Carrot Cake Cupcakes | Emily Bakes

Every year for my birthday I make myself a killer three layer carrot cake that if i do say so myself is one of the best things in the world. But this week I couldn't wait the other nine months until my birthday so I adapted the recipe into cupcake form and they turn out so god damn cute!

Ingredients:

300g Soft Light brown Sugar

3 Large Eggs 

300ml Vegetable Oil 

300g Plain flour

1 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1 Tsp baking powder

1 Tsp Cinnamon

1/2 Tsp ground Ginger

1/2 Tsp Salt

1/2 Vanilla Extract

300g Grated Carrot

100g Roughly Chopped Walnuts

300g Sultanas

280g Cream cheese

100g unsalted butter (Room temperature)

600g Icing sugar

24 walnut halves to decorate

Makes 24 Cupcakes

Method:

Whisk together the sugar, eggs and oil with an electric whisk until combined.

Sift in the flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and salt and beat until well combined.

Stir in the vanilla extract, grated carrots, chopped walnuts and sultanas until incorporated through.

Divide the mixture between 24 cupcake cases and bake in a preheated oven at 170°C for 20-25 minutes until a skewer inserted into the centre of a cake comes out clean.

Leave the cakes on a wire wrack to cool.

For the cream cheese frosting:

Using an electric whisk whisk, whisk the butter until it becomes fluffy and pale.

Add in the icing sugar one half at a time and whisk until a sandy consistency is achieved. 

In a separate bowl briefly whisk the cream cheese to loosen it slightly then add to the butter and sugar mixture and whisk until the icing is light and pale - usually take about five minutes. (Do not over whisk as icing will quickly become runny)

Fill a piping bag with a large circle nozzle and ice all of you cupcakes.

Finally topping each cake with a walnut half.

Emily

The Tables a Computer?! | Inamo Soho

Asian food is probably my favourite cuisine so when Zoe told me about a pan Asian restaurant with interactive tables I headed straight to Soho.

When you enter the restaurant it's very dark, but you soon see this is because there are images being projected down onto each of the tables. when you are seated you are shown how to use the 'table' and to be quite honest my friend and I were both amazed. You have a mouse pad in the corner of the table to control the screen and then a computer menu with different tabs; one to order drinks, one for food, games and entertainment, a map of the restaurant (so you don't have to awkwardly ask where the toilets are) and even a live chef cam!

We looked through the drinks menu and quickly order some cocktails... of course! I had some sort of blackberry mojito which you selected off the menu then chose to send your order when you're ready. 

The drinks were then promptly delivered to our table while we looked through the food menu. As you looked at each item on the menu a picture of it was projected onto the plate in front of you, which I really liked as you actually got to see what you were ordering. The dishes in Inamo aren't bought out in courses like starter main and dessert they are just bought out as they are ready in the kitchen, so we just started off ordering a few items.

The first thing that arrived was the dragon roll sushi. I personally had never tried sushi before as I'm not too keen on fish but I was really excited about this dish as it had tempura prawns in the sushi and was topped with avocado and mayonnaise. These were absolutely delicious especially with the crispy prawns in the centre we finished these so fast and ended up ordering another portion because we loved them so much.  

The next dish to arrive was Ebi Tempura, this was just pieces of tempura prawn with some garlic aioli with a chilli on the top. These were really simple but also really nice.

Then arrived the chicken gyoza. Gyoza are one of my favourite foods and the best I've ever had are from Myung Ga which is just off of Carnaby street and sadly I think they've set my expectations too high as i didn't really like these ones in Inamo the filling was alright but the dumpling skin was thick which made them really chewy.

While waiting for all our dishes to arrive we played around with all the other features on the table, playing pop the balloon and battle ships (which I absolutely smashed) it was so much fun! We ordered even more food and it gradually began to arrive.. 

Yakatori was the next dish to arrive which was 5 different skewers; beef with ginger, chicken and sesame, pork belly, salmon and mahi mahi. These were really dry and some were quite bland like the beef skewer was just really chewy, I just kept dipping them all in soy sauce. The best was the salmon it had some mayonnaise on it and black sesame seeds. We also got some kimichi because it would have been rude not too!

Finally we got shrimp and vegetable dim sum and some Korean chicken wings. The dim sum was fantastic! There's really not much else to say about them, we finished them so fast and ordered another portion straight away (I would return to this restaurant for these alone!). The Korean chicken wings were good they were covered in a sweet spicy sauce and dusted with desiccated coconut. 

I think how much you enjoy this restaurant  would really depend on what you order, I did find a few dishes that I really loved and others that I wanted to try but just wouldn't order them again. I loved the whole interactive experience and it was just so easy to get carried away with what you were ordering because you could just ordered more whenever you wanted so it can end up quite expensive (especially when they add the service charge which made us laugh seeing as the table did most of the work) but I really want to go back and try some other things off the menu.

Emily

7/10

Rocky Road Cookies | Emily Bakes

Recently I've been playing around with some new cookie combinations and I've just discovered an absolute favourite! These cookies are chewy, gooey and moreish so the recipe just needs to be shared...

Ingredients:

250g Salted Butter (Room Temperature)

375g Caster Sugar

1 Large Egg

350g Self Raising Flour

95g Cocoa Powder

3 Tbsp Milk

100g Mini Marshmallows

16 Glace Cherries (Roughly Chopped)

100g Sultanas

100g White Chocolate Chips

100g Milk Chocolate Chips

Makes roughly 20 Generous Cookies.

Method: 

1. Cream together the butter and sugar.

2. Beat in the egg.

3. Sift the cocoa powder and flour together into the mixture and combine - you might have to use your hands at this point to get it all to come together.

4. Add the milk in small amounts making sure the mixture does not become too wet (you may not need the full 3 Tbsp or you may need more) you just want it to combine without crumbling apart.

5. Add in the marshmallows, chopped glace cherries, sultanas and all the chocolate chips, using you hands to make sure they are combined throughout the mixture (it can be quite difficult to get the marshmallows to stay in the cookie dough just keep smooshing them into it)

6. Line three large baking trays with grease proof paper and form around twenty evenly sized balls off cookie dough.

7. Space the balls evenly apart on the baking trays, leaving them enough room to spread.

8. Gently push down on the balls to flatten them into patties shapes.

9. Bake in an oven preheated to 170°C for around 12-14 minutes.

The cookies should still be soft when the come out of the oven and will firm up after cooling for about half an hour.

Best enjoyed warm while the chocolates still melted with a glass of milk... Enjoy!

Emily