At long last (Part II)

Since the last baking class i attended in Sept last year, I finally got another chance to attend another one today. Actually there are so many baking classes/ courses available these day, but to find one that is of interest and suits the timing is not so easy, plus the price does not come cheap. Anyway, to cut long story short, I chanced upon this very interesting class - Buttercream Roses Cake by Sugar Inc., and attended the class today with my friend E. With no piping skills at hand, and being able to pipe out roses was really incredible. Not that I'm good, but it all thanks to Anna being really precise and clear in her instructions and demo. Of course, there's alot of practices required, you know what i mean by looking at the pictures below.

These are art-pieces from our group. Guess which is mine?

And these are from another group.

The purple and white is by Anna, and the rest of the class. Think

this group's piping is the best!

Ta-ta.... this is what I've done. They look better from afar

At long last (Part I)

I've neglected this blog for so long that I actually find it tough to start writing this post. Not that I've lost the interest in baking or blogging, but I'm facing a 'time-management' crisis...hahaha. I couldn't allocate spare time for baking/ blogging and I'm feeling slightly 'ashamed' to continue from where i stop.

Life has been going fine for me but is such stability (or monotonous) a way of life? It's a personal preference. Sometimes I love it cos I do not have to think too much about most of the things - simply do things in the 'usual manner'. On the other hand, I explored the thoughts of doing things differently, to give life the challenges and to make it more colorful and exciting, maybe? At this moment, there is no complaints of course. Stay happy and open-minded!!

Picking up from my last baking post in early March, I'm going to blog about a cake I made last week. There's no baking still, but at least it's a cake, right? I got some spare Thai Honey mangoes, courtesy from my brother who bought more than a dozen to make mango smoothies for us. It tasted simply great especially during this super hot and humid weather ;-) With my stocked-up cream cheese, what else but a mango cheesecake. However, i think the mango smoothies fared better than my cake, so disappointing ;-( Not going to post the recipe since it's not that fantastic, perhaps it was not chilled enough when we eat it.

My precious' 3rd birthday

Although it's another 4 more days before Zakris turns 3 years old, we had an advance birthday celebration yesterday. Time really flies and it only seem yesterday that i was cuddling him in my arms, and now he's already running, jumping around everywhere, and we are having decent conversations or sometimes 'arguments'. In another blink of eyes, he'll be a young fine man ;-p (which means i will be an 'old lady').

Last year when we celebrated his birthday, i think he doesn't really understand what birthday celebration is all about. Now that he's 1 year wiser, he's requesting his favourite things like cars, buses, train, depot, heart-shapes, stars etc on his birthday cake, and also that he wanted to celebrate his birthday and 'blow candle, cut cake' in the school.

It was another attempt of fondant making, and it took me more than a week to plan what to put on his cake, and a few days to slowly mould the figurines. When it almost took shape on Friday, Zak let out a glee and the sparkle in his eyes make the hours spent ever so worthwhile. Every now and then before the party, he will request to look and touch the figurines, which i happily allow.

Not everything Zak requested went on the cake, but I try to 'accomodate' as many as possible of his favourites on the 2-tiers 6" and 9" cake. These are the little things that Zak like, and maketh his birthday cake ;-)

4 24 28 29 35 42 34

The set of numbers are definitely not my vital statistics or codes to my safe box; it's the winning numbers of yesterday's Toto $6 million draw. Although i did not buy any Toto tickets for yesterday's draw, I prepared some 'huat kueh' (發糕) especially for my Wendy's mil and relatives for them to "FATT FATT" (發發). Not too sure whether any of them is a overnight millionaires? If not, we still have the Hong Bao Draw on 26 Feb 2010 ;-) Good luck everyone!

The 'huat kuehs' are nicely packed and given as a gift to my Wendy's mil! We went to their house on the 2nd day of CNY, and as usual, we enjoyed the sumptuous dinner prepared by her .

These lovely sweet hearts paper cases is one of my favourites and i had used them for my mini 'huat kuehs'.

To good health and wealth in 2010!

大年初一 (Lunar New Year)

Before the first day of lunar new year ends, I would like to wish all of you ....

花開富貴

旺旺來

春風得意

金銀財寶享不完

八星報喜, 喜臨門

甜甜蜜蜜

(My boy requested me to take picture of the cream crackers

& his hand together with the dessert ;-p)

Walnut snowballs

My production for CNY is running very low, it seem that energy has been sapped. Nevertheless, other than pineapple nastar tarts, i managed to bake some walnut snowballs. Actually, I have plans to bake so many cookies (at least 4 or 5 types), and tagged all my recipe books, but in end I only managed to bake 2. With CNY approaching in 3 days' time, I won't have any time to do any more baking.

So for now, here's Walnut snowballs to share with all my friends here. These little snowballs are very fragile, and it has the melt-in-your-mouth texture. I believe it will taste as good with other condiments like almonds or peanuts.

Fresh walnuts are easily available these days

Ingredients/ Method:

(Yields about 120 little snowballs)

(A)
227g butter
35g icing sugar
1 egg yolk

(B)
1 tbsp rum
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (optional)

(C)
350g plain flour, sieved
1/2 tsp baking powder
60g walnuts, chopped coarsely

(D)
icing sugar for dusting

1) Cream ingredients (A) until combined. Add in ingredient (B), beat until blended.
2) Fold in ingredient (C), mix to form a soft dough. Scale at 6gm each portion and shape into rounds.
3) Arrange balls on lined baking tray.
4) Bake in pre-heated oven at 150 deg C for 25 to 30 mins.
5) Cool cookies slightly, dust top with icing sugar.
6) Store in airtight jars.

Customised Hello Kitty stickers are so cute!!

Now, these "limited edition" cookies are packed and ready to be given to my family & relatives. Hopefully I can bake more next year in order to give to each and everyone of them ;-)

祝: 虎年行好運, 虎虎身威.

Catching up

..... with CNY baking. I know I've been slacked with blogging and baking for at least 3 weeks. This blog would probably be neglected for even longer period, but because I really like baking my own pineapple tarts that pushed me to start preparing the pineapple paste last week. The usual shredding, cooking, and rolling them into little balls.

Unlike years of making all covered up, i wanted to 'expose' them!! Open tart or nastar? A very ignorant me, I thought the nastar was using a knife to cut the pastry across many times. I tried that before and of course, the outcome was disastrous! Until recently i saw a post from Quinn that i realised that there is actually a tool to make nastar, and it cost only a few bucks. I did open tarts before, like 4 years ago, and i still have the moulds.

Ok, Sunday is a good time to start baking CNY cookies, and here it goes. But only nastar. Because there's not enough pineapple paste left for open tart. Maybe next year? There are probably about 190 pineapple nastar, and they are definitely prettier than my closed pineapple tarts ;-)

With some leftover dough, i added chocolate rice and 'concorted' my own Butterfly cookies.

Tiramisu Charlotte Cake

My laptop is giving me problems again!!! Urgggh! It happened after we got a free subscription for virus and the usual activity of checking mails, editing photos, write a post, etc became snail slow. I really couldn't stand the speed (pun intended) and the frustration that sometimes the laptop get hanged after i open a few application, and even shutting down the laptop is a pain!

The last straw came when chatting for 2 lines in msn with my friend, the laptop decided to stop responding for more than 2 times today. Out goes the virus scan - bye ;-) Hopefully i won't have other problems with the laptop or its speed.

All these technie problem made blogging a nag, which is why my tiramisu charlotte cake took a while to be here. I love how the cake looks in Happy Home Baking, and of course, mine couldn't hold a candle to hers. Although the cake taste good, it was almost 'melting' by the time we eat the cake. Luckily the recipient of my cake is very pleased with it, and thank me profusely. She's none other than my aunt wendy's mil. If i could put up the pictures taken during that day, you could see how happy she was on that day, because it's another of our big family gathering and celebration! The next time i attempt this delicious and pretty cake, i would probably add gelatine.

Oreo lemon non-baked cheesecake (Icebox cheesecake)

Many times i got stuck in what i want to write in my blog, and how to start writing or have an opening statement... just like now.

Perhaps i should just leave it as Wordless Tuesday, or maybe not?

This Oreo Lemon non-baked cheesecake (aka icebox cheesecake) is made especially for my youngest aunt steph, whose birthday falls on this Thursday. We had a little celebration on Sunday and we will be getting a birthday treat from her this Friday. It's celebration-makan-and celebration-makan and more celebration-makan since Dec and it does not seem to end anytime soon ;-) That's how fortunate coming from a very big family like us!

Ingredients/ Method:

(Recipe adapted from Food-4Tots with modifications)

Crust

11 slices of digestive biscuits

55g unsalted butter, melted

1. Crush the biscuits and mix with melted butter and press firmly in 8" round springfoam baking tin.

2. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Filling

1 tbsp gelatine powder

3 tbsp hot water

250g cream cheese, room temp

40g caster sugar

2 large egg yolks

zest from 1 large lemon

3 tbsp lemon juice (i doubled the amount and it was too sour)

2 tsp cointreau (can omit)

150g diary whipping cream

Oreo topping

6 pieces of oreo biscuits, crushed finely

1. Dilute gelatine powder with hot water in small bowl until dissolve. Set aside.

2. Beat cream cheese and sugar until soft and creamy.

3. Add in egg yolks, followed by lemon zest. Mix well and set aside.

4. Pour dissolved gelatine powder into cream cheese mixture and mix quickly.

5. Add in lemon juice and cointreau. Mix well and set aside.

6. Whip cream with hand whisk till creamy and soft peak. Do not overbeat the cream.

7. Fold in whipped cream into cream cheese mixture until well combined.

8. Spoon filling onto crust. Smoothen the surface.

9. Spread crushed oreo biscuits onto the cake and press lightly.

10. Cover the baking tin with cling wrap and refrigerate for at least 3-4 hours (best overnight) until firm before serving.

Closing 2009, Beginning 2010

As usual, Dec is always a busy month and with holidays, festive season celebrations, there's not much time left for baking and blogging. Hence, this space has been very quiet for more than a month!!

Nevertheless, to close year 2009, these are a few bakes that have not been posted. These are the not-so-satisfactory ones, except the last being a Banana Chocolate Cake which i did for my elder brother's birthday. Fortunately, it was a very well-received cake and it gave my baking-blogging 2009 a sweet closing ;-)

Strawberry Chiffon Sponge Cake

"Sour"-honey popcorns

Portugese egg tarts

Banana chocolate cake

Other than a sweet closing for 2009 in terms of baking, we had a wonderful time spent together as a family with our loved ones; our unplanned & impromptu night began with a simple dinner fare, followed by a ride to mt. faber (which was surprisingly very crowded) and ended up counting down at an almost secluded place - Soprano at Wessex Estate. That made our first second of year 2010 filled with love, joy, fun and warmth!!!

Happy New Year to everyone & thoroughly enjoy yourselves in year Twenty Ten B-)

Update 4 Jan 2010, recipe & video on banana chocolate cake(video link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM5vRvcIUvM&feature=related)

Ingredients/ Method:

203g whole eggs (6 nos.)

32g egg yolk (2 nos.)

135g caster sugar

21g glucose

1g salt

32g vegetable oil

21g cocoa powder

106g cake flour

1g baking soda

21g milk

1) Warm vegetable oil and put in cocoa powder until well mixed and dissolved. Set aside.

2) In a large bowl, add eggs, sugar, salt and beat on HIGH speed until foamy and double in volume, and sugar dissolve.

3) Add in glucose and beat on MEDIUM speed until ribbon stage.

4) Sift flour and baking soda over beaten egg mixture. Mix flour on LOW speed for 3 seconds just to combine most of the flour. Thereafter, turn to MEDIUM speed for approximately 20 seconds until mostly incorporated. Fold in the remaining traces of flour using rubber spatula.

5) Scoop some egg mixture and add into cocoa powder mixture to lighten the mixture. Thereafter, pour into egg mixture, add in milk and fold till well combined.

6) Pour batter into 8" round cake tin and bake at 170 deg C for 35 mins.

7) Invert the cake tin on cooling rack after removing from oven.

Chocolate Filling

2-3 Delmonte bananas

250g non-diary whipping cream

35g cocoa powder

35g hot water

2tsp instant coffee powder

1) Mix cocoa powder and coffee powder with hot water.

2) Whip the cream until stiff peak.

3) Add the cocoa-coffee mixture to the whipped cream.

Ganache
300g whipping cream
250g melted chocolate
50g butter

1) Mix all ingredients and microwave till well combined and smooth.

2) Leave to set before pouring onto cake.

To assemble

1) Slice the sponge cake into 3 layers.

2) Spread the chocolate filling on the first layer, and put freshly cut banana slice on the cake, and spread some chocolate filling on top of the banana slices.

3) Repeat Step 2.

4) Cream & crumb the entire cake with remaining chocolate filling.

5) Put the cake in the fridge for 10 mins so that it will be easier to spread the chocolate ganache.

(Note: I got problem with the chocolate ganache as it was either too watery or too solidified to spread or pour nicely on the cake. I ended up putting into the microwave to liquidify it, and back to the freezer to solidify it, a few times of doing the same thing just to get the right consistency. By then, my kitchen top and floor were in a mess, and had to clean up frequently as my house ants were very active & alert that day!!)