My Cupcake Notebook

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

DIY: Colored Sugar

Hello everyone!

Today's "do-it-yourself" is very easy. You barely will use the oven and it has endless possibilities.

Surely you must have seen those little colored sugar packages in the supermarket. And you may have thought that, considering they are nothing more than sugar with some food coloring, they are kind of overpriced.

I mean, it's just sugar, right??

In this step-by-step I have only used pink food coloring. The same color has produced four different shades of pink, the only difference being the amount of dye used in each batch.

DIY: Colored Sugar

Ingredientes (yields 100g colored sugar)

100g sugar
Paste food colouring
Water

Directions

Mix in a small glass, a couple of drops of paste food coloring with a little bit of water (half a teaspoon).

Pour the sugar in a bowl and sprinkle it with a couple of drops of food coloring. Mix well. The intensity of the color will depend on how much you put. You can start with a soft color so you can darken it little by little.

Take 25g of the already dyed sugar and put it in a small jar. This sugar won't stick in your fingers when you touch it; this means that can be stored directly.
Add more colouring to the sugar still in the bowl. When we have reached another desired color, take 25g more and place it in a cake pan or baking tray, previously covered with baking paper. Repeat this step as many times as different colors you want to do.
The sugar must be well distributed on the tray in order to avoid the formation of lumps.

Pre-heat the oven at 50ºC (122ºF) and put the trays at mid height for 10 minutes. Bear in mind that the more coloring you have put in the sugar, the more wet will be and it will need more time. However, you should bake it for more much time than those 10 minutes since it could melt. If, when the 10 minutes have passed, the sugar is still too wet, break the sugar lumps with a knife and put the tray in the oven for 5 more minutes.
When you take the sugar out of the oven, it will have formed lumps. Pour them in a bowl and mix them with a spoon, they will break easily. Touch the sugar with your fingers to make sure that is completely dry.
Keep it in the glass jars, in a dry and cool place.

Now you have seen how easy it is. And you can do it with any color you want!

Here's the link with the pdf: DIY: Colored Sugar

Anna

Spooked Cookies

Hello everyone!!

It seems that Autumn finally has come to Barcelona. I say that because a week ago we could still wear shorts on the street. It's not like we have had a very drastic change of weather but still, you can feel it.

Autumn implies, inevitably, Halloween. Even though it's not a tradition here- our custom is to eat roasted chestnuts and Panellets- there is more and more people who dress up during this magical night.

Hence the poor cookies are terrified!

Stop scaring them!

Keep reading

Sunday, November 2, 2014

DIY: Blackberry Jam and Syrup

Hello everyone!

If the last two recipes are any indication, you will know that I have been in possession of a good amount of blackberries lately. The main culprit is my sister's dog, Curro, who happens to be an excellent blackberry hunter! Just look at him! He even chooses the ripest ones!

We only had a small container but it was enough for at least 4 cakes and then some. But, of course, the blackberries would have ended going bad if I kept waiting for another recipe to inspire me.

Of course, jam was the answer. But not any recipe. I looked for ideas in Pinterest and found this Blackberry Simple Syrup by Living better together. I did not, however, follow her recipe completely, and I ended up not only with syrup but also with a small jar of jam.

I used this jam in my last cake, Chocolate and Blackberry Cake, as a filling. It gives a touch of bitterness to the sweet flavour of chocolate and cream cheese frosting.