Mmm Canada: Made In Canada Cupcakes

Happy Canada Day!

I know they don't look like much, but these little cupcakes carry a grand name--well, the recipe on which they're based carries a grand name: Made In Canada Cake.

Lately I've been interested in older cookery books (Canadian and otherwise) and those issued by community groups, so when I came across them the other day while reading an article looking at some historical Canadian desserts in theglobeandmail.com, I read it with more than a passing interest.

The author included links to a few recipes, including a grunt and a buckle (both are dessert types I rather like). But one--Made In Canada Cake--held my fascination.

'What a bizarre little title,' I said to myself. But then I thought to when the cookbook was published. 1911. Robert Borden replaced Wilfrid Laurier as Prime Minister, and what seems like the never ending points of Canadian identity as well as international affairs, particularly Canadian-US relations were front and centre.

Whether or not the creator of the original recipe intended it to represent a slice of Canadian history is unknown. What I do know, based on the ingredient list (the only addition I've made is the salt, and I adjusted the recipe for cake flour instead of regular), it is a cake made with Canadian ingredients--notice the lack of flavours or spices. If this were being created today, there would undoubtedly be a splash of vanilla or perhaps some orange and spice.

The cake itself is like many other vanilla or plain cake recipes--it's easy to put together. The final cake is tender, and can be eaten on its own or served with your favourite icing or glaze.

Made In Canada Cupcakes
adapted from Made In Canada Cake submitted by Mrs. Guy Simmonds, Wilton, Lennox Co.Ont for the1911 Canadian Farm Cook Book, as found in the Globe and Mail.

Yield 12 cupcakes
Ingredients

55g (60ml, 0.25c) butter, room temperature
100g (125ml, 0.5c) sugar
1 egg
130g (250ml, 1c) cake flour
15ml (1Tbsp) baking powder
pinch of salt
60ml (0.25c) milk

Method
Paper the bowls of a 12-bun cupcake tray. Preheat oven to 180C/350F

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside

Beat the butter until light. Cream in sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg. Incorporate the flour and the milk, in alternate additions, in the usual way (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), scraping the bowl down after each wet addition. Beat together for a minute or so.

Divide the batter, equally between the papered bows--you will have to scrape out each drop.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Ice, glaze or decorate as you wish.


cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Bordello Red Velvet Cupcakes

I love romance. I love love. I love the giddy excitement that overtakes you body, mind and soul at the prospect of being near that special person.

It's just that I dislike the artifice that surrounds 14 February. I loathe its commercialism and expectations. I sneer at forced restaurant menus and scowl at the gasoline-like price hikes for flowers and chocolates. I avoid storefronts designed by those enamoured with an imagined lovechild produced by Barbara Cartland and any of the Teletubbies.

This year my snarling came earlier than in previous years.

No, it's not because the prospect of being hit by a disabled Norwegian communications satellite is probably greater than the chances of finding a single, erudite, articulate, kind and interesting man who'd want to spend time with me.

A radio advert set off my jeers. Without going into too much detail, the messaging was "Men, (and it was aimed at men) if you have any hopes of making the beast with two backs with your special lady, then get her something for Valentine's day...because if you don't you'll probably never see her naked again."

I'd love to meet the 15 year old boy who came up with that one.

I'd also love to be there when some poor soul who doesn't have the sense gawd gave a goose finds out that no, most women don't want to be treated like one of the gals at Hooker Harvey's.

Good gravy.

When I ventured into my kitchen to bake Valentine's Day treats for my friends, my usual obsession with the tackily mundane became tinged by those women of of the night, turning my little kitchen into a scullery of slightly salacious repute...a bit of a bakery bordello, I suppose.

For many, the colour red is associated with passion and love and, as a result, Valentine's Day. To others it's associated with certain areas of Amsterdam. But to me, a deep, rich brownish-red has always been known as "bordello red." And what better way to celebrate the colour and the connotations than with red velvet cupcakes?

For those of you who haven't had one, all a red velvet cake is is a buttermilk-tangy chocolate cake dyed an almost unnatural shade of red. Some recipes call for beets, but most modern ones use copious amounts of liquid food colouring. I tried making a red velvet cake a few years ago, but I wasn't thrilled with it. It was too dry and not very chocolatey as the dye's flavour overpowered the cake.

After studying a number of recipes, I came up with this one. Like the others it uses buttermilk--essential, I think, for the tang, but I've also read it's acidity helps to redden the cocoa's natural brown; my experiment with yoghurt, although just as tasty, lacked the gaudy visual I yearned for. The combination of oil (well, a mix of oil and butter) and brown sugar keeps the cake moist; the brown sugar also gives it a deeper flavour that's missing from using granulated sugar alone.

It's a rather easy cake to make (and quite honestly the vinegar-bicarb component satisfies my latent mad scientist tendencies) but do not be alarmed by the almost violent plummy-brownish-red the the moussey batter takes on. As it bakes, the colour deepens to a luxurious deep, bordello red.

Bordello Red Velvet Cupcakes
yield 12 cupcakes

125g cake flour
1Tbsp cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
0.25tsp salt
125ml buttermilk
30ml liquid red food colouring
50g butter, softened
135g brown sugar
2dspn (4tsp) vegetable oil
1tsp vanilla
1 egg
0.5tsp bicarbonate of soda
0.5tsp red wine vinegar

Preheat oven to 170C/350F. Line a 12-bowl muffin tin with papers

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt.

Mix together buttermilk and food colouring until it is a rather vile but even shade of puce.

Beat butter for a few minutes until creamy. Add brown sugar and cream well. Mix in oil and vanilla. Beat in egg.

Alternate mixing in flour mixture with buttermilk mixture (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), scraping down the bowl's sides between additions.

Mix together the bicarb and vinegar into a fizzy, volcanic solution and work it quickly into the batter. At this point, the batter will be almost mousse-like in consistently.

Working quickly to so as to not lose the lift, divide between the papered muffin bowls and bake for 20-25 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

Top with cream cheese icing, and whatever gaudy or not-so-gaudy decorations if you wish.

cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Daring Bakers: Shuna Fish Lydon's Caramel Cake

• Recipe's origins: Bay Area Bites: Caramel Cake, The Recipe
• Recipe's orginator: Shuna Fish Lydon
• Our hostess: Dolores of Culinary Curiosity
• Our co-hostess: Alex of Brownie and Blondie and Jenny of Foray into Food

When I heard that this month's DB challenge was one of Shuna's recipes, I was positively overjoyed. Not only is she the wonderful authoress of the equally wonderful Eggbeater, but I had the distinct pleasure of being on the BlogHer '07 foodblogging panel with her. I can tell you all that she's an absolutely warm and lovely person and I am so happy to have had the opportunity to have met her.

I read though the recipe and I knew exactly when it would be served. You see, this month marked My Most Marvellous Manager's 10th anniversary at the company. He's a truly great person and I am so lucky to have worked with him for the past seven and a half years--quite knowledgeable, a great mentor and quite patient (well, you have to be to work with me). I'm pretty sure he didn't suspect I'd bring in some treats to mark the milestone..

I'm not much of a caramel maker. I've only made it successfully once before. Normally I get a crystaline formation that could resemble an outcropping on a planet seen on Doctor Who. Previous attempts left me so frustrated that I simply gave up, or if I was cooking with my Dear Little Cardamummy, I'd just get her to make it. Well, I seem to have regained my caramel making touch as it turned out perfectly, with little wisps of smoke rising as the Napalm-.like liquid turned a deep amber.

The batter came together wonderfully. Can't say much better than that.

Now, when it came to determining how best to take it in, I decided to go with cupcakes. I have learned that I have some...enthusastic eaters...around me, and sometimes it's best that treats be pre-portioned...mind you, it also means there's less clean up in the end, so it's not totally an altruistic decision.

Cuppycakes they were. the recipe turned out about 18 slightly mounded slight cakes. My guess is Beelzebub was done with them in about 20 minutes.Truth be told, 12 of them made it to the office...the other six were mysteriously left in my kitchen. Funny how this happens from time to time.

I think the next time I make this cake, I'll halve the icing recipe. It's quite delicious, but there's a lot of it. I'd prefer a thinnish icing layer bonneting the cakes, than entombing the delicate and soft crumb in all that icing.

Everyone loved the cupcakes -- including MMMM.




To see what the other Daring Bakers did, please visit our blogroll.

cheers!
jasmine

Pumpkin cupcakes

'Tis the season to be pumpkinny.

I suppose this could be a Savour the Season post...and if I'd given more thought to it, I'd probably have trekked out to the pumpkin patch, snapped some photos and done up a proper StS badge...but alas, I did not.

The fact is, I was stuck for Hallowe'eny treats. Last year I didn't do anything for this spooky day--didn't dress up, didn't do the treats. I wanted to rectify the situation.

This year, I wanted to be a bumble bee. We have a great theatrical costumer in town and I recall seeing the striped top, wings and other bee-like acutriments a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, I was in an all-morning meeting and couldn't buzz around like I wanted...well, I could have, but it wouldn't have been advisable. Sigh...the problems of being a somewhat responsible grown up...

So I recycled a previous "costume" --dressed normally and wore my tiara (yes, I do own one)...whenever people commented on the headpiece I'd just say in my breathy bunny voice, "What tiara? I don't know what you're talking about," or "Princess? Why do you think that I'm only a princess one day a year?"


The treats weren't as easy to sort out. A few years ago I came up with ghoulish witch fingers...people are still talking about them. I'd seen some other seasonal goodies and thought about doing something really gross, but I've been run off my size sixes.


The fallback plan is always cupcakes. After some pondering, I decided on pumpkin cupcakes with orangy cream cheese frosting.


The frosting was thrown together without measuring...roughly 125g cream cheese (half a packet) a big knob of butter, a couple or four spoons of icing sugar, a dribble of orange essence and a teaspoon or two of orange juice.


The cupcakes are great--moist, spiced like a Thanksgiving pie but with a fluffy crumb...and very, very easy.


I'd thought I'd only bake a couple dozen...and I was well on my way to do that...but accidentally added the entire 796ml tin of pumpkin into the bowl, instead of half. OOPS. Well...I quickly doubled the rest of the ingredients and was soon up to my ears in pumpkin cupcakes. Oh well...there are worse fates...like not having any pumpkin cupcakes.


Pumpkin Cupcakes
yields four dozen cupcakes (depending upon size of bowls and how much you fill them).

500g cake flour
2 dspns baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves
seeds from one cardamom pod, ground
1 tsp salt
225g butter
250g brown sugar
250g sugar
4 eggs
1/2 c whipping cream mixed with 1/2c water
1 796ml tin pumpkin


Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and paper the bowls of your cupcake tin(s).

Sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb, spices and salt; set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in sugars. Beat in eggs, two at a time. Add flour mixture alternately with milk (flour, milk, flour, milk, flour)--scrape down the sides of the bowl after each flour addition. Fold in the pumpkin.

Dollop into muffin tray bowls and bake for 25ish minutes or until an inserted tester comes out cleanly. Let cool completely before icing (optional).

cheers!
jasmine