#38 : Bees Cupcakes

One thing I hate about gumpaste/fondant is coloring them dark. I used the gel coloring and if I put too much of them on the gumpaste/fondant, it will change the texture - it will get so sticky and hard to be kneaded. I did my research and it turned out that we would have to store them overnight as the colored fondant will get darkened overtime. I didn't have the patient to wait so I just used them right away. I was pretty happy with the result of the bees even though I know they weren't perfect - you can see some cracks in the gumpaste. I regret using white fondant to cover the cupcakes. I should have used yellow instead. Anyway for the cupcakes I used the same old recipe Iced Fairy Cupcakes. The taste of the gumpaste is just so bad. I wouldn't recommend anyone to eat it. I bought the ready to roll gumpaste from the store.

#37 : Chocolate Cupcakes with Strawberries

"The cream ruined everything!" said my sister. I should have used my sis' recipe instead. I had whipped the cream but it was runny. I didn't know if it was because I didn't whip it long enough or because I kept the cream in the room temperature while I was busy learning to decorate with chocolate. But I didn't think that the cream was too weird or anything. But I gotta admit that my sis' cream recipe was much better. The cupcakes tasted just okay I think. Nothing so special except the chocolate decorations! Yes it was my first time doing chocolate decorating and I loved it! Thanks to my sister who patiently taught me how. I made flowers, names (Billie Joe Armstrong :P), wings and etc. She also taught me how to dip strawberries into the chocolate. She taught me how to melt chocolate properly. I tried to melt Home Brand cooking chocolate and it turned out weird. But when I used the ones I bought in my fave baking supplies store, it worked out! I didn't really know if it was because of the quality of the chocolate or if I did something wrong during the melting process. Despite the runny cream, I was happy just to bake! :)


Ingredients :
- 70g plain chocolate, broken into pieces
- 140g butter
- 140g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 tbsp brandy (I used kirsch)
- 175g self raising flour
- 1 tbsp cocoa powder

Topping :
- 200ml double cream
- 1 tbsp icing sugar
- 1 tbsp brandy (I used kirsch)
- 9 large strawberries

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line a 12-hole muffin tray with 9 paper cases.
2. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, set the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water and heat until melted. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
3. Place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in the eggs.
4. Stir in the brandy, followed by the melted chocolate, then carefully fold in the flour.
5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until golden and springy to the touch.
7. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
8. To decorate, place the cream, sugar and brandy in a bowl and whip together until just stiff.
9. Spoon the cream into a piping bag fitted with a nozzle and pipe a generous swirl of cream on top of each cake, then place a strawberry on top and sprinkle with grated chocolate.

#36 : Fluffy Sheep Cookies

I tried to make fluffy sheep cookies. But my friends told me that they looked more like turtles. My sister even said that they looked like dinosaurs. The first batch that I baked looked much more like dinosaurs, I admit that. They were so weird that I ate them all. Second batch I baked was pretty good. Well I was pretty happy with the result though, even though they tasted just average. Not bad but not so good either.


Ingredients :
- 9 oz unsalted butter, softened
- 9 3/4 oz caster sugar
- 1 lb plain flour, plus extra for dusting
- 2 tsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- food coloring
- writing icing (I used my color gel)

Method:
1. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy
2. Gradually add the eggs and beat to combine, then sift in the flour, baking powder and salt and mix to form a dough.
3. Wrap the dough in clingfirm and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours.
4. Preheat the oven to 160C. Line 2 large baking sheets with baking paper.
5. Divide the dough into half and knead in different food colorings.
6. Shape the dough into sheep shapes. Different colorings for the head and the feet. Use the writing icing to make the eyes.
7. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

#35 : Kurt Cobain Fondant Cake

Okay I do know that it doesn't exactly look like Kurt Cobain but I want to think that's him. :) Anyway, this is quite a breakthrough for me indeed. First of all, I'd been trying to bake a sponge cake three times and they weren't successful. Got a problem with the folding technique, with the eggs temperature and other things. And this time, I conquered the damn sponge cake. I was really nervous when putting the batter into the oven. I kept staring at the oven the whole time! Secondly, working with fondant has been really intimidating for me. It has always been, especially when covering the cake. I've read everywhere that the most tricky thing is when covering the cake. It could crack or get torn apart. Luckily, I did it well even though it wasn't quite neat. Thirdly, I was intimidated too with making fondant figurines. Coloring fondant has been a challenge for me too! So everything was so challenging.


At first I wanted to make the decorations as simple as possible because I knew it was my first time doing a cake and working with fondant is still scary. I was thinking to stick some colored-dots fondant all over the cake. But then my sister told me that it looked kind of empty. So I tried to make what I call as Kurt Cobain figurine (I wanted to make a Billie Joe but I knew it was going to be much harder - I'm gonna try it someday I swear). I was really nervous that my heart was beating so fast. My sister was laughing at me the whole time for being so insanely nervous. And when the cake was done, I felt like crying (I was not being a drama queen - I was just so happy). I got my passion for baking back again! You know I've kind of lost it lately. But now I already got my to-bake-list again and there are a lot! :)




With the cake I did put some Chantilly cream and put some strawberry jams with strawberry pieces. I covered the cake with the remaining cream and chilled it in the fridge. After that I got worried with the cake storage. Fondant cake cannot be kept in the fridge because it would get dry and would sweat by the time it is taken out from the fridge. But I got the cream and strawberry filling inside the cake - and it should be kept in the fridge. Damn. So what I did was I covered the cake with cling wrap and kept it in the fridge. I hope it wouldn't ruin the fondant.
The recipe for the sponge cake can be found here from Happy Home Baking
I added some lemon zest but I guess I put too much of it - the fragrant of the cake was too much like lemon. My sister was a fan but I wasn't. I'm gonna use less lemon zest next time.

#34 : Iced Fairy Cupcakes

I'd been having this kind of weird feeling. I wanted to bake but I didn't know what to bake. Everything seemed to be just dull. I'd been flipping recipe pages to find things to bake somehow everything seemed so out of reach. It felt like I couldn't bake this and that because it looked damn difficult even though I knew it could be done. I wanted to learn cakes decorating so bad but I felt like it was so hard :(
So I grabbed a recipe book that Erika had given to me and did the very first recipe in the book: No 1 - Iced Fairy Cakes. I had all the ingredients and started baking.
For decorating I found these flowers decorations I had forgotten about. It was so easy. So easy even a 7-year-old could have done it. But it made me really happy again just to bake.



Not long after that I realized that I've baked the recipe but with different decorations. When I saw back what I baked long time ago, I realized they were so messy. Arghhh.. Anyway the recipe is here

#33 : Cinnamon Swirls

So it was my first time baking in the year of 2010. And it was terrible. I picked "Cinnamon Swirls" from my recipe book. I bought everything I needed at supermarket but I forgot the milk (I wonder why somehow I always forget one or two things). So I had to buy the milk at the convenience store downstairs (which is more expensive). I've read the instruction well except for the part where it says "Rub in the chopped butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs". What I did, I just mixed everything all together. Fortunately, my sister, who is taking baking course, came and read the whole recipe and pointed out my mistake. There's nothing she could do, so I just continued with what I had already done. Then when I started to mix the milk and egg, everything got worse. It should have resembled a bread dough by now, but it was too wet and sticky. So I threw everything away and started all over again. This time I did it right by rubbing the butter with my fingertips and I slowly poured the milk and egg, ended up not using the whole thing as stated in the recipe (damn you, bloody recipe!)

After finished baking, I tried the swirls and it was fairly good, not great though. My sister kept telling me that it was great. The whole room smelled good anyway. But I had a little doubt about the swirls. I thought that it was good because it was fresh from the oven. I was sure that once the swirls got cold, it wouldn't be as good as now. I was right. The next morning I ate a bite and it was hard and crunchy. I didn't like it at all so I threw away the whole thing. I couldn't figure out what went wrong. Anyway, here's the recipe :

Cinnamon Swirls
(makes 12)
Ingredients :
- 25g butter, cut into small pieces, plus extra for greasing
- 225g strong white flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 7g easy blend dried yeast
- 1 egg (I used probably about 3/4 of it)
- 125g (I used less than this) lukewarm milk
- 2tbsp maple syrup, for glazing (I used golden syrup)
filling :
- 55g butter, softened
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 50g soft light brown sugar
- 50g currants (I used raisins)

Method :
1. Grease a baking sheet and a bowl. Sift the flour and salt into a mixing bowl and stir in the yeast.
2. Rub in the chopped butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add the egg and milk and mix to form a dough.
3. Form the dough into a ball, place in the greased bowl, cover and leave to stand in a warm place for about 40 minutes, or until doubled in volume.
4. Punch down the dough lightly for 1 minute, then roll out to a rectangle measuring 30x23 cm.
5. For the filling, cream together the softened butter, cinnamon and sugar until light and fluffy.
6. Spread the filling over the dough, leaving a 2.5cm border. Sprinkle the currants evenly over the top. Roll up the dough from one of the long edges and press down to seal.
7. Preheat the oven to 190C. Cut the roll into 12 slices and place them, cut side down, on the prepared baking sheet. Cover and leave to stand for 30 minutes.
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-30 minutes or until the swirls are well risen. Brush with maple syrup and leave to cool slightly before serving.

My Sister Also Bakes

My sister came home one day from her school with these gorgeous cakes (She is studying patisserie). These cakes for some reason inspired me to start baking again. Yes, I'd been taking a break from baking due to the hot weather and I have no air conditioner at home. It would be crazy to bake in these heat of the summer. Since the weather is a bit cooler now, I'm back! Anyway, here are my sister's cakes :

1. Chocolate Mudcake
Not a fan of this cake. It was okay but I didn't really like it

2. Strawberry Cake
It is the best cake anyone I know has ever baked! The texture was soft and light. I had been looking for some light cake recipe and now I have it!

3. Carrot Cupcakes
Ta-da! I'm saving the best for last. I LOVE these carrot cupcakes. I really do. I fell in love with this cupcakes at first sight. I fell in love with the decoration. I've always wanted to be able to work with marzipan/fondant and I'd been clueless about it. Well now I have my sister who can teach me how :D
What I love about these carrot cupcakes is that they were moist and the taste of the cinnamon is just so good. There were also pieces of walnuts and shredded carrots. God I just loved it! I will be making these very soon!