Rose Water And Pistachio Cupcakes

I would like to start this post by declaring that my new favorite flavors are Pistachios and Rose Water... besides chocolate of-course! Off-late I have been noticing a lot of pistachio or rosewater based desserts around me. I guess it was in my sub-conscience when I chose to try this recipe. How it really came together is a longer story and an interconnection of other sub-stories... hehe. Also, thanks to my husband for the awesome photos!

About a year back a friend of mine was going through a book called "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World" and she was extremely excited about the Rosewater, Pistachio with Cardamom Cupcakes recipe. And she wanted to bake it for some special occasion that was coming up,but her being a medical student, as you can imagine, she couldn't get to it and I forgot about it.

I went to India for 2 months this summer, and on my way back, I picked up a tonne of pistachios from Dubai. Ever since I got back I have been on the quest to make some desserts based off pistachios (If you've not already noticed the pattern - I generally tend to buy many ingredients before knowing what i'll make with them.. hoarder tendencies!!)

Recently a friend had a baby shower. Both she & her hubby are not big fans of chocolate (yes, I am friends with such kinds of people too!! :P). I went on a mission to make some exotic flavored cake/cupcake which they would like. It all pieced together and I decided to make these beauties. It was the best decision ever! That's it for the saga.. now over to the recipe before you kick me...

P.S - I decided to graduate to a double digit number of posts on this blog, to mark the milestone of crossing 5000 hits!

P.P.S - I would also like to wish my dear friend Madhuri's Cook-curry Nook a super happy birthday :D and here is hoping for many more to come :)- Cheers!

Now over to the recipe. Really!

Ingredients:
Recipe is adapted from here

1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 Tsp Baking Powder
1/8 th Tsp Salt
3 Tbsp Finely Ground Pistachios ( you can grind it in a food processor)
3 Tbsp Butter, Unsalted at room temperature
1/2 Cup Milk
1 Large Egg, at room temperature
1/4 th Tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp Rosewater (Make it 1 Tbsp If you do not want the flavor to be very obvious, I added 2 Tbsp and it was just perfect )

• Preheat oven to 325 F and line a muffin pan with liners or grease it with some butter.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer or a large mixing bowl whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, pistachio powder.
• Add butter and beat on medium till the mixture is sandy in texture.
• In a medium mixing bowl whisk together milk, egg, vanilla extract, and rose water.
• Add the liquid mixture to the dry ingredients slowly. Once all of it has been added, beat on medium speed for some 30 seconds till well incorporated.
• Scoop out the mixture into the muffin pan cavitiestill its 2/3rd full. A note here: I might have filled it to more than 2/3rds, so this recipe yielded only 10 cupcakes.
• Bake for 20-25 minutes or till a toothpick inserted in comes out clean.
• Cool on a cooling rack completely before frosting.

For the Frosting:

Recipe Source : My own
1 Cup Heavy Whipping Cream,cold
2 Tbsp Granulated sugar
2 Tbsp Confectioners Sugar
1 Tsp Rose Water
2-3 Tbsp Finely Ground Pistachios
Pink Food Coloring (Optional)

For garnish: (Optional)
2-3 Tbsp of roughly chopped pistachios or you could even use whole pistachios

• Chill the bowl of the stand mixer and the whisk.
• Add the cream and beat on low till the cream is frothy. Add the granulated sugar and beat on medium high until the cream forms light peaks.
• Add the confectioners sugar, and the rosewater and beat on medium high until the mixture forms stiff peaks.
• Gently fold in the ground pistachios, but ensure it is mixed evenly.
• You are now ready to frost your cupcakes. You can pipe it onto them or just use an offset spatula and spread the frosting. If you have any left from all the "tasting" ;).... you can garnish with chopped pistachios or whole pistachios.

The cupcakes were delicious and were moist and had lovely texture, thanks to the ground pistachio. This cupcake had a delicate flavor to it and were a big hit at my friend's baby shower. As I declared earlier, Rose Water and Pistachios are my new favorites. Not only the flavor, I also thoroughly enjoyed working with these two ingredients!!

Glazed Lemon-Blueberry Cream Scones (Eggless)

Every time I go to a bakery, cafe or a coffee shop I always end up getting something chocolate to munch along with my cuppa chai. If I got a second pick I would go for scones. This one time I decided to skip the chocolate (blashpemy! :O) and picked up the scones. It was definitely not chocolate, but it took me to another planet of bliss! Ever since then I have been looking for an opportunity to make them at home.

The Opportunity:At work, my husband is part of a "Breakfast Club" where team members take turns bringing breakfast on Fridays, and it was his turn this one week. So, this recurring event, is a perfect opportunity for me to try making some new type of breakfast items. I will share some of those other recipes later. Also, for Cafe Casa, we had to come up with a side eat to go with our beverage. So, everything had lined up perfectly for making scones. On hind sight, the breakfast club was unnecessary, I could have easily polished off the entire batch of scones without any help ;)

I made the traditional English scones, which are less sweeter than the American variety. The english variety is usually had with toppings such as jam/jelly to add sweetness. The American variety on the the other hand, is eaten as is, and the sweetness is hence baked in.

Recipe source: Baking Illustrated

Ingredients:
For Scones:
2 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
3 Tbsp Sugar
1/2 Tsp Salt
5 Tbsp Cold, Unsalted Butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup Blueberries, Fresh (I used a frozen variety for the first batch and it was a disaster! not the taste, but the appearance of it! They looked like Smurf scones!!! I recommend buying fresh blueberries if you can)
1 Cup Heavy Cream, Cold
1 Tsp Lemon Zest

For Glaze:(Optional)
1 Tbsp Heavy Cream
1 Tbsp Sugar

• Preheat the over to 425 F/ 218- 220 C
• In a large mixing bowl whisk the flour, baking powder,sugar and salt. Else, process in your food processor with quick pulses.
• Add the lemon zest
• If making by hand, use 2 knives, a pastry blender, or your finger tips, and quickly cut in the butter till the mixture resembles coarse meal with a few skightly larger lumps.If using a food processor , distribute the butter evenly over the dry ingredients and process with twelve 1-second pulses.
• Add the blueberries and quickly, but gently, mix in.
• Stir in heavy cream with rubber spatula or fork until the dough begins to form, this takes about 30 secons- 1 minute
• Place the dough on a floured surface and very gently knead it, until it comes together into a rough and slightly sticky ball.

Remember, all the steps above once the mixing starts, needs to be done very quickly and moved to the cake pan for baking in a relatively cold state to avoid the scones ending up being hard and flat. Another alternative is to make the dough and quickly transferred to the refrigerator for 1-2 hrs before baking.

• Press the dough into a 8-inch cake pan, then turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface.
• With a sharp knife or bench scraper, cut the dough into 8 wedges.
• Place the wedges on an un-greased baking sheet.
• Brush the tops of the scones with heavy cream and sprinkling them with sugar just before baking them.
• Bake until the scone tips are light brown - some 12 to 15 minutes.

• Cool on a cooling rack for atleast 10 minutes, then watch them vanish in record time!

Latte - Starbucks style! (Chai Tea Latte)

Coffee. Hmm mm? It's probably the most consumed beverage in the world! Too bad I don't contribute to that consumption.... I am a tea drinker. I do not like the smell of coffee and I have never had coffee in my entire life. By never, I mean never had coffee as a beverage. I have had coffee bite (coffee bite is a coffee flavored toffee available in India) when I was a kid, and I really did not like it unlike most kids. Coffee drinkers give me the she-must-be-out-of-her-mind look when I mention my preference of tea over coffee. Why this rant about coffee?... This month's theme for FSB is -Cafe Casa, picked by Deepti. We basically had to concoct our favorite cafe drink along with a side eat. Who doesn't love to munch stuff along with their favorite beverage??? Since I am not a coffee drinker, I chose to to figure out making Chai Tea Latte, inspired by Starbucks.

When I first came to the US, I was under the impression that most Americans drink all their tea black, without sugar or milk. This one time at Starbucks I saw "Chai Tea Latte" as an option on the menu and I inquired about it. The Barista described it as a spiced tea with milk. I was super happy and gathered it was like 'Masala Chai' and tried it out. I made sure I got the smallest size which is still the size of the big glass I have milkshake in! It was not anything like the 'Masala Chai' that you make at home, but I liked it.. and ever since, I have been hooked.

Last year while visiting my cousin and his family, his wife introduced me to "TAZO Tea Concentrate". Having worked at Starbucks as a manager long back, she explained to me that Starbucks used this to make their Chai Tea Latte. We followed the instructions on the pack (not really!) and it came out quite terrible. It was a struggle trying to get it right and we somehow finished that carton. So, after vaguely recollecting the consistency and flavor of the TAZO concentrate, I decided to make my own Chai Tea Latte this month. Here is the recipe for you, so you can make Starbucks style Chai Tea Latte at home when you crave for it!

Ingredients:
(Makes 2 small cups of Chai)

For chai latte concentrate:
Water - 1/4 cup
Milk - 1/8th - 1/4th cup
Sugar - 2 tsp Or add as per your preference. The Starbucks chai is a bit on the sweeter side.
Cloves, Whole - 4
Cardamom, Whole - 2-3
Cinnamon - 1 Inch Piece
*Peppercorns - 2-3. Include this if you feel adventurous. I have tried this variant and the results were very good, specially if you have a cold or a sore throat!
Tea powder - 1.5 Tsp ( I used the Indian leaf variety, Taj Mahal  ) Else you could use 2 regular tea bags.

Steps:

• Pound together the cloves, cardamom, cinnamon, and peppercorn (if you opted to include it) with a mortal and pestle. Else you could just grind it up in your food processor or even use a hammer or some heavy object to pound it with contents between a folded paper.

• In a small saucepan add the water, milk,sugar and the pounded spices. Allow it to boil. You will notice that the color of the concoction is a pinkish-brown hue. If you feel that the liquid has evaporated, you could add some water. 

• Once It boils over turn the flame to the medium, and add the tea powder/ tea bags.

• It is not typically recommended to boil tea, however, since we need to create a concentrate, let the above-mentioned mixture boil for a few seconds. Turn off the heat and set aside.

Other Ingredients/ apparatus needed for assembling the chai latte:

2 coffee mugs

Cold milk - 3/4 cup

A tea strainer

Coffee Frother Jug
Milk Frother/ steamer

• Strain the "Tazo" chai tea latte concentrate into the two cups

• Take the cold milk in a frother jug and steam it using a milk frother (the attachment that typically comes with an Espresso machine) till it reaches some 150 F (slightly hotter than drinking temperature). You will notice that the milk has a very foamy texture. That is what baristas call "Micro Foam". This foam does not become flat. The foam holds up. It is necessary to start with cold milk to get micro foam.

• Slowly pour the foamy milk into to the two cups with the concentrate. While pouring out, gently shake the jug, so that the foam doesn't remain in the jug.

Here is a video to better explain the frothing and addition of milk.

For those of you who do not have the steamer or you do not want to use a steamer you can have a look at this video... A wonderful find by Deepti.

You can also get yourself one of these. Ikea / World Market have it for 3-4$ - cheap and effective!


See what else is happening at Cafe FSB - Anu, Deepti, DK, Lata, Mads, Nags, and Siri