Bookmark these recipes for Christmas Essentials: Gingerbread Cookies and Classic Vanilla Cupcakes.
You can have a gala time with your kids or family making them -- they are so pretty and Christmasy.
Bake ahead and enjoy on December 25.
Classic Vanilla Cupcakes
Recipe courtesy: Chef Sunil Singh from The Blue Bop Cafe, Mumbai
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 30 gm maida or all-purpose flour
- 10 gm yoghurt
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 15 gm castor sugar (a kind of finer sugar manufactured by top baking brands)
- 5 ml vegetable oil
- Few drops vanilla essence
For the icing
- 10 gm butter cream frosting (please see the recipe below)
- 20 gm white chocolate
- Few drops red food colouring and/or green food colouring
- Sprinkles, for garnish
- Cupcake tray
- Butter to grease cupcake tray
Butter cream frosting
- 50 gm butter, softened
- 100 gm icing sugar
- 2 drops vanilla essence
- 1 tbsp milk
Method
- In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, yoghurt, sugar, oil, vanilla essence to form a smooth batter.
- Pre-heat an oven to 150°C.
- Grease the moulds in the cupcake tray and fill each cup nearly too the top, allowing space for them to rise.
Bake the cupcakes for 15-20 minutes at 150°C -- they should have a golden crust and are baked when a a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Take out of the oven and cool and keep aside.
- In a bowl, mix the butter, icing sugar, vanilla, milk for the butter cream frosting till light and fluffy.
Keep 10 gm aside for the cupcakes and the balance can be used to ice a cake or frozen for upto a month to use again.
- Mix together the 10 gm butter cream frosting, white chocolate and red food colouring till smooth and well-combined.
Pour the mixture in a piping bag.
Alternately you can divide the mixture in half and add red food colouring to one portion and green to the other and pipe separately.
- Decorate the cupcakes with the butter cream mixture (please see the pic above) and sprinkles.
Gingerbread Cookies
Recipe courtesy: Alpa Pereira from Toujours, a bakery and patisserie in Mumbai.
Servings: 25-30 pieces
Ingredients
- 200 gm butter, softened
- 200 gm brown sugar
- 60 gm castor sugar (a kind of finer sugar manufactured by top baking brands)
- 10 gm pumpkin pie spice (available for purchase online)
- 1 egg
- 15 ml milk
- 400 gm maida or all-purpose flour
- 6 gm baking powder
- Baking tray
- Butter to grease the baking tray
- Cookie cutters ideally in interesting Christmas shapes
For the icing sugar to decorate the cookies
- 1 cup icing sugar
- Few drops vanilla essence
- Water
- Tiny pinch salt
Method
- In a large bowl, add the butter, brown sugar, castor sugar, pumpkin pie spice.
- Cream the mixture till smooth.
Add in the egg, milk and mix.
Sift in the flour and add the baking powder.
Mix into a soft dough.
- Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.
- Preheat an oven to 180°C.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured clean ledge or surface and roll out till it is ¼-inch thick.
- Use cookie cutters to cut shapes.
Place the cookies on a greased baking tray, each 1-2 cm apart, and bake 180°C for 7-10 minutes.
Take out of the oven and cool on a wire rack.
For the icing sugar to decorate the cookies
- In a bowl, mix the castor sugar, vanilla essence, salt.
Add water, little by little, as you mix -- the mixture should not be too thick, nor should it be too runny and should hold shape.
Fill in a piping bag or a squeeze bottle.
Outline the cookies with the icing sugar mixture and draw patterns (please see the pic above).
Store the cookies in an air-tight container for upto a week or two.