Birthdays

I’ve never really thought much about them. I do agree it is a special day/date but I never felt that I needed to tell the whole world “Hey! It’s my BIRTHDAY!!” I guess that’s just me. I’m a very quiet, low profile kind of person. I never like to make big celebrations. Only my closest friends and families are important to me. Hence, I’m more comfortable being around the people I love.

I don’t think I’ve ever had a big birthday bash or anything like that. I don’t have any regrets. Sometimes I think birthdays bring a lot of bad memories for me. Maybe because I have high expectations. So, I tend not to hope too much so as not to get disappointed. Birthdays are also a reminder that I’m getting older which is not really a good thing, to me. Despite all that, there were several birthdays that I was very happy and super contented. It would one of the birthdays where I get to have dinner with all my friends and be filled with glorious food and surrounded by stupid jokes, gossips and laughter.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

It is quite ironic that I feel the opposite way when making birthday cakes for my customers. Making birthday cakes always make me feel happy and excited. I especially love it when I received orders from husbands who request to put sweet messages on the cakes or that the order is a surprise for the wife. I find it sooo sweet and touching and to be part of something so loving makes me extremely honoured. I'm a sucker for romantic stuffs.

Baking a birthday cake for Yanty has become a yearly tradition. She is a very good friend that I got to know when we were in polytechnic. It was weird how our paths met but it is something I never forget. She was one good friend that I can rely on. Very talented and unassuming and has a very beautiful handwriting. She can write songs and plays the guitar really well. She is also one of the most patient person I know. She's strong amidst all that she went through.

So, every year, Firdaus, her brother will always order a cake from me with a theme or a tidbit that he chooses to be incorporated into the cake. It is like a birthday tradition for me. This year, it was Yan Yan (pic on left). It is a biscuit treat with chocolate dip inside the packaging. I didn’t really have that much idea but I know I’ve been wanting to make this 3 layer cake where one layer is a chocolate cake, another is a cheesecake and a top layer is a cookie dough. So, I incorporated some biscuit bits into the cookie dough and covered the cake with chocolate ganache and chocolate swiss meringue buttercream. I thought it was a pretty cake inside and out. But I would have improved on the cake recipe. You can find the recipe here. 

Do you have a "birthday tradition"? :)

Short and Simple

I’ve been rather intrigued and fond about gradient or ombre designs on cakes for a while now. Last week, I was given the freedom to make a cake for a 10 year old birthday girl. I was told that she likes Pink and Purple, Butterfly and Dragonfly.

I was kinda occupied last week and didn’t manage to create a gumpaste butterflies. Hence, I only played with the colours and decided that simple is best. I’ve been seeing a lot of gradient design on cakes in Pinterest lately. Fortunately for us, a talented lovely baker did a video on how to create the design. Hence, I was really inspired to make the same. 

The design was quite simple to make. I just feel that it has a lot of wastage. But from my experience, I should be able to save more the next time I make this design.

Rainbow cake is becoming a rather popular demand in Singapore. I wonder how long the fad will last. It’s a very pretty cake but it is so time consuming to make. I’ve never really thought about selling it but it seems like it’s one of the hottest cake people are ordering now. I’m not really sure who was the creator of this special cake but for me, I got to know about this wonderful, unique idea from Whisk Kid. She’s another talented baker, photographer and writer. I love her pictures!

Getting to the main point about this post, I’m actually a firm believer of short and simple in every sense. But of course now I’m just talking about cakes decoration, for this post. I love simple cakes with clean, simple lines and chic at the same time. I love flowers but nothing too much. I’m more of a minimalist. It’s hard to market these kind of cakes in Singapore as grandiose and elaborated cakes are more of a norm here. However, I’m pretty sure more and more people younger generation will be more open to simple cakes soon.

Although it’s simple, the cakes should create an impact in some ways. It should be eye catching and very, very pleasing to the eyes. At the same time, it should taste marvellous too. My main concern lies in the taste more.  Sometimes, I wonder how people can just sell whatever they think they can do/make. I pride myself on the quality, quality of work/end product and quality of ingredients. I hope to educate people on why some of my cakes might be more expensive. One have to understand the thought, hardwork, passion and love that goes into one product.

Anyway, these is one of my favourite cakes that I did so far. I hope to come up with more ‘short and simple’ designs. I love the part where it looks so simple outside but when you cut it up, you will be greatly surprise by the cake. I wish I am able to see people's reaction when it happens.

Hot Weather vs Ice Cream

The weather has been extremely hot the past few weeks. Not just in the day but throughout the night too. It can be so unbearable at some point that it spoils my mood and not just mine. I see a change in my husband's mood too. It's just so distractingly hot and humid that you do not want to go out, you do not want to get close to anybody fearing to get hotter and you just wanna bathe like 5 times a day. Nooo, I am not exaggerating. Welcome to Singapore everyone!

Well, because of the weather, it has inspired me to make ice cream with the leftover egg yolks that I have. Why do I have that many egg yolks?? It's because I kept getting rainbow cake orders the past few weeks and all my filling and frosting is my favourite swiss meringue buttercream. Hence, the unused yolks. I wish they sell egg whites in a carton just like I saw in Sweetapolita's blog. That would be so useful and less wasteful. But I tried searching for it at supermarkets here but to no avail. Maybe I should try Jason's or Marketplace. However, it would not be worth the money to buy it given the price of my cakes. 

Yeap! Ice cream! The hot weather make you wanna dip into any cold dessert available. I felt so good eating a cool silky, soft beancurd yesterday. It was like the nicest thing when the weather is so hot. Why am I digressing to beancurd now?

Anyways... I had leftover yolks, leftover vanilla sugar, almost-expired chocolate orange. I decided to make an Orange Chocolate Ice Cream. I stole some oranges from my mom, just to take the zest of it actually. :) So, it's not technically stealing. I just took some parts of the fruit which she won't be eating anyway. The chocolate came from my sister who bought it when she went overseas, I forgot where. She bought so many flavoured chocolate but didn't eat it and abondoned it for the longest time. Some of them were really nice and tasty and you couldn't find it in Singapore. But it has a low melting point; melts easily in our weather. What couldn't be better when all my favourite ingredients added together.

I actually put aside 8 egg yolks. I made 2 batches of vanilla ice cream and divided it to make 2 different ice cream. Since, I already made a refreshing ice cream, I decided to make a more flavourful kinda savoury ice cream for the other one. That's how I  always decide on my 2 scoops of ice cream. One chocolatey or flavourful, the other have to be contrasting where it has to be refreshing. 


I went to buy a small bottle of peanut butter and blackcurrant jam. I kinda foresaw that putting spoonfuls of peanut butter just like that would make the ice cream cloying. Unfotunately, I was tired and running out of time to make peanut butter caramel sauce. So i just dump spoons after spoons of peanut butter into it. The ice cream looks really good though. True enough, it was definitely very very cloying. Well, I learnt my lesson. Hopefully I can finish the ice cream. 

 

The recipe for the basic vanilla ice cream is:-

Vanilla Ice Cream

4 egg yolks

75g/3oz/6tbsp caster sugar (I used vanilla caster sugar)

5ml/1tsp cornflour

300ml/1/2pint/1 1/4 cups semi-skimmed (low fat) milk

5ml/1tsp vanilla extract

300ml/1/2pint/1 1/4 cups whipping cream

1 vanilla pod (optional)

1)  Keep the ice cream bowl in the freezer for at least 15hrs. (If you're using KA ice cream bowl.)

2)Heat the milk over low heat until almost boiling in a saucepan. 

3) Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, cornflour together in a medium size bowl. 

4) Pour 1/4 of the hot milk over the egg mixture and whisk simultaneously so as not to cook the eggs.

5) Slowly pour the remaining milk in while whisking slowly. Then, pour the whole mixture into the saucepan. 

6) Cook over low heat until it becomes thick and smooth. Do not boil it. 

7) Add the vanilla and let mixture cool.

8) Store the mixture in the fridge for at least 8hr

9) Beat the mixture in the ice cream maker for about 15-20min at Speed 1 until it becomes melted ice cream consistency. 

10) Put whatever topping you want into the mixture in the last 5 min of the mixing. (You can also fold in the toppings of your choice by hand. Much easier for me.)

Here's to the sunny weather in Singapore!

Romantic

What is your favourite romantic comedy? I'm a sucker for romantic comedy. My favourites are usually played by Sandra Bullock; like While You Were Sleeping or/and Two Weeks Notice. Yes, it's more exciting to watch action movies but I wil never get sick of watching romantic comedies and some chick flicks. I love A Walk to Remember alot. Never fails to make me cry. I like A Cinderella Story just because I like Hillary Duff and that tall guy.. He's so hot! Ok, I like tall guys. hahaha.. But don't ever ever give me Twilight! I HATE that pale guy and that expressionless girl. BLeargh~

Lately, I've been receiving quite a number of anniversary cake orders. Okay, maybe just 3 anniversary orders so far.. And it just brought back all the feel good romance movies.. Weird rite.

I've been hooked to Pinterest and I keep seeing all the great cakes other bakers are making and I'm really inspired by them. You should join Pinterest and you'll enter a whole new world, seriously.

The first anniversary cake I made was a rainbow cake with chocolate buttercream as requested by the customer. I decided to make a Ruffles cake. I really love this design. It's so sweet yet has a vintage touch to it. Perfect for an anniversary! I used Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I love the silky smooth look of smbc and the not overly sweet taste of it AND it goes very well with this Ruffles Design.

The good thing about doing this design is that I don't have to be so stress about how to make the cake look so smooth. Another advantage is that I love to pipe. The top reason is I LOVE the design! The cons is that it uses quite an amount of frosting but it's not that much actually but more than what you will use if you were to smooth the smbc over the cake. 

Coincidentally, the next anniversary cake is also a 3rd year. Since I was given a freedom to decide on the decoration, I really wanted to the rose swirls cake. I didn't want any wordings to spoil the cake and there would be no space for wordings anyway because the swirls will be all over.. I custom made a tag to write the words.. And here is it is.. 

 

I'm glad that the customer chose to stick with white because it looked so pure and elegant. Again, perfect for an anniversary! She wanted a red tag.. I really love it. Maybe I'll do a smaller swirls next time so that I can make 3 layers of swirls and in ombre. That would be so cool!! 

 

 Till the next anniversary! :) 

Cake, Jar and Sprinkles

A number of people often asked me "How do you learn to bake?" or "When did you started baking?" I always fumble on that question because I always try to think what is the most humble way to answer. I guess I'm just a person who thinks too much about what I say to others. 

I learn baking on my own. I remembered how I helped my sisters baked during Hari Raya. I was always made to do the 'dirty' job like sifting the flour, releasing the cupcake liners from the stack. It was those pesky little jobs that most bakers hate.. I should say some.. HAhaha.. And I still remembered how my 3rd sister and I used to bake through the night. We had those flour sifter where it looks like a big metal cup and there is this pusher thingy at the handle where you have to push to sift the flour inside. I guess my description is bad eh.. It was the most tiring thing we had to do but I had a blast and enjoyable time with my sister. 

Back to the question, I learn to bake on my own. By trying out recipes. I was really inspired by one blog. Her pictures and recipes were so fascinating. I was in love and I just knew I had to bake. You can visit her blog. Her blog led to other awe inspiring blogs where they are so committed to take nice pictures and bake such good stuffs. 

I started in 2009 if I'm not wrong. I bake for fun. To try out recipes and I really wanted to decorate those cupcakes. Some bakes went really bad and awry and some turn out good. My decorations started really simple. Then, I went for Wilton courses to learn more decoration. It was all trial and error. 

Through time, I realised that baking was therapeutic. It makes me happy and de-stress. And best of all, the happiest moment is watching someone eat my goodies and seeing their reaction and telling me from the bottom of their heart that it's really good. I bake in hopes that people can appreciate flavours and the goodness inside the cakes. 

It's been 3 years now since I first started baking. Being able to sell my cakes and goodies is a great feeling but I really want to ensure that I'm selling quality cakes. Flavour-some cakes. I hope people can appreciate it one day. 

I was asked to make wedding favours for a friend last week. It was really a cool idea of cake in a jar. It was Red Velvet in a Jar. It's really something new and unique in Singapore. However, there is a shop that sells cake in a jar. They are called Grin Affair. I have yet to try it. Hope I can try it one day. I rarely have enough time for myself these days. 

It was really an enjoyable experience. Something new for me. Inventive. I really love it. And I knew I had to give my best for this. I made 2 kinds of cream cheese frosting for the red velvet. The ones in the middle is cream cheese mixed with mascarpone to give it more creamier and tangy flavour. The top cream cheese frosting is basic cream cheese frosting which taste really good but not so sweet and has a good consistency to be piped. The minor details inside that jar were mini chocolate chips in the middle layer which was purely experiment-ational. It was actually for aesthetic reasons BUT it goes really great with the red velvet. It adds texture while you're eating it which increases your enjoyment, honestly. And I managed to get some cute sprinkles from Artistiq Sugarcraft. I bought quite some time ago and was saving it for this special occasion. I knew this special sprinkles had to make its debut with something unique.

We went to the venue and tied the spoons to the jar with the help of the bride and groom's friends. The completed work looked really good!! I totally love it. I wished it could have been my wedding favour. Haha.. 

I love the spoons. It was imported from USA, I think..The bride and groom bought it. It's compostable. How cool and green is that? I love any ideas that are environmental friendly. At the end of the day, it was all worth it when people came to me and tell me that it was "the bomb"! hahahaha.. A lot of people complimented the red velvet, even the groom.. I was really relieve and happy. 

I would really like to thank the bride and groom for giving me the honour of helping them and my husband and friends for being so supportive to me and that keeps me going. 

I love Ruffles and Anything Sweet.. on Cakes

I chanced upon this blog while I was surfing the net quite a while ago.. She had a very interesting blog where she will teach you different techniques to decorate cakes and cupcakes. It was really interactive. You could even pay to watch video tutorials. But there was one cake I fell in love with.. which is the petal effect cake.. You can see it by clicking here..I knew I had to do it one day. 


When someone wanted to order a rainbow cake and it was the birthday of a pretty lady.. I decided to make a pretty cake.. :) I was quite nervous about it because it should be done with a stiff/frosting buttercream. I was never a fan of the very very sweet buttercream. I always like my cakes with swiss meringue buttercream. The only thing bad about SMBC is that is gets kinda melt-y very fast especially in SIngapore's weather. SMBC doesn't melt on the cake but it melts in the piping bag when I am piping it. Maybe because of the warmth from my palms. So, fridge is my best friend and I had to do everything very fast. 


This is how it looks like:

I found out that it is possible to do this design with SMBC but you got to be patient and not fuss about some messy parts. I have a lot more to improve on it though. I couldn't get the joining end to blend that well. So, I covered with some pearl dragees. It looks kinda empty on top but I think a nice big flower would look good! 

Oh, if you're wondering how the insides look like.. Hmm.. 

Well, this was the layers before I manage to put the SMBC filling in between. But the cake makes you smile doesn't it? :)


~Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high..~

Gradients and New Knowledge

I've just recovered from all the body aches I got from my class with Sharon Wee... Don't get me wrong, she's a wonderful teacher but I just didn't know a double barrel cake would require such great amount of physical strength... ;D 


I had the privilege to attend a course by the talented Sharon Wee from Australia who came all the way here to Singapore... Wish I could attend all the courses but my schedule and financial means only allowed me to attend one class... I was attracted to it because of the Peony flowers that we get to learn and also the skills to cover very tall cakes... There are so many things you can learn technically from Sharon. The most stress that I got from making the cake was contemplating on the design of the cake.. The next stress was covering the 2 tiers of cake.. Hahaha.. The last stress was making the flowers...


The design was killing me since the past few days even before class.. I was going through pictures of beautiful cakes in the internet like an addicted person every night before I sleep... Im not kidding you. I think even my husband was lazy to entertain me. Hahaha.. Poor him.. I just know I wanted to do something simple yet eye-catching.. Colourful yet subtle.. Fascinating yet clean.. Modern yet vintage-y.. See what I mean.. I'm contradicting myself at every thoughts and imagination I have.. In the end.. I decided on a colour scheme which was not so common but had the vintage feel to it.. But actually I got the inpired by a lady who wore the colours that I chose... It was just one random morning where I was walking behind a random lady who was wearing a 3/4 teal coloured skirt with a sleeveless peach-salmon coloured top.. I just knew there was no turning back.. As for the designs, I wanted to do something modern and clean.. I kept thinking over and over again whether my white peonies will go with the colours I chose.. I was ultra stress!! But I just did it and guess what.. It's beautiful and unique! 


While watching Sharon demo how she covered the double barrel cake, I actually held my breath until she finished covering the sides in one swift movement.. I was thinking to myself, can I do that?? Suddenly, my palms became sweaty.. It is usually not.. Hahaha.. I was really nervous.. Hence, I covered the smaller cake to warm myself up for the challenging task ahead... When I had to finally cover my tall cake, I took a deep breathe and stood straight.. I was really scared something bad would happened.. But I was really paranoid as the cake is ganach-ed all around.. Any mistakes would mean I would have wasted the fondant which was a lot of hardwork to roll.. Well, I still manage to cover it with no problem.. 

It's been a long time since I make wired flowers.. Honestly, I'm still not good at curling the petals and the peonies needs to be really curved to be nice.. I was initiall having problems wiring the petals. I had to the each petal over and over again as none of the petal I did was good enough.. I hate being so critical of my own work and such a perfectionist at times. I just like to stress myself... Finally after some time, I just had to not bother about being perfect.. I realised I was wasting time and I was really lagging behind everyone.. 

I was really happy with the end result.. Im very very proud of myself.. Although I was really tired and my back was aching like crazy from kneading and rolling strips of fondant, it was all worth it.. I'm not really sure I can repeat all this task or this cake after this class.. Actually, I'm more worried about whether the chocolate ganache will set if I do not have the luxury of having aircon at home unlike in class.. I really need to experiment.. I also learn from Sharon that beautiful looking cakes and flowers can be achieved with the simplest tool that you have at home.. You don't have to buy special cutter from different flowers.. All you have to have is imagination and creativity.. And being happy with what you do.. "Do what you like, don't have to follow others".. That's what she always says... 

A friend I made in class who has the same taste as me.. How cool is that? I love her falling petals idea..

I'm definitely going to work towards making this kind of modern, clean cakes because it's very me.. It's what I love and it makes me really happy.. 


~Love me love me..
Say that you love me~

Active Dry Vs Instant

March school holidays had just ended. No holidays will be fulfilling to me without me baking some goodies. I searched my pantry for what I could find and I found an almost expiring bread flour. It's been a while since I made some bread and I have been pretty discouraged to make bread with the results I keep getting. Hard and not so pretty looking. 

Nevertheless, I recently bought active dry yeast while grocery shopping last week too. Adding to that, I wanted to make some special breakfast for my in laws when they come back from their 10 days travel/pilgrimage to Madina and Mecca. Hence, it was like a calling for ma to make bread. I've been craving for some Cinnamon Roll with some cream cream cheese frosting. 

Before I start on the recipe, I will talk elaborate more about the different type of yeast. Yeast is a leavening agent where it converts fermentable sugars inside a dough into carbon dioxide and ethanol. Typically, normal home bakers will use Instant Yeast or Active Dry Yeast. Most commonly found in the supermarket here like NTUC Fairprice is Instant Yeast. Active Dry Yeast can be found at most Cold Storage and selected Fairprice. There's a slight difference between these two yeast. 

Active Dry Yeast
Active Dry Yeast needs to be proofed and rehydrated before using. The yeast granule is longer and coarser. To rehydrate the yeast, you have to soak them in warm water (41-46 deg C) with sugar. Let it stand for 10 minutes til it is bubbly and looks creamy. 

Instant Yeast
Instant Yeast looks almost the same as active dry yeast. However, the granules are smaller. Because it is smaller than active dry, it absorbs water liquid faster because it has a larger surface area. Unlike active dry yeast, instant yeast does not need rehydration. Thus, you can directly add the yeast to the dry ingredients. In cases where you need to substitute active dry yeast with instant yeast, just lessen it by 20% because instant yeast is more potent. However, make sure you add the same amount of water as the recipe require when using active dry yeast. 

I've been keeping this recipe for over a year now. I fell in love with the picture in one of my go-to blog. She has the one of the nicest pictures and one of the most creative young bakers out there. The recipe can be found in the link above too. I did change a bit of the cream cheese frosting. I want a more cream cheese taste in the frosting.

It was also the first bread recipe that I left in the fridge to proof overnight. It turned out to be the most successful bread. Soft and fluffy and delicious. It was also easier to handle after the first proofing. I assume it can be the cause of 2 factors - 1)Active Dry Yeast 2)Proofing in the fridge. I can't tell just yet because I need more experimentation on it. But I'd go with no. 2. :)

Cream Cheese Frosting 
(my adjustments in red)

3 oz (85 g) cream cheese, room temp (I use 100g)
1/4 c (50 g) butter, room temp
1 1/2 c (234 g) confectioners' sugar (may need more or less depending on desired consistency)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbls maple syrup (optional - my addition) (omit)  

Refreshing New Year

Happy New Year to all!! This new year is quite special to me. I'm starting this year as a wife, I'm starting a new job which is a total switch to my previous job and last of all, I'm hoping for a new outlook on everything.

To start this new year, I wanted to share with you guys a refreshing cupcake recipe. It is refreshing to me because of 2 reasons. 1)It uses citrus. 2)It is the first cupcake/cake recipe that I made using heavy cream instead of the normal milk or buttermilk.

I'm actually staying at my husband's place while waiting for our own house to be ready which will be in the next 2 years. The best thing is, my lovely mother-in-law has the same interest as me which is baking. She shared with me her Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book.It has a lot of awesome pictures of cupcakes and interesting recipes. One that caught my eyes was the Orange-Vanilla Bean Cupcakes. I always thought that it was a waste of money to buy the book as all her recipes are actually on her website. BUUUT.. It's totally different when you have the book. The pictures in the books are better for one thing. However the recipes and steps are easier to see in the book. ANND there are some information in the book that is not on the website. Hence, I still think it is a great buy. 

I was deeply curious about how the cupcake would turn out like or taste like with heavy cream as a liquid medium. I've tried using milk, buttermilk and sour cream but never heavy cream. I assume that it would be more moist and dense. The thought of the orange and vanilla just lingered in my mind the whole day. I knew I had to try it. 

I'm a fan of citrus recipes. I love vanilla and vanilla beans. And I simply adore Swiss Meringue Buttercream. So, this cupcake was awesome to me. The buttercream complemented the moist yet light tasting cupcake. It was not too dense but was just nice. And as you bite, you can see the speckles of vanilla bean in the cake which is so pretty and heart-warming to me. It was also my first try making the candied orange. I learnt a lot in the process. So, I heart heart heart the cupcakes. The recipe can be found here.

~A new year is unfolding – like a blossom with petals curled
tightly concealing the beauty within~