P.S Cupcakes

Most Postgraduate colleges in India are situated in far off towns, or if they are close to a town, then auto rates are astronomical. All this leads to one thing: extremely hungry and starved for decent food MICAns. 

Pooja and I, thought of baking and selling cupcakes and cakes on campus. We sourced ingredients locally, bought chocolates from Bombay and brought all our baking goods from home. 

We call ourselves "P.S Cupcakes". From freshers' party gifts to birthday cakes and cakes just for the heck of it, we have covered it all, in a month. 

We baked these boob shaped cakes for a friend's birthday. 

This is the chocolate mud cake covered with ganache for another friend's birthday.

The brownie batter, before it went into the oven.

I leave you with my (our) new favourite recpe for chocolate cake, it is dense moist and a crowd pleaser.

Mississippi Mud Cake

Ingredients

• 125 gm dark cooking chocolate
• 100 gm butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup hot water
• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 3/4 cup plain flour
• 1/2 cup self raising flour
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. In a large heatproof bowl, combine chocolate, butter, water and bourbon
3. Heat over boiling water, until the mixture is smooth
4. Allow to cool slightly, and add the flour and cocoa mixture
5. Mix in the eggs
6. Pour into a greased cake tin and bake for 30-40 minutes or until firm to touch.
7. Use a chocolate ganache on top.

Yield: 500 gm cake
Prep Time: 00:15
Cook time: 00:40
Tags: chocolate, mud cake, egg

Pancakes

Bombay is expensive. We all know that. But you start noticing how high the prices are only when you live in another city.

In Ahmedabad, students like me can actually think about going to a 5 star for a buffet. And we do, regularly. To the Courtyard Marriott. The breakfast buffet there costs Rs. 450 and they also have a 25% discount for students from select institutes.

So the all you can eat features fresh fruits, salads, 3-4 kinds of cheese, croissants, muffins, breads, any egg preparation, Indian breakfast, some chinese-y things, a huge range of fruit preserves, a range of muesli and chocos and fruit juices, waffles and pancakes.

Their pancakes are great, I love having them with a generous dollop of butter and trying them out with all the preserves and jams.

So, this post is really about pancakes. We have all tried to make them at home for breakfast and for dinner.

I like mine buttery and slightly salty. This recipe is just that. The outsides are so crispy and nice and the insides soft. It takes a while to cook. But follow the directions and it will be heaven.

Buttercupp Bakery

Ahmedabad is a nice city. Great infrastructure, nice places to eat, shop but it has one deficiency (apart from the lack of alcohol), this place doesn't have a nice cupcake place.

Forget a dedicated cupcake shop, not even one bakery that did cupcakes. Coming from Bombay with the convenience of Theobroma, Candies, 210's and Butterfly; this Gujju land was devoid of any cupcake happiness.

Till about two weeks ago.

Buttercupp: A Cupcake Shoppe was started by Amar and his wife. They flew down from the US to start this place. Not professional bakers, them, the wife (sorry, I didn't get her name) has done a baking course here and there but is an engineer by profession.

So, we (J and I) entered this place at 5 pm, and saw this:

Empty shelves, but you can see the Banana cupcake, can't you? Say hi!

empty shelves. 

Panicked we ordered 1 each of everything we saw; red velvet, oreo and banana bread. On enquiry we found that lemon cupcakes were on their way out and there was one last double chocolate dip. We ordered those as well. 

Lemony Love

So here goes,

Red velvet: the cake tastes nice. Though it could have been a nit more moist for me. The icing was nice, but it could have tasted more of cream cheese. 

Oreo: No one can ever go wrong with oreo. 

Banana Bread: Aah! These stole the show. Gorgeously moist, with the slight banana flavoured icing and the caramelised banana on top. *Sigh!* We had two of these. (It is nice how much J indulges me when it comes to food). 

Double Chocolate Dip: Oh so moist! our teeth go right through. With a light chocolate butter cream frosting, this on was chocolate heaven. 

Lemon: J and I love lemon. And it is so easy to go wrong with it. But this one was perfect. Not overtly sweet or lemony. 

The empty wrappers. Phone calls went unattended as we sat in silence for a minute savouring the  last crumbs. 

We ate six cupcakes while we were there. Took ten back to campus. Apparently, if you eat as much as we do, they throw in a lemon cupcake and also give u a discount.

So dear Ahmedawadis. Go there. Please! Go early. Call before you go, Amar will save some for you.

The cupcakes here vanish before you can say, "Wow!". Around 20 people would have walked in the 30 minutes we were there. They were met with empty shelves, but wait, no one goes back empty handed (or stomached). They make sure you get to have something or the other.

Here they are on Facebook show them some love.