona Equatoriale which has a lower cacao percentage (55%). I decided I’d use that for ganaches and other recipes that call for no or very little sugar so that the  chocolate is not too bitter. There are many people out there who don’t appreciate the bitter taste of premium dark chocolate, myself included. I see the value of the superbly balanced Guanaja 70% and I can detect the delicate floral, fruity notes of Manjari 63%, but when it boils down to truly enjoying chocolate in all its perverse and decadent glory, I need something sweeter, creamier and preferrably more milky than dark. So when I noticed that Beranbaum’s original recipe called for no sugar (or very little, if you decide to add it at all), I decided to use Equatoriale not only because it is a great chocolate, but it also isn’t too bitter.

A good decision if you ask me, because the truffle came out full of dark chocolate-y richness and taste, but was not too bitter. I made a base of crushed digestive biscuits and brown sugar (held together by melted butter) and slathered slighty sweetened whipped cream all over the top and sides of the torte and dusted everything with a layer of cocoa. 

Okay, I don’t want to brag but honestly, I think this was soooo good!! It was like I had a chance to play God and modify Cedele’s already amazing creation to come up with a MY uber-perfect truffle cake. An extra-thick buttery base layer, a truffle filling made with premium chocolate and lots and lots of whipped cream (which is the one thing I think Cedele’s version lacks). I so love knowing that I can eat something at a cafe, like it, come home, decide to replicate it, but kick everything up a knotch and end up with something as crazily delicious as this.

Digestive Biscuit Base (double recipe for 8″ tin)

50g butter, melted

100g Digestive biscuits

1 tbsp brown sugar

1. Grease bottom and sides of a 6″ round tin with butter. Line bottom of tin with greaseproof paper or aluminium foil. Butter paper/foil.

2. Break up biscuits into a food processor and pulse with sugar until fine and crumbly. Stir in melted butter and press into base of tin. Chill for 20-30 mins.

.

Chocolate Oblivion Truffle (double recipe for 8″ tin)

(adapted from Rose Levy Barembaum’s recipe)

8oz/227g Varlhona Equatoriale, chopped coarsely

4oz/ 113.5g unsalted butter

3 eggs (150g without shell)

30g sugar

a tiny pinch of good salt (I used fleur de sel)

1. Preheat oven to 425 degree F.

2. Melt butter in a large bowl over a double boiler until halfway melted. Add chocolate and stir until smooth. Remove bowl from heat and keep aside.

2. Whisk together eggs and sugar in another large bowl. Heat egg and sugar mixture over the double boiler until warm to touch. Careful that you don’t end up cooking the eggs, 4-5 mins over med-low heat should be enough to warm the mixture.   

3. Remove from heat and add a tiny pinch of salt. Beat with electric beaters or whisk attachment until the mixture triples in volume and holds soft peaks. I used my KA for this step and it took sightly less than 5 mins on speed 6. (By the way, the new KA is amazing. She does all the work quickly, and frees up my hands so I can do other stuff. Love her!) 

5. Fold the remaining half of the eggs into the chocolate-egg mixture until it is just blended and no streaks remain.

6. Remove cake tin from fridge and wrap the outside with heavy-duty aluminium foil (or a double layer of normal foil). Pour batter into tin and place in a water bath i.e. a larger tray filled with enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cake tin.

7. Bake 5 mins. Then cover the top of the cake loosely with a large piece of foil and bake another 7 mins (12 mins for an 8″ cake). The cake will look barely done but it’s supposed to be that way.

8. Remove cake from oven and from the water bath and leave to cool for 45mins, in tin, on a wire rack. Wrap tin in plastic wrap or foil and chill at least 4 hours.

9. To remove cake from tin, run a sharp tin along sides and overturn cake onto plate/cake board. Peel off greaseproof paper and foil and turn over again onto serving plate/board.

10. The cake can be served just as it is now, maybe with a light dusting of cocoa. If desired, you can also whip up some cream with a bit of icing sugar and frost torte. Dust with cocoa. 

*tip: try to get the cake out of the fridge about 1/2 hour before you intend to serve it. It is when the torte filling is slightly soft that you can fully experience the fudgy, mousse-like texture of the truffle. What I do is slice into the cake whilst it is still cold to get neat cuts. Then I resist all temptation and just leave the slice out at room temperature. After about 15mins, I’m rewarded for my patience with a truly out-of-this-world slice of truffle torte, perfectly softened!