Recipe Post 2022 - No.1 Happy New Year !!

I am delighted to announce BakingBoutique is back for the New Year, ready to share a fool-proof, quick and easy recipe as part of the celebration of making it to a new year in good health (free of Co-Vid)!!!, Returning back to what feels like my own little corner of the internet, where I can share my creations and inspire others to bake is AMAZING!

One of my New Year Resolutions is re-establishing my hobbies and interests.  I am also striving to take care of myself and not to feel pressured or obliged to upload, especially if I am not in the right place to do so. As a result, I am no longer setting a strict upload deadline. I still aim to upload on weekends, however there will no longer be the pressure of posting weekly or bi-weekly. What matters most on BakingBoutique is being able to concoct new and interesting food combinations which are extraordinary and surprisingly goes well together all while sharing my culinary passion through tips and tricks I have picked up along the way :))

I hope you are all well and healthy in the New Year , and would also like to take up baking as a new hobby, or reinforce baking as part of your pastimes, aside from other things like watching Netflix or sitting around. Let's make 2022 count! 

Without further ado, let's start with this recipe of chocolate cupcakes:

100g of plain flour

20g of good quality cocoa powder

140g of caster sugar

1½ tsp of baking powder

¼ tsp of vanilla extract

120ml of whole milk

40g of unsalted butter (make sure it's at room temperature)

For the chocolate buttercream:

20g of cocoa powder

100g of unsalted butter

400g of icing sugar, sifted

Method:

Firstly, the cupcakes will not cook themselves, without the oven preheated at 180℃/ 160℃/ Gas Mark 4. 

Pour the flour, cocoa powder, butter, caster sugar, baking powder and a pinch of salt with either a free-standing electric mixer or handheld mixer. 

Beat on a slow speed under you get a sandy consistency as shown below:

Next, whisk the milk, egg and vanilla extract together in a jug. Be careful not to overbeat this, as it'll cause the cake to taste eggy.

Pour around half the milk mixture into the flour mix. Beat to combine at a high heat Scrape any mixture from the side of the bowl.

Pour in the remaining liquid and continue to mix for a few more minutes until the mixture is smooth. Once again, be carefully not to overbeat as it may cause all the air to be beaten out of the mix. 

 Distribute the mix into 12 paper cases, around two thirds full.

Bake in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, until skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave the cupcakes to cool slightly in the tray before turning out onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely.

I chose to decorate the cupcakes with piping the buttercream onto the cupcakes. For more information on icing techniques,  I'll leave a link at the end :)

I then embellished the icing with pearls which adds a extra sweet touch. However, I would believe as it is the New Year, adding sparklers to each cupcake certainly would be an option. 

Here are inserts of photos from the method, I have added the photos in chronological order, the first picture being step one and the last picture being the last step. 

   

Buttercream being whipped

  

Cupcakes with a cup of hot chocolate

 
 

My last thoughts...

Were any of you lucky enough to safely use and fire fireworks on New Years?

I did not need to turn on the TV with fireworks as the same display was happening in my back garden😂😂:

Link to icing techniques post: https://bakingboutiquebirds.blogspot.com/2016/03/baking-post-n08-piping-decorations.html

What are your New Years Resolutions? Let me know in the comments below, I would love to hear!!

That's all from me! Hope to see you again soon ,

#sweetreats xxx 

Baking Post N0.4- Plans for 2019 + Photos of Carrot Cake Bread

Bonjour à tous!

First of all, I believe this blog is way overdue a good sit down and chitchat on the current position of BakingBoutique and where I would like to go with this blog this year, alongside upcoming projects, fresh intentions and explanations. So grab yourself a hot drink, curl up with a blanket and keep reading!😊

Currently, BakingBoutique's been both evolving and thriving in many positive ways in terms of progressing with baking technique as well as knowledge. In addition to this, the constantly changing target audience has finally been narrowed down to a good 40 or so more of you which means I can easily tailor my posts around my audience. Despite all the positive aspects of BakingBoutique, there are elements to the expansion and dedication which has been lacking, in comparison to other years on this blog and needs to be thoroughly focused on. 

 I understand the reasons for the need of such elements is due to the "lack of a plan" and organisation of this blog. I believe in terms of passion and determination to post regularly, I have improved drastically and I've become more willing to commit to this blog in order to get the best out of it. After all, the effort you put in, eventually pays off in the end, which is what I'd like to eventually say when I look back on this blog in the posts to come.😊 Although, it's no longer a new year, I've decided to make three new year resolutions which I hope to consistently stick by throughout 2019:

1. Bake at least twice a month and post at least every other week( this means that not every post is necessarily a recipe but just a blog post about baking, or technique or a q&a or award nomination). I know some may be frustrated that I'm cutting down on the amount of time I'm uploading recipe posts with pcitures. Nevertheless, this system of uploading is more catered and realistic to me in particular. Without intentionally trying to sound cocky and egoistic, I've been baking fairly regularly for 3 and more years. With all this experience, I've developed a strong baking technique and practise which means I don't need to bake as regularly and instead can start to share my tips and knowledge with so you too can become a good baker.

2. Participate in more opportunities- for the past three years of blogging, I've been in this community ALONE. No collaborations. No sponsors. No events. No new opportunities. And as much as I've loved my blogging experience before, I want to venture and take new paths, go on different journeys,  and furtherly extend my blogging network and following. This includes collaborating with people, even if it means I have to reach out first and putting BakingBoutique out there more. I'll also go about doing this by creating more socials for this blog such as instagram, twitter and other social media sites. 

3. Undertake things on this blog which satisfies me- this is not me trying to be selfish. But instead, it means that now I have a narrower, and better idea of what my target audience is, I don't have to broaden my content to suit everyone except to suit the people who I WANT it to suit; and that includes me😁


All of these new year resolutions are goals I like to think of as realistic to space of time I have for this blog and the type of audience I present to. 😊 But despite on my goals for this blog, my ideas are not closed-minded, I'm very much open to fresh, good suggestions from all of you so feel free to drop me a line in the comments below on what changes or elements you'd like to see from this blog.😊 But with my year in education becoming increasingly intensive, your suggestions have to be adaptable to my time scheme, so keep that it mind.

Well enough is enough, here I bring you my pictures of my carrot cake bread:

 

 

 

Before you go...

To find out how to make this healthy carrot cake bread, click the link for the recipe→→

Recipe Post 2019 N0.3- Carrot Cake Bread

Happy Chinese New Year everyone!!

Song of the month: Ariana Grande 7 Rings

Let me know in the comments bar below what you would like to see next:

Charity of the month: Oxfam

This charity in particular help to fight global poverty and save the lives of millions of innocent, starved people. 



Ok that's it from me! Hope you enjoyed this little chitchat post and I'll see you soon.😊

#sweetreats xx

Baking Post 2019 N0.1- HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!🙌🎇🎆🎉🎊

First of, happy 2019 y'all!!!!! I can't believe we've made it through yet another year filled with laughter, happiness, obstacles as well many opportunities, aims, falls and also rises. Nevertheless, here we are for a new year filled with further aspirations, aims and flourishing even more. I hope you are all happy and well and refreshed for the fantastic year ahead of us all!

For BakingBoutique in particular 2018 was a year of falls and rises; falls being my inconsistency and failure to keep up to my promises and also rises such as my big Lemon and Elderflower bake, in admiration of Prince Harry and Meghan's wedding, and my gradual incorporation of healthier baking as well as being more inventive with my bakes. Although 2018 had its perks, there is an assortment of objectives I would like to achieve for this platform in particular, before I feel like enough is enough and my time on BakingBoutique will end. But likewise, I have so many ideas for this blog I simply don't know where to start. Because of this, I'm going to dedicate an entire post where I shall discuss my plans in fuller detail. For now, I bring you BakingBoutique's first recipe of 2019:

In order to assemble these tasty cake sale worthy treats, you'll need:

140g of caster sugar

40g of unsalted butter

1 egg

¼ tsp of vanilla extract

120g of plain flour

1 ½ tsp of baking powder

120ml of milk

1 tbsp of cocoa powder

50g of chocolate chips

For the icing:

250g of icing sugar

100g of unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

red food colouring

Steps to complete:

Firstly, pre-heat the oven to 170℃/150℃ fan/Gas Mark 3. With this, line a cupcake tin with cases before creaming together sugar and butter until light and fluffy.

Next, crack in the egg and the vanilla extract, whisking to combine. Add in about half of the flour, the baking powder, salt and once again whisk to combine. 

Incorporate half of the milk, whisk and repeat this with the remaining flour and milk.

Spoon about half the mix into a separate bowl, and add in the cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Stir well to combine.

Using a teaspoon, divide the chocolate mix between 12 cases, using a wooden skewer to spread the mixture evenly to the edges.

Rinse and dry the teaspoon, then repeat with the vanilla layer,take care not to disturb the chocolate layer below.

Bake this for 25 minutes and allow to cool slightly in the tin before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

To make the pretty icing to top the cupcakes, sift the icing sugar, then combine with the butter. 

Carefully add 1-2 drops of the food colouring, combining to make  a pale pink icing. When you cut the cake in half, the coloured layers should be revealed.

And volia!

*overall review of the cake* there were a few blips in the recipe, in terms in what the mixture's generally supposed to look like and then what it turns out as,for example, I've creamed butter and sugar together for many years and not once has it looked like the image below😖

Aside from that, the recipe was decent.😊











Snapshots:

 



Before you go...

What are your New Year Resolutions for 2019? I wanna know so be sure to drop a comment on what your goals are below↓↓

  

Quote of the month(one I think really relates to my state of mind and how I'm coming into 2019)

YouTuber of the month:

AJ Jacobs(when you can't think of what else to watch😆

Book of the month: Lady of Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Inspiration of the month *new* : Michelle Obama

With her brand new memoir "Becoming" released on November the 13th, it has sold more than 2 million copies, breaking the record of selling the most copies in 2018 in only 15 days. Her book strives to educate people about her roots and how she found the voice she has today. She's someone I look up to and hope to be as success as in the future.😊💕

Don't forget to add me on Snapchat and view my story(its open to the public) ++↓↓

I'm going to cut this ending short but once again happy 2019 and I wish you all the best!!!

Until next time,

#sweetreats xx 😘