1st Birthday Cake

A relative's children will be celebrating their birthdays tomorrow. They asked me if I could help with preparing the birthday cake so I quickly said ok. And because my skills are limited, plus this will also be a chance for me to try if I do have a bit of skill in cake-making, I offered them to do it for free.

I started baking the cake (I baked two), using the Moist Orange Butter Cake. Here's the recipe (for 1 cake)..

Moist Orange Butter Cake

250 g salted butter

8 oz cake flour

7 oz caster sugar

4 eggs

orange cordial (I used Sunquick)

grated peel of 1 orange

vanilla essence

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 cup water

1. Beat the butter with sugar in a bowl until fluffy.

2. Add in the eggs one at a time and beat well after each addition.

3. In another small bowl mix baking sodas, baking powders, orange cordial and water. Let stand for a minute.

4. Add in the flour alternately with the soda mixture into the butter batter in three parts.

5. Mix well after each addition to ensure proper folding of flour into batter.

6. Pour into lined cake tin and bake for 45 minutes at 350 F. Always check doneness with cake tester.

After cooling the cake on the grid for at least an hour, I levelled off the top so it'll be easier for me to ice the cake. I glazed the tops and the sides of the cake with some apricot glaze, ready to be decorated.

I prepared some white buttercream icing, coloured some piping gel in red and yellow, and mixed some melted dark chocolate with glycerine. Recipe for buttercream icing below based on Wilton's recipe.

White Buttercream Icing

1 cup shortening

4 cups confectioners sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

4-6 tablespoons milk (depending on the consistency needed to ice the cake)

1. Beat the shortening until slightly fluffy.

2. Add in the vanilla essence and mix thoroughly.

3. Then, add the sugar, one cup at a time and beat it well. Make sure you scrape the side and bottom of the bowl frequently to ensure proper mixing.

4. Icing will appear dry after adding in the fourth cup, but don't panic. It's time to add in the milk. For icing cakes you will need a thin consistency icing but for decorating and making shapes and flowers, you will need stiffer icing.

Decorating Phase

Spread some buttercream on the top of one cake first and arrange some fruit cocktails on the icing layer. Place the second cake on top the first one. Start icing the whole cake, from top to its side. I found this very tedious as it is quite difficult to spread the icing smoothly onto the cake. I had to dip the spatula over and over again into a glass of hot water. I then combed the sides of the cake so it won't look so messy. I piped star border all around the bottom edge and top edge. I also imprinted the words and shape of flowers and heart on the cake top.

With the melted chocolate, I piped out the words and the lining of the decorative shapes. I then filled in the shapes with coloured piping gel. I have made some chocolate flowers last week, from melted chocolate. This chocolate could last for months and came in handy at times like this. So I simply place the chocolate flowers on the sides and a few scattered on top. And here's the final product.

Pretty ugly I'd say but quite alright for someone who doesn't go for baking nor decorating classes. I'll definitely try this again. But at the meantime, I kinda miss baking cupcakes. I'm gonna do that next. They're much easier to handle.

I've Never Cooked My Own Fried Noodles

I have decided today that it is time for me to learn how to fry my own fried noodles. So I've asked Mak to guide me along. This is the simplest way..

Mom's Regular Fried Noodles

5 pips of garlic, blended
1 huge bulb of onion, blended
2 tablespoons chilli paste
1/2 cup of diced boneless chicken
5 fishballs, each cut into 2
10 fresh prawns, shells peeled
1/2 cup of boiled cockles, without the shell of course
2 stalks of mustard leaves, cut into bite size
4 tablespoons cooking oil
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 egg
2 teaspoons salt, adjust to taste
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup of water
1 packet of yellow noodles

Heat oil in a wok. Sautee the garlics and onion until you can smell the aroma. Add on the chilli paste, fry on till the colour turns a bit darker. Stir in the soy sauce. Add in the chicken and let it cook slightly. Then put in the prawns, cockles and fishballs. Pour in the water and adjust the taste with salt and sugar. Add the egg and stir quickly so that the sauce becomes thick. Bring the sauce to boil. Ensure you do not use low fire. Just then, add in the noodles and the mustard leaves. Fry on until everything is well mixed and the sauce dries up to your liking.

Strawberry Layer Cake

Today I was asked to bake cakes for some relative's. Their daughter is getting married. So I made this layer cake after not making it for many, many months. I used to be crazy about baking layer cakes last year, until the moment I fell in love with cupcakes.

Strawberry Layer Cake

Ingredient A

20 egg yolks

6 egg whites

175g granulated sugar

125g Hong Kong pow flour

Beat up eggs and sugar until light and fluffy or until they turn almost white. Fold in the flour in 3 batches, mixing them well after each addition.

Ingredient B

400g butter, softened

1 tablespoon ovalette

4 tablespoons condensed milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

Beat all of the above ingredient until butter is slightly fluffy. Combine it good with mixture A. Divide the whole batter equally into 2 portions. Prepare your oven to 180 degree Celcius on grill mode. (Using grill mode is quite necessary in making layer cakes, so if your oven don't have such mode it is quite impossible to succeed. I've tried once, the layers couldn't brown well and the bottom part will be burned once I put on the last layer). Don't forget to line the bottom of your cake pan (for this I use 8 x 8 x 4 cake tin) with parchment paper and grease it proper, base and all around.

Ingredient C

100g ice cream powder

1 tablespoon strawberry paste

1 teaspoon pink food colouring

In one portion of the batter, add in the ice cream powder, strawberry paste and the food colouring.

Now that you have 2 parts of batter, one pink and the other one not, scoop 1 cup of the original batter and even the layer out in the pan. Bake it in the preheated oven for no longer than 3 minutes or until you see the surface has nicely browned. Bring the pan out and scoop the next cup of pink batter and even it out on top of the first layer. Place it back in the oven and wait for the same browning effect. (Yes, it's tedious.I know...)Keep repeating this process, alternating the batter on top of each other until you have used up all the batter. You should get 10 layers in total.

After completing the last layer and the surface has browned nicely, check the doneness of the cake by doing the regular toothpick test. If some batter is still visible on the toothpick, turn the oven off and leave the cake in the heat for another 15 minutes. Let it cool in the pan before transferring it onto plate or box or whatever..

Reminder : You should never leave your baking unattended. Have all your needs and the batters next to you in front of the oven.

P/s : My problem with the cake is that I can't seem to get rid of the air bubbles. They spoil the look of the cake by ending up looking like cheese. I've tried so many remedy but they still make an appearance. But nevertheless, the cake is soft, moist and delicious.