Pistachio Sour Cream Cake with Toffee Sauce

I'am baackk!! It's been months since my last post! A lot has happened in the past 4 moths .. I got busy with submissions, exams and then last minuet shopping for the week I spent in Turkey during my winter break.
A new semester has begun .. and not a lot of baking has been happening because of amount of work I have.

Anyways, here I am with an over the top - AMAZING - pistachio cake recipe that marries amazingly well with its toffee sauce.

The secret to this recipe is the kind of pistachios you use. I got mine from the Iranian village in the global village. The color of the pistachios is just amazing, it makes you want to just stair at them all day!

 I must say the toffee recipe isn't like most toffee sauces but no worries, it works.

Pistachio Cake

2 1/2 cups all p.flour

1 1/2 cups granulated white sugar

170g butter, room temp.

1 1/2 cups ground pistachios 

1 1/2 cups sour cream

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp powdered cardamom 

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp rose water (optional)

3 eggs, lightly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

preheat your open to 180 C (350 F), and butter and flour or spray your pan.

In a bowl mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cardamom, set aside. In another bowl lightly beat the eggs with vanilla and rose water.

Beat butter and sugar with your whist attachment until light and fluffy (about 5 minutes), gradually add the eggs and mix until completely incorporated (4 minutes), then add the sour cream.

Now with the paddle attachment  add the flour mixture in two batches and mix on low speed. Add the pistachios and mix until completely incorporated but remember do not over mix.

Bake for 55-60 minutes or until the knife comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes then invert onto your serving plate. Pour the toffee sauce on the cake while still hot.

Toffee sauce

40g Butter

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

170g fresh cream ( not whipping cream)

1/2 tsp vanilla

On low heat, melt the butter then add sugar. Keep on steering until caramelized. You might notice that the butter and melted sugar are not getting mixed but have faith. Add cream and mix well, remove from heat and add the vanilla.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

Its been a long time since my last post, to my few followers please forgive me for being busy with my studies. I'am supposed to be studying Art History instead of writing this post, but I'am kind of ignoring the fact that I have 117 terms, 67 pictures and 7 chapters to memorize all for monday, plus another exam yikes ! But I'll make it quick.


So I've been wanting to make a pumpkin anything since before halloween, and I was desperately looking for canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling). So as I was doing some pumpkin research, I found out that I could make pumpkin puree at home easily and I did! 


Its super simple, just wash your pumpkin,  remove all the gooey stuff from the inside, and cut it into equal sizes. Put the pumpkin in a roasting pan with a cup of water and bake it in a 400C oven for 45-60 minutes until the skin color turns deep orange and the pumpkin is tender. Scoop the flesh and mash it either by using a hand blender or a processor .
My pumpkin was small and it made 3 cups of puree, I used 1 cup for this cake and froze the rest (each cup alone) for future uses. 

Pumpkin SpiceCake (adapted from Joy of Baking):

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cups (270 grams) light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup (240 ml) fresh or canned pure pumpkin(about 1/2 of a 15 ounce can)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups (200 grams) sifted cake flour

1/4 teaspoonbaking powder

1 teaspoon (5 grams)baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup (120 ml) buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven.  Butter and flour (or spray with Baker's Joy) two - 8 inch (20 cm) cake pans. 

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 2-3 minutes).  Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the pumpkin puree and vanilla extract and beat until incorporated.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.  Add the flour mixture and buttermilk alternately to the pumpkin batter, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Divide the batter in half and then pour the batter into the prepared pans.  Bake for approximately 25 -30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes and then invert and remove the cakes from their pans.  Cool completely and frost with cream cheese frosting.

Note: when you add the pumpkin puree the batter might look separated and ugly, but don't worry it will look like normal cake batter once you add the flour. Always add flour and liquid mixture in 3 batches starting and ending with flour.

Have a great day pumpkins ^.^

Better late than never-pink post

i know I'am the worst blogger in updating my blog, but i didn't have time to post anything. 

Last Thursday Burjuman hosted the event "Cakes for a Cause" to rais money for the breast cancer awareness campaign Safe and Sound by selling different kinds of sweets and baked goods. This was my first event to attend with our group Fooderati Arabia (a group of UAE based food bloggers). 

Some pictures..

Arwa's Pink Lemonade cupcakes

Arwa's Falooda cupcakes

Yasmin's mini chocolate cupcakes

Dina Murali's mini strawberry & nutella cupcakes

Rebecca's Sacher Mini Tortes

Abigail Concepcion Caidoy's moist chocolate cupcakes

Meris's cheesecakes

Shafeena Yussuf Ali's heart-shaped strawberry cakes

Dina Murali's cake pops

My mini Vanilla cupcakes & mini  Raspberry cheesecakes

the crowd

and the twins came to support us too! <3

The event was a huge success and all of our baked goods were sold out! 
I had a great time and met great people :D. Thank you Arwa for organizing this event and thank you Dina, Rebecca, Zain, Abigail, Shafeena, Meris and Yasmin for getting those amazing cakes!
We did a great job! 

My family and I spent the weekend at our beach house and I got my self some cakes for breakfast, and Fatima from Vanilla Sukkar was very sweet and gave me a bag of her amazing chocolate chip cookies. 

Cinnamon chocolate chip coffee cake

Guests are coming over today and my mother asked me to do something sweet. So i opened the fridge and found some sour cream and without rethinking I decided to make this recipe.

This cake is very easy to make, you don't have to know anything about baking to make it.

Its super moist and very very soft!

You will need:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
1 1/3 cup sour cream
2/3 cup (130g) soft butter
3 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp vanilla 

For filling & toping:
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips


mix cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl and set aside.
lightly coat the chocolate chips with flour. I used mini chocolate chips since i didn't have the normal ones in hand

Just dump all the ingredients in your mixing bowl and mix for 3 minutes using the paddle attachment.

Line a 9-x-13-inch baking pan with parchment paper and spread half of the batter in your pan.

sprinkle with half of the cinnamon-sugar and 1/2 a cup of chocolate chip.

Spread the rest of the batter 

and again sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar and chocolate chip.

Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted and comes out clean and the top has a golden color.

The top will be flaky and have excess sugar.

Let the cake cool in the pan on top of a wire wrack the flip it on a wire wrack (take care excess sugar will fall of the cake)

Those mini chocolate chips are way too cute!

Let cool completely then cut and serve

Happy baking (:

Bridal shower cupcakes & a rose tutorial

On thursday I made "my first order" for my sister's friend who's getting married soon. The bride's younger sister planned a surprise bridal shower for her sister and asked me to make her some cupcake. After asking about what colors they want, which flavor, design ...etc. I decided the make her Devil's Food cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I decorated half of the cupcakes as a wedding dress and the other half was a simpler design with piped frosting and an easy marzipan red rose (made by my mother).


Rose tutorial: 

You'll need: 

• Marzipan or fondant
• Red gel food coloring
• small round cookie cutter or use the bottom of a piping tip
• rolling pin
• icing sugar
• small knife
• small clean paint brush

Start by tinning you marzipan and work with it until the color is evenly distributed

Dust your work surface and the piece of colored marzipan

Roll your marzipan 

Using the back of your piping tip or a cookie cutter, cut 5 circles.

Place the circles on top of each other.

Start by rolling from this end.

Roll.

and roll .. 

all the way till the end. 

Cut the rolled marzipan in half

and you'll get two roses !

Roll the bottom of each rose between your fingers and cut of the long end

Brush off any excess sugar

Bride-dress cupcakes

I had fun making those cupcakes, and I'am really thinking of opening a small home business. To bad I'am now very busy with all the university work and rarely have time for my blog, but i'll try my best to keep on adding new posts.

Until next time,

Maryam.

First post and first party cake

I finally made a page where i could post my recipes and what ever is kitchen/cooking/baking related things! I’ve been wanting to create a page since forever but finding the right name is what was keeping me from having one. But, i finally found one! Thanks to all my friends and relatives who suggested names i really appreciate it <3

So … most of my posts are going to be cooking related stuff maybe more on baking and i think i’ll also post some picture since I love photography as well.

Any how .. I don’t know what to write about my self, but if you want to know anything just ask.

I wrote this post weeks ago and saved as a draft on Tumblr, but I’ve been busy with my first week of university to continue writing it and what not. But i’ll try my best to keep on posting recipes and updating my page.

So, here it goes .. 

I’ve been planing to make someone a birthday cake for so long, but i never got the time. Few weeks ago i decided to make my cousin a birthday cake that looked kind of “professional”.

So because I’ve always wanted to try decorating with sugar paste, I went and bought Wilton’s sugar paste mix, 5-petal flower cutters and a fondant/gum paste tool set. I searched endlessly about how to make sugar paste roses, watched almost all the video tutorials and saved hundreds of pictures of decorated cakes.

I made gum paste roses and medium and mini flowers using small cookie cutters and added sugar pearls in the middle 

For the cake I made  Devil’s Food cupcake recipe from Magnolia’s Bakery book which was supper moist and fluffy! And covered the cake with whipped ganache.

For the bottom layer I used an 11" round pan, and for the top layer two 9" round pans

Recipe: Devil's Food Cupcakes (adapted from the book "More from Magnolia")

2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)

1 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

1 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated white sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature

2 tsp vanilla extract (i usually eye ball the vanilla since the one we have is not really strong)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180 C).

Line three 12-cup muffin tins (or in this case two 9" pans or one 11") with cupcake/parchment paper. Set aside.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on medium speed of an electric mixer using the paddle attachment, cream the butter until smooth. Add sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. With each addition beat until he ingredients are incorporated, but do not overbeat. Using a rubber spatula, scrape down the batter in the bowl, making sure the ingredients are well blended. 

If making cupcakes fill the tins about three-quarter full and bake for 25-30 minutes.

For two 9" pans, divide the batter between the pans and bake for 20-25 minutes.

for the 11" pan bake it for 30-35 minutes or until tooth pick inserted in the center of the cake and comes out clean.

For the ganache (This was enough for the 11" + two 9" pans)

400ml double cream

800g semisweet chocolate

2 tsp vanilla extract.

Chop the chocolate into small chunks, heat the cream just before it starts to boil. Pour the cream over the chocolate and let it sit for a while then add vanilla and stir. Let the mixture come to room temp then chill in the fridge until its very cold or else you wont be able to whip it. 

After the ganache is cooled put it in an electric mixer with the wire attachment and whip until fluffy.

Fill and decorate cooled cakes and enjoy!