Lemon Cupcakes with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

I combined a few recipes to create this one, for a baby shower I was helping plan! Makes 24 normal sized cupcakes 

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 2 tbsp zest + 2 tbsp fresh juice

Preheat the oven to 350F, and line your cupcake pan with paper liners. 

Beat the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed in a large bowl until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat on medium-high speed until everything is combined.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and baking powder using a whisk. Dump the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, beating at a light speed. The batter should be fairly thick. Pour in the milk, add the lemon zest, and lemon juice, mixing until just combined. Do not over-mix this batter at any point. 

Spoon batter evenly into 12 cupcake liners. Bake for about 20 minutes. Check at intervals. A toothpick inserted in the middle will come out clean when done. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting:

I made up the frosting, and so the recipe isn't exact. 

Roughly cut up about 6-7 strawberries, sprinkle with about 3 tbsp sugar, and set aside for a few minutes. Then puree this in a processor or blender. 

Whip about half a cup of cream and add a few tablespoons of cream cheese to this. Then throw in the strawberry puree, while beating with an electric beater. Taste and add more confectioners sugar as required. Add some lemon zest, right at the end, for additional flavor. This frosting was even more delicious than the cupcakes, I kid you not. You could make it with any berry you like! 

Nabeeha's Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies

I have an instant distrust of people who refuse to share their recipes. I won't lie to you. I can't make any sense of it, you see. It's the year 2014, and, to my mind, any combination of ingredients that I can think of has already been thought of at least once before - unless I think of something absolutely disgusting which really isn't the point here. What I'm saying is, I don't think anyone can claim too many 'secret' or 'unique' recipes any more. So why should I care if xyz will make the same cake as I do? It doesn't affect me at all. It's more fun to be their source for the recipe anyway because then people say nice things about you and I love it when people say nice things about me. I'm easy that way. I enjoy learning new recipes from people I meet. The recipes I share here have been collected from my family, friends, acquaintances, books and blogs. And those people got them from some other people. Who knows how long back it goes, and isn't it fun to think that recipes too are a kind of legacy?

Now I've forgotten what my original train of thought was, but here's an amazing recipe for this fantabulous and crazily fattening dessert which is a mixture of red-velvet cake, cheesecake and brownies. This recipe came to me from my lovely friend, fellow Fulbrighter and senior here at Babson College, Nabeeha Qazi. We made this on valentine's day and it was the best decision ever. I had 1.5 cupcake sized brownies (because we made them in cupcake tins) and then had one for breakfast the next morning. We gave the rest away because we don't want to get too fat okay?

Here's what you need:

• 1 stick or 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder 
• A pinch of salt
• 1 tablespoon red food coloring
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 8 ounces or 200 grams cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

And here's how you do this:

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Melt the butter in a medium sized bowl (we did it in the microwave). Throw in the sugar and mix well, preferably with an electric beater. Add the vanilla, coco powder, salt, food colouring and vinegar and just keep mixing it all together.

Beat the two eggs separately and add the flour to them. Then just mix the red mixture with the egg mixture and voila, your red-velvet brownie part of this thing is done! This will be very very thick, and I kept asking Nabeeha if this was right. Just seemed weird to me, not batter-like at all. And the craziest part was NO baking powder!! How do you make a cake without BP or soda? I was skeptical, I won't lie. But these were awesome so there you have it!

For the cheesecake portion, in a clean bowl, beat the cream cheese using an electric beater (wash the red stuff off it before using it for this!). Add the sugar, the egg and the vanilla, and beat well. And done.

Now there's two ways you could do this. Either use a square or round cake tin, or use a muffin/cupcake pan like we did.

Here's a tip for any cake you make: When ever possible, use a springform pan. When I was first learning to bake, you can't imagine how many times I broke my heart when I broke the cake trying to turn it out of the cake tin. Springform pans are the best thing ever. Also, with most cakes, it's smart to line the base with paper, then grease the base and sides. Also, sprinkle flour, or coco powder if it's a chocolate cake. I hate hate hate cutting out circles to line the base. It's such a stupid step, but so necessary most of the time.

Back to the recipe at hand. What we did was just grease the muffin tin (it was a great quality non-stick tin) with oil, then add about a tablespoon of the red mixture to each tin. Top this with the cheese mixture. Finally, add a smidgen of the red mixture to each tin, and swirl with a pointy knife or skewer or something. I tried to make hearts. I love hearts. It didn't really work out but still.

If making a cake, grease and line the cake tin, add the red mixture, top with the cheese mixture, and swirl. An 8 by 8 inches pan should be the right size.

Put it in the oven, and let it bake! It's done when it seems to pull away from the edges and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean. Let it cool in the pan for a good twenty minutes, then loosen the edges before trying to turn the brownies out. 

p.s. That one white cheesecake you see in the collage is because we had mixture left over so we put a little bit of the red mixture and topped it with a thicker layer of the remaining cheesecake mixture. It was delicious.

Blueberry Cake

I had never had blueberries, and someone got me a box of them from a farmers market as a present. Now those of you who know me may rememeber that I am not very enthusiastic about eating fruit, but I tried blueberry muffins when Babson was serving free breakfast during orientation fee, and they were so good! So I decided to bake a blueberry cake, and gift it to the hostess at a dinner I was invited to that night. Thankfully, it turned out absolutely beautiful! Here's the recipe I used, which is originally from Elise of SimplyRecipes. So far, no recipe of hers has ever disappointed me. <3 br="">

You have to know, I never try a recipe exactly the way it is given. Firstly, I don't like using butter too much. It's because back home, oil is so much cheaper. When I was first learning to bake, a lot of my cakes would be absolute disasters, and I hated using expensive ingredients and then having to feed the mess to my pets. Now I'm just used to it!

I also had oranges, and I love oranges! So I threw in Orange zest, and instead of lemon juice, used the juice from half an orange!

You've also got to remember, here in the US the normal sugar is what in Pakistan is 'fine' sugar. Not icing sugar, but just somewhere in between. So if you have normal, large crystals of sugar in Pk, give it a few zings in the grinder.

• 1 cup all purpose flour plus 1 teaspoon of flour (plus more for prepping cake pan)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 4 oz / 1 stick / 8 tbsp unsalted butter, softened, or 6 tbsp oil
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 large eggs
• Orange zest. Or not. 
• 2 cups blueberries, rinsed and drained (if using frozen blueberries, thaw and drain first)
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice OR the juice from half an orange
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter a 9-inch springform pan and dust with flour. Or use a 9-inch round cake pan, butter and dust with flour and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Combine 1 cup of flour with baking powder and salt, and whisk together. Or sieve together. What ever you feel like doing. 
Using a mixer, beat the butter on medium high speed for 2 minutes. Then add the sugar and vanilla and beat until light and fluffy. Throw in the eggs and beat some more, until well incorporated. Also add the orange zest, if you're using it.

Beat in the flour mixture, with the electric mixer or a spoon/spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared baking pan. It's going to be quite thick, and you'll think you've made a mistake and re-read the recipe. That's what I did. But just spread the batter in the pan using a spatula or spoon if you have to. It will be fine. At least it was for me.

Combine the berries with the remaining teaspoon of flour and the lemon juice (or orange juice) in a bowl. Spoon the berry mixture over the batter.

Bake on middle rack in oven for 1 hour at 350°F, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Carefully slide a thin knife around the edges of the cake to release it from the pan. Transfer the cake to a platter, berry side up. Dust the cake with powdered sugar before serving.

I had to keep it in my room all day before I took it to dinner in the evening. It smells SO good, it was hard not to just cut out a slice for myself! 

Gianna's Chocolate Whipped Cream Cake

I got this recipe from the "Country Living" website, and have made it twice so far.

1 and 3/4 cups flour
2 and 1/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cups coco powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup oil
1 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1. Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil and maintain.

2. Combine the flour, 2 cups granulated sugar, 3/4 cup cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl. [Sift all of these except sugar, together, beforehand]

3. Beat in the oil, milk, eggs, vanilla using a mixer set on medium speed for 2 minutes.

4. Reduce mixer speed to low and add 1 cup of the boiling water.

5. Divide the batter between two greased and floured pans and bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the middle of each cake comes out clean -- about 35 minutes.

6. Cool the cakes in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

7. Un-mold the cakes and return to the wire rack until completely cool.

Whipped Cream Filling and Topping:

Whip cooled cream until stiff. Add powdered sugar, mixing well. Also add about two tablespoons of coco powder.

Use this to sandwich the two cakes. Also spread this on the top and sides of the cake. You can create a design using a fork on this cream. You can also decorate with chocolate chips or sprinkles.

Tooba Baji's Chocolate Cake

The quickest, easiest, no-fail microwave cake ever!

1 cup plain white Flour
4 heaped table spoons Coco Powder
3 level tea spoons Baking Powder
1 packet [250 ml] Cream
3 Eggs
1 cup granulated white Sugar

1. Sift together the flour, coco powder and baking powder, at least 6 times. This will ensure proper mixing, as well as aerate the mixture so that it rises better.
2. In a blender, pour the cream, adding the sugar and eggs. Blend well until the sugar is dissolved.
3. Put the flour mixture in a mixing bowl, and add the cream mixture, mixing with a wooden spoon until no lumps remain.
4. Pour mixture into a greased, microwave safe pan.
5. Bake in the microwave for around 4 minutes at a moderate temperature, or until cake is springy to the touch, coming away from the sides, and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
5. Cool in the pan for a little while, before turning out to cool completely.

Notes:

Cake may be frosted using "Tooba Baji's chocolate glaze", or "Chocolate glaze: Pirated version", or plain whipped cream. It can be served un-glazed as well.

Cake will harden if kept a day or two, it will soften when warmed in the microwave.

Warmed cake may be served with ice cream for a delicious dessert! It can also be used as a base of a trifle.