Rainbow Cupcakes (Eggless)

I am waiting for Spring. There is no better way to show it than these colorful cupcakes that I baked. I do not use artificial colours in the food I make and had no desire to use them in my baking. I had a basic idea of using natural foods to colour such as strawberry for red and blueberry for blue. So I scoured the internet to find a way to make more colours. I finally settled on carrots for orange, spinach for green, strawberry for red and blueberries for blue. These ingredients when juiced and added to the batter would impart the respective colours to the batter but not so much flavour as the quantity they are used in is very less. So the cake is going to taste like cake. I must tell you that the colours are not going to be neon bright when you use natural foods. They are going to be pastel shades but that is what I really like. My daughter loved the muted colour combinations as well and I had to fend her off in order to take pictures first. At this juncture I must say that she is the most encouraging person in my life and the enthusiasm is rubbing off on the hubby these days. He is open to being the guinea pig more often than not!

I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe that I have made before. The only difference is to reduce milk by 2 tbsp so that 2 tbsp of different coloured juices can be added to the batter later.

Rainbow Cupcakes

Servings: 10 regular sized cupcakes
Prep Time:  45 mins  Cook Time: 18 mins

Ingredients 

Basic Vanilla cupcake batter (minus 2 tbsp milk)

To make coloured batter

1 cup grated Carrot
1 cup Spinach (I used Fresh)
1 cup Strawberries Fresh/Frozen (I used Fresh)
1 cup Blueberries Fresh/Frozen (I used Frozen)

Instructions 

Making the colours

Orange Colour

Juice the grated carrot with 1 tbsp of water. I used a regular Indian mixer to do this.
Strain the carrot juice to get the fibrous part out.
Keep 2 tbsp of orange juice aside.
Green Colour
Juice the spinach leaves with 1 tbsp of water
Strain the spinach juice.
Keep 2 tbsp of green juice aside.
Red/Pink Colour
Juice the strawberries with 1 tbsp of water
Keep 2 tbsp of red/pink juice aside.
Blue Colour

Place frozen blueberries in a microwave safe bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals till the blueberries burst and the juice starts oozing out. It took me 3 intervals.
Allow it to cool.

Strain the blueberries juice.
Keep 2 tbsp of blue juice aside.

Putting it all together

1. Divide the basic Vanilla cupcake batter into 5 cups. I scooped out 4 heaped tsps per cup. 
2. To the batter in the first cup add 1 tbsp of carrot juice and mix well to get orange coloured batter.
3. To the batter in the second cup add 1 tbsp of spinach juice and mix well to get green coloured batter.
4. To the batter in the third cup add 1 tbsp of strawberry juice and mix well to get pink coloured batter.
5. To the batter in the fourth cup add 1 tbsp of blueberry juice and mix well to get blue coloured batter.
6. Keep the batter in the fifth cup uncoloured. This can be used to improve consistency in the other batters or to get a cream layer in the cupcake. 
7. Add more juice to improve colour adjusting the consistency so that it doesnt become watery. 
8. There are  many ways of making the cupcakes clourful. 
9. Preheat the oven to 350°F
10. The easiest method is to layer different coloured batters one on top of the other in the cupcake liner.
11. Alternatively place separators in the paper liner and pour different coloured batters in each section. 
12. I started out making the separators using card. I made a 4 section one and a 3 section like that. But I found it problematic because the batters bled into other sections easily.
13. Then the hubby gave an idea which turned out to be brilliant. Use crackers/biscuits as dividers. I had Parle-G gluco biscuits on hand and used them. I got 2 sections and 4 section ones using this method. 
14. Whatever the method fill the liners to 3/4 full and bake at 350°F for 18 minutes. 
15. Cool the cupcakes in the pan for 5 minutes before removing them onto a wire rack and allowing them to cool completely. 
16. Decorate with frosting or ganache as desired. The cupcakes turned out so wonderfully coloured that I did not want to cover that up at all.

Update 8th Apr 2013 - Submitted this recipe as a celebration of everything colour to a contest hosted by Manjula for creative desserts for Holi/Easter. I won! ;)

Eggless Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

 

Cupcakes are an all time favourite. What could get better than them? Yes, mini cupcakes! These bite sized wonders are easy on the eye and in the mouth.

That day my whole intention of baking cupcakes was to frost them. I wanted to get it right this time after a huge flop show the previous weekend.

I had made a pineapple cake and had attempted to make frosting at home. The catch was that I was planning to make cream frosting without an electric beater. I did my youtube and google searches and found enough encouragement there to fulfil my desire to make frosting from scratch without the beater. It turned out to be a 2 hour high voltage drama. I must have given off sparks by the end of it going by the amount of focus and friction the whole act of beating by hand was producing! Although I dint lose hope by the end of the first hour when the liquid that I was beating steadfastedly remained in the same state, I threw the whisk into the sink by the end of the second one. Then I hit upon a brilliant idea of running it through my mixer and that resulted in churning the cream and butter back to nice butter. I did frost my cake with this buttery something and we did scrape it all (2 layers) off before eating the cake. Thus bringing to an end a saga that I am not about to repeat. And then I wrote to Sin-a-mon's Monika and she gave me the idea of making ganache.

Ganache has been an awesome discovery. I am going to experiment with different types of chocolate and post all about it here but my maiden attempt was with semi sweet chocolate chips and the heavy cream I had left over from my previously ghastly trial. I used the simple recipe from here.It gives a good idea on how one could use ganache to decorate cupcakes. And there are three different types - Glazing, Whipping and Piping. I did not want to Glaze since my family wouldnt like it so sweet. Whipping was out of question without an electric beater. So piping it was.This was my second time trying to pipe and the first time I did was just a whirl.


Getting back to the cupcakes on hand, this recipe is an absolute keeper. It is eggless and uses oil instead of butter. The texture of the cupcakes are dreamy soft and so delicate. It is easy to put together and with the right pictures it is easy to remember how to make them as well. I have had my share of tighter cupcakes or sunken ones, but this time I have got it right with the measurements mentioned. These cupcakes can be eaten without any frosting and would still taste great. Alternatively, a sprinkling of nuts on top or mixed inside would render a crunchy good flavour. Any kind of frosting would taste good on such a basic cupcake so its a base for creativity. I brought it with me for a party and got extremely encouraging feedback from the crowd that had gathered there. Many could not believe that it was eggless.

 

 

Eggless Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache

Servings: 24 Mini Cupcakes or 10-12 Cupcakes
Prep Time: 15 mins     Cook Time: 10-18 mins

Ingredients

1 1/4 cup All Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking powder

1/4 tsp Baking soda
pinch of Salt
3/4 cup granulated Sugar
1 cup Milk
1/3 cup Oil
1 tbsp White Vinegar
1/2 tsp Vanilla extract
Nuts to garnish on top (Optional)

Basic Chocolate Ganache

12 oz Semi-sweet chocolate chips (1 bag of Nestle's)
1 cup Heavy Cream

Instructions

1. Prehaet the oven to 350.
2. Line cupcake tray with paper liners and keep aside.
3. Stir together milk and vinegar and set aside for 5 minutes. The milk should be curdled by the end of it.
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
5. Once milk is curdled, whisk oil, vanilla extract and sugar into it till well combined and runny.
6. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour the wet ingredients into it. Mix till smooth. Do not overmix. A little lumpy is fine as long as everything is mixed well.
7. Fill into cupcake liner till 3/4 full.
8. Sprinkle nuts on top if desired.
9. If making mini cupcakes, bake for 10 minutes. If regular sized cupcakes then bake for 16-18 minutes. A skewer inserted into the cupcake should come out clean and that tells you they are done.
10. Remove from oven and cool in pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack and allowing it to cook completely.

Decorating the cupcake with Ganache

1. Cool the ganache for atleast an hour in the fridge for it to thicken to piping consistency.
2. Fill a piping bag with the ganache and press down towards the nozzle so that air gaps are eliminated. This aids piping to flow out seamlessly.
3. I used a small round tip (not familiar with the nomenclature) and made my own twirly whirly designs by squeezing on the piping bag with my left hand and guiding the tip with my right hand.

Whole Wheat Calzone

Calzone is a God-sent for fussy eaters. It is basically a turnover or a folded Pizza and is extremely popular in my house because of the easy eating. Unlike a pizza there is not much fear of the topping falling off the base and then having to eat the whole thing like bread with a side dish. It's compact shapeis great for being grabbed in one toddler hand while jumping to in front of the TV to the tune of M-I-C-K-E-Y  M-O-U-S-E.
Use whole grains in the dough, get really creative with the veggies and bake to make it a healthy brunch/snack/dinner and enables the delivery of a lot of nutrition. Make it bite-sized and it can become an entree to a big meal. I am sure it would provide a surprise element to the lunch box.

The calzone also reminds me of the Kadabu that we make during Ganesha festival and is tradionally covered with a rice flour sleeve. And somewhere that connection works very well on our apetite to devour this tasty sandwich. The fact that I dont have to remind my daughter to eat at every bite, makes this my most favoured recipe. It is easy enough to make but I am yet to learn about dough storage.

I made it on a busy day and I had a couple of things already going in the kitchen. Not much effort and I like the fact that I dont have to pre-cook anything!

Whole Wheat Calzone

Servings: 10 Calzones     

Prep Time: 3 hrs (including rise time)    Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients

Pizza dough

1/2 Medium Onion (I used sweet onion)

16 Cherry tomatoes (or 1 regular tomato)

1/2 Capsicum

1 Jalapeno

1/2 cup Corn (I used frozen)

1 cup Tomato sauce (preparation instructions in this post)

Salt

Black Pepper powdered

Spice Mix of choice

Mozzarella Cheese - as much or as little as desired

Instructions

1. Prepare the pizza dough as per instructions here.
2. To make the suffing, mix all the vegetables, salt, pepper and any other spice of your choice in a bowl. Keep aside. 
3. Once the dough has risen, pull out a good sized ball of dough and roll it out on a floured surface with a rolling pin
4. Brush the dough circle with tomato sauce.
5. Pile on a proportionate quantity of stuffing onto the rolled out dough making sure that it lies on the bottom half of the dough. Leave some space around the edges.
6. Optionally, pile on mozzarella cheese on top of the veggies.
7. Fold the top half over the bottom half and seal the edges by pressing the edges together all along the semi-circle.
8. Make indentations along the edges with a fork.
9. Keep the stuffed dough in a baking tray, covered with a towel or cling wrap, and allow to rise in a warm place for around 30 minutes.
10. While the stuffed dough is rising preheat the oven to 350
11. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes and turn it over and bake for another 5 minutes to get them evenly browned on both sides.
12. Serve calzones warm, especially important if kids are going to munch on them.

Sending this to Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids – Italian Dishes and Nithu’s page