Orange Chocolate Cupcake ~ Eggless,Butterless & Healthy

I have a special liking towards the citrus flavor. With gorgeous oranges in season, I was looking for an orange cupcake recipe and I stumbled upon the chocolate orange cake at Baking Bites and an orange muffins at Verstaile Kitchen. Both the recipes were eggless and  I needn't have to make it eggless to suit my taste.  I have adapted the baking bites' recipe  taking few hints from Versatile Kitchen. Orange and chocolate complement each other so well and you will experience the combo flavor with the first bite.



You need

•  Wheat flour - 1 1/2 cup
• Coco powder - 1/2 cup
• Sugar - 3/4 cup
• Baking powder - 1 tspn
• Cooking soda -1/2 tspn
• Salt - 1/4 tspn
• Fresh Orange juice - 3/4 cup
• Vegetable oil - 1/3 cup
• Vanilla essence - 1 tspn
• Orange zest - 1 tblspn (I used candied orange peel)

Method

Sieve dry ingredients - wheat flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, cooking soda and salt. I always measure the dry ingredients to a plastic container which has a tight lid. I shake the container vigorously with the lid on and proceed. A bit lazy to take out the sieve and the cleaning that comes after.

Mix orange juice, sugar, oil and vanilla essence. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet mix and finally stir in the orange zest.

Grease the muffin mould and fill to 2/3 in each hole.  Bake in a preheated oven at 170 C for 25 minutes.

This will yield 12 medium sized muffins. My muffin tray can hold only 9 and I baked the remaining batter in microwave.

For the frosting

• Butter - 2 tblspn
• Powdered sugar - 1 1/2 cups
• Orange Juice - 1 tblspn

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy and add the orange juice. Adjust the juice quantity to suit the consistency required. Pipe it on the cooled muffins and enjoy the orange flavored chocolate delight. I know my frosting has not come out well. The cupcake on its own is not very sweet. Hence the frosting did enhance the taste. I have baked it twice and both times, the cakes have vanished pretty fast.

To bake in the microwave

Scoop a heaped tablespoon of the batter into greased MW cups and bake for a minute. Leave it for 3 minutes and enjoy your cake.

If your baking a single cake, do add a teaspoon of milk  or orange juice to thin the batter. This will ensure a

moist cake. I tried baking in individual cups and haven't baked a single cake.

While the cup cakes were getting baked in the OTG, I could enjoy a quick treat with the MW cake.

Update: I am sending the healthy cake to Priya's Fast  Food Not Fat Food event

Chocolate Chip Cookies

My Son loves chocolates a lot and me too :-). I was thinking about making these chocolate chip cookies from a long time, but didn’t get a chance. I remember making it once when I first came to the US and when Anush was not born, I don’t remember what exactly I did but, it didn’t turn out well, cos all the chocolate chips melted and I didn’t give much space b/w the cookies so it was a mess. This time it came out very good and perfect. I was so happy and my son also liked them a lot.

I now people don’t let their ids to eat chocolate, but I sometimes encourage him to eat ‘Dark Chocolate’ and too lie them a lot more than the ordinary chocolates. As I don’t prefer eating too sweet sweets or chocolates, I started eating these dark chocolates.

While we are speaking about dark chocolates, I would like to share some good aspects of eating dark chocolate.....

Chocolate is a range of products derived from cocoa, mixed with fat (i.e. cocoa butter and/or plant oils) and finely powdered sugar to produce a solid confection. There are several types of chocolate according to the proportion of cocoa used in a particular formulation.

Swiss Dark Chocolate

"Dark chocolate", also called "plain chocolate" or "black chocolate", is produced by adding fat and sugar to cocoa. It is chocolate with zero or much less milk than milk chocolate. The U.S. has no official definition for dark chocolate, only "sweet chocolate", which requires a mere 15% concentration of chocolate liquor. European rules specify a minimum of 35% cocoa solids. Dark chocolate can be eaten as is, or used in cooking, for which thicker, more expensive baking bars with higher cocoa percentages of up to 85%, or sometimes 99%, are sold. Dark is synonymous with semisweet, and extra dark with bittersweet, although the ratio of cocoa butter to solids may vary.
Now the recipe for my chocolate chip cookies....

Ingredients:

-------------

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar

• 1 cup packed light-brown sugar

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs

• 2 cups (about 12 ounces) semisweet and/or milk chocolate chips

Method:

---------

1.       Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking soda; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter with both sugars; beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Reduce speed to low; add the salt, vanilla, and eggs. Beat until well mixed, about 1 minute. Add flour mixture; mix until just combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

2. Drop heaping tablespoon-size balls of dough about 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

3. 

 Bake until cookies are golden around the edges, but still soft in the center, 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from oven, and let cool on baking sheet 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool completely. Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Its an Award!!

My third award and second one this year..I am so excited..I came home after a very busy and hectic day at school. I just sit to check and drool over some yummy recipes that my fellow bloggers have posted..I am In for a surprise award!! Vidhya from Sugar'N Spice has shared this award with me and 14 other beautiful bloggers..I thank Vidhya so much for honoring me with this award and would love to pass it on to a few other lovely bloggers.

Raji - Raks Kitchen
Preetha Karthik - Preethi Bhojan
Pushpa - Taste as you cook
Chitra Hegde - Chitranna
Divya  Vikram - Dil Se
Savitha Ramesh - Savitha's Kitchen
Rupali - RecipeGrabBag
Priya Mahadevan - Now Serving
Premalatha Aravindan - Prema's Thaligai
Priya - Priya Easy n tasty recipes
Swathi - Zesty South Indian Kitchen
Pia - Cook Healthy
Satya - Super Yummy Recipes
Jeyashri - Jeyashri's Kitchen
Reshmi Mahesh - Easy Cook


I am very happy to share this with you all, please accept this rolling award.

Rules:
1.Accept the award. Post it in your blog with the name of the blogger who has given u this award with a link to his/her blog.
2.Pass it on to 15 other blogger friends.... to keep the ball rolling.
3.Let the nominated blogger know about their award [leave a comment in their most recent post].rs, I am v