Last Call for Eid

For the weekend, I had cupcake orders for an Eid open house event. I had to keep things simple since I was notified at the last minute. I had only 8 hours to complete 3 different types of cupcakes, with 3 different designs.

The order was for Vanilla Butter Cupcakes, Carrot Cupcakes and Apple Spice Cupcakes. In this post, depicted are the Vanilla Butter Cupcakes (top image) and Apple Spice Cupcakes (bottom image).

My Ugly Gateau

I had a can of dark chery in syrup sitting in the pantry for quite some time. So few days ago I decided to put it to good use by making a gateau. This gateau was made from chocolate cake, layered with white chocolate cream and cherries. The outside frosting was simply vanilla flavoured whip cream.

The cake tasted good enough for me, though I would probably not use the same recipe for the cake next time. The recipe resulted in a pretty dry cake.

For a gateau, this cake was a terrible one. A gateau is supposedly a cake with its best dress on and this here, is definitely a dress down gateau.

Potato, Onion and Tomato Bake

Also, I was alone not so many days ago and because of that, I took the chance not to have rice and made myself a meal from the oven. So I used as much leftover materials as I could find from the fridge and made this bake.

4 large potatoes (extras I had from the gnocchi project), peeled and thinly sliced
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 onion, thinly sliced
30 g butter, cut into smaller pieces
freshly ground pepper to taste
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup chicken stock
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese (I used parmesan instead because I had some left from the previous work)

1. Preheat oven to 180C and brush an ovenproof dish with melted butter.
2. Layer the potato, tomato and onion alternately in the dish, finishing with the potato layer. Between each layer, dot some butter and sprinkle with pepper.
3. Combine the milk, cream and stock. Pour over the layered potato and top the assembly with cheese. Dot with any remaining butter.
4. Bake for 1 hour 30 minutes or until the potato is tender and golden brown.

Because I used Parmesan instead of Cheddar, the finished product doesn't look that good. Parmesan generally does not melt when baked. Unlike Cheddar, Parmesan browned. Nevertheless, the whole thing still tasted great!

Creamy Blue Cheese Gnocchi

Last week I made these gnocchi with creamy blue cheese sauce for dinner. It was pretty easy since I wasn't in the mood to cook the usual full course Malay meal that day. Here's how..

For the gnocchi :

3 really huge potatoes, peeled
2 cups plain flour (I used superfine because that's what I had)
30 g butter, melted
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
some freshly ground pepper to suit your taste

1. Cook potato in large pan of boiling water until just tender; drain and then mash.
2. Add flour, butter, Parmesan cheese and pepper. mix until well combined and knead until smooth.
3. Form dough into small 2.5 cm rounds and indent each one of them with fork prongs to shape.
4. Heat a pan of water until boiling and lower batches of gnocchi into the boiling water. Gnocchi are cooked when they float to the top. Drain and keep them warm.

For the creamy sauce :

60 g butter
2 tablespoons plain flour
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon mustard powder
freshly ground pepper
125 g blue cheese, crumbled
3 spring onions (here I used parsley because the mart was out of spring onions)

1. Heat the butter in a medium pan; add flour. Stir over low heat until flour mixture is lightly golden.
2. Add milk gradually to pan, stirring until mixture is smooth. Continue stirring over medium heat until mixture boils and thickens.
3. Add mustard, pepper to taste, cheese and spring onions, stirring until cheese has melted.


Well, lastly of course, pour the sauce over the gnocchi and serve at once.

P/s : Blue cheese smells really strong so u might wanna reduce the amount if you are not a fan of stinky smell. ;)