Le Grande Finale !

26 June 2008

The day is here! Today we will have our last lesson. After 2 long but fun filled months of baking things from breads to cakes it has finally come to an end. Will any of us continue learning by signing up for the Advanced Continental Cakes & Cookies class ? Or maybe the Cake Decorating Class ? Who would take up the challenge and sign up for the full time Diploma in Baking Science & Technology course ? I don't know... but I don't think I'll be signing up for any of those for the time being. Will concentrate on 'polishing' and 'honing' my skills !

Anyway... for our last lesson we made a Chocolate Ganache, Wholemeal Walnut Muffin and Almond Curls. This was quite a relaxing evening and we even had a 'makan kecil' thingy while waiting for the stuff to bake ! And after the class we had a 'graduation' ceremony and we took lots of photos too !

Wholemeal Walnut Muffins


Almond Curls

Chocolate Gateaux

MORE Chocolate ! and a Fruit Cake (without alcohol?!!)

24 June 2008


Today is our second last lesson ... :-( I think I will miss my new found friends and also the lessons we had. Sigh.


Oh well... more chocolate today. Also lots of work involved making the chocolate mousse. Don't think I would want to make that again .. anyway, mousse is not my favourite !

Chocolate Chip & Walnut Muffins

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Dundee Fruit Cake

Cheese, Cheese & MORE Cheese !

21 June 2008

We made lots of cheesy stuff today... there was Baked Cheesecake, Blueberry Cheese Tarts and Blueberry Cheese Cake ! Lots of work involved in making these! No wonder they charge a lot for orders of cheese based cakes or tarts !

3 Cakes !

19 June 2008

We made 3 different types of cakes today. An Almond Cake (Financier), a Carrot Almond Cake and a Chocolate Brownie Cake.

The Almond Cake was as its name implies. To me, it was nothing much. Just a plain old almond cake. The carrot cake was nice and moist but I wonder why we didn't put any cream cheese on top ? The picture of the Chocolate Brownie Cake that was iced with Chocolate Fudge and topped off with Walnuts isn't mine. I left mine just the way it was as I thought I'd already had too much chocolate for the week !

Pandan Chiffon Cake and Chocolate Fudge Cake

17 June 2008

Baked another chiffon cake today. This time it's the Pandan Chiffon Cake. Also made a Chocolate Sponge cake and then covered it with chocolate ganache (fudge) and we have the ... Chocolate Fudge Cake !!

Black Forest Cake & Orange Chiffon Cake

14 June 2008

Yummy ! We made the Black Forest Cake today. One of my favourites plus the Orange Chiffon Cake ... this goes really well with Black Coffee !

Didn't realize that a lot of work goes into making the chiffon cake ! We had to get the batter done and then for the meringue not even a drop of egg yolk is allowed ! Phew! Lots of work!! And then we had to fold the meringue into the batter.....

Sponge Cake and Almond Sugee Cake

12 June 2008

We baked an Emulsifier Sponge Cake today.. it is a simple cake which is used for Fruit Flans and Black Forest Cakes. This cake is very light and may be used for simple light decorating. For Wedding Cakes or cakes that would want heavier decorations using fondant or cream icings, this cake would not be suitable.

Another cake we made was the Almond Sugee Cake. I would have liked it more if there were more sugee in it !

First Lesson in Baking Cakes

10 June 2008

At last! We're learning how to bake cakes... which also means our lessons are coming to an end soon. ... oh well...

We made some simple-to-bake cakes today... a Butter Cake, a Banana Cake and a Chocolate Hazelnut Cake. I quite like the Butter Cake as it was moist enough... unlike my previous tries at home where they turned out dry !

Also learnt this thingy about Specific Gravity (SG) - where we measure the SG for the batter before baking the cake. Never heard of this before and was wondering what it was. But maybe it's also good to know so that in future I can measure all my cake batter for their SG before baking to ensure that the cake turns out right !

Gong Xi Fa Cai !! Happy Birthday !!!

15 February 2008 - time really flies... it's already the 9th day of the Chinese New Year. Didn't do much baking and was also really too lazy to bake anything for the Chinese New Year. The weather is just so hot and besides I've already cleaned my kitchen (what an excuse!)


Well, I did bake 3 cakes though.




01 February 2008 - Reunion Dinner & My Aunt's Birthday !

As usual we have our reunion dinner with my aunt before the Chinese New Year and since her birthday was on the following day, I decided to bake her a cake and we celebrated her birthday then ! Went shopping on that day and saw some cute marshmallows and also one in the shape of a cow's head ! Decided to use those for my cake decoration. The outcome ... a cute little cake with marshmallow flowers & a marshmallow cow !





02 February 2008 - it was my sister's really good friend's birthday and I owed her a 'smiley' cake so I decided to bake one for her surprise birthday party. Nope I didn't get to attend this party but I heard that the Bak Kut Teh was good! Well, my sister wanted a chocolate cake (maybe because she still thinks my butter cake is not good enough) so I made a chocolate cake and iced it. Then piped the little stars to form a 'smiley' face. I used the red sugar hearts to shape the eyes and the mouth. Tried to sprinkle some chocolate rice at the sides and when I tilted the tray my whole cake slid ! Luckily I managed to catch hold of it. But the sides were already slightly damaged ..... now you know why the sides are decorated with the savoiardi biscuits. Luckily I had a packet that was unopened so I could use those! Oh well... at least the birthday girl liked the cake ! I still haven't told her the story though.





03 February 2008 - today we celebrate my friend's birthday. With the chinese new year coming up we decided not to have chinese food but instead opted for thai ! Good choice ! I had some more marshmallows and a few pieces of the savoiardi biscuits and rather than waste them, I decided to use those for decoration ... again ! My friend's son loved the little sprinkly stars !!




16 February 2008 - It's now the 10th day of the chinese new year and since the 3rd February I have not been baking ! Tomorrow is my sister's birthday and I have told her that I would not be baking her a cake (we have been overeating this chinese new year !) she agreed that it would be a good idea. After all, we would be having Italian and with all the pasta & pizza it would be really filling ! What she doesn't know is that I have prepared something else ! Not food though. I bought party packs for everyone and also a 'smiley' badge for each person to wear. Got her an extra big soft smiley and tied it to a necklace and I'll make her wear that tomorrow !! Hope she'll like it. Yes, my sister is a great fan of the 'smiley'.

Happy Birthday to my favourite sister!!

I've Been Dreaming of a True Love's Kiss .. lalalala

24 January 2008 - well... I did it ! I made the 'Enchanted Princess' birthday cake on the 20th of January !! I'm so happy I managed to do it. Wouldn't have liked to see the dissappointed look on a child's face if I didn't fulfill my promise ! The base of this cake is made of 10 inch (diameter) styrofoam, the middle level is my ever 'popular' chocolate cake (8 inch cake) and the top layer is butter cake (6 inch cake). Didn't want the bottom layer to be cake as there were only about 20 adults and if I made a 3 tier cake we wouldn't have been able to finish it. Since this was a cake for a 5 year old I also didn't want to cover it with too much flowers but used hundreds and thousands and some flower shaped sprinkles instead. The patterns on the bottom layer were inspired by a story book which had patterns like these for its fairytales !

I scanned the pictures of the Disney princesses into my computer (from some stickers I bought) and printed four princesses. Also changed the 'heads' of the same four princesses to be those of my friend's daughter ! Altogether I put 8 princesses on the cake !

But.. I think the birthday girl was a bit shocked to see her own face on the princesses. She preferred the real princesses instead of those with her face ! But her mom liked it though !

Note : Children might not see the fun side of having their faces superimposed on characters or bodies that are not theirs !

Two Birthday Cakes and a New Year Cupcake !

09 January 2008 - Happy New Year!! It's time for resolutions and maybe I should put mine as .. to bake better cakes, better looking cakes and to update this blog more often. But then again, I seldom make resolutions anyway ! Hahaha! Oh well, just to update this blog on what I did before the new year .....

15 December 2007 - my mother in law had a 60th birthday party and yes, I baked the cake. Was not too happy with it though. Had some problems and also not enough time (yes, I am still slow) so this is the result ..

29 December 2007 - then my aunt had a birthday and my cousin sister asked me to bake a chocolate cake for the dinner. Yes, the ever famous chocolate cake! I made it using the same recipe that is posted in this blog but this time in order to make it more moist, I tried something different !

First I pre-heated the oven while I was mixing the ingredients, then once the cake was ready to be baked, I put it into the oven and increased the heat to 200 degrees celcius for 10 minutes.

After that I lowered it to 160 degrees celcius and for the last 10 minutes I increased it back to 180 degrees celcius.

Outcome : VERY GOOD ! The cake was moist, texture was soft (but not too soft).... I was very happy with the results. Here's what it looked like.

05 January 2008 - finally the new year and I attended a Puppy Cupcake class with a friend. Class was supposed to be held on 30 December but I think because of the holidays many weren't able to attend. So, the class was postponed to 05 January instead. The class was fun, we learnt how to use modelling paste to decorate 2 cupcakes and make it into a 'puppy' cupcake. I had problems trying to attach the ear to the puppy. It kept falling off ! The paste also kept drying very fast. I think it was because of the air conditioner that was right above me. Maybe that's why the paste for the ear couldn't stick onto the puppy's head. Anyway, it stuck in the end but alas, it dropped off when I got home. Sigh !

Coming up next would be a cake that I would be baking for a friend whose daughter is turning 5 and the theme that I'm working on is Enchanted Princesses. Hope it turns out good ! Till then... adios !

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.

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, ....