Baking Starts Tomorrow !

05 December 2007

It's been eons since I updated this blog!! Hmm... what have I been doing ... ok...

Baked some mini cupcakes for my nieces' childrens' day at school. She insisted that her mother bring it to her when it was time for the party because it would be stolen if left in the classroom ! I tried to assure her that no one would want to steal the cupcakes that her aunt baked! heh heh

Anyway, I tried my hand at making glazed icing. Didn't know that it would harden so fast. If you look at the photo I've attached you'll see the outcome ! I could not even put the decorations on in time ! Wonder how other people do it.

And... I attended a Christmas Cupcake workshop on Saturday (01 December). It was quite fun and it set me in the mood to start baking again! Another reason is also that I have to bake a birthday cake for my mother in law's 60th birthday party next weekend. Gotta do a 2 tier cake with decorations and all. Another piece of good news is that I'll be baking a cake for a little friend's birthday in January too. And the theme will be Princesses !

Here's the Recipe for the Chocolate Cake

12 November 2007 - haven't been updating this site for a while now. Just came back from an extensive eating holiday to Hangzhou, Suzhou and Shanghai. I think I might have eaten enough to last me through this whole month !

Anyway, here is the recipe for the chocolate cake which is long overdue....

CHOCOLATE CAKE
(recipe for an 8" cake)

1) Beat

165gm butter
300gm castor sugar
2 tsp banilla extract

2) Add one at a time

3 eggs

3) Add and mix together

65gm self raising flour
200gm plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

4) Add alternately

70gm cocoa powder
250ml buttermilk

5) Bake at 180 degrees celcius for 1 hour and 10 minutes

Happy Birthday !!

14 October 2007 - Made this pink birthday cake for the October babies ! My younger niece loves pink that's why ! Oh yes, this is my first try at baking a chocolate cake. Got some good reviews and I decided to try again for our gathering with friends the next day. Here are some pictures of the pink birthday cake. It is chocolate cake covered with fondant and it also has some white flowers painted on. Also tried cornelli lace for the sides of this cake.

15 October 2007 - Just as I was baking the chocolate cake, my friend called up to reschedule our gathering as her son was not feeling well. He had vomitted throughout the night so neither he nor his parents had enough sleep. Poor thing. Hope he gets well soon. Anyway, since the cake was already baking in the oven, I decorated it anyway ! Decided to practice my cornelli lace again as you can see in the pictures here too. The chocolate cake recipe is really good. I will post it so that anyone can give it a try !

19 October 2007 - My elder niece came over to spend the day as she did not have to go to school (Hari Raya Holidays). She wanted to learn how to bake a cake and so since it was her cousin's birthday the next day we made one! My sis in law wanted to get her a Hello Kitty cake so my niece and I decided to decorate it 'Hello Kitty' style.

20 October 2007 - EMERGENCY !! The Hello Kitty cake melted ! Wonder how it happened. Was it too warm last night ? Anyway, I saved my niece's icing of the Hello Kitty cat and re-covered the cake with new fondant.

Delivered a Fire Truck cake to my friend whose son's birthday party is today! Personally, I thought it didn't look good enough but my friend was saying that she wanted a 'homey' looking cake so that was it ! Think I need more practice on icing the cake. Still not smooth enough ! I hope the party went well as it was raining very heavily this afternoon.

Happy Belated Mid Autumn Festival

16 September 2007 - this is my attempt at making 'Mini Moon Cupcakes'. Have tried making the jelly mooncakes but didn't succeed. Lots of bad reviews from my family !! Well, this year I decided that I will not try making the jelly mooncakes anymore and I came up with this GREAT idea ! Here's another close up shot !

I actually put the fondant into the trays for making jelly mooncakes to get the chinese characters printed onto the fondant. Then I cut them out to these sizes and placed them on top of the mini cupcakes. At least, no bad reviews this time around.

One thing though I find that my butter cakes normally turn out quite dry. Wonder why. Gotta find out so that I can improve on that cake!

Longest Day of my Life ...

13 September 2007
I spent one of the longest days of my life at the service centre waiting for my husband's car to be fixed ! Luckily they have computers with internet facilities there and I had a fun time browsing and looking into other peoples' blogs & websites. Suddenly felt like my blog is really boring. So now I am back at home and trying to make this more exciting or maybe more pleasing to the eye !
Didn't know that there is actually so much I can do with the 'blogspot'. Now I know! Over the next 2 weeks I will try to revamp this spot and I hope it will turn out fine !!
In the meantime, I'll have fun browsing other people's sites !

My journey and ... my new toy !

09 September 2007

Time really flies !! Finished with my level III classes too and I have NEVER baked so much in my life ! But I'm happy coz it means that I 'can do it' !! But I must admit it was really tiring !! Am going to attach some pictures from my level III classes and also the final wedding cake that I assembled ! Here's my journey through level III !!

1) 29 July 2007 - bought a new mixer coz I over used my mother's old one ! It just can't mix anymore and I had to manually mix my icing for my last class in level II. This is my new Kenwood Prospero KM260 Mixer.

2) 13 August 2007 - in lesson 2 we learnt how to wrap the fondant/sugarpaste onto a 'cake'. We actually used a square styrofoam for this. It was quite fun, like playing with playdoh.

3) 17 August 2007 - in lesson 3 we learnt how to make fondant/sugarpaste flowers using the lily nail. We also learnt how to make fondant roses and after that we had to start thinking about what we wanted to do for our final/graduation class.

4) 08 September 2007 - I decided to go with the fondant roses. During our 2 week break, I made about 30 fondant roses in pink, yellow & lilac and also the leaves for the flowers. Funny thing though... my flowers whether buttercream, royal icing or fondant.. all seemed to lean towards one particular side ! I blamed it on the sun ! Anyway, on 07 September 2007 I had my final class in level III and assembled this 2 tier wedding cake. It is made of buttercake (what else!) and covered with ivory coloured fondant and then iced with white royal icing. The fondant roses were then attached onto the cake along with the leaves and also the ruby coloured butterflies that I bought from this shop in Sri Damansara.




During that time I also baked 120 pcs of heart shaped butter cookies decorated with heart shaped sugar thingies to be used as favours for the guests at my parents' 40th wedding anniversary party. I also took 2 days to bake another 120 butter cupcakes complete with icing for decoration and packed them in time for the party! I don't have a good picture of the cookies but in the picture below you can see the cupcake and a bit of the cookie behind it !!


Oh yes and on the 06 September 2007, we had a birthday dinner for my niece and I made her this 'Powerpuff Girls' cake. I took nearly the whole day to do this ! Talk about inexperience !! I think I need more practice so that I won't take as long the next time I do so. Now, what I'd like to do is to learn how to bake other types of cakes instead of just buttercake which is what I'm doing at the moment !

But for now... I'll have a short break from baking and cake decorating coz my hands are still aching !! Hahaha! Maybe I should take weights or something to strengthen my hands, arms, ....

Can't believe I lasted this long !

26 July 2007 - Well, this is the final lesson in Level II. We have a week's break before Level III begins. I think my cake must have been the tallest one in class ! Didn't know that I only had to fill the cake tin about 1/2 full instead of 3/4 full !! That's why my cake rose till this height. Can't wait till the next level to begin. We will be learning to make more types of flowers and borders too. Also, we'll be learning how to do fondant (sugarpaste) designs as well. At last !

Cakes, Cakes, Cakes

24 July 2007 - I will be attending my fourth lesson in Level II this Thursday and we will be assembling a cake and decorating it with all the flowers that we have pre-made at home. Then I will have a week's break, before Level III begins.


22 July 2007 - this is the latest cake that I've done. For my brother in law's birthday. The pictures show the cake before and after the little dinosaurs were added. The kids loved the dinosaurs. Picked them out and ate them all up before we could all get to the cake !

08 July 2007 - and another one for a group birthday celebration. There were 3 of them celebrating their birthdays in June & July that's why we had 3 candles !!

07 July 2007 - With my confidence riding high, I made this cake for my uncle's birthday party too !

01 July 2007 - after 'graduating' from Level I, I made this birthday cake for my brother in law ! Don't you think it looks so much better than the first cake I made ?

26 June 2007 - the fourth and final lesson in Level I. Had to make the roses and cake in advance and then brought them to class for decorating. I make up my mind to continue with Level II !!

19 June 2007 - This is the outcome from lesson 3 !! We learnt how to make roses, swirl flowers and clowns ! Dont' you think the clowns look cute ?!

17 June 2007 - I made this cake for Fathers' Day and the kids were all so excited they ended up cutting the cake instead of the fathers !!

12 June 2007 - this cake was done at the second lesson and I must say I AM glad I signed up for the course. At least now, my cake does look like a cake !!

19 May 2007 - after the workshop I couldn't wait to try out my 'fondant' techniques! Didn't really turn out the way I wanted it to though. Better sign up for the course !

18 May 2007 - after the 'over the top' looking cake, decided it was time to take up a cake decorating course. First stop a workshop on cupcakes decorating !

01 April 2007 - This was my first attempt at cake decorating. Went crazy adding the hundreds and thousands (which my nephew insists is rice). Not that good I must say !