Over
few years of my blogging life, I have created a wonderful circle of blogger
buddies whom I communicate very often over the social networking sites,
exchange recipes, talk about props, foods, inspiring sites, blogs etc. There
are a bunch of them who really inspired me, who touched my heart in a way or
other, whom I feel are warm, loving, effectionate and fun to be with. And most
of all are real people! I am going to introduce you few of my favourite bloggers,
my very good friends, very loving people whom I met over the net over time and
grew closer and I think you may also love knowing them, reading their
blogs/sites.
The
first on my list has to Maria, not for one, but for many reasons. As I have
mentioned many times before, I am a spoilt Indian lady who grew up with the
comfort of mom’s home cooked meal, until I was 25. Then when I moved in with my
hubby four months after I had my son, it was like a big transition from zero responsibility
to a woman with full of duties to be done as a mother and as a wife. It was not
at all easy, I should say, as I have never done much house chores apart from
the little bit of cleaning, ironing and little help that your mom ask you to
do. Apart from that I bothered nothing. So When I joined my husband, I had to
start everything from scratch, including cooking. My mother’s approximated
recipe never worked for me always and we started getting bored of the same
taste.
That
was when I started cooking for recipes online and almost always bumped on
Marias blog and cooked many things from her blog, from curries to stir fries, cakes,
cupcakes and everyday simple recipes. The outcomes were always fabulous and we
really enjoyed them. Maria needs no introduction as owns a popular foodblog
Mariasmenu. We’ve known each other for a while now and I love her and I love
her style of writing. She is a warm, simple and a down to earth person you
would be coming across. She is humble, honest and a sweet person and I am so
glad I met her.
I
will be away for few weeks, and to keep the blog from being deserted I invited few of my lovely blogger friends over to my blog. Maria, Thank you so much for
doing this lovely post in spite of your time constraints. This is going to a
special one for me, as it is the first ever guest post on my blog. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of the post, and what a
lovely recipe is that! With her step by step pictures, no one can go wrong. I love her cake recipes, they come out perfect every time I make them. And I am sure to try this one too. Over to sweet Maria with her fabulous cupcake recipe.
When I saw Shabs
mail, asking me whether I could do a guest post for her, I didn't have to think
twice to say yes. The only problem I had was time constraint, but we were able
to sort it out. So here, I'm doing a guest post for one of my favorite food
blogger and also a blogger who I consider as my good friend. Though I've been
blogging for almost 6 years now, I don't have a big circle of blogging friends.
My PR (public relations) skill bears the grunt for this! Even otherwise as a
person, I'm not the kind who has a big group of friends. I always have a small
group, may be because I'm a strong believer in quality and not quantity. Ok,
let me clarify something (for my own benefit, just to avoid
the questioning look on my hubby's face) there are some cases in
which I believe in quantity like dress, bags, shoes, baking pans, kitchen
accessories.... you got the picture right ;)? Wait a minute... Did I just
portray myself as a hypocrite??? Ok, I need to distract you from thinking
further.. Enough about me.
Well, as a person I'd describe Shabs
as a warm, genuine and humble person. You can feel it the minute you start
talking to her. That reminds me... I've never talked to her in person, but in
today's world messaging/mailing is as good as talking to a person, right? Well,
as a blogger, apart from loving the gorgeous food pictures that she posts, I
also like her way of writing the recipe. She writes recipes in such detail,
that there is no room for doubt for a reader. Her recipes are crisp and clear!
Thank you my dear, for giving me an
opportunity to post on your lovely blog! I'd like to share the recipe of
one of my favorite and comfort food of all time, plain vanilla cupcake. I
consider it as a comfort food because after having a piece of plain cake
everything appears to be like " a piece of cake"! I love plain
cakes in any form, be it cake, cupcake, muffin... I've seen many bloggers
writing about the Hummingbird Bakery's baking book. So I got one for myself
recently and this is the first recipe, I tried from the book. I'm pretty happy
with the outcome, because this is how I want my Vanilla Cupcake to taste and
feel. Hope you will also like it...
Vanilla CupCake -
Hummingbird Bakery Style
Yields 12-16 large cup cakes
Ingredients:
80 gms Unsalted butter, softened
280 gms Caster sugar (refer notes for
substitute)
240 gms Plain flour
1 tbsp Baking powder
1/4 tsp Salt
240 ml Whole milk @ room temp
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence
2 large Eggs @ room temp
Preparations:
Here is the step by step
picture...
Mix together the dry ingredients with an
electric whisk until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Mix together milk, essence and eggs in a
jug with a hand whisk. Add three-quarters of this to the dry mixture and mix
well...
Scrape down the sides of the bowl in between
to make sure all the ingredients are fully incorporated. Add the remaining milk
mixture and beat again, till you get a smooth batter.
Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners
and bake in the preheated oven for 18-20 mins or until the cakes feel springy
when you touch them.
Method:
1.Preheat the oven @ 180 C, for 10 mins,
before baking. Line a cupcake tin, with cupcake liners.
2. Using an electric whisk (use paddle
attachment, if using stand mixer), slowly beat together the butter, sugar,
flour, baking powder and salt until the ingredients are well mixed in and
resembles fine breadcrumbs.
3. Mix together milk, essence and eggs
by hand in a jug. With the whisk or mixer still on a low speed, pour three-quarters
of the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well, scraping down the
sides of the bowl to make sure all the ingredients are fully incorporated.
4. Add the rest of the milk mixture and
beat again, now on a medium speed, until you get a smooth batter.
5. Spoon the batter into the cupcake
cases, up to about two-thirds full. Place in the preheated oven and bake for
around 18-20 mins or until the sponge feels springy when you touch them.
6. Leave in tin for 10 mins. After that
remove the cupcake from the tin and let it cool completely.
7. You can frost it with vanilla butter
cream frosting/cream cheese frosting/chocolate butter cream frosting…
Notes:
1.
I got around 21 standard size cupcakes
with the above qty, but the book says you will get only 12-16. I guess it
depends on the size of your cupcake tin.
2. After adding the milk mixture, if the
batter appears to be curdled, dont worry, it will come out fine in the end.
3. Make sure you don't over bake the
cupcakes, otherwise it will become crusty.
4. I stored the cupcakes in an airtight
container @ room temp for 3-4 days.
5.You can also make it as a cake. Double
the qty to make a three 8 inch layered cake.