Purple Velvet Cupcakes

A failed 'success'. I have been experimenting with different purple velvet cake recipes for a few weeks now and I am still having trouble getting the right shade of purple.

The cake recipe I ended up having the most success with is a tweaked version of this red velvet cake from Sweetapolita, one of my go-to blogs for recipes and cake designs. I used her cake recipe to make a 3-tier 8 inch cake for some design practice and a few cupcakes (pictured here).

It turns out deep purple is very difficult to create in a velvet cake and some elementary school primary color mixing is necessary. But all wasn't lost. Since the sun was finally out, I decided to play around with my camera and try different angles. (Ignore the foil wrappers, these were not meant for a blog post)

The cupcakes were delicious and the best part of this experiment! All in all, I have the cake side down and now I just need to work on getting that purple shade I want.

If anyone has ideas/advice on how to achieve this, please let me know in the comments below. 

White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies {Gluten-Free, Vegan}

I made these cookies last week for one of my best friends. She found out a few weeks ago that she needs to start a vegan diet for health reasons. Despite being an avid meat lover, she is also a sweet junkie. Like seriously, she can't complete a meal without sweets. She can probably live without the meat but she will definitely not be able to live without her desserts. And that's where these cookies come in.

I figured the least I could do to support her is learn how to make healthier desserts to show her that all isn't lost. These cookies are vegan and gluten-free. I got the recipe from a new friend's blog!!

Her name is Iris and she is the wonderful creator and writer of The Daily Dietribe. She happens to be the sister of one of my college mates and I stumbled onto her blog on Facebook! She shares her gluten-free lifestyle over on her blog with lots of easy yummy recipes. If you are starting out or thinking about starting a gluten-free diet, please check out her blog. She has lots of resources there to help with the journey and she has two books as well; The Essential Gluten-Free Baking Guide Part 1 & 2.

Ok, back to the cookies. My favorite cookie is a white chocolate macadamia cookie. I have it most times at our weekly seminar series. Always makes the boring science talks enjoyable :). These homemade version were a million times better.  I used this basic gluten-free recipe from The Daily Dietribe that is customizable...isn't that cool?  They were so deliciously soft and moist. It was very hard to keep my husband away from them for a few days before I could take my pictures and put them in the mail.

I was very happy with how easy and good they were. I hope my friend loves them when she receives her package tomorrow!!

Here is the recipe:

White Chocolate Macadamia Cookies (Vegan, Gluten-free)
Yield: About 12-16 cookies

Source: Adapted from The Daily Dietribe

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups gluten-free flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons applesauce
6 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup white chocolate chips
1/3 cup chopped macadamia nuts

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350^oF.  Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
3. Add the oil and applesauce and mix to combine with a rubber spatula. Add the vanilla extract.  Mix until completely combined, about 1 minute.
4. Fold in the white chocolate chips and macadamia nuts.
5. Roll the dough into balls (size of your choice; I like cookies on the bigger side) and flatten slightly. Place on prepared cookie sheets.
6. Bake for 10-12 minutes.
7. Cool on cookie sheet for a 2-3 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
8. Allow cookies to completely cool (or not!) before indulging. 

Now go make some cookies!!

Macarons {April Kitchen Challenge}

I can barely ice a cake smooth or pipe a buttercream rose and yet I am attempting to make macarons. I've never had a macaron and I've never made a macaron. But they made it to my baking 'bucket list' a few months ago when I came across these gorgeous tiffany blue macarons.

So when Lindsay from Love and Olive Oil announced her April Kitchen Challenge was to make macarons, it seemed like a great idea to give them a try now. Why wait till later?? Little did I know!

I jumped into the literature of macarons not knowing anything about what it takes to make a macaron. A common theme that was immediately clear was that making macarons is an extremely difficult task. Second, there are lots of different schools of thoughts about how to make a successful batch of macarons. A very 'superstitious' ritual if I must say. 

I started off with Brave Tart, as Lindsay suggested, and she has several great posts on all you need to know about macaroons. I learned almost everything from handling meringue to macaronage on her blog.

Most macaron recipes call for a food scale and since I wasn't about to buy one just yet, I had to look for a recipe that did not require a scale. I adapted a recipe from Sprinkle Bakes for the ingredients but I followed the instructions from Bravetart's macarons.  Thanks to her mythbuster article, I was able to go into this project prepared.

Making macarons starts with whipping up egg whites and sugar to make a stable meringue. Then sifting together almond flour and powdered sugar for the dry ingredients. The most crucial stage is  folding the dry ingredients into the meringue, the process of macaronage, which deflates the meringue. With proper macaronage you should have a ribbon-like mixture that can hold up to piping and maintain its shape. The batter is piped onto parchment paper in 11/2 inch circles, given a solid tap on a counter and baked for 10-15 minutes depending on your oven temperature. Sounds simple enough right??

Yeah, it's not. It took three batches. The first batch failed period. The second batch (pictured in cream) were 'oval' not circular and they baked somewhat crooked. The third batch (pink) turned out circular and much better. However, they still baked crooked...the shells were falling off. After three batches, my macarons were not perfect but that is ok. I did not expect to get perfect cafe-quality macarons on my first try. But with practice and good techniques I'll make close to perfect macarons one day.

It was great fun to jump into this project and not knowing much about macarons or how to make them. Thanks to Lindsay for inspiring this bold step. Now I'm looking forward to the next challenge she has in store. If you have not checked out her blog, do so NOW! It's amazing.

I have more macarons to experiment with and they might just show up on a certain dessert table I'm planning for an upcoming shower :)

Piña Colada Cupcakes

For those of us living in the North East, spring is not yet here. It was a miserable week with lake effect snow still coming down in April.

During all the snow brushing, it occurred to me that I haven't had mixed frozen drinks in 7 months!!! My last frozen drink was consumed on our honeymoon in Jamaica last September when I had 5 to 6 to 7 piña coladas a day (who was counting?). Needless to say piña coladas are my favorite frozen drink and it always bring back memories of paradise...which does not include snow.

These cupcakes were made to rectify that sad fact and wish this winter away. Positive thoughts is all it takes to keep the snow away, right?

I adapted a piña colada cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen. It's a pineapple-coconut cupcake with coconut cream cheese frosting. Yes, coconut again!! Clearly I have an issue when it comes to coconut...but it's so yummy and I can't help myself!

These cupcakes bring back lots of summer memories that I can now hold on to until spring arrives! Paired with my favorite frozen drink, any lingering winter blues will be washed away!

NOTES

• Cupcake liners: Wilton Color cups bought from Michael's

• Cake stands: Bed Bath & Beyond, TJ Maxx and Marshall's (respectively)

• Since this is a learning blog, I need to share the things that I struggle with. I had a lot of issues with photographing these cupcakes: sunlight was too much at some point, then it became cloudy really fast and I monkeyed with my camera settings and created the 'yellowish' hue you see in the pictures. Spent some time on Photoshop trying to fix them, but it didn't exactly work. I'm going to spend some time this week reading up on using Photoshop for edits and also find other alternatives.