Baking Reunion

Every time that I am home, I almost always meet up with one of my really good high school friend and we do nothing but bake and bake and bake some more. Check out the past two baking bonazas here and here. This time, we figured it was time to branch out into something away from the usual cookies and truffles. Of course, I settled on cupcakes which really aren't much of a deviation.  Anyways, with all the hoo-ray around cupcakes for the past year and red velvet being a constant favorite, I figured I should give the Southern classic a spin. Here's a great article on the cupcakes from the New York Times. [Recipe courtesy of Brown Eyed Baker]

Ingredients:

4 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2½ tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
3 tbsp red food coloring
½ tsp vanilla extract
½ cup buttermilk
1 cup + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp baking soda
1½ tsp distilled white vinegar [of course I was too lazy to look for white vinegar so I just used Asian vinegar]

I love gathering all of the ingredients from the pantry before every baking expedition.

Creaming egg, sugar and butter

Adding Ghiardelli Cocoa.

Adding a lot of red food dye.

Mixing in the dry ingredients.

So much redness.

Baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Cream Cheese Icing. I hate hate hate super sweet icing so we cut the powdered sugar content in half which made the icing kind of runny. They looked cute but not cute enough...

Chocolate was the perfect solution.

Before the drizzled chocolate, too impatient  and hungry

My overall opinion is that I am still not the biggest fan of cupcakes since it seems to be the icing that just makes it taste really good. Then again, maybe its just because I'm not very good at making them :p

Banana Bread
One baked good I can make without fail though is banana which even my mom likes even though she hated desserts when we first came to America. Now she eats all of my baked goods. lol. Thanks for the support mom :o

2 mashed bananas, 1/2 cup of oil & 1 egg

1.5 cups of white sugar, 1.75 cup of white flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1 tsp of all spice.

Makes two smallish loaves.

Mmmm golden brown crust.

Used the left over cream cheese frosting and dusted with some powdered sugar.

SO, I am presently in New York and although I've only been here for 1 day, I am totally and completely in love. I did not anticipate however, that NYC would seem this overwhelming! Fortunately, I have a whole week to get acclimated before starting work. The internet in our apartment has been absolutely terrible so I haven't had to post all of the things I have been meaning to. I will probably just start making the posts really long since I can only blog when I run to a nearby cafe. Next post will feature a bon voyage dinner and the first brunch in the city!