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! :)