Lava Fudge Cupcake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

So this is my latest bake. Had rave reviews from everyone so far. Have wanted to make a lava cake for quite some time, but am not in possession of proper ramekins :( And then...was watching my new favourite TV program the other day, DC Cupcakes, and had an aha moment!

So I took this recipe for chocolate cupcakes (which is yummy by itself), and added some fudge in the centre!

Then next problem was the frosting. Whipped cream frosting became a hot mess over time. Buttercream frosting  too rich. Cream Cheese frosting was also a tad rich (plus my recipe for cream cheese frosting was always insufficient). So I thought and I thought. And I twisted and turned at night as I thought and thought again...

:P

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting!

With bits of orange zest and a squeeze of orange juice. 

And inside, you have gooey ooey chocolatey goodness.

Chocolate and orange, perfect together!

Macarons, Part 3

The Gardener came back in a big huff the other day over how some BFM DJs kept pronouncing 'macarons' as 'macaroons', which is a common error. The two refer to completely different things, though, but both equally tasty :)

This is a macaron (mak-kuh-ron):

And this is a macaroon (mak-kuh-roooon):

Both uses egg whites and sugar, but a macaroon contains grated coconut and no special technique, while a macaron uses ground almonds and also requires some sort of filling and a hell of a lot of practice. 

Hence, the part 3 ahem.

This time around, I managed to get only a few cracked shells (yay me!), but some of the feet were lopsided, and I still couldn't get the almonds to be as fine as I wanted. Proof:

Excuse the misshapen one at the side. A whole lump of ground almond escaped from the piping bag :-s

But see! Almost none cracked!

Feet! Also excuse the lopsided feet there :P I believe it's the pan...hmm...

And off to the fridge to store for a night after sandwiching the chocolate filling. 

At this point, I didn't have the heart to take any more pictures because I couldn't get over the frustration of the coarse almonds...grumble grumble grumble...Am determined to try again! And soon!

*I've been making so many chocolate bakes that Ms. Evelyn finally realized I'm a chocolate fanatic. So yea, I should change the name of this blog to Choco-line or something like that :D

Macarons, Part 2

So this is my 2nd attempt at making French macarons. So many things that could go wrong that it's just stressful! And I've only tried the chocolate ones.

• The ground almond may not be fine enough
• The making of the dreaded meringue which involves the dreaded egg whites. I remember my first time when I knew nuts about baking and I stupidly stood there for close to half an hour just beating the eggs wondering why on earth they're still clear. (Yes, the entire bowl was sopping wet when I started. BIG mistake!) But I digress.
• The piping itself. Finally got myself some proper piping bags this time. Didn't have any piping heads because they were sold out :-s But no worries! Snipped a small hole and it worked out fine anyway. 

• Then popping it into the oven for the actual baking. And this is when the pacing starts. Because all the time I was going, "Please let them have feet", "Please don't let them crack", "Damn, they cracked!", "Please let them have feet anyway". 

And yes! They have feet! Hurrah!

But no, attempt #2 was not as successful as I'd hoped. Still I got 4-5 perfect ones this time. Yay me!

I'm bringing them to dinner tomorrow (well, technically tonight) with the girls =) But psst, already had a couple myself. Yummy yum yum macarons.

Nyeh nyeh you can't eat us...

(Group evil laugh) Come get us...as if!

 Pffft!

* The author apologizes on behalf of the lame macarons :P

Cheesecake Brownies

My nieces from Singapore are in town for the weekend. So for dinner tonight, I decided to bake a batch of these lovely cheesecake brownies for everyone. Recipe courtesy of David Lebovitz, but I did reduce the sugar by about half. Most of the cooking chocolates sold around here claim to be dark, but they're not really. So I usually stick to Hershey's Semi-Sweet. Maybe if I'm feeling really luxurious one day, I'll buy a few bars of 70% cocoa solids for a batch of brownies just for myself :P 

I did manage to find this super long stick of cream cheese today. 

Wahaha...was chuckling in disbelief when I found it. 

Yummy brownies baking in the oven. 

Done! The whole house smelt wonderfully chocolatey...

A sample for you? :P

Yum yum...let's have a closer look

An even closer look... 

Ah...heaven for chocolate and cheese lovers. 

By the end of dinner, they were all gone. My brother says they don't look appealing to the eye, but my empty brownie container says they were damn well appealing to the stomach :D