Chocolate Cupcakes

When I was little, my mom baked cupcakes like crazy - for birthdays, for bible club, for sunday school, for scripture union, for school, for friends, etc. They were delicious little vanilla things, to be sure, but the problem was that I have always been a chocolate lover of note.

Enter celiac disease, and my taste for chocolate grew even more rapidly because, before there were fantastic gluten-free flour mixes (the correct ratio of gf flours is paramount for a successful outcome), there were excellent Lindt chocolates that were gluten-free.

Times have changed in recent years, with a greater variety of finely-milled gf flours available in South Africa. Therefore, more and more often, I find myself turning my hand to baking as a weekend hobby, as well as a healthier option to store-bought sweeties (I figure, at least I know what I'm putting in it and how much!)

It was with great joy that I stumbled upon a blog called He-Eats while googling for chocolate cupcake recipes, and boy did I hit the mother load! Obviously, I had to de-gluten them, but nevertheless, these cupcakes came out so moist and chocolatey that it's difficult to do them justice in terms of a description (and they get even yummier if stored in an airtight container overnight in the fridge).

So now I get to have my (gf) (chocolate) (cup)cake and eat it too!

Chocolate Cupcake Recipe
Gluten-Free:
Adapted from an online Martha Stewart recipe
(made 21 cupcakes)

Cupcake Ingredients:

• ¾ cup (187.5ml) cocoa powder
• ¾ cup (187.5ml) flour (Nature's Choice GF Cake Flour works reliably)
• ½ tsp (2.5ml) baking powder OR ½ tsp (2.5ml) bicarb (acidity of sour cream/yoghurt is sufficient to activate the bicarb)
  
• ¼ tsp salt
• ¾ cup (1½ US sticks = 169.5g) unsalted butter at room temp
• 1 cup (250ml) caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tsp (5ml) vanilla extract
• ½ cup (125ml) sour cream OR full-cream yoghurt (I have made a batch using each option, and the change to yoghurt does not affect the moistness of the final product)

Method:

• Preheat oven to 350F / 175C. Line 12-Cup muffin pan with cupcake liners.
• Sift together the Cocoa, Flour, Baking Powder and salt into a medium bowl; set aside.
• Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• With the mixer on low add the flour mixture in two additions alternating with the sour cream .
• Divide the batter into cups filling about 1/2 full. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean (original recipe says 20-25 mins, but mine only took 15 mins at 175 degrees Celsius!)
• Cool in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer the cakes to cool completely, on a wire rack. Ice the cupcakes with ganache or your icing of choice once fully cooled. Typically, ganache is dark chocolate (50 - 70% cocoa solids) and cream in a 2:1 ratio, slowly melted over a very low heat, sometimes finished with a dot of butter for a nice sheen.

Pre-icing...

Post-icing & dusted with cocoa powder...

Lemony Goodness

I love the versatility of lemons. From salad dressings to lemonades to cakes, these yellow beauties never disappoint in dispersing their characteristic zing.

Lemon Yoghurt Cake Recipe
Gluten-Free:
Adapted from a recipe out of The New Cook by Donna Hay
(serves 8)

Ingredients:

• 125g butter
  
• 1 cup caster sugar
  
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  
• 1 cup thick, plain yoghurt
• 3 Tblsp lemon juice
• 1 Tblsp lemon rind, finely grated
• 2.5 cups gluten-free flour
• 0.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method:

1. Place butter and sugar in a bowl, and beat till light and creamy.
2. Add eggs and beat well.
3. Stir yoghurt, lemon juice, lemon rind, flour, and bicarb into the butter and eggs. Mix lightly to combine.
4. Spoon into a greased (or lined) 20 - 23 cm round cake tin. Bake at 175 degrees Celsius for 45 minutes (inserted skewer must come out clean).

Ingredients for Lemon Syrup:

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup water
• 3 Tblsp lemon juice
• rind of 1 lemon, finely grated

Method:

1. Place ingredients in a pot and stir over a low heat till dissolved.
2. Simmer for 4 minutes then pour over the cake while it is still hot and in the cake tin.
3. Allow cake to stand for 5 minutes and then remove from the tin.
4. Serve with a dollop of thick, plain yoghurt.

Born-up-a-gluten-free-tree!

Good Things: T - Z

Tea

Umbrellas

Verandahs

Wellington boots

Xmas

Yams

Zucchini

Good Things: O - S

Olive Oil

Paternoster

Quasars

Red Shoes

Scarves for Dogs

Good Things: J - N

Jamie Oliver

Kisses

Love Letters

Masala Dosa

Nutella

Good Things: F - I

Foxenburg Estate's Goat's Milk Strawberry
Fromage de Chevre

Greenness

Hats
Ixia

Good Things: A - E

Awesome views

Butterfly tablecloths

Cacao nibs
Dachshund bookends

Eccentric toys

More cinnamon please...

This has got to be one of my all-time favourite healthy gluten-free breakfasts/desserts/snacks, which when made by my sweetie-pie hubby always tastes a million times better than if I had to make it myself (it must be the love).

It consists of:

• slices of organic banana;
• lots of cinnamon;
• crushed pecan nuts; and
• a dollop of double-cream plain yoghurt.

Go ahead and try it - you might just be pleasantly surprised at how tastily it destroys sugar cravings!

HB Pencils and Nostalgia

My thanks to Miss M over at About Last Night for inspiring today's post...
I used to collect pencils when I was little. Everywhere I went, I collected decorated HB pencils. My parents continually bought me whole sets of stationary after a new Disney movie had come out just so that I could get the one or two pencils included with the themed ruler, eraser and pencil bag.

This particular collecting-mania stopped around the age of eleven (end of grade five/beginning of grade six), the fateful age where my dolls were packed away because I considered myself a 'big girl' now. So, too, the pencil collection met the same fate and was packed away into some dark recess of my childhood bedroom cupboard.

At around the age of twenty, I found my collection of around 80 or so pencils during a cleaning spree and decided to donate them to my Mom, who at the time was teaching life-skills classes at underprivileged schools where kids couldn't even afford a pencil. Out went the pencils without a second thought.

Eight years later, at the age of 28 and now a teacher myself, I often find myself bemusedly scrounging for an HB pencil to correct Biology drawings with in practical classes because I now only own one (and I often forget it at home!)

Reading Miss M's post, I thought back with nostalgia to my quirky pencil collection...the Tiggers and Poohs, the hedgehogs and horses, the Mickeys and Donalds and Pocahontases. I thought about how often over the years I had purged items from my past to various charities, only to think back about it with a twinge of regret; while at the same time knowing that in the moment, it was the best decision to get rid of the extraneous "stuff" in order to feel lighter.

I like to think those pencils went to good homes. That they were sharpened and chewed and dropped and broken and used down to little stubby stumps of lead, instead of just being kept in a childhood cupboard. But most of all, I like to think back to the fact that each one had a story attached from my childhood without the new owner even knowing it. And even though I may not have the pencils now that I need them, I do have the memories of how I came to own each one, and that's enough.

Red

I love the colour red.
It reminds me of passion; vibrance; romance; and daring;
as well as the very essence of our life-force, our blood.