Cup Cakes~A Blog Hop

Blog hop this time Radhika has paired me with Priya of Now Serving!

If you know not Priya then you are missing deliciously simple recipes conceived out of a Mother’s love to nourish. Do visit her. She is a multifaceted personality always helping others. She was one of the many who guided me when I started out from anonymous blogger to the present day avatar.

Now choosing from Priya’s place is difficult for I was like a kid in the sweet shop. But my niece had come over with her mom for just 2 days.

I wanted to make all her favourite things. So we had Kadhai Paneer, Pulao, Bhajias and Cupcakes. (All these recipes except pulao all are what I have made from different blogs. Even the pulao is something that has registered over a period of time from reading all your blogs).

But Cupcakes were adapted from Priya’s blog and are named Rose Cupcakes. Here is Priya’s recipe.

Now I must confess I have made this cake 8 times for the season. Sorry no pictures I was too tired and distributed them almost immediately. Twice without eggs and 6 times with eggs.

Ingredients:

½ cup butter

⅔ cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Zest of 1 lemon (I also used 1tbspn sweet lime and orange zest after I ran out of lemons)

1 ½ cup Maida

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ cup milk

⅓ cup chocolate chips (optional)

Method:

1. Grease the cupcake moulds or line them with cupcake liners.

2. Preheat the oven to 180°C.

3. Sift the Maida and baking powder else run a dry whisk in the bowl containing them.

4. Beat the sugar and butter till light and fluffy.

5. Add the lemon zest, vanilla and the eggs one at a time. Run the whisk through the mix till the eggs are well incorporated.

6. Add the chocolate chips and mix lightly.

7. Now alternate the flour and the milk and fold the mix with a spatula. Do not overfold.

8. Transfer to the greased moulds and bake for 12 minutes or till the knife inserted comes out clean.

9. Transfer to a wire rack and let them stand in the moulds for 10 minutes then turn them over and they slide out.

10. If the kids have patience for you to finish you can ice them like Priya has.

As the kids were eating some of the cakes I went about trying my hand at a simple icing.

I have here mixed powdered sugar with little water; just enough to get thick runny syrup mix in any colour you want. With a teaspoon drop it on the cake so that it coats the entire surface now sprinkle some colourful balls on them. Please remember the sprinkle have to go on the cake immediately else they do not stick.

When I made these cakes again I added orange colour in the cake batter with the zest. These too were a big hit I topped it with cut cherries that you get at the bakers. Though the cakes were well appreciated I was asked to keep the cherries out of the cakes.

Now the eggless version: All the ingredients are the same only substitute for each egg.

¼ cup buttermilk

¼ cup milk +1tbspl vinegar

¼ cup curd

In the second version I forgot all about the eggs till the cake went in the oven but since the cake batter was did not appear normal, yes normal I added juice of 2 sweet limes (about ¼ cup) and ½ cup milk.

Thanks Priya for this wonderful recipe. My friends have enjoyed the cakes I sent for Christmas.

Also thanks Radhika for you idea of baking in a foil I did not have to think as to how to distribute the cake, What mould to use more importantly, ho dear, wash the mould after every cake. Whew that was a relief! This recipe you can bake 1 cake (foil size I am told is 1 kg) and 2 muffins. Next time I will use two moulds of ½ kg.

Linking this to Blog Hop