The salted chocolate blog : frosting

Crisp, tender chocolate cookies with a sweet and creamy vanilla cream cheese that is to die for!

I've got my first orders today! Lemon Cake, 40 pieces, for a little party. Cutting up the sheet cake into little bite sized pieces with my mum :D I've never made so much cake at one go before, but my mixer makes things so much easier! I made lots of extras and stored them in the freezer to keep for later use.

Please ignore the messy background hahaha.

If you would like to order, you can email me at brendasbakery15@gmail.com I have another order coming up, which would be my Banana Walnut Cake.

Now back to these lovely cookies. I love chocolate shortbread cookies! I used this recipe last Christmas to make some little bears to give away, decorated with some royal icing, and they were perfect!

Now I'm using them, decorated in a beautiful rose pattern, swirled to perfection! I'm entering this photograph in the SCS Baker's Challenge, so apologies for all the pictures of butter here.

These cookies are super easy, starting by creaming cold butter and sugar, adding an egg, vanilla, followed by the cocoa powder and flour. No chilling the dough, no sticky dough, just a smooth, velvety, chocolatey dough that is a dream to work with.

I've used this basic cream cheese frosting to frost my red velvet cupcakes, red velvet whoopie pies, and even my Blackforest Cake, replacing some icing sugar with cocoa powder for the chocolate version. It's really easy and comes together in minutes!

This is a really easy frosting method, using a closed star piping tip. Position your piping bag in the centre of the cookies, and spiral outwards, applying even pressure. I realised that when you pipe, always pipe with even pressure, otherwise the frosting will come out weirdly.

Hope you try out this recipe! The chocolate dough is really easy to put together, not too sweet, and perfect with a cup of coffee!

Chocolate Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Adapted from Baking a Moment

1/2 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 tablespoon oil (light/neutral flavour)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa poser

1 1/4- 1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

Instructions

Cream the butter, oil, sugar, vanilla and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, just until the mixture is smooth. Do not over beat, as this will incorporate air into the dough, which may lead to spreading.
Add the egg and mix just until incorporated.
Add the cornstarch, cocoa powder and flour. If you will be rolling/cutting the cookies right away, you may need a little more flour. The dough becomes drier as it sits, so if you are planning to chill and roll/cut later, be sure to use less flour.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Roll the dough to a thickness of 1/4 inch, between two sheets of parchment paper. Rolling pin rings will help you to achieve an even thickness.
Bake on parchment-lined baking sheets for 9 to 12 minutes, depending upon the size of the cookie. The cookie should look dry on the surface, and be firm around the edges and soft in the middle.
Cool completely before decorating.

Crisp, tender chocolate cookies with a sweet and creamy vanilla cream cheese that is to die for! I've got my first orders today! Lemon...

A green tea flavoured cake covered in sweet vanilla bean frosting. :)

I'm submitting this cake for the SCS Butter Challenge! I didn't manage to take awesome photos but I guess they're fine. The cake has a subtle matcha flavour and the frosting is a tad bit sweet for my taste, but they work well together.

I love the little ruffles on the top of this cake! It was done using a petal tip, and layered around the top of the cake. As you can see, I didn't do a really good job with the frosting. I didn't cover a whole cake property and you can still see bits of the matcha cake on top.

(ft. SCS butter, which isn't very obvious but oh well)

The cake is nice and moist. Make sure you use a good quality matcha powder. You can get the best quality ones at Japanese supermarkets (I usually get mine at ISETAN). They are usually a little expensive but it's worth the money because you get lots of matcha flavour in just a little bit of matcha powder.

I'm not a big fan of American Buttercream Frostings. They are usually too sweet for my taste and a little too buttery and rich. If you prefer a less sweet frosting, try out cooked flour frosting ore imbue based ones like Swiss meringue buttercream or Italian meringue buttercream. Or dark chocolate frosting, since you usually replace some of the icing sugar with cocoa powder so the frosting is less sweet. :)

I used vanilla bean paste in this frosting, and I love how you can see the little speckles of vanilla bean in the frosting. Vanilla is always good!

Matcha Cake with Vanilla Bean Frosting

Matcha Cake

Adapted from http://buildingbuttercream.blogspot.sg/2012/03/green-tea-layer-cake-with-lemon-honey.html

Ingredients
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ cup cake flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons powdered green tea
½ cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar
½ cup vegetable oil
1½ eggs
½ cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° F. Line two 6" round cake pans with parchment paper. Grease and flour.
Sift together the all-purpose flour, cake flour, baking soda, salt, and green tea powder; set aside.
In a large bowl, beat together sugar, oil, and eggs until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the yogurt, mixing just until incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake in the preheated oven for 20 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 20 minutes before turning out of the pans.

Vanilla Bean Frosting

1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted

1 tsp vanilla bean paste/ vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp milk (optional, if necessary)

1. Beat the room temperature butter until fluffy and pale.

2. Add in the confectioner's sugar a cup at a time, until fully incorporated.

3. Continue beating for 2-3 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the vanilla bean paste.

4. Adjust the consistency of the frosting by adding more confectioners sugar to make it stiffer or adding milk to make it less stiff.

A green tea flavoured cake covered in sweet vanilla bean frosting. :) I'm submitting this cake for the SCS Butter Challenge! I didn...