Nowruz Cupcakes

These are the cupcakes I made and decorated for the Persian New Year, Nowruz.

The two little fellas in the back are Amoo Nowruz and Haji Firouz.

They're plain cupcakes with orange flavor. If you'd like to make yourself some, here's how to:

This recipe makes 12 small cupcakes.

The ingredients:

♥ 2 eggs

♥ 1 cup flour

♥ 1/2 cup sugar

♥ 1/2 cup vegetable oil

♥ 1/3 cup yogurt

♥ 1 teaspoon baking powder

♥ 1/2 teaspoon orange zest

Preheat your oven to 180ºC (350ºF).

1. Sift the flour and the baking powder together twice.

2. Beat the eggs until they turn pale and fluffy.

3. Add in the sugar and beat until it's fully dissolved.

4. Add the oil and the yogurt together and beat for one to two minutes.

5. Add the orange zest and beat until it's distributed well in the mixture.

6. Now's the tricky part! Add in the flour in three parts, stirring it well and gently with a spatula every time. After the third part, your mixture will get a lot less runnier and will be a bit paste-like.

7. Fill 2/3 of each cupcake case with the mixture, make an X mark on top of each using your knife, and pop them in the oven to bake for 25-30 minutes.

Ta-dah!

For the icing, I used sweetened cream and green edible pearls. Then I sprinkled edible green glitter on top. I don't know if you can see the glitter in the pictures... And the toppers are hand-drawn by me.

Oh and the green cupcake stand is a DIY made by yours truly out of some cardboard and a folder binding stick! I went with a green theme for our Haft Seen as you can see in the previous post, so the cupcakes AND the stand had to be green too, even though there was no room left for the cupcakes on our Haft Seen table! I had to put them on another table in another corner of the living room.

This was my 55th blog post by the way! Yay!

♥

Noushin

Orange Cake Tutorial

This orange cake is so yummy, and it makes your house smell so lovely while it's being baked in the oven.

The ingredients:

♥ 170 gr (5.9 oz) butter 

♥ 3 eggs

♥ 300 gr (10.5 oz) flour

♥ 140 gr (4.9 oz) sugar

♥ 100 gr (3.5 oz) milk

♥ 30 gr (1.05 oz) powdered sugar

♥ 30 gr (1.05 oz) cocoa powder

♥ 4 teaspoons baking powder

Watch my video for the recipe:

I baked this cake today, and it was such a lovely day! It kept snowing for like 7 hours straight! First proper snow we've had this year! I obviously couldn't contain myself and took 5000 million pictures and videos of which I'll pick some to share tomorrow. 

♥

23 Bahman 1393

Noushin

Spicy Apple Cake

This apple cake I baked last month goes so well with some pleasant afternoon tea. My family and I really enjoyed it, so I thought I would share the recipe here.

Ingredients:

♥ 1/2 cup butter

♥ 1 and 1/4 cup sugar

♥ 2 eggs

♥ 1 and 1/2 cup apple compote

♥ 2 and 1/2 cups flour

♥ 1 and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

♥ 1/6 teaspoon salt

♥ 1/2 cup raisins

♥ 1 teaspoon cinnamon

♥ 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

♥ 1/4 teaspoon ground clove

♥1/2 cup chopped walnuts

To make the apple compote:

1. Peel 5 average apples (the sourer the better), take the seeds off, and chop them up.
2. Boil the apples in a quarter cup of water for like 7 minutes.
3. Add 1/4 cup sugar and let them boil a little more.

To make the cake:

1. Mix the sugar and the butter with an electric mixer till the color turns lighter, then add the eggs one at a time, beating each for 1 minute.
2. Sift all the dry ingredients together twice, add them to the egg-butter-sugar mixture and mix gently with a spatula. This addition should be done in around three parts, adding some of the apple compote in between.
3. Add the raisins and the walnuts, mixing the whole mixture gently.
4. Oil your cake pan, pour the mixture in and bake in the oven for 30 to 50 minutes with 175°C (350°F). 

To decorate your cake, you can use anything from sprinkles to powdered sugar. Here, I sprinkled some powdered sugar through a DIY heart template I'd made.

I hope you enjoy this cake! :)

♥

Noushin

Cream Puffs

Here's the recipe to these yummy cream puffs I baked a few weeks ago.

You'll need:

♥ 2 cups water

♥ 2 cups all purpose flour

♥ 2 tablespoons powdered sugar

♥ 5 tablespoons oil

♥ 3 large eggs

♥ 1/6 teaspoon salt

For the filling:

♥ 100 gr (3.5 oz) cream

♥ 1 tablespoon powdered sugar

Ingredients ready? Tie a beautiful bow with your apron straps behind your back and lets get started! :) 

1. Boil the water + sugar + oil + salt mixture on the stove.
2. Once the mixture starts boiling, add the flour and stir gently till the water evaporates and you get a thick pulpy paste.
3. Place the paste over your counter (or a flat plate) so that it cools off. Once cooled off, bring your paste into a bowl and add the eggs one at a time, mixing well with your cleanly washed hand until the final paste is ready (and kind of sticky).
4. Pour the product into a piping bag and make a little round shape with a pointy finish on your baking tray to shape each cream puff.
5. Bake in the oven with 175°C (350°F) until they start to get brown.
6. While you're waiting for your yummy cream puffs to brown, mix the cream and the powdered sugar in a bowl placed over a larger bowl full of ice (to get a somewhat thick well-built cream).
7. After the puffs are out of the oven and cooled, make a horizontal cut in the middle of each (not thoroughly, though; as if you're making a mouth for a puppet) and fill it with the cream.
8. Voila!

I hope you enjoy both the baking and the puffs!

♥

Noushin