Deciding on Price

I have adopt a temporary price scheme for my cakes and cookies, which, if proven reasonable and if proven that the price nicely covers the cost of the goods, will be adopted for quite some time. Here's what I have at the moment..

Decorated Cookies

Price :
RM 1.50 each for 1.5 inch cookie
RM 3.00 each for 3 inch cookie
(minimum order 50 pcs)

Flavour :
Butter cookies
Gingerbread cookies

Cupcakes without Filling

Price :
Available in box of 9 (RM30), 16 (RM50) and 25 (RM75)

Flavour :
Chocolate
Strawberry swirl
Carrot
Apple spice
Lemon and Coconut
Orange
Lemongrass

Cupcakes with Filling

Price :
Available in box of 9 (RM36), 16 (RM64) and 25 (RM100)

Filling Flavour :
Peanut Butter
Chocolate truffles
Strawberry
Orange marmalade
(Cake choice of either vanilla or chocolate)

Whole Cakes

Price:
RM60 for 1kg cake (decorated)

Flavour:
Chocolate
Strawberry swirl
Carrot
Apple spice
Lemon and Coconut
Orange
Lemongrass

Delivery Charges:
Additional RM10 to RM30 within KL and Selangor

Mars Bar Crispy Rice

I ran out of paper cups and was not in the mood to get personal with the oven. And so I made these. Easy as it comes out of a pot, or pan, or wok. Whatever you use to cook it over fire.

I used..

5 Mars bars (the usual 40 g bar, not the tiny snack size)
4 tablespoons butter
3 1/2 cups crispy rice cereal
7 ounces melted milk chocolate (you can use dark chocolate if you don't want it to be too sweet!)
Some snack size Mars bar for garnishing, if you wish.

1. Chop the Mars bars coarsely.

2. Placed the chopped bars and butter in a pot and stir over low heat until they become smooth and creamy.

3. Stir in the rice bubbles. Make sure they are coated with chocolate thoroughly.

4. Press mixture into a sheet pan, or alternatively you can press them into individual baking cups, paper cups, that is.

5. Spread the top with melted chocolate, top with the snack size Mars bar (cut into smaller slices) and refrigerate until set.

Have fun!

First Cupcake Order

Farrah ordered some cupcakes. So, hurray to me because that was my first cupcake order. She wanted the Classic Vanilla with Peanut Butter Filling Cupcakes with decorations like the one I gave Zac for her daughter's birthday. Farrah however, opted for a different colour scheme, white, purple and pink.
I didn't have any royal icing flowers in stock for those colours she wanted. I thought I was going to made some for this project,but I decided against that because royal icing would take a few days to really be hard and ready. Therefore, I made some simple chocolate piped flowers instead. And I think they are just cute..
I melted some white chocolates using the double boiling method, divide the whole batch into three smaller batches and coloured them purple, pink and white. I then piped the coloured, melted chocolate into small flowery shape onto some tracing sheets and placed them in the fridge to set.
For the rest of the frosting, the Perfect Buttercream Icing came into action again. And then they are ready to go!

Coconut & Lemon Cupcakes

A friend is throwing a party for his child's birthday today and I made some cupcakes. At least that was about all I could give since you know, I'm not working...

I modified the recipe to make it less sweet. Too much sugar ain't healthy, see. Here it is.

Coconut & Lemon Cupcakes

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel
2/3 cup sugar (make it 1 cup if you want them sweet)
2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
1 1/4 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1. Beat the butter, lemon peel, sugar and eggs until light and fluffy.

2. Stir in milk and coconut.

3. Fold in the flour.

4. Bake them for like, say..half an hour. Don't forget to check on the doneness.

I iced the cakes with the frosting from the Perfect Buttercream Recipe. And they're done! Easy peasy..

Saty's Lemon Cheesecake

Saty made a lemon cheesecake yesterday. She used some secret recipe which I can't publish without her consent. The only thing I could tell is that she used some wholemeal biscuit for the base of the cheesecake. The cake do not require any baking, you just have to refrigerate it. It gave a good lemony taste to pair up with the crispy biscuity base. Tasty!

A Belated Birthday

I made a carrot cake yesterday. It wasn't the best carrot cake recipe but I tried it anyways. I won't be writing recipe for this, because, like I said, it is not the best. Still, I like the taste of the cake.

I love the topping which was cream cheese. And because I think the topping is one of the best I've ever tasted, here's the recipe.

Yummy Cream Cheese Topping

1 cup cream cheese (at room temperature)

1/2 cup butter (softened)

2 tablespoon whip cream

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

2-3 cups icing sugar (depending on how much you need to flavour and to reach desired consistency)

1. Cream the cheese, butter, vanilla essence and whip cream together in a bowl.

2. When the cream turned fluffy, add in the icing sugar, a cup at a time until you get the type and taste that work best for you.

I decorated the cake especially for my sister, Saty, whose birthday was a week ago when I didn't have the time for baking.

Devil's Food Cake

It's a marathon! After completing the birthday cake, I decided to bake a Devil's Food for our own consumption. I've been pestered by my sister, my mom and also, my boyfriend.

So here's the devil..

Devil's Food Cake

165 g (1 cup) cake flour

90 g (1/3 cup) cocoa powder

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

250 g (1 1/4 cup) caster sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten

250 ml (1 cup) buttermilk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

125 g (1/2 cup) softened butter

1. Mix the butter, egg, milk and essence in one bowl.

2. Mix the dry ingredients; flour, cocoa, sugar and soda in another bowl.

3. Combine the two mixture and beat them up with a mixer for 5 minutes or until the mixture is fluffy and all the clumps are smoothed out.

4. Bake for an hour or until the cake is totally done at 180 C.

Chocolate Ganache

60 g (1/4 cup) unsalted butter

60 g dark chocolate

60 g white chocolate, melted

As usual, I sliced the cake into two horizontal layer. I whipped up some 4 fl oz of whip cream and simply spread the cream on top of one layer and put the other layer over.

The dark chocolate and the butter are melted together and then spread onto the cake. And before the dark choc set, I piped circles with the melted white chocolate on the cake, starting from the centre. With a skewer or a toothpick, quickly drag the skewer from the centre to the outside of the cake. Do it all around like a clock.

And then I placed two Hershey's nuggets at the centre. :)

Birthday Cake-Second Order

I made another birthday cake today for a little boy who just turned 3. I was determined to make this cake a better produce than the earlier one. I was not a fan of multi-coloured cake, but I had to opt for many colours because my mom said, "It's for a kid. It should be colourful." And so I obliged.

Madeira Apple Cake

250g butter
250g caster sugar
5 eggs
240g cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon soda bicarbonate
1 tablespoon milk
2 apples (peeled, cored and grated)
60g ground almond
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice

1. Beat the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy.

2. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. Fold in the flour, then add in the milk. Mix nicely.

4. Add in the grated apples, mixed spice and ground almond. Fold them altogether untill well mixed.

5. Pour the batter into a baking pan and baked for 1 hour and 25 minutes at 180 C. Check for doneness as usual.
I leveled the cake and divide them into two horiaontal layer after it is cooled. I glazed the top of the first layer with apricot glaze (you can also use jam). Then, I spread on the almond filling.

Almond Filling

10 fl oz thick cream
60g ground almond
1 tablespoon icing sugar

1. Whip the cream and the sugar in a bowl until fluffy. Make sure you do not overbeat.

2. Fold in the almond.

I found another great buttercream recipe which is perfect for icing whole cakes. It is not too sweet and has a perfect texture. You can also adjust the consistency to your needs. I used this recipe for this birthday cake. This recipe made enough to cover and decorate one 8 inch cake.

The Perfect Buttercream

1 cup shortening

4 tablespoons butter (you can use all shortening to make a stiffer icing, but butter makes it tastier)

2-4 tablespoons heavy whip cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

2-4 cups icing sugar

1. Beat the shortening until smooth. Add the butter (if you are using some) and beat together until smooth, light and fluffy.

2. Add smaller amount of heavy cream in the recipe and the vanilla. Mix well.

3. Add in half the icing sugar, one cup at a time and beat for 5 minutes on low-medium speed.

4. Adjust the sweetness and the consistency of your icing with the icing sugar and the whip cream. Add more sugar if you want it stiffer and add more whip cream for a more runny texture.

Lazy White Chocolate Cupcake

I was lazy when I got home from the States. But I still wanted to make some cupcakes because I miss baking so much. Plus, Pearl bought me a new recipe book that made me eager to try the white chocolate cake recipe.

However, my fatigue must have affected the cakes I made that day. I didn't give it enough white chocolate for the batter and I skip one ingredient; coconut extract because I was too lazy to go out and buy some. So the cake was indeed a failure. The frosting on the other hand, tasted perfect. Not sweet, but yet creamy. No doubt I was lazy with the decorations too, but the point is, I finally found the perfect frosting.

And because the cake was a failure, I'll skip the cake recipe and post the frosting recipe instead.

French Buttercream Icing

2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk (add this gradually to reach the right consistency)
1 cup cold butter

1. Mix sugar, flour and salt in a saucepan.

2. Pour in half of the milk and cook over medium heat.

3. Stir constantly until very thick and adding the rest of the milk until you get the consistency you want. It is good to make it very thick and stiff because you'll be adding the butter later on to the mixture.

4. Cool the mixture to room temperature.

5. Add 1/2 cup butter at a time and beat at medium-high speed until smooth.

6. Add vanilla and beat well.

7. Chill the icing before decorating.