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........ :(

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!!!

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...

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..

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!