I have cooked several cakes using the steamer -
Banana Cake,
Banana Cupcakes,
Sweet Corn Puto-Muffins, and Bibingka, all using different Maya Cake Mixes. When I attempted to create pancakes using the Butter Cake Mix, I didn't get the result I wanted, but instead of throwing the batter away, I decided to line the muffin pan with aluminum foil and bake it using the Oven Toaster, just to give me an idea how it would be - making this my guinea pig, my sacrifice batter.
It wasn't a successful experience, but not a failure either. When I use the steamer, I fill the cups with the batter, which was what I did here, and as you can see it overflowed. The bottom right one I only filled halfway, and it turned out to be okay. The taste was good, and this moment, we knew we prefer the taste of cakes baked using the oven toaster compared to the ones cooked using a steamer. Baking the Rocky Road Brownies may be another not-so-successful experience... but I am very much willing to try and try until I get it right.
We still have several boxes of Maya Cake Mixes at home - three of which were boxes of Whole Wheat Carrot Cake Mix, so last weekend, I decided bake some cupcakes for us three girls. I decided to go with Sour Cream Frosting for no special reason... it just came out of my mind that I wanted to go with sour cream for the frosting.
Whole Wheat Carrot Cupcakes with Sour Cream Frosting{yield - 12 cupcakes}Ingredients (Carrot Cupcakes)- One box (230g) Maya Whole Wheat Carrot Cake Mix
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 tablespoons water
- 1 medium egg
- 1 cup grated carrots (loosely packed), approximately 100g.
Ingredients (Sour Cream Frosting)
- 1 stick butter (1/2 cup) softened
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 3/4 teaspoon lemon juice
- 4 to 4 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
Let's start baking!
> Preheat your oven toaster. Our oven toaster is the most basic kind - it only has a timer and not the kind that you can set the temperature. I just set it to its longest time, 15 minutes.
> Combine all ingredients for the cupcakes. Mix until there are no lumps, but be sure not to over mix or over beat it.
> Line your muffin pan with paper cups or if you don't have paper cups, brush the pan lightly with butter.
> Pour batter into the cups, leaving 1/3 space. You can also use an ice cream scooper or a measuring cup to make sure the amount you put in the cups would be uniform.
> Cover the pan loosely with aluminum foil, careful not to touch the surface of the pan to allow the batter to rise.
> Pop in the oven toaster and bake for 10 minutes.
> Cool each cupcakes for a few minutes before frosting.
Our oven toaster is small and it can only accommodate a cupcake pan with 6 slots, meaning I baked two batches of cupcakes. This is still a trial and error stage for me, so I experimented a little. For the first batch, I let it bake covered for 5 minutes, and baked it uncovered for another 5 minutes. It produced this kind of cupcakes - slightly toasted at the sides, but with a pretty dome shape at the center. The second batch, I baked covered for 7 minutes, and baked it uncovered for 3 minutes. It produced a batch of pointy shaped cupcakes, kinda like a mountain. The inside was also still moist even after 10 minutes, so I cooked it for 3 minutes more. Next time, I will just go with what I did with the first batch, but will add more batter into the cup.
Next, the frosting.
> In a mixing bowl, beat butter and gradually add sugar. Beat until well incorporated.
> Add vanilla, lemon juice, and milk, and continue beating until fluffy. If it's too dense, add milk (one tablespoon at a time). If it's too liquidy, add more sugar.
> Refrigerate for about 30 minutes before spreading or piping it on top of the cupcakes.
I don't know what the heck I was thinking that I could make a good frosting without the help of an electric mixer. I thought I could make it with just a hand held whisk, beating as fast as I could. It only melted the sugar and even if I used our blender, it still didn't look good. As is, it tasted good, because it had a nice balance of tang and sweetness, and was a good pair for the carrot cupcakes.
We were kind of prepared to just spread a little frosting on top of our cupcakes before eating it, but the next day, we were lucky to find an electric mixer at the mall sold for 50% off, and bought it just to complete this trial and error stage of our baking life.
The sugar has already melted and the butter wasn't creamed at the start of the process, so even if the electric mixer did wonders to the frosting, it still didn't look the way I hoped my frosting to look like.
Still, I could say this was 90% successful. Now that I tried different things, the next batch of cupcakes would definitely be much better.
Now, I am trying to locate a shop to buy disposable piping bags because the cake decorator I bought was a little small and quite difficult to work with. I need to learn how to pipe awesome frosting, so by Christmastime, we don't have to buy cakes at the bakeshop, we will just bake it.
I do love the cake mixes of Maya. Each and every product we tried tasted good, and as a person who's just trying to learn the ropes of baking, using the mix helps a lot. Of course in time I also would like to bake cupcakes "from scratch," but for now, I am quite satisfied with this. Even without the frosting it tasted great as it had the goodness of the cinnamon that goes well with carrots, and I am sure you will like it, too.
Next time, I will bake Banana PB&J cupcakes. :)
Well known Chef Fernando “Fern” Aracama recalls fond memories of Christmas past in his cooking class at The Maya Kitchen on November 23, Saturday from 9am-1pm.
