Lingonberry Cream Cheese Brownie & TGIF

oOOos.. aaahHHhs..mMMMmmmmm..is ringing in my ears. Ultra dark, rich, moist, fudgey and satisfaction guarantee is my kind of comfort when sinking a bite into these LIGONBERRY CREAM CHEESE BROWNIE. Slightly mysterious looking aren't they, tantalizing the eyes, calling your name [Yes, you!] tempting and bewitching your mind to grab a slice. It might make you want to run off, locking yourself in the room, enjoying every single moment alone with them. Oh! don't let me stop you there, the star of the show is the light lingonberry marbled cream cheese making this rich fudgey brownie simply irresistible.

Baking Recipe: For Dad (Moist Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream)

This is what was left of the cake..

Now that I recall back, I've not had the privilege to back for my dad last year. I know on and off I do cook or bake, but since now that I'm blogging, it has given me more reason to cook and bake. I get to write about it, you get to read about it and not forgetting a pure treat on a weekly basis. A win-win situation after all. And as for the reasons? If you're interested..

1. To blog and share with you tested recipes [didn't I say that earlier?LOLs]
2. To share with you the joy of indulgence
3. Most importantly; is seeing my dad who enjoys what I baked for him and hearing all the sweet sweet compliments.

If you're a chocolate lover, then you will love this recipe. I love this chocolate cake recipe to bits. It's my trusty companion. Apart from the Hershey's Perfect Chocolate Cake recipe. Here's also another cake which I baked a couple months back using Martha's recipe. If you like creme de menthe buttercream with dark chocolate cake recipe, check out my Mr Persnickety Cake .

Whenever I'm craving for a chocolate cake, I either use Martha's or Hershey's recipe. Trust me, they will not fail you. To sum up, the recipe will give you a lusciously dark, moist, aromatic, melt in the mouth chocolate cake.

Recipe:

For the cake
adapted from Martha's Living Magazine
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (for my own cake, I used 3/4 dark cocoa powder + 3/4 dutch cocoa powder)
1 1/2 cups cake flour/ all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sour cream (since I had buttermilk, I substituted with butter milk)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract (for my own, I used approx. 2-3 tsp of vanilla extract)

To prepare dark moist chocolate cake:

1. Preheat over to 350 deg or approx 180 Celsius. Butter or use Wilton's cake release to coat an 8-by-12-inch cake pan. Line bottom with parchment.

2. Lightly whisk using a hand whisk to combine cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Then transfer to your stand mixer's mixing bowl. With a paddle attachment, mix in eggs, warm water, milk, sour cream or buttermilk, butter and vanilla extract. Keep mixing with medium speed until batter is smooth with no lumps.

3. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for approx. 35-40 minutes or a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cake cool for a bit before transferring onto a wire rack to complete cooling.

For the frosting:

6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped (or replace it with chocolate chips or buttons)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 stick unsalted butter
1/3 stick salted butter
4 tbsp vegetable shortening
6-7 tbsp powdered sugar
1/2 -1 tsp pure vanilla extract

To prepare frosting:

1. Place chopped chocolate, chocolate chips or buttons in a medium sized bowl. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil.

2. Immediately pour cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth. Let the ganache sit at room temperature until slightly firm (approx. 1 hour). With a whisk, whisk and beat the ganache until creamy smooth, light and stiff. Set a side.

3. Attach the paddle attachment of a stand mixer. Beat salted and unsalted butter together with vegetable shortening until light and fluffy. Add in the powdered sugar and continue to mix until well combined.

4. Fold in vanilla extract; and with a rubber spatula fold in whipped chocolate frosting into butter cream mixture. Gently fold and mix until combine. Place cream in refrigerator for about 10-15 minutes to set before spreading over the cake, if chocolate butter cream is too soft.

xx

Baking Recipe: Scrumptious Strawberry Tart

This is my very first time having my hands on making Strawberry Tarts. These little decadent tarts are one of my absolute favourite treats, apart from lemon meringue tart. Whenever I travel, I will constantly hunt down a local bakery or dessert shop to sample their tarts. And so far, they have done justice. Hopefully mine taste like summer too.. with loads of heart and love put into it ;).

Note: In my case, I couldn't locate my tart pan so I've decided to make smaller individual tarts using my muffin pan. The recipe below yields approximately 6-8 tarts, depending on the thickness of the shell.

Recipe

For the Crust/ Tart shell
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour, sifted
1/2 cup or 1 stick unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2-1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

To prepare crust/tart shell:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, blend flour, butter, 1/3 cup sugar and salt until moist crumbs form (this may take up to approx1-2 minutes).

2. Make sure to lightly grease pan with butter and sprinkle flour over the pan.

3. Transfer dough to a 9-inch round tart pan with a removable bottom or muffin pan.

4. With floured fingers, press dough evenly into pan and up sides. Dip a dry measuring cup in flour, and use it to press dough firmly into bottom and against sides of pan. Freeze crust until firm for about 10-15 minutes.

5. Using a form, prick crust all over. Bake until golden, 25-30 minutes, pressing down gently once or twice with a spoon during baking if crust puffs up. Let cool completely in pan before transferring on to wire rack, cake stand or platter.

For the Filling
*If using 9 inches tart pan

1 bar (8 ounces) philly cream cheese, softened
1/4 cup powdered or icing sugar
1-2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 to 2 pounds strawberries, hulled and halved
1/4 cup seedless red current jelly

**If using muffin pan

1/2 bar philly cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup whipping cream
4-6 tbsp powdered or icing sugar
3-4 tsp lemon juice
1/2 -1 tsp vanilla extract
15-16 strawberries, hulled
1/3 cup seedless red current jelly

To prepare filling:

1. With a whisk, whipped whipping cream until soft peak/ stiff consistency. Becareful to not over whip. Transfer to another bowl.

2. Using the same mixing bowl and now with a paddle attachment, mix cream cheese and icing sugar until well combined. Then add in lemon juice a teaspoon at a time and continue to mix and then fold in vanilla extract.

3. With a spatula, fold in half of the whipped cream to cream cheese mix until well combine and then fold in the rest of whipped cream. Gently fold the whipped cream making sure to not let it turn into liquid form.

To assemble strawberry tart:

1. You can choose to glaze the bottom of tart with melted dark/ milk chocolate. Melt chocolate chips with 2-3 teaspoons of milk in a microwave for about 35 seconds making sure to stir and not burn the chocolate. I glazed my tart with melted chocolate to prevent the filling to sip through the tart, making the shell soggy.

2. If you do glaze the bottom of tart, pop the tart shells back in the refridgerator for about 10-15 minutes or until glaze is set.

3. Spoon the filling into the tart shell, and top it with 3 whole and hulled strawberries to each tart.

4. In a small saucepan, heat jelly on medium low until liquefied or heat it in a microwave for 1 minute. Gently brush strawberries with jelly, let set at least 20 minutes. Thaw before serving, if tarts were chilled.

xx

Baking Recipe: Mr Persnickety (mint buttercream chocolate cake)

I just saw Elizabeth's comment asking "where have I been?" A shout out to Elizabeth... I'm BACK!!!! Well, I had a writers block. Not an excuse, but I was filled with so much work that my weekends became my lazy weekends.

Have you heard of Mr Men and Little Miss? I've always love these characters. They are just so cute and funny. My brother's birthday was back in March, and I thought to celebrate his day, I will bake him a cake. He loves to eat what I whip up or bake and has always been very supportive by giving me positive comments.

Since I've always spoilt my brother, it took me a while to piece the cake together. I'm from a family who LOVES chocolate cake expect for my dad who's the acceptional one. He's a cheese cake lover. Since it's not my dad's party,  obviously, I will make a rich and moist dark chocolate cake. The hard part was decorating the cake. It took me awhile but I recalled there's a character which fits my little brother really well,
Mr Persnickety. You'll see why later that this cake fits him.

This time round, instead of my Hershey's chocolate cake recipe, I decided to try out Martha Stewart's recipe which was published in her Living magazine, January 2009 her no# 182 edition.

Note: Now the recipe below is the original amount that is called for. For my cake, I've doubled up all the amount to make an 8-inches, 4 layer cake. This also includes the frosting. Otherwise Martha's recipe is ideal for just a single layer cake, or if you're an expert carver who can carve thinly in between layer, I will say 'kudos to you mate!'

Recipe:

For the cake

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (for my own cake, I used 3/4 dark cocoa powder + 3/4 dutch cocoa powder)
1 1/2 cups cake flour/ all purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup warm water
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 cup sour cream (since I had buttermilk, I substituted with butter milk)
1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract (for my own, I used approx. 2-3 tsp of vanilla extract)

To prepare dark moist chocolate cake:

1. Preheat over to 350 deg or approx 180 Celsius. Butter or use Wilton's cake release to coat an 8-by-12-inch cake pan. Line bottom with parchment.

2. Lightly whisk using a hand whisk to combine cocoa powder, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Then transfer to your stand mixer's mixing bowl. With a paddle attachment, mix in eggs, warm water, milk, sour cream or buttermilk, butter and vanilla extract. Keep mixing with medium speed until batter is smooth with no lumps.

3. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for approx. 35-40 minutes or a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cake cool for a bit before transferring onto a wire rack to complete cooling.

Note: Cake will keep up to a week, if unfrosted.

For the frosting:

2 large white eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes
2 1/2 tbsp creme de menthe/ mint extract (go easy on the mint extract and taste along as you go until you reach your desired flavour)
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1-2 drops of green food colouring (optional)

Note: To decorate, you can always opt for chocolate sprinkles, white sprinkles, Andes Creme de Menthe candies, After8 thin chocolates etc.

To prepare creme de menthe frosting:

1. Mix whites and sugar in a mixer bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Heat, whisking constantly until sugar dissolves for approx. 2-3 mins and mixture is warm.

2. Remove from heat. With a whisk attachment, whisk on high speed until stiff peaks form, for about 5 minutes. Add butter, several cubes at a time, whisking after each addition. Add creme de menthe, vanilla and food colouring, then beat for another 2 minutes, scrapping down sides of bowl when needed.

Enjoy!

xx