Superhero vs Pocoyo

This is the 2nd time my baby and my niece has a joint birthday party. My baby is 7, and my niece is turning 2. Both are March babies (and me as well!) We had a BBQ party at my aunty A's place and thankfully the weather was very kind to us!

The theme of cake was chosen by my boy - he's into Superheroes now; and my niece's favourite cartoon is Pocoyo! Very importantly, my boy 'designed' the cake, and he's definitely very proud of it! Me too!

This is how the cake should look like.... 

This is how the cake actually turned out.... 

At the same time, I think I've found THE vanilla sponge cake recipe *yipee* Of course, this goes very well with my trusted Swiss meringue butter cream.

I'm copying the recipe here for easy reference. The original recipe is here. (I've halved the recipe to make a 6" round cake, baking time 25 to 30 mins). I've also found a good reference site for pan shape/ size/ baking time/ etc.

Vanilla Sponge Cake
Ingredients:
(A)
150g cake flour/superfine flour
1/2 tsp (2g) baking powder
1/4 tsp (1g) salt
10g milk powder

(B)
60g cooking oil
50g water
4 (75g) yolks
80g castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

(C)
4 (150g) whites
90g castor sugar (original 100g)
1/4 tsp (1g) cream of tartar

Method
1. Sift ingredients (A) and put it aside
2. Whisk yolks and sugar till it turns lemon color
3. Add oil, water and vanilla and mix till well blended
4. Add ingredients (A) and mix it slowly till it forms a smooth batter
5. Whisk (C) till stiff
6. Fold in 1/3 of egg white mixture into egg yolk mixture and gently stir, then fold in the remaining egg white mixture and mix well gently
7. Pour batter into a lined 9" round cake tin
8. Bake in a preheated oven 180C for 35-40 mins or till it springs back when touched
9. Once cooked, removed from oven and invert the cake on the wire rack until completed cooled
10.Removed from mould and decorate it

I'm also submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #40: Rainbow and Ombre Party! (March 2014) hosted by Cynthia of The Baking Biatch, at the following link.

Land of Dinosaurs

When my boy celebrated his 5th birthday in early March with a Monopoly cake, I remembered my sister-in-law asking whether I know how to make a dinosaur cake for my little nephew. I told her then that I will practice how to make one for his 4th birthday. I wanted to try out using modelling paste as the usual fondant is too soft and can't hold its shape well. But I didn't have the time (or maybe too lazy to practice) prior to making the actual birthday cake. As usual, I relied on the internet and googled on "how to make dinosaur using fondant". I chanced upon my saviour, A Baked Creation - exactly what I'm looking for and there's even a step-by-step tutorial on making T-Rex & Stegosaurus. This was 4 days before the birthday party! Imagined the stress and anxiety if the cake flops and how disappointed the birthday boy would be ;(

It was a right choice to use modelling paste as the dinosaurs keep in shape, whereas my test-dinosaurs using fondant looked miserable. Alrighty, I can be more adventurous and creative in my future fondant figurines! Nevermind that I had to stay up till the wee hours for 2 days @@ and can't think straight!

Modelling Paste
Ingredients/ Method:
a) 200gm white marshmallows
2tbsp water
500gm icing sugar
2 tbsp Crisco shortening

b) 1 tsp Gum Tragacanth (can get it from Phoon Huat)

1. Put marshmallows with 2 tbsp water in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave on high for 30 secs.
2. Stir marshmallows till they are fluffy using spatula. Add half the icing sugar and mix well.
3. Grease hands with shortening and knead the remaining icing sugar into the fondant.
4. Weigh 225gm of fondant with 1 tsp gum tragacanth and knead till well mixed.
5. Add colour gel to the modelling paste as desired.

Notes:
a. Keep fondant wrapped in cling wrap and store in ziploc or airtight container. Can keep up to 2 months.
b. Modelling paste turns hard fast so prepare it only when you are ready to use.

So presenting my Land of Dinosaurs, which I'm pretty satisfied with the outcome and of course the excitement from the birthday boy's face when he saw the cake was most rewarding! Happy blessed birthday to my cutsy nephew KH! Also special thanks to the 2 men in my house for throwing ideas on how the cake should be and placing the dinosaurs on the cake <3 p="p">

 

4 years ago....

4 years ago and on this day and time, I was still in the delivery room and just had the first hug from my lovely boy! Yes, Zakris is turning 4 today and we had a simple celebration at home with our family and relatives.

The day before, we had an early celebration at the school with all his friends from nursery 2. He was so happy and excited, looking forward in anticipation to both the celebrations at school and home. How he has grown from without knowing what is birthday to one who will ask for birthday parties! He knows how to say nice things to mummy to make me happy, give me hugs & kisses and say I love you <3>

Every year, I would ask my boy the cake he wishes to have for his birthday. Although a very young boy, he is someone who has a mind of his own and we always encourage him to make his own decisions . This year theme is supposed to be a bus depot cake as wished, but it is really too tall an order for me. I 'negotiated' for just a bus cake, no depot, and he agreed with having just 2 buses - one double-deck bus bus and a single-deck bus. As usual, I would keep thinking for weeks on the design and how to do it, what sponge cake recipe to use, what flavours, fondant, buttercream or whipped cream, etc. There are always so many ideas and thoughts running through my head before finally deciding on the Cake to make.

No matter how much planning, hiccups are very common for me. First, my 2 batches of lemon and greentea macarons totally failed and went to the bin - scatterbrain me forgotten to sift the icing sugar and almond meals :-( Then, when preparing the sponge cake, my egg yolk mixture became scrambled eggs...oh no! Followed by, I mis-read the sponge cake recipe resulting in a smaller sponge base, hence no 2 buses (sorry Zak), only one bus - a long/ bendy one. Next, I mis-calculated the amount of buttercream needed and I only managed to pipe one-third of the cake. Omg! I didn't want to start preparing the buttercream all over again as time is running short, and after some hesitation, I decided to use whipped cream instead for the remaining piping. Luckily and finally, I was able to present the cake to my lovely birthday boy <3>

Plain Sponge Cake
(Recipe adapted from Kitchen Corner and visit Honey Bee Sweets for very useful step-by-step pictures)

Ingredients/ Method:
40g unsalted butter
100g egg yolk (about 6 eggs)
20g caster sugar

160g egg white
75g caster sugar
55g plain flour

1. Prepare a baking tray (11" x 14") lined with baking paper. Melt the butter than set a side to cool.
2. Using electric mixer, whisk the egg yolks with sugar in a double boiler until thicken and pale. 3. In another bowl whisk the egg whites with caster sugar until stiff peak.
4. Fold the egg yolks into the egg whites then gently fold in the sifted flour.
5. Pour some mixture (4) into a clean bowl then mix in the melted butter until well combine. Pour back into the mixture of (4) and mix gently until everything well combine.
6. Pour the batter into prepared baking tray and spread evenly.
7. Bake at 180C for 12 - 14 minutes. Be careful not to over bake it.
8. Remove the cake from the baking tray immediately when it is out from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool. Tear out the side of the baking paper and let it completely cool down and ready to use.



Decorate
1 punnet of strawberries
Swiss meringue buttercream

1 cup whipping cream + 3 tbsp icing sugar (sifted) **

**Whipped cream is used because I don't have enough buttercream :p.




I am submitting the Strawberry Long Bus Cake to Aspiring Bakers #5: Fruity March hosted by http://bakericious.blogspot.com/.

Other than baking the birthday cake, I also prepared Refreshing lemongrass drink shared by Jane of Passionate about Baking. The drink is really refreshing and good, but I prepared in "limited edition" so not all guests get to try it. I must say this is really a keeper!

Refreshing Lemongrass Drink
(Recipe adapted and slightly modified from Passionate about Baking)

Ingredients/ Method
8 Lemongrass, chopped and mashed lightly
3 litres water
10 tbsp Sugar
2 Lipton tea bags

1. Boil lemongrass and water in a pot.
2. Remove from heat.
3. Add tea bag to infuse, followed by sugar.
4. Remove tea bag after about 10 mins.
5. Let the lemongrass infused in the water overnight as it cooled.
6. Strained into a bottle and refrigerate.
7. Serve with ice.

Wishing Zakris a very Happy Birthday & 健健慷慷, 快高长大!

My first cake order

A month ago, I'd got my first cake order from my friend, E and for her dear prince Dylan's 4th birthday celebration. When I first started to bake more regularly about 2 years ago and also my blogging journey, I'd never knew that I can bake and decorate a cake, and what's more baking for a friend now. I'm fortunate to have a friend like E who places so much confidence in me as she'd not tried any of my bakes before, and her little gesture became my first-hand experience in doing cake order.

It so happened that Sat 18th Sept 2010 seems to be such an auspicious date, where there were many events on that day - Dylan's birthday celebration, my bro's guo-da-li (过大禮), chalet to celebrate my nephew's birthday. Therefore, i took a day off on Fri to prepare for the chalet's bbq stuff as well as Dylan's cake. Being my usual self, I'm bad with my time-management and spent almost half a day doing nothing, and started to panic when the time started ticking faster and faster. By then, it was almost time to pick up Zak from the school, and I only managed to marinate the chicken wings, and bake the chocolate sponge cake. Eventually I could only continue preparing the cake after our dinner, and by the time I was done with cream and decorating, it was already in the wee hours! Alas with the cake completed, I could finally heave a sigh of relief and have a really good shower before hitting the bed!

The feedback I'd received from E is most encouraging "Yep very nice.... the nicest cake I ever had.... thanks Esther! Dylan loves it very much and now Davier is asking for one *faint* hahaha...". Once again, I would like to thank E for her encouragement and confidence in me (*-*)

As a side note, I tried this Swiss Meringue Buttercream and I must say that it is really good! Although the steps seem daunting, I was pretty lucky to get it right the first time and couldn't stop licking the cream off my fingers...yummy...I'm a SMB convert for now (",)

Of baking

Not that I've not been doing anything since my last post, just that it's failure, failure and failures..... sigh. I tried my hand on bread-making again, after my previous failed attempt. Anyway, i'll keep trying until i get it right. Sigh... when can i get a freshly baked bread for my little baby? Or should i get a bread machine? It takes a little passion to withstand failures!

Other than the bread, i also (half) failed my sponge cake which i baked yesterday. It all boils down to my 'itchy hand'; the normal oven mode i used is conventional, but i happily changed it to conventional-fan, hoping that the bake will turn out better. To my horror, i got a charred and harden sponge cake. Why half-fail: i cleverly peel the outer skin and salvaged the cake which is still soft and nice inside. I turned it into sandwich cake, and spread strawberry jam, which zak and me happily ate for our tea-break ;-)

The next moment, i did another sponge cake again as it is supposedly to be for uncle eddie's birthday cake, though he don't eat anything non-chocolate and the rest of the family members can't take too much heaty food like chocolate cake. I went back using the same conventional mode, and the sponge cake turned out ideal. I think this sponge cake is better than the earlier ones I've done.

Strawberry, kiwi and jack-fruits

Then, there's another failed attempt to do a chocolate gateau (baked in cuppies) yesterday night, which i reluctantly threw them away. Although they looked perfect whilst in the oven baking, they deflated when cool, tasted underbaked and way too sweet for my taste-bud. I don't think i will try this out again.

Luckily I have time to try out another recipe, and i used it to do some chocolate cupcakes. This is modified using Baking Mum's Vanilla Cupcakes, which i only did half-recipe for fear that we can't finish so many cakes and the usually big spread of other food at the birthday 'boy' place.

Chocolate Cupcakes (yield 16 small cuppies)

Ingredients/ Method:

97.5g cake flour

50g plain flour

20 cocoa powder

75g castor sugar

50g light brown sugar

1/2 tbsp baking powder

110g salted butter

2 large eggs

1/2 cup whole milk

1/2 tbsp vanilla essence

1) Preheat oven at 165 degC.

2) In a bowl, combine flour, sugars, baking powder, cocoa powder. On low speed, add in butter and beat until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

3) In another bowl, mix eggs, milk and vanilla essence. Lightly whisk to mix well.

4) Add egg mixture into flour mixture in 3 parts, and ensure each addition is well mixed. Do not overbeat the mixture.

5) Fill cups about 2/3rd full. Bake for 20-25 mins or when skewer comes out clean.

6) Cool before decorating/ frosting.

Initially wanted to leave the chocolate cuppies naked, but there are too many reasons that compelled me to decorate it abit; a) always wanted to try out butter-cream, b) wanted to try out my frosting/ decorating skills, c) my little baby's birthday is coming up and i wanted to prepare some cuppies for his celebration at school, so this is a good trial opportunity, d) curious on a newly found butter-cream recipe, e) there's a bug in me which keep 'pushing' me to 'just do it'!

American Butter Cream

Ingredients/ Method:

56g butter, cubed (i used unsalted)

28g shortening

113g powdered sugar

1) Beat the butter and shortening until creamy.

2) Add in powdered sugar in a steady stream until well incorporated.

3) Add in 1/2 tbsp water to fluff up the butter cream.

4) Add colour or flavour as desired.

As i was quite clueless on how and what to decorate on the cuppies, i consulted my little baby for advice...kekeke... he's 2.5 weeks shy of two years old. He told me 'car', 'star', 'moon', 'heart', 'uncle eddie'.... and here they are. No car and short of a heart-shaped cuppies cos they went down to little zak's stomach before i complete my frosting project.

Of baking, it takes a little passion to withstand (many) failures!