Mocha Cupcakes

Moist Mocha Chocolate Cup Cake 

250ml Water
250 g Caster Sugar
125 g unsalted butter
2 tablespoon coca powder sifted
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
2 tablespoon instant coffee
225 g self-raising flour
2 eggs

Icing:
150g plain dark chocolate broken into pieces
150 unsalted butter
2 tablespoon golden syrup

Place water and sugar in a saucepan and heat gently until sugar dissolved, Stir in butter, coca powder bicarbonate of soda and instant coffee, bring to boil and simmer for 5 minutes and then set aside to cool.

Beat flour and eggs into the cooled coffee chocolate mixture until smooth, divide mixture evenly among foil cake cases arranged in a preheated oven 180C.

Icing: put chocolate butter and syrup in a heatproof pan set over saucepan of gently simmering water, stirring until melted. Remove from heat and leave to cool in room temperature, then chill until thickened. Spread over the cupcake with chocolate coffee bean.

Baking time 20 minutes.

Love Baking ♥ 

My Birthday Cake

Raspberry Swirl Cake:

250 Butter softened

1teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups caster sugar

3 eggs

2 1/4 cups self raising flour

3/4 Milk

150 g frozen raspberries partly thawed

Butter Frosting

100 g butter softened

1 cup icing sugar

1 tbs milk

pink food coloring

Beat butter extract and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy beat in eggs one at a time stir in sifted flour and milk in two batches, divide mixture between two small bowls, lightly crush raspberries in another small bowl with a fork gently stir in crushed raspberries into one bowl of the cake mixture. Drop alternate spoonful of mixtures into pan. pull skewer back and forth through the cake mixture for  marbled effect.

Bake cake about 1 hour (180/160C Fan Forced) - in my oven it takes about 30 minutes.. let it cool for 5 minutes before turning. 

Spread the plain frosting on cake then dollop cake with spoonful of pink frosting. 

Frosting: Beat butter in small bowl with electric mixer until white beat in sifted icing sugar and milk, in two batches. Divide frosting between small bowls; tint one bowl of frosting with pink coloring.

Carrot Cake Made Easy!

I must admit even though I adore carrot cake I always thought the grating of carrots is extremely daunting. The first thing I wanted to try out when I got the Kitchen  Aid is making carrot cake, and it turned out to be enjoyable experience using this beautiful machine.

Carrot Cake Recipe 

150g light brown sugar

50g caster sugar

240 ml Vegetable oil

3 eggs

Finely grated zest of 1 orange

1tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

230 g self raising flour

2 large carrots grated

90g chopped walnuts

Icing

200g cream cheese

1 tsp lemon juice

90 g icing sugar

Preheat oven on 180C

Beat together sugars,oil, and eggs. Stir in the orange zest cinnamon and ginger. Sift the flower over the bowl, then fold in. Fold in the carrots and walnuts, Tip the mixture into cake tin, Bake for 1 to 1 1/4 hour. 

Icing

Beat together the cream cheese, lemon juice and sugar, spread over cooled cake.

Note: baking time depends on the oven, in my oven it takes about 30 minutes.

Love Baking ♥ 

My Birthday Gift!

My lovely friends got me this beautiful machine, today I decided to use it for the first time making my usual very popular chocolate cake. I loved the machine it's awesome

Of course before using it I looked up "how to" video on you tube, since Randa went on and on about how heavy this machine and how it is very possible that I may hurt myself using it, I actually did hurt my finger a little bit so I decided to look into how to handle it. 

Anyhow it's easy to use, you just need to understand it's functions and you'll be ok! I loved how it makes the dough it's really something special. 

Thanks to Randa, Hala and my sister Dania.... :) xx

Love Baking ♥ 

Vegetable Tagine

1tbsp olive oil

2 onions peeled and sliced

2 gloves garlic peeled and crushed

2tbsp tomato puree

2tbsp harissa paste (special Moroccon paste hot spice) - I use tomato paste cause we don't eat too much spicy food

4 carrots halved - I chopped in cubes

3 parsnips halved

2 sweet potatoes peeled and cut into four

300g butternut squash peeled deseeded and cut into 2.5cm chunks

600ml hot vegetable stock

salt and freshly ground pepper

400g can chickpeas drained

400g can chopper tomatoes 

2tbsp chopped fresh coriander leaves

Heat oil in casserole dish and fry onions for 5 minutes, until soften and brown.

Add garlic tomato puree and harissa past and cook for one minute

Add carrots and parsnips, sweet potatoes and butternut squash, Pour in the stock and season cover and simmer for 25 minutes until vegetable are tender.

Stir in chickpeas and canned tomatoes and warm through for 5  minutes, serve with fresh coriander.

My variations:

You can use regular yellow potato, zucchini and broccoli instead of the suggested veggies in this recipe I tried both and they are wonderful.

For the couscous I used the famous Deema Hijawi's recipe from her book "The secret ingredient", it's the yummyest ever!