#29 : Flakey Cupcakes

Warning to you all dieters : these cupcakes are meant to really make you FAT! (mind the amount of butter and sugar)

One thing I need to improve is to put the right amount of batter in each cup so that they won't be too full. I tried to put all the batter in 12 cups and realized that it was too much so I needed to trim the cupcakes once they were baked.


Ingredients:
- 175g butter
- 175g caster sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 55g ground almonds
- 150g self-raising flour
- mini chocolate Cadbury flakes to decorate
- sprinkles

Buttercream topping:
- 225g butter, softened
- 1 tbsp cream or milk
- 350g icing sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line 12-hole muffin tray with paper cases.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then beat in the vanilla extract. Gradually beat in the eggs, then fold in the almonds and flour.
3. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
5. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
6. Spoon the buttercream using a piping bag with a large star nozzle over the cupcakes. Press a Cadbury flake into each cake and scatter a few sprinkles on top.

Buttercream:
- place the butter and cream in a bowl and beat together. Gradually sift the icing sugar and beat until smooth.

#28 : Chocolate Cream Muffins

Too bitter and chocolate-y. I am a big fan of dark chocolate with its bittersweet taste but I think these muffins were a bit too bitter. But my sister said they tasted great so I don't know.

Ingredients:
- 225g plain flour
- 55g cocoa powder
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 115g soft light brown sugar (I used brown sugar)
- 150 white chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate chips)
- 2 eggs
- 250ml double cream
- 6 tbsp sunflower oil or 85g butter

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 200C. Line 12-hole muffin tin with 12 paper cases.
2. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and white chocolate chips.
3. Place the egg in a bowl and beat lightly, then beat in cream and oil.
4. Pour the dry ingredients to the liquid ingredients - stir gently until just combined - do not overmix.
5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until well risen.
7. Leave to cool for 5 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

#27 : Bow Cupcakes

I got the recipe from Erika's book because it's easy and I got all the ingredients on hand. I wanted to try another recipe from the Planet Cake book but I didn't have the complete ingredients. Well it's the decoration that mattered to me for this one so I think whatever the recipe is, is good.
The thing with working with fondant is that you need the thickness consistency - therefore I know I am gonna need a pasta machine. I haven't bought one because it's too expensive! $149.95?? My hand mixer which I used all the time only cost 10% off it ($14.95). So I delayed the purchase.
Another problem came up with bold coloring like black. I think it was not black after all, it's more like dark gray. The more you put coloring paste to the fondant, the more sticky it gets. I used the trick that Veli told me the other day, which is to put the coloring paste using a toothpick. I didn't have any so I used the thing to check the baked cake (Oh well I don't know the name). I also didn't have a fondant smoother so they're not smooth! :( But I was quite happy with the result. They made my day :)

I didn't color enough fondant so I didn't have enough to make the bow. The result of not being careful in spooning the batter - leaving the burnt marks on the edges! :(

I used the left over fondant to make this. Oh how I hate the burnt marks on the edge!

Ingredients :
- 115g butter, softened
- 115g caster sugar
- 2 eggs
- 115g self-raising flour

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line muffin trays with cupcake/muffin papers.
2. Mix all ingredients in a bowl and beat them until smooth.
3. Spoon the batter to the muffin hole and bake for 15-20 minutes depending on the oven. (Be careful in spooning the batter. If it's messy, it's gonna leave burnt marks on the paper muffin and that's not going to be pretty. Also the batter you put had to be 2/3 of the muffin papers, so it's easier to decorate with fondants)
4. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely

Note : cupcakes are easily dried out. To prevent from drying out, make some holes on the cupcakes, brush with some syrup generously then cover with fondant.

How to make syrup : mix 100g apricot jam with 100ml boiling water and whisk them - remove any lumps

#26 : Double Heart Cookies

Baking these cookies is one challenge to me. I've read about the problem with rolling out cookies, especially with ones that need to be chilled first. At first I thought that I did something wrong with the dough because it was too sticky. Once I took the dough out from the fridge, I really needed to stamp out the cookies real fast because it got sticky quite quickly. By far, this is the longest baking I have ever done. By the time I am writing this post, I still have some of the dough in the fridge.
The taste is quite good and the baking time in the oven is much less than what's in the recipe. I got the recipe from the recipe book from Erika.





Ingredients:
- 1 sachet instant latte
- 1 1/2 tsp hot water
- 225g butter, softened
- 140g caster sugar
- 1 egg yolk, lightly beaten
- 250g plain flour
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- pinch of salt

Directions:
1. Place the instant latte into a small bowl and stir in the hot water to make a paste.
2. Beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, and then beat in egg yolk. Divide the mixture in half.
3. Sift 140g of the flour and a pinch of salt into the mixture and stir until combined.
4. Shape the dough into a ball, wrap in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 30-60 minutes.
5. Beat the vanilla extract into the other dough, then sift together the remaining flour, the cocoa powder and salt into the mixture. Stir until thoroughly combined. Shape the dough into a ball and wrap it in clingfilm. Chill for 30-60 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 190C. Line tray with baking paper.
7. Unwrap both flavors of the dough and roll out each between 2 sheets of baking paper.
8. Cut out cookies with heart-shaped cutter and place them on the baking sheets, spaced them apart.
9. Using a smaller heart-shaped cutter, cut out the centres of each larger heart and remove from the baking sheets.
10. Place a small chocolate flavored heart in the centre of each large coffee-flavored heart and vice versa.
11. Bake in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes (depending on the oven, mine took 5 minutes). Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

#25 : Chocolate Cherry Cupcakes

It's another cupcake recipe that I tried and it turned out good (I think). I loved the taste of the cupcakes. My sis also loved it too. This recipe is definitely gonna be one of the best :D Well thanks to Erika for the recipe book. The best part of baking is seeing the batter being baked in the oven. There's a feeling of joy just by seeing them raising. The smell of the cupcakes baking in the oven is also GOOD. I had a great time baking the cupcakes while watching Kurt Cobain singing. It's just a perfect evening for me :D Another thing is finishing the decoration. Well decorating ain't easy. I thought that it should be the easiest and the most exciting part. Guess what, it's not. But it was still exciting though. Putting the whipped cream on top of the cupcakes took time longer that I thought. I guess next time I should just use piping bag, because I tried to use knife and I needed to use my sis' scraper to make it smooth. Now the chocolate curls : I have never made any chocolate curls before. So what I had in mind is maybe I could use the peeler to make chocolate curls from the chocolate block. But then my sister told me another way - which is to melt the chocolate blocks and then pour them on to a flat surface and let it cool. After it is cool, just scrap the chocolate. Sadly it didn't work either. I didn't know why - maybe it was the chocolate? Well then what I did was I used the peeler and it was a little hard - there were times when the chocolate block flew and it's gone (I didn't know where the hell it was until the next morning). There were also times when the chocolate curls just sprinkled on my eyes. What a mess. Then my sister suggested to use the grater. I tried that but it was too smooth. So I sticked to the peeler. Practice makes perfect. The chocolate curls that I created were getting better and better although it's not as good as what's in the picture from the recipe book.



Ingredients
- 50g plain chocolate, broken into pieces
- 60g butter
- 115g cherry jam (I substituted this with Fruit of The Forest Jam by Weight Watchers)
- 60g caster sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 100g self-raising flour

Topping:
- 4tsp kirsch liquor
- 150ml double cream (I used thickened cream - I'm not sure if they're the same but it turned out okay)
- 12 glace cherries
- chocolate curls to decorate
I added:
- 1tsp vanilla essence
- 30g icing sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Line muffin pans with paper cases.
2. Melt the chocolate and butter, stirring constantly until melted. Pour into a large bowl. then stir until smooth and leave to cool slightly.
3. Add the jam, sugar and eggs to the cooled chocolate and beat together.
4. Add the flour and stir together until combined.
5. Spoon the mixture into the paper cases.
6. Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes or until the skewer comes out clean.
7. Leave to cool in the tin for 10 minutes then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
8. Sprinkle the kirsch over the tops of each and leave to soak for at least 15 minutes.
9. When ready to decorate, place the cream in a bowl and whip until soft peaks form. Spread the cream on top of the cupcakes with a knife to form the cream into peaks. Top each cupcake with a cherry and decorate with chocolate curls.

#24 : Flan Di Latte (Caramel Milk Pudding)

Making pudding is always the best way to use up and milk that's about to expire. I tried this recipe from Metacafe because the I had all the ingredients on hand except the caramel. Well I don't like caramel anyway so I omitted that. The pudding tasted so milky. I didn't like it. I poured some golden syrup before serving. I made half recipe because I only had 1/2 litre of milk. For recipe please watch the video below:



Easy Tasty Milk Pudding -

#23 : Banana Bread

Yummy Banana Bread

#22 : Chocolate Torte

I did have a bad experience baking cake with no raising agents. Failures. They say that the key was to fold in the batter really carefully. Yet I had never made it successful. So when I saw this recipe, I felt intimidated. But I decided to try it anyway. And I was really happy with the result! :) The cake raised during baking but then it sunk back once it was taken out. The smell of the chocolate was also so GOOD. My sis loved it so much and she said that it was more like a mudcake. It didn't taste sweet. It tasted rich in chocolate. I am so going to make this cake again someday. I got the recipe from Happy Home Baking

I thought why not trying to do some decorations? I gave it a go and it was just ugly :( I needed to learn more about cake decorating. So what I did was I tried to make the ganache out of milk chocolate. It should be dark chocolates but I didn't have it so milk chocolate it was. And it was not enough to cover the whole cake. The cake also had a little cracked on the top. Well HHB said that it was supposed to crack so I didn't mind. I used the wafer sticks to cover the sides. And after I did the ganache I pour some hundreds and thousands.



Ingredients:
(makes 18cm round cake)
- 150g dark chocolate
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 egg whites
- 70g caster sugar
- 30g cake flour (*) = 5g cornflour +25g flour
- 15g cocoa powder

(*) I substitute the cake flour with 5g cornflour and 25g flour

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 170C
2. Sift flour, cocoa powder and cornflour twice.
3. Melt dark chocolate, add in butter and mix well. Let cool.
4 Whisk egg yolk with 35g sugar until thick, creamy and mustard like.
5. Add in chocolate/butter mixture. Whisk until well combined.
6. Add in sifted flour and fold gently. Set aside.
7. Beat 35g sugar and egg whites until foamy and stiff peaks form.
8. Add egg whites mixture to the egg yolk mixture in three additions. Fold gently.
9. Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the skewer comes clean.
10. Remove cake from oven, leave it in the pan for 5 minutes then transfer to wire rack.

#21 : Corn Fritters (Bakwan Jagung)

I made them upon my sister's request. She's been having this craving for these Indonesian corn fritters. They're simple to make, not as complicated as what I thought they would be. I got the recipe from My Online Recipe but I didn't exactly follow the measurement :



Ingredients :
- 2 sweet corn kernels (I used 2 cans of sweet corns)
- 1 green onion (I used 2 or 3)
- 1 minced garlic (I used 2 or 3 tsp of ready-minced garlic)
- 1 egg
- 6 tbsp flour
- 50 cc water (I omitted this)
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- some pepper
- 1/2 tsp baking soda

Ingredients:
1. Mash the corn kernels until it is half-mashed.
2. Mix corn kernels, garlic, egg, green onions until well-mixed. Add in the flour, salt, sugar, pepper.
3. Right before frying, add the baking soda and mix well.
4. Spoon a teaspoon and fry in hot oil until it's golden.

My sister seems to love them very much but for me they're just regular corn fritters.

#20 : Pakne Cupcakes :D

It was my first time making cupcakes from the scratch and I used the recipe from the book that Erika gave to me : "1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats". I used the very first recipe "Iced Fairy Cakes". I was planning to decorate one cupcake with one letter for "Happy Birthday Pakne" so I used the mini muffin tins. The problem was that I didn't have a good consistency in pouring the batter into the tins. Sometimes I filled 2/3 sometimes I almost filled it full. So the shape of some of the cupcakes turned out weird so I needed to trim them using a bread knife. And they also differred in sizes :(

It was also my first time making the icing. If you decide to use food coloring liquid, just add some icing sugar to have the right consistency of the icing.


It was also my first time working with fondant. I used the ready to roll fondant which I bought from supermarket. When I tried to add some color, it got sticky! Then I found out that if I want to give some color to fondant, use food coloring paste instead of the liquid. At that moment I only had food coloring liquid. So I threw away all the ruined fondant.

With the letter, I used the edible decorations that I bought a few months ago. Well I think it was best to use the fondant though because the color of the letter didn't really match with the cupcakes. They were pink but different pinks.



Ingredients
- 115g butter
- 115g caster sugar
- 2 eggs, lightly beaten
- 115g self-raising flour
Icing
- 200g icing sugar
- 2tbsp warm water
- a few drops of food coloring (optional)

Method:
1. Preheat oven to 190C. Line and grease the muffin tins.
2. Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat together until light and fluffy, then gradually beat in eggs.
3. Sift the flour and fold into the mixture.
4. Spoon the mixture into the muffin tins
5. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Icing : mix the icing sugar with the warm water and add some food coloring - spread the icing over the cupcakes and decorate as desired.

#19 : Corn, Egg and Bacon Tarts

I always love breakfast, especially with those sunny side egg. Tempting. So when I saw the recipe, I knew I had to make them. I planned to make two of them but instead I made six because the muffin hole was too small. Recipe is from Taste.com.au.



Ingredients

• olive oil cooking spray
• 1 teaspoon olive oil
• 3 green onions, thinly sliced
• 4 shortcut bacon rashers, chopped
• 310g can corn kernels, drained
• 4 sheets filo pastry
• 4 free-range eggs
• 60g mixed salad leaves, to serve

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Spray four 3/4 -cup capacity Texas muffin holes with oil. Heat oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Add green onions and bacon. Cook, stirring often, for 5 minutes or until bacon is light golden. Remove from heat. Stir in corn. Season with salt and pepper.
2. Place 1 pastry sheet on workbench. Spray with oil. Fold in half crossways. Spray top with oil and cut in half crossways. Use pastry squares to line base and sides of 1 muffin hole, allowing a 2cm overhang. Repeat with remaining pastry and oil.
3. Divide corn mixture between tart cases. Break 1 egg into each tart case (keep yolk intact). Bake for 20 minutes or until egg is just set. Season with pepper. Serve with salad leaves.

#18 : Blueberry Cream Muffins

One and a half box of sour cream was going to expire soon. Such a waste to throw them away so I looked for some recipes. I googled "sour cream recipe" and most of the results were blueberry muffins. So I baked them. Recipe was from AllRecipes.com and has great reviews. The thing is that I only had 360g sour cream, 100gr short from the recipe so I reduced the amount of the flour to 400g. I didn't weigh the blueberries too, I just used a box of blueberries from Woolworths.

The muffins taste good. Not too sweet and not sour. Just right. This recipe is definitely a keeper :)


Ingredients:
- 4 eggs
- 400g white sugar
- 235 vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 500g plain flour (I used 420g)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 460g sour cream (I used 360g)
- 290 blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 200C. Grease muffin cups or line with paper muffins liners.
2. Beat eggs, gradually add egg sugar while beating. Continue beating while pouring in oil. Stir in vanilla.
3. Sift all dry ingredients and add them into the egg mixture alternately with sour cream. Gently fold in blueberries.
4. Scoop batter into prepared muffin cups.
5. Bake for 20 minutes.

#17 : Klepon (Sweet Coconut Rice Balls)

Klepon is indeed really easy to make. Yet it made the most mess in my kitchen. Well it's not Klepon's fault. It was mine. I didn't know why but everything seemed to be crazy. I tried to open the packet of grated coconut and when I did it, the grated coconut was flying everywhere because I tore the packet too hard. And the worst part was the grated coconut was accidentally poured into the dough. OMG I just wanted to shoot myself at that time. But I managed to clean the mess though so it was okay.

Also when I boiled the balls, some of them were torn so the sugar leaked in the boiling water :( But most of them were good so it was okay. And most importantly, they tasted great although the color of the sugar was not brown.

The recipe was taken from here :

Ingredients :
- 1 1/2 cups glutinous rice powder
- 3/4 cup lukewarm water (I used coconut milk)
- 8 tsp grated dark Java sugar (I used palm sugar)
- 1 cup grated coconut mixed with 1/2 tsp salt
- green food coloring

Directions:
1. Mix glutinous rice powder and coconut milk. Add some green food coloring. Mix until the dough is firm yet flexible.
2. Pull one teaspoon of the dough and make a ball out of it with the palms of your hands (I just made the balls without using teaspoon - you can make any size you want).
3. Push a finger on the center of the ball to make a hole and put approximately 1/2 teaspoon of the sugar in it. (Again, I just estimate the sugar, I didn't use any teaspoon). Prepare all the balls and set them aside. (I found that the longer you take for making the balls, the sugar leaked from some of the balls which were ready to be boiled).
4. Prepare a pot filled with water and bring to boil.
5. Drop the balls into the boiling water. Remove the balls from pot once they float to the surface.
6. Roll the balls on the grated coconut. Serve at room temperature.

#16 : Indonesian Curry Chicken

I cooked this chicken curry for my sister last night for her lunch. I used the Bamboe instant curry mix so there was less thrill in cooking the dish. Well no thrill actually. But I had fun trying to do the garnish :)