Red Velvet Cupcakes and Invention of New Ice-cream flavor!

Hey Chia!

Seems like we both have been busy in the Kitchen! Your pizza ingredients look so fresh and interesting!

On Friday, I actually started to feel better- like I wasn't feeling nauseous after eating. I also was able to enjoy being at home during winter. I also had been craving red velvet cake for ages too! I just love the intense red colour I think, and I found a cupcake recipe that I had been dying to try, but just had no time to. So on Friday night, I decided to attempt to bake some for Shaz's birthday present. It was super fun, because for a whole week I had been unable to do anything!

Red Velvet Cupcakes

So I started with sifting all the dry ingredients - flour, pinch of salt, bicarbonate soda; and putting them aside in a bowl for later.

I then worked on a cocoa powder and red food colouring to turn it into a paste, for the taste and the vibrant colour of the cake. The recipe said that it should turn into a think paste. Instead, my mixture turned into a sticky thick paste.

It ended up being a pretty thick paste. 

I then mixed the sugar and butter together for approximately 3 minutes until it became soft. I then added in the cocoa red paste, 2 eggs and the dry ingredients. As the mixer mixed the ingredients, I made sure that I kept pushing the sides down. I really enjoyed watching the red colour being swirled around =)

Combine, combine, combining

 I then put these babies into the oven for a little hot lovin:

Hrm, we are toasty warm

And hey presto! They came out looking like this!

Aren't we pretty?!

Unfortunately, since my red velvet cake was an American recipe, I had attempted to convert a lot of the measurements from Ounces to Grams or Mililetre, and the temperature of the oven Fahrenheit to Celsius. As a result, I think the cupcakes turned out a little bit too moist and I had trouble with how long I had to keep the cupcakes in the oven. The recipe stipulated 20 minutes, but I ended up putting them in the oven for a little over 45 minutes. I think that because I was checking the cakes every 10 minutes after that 20 minute mark, some of the cupcakes sank when they cooled down. Those failed cakes ended up being treats for my family and for Kev to have a taste.

The icing was quite easy. Just a bit of cream cheese (actually, quite a lot), icing sugar and butter.

Deh-deh-decorating!

Once the cupcakes were completely cooled down, I iced the cakes and decorated the ones for Shaz with pink sprinkles, since she loves pink; and the 'unco' cakes I decorated with random other colours just for fun.

For Shaz

Fun cakes!

My first bite was pretty nice. I really wanted to avoid dry cupcakes, and I'd say that I had succeeded in that. If only, I had worked out the correct temperature and duration for baking, then the cakes would not have sunk, and probably would have bound together a little better. My parents still really liked them, and my mom suggested that a cake may have been better to bake, rather than the cupcakes. I agreed, so I'll try to make a cake next time and post you the results!

When Kev came over on the Saturday and had a try, in response to my concerns that Shaz wouldn't like it, he said 'If Shaz doesn't want them, I'll have them.' =D

YUM! Rich and smooth like red velvet

Horlick & Caramel Swirl Ice-cream

After finishing the cupcakes, I then started to plan what kind of ice-cream Kev and I could make Shaz when Kev came to visit me on Saturday.

A few months back, I when made green tea ice-cream, the idea of horlick ice-cream came to mind. Since then, it had always been a flavor that I wanted to try to make, if I had the time. I also remembered that Shaz liked to drink horlicks, so naturally, that became the flavor that I decided to attempt. I also had just watched the Masterchef masterclass that was aired on the Friday night. On that episode, they showed us how to make caramel to mix in to a pre-made tub of vanilla ice-cream. My eyes lit up in excitement. Oh my lordy, horlick ice-cream with caramel swirl...

I then rang Kev to bounce my crazy idea with him. I thought that perhaps it was over the top, because horlicks itself is already a really yummy flavor, and the caramel could potentially change the whole taste. But when Kev heard it, he just said 'Oh!, that would be really really tasty' and then went on about how we should try and save some for ourselves too =P

So, when Kev came over he brought with him, horlicks, maple syrup and some cream. We started off by mixing sugar with milk and cream until it was smooth with no lumps. We then added the horlicks to the mixture. Our mistake was that, initially, the horlicks would not mix in smoothly. There were lumps and dry balls of horlicks floating at the top. Kev and I had to mix for a while until they dissolved properly. When we realised we needed more horlick flavour, we decided to add the horlicks with an extra dosh of cream and make it into a paste. When adding the paste to the mixture, it was easier to dissolve, and there were not as many clumps that required the elbow grease to mix in.

After that we put the horlick mixture into my ice-cream maker and watched it grow!

Creamy goodness

Kev moving the finished icecream into a container

We then started with making the caramel as per the instructions on the Masterchef website. We put the condense milk and the maple syrup into a pot and constantly stirred it while it was on heat. The recipe said that it would take no more than 6 minutes before the mixture caramelized. Ha! This did not happen, again the issue was in the timing and the heat required.


We ended up stirring that condense milk and maple syrup for about 5 to 10 minutes. We added the cream to stop it from crystalising (though, to be honest, that was far from happening, and we added it because the recipe said so). It eventually became caramel after a good 15 minutes of stirring. It did taste yummy though. It was smooth and thick. As it cooled, it did not get hard, but when you ate it, you ended up having this soft piece of caramel stuck on your teeth that you could suck on.

Constantly stirring the pot

We then mixed the caramel into the horlicks ice-cream, lacing it with rich, smooth golden goodness. We then worked on the packaging, and came up with this!

Shaz-a-Licious baby!

 If only I could eat this! =D