Filipino Purple Cake

Last week was my friends girlfriend's birthday. I was in the mood to bake something so I offered to make something for her birthday. With her being of a Filipino background, he suggested that I make something called purple cake. I was instantly intrigued and decided to try making some purple cupcakes. Upon further research I found out the twist of this cake is that it is made with purple yams. They were absolutely delicious reminding me of vanilla cake but just a tad bit sweeter and the yam gave it a different texture and mouth feel.

Here is the recipe I used:

Ube-Macapuno Cake

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup ube (purple yam), cooked and
finely grated
3/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup corn syrup
7 egg yolks, lightly beaten
1/2 cup vegetable oil
7 egg whites
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 cup white sugar
purple food gel

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
2. Place grated ube in a large bowl. Mix together the milk and vanilla; gradually blend into ube until smooth. Blend in corn syrup, egg yolks, and oil. Beat in flour mixture until smooth; set aside.
3. In a large glass or metal mixing bowl, beat egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy. Gradually add sugar, then red and blue food coloring, continuing to beat until stiff peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the center of cake bounces back when lightly tapped.

Apple Oatmeal Carrot Muffins...for the cold days

For those cold days when you want to cuddle up with muffins and hot chocolate, this is a recipe for you! It's been strangely cold here in Texas the past few days and I've just been having those comfort food kind of days so I took a basic oatmeal muffin recipe and amped it up a little. I had the idea of shredding the apple as you would with carrot in carrot cake instead of cubing them as to give the consistency of the muffin some continuity.

Apple Oatmeal Carrot Muffins

Ingredients

1 cup of oats
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of half and half
1/4 cup of butter, melted
2 tbsp of honey
1 egg
1 tsp of vanilla
1 cup of brown sugar
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of cinnamon
1/2 tsp of nutmeg
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 large apple, shredded (keep the peel on, its the best part!)
1 medium carrot, shredded

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Celsius.
2. Mix together the oats, milks, butter, and honey. Whisk in the egg and vanilla.
3. With a wooden spoon stir in all your dry ingredients until just combined. Do not over mix.
4. Fold in the shredded apples and carrots.
5. Spoon into lined muffin tins and bake for 25-30 minutes. Enjoy!

pecans to garnish

Butter is Better

          The battle between butter and shortening has been an ongoing issue with much discussion and debate in the realm of culinary arts. Are they the same, interchangeable, or even equivalent? Most seem to think so but in reality these two products are completely different. Butter is as old as history. Butter is what we think about when we hear the words “home-baked cookies”. Butter cannot be replicated. So, why do we try and replace it with shortening?

          Knowing the difference between butter and shortening is important to understand when it comes to using these ingredients in baking. Butter is a dairy based product. It is made by churning fresh cream or milk; typically cow’s milk. It is spreadable at room temperature, has a low melting point, and needs to be kept refrigerated. Shortening, on the other hand, can be any fat or oil based fat. Vegetable shortening is more common in baking. Unlike butter, vegetable shortening does not need to be refrigerated.

           In baking, butter is used as a leavener. In a typical cake batter or cookie base, the instructions are to cream together butter and any sugar that is in the recipe. When the butter and sugars are creamed together it creates tiny little bubbles in the mix which expand when cooking in the oven. This is what gives cakes and cookies their fluffy texture. Butter is also a very important leavener in pastries. Pastry dough, or in French “mille feuille” (1000 layers) is made by a process called booking. This process involves flour dough and a block of butter which is wrapped in the dough, rolled out, and folded multiple times in different types of folds in order to create tiny layers of butter between layers of dough. Those tiny layers of butter are what give pastries their signature puffed and layered look. Although some bakeries use shortening in their puff pastry, the result of flaky layers is the same but there is one significant difference; taste.

          When attending college for baking and pastry arts, one of our assignments in theory class was to taste samples of carrot cake and talk about the difference between them. When tasting one of the samples of carrot cake, I noticed this strange waxy feeling covering my tongue. I wasn’t sure what it was but the teacher noticed the strange look on my face. That is when I realized not only does shortening change the taste of something; it also changes the mouth-feel. Vegetable shortening is made from the hydrogenation of oils. Since shortening is made from oil, this causes the melting point of shortening to be a tad bit higher than that of butter. Having the melting point just a tad bit higher (our body temperature is not high enough to melt shortening on contact) is what creates the sickening waxy film which stays in your mouth long after you have finished eating your pastry. Not only does shortening add a waxy film in the mouth, it is also tasteless. Without butter one misses out on that smooth, homey, recognizable buttery taste that every dessert needs.

          Most people believe that butter and shortening are interchangeable no matter the recipe; this is where everyone is wrong. The performance of butter and shortening are very different from each other. Butter and shortening have different fat and moisture contents, by substituting shortening for butter would be detrimental to the final product since each recipe is tailored for the fat and moisture content of butter. Shortening also has limitations on certain recipes that it can be used in. Any recipes that require the melting of butter whether to incorporate sugars or in no-bake recipes, by no means can shortening be a substitute for butter. Using shortening in recipes like these will produce a product that doesn't set up right and most definitely not taste the way it should.

          One of the most common reasons people substitute butter for shortening is that they think shortening is healthier then butter. This is another myth. Shortening is hydrogenated; this is the process where hydrogen atoms are added to vegetable oils. Although vegetable oil is made up of unsaturated fat, adding hydrogen atoms to it to make shortening creates saturated fat. Going a step further, all hydrogenated fats are labelled trans fats. Currently trans fats are the worst possible fats that you can put into your body. Eating trans fats can cause a plethora of health risks such as: heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and cancer just to name a few. Do you really want to feed your child poison cookies made with shortening?

          Butter provides the distinct flavor we all know and grew up with, it creates a product so wonderfully delicious and never fails to impress, and it provides all this while still being healthier then shortening. So I ask again; why replace butter with shortening?

Butter sculpture from the Texas State Fair 2012

21st Birthday

Yay! Finally legal in the USA. This post is a tad late...like a month late, but we can all still appreciate a nice cake. I happened to be in the US for my birthday this year and I was able to share it with a friend here that also has the same birthday. I wanted to make a cake for us but I did't have all my tools here to make an exuberant cake so this is what I came up with: White sponge dyed purple (her favourite colour) with homemade caramel and crushed m&ms for the filling, along with whipped cream covering for the whole cake. Simple and delicious.

Now for my birthday party back home I decided to try something new that I had seen in a blog awhile back. Instead of making flowers or something of the traditional nature, this blog demonstrated how to make ombre hearts that are actually shaped sugar cubes in a sense. The shine that the sugar picks up from the light give this cake such a nice sparkle and it is just so girly and pretty. For this cake the bottom tier is coconut cake dyed green (because I can) with raspberry coulis, toasted coconut, and italian meringue buttercream. Same goes for the top tier except chocolate cake replaces the coconut cake. Here is the link for the blog that shows you how to make the ombre sugar hearts.

The "Fake" Wedding Cake

Now this one is interesting folks! I was asked to make a wedding cake for my boyfriends grandparents 50th wedding anniversary. Seeing as I was going back to Canada for the Christmas break... if I were to make a cake it would be rotten by the day they needed it for so instead a fake wedding cake was born. When one thinks of a fake cake, the first thing that comes to mind is Styrofoam ....so I took a trip to Micheal's and Hobby Lobby and was faced with an outrageous price for something that was just going to be thrown out.  The brilliant idea of using boxed cake mix was suggested but the problem with that is usually boxed cake mixes are far too moist and I was afraid that the "cake" would end up collapsing. This is where the sweet deliciousness of cornbread come in... that's right a cornbread cake, cheap and strong. Fifteen boxes of cornbread mix, 2 pounds of icing sugar and a box of fondant later, a wedding cake was born. As no one was eating the "cake", I used royal icing to stick the fondant onto the cornbread as well as making the tiny roses out of it, one hundred tiny handmade roses to be exact.

Autumn Worthy Cookies

Autumn is in the air! Even here in Texas the mood outdoors is changing; leaves falling, less sunlight, crisp air, and sweater-worthy days. When I think fall, I think of apple picking with my mom, grandmother, aunt, and cousin. We used to go to this old woman's house on an apple orchard about 10 minutes away and pick a bushel which we would end up keeping in our garage over fall/winter. The best apples to me are the crunchie sweet ones like granny smith. The crunch of them is just satisfying in a way. Another fall favourite is oatmeal. Although eating oatmeal is not my favourite, I love to use it in baking. The last ingredient fall makes me think of which I'm sure you can guess; cinnamon! From cinnamon dolce lattes from Starbucks to pumpkin pie, there is a plethora of cinnamon in the fall-time. I decided to combine the three and make some delicious tasting fall worthy cookies. Here it is!

Apple Oatmeal Cinnamon Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup of unsalted butter
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup of flour
1-1/2 cups of rolled oats
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1/2 tsp of baking soda
1/2 tsp of salt
1 tsp of cinnamon
1 large granny smith apple, chopped (leave the peel on, it give it more crunch!)

Directions

1. Dice the apples.
2. Cream together the sugars with the butter. Add in the egg.
3. Combine your dry ingredients together then add to the sugar mixture and combine with a wooden spoon.
4. Fold in the apples.
5. Drop tablespoons onto a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown.

Cake Fundamentals

     Although the idea of making a cake may sound juvenile and simple, the world of baking and pastry has been brewing up a storm in the past couple of years. Knowing how to put together a cake is a skill that is often overlooked by most, but can evidently become a lucrative career or side-job for anyone of any age. From preparing a sponge batter, to baking, from icing a cake, and putting it all together, you’ll find all you need to know, and the tips and tricks in-between, right here.

     I believe that the most important part of cake fundamentals is what you will learn in the next few sentences. Without a proper base for your creation, which evidently is the cake, you will have not have a good foundation on which to build. In baking terms “the cake” is referred to as sponge. You want to make sure that you handle your sponge with care and treat it gingerly when making the batter. Flour and all other dry ingredients are sifted into the liquid mixture of your sponge so as to not create lumps. When adding the dry ingredients, it is important to fold them in; one of the most common mistakes people make is to feverishly mix their batter; what this does to the sponge is create a “tough crumb” texture which makes the sponge dense and less absorbent of moisture from your fillings. Preparing your pans for baking the sponge is the next step. You should thoroughly coat the inside of your pan with cooking spray or brush it with melted butter. Another important tip that will make life easier once it comes to handling the sponge after it is baked is to cut a piece of parchment paper (not wax paper) to place in the bottom of the pan. The parchment will help to release the sponge out of the pan, but will also help the sponge retain its moisture.

     Once your sponge comes out of the oven, it is important to let it stay in the pan for about 30 minutes; until the sponge is cool enough to handle. Day old sponge is easier to work with for cake assembly and will also help when cutting the sponge as it will be less crumby. You may notice at this point that your sponge has taken on a dome-like shape. At this point, the sponge must be levelled off using a long serrated knife, making sure that your sponge is on a level surface. Next, the sponge must be cut into the different layers. How many layers are dependent on your preference, but I try to cut four or fewer. The easiest way to cut even layers is to turn the cake on its side and divide the height of the cake by the amount of layers you desire. Cut into the cake just a tad where each layer will be. Setting the cake back down on a level surface, you want to place your knife into the cut you made, starting with the top layer, and cut around the cake but not quite to the middle the first time around. Continue with this until you cut the layer off.

     Now that you have your layers of sponge, it is time to put your cake together. You want to put your cake on a solid foundation. Cake boards come in many sizes and varying thicknesses. Make sure to select a size appropriate to the shape and size of the cake you are making. Having a piping bag ready, filled with buttercream, pipe a small amount onto your cake board. Place the first layer of sponge down. The next step is to soak the cake in a sugar syrup; this is a mixture of two parts sugar and one part water boiled in a saucepan until the sugar dissolves (remember to cool your sugar syrup). With a small off-set spatula, smooth a very thin layer of buttercream onto the sponge. The next step, using your piping bag, pipe a “dam” around the edge of your cake. This “dam” will help to prevent your flavoring or any toppings, such as fruit, from spewing out the sides of your cake. Add more buttercream if needed to fill in gaps that might have been created by your toppings and smooth over with your spatula making sure that this layer is level. Continue to repeat this process until all your layers are completed finishing with sugar syrup on the top layer. At this point you want to chill your cake for 20 minutes, just so that the buttercream stiffens a little, before continuing on to the crumb coat. In order to crumb coat your cake you want to make sure that you place it onto a turntable. With a large off-set spatula apply buttercream to the top of the cake making sure you smooth it out so the top layer is level. Next, work on covering the sides of the cake using the turntable to your advantage to smooth out the sides. The last part is to deal with the “shoulders” of the cake; this is where the top part of the cake meets the sides. You need to use a clean spatula and start from the side smoothing over the “shoulder” onto the top of the cake using a quick motion. Make sure to clean your spatula every time you go back to smooth the shoulder. Chill the cake again so that everything can settle.

     At this point your cake is completed, unless you choose to cover it in fondant or create tiers. If you choose to cover your cake in fondant, when you roll out the fondant use a mixture of icing sugar and cornstarch to dust your surface as to prevent sticking. When making a tiered cake you must have a support system. Wooden or hollow plastic dowels are used to support each tier. They must be cut to the height of each cake and placed into the middle of the cake. When stacking tiers you want to add a little buttercream or royal icing between the tiers to act as a sort of “glue”.

     Decorating a cake is when you bring the cake to life. Color and decorations set the mood for the cake. This is where your creativity comes into play. You can color the fondant to whatever color your heart desires. Perhaps cover the cake in gumpaste sugar flowers or handmade figurines. Airbrush a masterpiece onto each tier. Create the look of fabric on your fondant by using a quilting tool. The choice is up to you.

     The only way to master the art of cake making is to practice, practice, practice! These cake fundamentals laid out for you will create the basis to your knowledge of cake making and a foundation on which to start a new and exciting hobby.