Patriotic Red Velvet Cupcakes

I love fourth of July. It's probably one of my favorite holidays and I think it's terribly underrated compared to christmas and new years and thanksgiving. But I feel this way because my family always always has the best barbeques/pool parties for 4th of July. The kids swim in the backyard pool until their skin turn charcoal, while my uncle grills delicious meat of all kinds. Usually my mom makes fruit smoothies and someone else brings the fireworks. It's seriously the highlight of my summer.
I started contributing my own baked goods last year to the family parties. I made Edible Eagles last year. This year I made patriotic cupcakes to celebrate the independence of our very country. Woo!
After mixing all the ingredients I came up with this...mixture of bubbles and dye even after having mixed it for 5 minutes.. I freaked out momentarily, assuming I had added too much of something (probably oil) but my friend Grace saved the day by beating it with a whisk with strong, solid movements. It turned out beautifully:
(My dad said it looked like tomato sauce. I should've added more food coloring but I ran out!)

The recipe was vague on how much sugar to add, so I added as much as I thought was necessary. (Around 1.5 cups?)

Red Velvet Cupcakes by Sweet Tooth

CUPCAKES:
2-1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cocoa
1-1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups canola oil
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp red gel food coloring dissolved in 6 tbsp water (or 1 1 oz bottle)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk

FROSTING:
1/2 cup butter
1 (8oz) package cream cheese
1 box confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare muffin tins with 24 liners
- Mix the flour, baking soda, and cocoa in one bowl, sugar and eggs in another, and oil, vinegar, food coloring, vanilla, and buttermilk in yet another.
- Add the oil mixture to the egg mixture and beat until well combined
- Add the flour mixture in small intervals, mixing well witah each addition
- Fill 24 liners up with batter 3/4 of the way full
- Bake for 25 minutes and let completely cool before frosting
- For the frosting, cream together the butter and cream cheese and add the sugar in small intervals until well mixed.
- Mix in the vanilla and frost the cupcakes!

Obsessed with Salad

Did I say summer=strawberries? Well I meant summer=strawberries + SALAD.

My family is officially on a diet before my sister's big 18th birthday celebration in August. Mother's orders to look good and slim. Yep, guess what that means? gettin' crazy with salad.

Honey Mustard Dressing Recipe (takes less than 2 minutes and the ingredients are probably laying around your house somewhere already!)

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1 tablespoon prepared mustard
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice

Although I have to say I added a wee bit more honey because it was tasting too sour and mustardy.

If not Honey Mustard, then balsamic vinegar YUM or of course my sister's standard Ranch dressing. That first salad on top has half a veggie pattie sliced into triangles. I have to admit my life has changed upon discovering MorningStar; who knew veggie patties could taste better than actual meat?

Strawberry Summer Cake

Summer=Strawberries. Strawberries=Summer. Simply put.
I used Deb's recipe from smittenkitchen and followed her exact instructions. Because Deb's recipes are usually wonderful I follow her recipes to the tee, even though hers are usually adaptations from other recipes. Unless I'm familiar with the recipe I don't change anything drastic, which is almost always because I like trying new recipes almost every time I bake. But I suppose there are some times when I do add my own little flare.

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus extra for pie plate
1 1/2 cups (188 grams) all-purpose flour (can swap 3/4 cup or 94 grams all-purpose flour with 3/4 cup or 75 grams of barley flour, see Note)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 cup (200 grams) plus 2 tablespoons (25 grams) granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup (118 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 pound (450 grams) strawberries, hulled and halved

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan (what I used). I did not test this with a standard 9-inch pie plate but looking at the margin of space leftover in my deep-dish pan after baking the cake, I suspect you’d be safe.Updated 6/13/11: This cake does not work in a standard 9-inch pie pan; it will overflow. Big apologies to anyone who learned the hard way! This cake would work, however, in a 9- or 10-inch springform or cake pan. The 10-inch would make a thinner cake than pictured.

Whisk flour or flours, baking powder and salt together in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy with an electric mixer, about 3 minutes. Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined. Add dry mixture gradually, mixing until just smooth.

Pour into prepared pie plate. Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of batter, as closely as possible in a single layer (though I had to overlap a few to get them all in). Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons sugar over berries.

Bake cake for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 325°F and bake cake until golden brown and a tester comes out free of wet batter, about 50 minutes to 60 minutes. (Gooey strawberries on the tester are a given.) Let cool in pan on a rack. Cut into wedges. Serve with lightly whipped cream.

Do ahead: Cake can be stored at room temperature for up to 2 days, loosely covered, but good luck with that.

Crepes from Last Year

Dear readers (all 2 or 3 of you),

I apologize for not having updated in 7 months. I've been home this summer but I haven't had the willpower to bake in all this heat! When I'm living at school 9/12 months out of the year I really don't have the money or time to spend creating things in my kitchen. But hopefully it'll change as I approach my 3rd year of college and I'll have an apartment to myself and my roomie! With that said, I'm going to make up for the lack of posts by digging back into my old photos and reviving some baking adventures that I never got the chance to share. I experimented with crepes almost exactly a year ago (July 2010), and so this post is one year late. Although I don't remember the full details, I remember using allrecipes.com for the simplest crepe batter I could find.

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Yes, I do admit that banana pudding (leftover from that time I made Karthik's banberry pie) looks kind of nasty next to the strawberries in this last one. But it tasted fine, especially with all that nutella under it. Nutella makes everything better.

zuccini bread

This rainy weather's put me in a sad mood since I can't go out and play. But thankfully there's my mom's oven and a bunch of other stuff in our kitchen to keep me preoccupied.. Thankfully, my first attempt at zuccini bread turned out nicely!

I suggest you chop the zuccini using a processor, especially if you're impatient like me. I only used 2 zuccini's in my batter.

A part of me regrets leaving out the walnuts, and perhaps I shouldn't have chopped the zuccini so finely. People who tried it said they couldn't taste the zuccini that much, which was kind of a disappointment since I added a little more than what the recipe called for. Nevertheless, the bread wasn't too dry and it proved itself when I consumed it with tea :)

Mom's Zuccini Bread from Allrecipes.com

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil

2 1/4 cups white sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups grated zucchini

1 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

Home for the Holidays: Carrot Cake

It's been a busy semester and since I have no access to a kitchen over the school year, this blog has been sorely neglected. But now that I have a month free from homework, exams, and projects, I can get back into baking! Carrot cake has always been a family favorite and isn't overwhelmingly sweet like chocolate, so it was nice to serve something lighter than usual, even if it probably wasn't any healthier as far as sweets go.

I used a recipe from About.com and it turned out beautifully!

2 cups baby shredded carrots

1 cup oil

1 cup sugar

1 cup brown sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp. vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

8 oz. crushed pineapple

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Shred baby carrots (this takes some time, but is well worth it).

In large bowl, combine oil, sugar, brown sugar, vanilla, and eggs and beat well. Stir in half of the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt and mix well.

Add carrots and pineapple and beat well. Then beat in remaining flour. Stir in 1/2 cup walnuts and mix well. Pour into 13x9" pan and spread evenly. Bake at 350 degrees F for 45-55 minutes until dark golden brown and cake springs back when lightly touched in center.

Since I baked two 9" round cakes, it only took about 20 minutes for it to be fully cooked through (my mom's oven is stronger than most). Be careful when setting a time and keep checking every now and then!

The cream cheese frosting was so simple, and since I was getting impatient I put it on the cake before it fully cooled. It melted a little, but I didn't mind.

8 oz. packaged cream cheese, cooled

6 tbsp. butter, cooled

2 cups powdered sugar

dash salt

2-4 tbsp. light cream

1 tsp. vanilla

The original recipe called for 3 cups of sugar, but I wanted this frosting to be both cream-cheesy and sweet. I added sugar and tasted every now and then until I thought it was good enough, which I estimate to be about 2 cups.

Parth used this recipe to make his parents an Anniversary cake! Isn't that sweet?

pb cookies & Karthik's birthday pie

Yesterday, Rosie wanted to bake peanut butter cookies! We cheated and used a box mix :)

I missed Karthik's birthday, so I decided to make him Banberry pie! This recipe didn't ask for anything too difficult, and if you click here you can see that most of it required store-bought ingredients. And even though I wouldn't have used this recipe when I was in my "from scratch only" phase, I got inspired by Sandra Lee's show Semi-Homemade Cooking on Food Network. She uses store-bought ingredients to create her own recipes and it's legit. :)

Rosie making peanut butter cookies.

We put semi-sweet chocolate chips into them, too.

For the pie, I whipped store-bought vanilla pudding mix with cold milk.

We lined the bottom of a graham-cracker crust with bananas.

After pouring the pudding on top and letting it settle in the fridge for about an hour, we garnished the top with strawberries.

Then we added strawberry glaze.

I realized that store bought whipped cream is actually cheaper than heavy cream which I would always have to sugar and whip myself.

(He said he liked it! Successss!!) Happy 19th Karth!