I love all bakes by Sonali, a Bengali food blogger (site: Sugaretal) based in Australia. Her style is flawless, and her choice of flavors always pleases me. Not too long ago she shared these mini-cakes, loaded with blueberries, made even more special by the final touch of a shell of chocolate. To bake them, I used the Silikomart mold Parfum.
MINI BLUEBERRY CAKES (very slightly modified from Sugaretal)
170g all-purpose flour 130g granulated sugar 1 + 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 egg, lightly whisked 1/2 cup milk 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1 tsp vanilla extract 1/3 cup fresh blueberries 1 cup white chocolate melts pink oil-soluble food color fondant decoration (optional)
Heat oven to 375 F. Lightly grease/spray 8 silicone molds.
Place flour, sugar and baking powder in a medium bowl. Add the egg, milk, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Whisk to combine. Fold in the blueberries.
Pour batter into mold. Bake for 20 to 25 mins or until fully cooked through. A toothpick must come out clean when inserted in the center of the cakes. Remove from the oven, let the cakes cool almost completely before attempting to remove them from the silicone molds. Wash the silicone pan and reserve, while the cakes sit on a rack to get completely cold.
To the melted chocolate, add pink color, and brush the inside of the silicone pan. Carefully place a cold mini cake inside the cavity, so that the chocolate coats the surface. Place in the fridge for 45 minutes or the freezer for 15 minutes, then carefully remove the cakes. Decorate if so desired, with fondant or a Royal icing flower.
Comments: So many possibilities with this technique! If you follow Sonali on Istagram (check her page here), you’ll see she has other variations using chocolate in the same basic approach. I can hardly wait to bake another batch. I will probably use my default recipe for brownie cupcakes, as it behaves well in different types of baking pans. The main thing to pay attention to is making sure the coating is fully set before the final un-molding. When in doubt, wait a little longer. It should come out very easily.
I’ve wanted to make a Simnel Cake for the longest time, since it is such a classic, but baking a large cake is not something I do very often. Cupcakes are a different story, easy to share, great to include in my weekly box of donations. I made a few changes from recipes I found in my cookbooks and online, keeping the details that matter in the original, larger version.
SIMNEL CUPCAKES (adapted from several sources)
100 marzipan 150g butter, softened 75g brown sugar 75g granulated sugar 2 large eggs, whisked 150g full-fat yoghurt zest of 1 Lemon 170g mixed dried fruits 175g all-purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt
To decorate 200g marzipan agave nectar to brush
Start by preparing the thin layer of marzipan that goes in the middle of the cupcakes. Divide the 100g in 12 little portions (about 8g each). Flatten them with your hands and stretch as a round that will fit inside your cupcakes. Mix the flour with baking powder and salt, reserve.
Heat the oven to 375F. Place paper liners inside the cupcake pan. Beat together the butter, sugars and lemon zest, until pale and light. Add the 2 eggs, slowly, whisking the batter well after each addition. Add the yoghurt, continue whisking. Add the flour mixture, incorporate gently, then add the dried fruit, folding until homogeneously mixed in.
Place a little cake batter in each cupcake liner, place the thin round of marzipan on top, press gently into the batter. Fill the cupcakes with more batter until 3/4 full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out slightly moist, with some crumbs attached. Allow the cupcakes to cool for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack.
When the cupcakes are cold, make the topping: roll out the fondant and cut rounds to cover the top. Make the layer as thin as possible. Use trimmings to make little balls. Attach the layer of marzipan to the cake by brushing a tiny amount of agave nectar on the cupcake, and pressing the marzipan over it. Place the little ball on top, using some agave nectar to help glue it in place. Run the cupcakes under a broiler to give some color to the marzipan. Pay close attention, because it goes from golden to burn a matter of seconds!
Comments: This is a delicious cake. The trickiest part is dealing with the marzipan, other than that, the recipe is quite straightforward. The mixture of fruit with the cake and the marzipan is a total winner. I highly recommend you give it a try. Plus, don’t they look just adorable? The cake stays fresh for a few days at room temperature, which is another big plus in my book…
This is a super simple bake, perfect for the season. Toughest part of the recipe? Cutting the mini-eggs in half. But don’t skip that step, it makes them better dispersed in the brownie batter and easier to cut after baking. Just be careful.
MINI-EGG BROWNIES (slightly modified from Kitchen Mason)
Lightly grease and line an 8 inch square baking pan with parchment paper, and heat the oven to 350F.
Measure half of the mini-eggs and cut in half.
Melt the butter with the chocolate in a microwave, gently. Let it cool slightly and add the eggs, whisking until fully smooth. Add the sugars, and beat until fully dissolved. Add the vanilla, salt, and sift the flour and cocoa powder on top. Gently fold the batter until no dry bits remain. Add HALF the mini-eggs preciously cut and HALF the whole mini-eggs. Mix briefly and pour the batter into the pan.
Distribute the remaining eggs (cut and whole) over the surface, gently pressing them a little bit into the batter.
Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is crispy and dry. Do not over-bake. Allow to fully cool before cutting in small squares.
Comments: Hard to come up with a simpler bake, apart from slicing the mini-eggs, it’s something you could do with kids. You can definitely use any brownie recipe you are fond of, and incorporate the mini-eggs the way this one does. But keep the basic recipe simple, this will be all about the little eggs dispersed in the brownie. Adorable little bake!
Baking in silicone pans can be tricky, so my advice is to always use a good quality product. I stand by Silikomart, all the way. If you’ve been around my blog for a while, you know that I never accept products to review, and only recommend things I love. This little pan makes the cutest, two-bite size cakes. I share today four different bakes using it. The most important thing is to bake a little longer than you would in a metal baking pan, and allow the cakes to fully cool before trying to un-mold them. You can even let them come to room temperature and then place the pan in the fridge for 10 minutes to ensure a perfect release. For all these bakes I used the Silikomart Savarin Mold, medium. Available here. I always spray the inside very lightly with PAM baking spray.
CHOCOLATE CHIP FINANCIER MINI-CAKES
CHOCOLATE CHIP FINANCIER MINI-CAKES (adapted from foodohfood)
80 g unsalted butter, diced 50 g almond flour 140 g powdered sugar 60 g all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp salt 150 g egg whites 50 g mini chocolate chips chocolate ganache, or melted chocolate and sprinkles for decoration
Heat oven to 360F.
Make the brown butter. Put the diced butter in a pan and melt it over low heat. Simmer the butter until the water is evaporated, it should get a light caramel color and a nutty smell. Pass it through a sieve and allow it to cool.
In a bowl, mix the almond flour, powdered sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Mix on low speed with the electric mixer or with the leaf attachment and gradually add the egg whites and then cold brown butter. Finally, add the chocolate chips. The batter is quite liquid, so use a piping bag to distribute it in the pan, filling almost 3/4 height.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 15 to 20 minutes, depending on your oven. Let it cool completely before un-molding. Fill the center with ganache or melted chocolate, or leave it plain. Decorate with sprinkles, if desired.
Comments: For the financier, filling not quite to the 3/4 height was perfect. I love the texture of these mini-cakes. You need tiny chocolate chips for this recipe (I’ve featured the ones I like in my last In My Kitchen post) If you don’t have it, cut regular chips in very small pieces. It is hard to pick a favorite, but these were truly delicious on all counts.
RED VELVET MINI-CAKES
Recipe used: America’s Test Kitchen Red Velvet as published in their book The Perfect Cake. I could not get permission to publish the recipe. If you have the book, my only change was to make half the amount. I still had batter leftover after making 10 mini-cakes, and that was enough for two regular size cupcakes. Recipe for the frosting below.
SMALL BATCH CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (adapted from several sources)
2 ounces cream cheese softened 2 ounces unsalted butter, softened 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 80g powdered sugar, or more if you prefer a stiffer frosting Pinch of salt
In a medium bowl, combine cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract. Beat until well-mixed and fluffy.
Add powdered sugar and salt and continue to beat until sugar is completely incorporated and frosting is smooth and creamy. For a stiffer frosting, add more powdered sugar. Add the frosting to the cavity of the mini-cakes, and decorate with sprinkles, if desired.
I used my default recipe for brownie cupcakes and it worked very well in this shape. I filled the center with ganache and added sprinkles, because as you know, sprinkles make life better.
Chop the chocolate and butter in pieces, place them in a microwave-safe bowl and melt at 50% power just until the chocolate is almost fully melted. Finish melting by whisking gently until smooth. Allow it to cool for 5 to 10 minutes.
In another bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder. Reserve.
To the melted chocolate, add the sugar and mix with a handheld mixer, when the sugar is incorporated (it won’t be smooth), add the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth, for a couple of minutes medium-speed. Gently sift the flour mixture on top, whisk just until the flour is incorporated and no dry bits can be found.
Fill each cavity of the savarin mold a little less than 3/4 full. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out slightly moist. Cool completely before un-molding.
Any of the icings I shared in my original post will work for these cupcakes, just pick sprinkles that match the flavor. But, for a simpler bake you can just dust them with powdered sugar. The shape is beautiful no matter now you finish it.
BLACK SESAME & CHAI MINI-CAKES
These cakes were made from a recipe found in the cookbook Masala and Meatballs, by Asha Shivakumar. I’ve had this book for several years and everything I made from it turned out excellent. I highly recommend it. For these mini-cakes, the batter takes black sesame paste, and I used my own icing from the Chai-Brownie Cupcake in this post. In Asha’s recipe, the icing was made with sweetened condensed milk as a base plus powdered sugar, so I opted for something a little less sweet.
I hope you’ll consider baking with little savarin molds, especially if you are sharing these with friends or co-workers. They are very small, and the format allows for just a little icing. I am always impressed by the beauty of iced cupcakes, but they can be quite over-indulgent. If you like to enjoy sweets but prefer some moderation, these have your name written all over…
Please, do not allow the vegan word to scare you away. This was one of the tastiest cakes I’ve ever made, and I simply cannot BELIEVE it is vegan. The recipe comes from Fran Costigan’s cookbook: Vegan Chocolate, Unapologetically Luscious and Decadent Dairy-free Chocolate Desserts. Ms. Costigan has decades of experience creating dairy-free cakes and concoctions that do not rely on margarine and tofu like most do. As she points out in the introduction of the book, you can always taste margarine in the icing, and tofu will never fail to make a cake heavy. This cake – included in her “Showstoppers” chapter – is a bit involved to make, but one of the things I love about her cookbook is that she lays out a timetable suggesting how you can break the process in stages in a smooth and efficient way. I made the cake, the vanilla custard cream, and the chocolate decorations two days before. Made the mousse, assembled the cake and covered with the glaze the day before showtime. Basically, the cake was ready and waiting in the fridge before we had to take it to a get-together with friends. All that was left to do was add the chocolate decorations. Piece of (vegan) cake!
CHERRY CHOCOLATE MIROIR CAKE (from Fran Costigan’s Vegan Chocolate)
RECIPE OVERVIEW
1 recipe for Chocolate Torte to Live For (click here), baked in a 9-inch round pan and cooled (can be made a couple of days in advance)
Other components
Soaked dry cherries
Vanilla Custard Cream: based on cashew cream and coconut milk, thickened with agar-agar
Magic Chocolate Mousse: water-ganache with a touch of olive oil, very interesting and quite tasty version
Comments: Vegan baking is not simple. Fran’s book takes that challenge and turns it into art. I don’t think it is right to publish the full recipe for such a complex cake, when so much work and effort went into its design and optimization. But the cake component, which by the way, stands beautifully on its own, can be made according to the recipe she published in her website (click here). In that version, the cake is covered with a vegan ganache and ends up very elegant in its simplicity. It remains as one of her most popular cakes, and having made it, I can understand why.
For the decorations, I tempered chocolate and used some of it to pipe designs on acetate sheet. The remaining I spread over transfer sheets (I get mine usually at bakedeco.com) and before it was fully set I cut small triangles. Fran’s version in the cookbook used fresh cherries covered in tempered chocolate, but they are not in season at the present time, so I went with my Plan B.
Everything works perfectly well in this cake, I would not change a thing. The cake is intensely chocolate-y, the two mousse components soften the overall taste. I really like the texture of glazes made with agar-agar instead of gelatin, find it a lot easier to work with and more reproducible. Gelatin-based glazes tend to get a bit slimy, particularly if sitting at room temperature for a while.
To get Fran’s cookbook – a must-have if you are into baking adventures – follow this link to amazon.
Bewitching Kitchen 