Pink & Black fondant cake

Like i've said in the earlier post, this week has been rather hectic for me cos i have a number of cake orders to fill. My mum conveniently told me that my cousin will be having a bday party thingy on fri. I automatically offered to make her a cake of course :p LOL I managed to squeeze in some time to prepare the deco for the cake a few days in advance, and to bake my cousin's cakes today when im suppose to bake 2 chiffon cakes that ppl ordered -_- and another 2 cakes on fri. & i'll be dedorating the cake on fri as well.. hectic & tiring.

Rather stressful, but yet i enjoy doing it, cos i am doing wat i like best :) Came up with a design after surfing the net for some inspirations. The colour is set, pink & black.

I love looking at 2-tier cakes or stacked cakes cos they look oh-so-pretty to me :) I then decided to make a stacked cake. This is my first time.. I was worried that the cake below can't take the weight of the cake above. Went surfing the net again, & found out that they have some sticks inserted into the bottom cake to support the weight of the cake above. Imagine if I had just stacked the cake.. disaster, it would sink!!! o_O

How naive of me to think that the cakes were just stacked onto one another without reinforcements... :p

Both of the cakes will chocolate cakes, with strawberry jam filling. Something different la rather than just choc cake wif choc fudge filling.

Wow... i officially hate using black fondant. It is so bloody hard to colour a piece of white fondant to black.... -_- i kneaded and kept adding black colouring on the fondant for a good 15 minutes... not to mention it stains ur hands too *&@^@%#$@$^*

I know there r black fondant available but i dunno where to get it! & even if i can find it, i don't think i can afford to buy since it'll be expensive :p

Anywayz, hope both the deco & the cake will turn out great. I love working with fondant :) Will post pics after i've finished assembling & decorating. Be patient for now :p

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I was reading posts from my old blog & realised how silly & immature i was few years back. Always complaining bout the smallest problem and blogging out all that i felt. Wow, i've grown so much. I no longer like blogging about my deepest thoughts, and about my frustrations and anger. I rather keep things in my head & think to myself & solve problems in there. No point rite writing everything here & accidentally piss ppl off? Or haf ppl say that im such a emo person. Oh well, wat ever it is, problems no longer bother me as much as they do the last time. Im looking at things with an open mind nowdays, no matter wat it is :) maybe it's time for a change, maybe it's not, only time will tell.

Say CHEESE..

Over the weekend, I've baked in total of 2 cheese cakes. One was the oh so famous coffee & cheese cake.. yes, Tiramisu. The other was an order from my cousin, blueberry cheese cake.

Honestly, i have not made both of those cakes before.. :p the tiramisu turned out pretty good, but the cake layer was was too soggy... -_- but the taste is just right!! I added something extra, some chocolate pieces in addition to the cocoa powder.



Here is a pic, I know i suck at presentation part :p tired to deco deco a bit to make it look better, didnt turn out very ncie, but who cares? :p as long as it taste good rite? Quality over the looks is my motto for making cakes :) but of course it's better if the cake would taste & look good la :D


Interested to make tiramisu? Watch this video, i took the recipe from Youtube. Her recipe is better than the rest, cos she don't use raw egg yolks. The cake itself is not too sweet as well. A recipe worth trying.




I really dunno how the blueberry cheese cake taste like, this is the first time made one cos it was requested from my cousin. He apparently loves blueberries. I am selling the cake at rm48. Pricey, but this is becos the ingredients itself is so dem expensive!! butter, the biscuit for the base, the cheese, the blueberry!!! Must ask him how's the cake. I have not taken a pic of the cake.. so be patient la, I will post it when i snap a pic ;)

On an unrelated topic, congrats to randall for getting 3rd in the Tropicana Bowling Masters 2008 yesterday. When belanja?? :p I went and support u ok!!! lol

This week will be a busy week, I have so so so so so many orders for the orange chiffon cake (so far i've sold more than 30 of this cake), batik cake, butter cookies and a normal chocolate sponge cake o_O

I wanna bowlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll........ :(

Boobies anyone?

This would be my second time in using sugarpaste to decorate a cake. This was inspired after i saw some pics in facebook, it's a girl who had a dick cake for her bday. LOL

Since it was bryan's bday, & he is a guy, & oso ham sap to some extend, i decided to make a cake wif a girl's body together with her boobs! Well, a half naked chick la to be precise :p

Im quite delighted with the results, since i have no experience in decorating cakes wif sugarpaste.. Just a bit of experience in MIB, but they did not teach us much on decorating.

Lo & behold..... boobies cake!!!


looks very real rite? looks like a white chicks body.

We brought the cake to the restaurant, & he was told to lick the boobs.. LOL Mat Salleha walked pass us & laughed at him, calling him titty boy HAHAHA

Even the waiters can't help but to smile everytime they walk pass our table.. LOL

Wat's new in my life? Nothing much la, i wrote in to Kurnia Insurans, they didnt reply. But now most probably will start work in a SME near my house in feb or end of jan provided they wanna take me in la. it's my dad's colleague's bro's company. The pay is quite goood for starters, so... hopefully i get in =)

& i will be attending PME Professional Course in Sugarpaste come January YAY-ness!! :) My dad actually didnt really object to my surprise... only my mum made noise -_- Wedding cakes here i come =))))))))

I experimented with a cake recipe just yesterday, it's called batik cake. It called so, becos the biscuit bits in the middle of the cake makes it look like batik or something.

This is how it looks


Wow, the cake is so so so so so so so moist & not forgetting chocolatey... heavenly :) a success!!!!

Ok la, that's all i have to update for now. Quite lazy actually :p take carez.

Butter Fingers

Im sorry. I know, I should be blogging more often. I should blog bout baking more -_- Im so sorry. Really have been busy.. wif baking! That's cos I haf a few cheese cake orders plus bday cakes to bake in October. First there was blackforest cheese cake for randall's grandma's bday in jack's place. Then it was HIS bday, i decided to take the risk & bake a fruit cake & decorate wif sugarpaste. Surprisingly, it turned out really nice, for a first timer. It's not as good as those u see in blogs n all, but it's good enuff :p


Black forest cheese cake. Love the roses & the pattern on the cake. Looks so lovely. If my bf can make liddet & give me it'll be dem sweet lo... *ahem* But the cake has to taste good as well la :p hahah I know, im very picky & demanding :p bear wif me.



Randall's bowling cake, cute eh!! I made the pins + the lane + the balls ALL BY HAND. NO TOOLS. the pins itself took me 1 hour to complete... -_- luckily all were done days b4 i actually assemble the cake. The cake took me about 2 hours or less to assemble + the lane la.

Other than that, i baked some butter cookies for our bowling "sifu" to thank him on giving us many tips on bowling. As I haf some sugar paste leftovers, I baked some cupcakes for the bowling event for breast cancer awareness and distributed them for free :)


cupcakes!! If i get any better i think i can start selling them :p


butter cookies is the most sellable item so far. I get so many orders during CNY til i can pengsan.. -_- sorry no pic. lol

Coming back to the charity bowling event, we were a sponsered team cos the fees were too exp for us, RM1000 for a team of 3 ppl, 3 games each O_0 The team consist of me, randy and his mum. Dun laugh, his mum can whack u in bowling anytime ok....

We didnt expect to win anything, but to bowl for the fun & the experience. But we ended up getting 5th placing out of 40 over teams :) Prize money of RM300 was donated back to the organisation, but we kept the gifts. We each gotten a perfume each, ladies had clinique happy while randy took home DKNY b'delicious. Cool eh?


Prize Giving :)

I am so caught up wif baking & bowling training that i don't have the time to sit & write my resume... -_- I know, i should get my arse to start working & earn my own money. I really dun haf the motivation to do so... -_- but i told myself, oct 31 would be the last day to laze around. shit, now it's already 2nd of nov... Okok, time to go.

Deja Vu

Seeing wat happen reminded me of what happened a year or more ago.

My neighbours were playing badminton just now. They had a puppy. It was running around happily watching them play and barked. I was watching tv and heard a car sped by, followed by loud and painful yelping. The idiotic f*cker who drove the car, sped off. It was a hit & run. I really hope something bad will happen to him/her. Dun have brains izzit, driving so bloody fast in housing estate?

Went out, i saw the puppy lying there, motionless. My mum said it wasnt moving. My neighbours rushed to see the puppy and carried it to the side of the road. I saw lots of blood on my neighbour's pants. The puppy sat up, i wasn't sure, but i think i saw blood on its tongue cos it was rather dark. They took the puppy to the vet in their car.

They finally came back 3 hours later. No puppy. I was relieved, i thought that it was recuperating in the clinic. But few minutes after that, I saw them gathering in their garden, digging up dirt. I can only imagine how sad they were losing their pet.

At that moment, all i could remember was how my mum dug roxy's grave outside my house a year back, when roxy collapsed suddenly & didn't wake up after that.

Life is really unfair sometimes, but we still have to live through it, rite?

Condolences to my neighbours.

Uninvited

This is freaking scary. I came back from bowling around 11:30pm. Left my wooden door open, went to play the com. around 1am, I heard my dog pacing around when she was suppose to be sleeping.

So i went out to the living room to see wat she's doing. She was sniffing behind the radio drawer cum table. I scolded her & took a look. Saw this balck thingy hanging out a bit from behind the drawer. Tot it was her toy which got stuck...

BUT, i when i took a closer look, it was black, with a scaly surface all curled up.....

LUCKILY i didnt touch it. I moved the drawer a bit, and saw the tongue....

IT WAS A SNAKE.

A COBRA TO BE PRECISE....

Carried my dog away and called my parents who were sleeping. My dad came down, took a long stick, and tried to shoo it away. It hissed at my dad... wth...

It was about 40cm long... a freaking cobra... in my house. WTH?!?!?!

Brandy was really lucky it didnt bite her... she being the kay poh fella..

Really really very lucky... I dunno wat i'll do if anything happens to her.

Now i cant sleep.. really freaked out..

All About The Mousse

Yesterday I kept my promise to someone as I have owed her chocolate mousse for a long long time. I remember her bugging me to make her mousse since last year?!?! :p So yesterday was spent making chocolate mousse cupcakes! :) :)

Lih Yein came as well, so had 2 extra pair of hands to help out. And the mousse required a candy thermometer to take the temperature, so in the end Selina bought me one from Chang Tung on mon :p thanx!! but i wan anohter pressie next year!!

Most mousse recipes require the use of egg whites, RAW egg whites to be precise. In order to get the light and fluffy texture of the mousse, the egg whites need to be beaten with sugar til it turns white and well aerated. For those who doesn't know, this is called meringue (pronounced as MER-RANG).

As the mousse uses raw eggs (no baking is required to make the mouse, just chilling time) it is recommended to use pasturized eggs instead of normal eggs. Pasturised eggs can be bought at Jusco at Rm8.00 per box of 10s. This is because raw un-pasturized eggs may contain bacteria called Salmonella which can cause blindness or even death (I think). So, seriously, if there are any recipes that require the use of raw eggs, be very very cautious. Try finding an alternative recipe, or just get pasturised eggs to be safe. Or dun use the recipe at all if u r not sure!!

Pasturization is a process whereby heat is applied on food products for the purpose of reducing or destroying harmful bacteria or virusesfound on the food product. The characteristic of a pasturized egg would be a cloudy appearance in the egg white.

For those who's interested in making some, here is a recipe for Chocolate Mousse that does not require any eggs.

Ingredients: (Serves 2)
1 cup Semi-sweet Chocolate Chips
3 Tablespoons butter
2 Teaspoons Nescafe Instant Coffee Powder
1 Tablespoons hot water
1/4 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

Method:
1. Melt butter and choc chips in a sauce pan. Dissolve coffee in hot water and stir into choc. Add in vanilla extract.

2. Whip cream on high speed until stiff peaks form. Fold cream into chocolate mixture. Spoon into tall glasses, chill for 1 hour or until firm.

3. Serve with whipped cream or strawberries or chocolates even :p


Here are some pics taken on the day we made mousse :p




this looks very wrong. I know :p but in the end it was all smooth & light. Very yummy.



the meringue



caught slacking... lol


too yummy to resist..




the woman... by Ms. selina chew LOL

Oh, if u wan the mousse to be accompanied by cake, u can purchase chocolate sponge mix from any baking supply shop, follow the instructions and add in the mousse. Then u will get choc mousse cake! :)

The mousse we made had a little something extra, to give the X-factor.. LOL it turned out YUMMY. Sorry la, cannot tell wat izzit :p hehehe

Happy baking!!!

Still Tired

I baked again today. Really very sick of looking at mooncakes -_- I didnt touch any since 2 weeks and I don't plan to.. lol today i baked the final batch of mooncakes that r supose to be sold. So... NO MORE BAKING MOONCAKES!!!!!!! :D :D :D

I got "full" just by looking at them. I think this week will be the last week (hopefully) for me to bake mooncakes. NO MORE! I still wanna bake, but wanna bake other stuff. Or better yet, cook something nice for once :p

I just realised that I totally forgot to blog about graduation.. -_- So congrats to randall and myself for finally finishing our studies!!! :p a little slower than the others, but heck, we DID IT!!!


randall & i in the regalia together with our graduation pressies. I made his present, it was in one piece when i gave him, but a day after it looked really ugly cos SOMEONE didn't take good care of it =( It had ferrero rocher chocs on them, and they were all missing!!!!!


graduation bouquet from my parents. I have no gotten so much flowers, that time was the first. *ahem* and it's not even from randy.

Bryan and Aunjian came to see us after the ceremony, cos monash is so dem kiam siap, they only gave each graduants 3 tickets, no extras... -_- And we waited so freaking long just to take our graduation portraits cos there wasnt really a line, and we stood at the end of the imaginary line. Every ah chu ah kau cut que so we were among the last to take our pics... bloody hell. -_- Anywayz, that was graduation. Nothing much, cos most of our friends graduated last yr. So we were pretty lonely.. haha

Moving on, weihan just came back from langkawi a few weeks back. I told him to help me get liquor chocs for me.. omg i love the chocs so so so much..

Anthon Berg's Liquor Chocs:

Ignore randall in the background :p


This is of course my fav.. :p There is liquor in the center of the bottled shapped choc. and it's DARK choc.. dark choc + liquor = satisfaction. lol i love both :p

There r various diff liquor in the whole box of chocs, but the best would be the whiskey ones. I didnt like the malibu.. coconut rum.. yuck -_-

And one month back, ailin, lihyein and I went for the estee lauder warehouse sale in a hotel in kl. can't recall the name.. let me tell u, women can get pretty crazy when it comes to sales, and even crazier when it comes to branded goods sale. The sale was suppose to start at 8am, and ailin told me that her collegues would que at 6am oustdie just to get in early to get the things.

I thought she was kidding, so i said nvm, we will just reach there at 8 or slightly after 8. So, upon reaching the hotel, i got a shock of my life cos the freaking que was already outside the hotel ad there were ppl leaving wif smiles on their faces carrying big big bags of cosmetics. We rushed to get a parking and we lined up for about an hour b4 we get into the ballroom.. -_- By the time we went in, it was already 9am, and many things were already sold out... But things were cheap compared to their normal retail prices. DKNY B delicious was only rm120, but the women's one were all GONE. All left were the guys one. Estee Lauder perfume sets were at rm100 to 120 if im not mistaken. The foundation was sold at rm60 for 2 jars. There were Clinique products, as well as Bobbi Brown, MAC and Origins.

And this were all the things we bought, combined. Guess who shopped the most? :p Ai lin of course!! hahaha

The Madness Is Over.. RIGHT.

I thought that the mooncake-making-craze will be over since today is the exact day of The Mid Autumn Festival. Usually ppl will not buy mooncakes anymore.. Well, not really la, cos we all know that bakeries will slash prices down by giving ridiculous discounts, 30% and if later tonite there are still mooncakes left, they will cut the price down by 40% or even 50%, as I was told.

Oh, Happy Mid Autumn Festival!! :p I forgot to wish all of u.. Hahaha

Well, i can't stop baking just yet. There are still orders for the mooncakes and I was only able to rest TODAY. Tomorrow, I'll be back in the kitchen baking.. AGAIN -_- I have not sold so much of one kind of baked goods before.... It's madness..


This is the snow skin mooncakes I sold. All my mooncakes are individually packed for a more "professional" look.. yea rite :p Actually pack it so cleaner la, not so gross.. And it's given in a nice mooncake box.

This customer may wanna place orders after mooncakes festival, for her husband to take to Indonesia as a business gift. And selina told me mooncakes in Indonesia is dem expensive.

Ok, I think i managed to sell roughly about 80 - 90 mooncakes this time around. An achievement :) Thanx to my mum and selina for helping out.

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This morning was brandy's training. I have missed 2weeks of training. First was becos my fellow trainers were at ipoh for Agility Trials. Think they did very well, so congrats to them! Brandy did fairly well today, she would usually pull & tuck me into the shade as she hates the sun. When it gets too hot, she would be reluctant to do anything, which makes me pretty pissed. But, i cant do anything cos she refuses to comply.. spoilt dog -_-

But it was different today, she did the course many times, although not in sequence and I was all over the place giving her wrong body language :p LOL She can be off leash for a short while, but I don't trust her a 100% percent!! She's like a loose canon.. dunno when it'll explode.. or run away!! Noob dog.

And it's one of her fellow doggie fren's bday today. So their boss (aka owners) baked and brought a cake for her. And i brought mooncakes since it's mooncake festival. So dogs had cakes and humans had mooncakes ahaha.


Happy Bday to Cami! She's with the agility cake.. LOL

And did the doggies enjoyed the cake.. It's a carrot cake, with cream frosting and bacon bits! How yummy!! All doggies were so so so so so attentive after they got a taste of the cake. SO they called it the AGILITY CAKE. Cos many dogs were very obedient and ran the course like pros just to get another bite. hahah

So tonite we had a small thing planned. A fondue party together with some mooncakes and lanterns :p LOL Will post pics of the event next time.

Have a wonderful and pleasant Mid Autumn Festival tonite :) Eat more mooncakes!!!!

MIA

Ok... I KNOW. The blog has once again been neglected.. I'm not doing in on purpose.. I have not ran outta stuff to write.

I AM JUST SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO SO busy right now i can't find the time to sit down and write out a good post -_-

Orders of mooncakes have came in these few weeks and I only have a pair of hands. My schedule for the pass week has been:

Wake up, brush teeth, bake, bake, bake, bake, lunch, relax 2 hours, go out, come back, sleep.

this is my routine everyday.

I haf no time to sit down & haf a nice lunch. And last week was my convocation. I didn't have time to try on make up, no time to pick out wat i wanted to wear, no time to paint my nails. I only shopped for randy's gift on fri nite when the convo was on sat morning, and made it on fri nite itself -_- I've nvr felt so busy b4... I think working won't be this hectic!!! Omg..

But i am happy, cos Im doing wat I like, that is BAKING. After this sun, no more baking mooncakes. Ppl are ordering 6 boxes at a go... i have already baked 50 mooncakes to date, it is still not enufffffff. There are still orders I have yet to fill.. -_-

Oh, and miss Selina is back!!! =) i have an extra pair of hands to help me out... *hint hint*

TGIF

Was searching for pictures of dogathon 2008 on the internet, managed to find two pics of brandy taken by a photographer in his
Flickr.

Can't show them here tho.. -_- Can't save the pics. So go to the site to see la. But she looks dem cute jumping through the tyre :p LOL

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Oh, the mid valley 8 pin tap bowling competition.. They were over-qualified ppl who's so thick faced that they joined and won rm380.. -_- No chance in winning.

But I managed to get 14th place out of 30 ppl i think. Gotten myself 2 free bowling games and 3 cans of soft drinks.. wth.. rm40 for that!! -_- I fumbled on my 3rd game, that's y I didn't finish at a higher position.

Oh well, wat's done is done. No point getting pissy and disappointed over this. Practice will make perfect. :)

One ball & 10 Pins

One ball and 10pins, yes it's bowling. I wasn't a real fan of bowling although randall bought me a ball and shoes a few years back. Not until the beginning of this year when randall got 'kicked out' of his dad's bowling team LOL It wasn't because he didn't perform well, he was the best bowler in their team, but since HSBC wants to sponser its players, they would only allow employees to join.

So randall formed his own bowling team, consisting of 8 bowlers. Team name was decided as "Never Say Die". We were the underdogs, we still are in the weekly league, but each of us has improved tremendously once we started bowling this year. Randall, the team captain is very proud of us, that is why u can spot him smiling ALL THE TIME (even if he misses his spares..) during bowling HAHA

Anywayz, we played against the strongest team today and although we lost this time, all of us bowled our very best. We lost 8-12. Close call eh? Strongest team man!! They have a state player and an ex-malaysian bowler in their team... -_- But, they are humble ppl, they gave us tips every week so that we can improve in our games. However, it was dissapointing as lucas can't join us.. Last week was the last week to enrol new bowlers.. NVM! can form another team for friday league!! :p

Bowling is not as simple as hitting 10 pins, u need to be able to be consistent, and be strong, mentally as well (Cos opponents tend to 'psycho' the not so good bowlers -_-). Talking about being mentally prepared, I have a chance to prove myself now since I will be bowling in another bowling league in 1u which is held every monday. Randall, wyzek and I were asked by 3 different teams to join them. This is not the best part, next week, my first time playing, I would be up against randall's team!! hahaha How interesting... n intimidating at the same time. Practiceeeeeeeeeeeeee!! I must beat randall, and he will nvr get the end of it! :p LOL

Practice makes perfect, so I am off to practice tomorrow morning with randall. Tomorrow will be another competition in Mid Valley, 8-pin tab (ie. as long as your first throw hit 8 pins and above, u will be given a strike). So wish me luck, Im keeping my fingers crossed!

Cupcake Deco 101 part 2

Ok, so here is part two to cupcake decoration post. I baked vanilla cupcakes, but I spiced it up by putting chocolate chunks in the cupcakes.



The result was good, since the chocolate is melted and it is in larger amount, the moment u bite the cupcakes, u can feel the chocolate oozing out... :D~~~~~~~

Ok ok.. moving on!

After baking the cupcakes, it is time to let ur creative juices flow, and decorate them so that they look even yummier!! :) One of the most common icing used to decorate cupcakes would be buttercream. Other than buttercream, chocolate fudge, fondant or royal icing can also be used. For my cupcakes, I used buttercream as the icing. It's very versatile, and u can mix and match the colours u want :) Here's a recipe for buttercream.

Buttercream Icing(Recipe from Wilton's website)

Ingredients:
1/2 cup shortening*
1/2 cup margarine, softened
4 cups icing sugar, sieved
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 Tablespoons milk

*Since shortening has trans fat, I would substitute shortening with butter. Never use all butter for this recipe. The buttercream will be less stable (ie melt easily, does not hold its shape). So make sure you use half margarine and half butter.

Methods:
1. Beat butter, margarine and vanilla until very light and fluffy.
2.Gradually add in sugar, one cup at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Mixture will look dry after adding all the sugar.
4. Add in milk, and beat until light and fluffy.
5. Store in airtight container and put in fridge when not in use.
6. Can be kept for up to 2 weeks.

It is recommended to prepare the buttercream a day ahead as it will be quite hectic and tiring to bake the cupcakes, prepare the icing and decorate all in one day. Spread it out, trust me, I've experienced this before. Not nice at all -_- Tiring betul!

So after all the cupcakes are cooled, the fun part begins!! Time to decorate. First, pick a theme you wan. Of if you r lazy to think of one, you can just pick out a few colours you want to be on your cupcakes. The first batch of my cupcakes I wanted to do a 'doggie theme'. I picked green for the cupcake's background. And brown for the outline of the dog, since dogs don't come in blue, red or yellow -_-

1. Add few drops of food colouring of your choice into a small amount of buttercream and stir well until all colours are well combined. Do the same to other colours of your choice. Prepare all the colours that will be used in decoration now. Will be easier than just preparing one colour, decorate the cupcakes then going back to preparing the buttercream -_-

2. Using the palette knife, apply a thin layer of icing on the cupcakes and spread out evenly.

3. After doing so, fill some buttercream into the paper cones. Cut a tiny hole in the sharp end and test the consistency of the icing by squeezing it out onto some other surface and get the hang of it before you begin decorating. Draw anything u want on the cupcake. I chose to draw a dog on leash and this is how it turned out.

I also drew some teddy bears supposingly holding baloons after i ran out of ideas of what to do for the doggie theme -_-

Other than a dog, i did paw prints with some deco as well. So the cupcakes turned out quite cute, but wasn't really happy, cos the colours were slightly dull.

The next batch of cupcakes were decorated with a 'doraemon theme' for my little nephew since he likes the cartoon alot :) I only decorate 8 cupcakes for him.

I applied the cupakes with buttercream, no colour added. I later outlined doraemon's face. I drew all of them free hand :) Later i just filled in the blue and red, and added a yellow dot on his neck as his bell. Cute eh? ;) I am very proud of the outcome.

The smiling-with-his-mouth-opened doraemon

The 'normal' smiling doraemon LOL

I then decorated the remaing cupcakes using yellow and blue icing. I used the star and leave nozzle for the motives on the cupcakes. As usual, ice the cupcake thinly with buttercream. Then squeeze the yellow icing in alternate rows like below.

After that, fill in the remaining spaces with blue icing. This are the end results. U can leave them as it is, or add pink dots as shown in the below picture.

Here are pics of the doraemon batch of cupcakes :) Love the colours!! Hope my nephew loves them too.

So that's how i spent my weekend :p Any questions, feel free to ask. Any comments feel free to let me know. Til next time, toodles and take carezzz! :)

Cupcake Deco 101 (part 1)

Since this blog has a cupcake theme, with the background to the header I've decided to give some tips on cupcake decorations. I am no expert, so don't expect too much ok! :p I like to look for designs online and try my best to follow and perfect those designs.

I've tried my hands on cupcake deco before, and once I start I can't stop. I just wanna decorate more and moreeeee. It's addictive I must say :D

Okok, moving on!!

So, before starting cupcake deco, the most important thing that u really need is...

...



......


............................


.......


....


..

CUPCAKES OF COURSE!!!

duh :p Sorry la, I know Im being lame but bear with me :p

Other than cupcakes, there are some things u may need to make decorating easier. The essentials would be:

1. Paper Cones. Make these in advance, and have at least 5 so that you won't have to make it halfway through decorating when it runs out. Paper cones are handy as decorating require piping out designs, from wordings to lines. It also saves me money, rather than using plastic piping bags. So, it is better to use home made paper cones rather than plastic piping bags, more environmental friendly.

Wonder how to make paper cones? Click here to find out.

2. Nozzles are also important. It can give us shapes and cute shapes, especially flower petals. Without the nozzles, we cant make any flower petals with buttercream.


3. Other than buttercream as deco, we can purchase these ready made bottled decoration stuff. All are edible so no worries :)


4. To make various buttercream colours, we will need food colouring. Also we need the palette knife, i don't know if it's called that, but it is used to spread the icing on cakes and cupcakes.

Here is a basic vanilla cupcake recipe. If u haven't baked any b4, I would recommend this recipe, as it will not be so expensive compared to recipes like orange chocolate chip cupcakes if anything goes wrong with the cupcakes. (Many things can be added into this recipe to zest it up. You can be creative, add in choc chips, raisins, strawberries, or some orange or lemon rind, and u will get orange or lemon flavoured cupcakes! :))

Basic Vanilla Cupcake

Ingredients:

200g unsalted butter (if using salted butter, don't use salt in this recipe)

200g castor sugar*

3 eggs (at room temperature, cold eggs will make the batter curdle, so don't use cold eggs, I've experienced this many many times b4)

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

200g cake flour (sieved)

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (sieved together with flour)

1/4 teaspoon salt


*If u have vanilla sugar, then substitute half of the castor sugar with vanilla sugar. This will enhance the vanilla flavour of the cupcakes. I have the method of making the vanilla sugar, I will post it at the end of this post.

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C and line cupcake tray with paper cups of your choice.

2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. After all the eggs are beaten, add in vanilla essence and salt.

3. With the mixer on a low speed, add the flour, in few additions. (It is better to not use the mixer at this stage. Use a spatula to hand mix in the flour. Over beating the flour mixture will cause the cupcakes to be hard as gluten will form).

4. Fill the batter in the paper cups on the cupcake tray until 3/4 full. Don't be greedy and fill it to the brim, it will puff up, and it will be difficult to decorate later on. Bake until top is golden brown, and to test if it's cooked, poke a toothpick in the middle and if it comes out clean it is cooked. Remove from oven, and cool completely on wire tray.

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Vanilla Sugar(Recipe from Cupcake Blog)

1 vanilla bean

250g castor sugar

1. Split the vanilla bean into half but do not scrape out the seeds. Put the vanilla bean together with the sugar in an airtight container. Shake it once in a while. Keep up to 5days before using.

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Ok, I will stop here. Will continue with the second part of cupcake deco another day :) stay tuned!

Over The Moon

Mooncake festival or Mid-Autumn festival is celebrated by the chinese all over the world on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar (in our normal calendar it is around September), where the moon is seen at its fullest and brightest. The is a legend behind the reason why we celebrate this festival, and there are so many versions to the story.

One of the version which was told by my mum when I was younger, was about a forbidden love between a mortal and a goddess, "Ngau Long" and "Chik Lui". But, in Wikipedia, the names were changed to HouYi and Chang'e.. I don't know how the translation goes but the story is similiar.

So, the story is about Chik Lui who was a goddess and Ngau Long who was a mortal farmer who fell in love with each other, without knowing that she was a goddess from heaven. Soon Ngau Long found out, and the gods were pissed at them as a goddess is forbidden to fall in love with a human. They had a child together, but she had to leave him and their child behind on mid-autumn. Out of pity, the gods allowed them to see each other once a year on mid-autumn. It is said that she represents the moon, he would represent the sun and the child would be the stars. So this is how Mid-Autumn festival comes about. And if u look closely, u can see outline on the moon which looks like a rabbit, which is suppose to be Chik Lui, I think :p Basically whole year round, Ngau Long can see Chik Lui on the moon as a rabbit. So, can only see no touch.. LOL

So, with the forbidden love story aside, mid-autumn festival is celebrated by kids, carrying lited lanterns and walking around the neighbourhood. Mooncakes are sold by many bakeries and chinese restaurants for people to buy. This year is different for my family, bcos they no longer need to buy mooncakes to distribute to my family. My aunt(whom I shall be referring to as D'Master from now on) taught me how to bake mooncakes :) Last year or a few years back, D'Master taught me to make the easier version, the non-bake type of mooncakes, called "Bing Pei" or Snow Skin mooncakes.

D'Master didn't want to teach me the baked mooncakes as they were difficult to be made. But finally, she has deemed me worthy that's why she passed down her knowledge to me :p LOL

So here are some pics on the mooncakes i baked. Family and friends have tried, comments came back good so I am happy :)









Some tips for those who are interested to make some:

-Always make sure that you get a wooden mould like mine shown above, nvr ever get a plastic mould cos with all the knocking you will do just to get the mooncake out, the plastic mould may break.

-The mooncake will tend to stick to the mould in the process of knocking, so make sure u put alot of flour on the mould and also on the dough b4 pressing it into the mould.

-The egg glaze should be only egg yolk, and diluted using abit of water. It is recommended to glaze the mooncake when it is half cooked, if not it will tend to be burn b4 it's even cooked thoroughly.

-Remember to keep the freshly baked mooncakes for an extra two days for the oil of skin to emerge. This will make the skin softer and yummier to eat ;)

Some websites with mooncakes recipes are below:

Mooncake recipe 1

Mooncake recipe 2

Happy Baking :)

Back for Good

Greetings!

After taking a long break from blogging, I've decided to *ahem* change my blog address as well as the content. The content of this blog will be mostly on the baked goods. Other than that, I guess I will be posting more on Brandy's progress in agility and on her outtings.

Well, since I am talking about Brandy's outting and progress, Dogathon was held today in UPM. Things didn't go as well as they did the last time she took part in agility trials. To cut the story short, she got disqualified! TWICE! So, no thropy, no Blackwood dogfood and no goodie bag for her this time. :( Didn't manage to take any pics cos Brandy was pulling me around like an excited little girl in the funfair.

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And, yesterday was someone's 23rd birthday. She wasn't in Malaysia this time around but in some really ulu ulu kampung in Indon doing her social service (ie. doing health cheack for the people and also educating them on health issues). She is known as the hot medic student by her fellow course mates, she was and still is my partner in crime (hockey stick..? lol), she was the one who bought me hot tea after i felt dizzy watching her get her belly pierced, she was the one who ate roti babi.. without me! HAHA, and most importantly she was always there when I needed help. The person is......

MISS SELINA CHEW YUET LING!!!!


So sorry la I didn't call you yesterday as I promised.. I was so caught up with things that I didn;t have time to call -_- Thousand apologies, forgive me, pls...? Promise I will take you to my work place next time... when i get a job.... Haha!