This little bird has built her nest just outside our kitchen door and seems unfazed by people walking in and out, barking dogs and me using a zoom lens on her hideaway. I hope I'll be able to catch a glimpse of her hatchlings when they are born
Have you seen collages of photos used to create a large image? This is a record of significant snapshots that make up the collage of my life. Starting today I'm going to post up a photo a day. Today's picture is of a collection of freshly restrung orchid pots waiting for their new home. Yes, these babies and I will be moving to a new home, once a thousand other details get sorted out.
I wanted to experiment with chia seeds as an egg substitute. I have been reading a number of articles about the benefits of chia (it's high in fibre, magnesium, zinc, iron and calcium) and about how it can be used as an egg substitute. I have also had a number of occasions of late where I needed an egg free cake or dessert. Given the Christmas season as well, I decided on a rich fruitcake recipe that uses a lot of eggs. This is one of those cakes that uses a ton of ingredients and the end result is a dark fragrant cake that is studded with chunks of nuts and fruit. Traditionally wrapped into bon bons and handed out at weddings and Christmas parties.
You make an egg substitute out of chia by grinding dry chia seeds to a powder and adding water. 1 tablespoon of chia seeds plus 3 tablespoons of water is equivalent to one egg.
When I added the water to the chia powder it turned into a very sticky gelatinous paste. I added the sugar to this mixture and whipped it for about 5 minutes but it didn't make any difference to the gelatinous texture. It felt a bit thick to me too, so I added about 6 extra tablespoons of water. You don't have to do this, but it is an option and it didn't affect the final result. If you choose to go down this road, I recommend adding the extra water a tablespoon at a time.
I had no other qualms during the rest of the cake making process and I thought the final batter was no different in texture to when I used eggs.
I was pleasantly suprised with my final result. Given the gelatinous nature of the chia mixture I was expecting a rubbery texture to my cake. But when I tested my cake to see if it was done, I was so surprised by how soft it was. I stuck my skewer in a few more times to see if the whole cake felt the same. The pleasant surprises kept on coming. Once the cake was cooked and cut, it looked and tasted no different to the original recipe with egg.
You can find my recipe with the modifications below.
Eggless Rich Fruitcake
167g raisins
325g sultanas
167g red and green glaced cherries
167g of a mixture of dried or glaced pineapple, peaches and pears
167g of glaced or dried apricots
150g of cashewnuts
60g of mixed peal
75g of glaced ginger
100g of ginger and lemon marmalade
25g of self raising flour
25mls of brandy
15mls of almond essence
15mls of rose essence
15mls of vanilla essence
1/2 tsp powdered cardamom
1/2 tsp powdered cinnamon
1/2 tsp powdered clove
1/2 tsp powdered nutmeg
167g semolina
rind of one lemon
1 tsp honey
1tsp brandy (extra)
8 tablespoons of chia seeds ground to a fine powder
24 tablespoons of water
167g sugar
167g butter at room temperature
2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp vinegar
milk (optional)
Line a large rectangular (29cm by 46cm) baking tin with 6 layers of newspapers on the base and sides. Add a final layer of baking paper on top of the newspaper.
Chop the raisins, sultanas, ginger and mixed peel finely. Chop the rest of the fruits into bigger pieces (about 5mm by 5mm) as this creates a nice visual texture when you cut the cake. Chop the cashews so that you get an equal mixture of rough and fine pieces. Mix the chopped fruits, nuts and self raising flour together with the brandy and the essences. Leave to soak for at least an hour. You can leave it to soak overnight too. I usually chop the fruits the night before and make the cake in the morning.
Mix the semolina, butter and grated lemon peel until well combined. Powder the chia seeds and add it to a large mixing bowl. Add the water a little at a time, mixing as you go. It will become a gelatinous paste. Add the sugar and beat with an electric mixer until the sugar is dissolved. Beat in the honey, extra brandy and spices.
Add the mixed semolina and butter to the chia mixture and stir until well combined. Then add the combined fruit, nut and flavorings and mix well. The resulting cake batter is stiffer than usual cake batters, so that the fruits don't sink to the bottom. However, it should not be crumbly. It should all bind together. If you find the resultant mixture crumbly, add a little milk and mix well.
Finally, place the bicarbonate of soda in a little bowl. Hold the bowl over the cake mixture and add the vinegar. Pour the bubbling mixture into the cake batter and mix through evenly.
Spread it into the prepared baking tray and bake in a 130 degree Celsius oven for 2 hours. If you would like a darker cake, leave the cake in the oven for up to another hour. Check on it regularly. Remove cake from the oven when done and leave to cool completely before wrapping in Glad Wrap and storing in a cool place. Store it in the fridge in warm climates, otherwise the butter will melt out of the cake.
This is my second attempt at a cupcake bouquet. Pretty isn't it? Before you go looking for a picture of the first attempt, let me tell you that there isn't one because it looked awful. I mean I have a picture but I'm too ashamed to post it up. On second thoughts though I will post it up as it might explain why I'm so pleased with my later attempt.
It's been one disaster after another with frosting lately. The cupcake bouquet was meant to be a birthday present for a good friend. So you can imagine my horror when my thoughtful, beautiful and delicious gift, only met two of the three requirements and failed at a most important requirement. Needless to say the birthday present was very, very late.
I think its a combination of the weather, the icing sugar and the food colouring used that has contributed to the great frosting meltdown as I call it.
I usually do most of my cooking in Sydney, Australia. The weather is cooler and a lot drier than in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia where I have been living, while helping mum sort out the house and move into an apartment. Most of the recipes I use come from a place where the weather is cold and dry. So the fat and liquid content tend to be slightly higher to keep the frosting in a malleable state. In my first attempt, I made a marshmallow frosting as I was worried butter cream would be difficult to work with in a warm climate as the fat content is so high. I had butter cream on the brain as most of the piped flower tutorials I have been watching, use butter cream.
Marshmallow frosting has no butter and I had made marshmallows successfully before. So I thought it would be all good. It tasted delicious but it didn't hold up in the heat and my piped flowers just slumped and slid all the way down the cupcake cases. I suspect that the food colouring I used also contributed to the softer frosting. The colours were very watery and as mixed them in I may have removed some of the air and made it more runny. I should have placed the completed cupcakes straight away in the fridge too. I noticed that once I did this the marshmallow frosting hardened into a shell and stopped the slumping. I didn't do this as I personally don't like refrigerated cakes.
The cupcakes in my second attempt are a red velvet cake. Traditionally these cakes are iced with a soft cream cheese frosting. I tried the pipeable cream cheese frosting recipe from www.recipegirl.com. The frosting was meant to be firm enough to be piped but it was so runny that I just gave each cupcake a thin flat covering of the cream cheese frosting and then used butter cream to create the peonies and hydrangeas. Again please let me say I think the softness of the icing is due to the climate and humidity rather than the recipe.
I did some research into icing and frosting after this and found out that there are two types of icing sugars. One is called icing sugar and just contains sugar. This is recommended for royal icing. Then there is icing sugar mixture that is icing sugar mixed with cornflour (usually 3 percent of the volume is cornflour). This is recommended for butter icing and other types of frosting. I checked what I was using and realised it was icing sugar. I didn't think it would have made much of a difference for the marshmallow frosting as it uses similar ingredients to royal icing.
I think the icing sugar mixture however, would have made a difference to the cream cheese frosting. So when I went to make my butter icing, I added some cornflour to the pure icing sugar I had. I also followed the recipe for butter icing from my mother's cake decorating classes. It's very different from the usual method where you cream the butter and add the icing sugar mixture to it. In this recipe you decide how much icing sugar you need for your project and then add butter gradually to get a stiff pipeable frosting.
I suspect the butter in Malaysia contains a slightly higher water content too. So you need slightly less than the usual 2:1 ratio of icing sugar mixture to butter. I'm sure others have a different way of making stiff butter icing in a warm climate and I would love to hear about it. I was really pleased to discover a frosting that held its shape and that was easy to work with and have shared the recipe below. I have dubbed it the 'Warm climate butter icing recipe'.
I planned to make my cupcakes into individual ranunculus flowers but it ended up looking like a peony. Nevertheless was really happy with the result and I think I just have to keep practicing to achieve my ranunculus shape. I think a steadier hand with the piping and less fluting of the petals will achieve this. Practice makes perfect and I can't complain cause I will have more cupcakes to eat. I constructed the bouquet following the instructions provided on the Queen of Hearts Couture Cakes blog. I found it held the bouquet shape well, it was so much easier to decorate each cake individually before placing it into its holder in the bouquet and the tissue paper liners in each holder made it easy to pull out the cakes when you were ready to eat it.
I have also included the red velvet cake recipe that bakes into this ultra soft and moist cake that just dissolves in your mouth. It's so velvety that you can eat a cupcake in just a couple of mouthfuls. The recipe is from a book called Divine Desserts by Bernice Hurst. I hope you enjoy the cake. Don't worry if it's a very watery cake batter. It bakes into a beautifully moist cake.
Red velvet cake (makes 16 cupcakes):
100g margerine
350g caster sugar
2 eggs
50ml red food colouring
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
250g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
225ml buttermilk
5ml vanilla essence
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon vinegar
Warm climate butter icing recipe:
350gm of icing sugar
Pinch of salt
2 teaspoons of corn starch (white variety)
At least 200g butter ( you will not use all of this)
For cake:
Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Cream the margerine and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs. Make a paste of food colouring and cocoa. Add to the butter mixture and blend well. Sift the flour and salt. Gradually add flour to the butter mixture, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. Stir in the bicarbonate of soda into the vinegar in a large spoon held over the mixing bowl as it foams. Add to the cake mixture and stir well. Pour the mixture into a jug and pour it into the cupcake cases to 3/4 full. Bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before icing.
For icing:
Sift icing sugar, salt and cornflour into a mixing bowl. Add butter a spoonful at a time and mix into icing sugar until you get a mixture that looks like breadcrumbs. Remember you will not use all the butter. There will be some leftover. At this stage beat the mixture with an electric mixer. If the icing comes together into a stiff paste keep beating it until the icing sugar melts into the butter and it looses its grittiness. If the mixture is still crumbly, add a bit more butter and beat until it's a stiff smooth paste.
