Rose Tea Cupcakes with Rose Honey Glaze. And back to blogging!

Hello there!

It feels kinda weird to be blogging again! After 2 years of MIA!!!

I wish I could give you a good reason as to why I decided to stop blogging for a while.

To be honest, I'd kinda lost interest. I felt that my food writing skill wasn't good enough. And don't get me started on my baking and food photography skills too. So I felt quite uninspired to continue blogging, and decided to take a break until I'm ready to blog again.

Well, I WISH I'm ready. Because I do miss blogging about food and sharing recipes :'(.

I'm not gonna say much in this post. Just consider this post as a warm up to get the engine started!

So what have I been up to these past 2 years? To summarise a little, I quitted my boring admin job at the school in Dec 2011, took two PME diploma certs in Sugarpaste and Sugarflowers Cake Decorating modules, a certificate in Baking and Pastry module at At-Sunrice Culinary School, and worked as a pastry cook 3 in a factory kitchen for a year. I won't go into full details about these yet. Maybe in my next post, if I feel like talking about it... Hee.

Okay let's get into these Rose Tea Cupcakes with Honey Rose Glaze. I've just came back from my holiday in Istanbul recently, and I bought a huge packet of rose tea buds at the Grand Bazaar, knowing that I could bake something with it! I saw my pastry cook colleague used it to make cheesecake, and I knew that I had to get my hands on some! Now I wish I bought more!

After much thought, I decided to use Baking Perfection's Vanilla Chamomile Cupcakes recipe and tweaked it a little bit to produce my own rose tea cupcakes. And as for the glaze, I used Joy The Baker's recipe. The glaze was quite sweet to my liking, but overall I really love the cupcakes! Everything about these cupcakes transport me back to the Middle East. And my mother-in-law ate 3 cupcakes in just 5 minutes! Well, without the glaze. But I'm really glad that I've found a perfect rose-flavoured cupcake base. I'm so gonna try making Ispahan Cupcake with this recipe soon!

Rating: 8/10

Recipe

3/4 cup (1 1/2 stick) - unsalted butter

5 1/2 tablespoons - rose tea buds

1 1/4 cups - all purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons - baking powder

3/4 cup - sugar

1/2 teaspoon - salt

1/2 cup - heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon rose extract

2 large eggs

Method

In a sauce pan, heat the butter over low heat until completely melted. Add the rose buds and keep over heat for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep for 5 more minutes. Pour butter-tea mixture through a fine sieve pressing hard against the buds to extract all of the butter and flavor. You should end up with 1/2 cup of butter. Let the butter come to room temperature before continuing.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; line the cups of a standard (12-cup) muffin tin with paper liners.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; set aside. 

In another bowl, mix butter-tea mixture, cream, eggs, vanilla and rose extract; set aside.

With mixer on low speed, (or hand whisk will do) slowly add half of liquid mixture to the dry ingredients. Mix well and then pour another half of liquid mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix until well-combined.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups, about 1/4 cup each. Don't fill more than 2/3 full. 

Put in oven and bake until a toothpick inserted in center of a cupcake comes out clean, 20 to 23 minutes.

Cool cupcakes 5 minutes in tin, then remove and cool completely on a rack before frosting.

Rose Honey Glaze

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon rose extract

about 5 tablespoons heavy cream

pinch of salt
chopped Pistachios

 In a medium bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, honey, cream, and salt.  Whisk until smooth.  Use a butter knife to generously spread the frosting atop the cooled cupcakes.  Sprinkle with just a bit of chopped pistachios and arrange on a pretty plate.  Cakes will last, well wrapped, at room temperature for up to three days.

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.

Red Velvet Cupcakes!! So.. red. So.. devilish. So.. traffic-stoppingly gorgeous..!

My first attempt at making these little red devils for my 1st wedding anniversary last year was quite a failure. I thought there was something horribly wrong with the recipe, but in the end it turned out that i'd measured the ingredients wrongly! I wasn't very familiar with measuring ingredients using measuring cups, therefore I made a terrible mistake of packing the flour tightly into the measuring cup. As a result, my cupcakes were dry, hard and almost tasteless...!

And that is why, ladies and gentlemen, proper measuring of ingredients is critical to baking. You DON'T want your cupcakes to end up having a texture of a tennis ball. If you have no idea on how to measure ingredients using measuring cups, you can always go to a cooking conversion website to convert the cups measurement to whichever unit measurements that you are familiar with (eg. in kilograms, ounce or pounds). Here is my go to website: http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/cooking/

So I'd finally get around to give this recipe a second try (after i've perfected my measuring skills, of course), and the result was so so so much better! The cupcakes were tender and oh-so-moist with a hint of chocolatey and unique velvety taste to it. And the creamy, tangy and sweet cream cheese frosting gave the cupcakes a satisfyingly rich finish. I totally love this. And so do others who have tasted the cupcakes =)

Rating: 8/10

Recipe

(Adapted from Joy The Baker, Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

Makes one dozen cupcakes, double recipe to make 2 9-inch layer cakes

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2  Tablespoons red food coloring
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons distilled white vinegar

Method

Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about three minutes.  Turn mixer to high and add  the egg.  Scrape down the bowl and beat until well incorporated.

In a separate bowl mix together cocoa, vanilla and red food coloring to make a thick paste.  Add to the batter, mixing thoroughly until completely combined.  You may need to stop the mixer to scrape the bottom of the bowl, making sure that all the batter gets color.

Turn mixer to low and slowly add half of the buttermilk.  Add half of the flour and mix until combined.  Scrape the bowl and repeat the process with the remaining milk and flour.  Beat on high until smooth.

Turn mixer to low and add baking soda and white vinegar.  Turn to high and beat a few more minutes.

Spoon batter into a paper lined cupcake baking pan and bake at 325 F for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center cupcake comes out clean.

Let rest in the pan for 10 minutes, then place them of a cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

***

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
(Adapted from Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

double recipe to frost a 2 layer 9-inch cake

2 1/3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
4 ounces cream cheese, cold (I used room temperature)
scant 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Beat the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and butter together in the bowl of a stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-slow speed until it comes together and is well mixed.

Add the cream cheese all at once and beat on medium to medium-high until incorporated.

Turn the mixer to medium-high and beat for 5 minutes, or until the frosting becomes light and fluffy.

Do not over-beat as the frosting can quickly become runny.