The Sugar Bar

It’s ten to midnight, I’m getting a headache and going slightly insane – swinging back and forth between boredom and the occasional 2 minutes of intelligent writing. I think 2 days of not leaving the house, a lack of fresh air and activity away from the computer, the television and my bass speakers, generally has led me to a near combustible state. I’ve been forced to bake to keep myself rational. The consequence? A line of plates piled with food, an odd mix of all sorts of smells coming from the kitchen, a slightly still-grumpy me, lousy television and my laptop. But to let myself out of this domestic cage (not that I have any problems with it really, just that I believe these headaches are kinda telling me something about it), I’ve decided that a Starbucks therapy session is in order.

However, that will only happen when the weather picks up. It’s still dreadfully grey out which makes it such a depressing background for anything I have in mind. I think it’s times like this, when most of my clothes are grey, the sky is grey, the goats cheese in the fridge has gone grey with mould and even the back of my eyes are starting to look grey that I have to accede to the colour pink!!

I really am not a fan of pink. I remember the sea of pink in primary school. All the girls proudly proclaiming their favourite colour pink. Pink shoe laces, pink school bags, pink water bottles, pink hair ties and gymnastic ribbons. Indeed, my ballet leotard, shoes and hair ribbons were all pink. But of course that little rebel in me insisted blue, orange and purple were one of my favourite colours. And then secondary school got me started on green. And then junior college made it black and red for me. Right now, I’d say blue, green, black and red are still my top favourites but pink, sadly enough, never really scored a goal with me. I hope it never will in fact. I have honestly nothing against it. More so the connotations of pink and the immediate associations of pink with girlishness. Why not something like health? Rather than feminine prettiness, apples, lips, virginity and so on.

Right, back to what this post was initially supposed to be about rather than my grumpy, late night ranting – I thought whipping up something with colour would help alter my mood a little. Got out some summer berries (blackberries, raspberrie, currants), a lemon and baking ingredients and was like oh yea. You know what I’m thinking. An easy recipe. Muffins! Which meant finally I could use the Le Creuset silicone baking pan I’d ordered through the post. I think I’ve always been slightly skeptical of silicone bakeware but now that I’ve tried it, I’m never going back! I’ve stepped over to the Dark Side and I’m not ashamed of it. Silicone bakeware can be used in the oven or in the freezer. Can be squished and folded up to any sort of contorted shape you fancy which means a quick stuff in the bag if you’re intending on running out to someone’s for a baking session. It’s so light and in a nice orange shade, how could I resist! Grease proof, no need for buttering your tray. To remove your muffins, just press the bottom of the cups and push – it pops out quick and easy. What’s even better is if you’re an absolute lazy fart, pop it into the dishwasher. Awesome isn’t it?

So there I was – with a bright yellow lemon, my orange silicone tray and some red and black berries. Heaven. I love anything lemon poppy seed so that cheered me up a bit. Crushing the berries relieved a little stress and made me slightly less angry and bloodthirsty (don’t ask me why I was to start with..I have no idea myself) and preparing the buttercream was just calming, watching the berries bleed into the whitened butter. Someone is probably going to recommend me a shrink right this second for my morbid behaviour. Have no fear, it’s all alright now. Probably is just the stress of my paper getting to me. Anyway, I present to you my latenight therapy which makes 6 large muffins:

Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins with Summerfruit Buttercream
Ingredients

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon poppy seeds
1 teaspoon lemon zest

For the summerfruit buttercream:

1 cup butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup berries of your choice

Preheat oven to 170d Celsius.
Combine sifted flour, baking powder, soda, salt and sugar and give it a quick whisk to mix it together. Then form a well in the middle. Beat the egg with the milk, fresh lemon juice lightly then pour into the well. Add the melted butter over that and using a wooden spoon, mix till just combined. Fold in poppy seeds and lemon zest. Spoon into tray about 3/4 full and bake for 25min or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Remove from tray immediately and let cool completely.

The buttercream is very simple to make. Whip the butter till nice, smooth and soft. Add the icing sugar little by little, remember to sift so you don’t get any clumps. Beat. Add vanilla essence and crushed berries. Leave some uncrushed if you’d like some added texture, mix it together till smooth then put a good generous dollop on a cooled muffin.
Don’t bother with prettiness. Just reward yourself with a great big bite!

A couple of weeks back, I made a Chocolate Blueberry Loaf Cake for my Marshall group of fellow scholars but was unable to attend the dinner gathering & bring along my sweet goody. The cake turned out really great. I was afraid it might taste a little strange cos of the wet blueberries which I’ve always associated with trifles, muffins and really..not tea loaf cakes. (for the recipe & pictures, you can scroll down to the end of this entry) Ever since, I’ve been feeling terribly guilty and thus, today’s special which will be served to you guys tmr! I was feeling very kiddyish and played around with blue, green and pink! Finally…a time to stop being so stressed abt everything going on around me so I can just be quirky and whimsical. I had the best time of my life in the kitchen today, whipping and beating and fiddling around with hundreds & thousands. After all that effort, I do hope my marshall pals love em……..yikes.

The recipe for these cupcakes were the very basic vanilla cupcakes I’ve always used. The next time round I’m gonna try another recipe I found in this month’s Donna Hay magazine under cupcake coutoure section, which uses rose water and some other interesting stuff. I’ve always wondered how exciting cupcakes can be because it pretty much uses the same kind of ingredients but every time I check out Cupcake Bakeshop’s webbie, I can only say she proves me wrong ALL THE TIME. She uses ingredients like pistachio cream, tea, etc. It’s really amazing how she gets so creative with something so beautifully simple & satisfying like cupcakes. I’m inspired to experiment as well..but of course, my laziness is such a deeply-set flaw in me that it hinders any progress I wish to make. HEH. In time to come, I suppose. For now, let me just enjoy rainbow coloured, silly looking cupcakes for all its worth..:)

I was a little surprised with my buttercream today. I’ve been using the usual Magnolia’s buttercream recipe for all cupcakes that I make and this time round I believe I probably threw in too much butter. It got a little difficult to beat, and it kept making disgusting slapping sounds. I remedied this problem with a lot more milk than usual, so my buttercream this time round was very glossy, sometimes bordering on an oily look. The colouring solved that too as it made it slightly less obvious. If it was van, think she wouldn’t mind the butter at all….Butter Republic! It’s sooo her.

* Baking Tip of the Day : Should you run out of self-rising flour (like I did today), there are 2 ways to substitute it.

1) 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 1/2tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine salt –> this gives you 1 cup self-rising

2) 2 cup cake flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine salt –> this gives you 2 cup self-rising

I went with the first method cos that’s the substitute I’ve been using all this while. Am pretty unsure how my cupcakes would turn out if I used cake flour in addition to the plain flour in the rest of the recipe. Suppose it’ll be of a fluffier texture? If any one knows how cake flour can change the texture, do drop me a comment.

Chocolate Blueberry Loaf Cake (adapted from Lisa Yockelson’s Choc Chip-Banana Tea Cake)

Ingredients

2 cups flour

2 tsp cocoa ( I used Cadbury’s this time round)

1/2 tso baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup semi sweet choc chips, miniature sized

8 tbs unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 punnet washed, dried fat fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 180dCelsius.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda and salt.

Cream the butter for 3 min. Add granulated sugar in two additions, beating for 2 min after each portion. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in the vanilla extract. Scrape down bowl, then add the sifted mixture in two additions, beating on low. Stir in the chocolate chips and fold in the blueberries. Spoon into prepared loaf pan, mounding slightly in the centre.

Bake for 1hr. Cool loaf in pan for 10min then remove it from pan. Cool completely. Be patient after this, let cake mellow for 2-3hrs before cutting into slices for serving. You can wrap in clingwrap if keeping overnight, this locks in the flavours very well. **bake & serve within 2 days**

Once again, today was preparation for our virgin order! Our blessed first customer had ordered gingersnaps, absolutely chocolate cookies and vanilla cupcakes (topped with heavenly buttercream as you can see from the picture. this one has been coloured a light pink. i made both white and pink ones to alternate in the box!)
My feet were really aching when I was done and there was just so much cleaning up to do because I had used so many bowls and spoons and forks, it was kind of crazy. But I’m glad to be busy with business than with stupid things like math, or econs. Ha.

Anyway these cupcakes can be done in the ordinary swirly creamed kind or the cloud cream kind. I had lots of fun doing this, despite the heat of the afternoon. And thank God, the buttercream didn’t melt. It stayed in place!These cupcakes are perfect for those who utterly enjoy the scent and taste of vanilla and the fact that it goes so well with the rich aroma of butter. It’s a no-holds-barred kind of thing, so if you’re dieting then too bad for you but my recommendation is to not miss it for the world, right Sam?

So…interested? Do drop us an email then for your order!

DIVANA.living for divine moments.