Tiny Oven

Women's Aid Organization

2009-03-18T02:29:00.000-07:00

I totally forgot these... The cupcakes I made for WAO. My sister and I decided to put these emoticons on them. And my sister decorated them all for the first time. Phew...!

Cupcakes for Trial

2009-03-18T02:24:00.000-07:00

I made these for trial, for one of Malaysia's notorious designer.

Looking forward to more jobs in the future...!

Wedding in Malacca

2009-03-13T02:19:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong. I don't do delivery outside Klang Valley. But this wedding cake was requested by someone who was leaving for Malacca to attend a wedding over the weekend. So yeah, as long as I don't have to do the logistics outside KL/Selangor, I'll be happy to bake away.

It's a gift for the bride and the groom. Orange cake covered and layered with orange flavoured buttercream. I've always love orange cake. I hope the couple and their families like it as much as I like it too.

Pocoyo and Friends

2009-03-13T01:47:00.000-07:00

I was nervous when decorating these cupcakes. I was worried if the kid I was making these for won't recognize that I was trying to portray Pocoyo and his friends.

So I tested my end products by showing them to my 2 year old niece who is also a fan of Pocoyo. My sister (Qaseh's mom) told her daughter, "Qaseh, I have something to show you.."

I found it sad and hilarious at the same time when she responded to her mom, "Oh, something for me...?", where her mom them cruelly answered, "Something, but they are not for you." Mean. Poor Qaseh. Well she never did like cakes anyway. So, it is fine - Qaseh recognized all of them Pocoyo team members.

Beef and Herbs Medley Stew

2009-01-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

This dish is notoriously known as ghormeh sabzi and originates from Iran. It has an acquired taste and some may not find it suitable for their tastebuds. Nevertheless, do give it a shot if you are in the mood to be adventurous.

This recipe was adapted from http://www.iranmania.com/.

Ghormeh Sabzi

750 grams boneless stewing lamb or beef
1 large onion, finely chopped
1/3 cup of cooking oil
1 teaspoon turmeric
1.5 cups water
1/2 cup dried limes (or fresh lime juice)
3/4 cup kidney beans (I used canned kidney beans because I was too lazy to pre-cook the dried beans)
Salt
Black pepper
1 cup spring onions, finely chopped
1.5 cups spinach, finely chopped
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/4 cup coriander, finely chopped
1/4 cup garlic chives, finely chopped
1/4 cup fenugreek, finely chopped (optional)

1. Trim meat and cut into 2 cm (3/4 inch) cubes.

2. Fry onion over medium heat in half of the oil until golden. Add turmeric and fry for 2 more minutes.

3. Increase heat, add meat cubes and stir over high heat until meat changes color and begins to turn brown. Reduce heat.

4. Add water, black-eye or kidney beans, salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer gently for 1-1.5 hours hours until meat is tender.

5. Add prepared vegetables, then add dried limes (or lime juice), cover and simmer for further 10-15 minutes. Adjust seasoning and serve with white rice.

This dish serves 6.

Persian Frenzy

2008-12-10T19:42:00.000-08:00

This is the third Persian dish that I attempted to make. The result turned out to be alright. My first dish was a great success, I think. And the second one not too bad. I haven't put up the recipe here for the first two, but I will do so the next time I make them again. So here's the one I made today...

Adas Polow (Lentil Rice)

200 g lentils, washed and cooked until tender in salted water
500 g long grain or basmathi rice
400 g ground beef or lamb
1 cup raisins
2 large onions, thinly sliced
1/2 teaspoon saffron
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon turmeric
cooking oil
salt and pepper to taste

1. Firstly, soak the rice in water for at least 30 mins. The original recipe requires me to soak it for 3 to 4 hours but I couldn't wait that long.

2. While the rice is soaking, fry the onions in oil until slightly golden.

3. Add the ground beef/lamb, salt and pepper and fry over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Add one cup of hot water and cook further until it becomes almost dry. Remove from heat.

4. Next, cook the rice in boiling water until the rice soften just slightly. Drain and wash the rice with cold water.

5. In a non-stick pot or rice cooker (I used rice cooker), pour oil into the pot. Add in half the rice, followed by the cooked meat, lentils and raisins. Pour in the remaining rice and cook over low heat for 20 minutes.

6. Dissolve saffron in 1/3 cup of hot water and pour over rice. Mix the rice well before serving.

I don't know what you would think about this recipe, but I like it. And the rice is to be eaten on it's own as it is considered as a complete meal. Very nourishing. Give it a try!

Pink Truffles

2008-09-30T07:10:00.000-07:00

Happy Eid sweet toothers!

so this eid, i decided not to make any cookies. instead, i made some truffl

es. this is my first attempt and it came out pretty decent :D. thanks to ms. not-so-tiny-me's experienced hands, her touch produced wonders!

so here is the recipe (taken from foodnetwork.com)...

2 tbsp heavy cream

7 oz white chocolate, chopped

1/2 tsp strawberry flavoring

1/2 cup hazelnuts, chopped

2 oz dark chocolate, chopped

melt white chocolate with heavy cream using the double-boil method. when the chocolate is completely melted, add the strawberry flavoring and whisk in. chill until it is pliable.
put the chopped hazelnut in the microwave for about 3 to 4 minutes (so that it gets a little bit baked). don't forget to move the nuts around every minute or two so that it won't get burnt. cool to room temperature.
roll the chilled chocolate into bite size spheres. don't forget to wear gloves so your germs won't get stuck to the truffles! ;)
melt the dark chocolate and drizzle it on some of the truffles. roll the remaining truffles in the chopped hazelnuts.

and here's how those little treats look like....

the original recipe can be found here

i skipped the Bailey's since i'm serving it to my sister's house guests. and i substituted vanilla essence to strawberry flavoring coz i couldn't find any vanilla essence.

Broccoli and Chicken and Cheese Casserole

2008-09-28T18:23:00.000-07:00

i am guilty of not posting this recipe earlier. apologies.

a week ago, i dreamed about my sister's lorraine quiche. and since i still have the leftover sharp cheddar from my broccoli and cheese soup, i decided to make something good out of something that's getting bad. so here goes my altered version of chicken and broccoli casserole (original version was taken from recipezaar).

Chicken & Broccoli Casserole

1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken breasts, cooked and diced
1 head broccoli
2 onions, diced
5 small potatoes, diced
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp curry powder
3 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded

preheat oven
cut up broccoli and place it at the bottom of a casserole dish
place diced chicken, potatoes, and onions on top of the broccoli
mix the cream of chicken soup, mayonnaise, and curry powder until well blended and smooth
spread the soup mixture on top of the chicken+potatoes+onions+broccoli
cover with cheese and bake uncovered for 30 minutes

and again, it slipped my mind to take pictures of my casserole coz i never thought ms. not-so-tiny-me would want me to post it here.

Broccoli and Cheese Soup

2008-09-15T19:18:00.000-07:00

I had this urge to gobble down Quizno's Broccoli and Cheese Soup a few weeks ago but since we don't have any Quizno's Sub around, I decided to make some from this recipe i found on RecipeZaar.

2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1/2 cup butter
1 quart half-and-half
2 cups fresh carrots, grated
1 lb broccoli, washed, cut
1/2 cup flour
1 cube chicken stock diluted into 1 quart of water
salt and pepper, to taste
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
8 ounces grated sharp cheddar cheese

Saute onion in butter. When onions are golden, stir in garlic and set aside.
Make the roux. Melt 1/2 cup of butter and stir the butter and flour over medium heat. Stir constantly and slowly add the half-and-half. Add the chicken stock whisking all the time. Simmer until it thickens.
Add the broccoli, carrots and onions. Cook over low heat until veggies are tender. Add salt and pepper.
Pour in batches into a blender and puree.
Return to pot and add the grated cheese and stir till well blended.
Put on low heat and stir the nutmeg.

Sharp cheddar cheese is simply aged/matured cheddar. And be careful when you make the roux. The kitchen saw me screaming for my mom in dire need of some extra hand. maybe i'm just retarded.

I don't have the pictures for this post coz the soup made its way to the tummy faster than i thought.

Phew...! It's Been Ages.

2008-09-03T04:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know. I've not been here for a very, very long time. Well, I have my studies to put all the blame on. This semester is a crazy one because I have 5 subjects to take instead of just 4.

Anyhow, I managed to cook up this claypot chicken rice today. My first trial but it fared up quite okay.

Claypot Chicken Rice

200g uncooked rice

250ml water

200g boneless chicken thigh or breast, cut into bite-size

2 tablespoons oyster sauce

1 tablespoon dark soy sauce

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon fish sauce

1/2 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon white pepper

2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

4 slices ginger

2 tablespoons oil

4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked until soften, stem removed and cut into halves

2 slices of salted fish in oil, diced

2 eggs

some sesame oil

chopped scallions and sliced red chili for garnishing, but I didn't use it here because I don't have them..

1. Wash chicken and drain. Marinate oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and pepper for about 30 minutes.

2. Heat 2 tablespoons oil on medium heat and fry garlic and ginger until aromatic. Add shiitake mushrooms and salted fish and fry for about 5 minutes.

3. Add marinated and continue stir-frying for about 5 minutes. Remove and set aside.

4. Wash rice well and combine with water and put in a claypot. Cover and cook on low heat until almost dry.

5. Place cooked chicken mixture on top of rice, cover and leave on low heat until rice mixture is dry, about another 10 minutes.

6. Switch off the fire and break eggs on top of the chicken mixture and leave pot covered for 5 minutes before serving.

7. Drizzle with some sesame oil an garnish with chopped scallions on top of rice and sliced chilies in soy sauce by the side.

Buffalo Chicken Wings with Blue Cheese Dip

2008-07-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

Ok this one was adapted from a recipe I found in Recipezaar. Made these for Pearl who was craving for them.

Buffalo Chicken Wings

10 to 20 chicken wings

8 teaspoons melted butter

2 teaspoons vinegar

2/3 cup hot pepper sauce (I used Tabasco because I can't find any other brand of hot sauce here in Malaysia, which was not quite right for these buffalos..)

some cayenne pepper

1. Mix melted butter, vinegar and hot pepper sauce in a deep bowl and plunge all the chicken wings in it. As an alternative you can also transfer the marinade mix into a zip-lock bag and put in the wings.

2. Let it soak for 2 hours.

3. Bake at 200C for 20 - 30 minutes until the wings are cooked through and make sure to baste them one time during cooking.

4. Sprinkle the cayenne during the last 5 minutes of cooking to add in more heat.

Blue Cheese Dip

1 cup mayonnaise

2 teaspoons finely chopped onions

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1 teaspoon white vinegar

1/2 cup blue cheese, crumbled

1. Mix all the ingredients together and leave it chilled overnight (if possible).

Super easy, right? Though Tabasco may not be a good sub for hot pepper sauce, these buggers still do taste awesome!

This and That

2008-07-17T18:38:00.001-07:00

Some of the jobs I have done lately... No write-up this time. Just. Too. Plain. Lazy. And busy.

I'm gonna have to make some announcement some time this week. I may not be able cope with all hobby-business and school-business and personal-business for the next 8 months. My amnesia is evolving from bad to worse... Hah!

Caramel Crunch Cheesecake

2008-06-29T06:52:00.001-07:00

This one here wasn't very successful because it was made amidst of a baking frenzy and some last minute order. But luckily, this was made for domestic consumption, so it was alright. And because of that, here's the recipe to be shared...

The Cheesecake

125 g plain chocolate biscuits (I used Tiger Chocolate Shortbread)

1/4 cup butter, melted

2 x 250 g packets cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup caster sugar

2 tsp grated lemon rind

3 eggs

1/3 cup cream

1 tbsp plain flour

50 g bar chocolate-coated honeycomb (I used Cadbury Crunchie), chopped coarsely

1. Line based of 21cm springform pan with foil, line the sides with baking paper.

2. Process biscuits until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add butter, process till you get the texture of damp sand.

3. Press crumb mixture evenly over based of prepared tin. Refrigerate 30 minutes or until firm.

4. Preheat oven to 150C. Beat cheese, sugar and rind in medium bowl with electric mixture until smooth. Beat in eggs, one t a time. Add cream and flour. Beat again till smooth.

5. Stir honeycomb and the caramel filling into the cheese mixture.

6. Place tin on oven tray. Pour cheesecake mixture into tin. Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until just firm. Cool in oven with door ajar.

7. Spread chocolate topping over cheesecake. Refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight.

Caramel Filling

2 tbsp butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp sweetened condensed milk

1 tbsp golden syrup

2 tbsp hot water

1. Combine ingredients in small saucepan, stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. Boil, stirring occasionally about 4 minutes until a deep caramel colour is reached. Let cool.

Chocolate Topping

150 g dark eating chocolate, chopped

1/4 cup cream (I only had like 2 tbsp leftover cream from my previous bakes so I used just that)

1. Combine chocolate and cream in small saucepan. Stir over low heat until chocolate has melted and mixture is smooth. Cool.

Important note : If I were to make this again in the future, I'll omit the lemon rind and I won't use the Tiger Shortbread. The lemon rind interferes with the caramel flavour and the shortbread doesn't taste good at all! I'll use some other brand of chocolate biscuit next time. And of course, I will make sure I have that 1/4 cup of cream to go with the chocolate topping. This one I made was as hard as a bar chocolate when it sets. Haha!

Some Jobs

2008-06-29T06:36:00.000-07:00

These golf themed cupcakes were made without much knowledge. :) I wasn't a fan of golf and I only know a thing or two about it.

I put water hazard in the golf course and sand trap. Though the sand trap wasn't a good one, as you can see it was of darker shade than it should be, the sand trap tasted yummy because I used Loacker Cremekakao wafer. :D If I ever have to make this theme again in the future, I'll definitely use some plain wafer instead.

The not so new kamasutra theme is also back, only this time they were for Aziz. I had to crack my head for more position and their names to make sure no two cupcakes have the same position. So here, I have 18 different positions together with their names.

Mac Cupcakes for Foreign Affairs

2008-06-29T06:23:00.000-07:00

Wanie just moved to a new department and thus these cupcakes occurred. The forever peanut-butter lover ordered nothing else but that (the vanilla cupcakes with peanut-butter filling).

There's nothing much to say about these little devils, just that I got the idea from the net. Some moms who bake made cupcakes decorated with computer icons. So I kinda improvised from that.

Designer's Cups

2008-06-19T08:08:00.001-07:00

Another birthday. It's usually birthday, isn't it? Or some other celebration. That's what cakes are normally for.

This time, it's designer's brand. I have thought about this for some time, and this is just the appropriate time to make them since the birthday is for a young lady who's going to turn 24.

And this one is just some additional I made for Un. He's visiting some relatives over the weekend, so I made something for him to take to them.

It's good to have birthdays. They make me less bored and less lazy. ;)

Easy Lasagna

2008-06-18T03:25:00.000-07:00

After not having so much success with the macarons, I decided to make lasagna for dinner. This also my first experiment, but with this I was pretty sure it won't screw up so much like those macarons. And though it might not look pretty here, it is definitely soothing to the palate and soon enough, all my frustration about those feetless macarons of mine went away.

Meat Lasagna

250g instant lasagna (it has to be instant so u don't have to pre-cook it before layering)

Meat sauce:

2 tbsp oil

1 onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

1 can button mushroom, sliced

500g mince meat

5 tbsp tomato puree

2 fresh tomatoes, diced

2 cups chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

a pinch of basil

1. Heat oil in a saucepan, add onion, mushroom and garlic, cook until soft.

2. Add mince meat, cook until brown. Then stir in tomato puree, diced tomatoes and chicken stock.

3. Season with salt, pepper and basil and let cook for 20 minutes.

Cheese Sauce:

2 tbsp butter

2 tbsp plain flour

2 cups milk

125 g mozzarella or cheddar cheese

1. Melt butter in a saucepan, stir in flour and cook for 2 minutes over low heat.

2. Remove from heat and stir in milk.

3. Return the pan back to heat, stir until thick and smooth, then add in the cheddar.

4. Season with pepper and salt as needed and stir until cheese melts.

Assembly:

1. Preheat oven to 180C and pour 1/4 of the meat sauce into a lightly greased baking dish.

2. Alternate layers of lasagna, meat and cheese sauces, ending with cheese sauce layer (make 4 layers).

3. Sprinkle with grated parmesan if desired and bake for 30 minutes with the dish covered in foil.

4. Remove foil and continue baking for a further 15 minutes until the pasta is cooked through.

And the Macaron War Begins...

2008-06-18T03:10:00.001-07:00

Today was my first attempt of making macarons after many, many days and months of being a lazy ass. I used a basic recipe for the macarons and made some dulce de leche for the fillings. The result, as you can see, is not too satisfying but nevertheless, I am proud to have finally tried making these buggers. Just compare my job to these lovely ones from Paulette...

Whipping up the meringue was easy, I just had to make sure there were no traces of oil in my utensils or else the egg white won't rise. The baked macarons looked like they wanted to grow feet (really, they looked so promising, but still, I get no feet, only a few almost had feet). They tasted great, however, but I had a hard time removing them from the parchment paper. I ended up eating all the broken ones in my attempt to remove the little devils.

Now if anyone of you readers want to join me in this war, I'm leaving the recipe here, in this post.

Basic Macarons

3 egg whites (make sure they are at least a day old, that's what I was told)

1/4 cup of caster sugar

1 cup icing sugar

1/2 cup ground almond

1. Whisk the egg whites like you're making a meringue until it turns foamy.

2. Then add in the sugar and whisk again until the egg whites become glossy with soft peaks forming.

3. Add the icing sugar and the ground almond to the meringue and fold together to mix. The batter should be very thick now and flattens if you dropped a dollop of it on a surface.

4. Pipe circles of the batter from a piping bag onto a parchment paper placed on a baking sheet, leave them out for an hour at least and then bake them at 315F for around 10 minutes, till you see the feet form, then lower the temperature to 300F and bake for further 3 to 4 minutes with the oven door slightly ajar.

5. Let cool and remove from parchment paper and serve with the dulce de leche filling sandwiched in the middle.

The name dulce de leche may sounds a bit daunting, but really, it's easy and it's just made of caramelized condensed milk. Ahah! So don't fear, believe me, the making of the macarons are what anyone should be scared of.

Dulce de Leche Filling

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1. Boil the can of milk in a pot of boiling water for an hour. Always make sure the can is always immersed under water all the time. (And remove the paper label outside the can, before you dunk it in water!)

2. Cool the can before opening or else the condense milk might spurt into your face. Whip the milk in a small bowl until smooth and keep refrigerated till you're ready to use it.

There's another way of making this, but I'm telling you the easiest way of making it. My dulce de leche went well but it was a little too runny to hold up between the macarons. Maybe I should just settle for some ganache or buttercream the next time.

So, good luck to you and to myself too. Till my next macaron war, I reckon I'm gonna be successful the next time around.. Tata!

Soccer Again

2008-06-15T20:57:00.000-07:00

Another male birthday. Now these here, don't be taken aback..., are cheesecakes in cups. I can't help from feeling strange when making these. I have always believe that cheesecakes should always go bare and naked. They are best eaten that way.

But anyhowsoever, what customers want customers get. I was asked to make these cakes that way so I made it. I also noticed that it's generally better to have more than a set of nine cupcakes in order to make a full fledge themed cupcakes. Nine is just too few.

Lazy Days

2008-05-23T05:19:00.000-07:00

Eventhough I am on my semester break at the moment, I am still one lazy ass. Thus, lately, I didn't produce anything much from my kitchen. Well, I did made some churros the other day, but I didn't have any cameras with me so I don't have their pictures here to testify to that claim. Nevermind, those churros were pretty easy to make, I'll probably make them again next time and have the photos, and the recipe posted over here.

So, because I am lazy, my last quest of making birthday cupcakes has led me to take their picture in the muffin pan and not in the cake box or at least, on a cake board. That explains how lazy I was, right?

I also made some birthday cupcakes for my friend's dad. She asked for freestyle cupcakes, which I like because it gives me so much freedom to do anything with the little devils. I have been eyeing these football team cake toppers for a looong time so I bought them eagerly to go with the daddy's birthday cupcakes.

The cupcakes were turned into a football field (I made the grass from dessicated coconut which was tinted green) and I piped some line on the cupcakes to represent the football field better.

And these above, were the kamasutra cupcakes again, only this time they were ordered by the ever loyal Madam Zalwanie!

Teaching Day

2008-05-05T23:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was teaching day. Guided a girl from class making some cupcakes for her special friend. Devil's Food was the easiest to make, so that was what I made her do.

We made some cream cheese fillings and fill them in the cupcakes. We wanted to have Manchester United emblem on the cupcakes, icing drawn, but was too risky to attempt. So, we sticked on some paper logos on to toothpicks and placed it on the cupcakes centres.

All in all, the day was considered a successful one.

Happy B'day Arsenal Fan!!!

2008-04-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

From a sister to a brother. These were made for a birthday boy who happens to be a die-hard fan of the Arsenal football team. They are the ever favourite peanut butter filled cupcakes again. I have to say that I have made a lot of these within the past year. This and the oreo cheesecake. They seems to be my best produce so far.

Here's a cross-sectional view of the cupcake. See that thick filling of peanut butter in the center? That's the thing that make my heart fell for this little thing. Truly, truly nutty!

P/s : Mimi, I hope your brother likes it.

Love n Sex

2008-04-09T17:53:00.000-07:00

I made this kamasutra cupcakes last night for a lady who wants to go home to her hometown in Malacca today. She wanted something to surprise the husband. I hope these little darlings will do just that.

It did cost me some time to actually find the names of the sexual position..., but hey, I made it at last!

In addition to those kamasutras, she also wanted something lovey dovey and romantic. Purple and pink was her choice of colour and I simply turned 9 cupcakes into lovestruck icons.

Hope you're satisfied with them, girl!

Chocolate Hazelnut in Citrus Suit

2008-04-05T05:09:00.000-07:00

Another classmate of mine ordered 'freestyle' cupcakes. And when she said 'freestyle', she made me happy. Cos 'freestyle' means I can do whatever I want with them. Unfortunately, I was not so free at the time she ordered them because at the same time I was also handling another huge order.

Nevertheless, I didn't compromise the cupcakes, I managed to make these chocolate cupcakes, with chocolate hazelnut filling in their centres. And of course, here, as you can see, they're disguised in 'citrus' make-up.

Little Boy's...

2008-04-05T04:41:00.001-07:00

My classmate's little boy just turned four last week. Made these for his little party at a day-care.

I love these blue cups. Simplicity and clarity.

I made 50 chocolate devil's food cupcakes for this batch.

I kept the design light and whimsical. I have to say, it's my identity to not have too many colours on a series of cupcakes. And I try as much as possible to make the deco minimal and neat. After all, cupcakes are meant to be simple.

Ana's Purple

2008-04-03T00:15:00.000-07:00

For a lady who just turned 23 last week. Ordered by her room mate who happened to be a chocolate lover, so the cakes are chocolate. But the colour purple, is the birthday girl's favorite.

More to come in the next fortnight. Good thing, but phew..!

Road Signs

2008-03-24T01:06:00.000-07:00

My good customer placed another order. Her usual favourite - Pnut Butt (vanilla cupcakes with peanut butter filling).

I took the opprtunity to decorate the cupcakes with road signs. Simple, but cute enough to be placed on cupcakes.

F1 Fever

2008-03-21T19:51:00.000-07:00

These were made in conjunction to Formula 1. Patterns are challenging enough for me but it was a good call. I managed, I guess...

I'm kinda proud of the cars and the F1 logos. But come to think of it again, I'm almost always proud of my produce. And to Miss Izura, I hope you like them as much as I do.

Cupcakes A La Sprinkles for MIS

2008-03-13T22:47:00.000-07:00

These Sprinkles imitation cuppies was made for my MIS class yesterday. That's it. Only 25 pieces, enough for everyone. One person each of course. And I made them smaller than usual. Don't ask why. Hehehs...

Fid texted me today to ask about macarons. And I don't make them. But then I thought, maybe I should make them. Lovely French macarons with fillings would be great. I'll give it a trial run next month. Just you wait, little macarons!

Wedding Gifts

2008-03-10T02:54:00.000-07:00

These were for another wedding. Order was made by my regular client, for her staff's wedding. She asked for a cake and fifteen mini cakes in the flavor of peanut butter.

This job was different since I had to use lots of sugarpaste to work with. At first I planned to make my own sugarpaste but I didn't dare to put this job at risk. You know, in case my sugarpaste didn't turn out good. So, as usual, I bought ready-made.

I really need to start making my own sugarpaste. The next semester break, I'll put my hands on it. Anyways, I like the peanut butter cake. It was tasty. It's just too bad for peanut butter haters.

Wedding Favors

2008-03-10T02:45:00.000-07:00

The last school holiday saw me doing this cookie favors for a wedding. This is only my fourth cookie job and I seriously think that it can be improved.

Also, I think i might need an assistant for this kind of job. The decorating part almost drove me up the wall! But nevertheless, when everything's done, it was satisfaction all over again.

The Many Birthdays

2008-03-10T01:57:00.000-07:00

So I have not been here for a loooonnngggg, time. But it doesn't mean I quit the hobby. Am still active. In fact maybe too active that I don't even have the time to update this blog. But here goes. Most of them simplified...

There were birthdays in january and February 2008. The job was an ass job and a shoe job.

I think the ass was a bit too round...I couldn't think of a way to make them sag a bit. But I suppose, perky ass is alright?

Adam is 3

2008-01-06T05:06:00.000-08:00

Today, a friend's child celebrated his 3rd birthday. I have never made birthday cupcakes for kids, so this was my first experience.

The caterpillar could be longer, but the 4x4 box limits it.

And I am no good when it comes to drawing figures/faces of superheroes. So my attempt to do Spidey wasn't successful. Here, I manage to do Superman's logo, nevertheless.

I hope the parents and Adam himself like them. To Intan, if you're reading this, making these for you makes me nervous, because you are one good cook and I was so scared if I let you down. But anyways, let me know of what you think of them... :)

Super Easy Peanut Butter Pudding

2008-01-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

Hi peanut butter lovers! This is like the easiest pudding ever. Or you can call it simple cheesecake or pie or whatever you wish to call it. I had some leftover peanut butter from the last cupcakes I made for Wanie's family. So before it expires, I thought it will be better to turn it into something edible...

Let me share this with you.

For the crust/base :

24 pcs of peanut butter sandwich cookies
60 g soft butter

Crush the cookies with a food processor or a mill until they look like fine sand. Then, in a mixing bowl, combine the cookie crumbs with the soft butter and rub them against each other until the mixture is thoroughly mixed and the texture similar to wet sand. Press this into the bottom of an 8 inch springform pan. Refrigerate this for at least 30 minutes.

For the filling :

225 g cream cheese
1 cup creamy peanut butter
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup whip cream, unwhipped

Mix in the cream cheese, peanut butter, sugar and vanilla and whipped them on medium speed until the mixture turns fluffy and the sugar completely dissolved. Next pour in the whip cream and stir until it is well combined. Now, pour this peanut butter cheese mix onto the prepared base and refrigerate for at least 5 hours, it will then be ready for everyone to enjoy.

Here, I topped the pudding with some coarse chunk of roast peanuts for garnishing. Happy trying!

Fid's New 2008 Minis

2007-12-30T23:32:00.000-08:00

Fid wanted some mini New Year Cupcakes. A hundred of them, an assortment of Vanilla Minis and Oreo Minis. These were them.

Colours for the cake toppers were based on the colours of rainbow. So, Happy New Year, Fid!

Welcome 2008.

Neyna's Meet The Parents

2007-12-30T23:18:00.000-08:00

I have been crazy busy. But as usual, there were nothing new with busy. I made about 6 more of those Oreo Cheesecakes and more chocolate cupcakes with regular designs over the past few weeks.

However, just last week, Neyna came down to KL all the way from Kuching to have her first taste of my cupcakes. So these were made for her. Even though they were the regular chocolate cakes, the design was something not in my history of cupcakes yet.

I was glad that she loves it.

Having A Ball!

2007-12-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

I had two pairs of boob cakes ordered by my sister's colleague last two days. After making those two pairs, I had four extra semi circle mini cakes.

This was what I did. I put two semi circles together and iced them with buttercream into the shape of a beach ball. With the four semi circles, I made two. Ah, ain't life a beach ball!

Tryouts

2007-12-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

My sister's colleague wanted to give a shot at my cupcakes. Well..., not really 'a' shot but more like triple shots. These were a week ago.

These white frosted cupcakes with sandy sugar are pineapple cupcakes. A new flavour request and I was so happy to experiment.

Another new flavour, here's the pumpkin spice cupcakes decorated with basket weave.

Both the pineapple and pumpkin flavoured cupcakes tasted fine. But it was quite impossible to actually differentiate those two flavour since I used cinnamon on both. Only the texture was somewhat distinctive. The pineapple cupcakes were moist with pineapple chunks and the pumpkin cupcakes were very dense inside.

These chocolate cupcakes had so much decos than they could handle. Those were the tiniest chocolate ball I could find. But those chocolate raisins were so yummy that most of them ended in my mouth than on the cupcakes. :D

Ennie@Work

2007-12-03T19:42:00.000-08:00

These chocolate cupcakes with custom topping were made for Ennie. A close friend of mine since school days.

The designs were a mixture of male and female elements.

Micro Cupcakes

2007-11-25T23:21:00.001-08:00

These micro cupcakes were also from my weekend job. Thanks to Wanie, this micro cupcakes was her idea many months ago. And yet, I couldn't attend to her order this week because of the overflooding of cake job at hand. I am truly sorry, my dear. I should have received your order earlier. I hate turning down request, but this week, I had to.

Anyways, these micro cupcakes were the usual chocolate cakes baked in tiny, tiny cups. With just a dollop of icing, because that is all these micros need or they will have too much icing for a tiny cake to handle. I finished them off with sugarpaste alphabets, and then they're done. Easy as ABC!

Birthday Cookies

2007-11-25T23:00:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was a busy one and the week ahead will still be very busy. These cookies were made for a child who just turned one.

I made simple butter cookies into the shape of gingerbread boy. Only, they're not ginger flavoured. The cookies were decorated very simply as shown above.

I also made some into the shape of gowns and iced them according to the birthday theme colour.

The not-a-gingerbread boy cookies were packed into gift bags for children and the dress cookies and other extras were placed in a big basket attached to thank you tags for the adults to grab.

My Traditional Quiche Lorraine

2007-11-25T20:50:00.000-08:00

This, I made about a week ago. Quiche is a good way to use up leftovers and most importantly, it's economical.

To make it you will need :

1 1/4 cups plain flour
90 g butter, chopped
2-3 tablespoons iced water

For the filling :

3 smoked chicken slices, chopped
6 button mushrooms. sliced
1 teaspoon oil
60 g grated gruyere cheese (you can use mozarella if you can't find gruyere)
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup cream
1/2 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1. First of all, sift the flour and add the butter to it. Rub butter into the flour until the mixture is fine and crumbly. Add almost all the water and mix it to a firm dough (add more water if necessary). Then, roll the dough out and line a medium size tart tin. Cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

2. Prepare the oven and cut a sheet of greaseproof paper, big enough to cover the pastry-lined tin. Take out the pastry and line it with the paper and spread a layer of dried beans or rice over it. Bake for 10 minutes and then remove the paper and grains. Put the pastry back in the oven and bake for a further 10 minutes.

3. For the fillings, lightly cook the chicken slices and mushrooms in a tablespoon of oil. Drain them and spread over the pastry. Sprinkle with the cheese.

4. Combine the eggs, cream and milk and pour into the base. Finish it with a sprinkle of nutmeg.

5. Bake for 30 minutes, until the whole quiche is set and golden.

So here's the quiche. You can serve it hot or cold.

Boyz N Girlz Tea Party

2007-11-10T23:36:00.000-08:00

These were from last Thursday. Made it for a friend's friend, for a tea party. There were five flavours altogether. Those above are simply chocolate cupcakes.

These are orange cupcakes...

And these here are cookies and cream cupcakes...

Strawberry swirls also made a comeback.

And my favourite, lemon and coconut cupcakes.

Here's all the cupcakes in their boxes, ready to be transported. I only hope that my customer is as happy as I am.

Last Call for Eid

2007-11-03T08:26:00.000-07:00

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

2007-11-03T08:05:00.001-07:00

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

2007-11-03T07:02:00.000-07:00

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

2007-11-03T06:28:00.000-07:00

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. ;)

Eid Cakes!

2007-10-19T21:44:00.000-07:00

Eid was slightly different this year because I opted not to make any cookies. I baked cakes instead.

This was the coffee sponge cake I made the day before Eid. The cake was torted into two and I layered them with coffee buttercream in between. The outer part is also coffee buttercream and I plastered some chunky peanuts onto it sides. The piled up truffles were simply Ferrero Rocher, The white truffles are actually coffee flavoured truffles which I made earlier in the morning and were then covered with melted white chocolate and left to set in the fridge. The coffee buttercream was wonderful, I have to say. Eheh..

And this one is my Oreo cheesecake. This was easy to whipped up. Doesn't require any baking and i got it all done in less than half an hour. Easy peasy. It doesn't taste too cheesy (which is perfect to me.., I don't like cheesecake that is too cheesy to the throat) because I used gelatine powder to make it firm instead of just cheese.

So that's for Eid. I'll have birthdays to deal with next month and I hope I'll be able to make more whole cakes.

Here I Go Again...

2007-10-04T22:51:00.000-07:00

Last week, I had another quest of making three types of cupcakes in a day. They were Carrot Cupcakes, Lemon and Coconut Cupcakes and the Strawberry Swirl, again.

My sister insisted on me doing this lucky ball theme for the Lemon and Coconut Cupcakes. So, yatta! I did it..

The Carrot Cupcakes went with the standard garnishing for any carrot cakes globally. The frosting was cream cheese and the tiny carrots were made from sugarpaste.

Here's the Strawberry Swirl with a different look.

Another Addition

2007-10-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

I received a request for some strawberry swirl cupcakes and peanut butter-filled cupcakes not too long ago. As usual I was busy with daily work and so I ended up with more simple finishing for my cupcakes.

This one here is the Strawberry Swirl... I had some extras so I decided to gave some to my ex-Human Resources Director. Hope she enjoyed them.

And this is the usual, made those fondant flowers quickly. It was indeed the easiest garnishing I could think of at that time. Not so attractive, but super easy.

An Experiment

2007-10-04T02:11:00.000-07:00

This was an experiment of Peanut Butter cupcakes. For this I mixed the peanut butter into the batter and not filled the cakes up like I always did.

After that coffee frosting attempt, I made the frosting for this one by adding some peanut butter into the frosting mixture.

I've made the chocolate triangles many weeks ago when I was bored and I decided to use them here.

I kinda prefer this one more than those vanilla cupcakes with peanut butter fillings.

Not So Recent

2007-10-04T01:45:00.000-07:00

I have not posted anything new for quite some time. I've had a number of cake projects but I haven't got much time to dispose in front of the computer. I can't remember when I made this one, two months ago, I think. I made them for a girlfriend dedicating the cakes to her boyfriend. I resorted for simple frosting with skewed chocolate ganache effects on the cakes. The words on the cakes were suppose to have some %^&*# meaning which I shall not reveal for the sake of the couple. Heheh..

I flavoured the frosting with coffee and white chocoloate. My first attempt of flavouring frosting this one, but nevertheless, it's delicious!!

Here's putting in the truffles into the hollowed chocolate cupcakes.

Pearl's Vegetarian Bruschetta

2007-09-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

Pearl finally made her bruschetta. Here are the ingredients she used for the snack :

1 whole baguette
2 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 very huge onion, diced
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 teaspoons basil
a dash of salt to taste
some grated mozzarella

The baguette was first sliced and dabbed with olive. In another bowl, she mixed the diced ingredients with basil and salt.

She then topped the baguette with the mixed ingredients, then the grated mozzarella. I would have preferred feta instead of mozzarella, but Pearl insisted on the latter.

Bake the bruschetta in the oven at medium heat (approx. 100C) for 5 minutes or till the cheese melted.

Jenny Ratna's Birthday

2007-09-01T02:19:00.000-07:00

For Jenny's birthday, Farrah ordered 9 birthday cupcakes.

The top right corner would be the most challenging design up to this day. :) Still what customers want, customers get.

They are chocolate cupcakes with chocolate truffles for fillings.

These boobies are also made for Jenny. Another challenging conquest yet I manage. The usage of sugarpaste was necessary for this sculpture cake. Saty who were helping me with the sculpture, was very detailed in sculpting the...excuse me, nipples. Mom helped with the coloring of the sugarpaste and she was a genius in combining colours that results in truly real hues.

Sugarpaste is just too sweet for me, but it gives a smooth realistic finish to the cake. It is normally used for wedding cakes and cakes that needs perfect finish.

I bought the sugarpaste readily from the store as making it would be too time consuming. I'm happy with these boobs. They are mini chocolate cakes.

A Healthy Snack

2007-08-21T19:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Pearl and I made some healthy snack. It was an inspiration from Nigella's.

We crumbled some Mc Vitie's wholemeal cookies (around 4 to 5 pieces). I bought some frozen strawberries from the supermarket a couple of days ago, so we pulsed the whole 500g pack with 1-2 tablespoon/s sugar in a blender/food processor. It has to be frozen strawberry so it will give you some coarse chunks, not soggy ones. I also had some plain low-fat yogurt which is best for this snack. I was tempted to use whip cream, folded with some melted white chocolate (the variations you can have), which will definitely be tastier, but I had to say no to that. So next, we layer the ingredients in some clear cups. First, the cookie crumbs went in, then the strawberries and then the yogurt. Repeat the layers until the cup is full, making sure that the final layer will be the yogurt. Sprinkle some cookie crumbs again on the yogurt for garnishing.

Moving Out

2007-08-16T05:24:00.000-07:00

These were made for a friend's mom who is moving out to a new house.

I made 50. And that took me all day!

SimpliciTy

2007-08-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

I decided to go simple over the weekend, baking some cupcakes for friends.

Here's what I did. I don't want to mention this but it's the peanut butter cupcakes again. It's the safest bet to give to friends other than the usual chocolate flavour. Everyone loves chocolate, I know, but nobody really hates peanut butter too.

The chocolate lattices and sticks was a courtesy made by Pearl. Pearl did some R&D on a new flavour. She made coffee cupcakes soaked in espresso syrup which was terrific! They tasted strong in coffee, bittersweet, a must try for coffee lovers.

This one here was made for our household consumption. I hope to turn it into cupcakes presentation real soon. At the mean time, I would have to look for some coffee lovers to be the victim.

More..With Strawberry Bittersweet Chocolate Truffles

2007-07-21T02:52:00.001-07:00

My latest attempt was in making some chocolate truffles and placing them in vanilla cupcakes. This one here is made for a birthday girl.

So happy birthday!

This one made in different design, is made for a girl, to be presented to her boyriend. The design for this, was solely her idea.

I'm kinda satisfied with my two latest produce. A little different from what I've done most of the time, yet I'm liking it.

Recent Works

2007-07-07T22:44:00.001-07:00

I made these recently. Nothing new in the recipe department, here is the ever favourite Peanut Butter Filled Cupcakes again in different looks.

I made these for Wanie's cousin's engagement day.

The variations..

Also made some 100 pieces of cookie favors for the engaged couple. I am bad in tying ribbons. So Saty helped with all 100 pieces. Her ribbons are perfect.

These, are the Lemon Coconut Cupcakes. Again, nothing new. Just a simpler look for the cakes because I was not in the mood for playing with colours. I think this is much better as it is simpler, more contemporary and nice.

Deciding on Price

2007-06-23T19:35:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-16T17:06:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-15T07:34:00.001-07:00

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

2007-06-10T06:07:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-07T05:35:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-06T23:59:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-02T01:53:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-01T22:31:00.000-07:00

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

2007-06-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

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.

Not My Grandma's Gingerbread Cookies

2007-04-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

Our favourite line up.

Yesterday I made some gingerbread cookies. And this morning Saty and I worked on decorating the cookies. It's our first trial batch made for Saty's colleagues and they tasted good even if the taste of ginger was not so strong.

First few trials..

Not My Grandma's Gingerbread Cookie

4 cups cookie flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons powdered ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon nutmeg

2 teaspoon mixed spice

1 cup shortening

1 cup granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups molasses

2 eggs, beaten

1. Preheat oven to 375 F. Thoroughly mix flour, soda, salt and spices.

2. Melt shortening in a saucepan. cool it slightly before adding the sugar, molasses and eggs into it. Mix them well.

3. Add 4 cups of dry ingredients and knead it to make a firm dough. Add more flour if necessary.

4. Like all other regular cookies, roll the cookie dough to 1/4 inch thick and cut the shapes out using cookie cutter.

5. Bake 10-15 minutes.

Various dots..

We decorated the cookies with royal icing. Here, we used two types; soft peak consistency for lining out the design and runny type royal icing for filling up/coloring the design.

Broken heart, checked heart.

Royal Icing

3 tablespoons meringue powder

4 cups confectioners' sugar

6 tablespoons water

1. Beat all ingredients at low speed for 7-10 minutes until icing forms peaks. This made the soft peak consistency.

2. To make them runny, in order to fill up the border, add 2 tablespoons more water to the already soft icing.

Tux and evening gown..

Overall, we are both happy with these cookies. Later we'll pack them up in individual plastics and tie them up with ribbons.

Lemon Cream Cupcake Gone Wrong

2007-04-30T23:33:00.000-07:00

Last week, we made some cupcakes. We planned to had them filled with lemon cream cheese and made some fillings for that purpose. I used a different method of filling; I first filled quarter of the papercups with the cake batter, scooped the filling and put it in the middle, then filled the rest with cake batter up to 3/4 cup full. They were then baked.

Saty wanted the cakes to be covered with fondant icing, so we made some liquid fondant and also some royal icing for piping details on the fondant topped cakes later.

The Mistaken Line Up

And the result? Hahah..The cakes tasted alright and the lemon cream filling is delicious, only that I've placed them too little on each cake. The poured fondant looks great but tasted funny, most probably because of the almond extract I put in. The design wasn't so bad though.

The Mistaken

I won't publish the recipe this time, not until I've got them right and perfect.

The best among the worst..

Chai Spice Layer Cake

2007-04-16T01:31:00.000-07:00

Today was layer cake day. Mak has been pestering me on making this particular layer cake for months and finally, I agreed to do it for her. And here's my Chai Spice Layer Cake. I modified a recipe from the native Sarawak layer cake recipe and add a suitable amount of Chai Spice into the batter and made sure that the flavour was more intense than the usual store bought layer cakes.

The proud Chai Spice Layer Cakes.

Chai Spice Layer Cake

A
25 egg yolks
4 egg whites
200 g caster sugar
180 g Hong Kong flour
1 tablespoon ovalette

B
400 g butter
4 tablespoons condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

C
4 teaspoons Chai spice

1. Beat all ingredients in A without the flour until white and fluffy.
2. Fold in the flour thoroughly.
3. Also beat ingredients in B until light then mix both A and B in a large bowl.
4. Mix the batter well.
5. Add in the Chai spice and stir it in and ensure the spive is distributed evenly throughout the batter.
6. Heat oven on grill mode at 180 C.
7. Layer the batter one thin layer at a time as per my previous method of baking a layer cake.

From the outside, it seems like the layers were not well defined..

Once you're done with the cake, remember to leave it to cool in the cake pan. Then turn it over on a wire rack, trim the sides and it's ready to be eaten. Simply delicious. And it can be kept in the fridge for 1 week without losing its moisture.

But once I cut it, the layers were more obvious and were really, really fine and thin. Thanks to Mak who insist that I make it as thin as possible.

Mocha Cupcakes With Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

2007-04-15T04:55:00.000-07:00

Cupcakes all lined up.

Today my sister and I had a little breakthrough. Our icing is finally not too sweet. These cupcakes was made with a friend in mind, Sara. She and I often do rounds of coffee together while bitching about life. Thus these mocha cupcakes was made.

And this one,was by Saty. She's good at it.

Mocha Cupcakes

2 2/3 cups cake flour

1 cup cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder

3 teaspoons instant coffee powder

1 cup hot water

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup milk

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1. Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

2. Add in the eggs and continue beating until thoroughly mixed. In another bowl, mixed the dry ingredients; flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and powder, salt, and cinnamon powder.

3. Add 1/2 of the flour mix into the butter sugar mixture. Dilute the instant coffee powder with the hot water and pour into the batter. Mix well.

4. Fold in another half batch of the flour mix, and finally stir in the vanilla and milk.

5. Pour batter into lined muffin tins 2/3 full. Bake at 180 C for 30 minutes or until toothpick test is satisfactory.

Saty did this one too.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

6 oz cream cheese

1 cup icing sugar (the recipe said 2 cups, but we reduced it so it won't be too sweet, and add some cocoa powder instead. If you like it sweet, add in a cup more icing sugar. The cocoa powder is optional and you'll probably need less of it).

6 oz bittersweet chocolate (melted over simmering hot water)

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

5-8 teaspoons of cocoa powder

1. Cream the cheese and icing sugar in a bowl.

2. Beat in the melted chocolate, then followed by the milk and vanilla.

3. Add in the cocoa powder, a teaspoon at a time, beating well after each addition until you reach the consistency you like for the frosting.

I wasn't so creative with the toppings. But this one was made by myself.

We iced the cooled cupcakes with the frosting, and my sister Saty went crazy with the toppings. She's creative, but often lose focus if she had to do too many. Haha..but thank god she has the interest in decorating cakes if not making them.

Cute little swirls. Always by Saty.

After we've iced all the cupcakes, we still got some frosting left, so I stored them in the fridge just to see if the frosting freezes well. Will try to use it again for the next project.

Ahh..but this one's mine. Simple, but I love it.

For Sara, I did nine of the above design and put them in a cake box, secured by sections made from corrugated paper. Take a look at them..

Classic Vanilla With Peanut Butter Filling Cupcakes

2007-04-06T19:22:00.000-07:00

I had some extra white buttercream from the last birthday project. So I decided to make some cupcakes and use the buttercream for topping. I was in an upbeat mood yesterday and I decided to try new things on my cupcakes. I chose to fill my cupcakes with some peanut butter filling. I modified some truffle making recipes to this delicious, creamy filling.

Classic Vanilla Cupcakes

1 cup salted butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 3/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda
1 cup milk
2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Cream the butter on high speed mixer for 30 seconds.

2. Add in the sugar and beat further for 3 minutes.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time, beat for about 30 seconds after adding in each egg.

4. Fold in the flour, baking powder and soda until thoroughly mixed.

5. Pour in the milk and vanilla and stir until a smooth batter is formed.

6. Pour the batter into lined muffin tins 1/2 full. This cake rise like crazy, so be careful not to fill more than 2/3 of the cup.

7. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes on 350 F. Always test cake for doneness.

Note : This cake tasted great, but the cake pulls away from the paper cups upon cooling. Not a good thing for putting fillings in. I definitely won't use this recipe for cupcakes next time.

Peanut Butter Filling

1/2 cup creamy or chunky peanut butter

1 1/2 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoon milk

1. Cream the butter and peanut butter until thoroughly mixed.

2. Add in the milk and mix them again until it forms a creamy texture, not too stiff and not too runny. Have a taste at the finish product, if you want it sweeter, you can always add some sifted confectioners' sugar to the mixture.

Putting Them All Together

1. After the cakes are slightly cooled, I cored the middle section of the cakes with a small knife, leaving a hollow centre. Do not discard the cored section, you need it to cover back the cakes after putting in the fillings.

2. Now fill the cakes with approximately 1 teaspoon of the filling, more if the hole you made is bug and lesser if it is small.

3. Cover it back with the cored section. You will need to cut off the lower part of the cored section so you are left with just the top part of the section.

4. I tint the buttercream light brown and some 2 tablespoons of the same buttercream in leaf green. I also made some apple blossoms from yellow fondants to be used in garnishing.

5. Using a spatula, spread the icing smoothly on top of the cupcakes. I centred the apple blossoms on each cake, piped 2 buttercream leaves for each blossom and voila! My cupcake is done!

I am very happy with the taste of the cake and the peanut butter filling, but I am still not satisfied with the buttercream. It didn't taste bad, but I'm still looking for a way to improve it.

1st Birthday Cake

2007-03-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

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

2007-03-03T22:23:00.000-08:00

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

2007-03-03T21:32:00.000-08:00

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.

Devil's Food with Orange Buttercream

2007-02-25T02:39:00.000-08:00

This was my second attempt of making cupcakes. The result was a whole lot of delicious chocolatey cupcakes with an almost perfect frosting, accept it was a bit too sweet (the frosting). Saty has started work again after her long confinement. So I had the kitchen all to myself. She was a tad bit unhappy because she missed the frosting making part.

I made the cupcakes a day in advance. The cupcake recipe was adapted from the Divine Devil's Food Cupcake by Linjen, which I found on Recipezaar. Actually it was just a minute adjustment and the cupcakes tasted really good. The recipe for Orange Buttercream Icing was taken from Wilton Cupcake Fun. Here's the complete adapted recipe for my second trial of cupcake baking.

Ty's Food for The Devil Cupcakes

2 cups cake flour
2/3 cup Van Houten cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
3/4 cup light butter, softened
1/3 cup water
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Heat oven to 180 degrees C. Line 24 regular size muffin cups with paper liners.

2. Mix flour, cocoa, salt baking powder and baking soda in large bowl. Combine buttermilk
and water in small bowl. Beat butter in another large bowl with mixer on medium high speed
until fluffy.

3. Add sugar and beat on until you don't feel nor see anymore sugar granules. Add eggs, one at a
time, beating well after each addition. Add in vanilla. Alternately add flour and buttermilk in 3
batches, beating just until blended. Spoon into cups, 1/2 to 2/3 full. Bake 20 - 25 minutes or
until toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 5 minutes and then remove to a rack
and cool completely.

Orange Buttercream Icing

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon Clear Vanilla Extract
4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (approx. 1 lb.) 1 teaspoon Sunquick Orange cordial
2 tablespoons buttermilk
Zest of 1 orange, grated
2 drops of Orange Oil
Orange Icing Color (optional)

1. Beat butter and shortening with electric mixer.

2. Add vanilla.

3. Gradually add sugar, one at a time, beating well on medium speed.

4. When all sugar has been mixed in, add buttermilk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.

5. Stir in orange zest, orange cordial, orange oil and icing colour.

6. Pipe the icing on the cupcakes and add a few orange chocolate chips on top.

Our First Cupcake

2007-02-23T05:39:00.000-08:00

After seeing a friend buying a box of beautiful, cute cupcakes, I fell in love and am now so keen to make my own. Furthermore after browsing hundreds of cupcakes' blogs and web pages, I am getting more and more crazy about cupcakes!

And so, last week my sister and I, in a haste, went on our first time ever experience on making our cupcakes. We were not prepared, as I just got home from Denver.

Therefore, assuming we have everything in the kitchen, we began our project only to find out we are out of granulated sugar. We were too lazy to run to the shop to restock it so we simply used some raw sugar instead.

We used the Lemon Citrus Cupcakes recipe from the book The Artful Cupcake by Marcianne Miller. The recipe requires the usage of lemon and orange zest and juice, which we also did not have. For that, we substituted all the citrus ingredient with some orange oil.

As for the frosting, we used the Classic Buttercream Frosting recipe from the same book. We had to make 2 batches of frosting because one was not enough. We used some ready rolled-fondant to decorate the cupcakes too.

The result : The cake looks alright from far but if you look at it closely, you can see the granules of the raw sugar everywhere on its surface. It taste just alright but if you eat too much, you can taste the bitterness of the orange oil. The second batch of buttercream frosting we made was too buttery in taste, probably because we tried to reduce the amount of confectioners' sugar. We didn't want to make it as sweet as the first batch. The first batch was way too sweet. And we had everything done according to the recipe. The rolled-fondant didn't taste so nice either. I think that's why Chockylit hardly use them in her recipe.

In the looks department however, I have to say that our cupcakes didn't look so bad. Most of the decorating tasks anyways, was done by Saty (my sister).