Sunday, November 11, 2007

Mad about Decorated Cookies

After giving fondant a try, I decided to try decorating using royal icing again. This time round, I managed to get a darker shade of pink and the colour is able to stand out against the white. Initially I wanted to try out christmas red colour, however, to achieve the colour, it requires a lot of colouring, hence I gave up.
With the blue leftover from my previous session, I have gingerbread girls and boys.
Having practiced so much, believe I am quite set for Christmas!







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Blueberry muffin

Inspired by the orange cointreau muffin, I had decided to use the same recipe, tweaking it a little to become blueberry muffin. The result turn out to be good, with the same effect as my first attempt.







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Saturday, November 10, 2007

Warm Chocolate Cake

Have always wanted to try the warm chocolate cake recipe at home. The recipe is from my favourite blog - Aunty Yochana. It is easy to make and fuss free. Whilst baking, the cake rises and it appears very light. I put some strawberries, which blended well with the bittersweet chocolate cake.




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Thursday, November 8, 2007

Handmade Decorated cookies

After the first try on decorated cookies, I decided to try out using fondant to decorate the cookies instead of royal icing. As I would like to try to handmake everything, I decided to try making fondant myself also. Making fondant is actually easy and very neat, I was glad that I attempted to try it.
Since butterfly cookie is still the theme, to make my girls happy, again I gave pink a try. Kneading fondant is fun, it is like play-doh, and in fact, my young girl did regard it as play-doh as she looked at me and said, "Mummy, are you playing play-doh?" This time round, I managed to achieve the pink that I want, and sticking it on the cookie does have its effect, much better than my first try on royal icing, when the pink was too light.
However, just with fondant, the cookie does not look very nice. Royal icing is still needed to 'perk up' my cookie a bit. With pink, the next colour that I chose was baby blue. So with baby blue royal icing, I gave the cookies a border and also poka dots.




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Orange Cointreau muffin

This was modified from the Grand Marnier Cake recipe which I obtained from a forum. Since I do not have Grand Marnier available, I decided to substitute it with Cointreau and also converted it into a muffin instead. The steps in making this cake is unique as it requires mixing of the dry ingredients before adding in the wet ingredients, e.g. butter. This is my first time trying this recipe and I am very glad that I tried. Whilst baking, I could see the perfect dome shape and the centre splitting a little, which is the perfect muffin result that I would like to have. I was thrilled to see the result. The feedback received is also very good - soft and spongy!








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Sunday, November 4, 2007

First Try at Decorated Cookies

Feeling the Christmas coming, with me attending the cookie class at Shermay's and also the christmas decorations are up on the streets.. I have decided to give the real cookies a try at decorating them, after much practicing on tracing paper. This time round, I am slightly adventurous and decided to try and use a little bit of colour - light pink, so that I can experience mixing colours as well.
Here goes, my snowflakes debut for christmas.

My girls want me to bake them the butterfly cookies, since it is a girly thing, I tried the pink colour as my first colour icing. When I first mixed the colour, I thought the pink looks so sweet, however, when I applied on the cookies, I realised that the pink is too light to create any contrast. Alas, lesson learnt, next time will have to add more colours I guess. Nonetheless, I decided to decorate with poka dots for fun. My girls love the cookies and of course, fussed over me when I was decorating them.


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Lemon Cream cheese Cupcake

Having seen so much cupcake frosting, I decided to give it a try on another simple one. This cupcake turns out beautifully with the perfect dome and the lemon zest gave it a very fresh fragrant as well. The frosting is whipped using cream cheese and icing sugar, it turned out easily managed. However, will need to reduce the amount of sugar after the feedback received from the cupcake.

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Sunday, October 21, 2007

Decorated Christmas Cookies at Shermay's

This is my second time attending classes at Shermay's. This time round, Joycelyn, whom I have been following her blog very closely, is the guest chef and I am very impressed by the way she bakes. From her steps (actually even from her blog), you can really tell that she is very meticulous and neat. So, when I see her at work, I can really understand how beautifully done her masterpieces are. Also, she is very generous with sharing, where she shared all she knows on icing, fondant, cookie making and of course, how she decorates the cookies. I am so much dreaming of cookies now that how I wish Christmas is nearer. Nonetheless, I will sure make some time to try out decorating so as to be in time for Christmas.





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Chocolate Lembab Cake

This recipe is from Aunty Yochana's blog, and I followed the recipe to the T. It turned out real nice, rich and moist. I was thinking this can be the cake for the chocolate fudge too.



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My Very First Creation of Chocolate Fudge Cake!

It is my primary school friend's birthday next week, so I decided to try out a chocolate fudge cake for her birthday. Of course, she didn't know that I am baking her a cake before she came, so it was a nice pleasant surprise for her. I actually did not have a complete chocolate fudge cake recipe, so I decided to try out matching the recipes that I have together to create one. This time round, in order to create a good chocolate cake, I used Varlhona cocoa powder to ensure the quality of the cake. I also got myself a cake leveler, after the first attempt on my blackforest cake so as to ensure that I have an even surface for the ganache.




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Sunday, October 14, 2007

Mad about Mango Mousse Cake

I fulfilled my commitment to make the mango mousse cake for my BIL birthday and this turns out much better than my first one. I understand the use of gelatine powder now better, so the mousse turns out much better than before. This time round I also added some mango cubes to add to the flavour of the cake. Overall the cake is not so sweet and the mousse is just right. And of course, I hoped I had a happy BIL for his birthday.








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Thursday, October 11, 2007

My very first creation of Mango mousse cake

This is my very first creation of the mango mousse cake. As it is Yvonne's birthday, I decided to give it a try and give it to her for her birthday. We put the cake to 'soften' as I put in the freezer earlier on, but then realised that it has melted at the sides, thus the photo did not turn out as nicely as I would like to. Nonetheless, the cake turned out well and I am happy with the results, though there is definitely room for improvement. Am going to give it another try this weekend for my bro in law's birthday.




Sunday, October 7, 2007

Banana Walnut Muffin

My friend CL came over to bake with me. We initially wanted to bake a strawberry shortcake for her husband's birthday, however, as the sponge did not turn out well, we eventually only managed to bake this banana walnut muffin. The funny part is, both of us remembered that the recipe requires yoghurt instead of sour cream and both of us bought yoghurt. We did not manage to find sour cream at the supermart opposite my place and hence we decided to make do with yoghurt. The turnout was surprisingly very well done. I am happy with the results - it is soft and moist. Brought some of the muffins to my girls' school for the teachers and they love it. It turned out to be 'good' mistake.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

My Very First creation of blackforest cake!

Have been waiting for the chance to try out a decorated cake and this happens to be just the right time - it is my dad's birthday. It was very impromptu that I had shared with him I would like to bake him a cake for his birthday as I weren't sure if I should cos I have not tried out before and today will be the first time, yet it is to present to him for his birthday. Thus, I was going through the process, steps during the week to ensure I have everything right. I bought Valrhona cocoa powder to ensure I get the best out of my chocolate cake. The only thing that I did not invest is kirsch liquor, thus in the end I used the kirsch essence instead.
The whole process of baking this cake is long, as I have to bake the cake first, cool it totally and finally whip the cream, set the cake and decorate the cake. However, I thoroughly enjoyed myself and am quite happy with the turnout. Everyone in the family agreed that it was a good try and the cake turn out well. I am already thinking of the next cake that I want to bake - Strawberry shortcake - request from my hubby.





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