Bouchon Bakery Blueberry Muffin

 

Have you heard of Bouchon Bakery? I haven't until I came across their recipe book when I was browsing the baking section on amazon.com. Bouchon Bakery is the brainchild of Thomas Keller who started The French Laundry, a fine dining restaurant in California.

After years of getting their supply of dinner rolls from a family-run bakery, Keller started his own bakery to cope with the increasing demands for breads from the growing number of restaurants he owns. Bouchon Bakery is headed by the ever so charming and French Sebastien Rouxel. Love his accent  especially when he pronouns "colour" in one of the youtube videos.

So happy that successful chefs like them are willing to share their knowledge and experience with us ordinary home bakers (for a fee of course - RM200, Kinokuniya / US$31, Amazon). 

Strawberry White Chocolate Cupcakes - All-time favourite

A strawberry dream of strawberry pieces, strawberry jam and decadent white chocolate swirled in yellow cake and topped with white chocolate icing and a fresh strawberry

This is the second time I'm trying out a recipe from Beautiful Cupcakes by Kevin Chai. If you're a lover of cupcakes, this is a book you ought to have. Apart from brimming with gorgeous pictures, you can tell that quite a lot of thought have been put into the book as the decorations really complements the flavour of the cupcakes. I like admiring the beautiful pictures and studying the process to see if the recipe works or not.


For me, nothing beats strawberry and white chocolate. My weakness during uni years was Sainsbury's raspberry and white chocolate giant soft cookies. Just had to get them each time I pick up some groceries. Be it raspberries or strawberries, I love the white chocolate combo with either of the red berries.

Women's Weekly Turkish Delight Cupcakes

Rose scented cupcake is a nice addition to your conventional raya goodies and lovely for romantic weddings

If you are lost as to what to bake for raya, may I suggest instead of the conventional kuih raya, try baking some rose scented turkish delight cupcakes. Even as I speak, a lot of baking and cooking are underway in thousands of kitchens in Malaysia in conjunction with Hari Raya Aidilfitri. I love it that in a multi-racial country, we are blessed with the opportunity to celebrate and experience the diversity of different cultures. 

This recipe is from Women's Weekly Cupcakes. According to the front cover, the recipes have been triple tested for guaranteed result. This turkish delight recipe is the first recipe I tried from this book. 
 

All went well until the cupcakes were in the oven. They started overflowing and when I got the cupcakes out of the oven they sank. All I got was miserable looking cupcakes not like the perfect one shown in the book. However, all is not lost. With a bit of help from my mum, we improved the recipe. I tried the recipe again the next day.

Surprise Inside Red Velvet Cupcakes

I wanted to do a fun project for the weekend. After some googling I came across what is known as a surprise inside cake. It's like a cake within a cake.  I decided to try out one of the easy to do surprise inside cakes with a heart shape cut-out. This cupcake is perfect to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake Recipe - Part 2

Mmm... I know you want that cake, cake, cake, cake ...

After Mum and I got the Madagascar Vanilla Bean Paste I have been itching to try the Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake recipe which I found when I first started this blog. The recipe for the cupcake is adapted from the Cupcake Project website and is as follows:-

Trying Out The Ultimate Vanilla Cupcake Recipe by The Cupcake Project

The Ultimate Vanilla bee-stung-lips-smiley Cupcakes

There is a cupcake fever at home! Mum has been baking cupcakes for two days straight now, albeit in small quantities. On Monday, she baked her delicious carrot walnut cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. She wanted me to try her cupcake and compared it with my (failed) choco coffee cupcakes. Well, the point she was making is that my cupcakes were dry and brittle as compared to her light and fluffy cakes. She thinks it is due to the way I beat the butter and sugar or that I did not beat them long enough. I still think it was because I did not take out the cupcakes from the pan to let them cool. Sorry no pictures of the carrot walnut cupcake because it is already in my stomach (or maybe out already).

Then on Tuesday night when I came home from work, Mum presented me with her blueberry cupcake in cute orange polka dot baking cups. You see, normally when Mum bakes for the household, she will use just any type of cupcake liners since she focuses more on the taste of the cake. I was pleasantly surprised with the effort she made in the presentation of the cupcake yesterday. I tasted some of the cake and as expected it was light, fluffy and delicious!

Choco Coffee Cupcakes - adapted from Kevin Chai Beautiful Cupcakes

The finished product. Thankfully Mum has this convenient cupcake holders for me to carry the cupcakes to work.

A few weeks ago, after I told Mum that I wanted to try out some basic cupcake decorating she made an impromptu purchase of a cupcake recipe book at the newspapers agent near the place she goes for facial. The book, Beautiful Cupcakes, recipes by Kevin Chai is filled with photos of gorgeous cupcakes along with their respective recipes.