Moving Out

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

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

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

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

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.

Not My Grandma's Gingerbread Cookies

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

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

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

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

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.