ubercake

bday cupcakes nom nom nom

2010-02-17T21:30:00.003+11:00

Going through lots of life changes atm and dedicating more time to pole these days... even contemplating entering comps for the fun, experience and hell of it!!! Never thought I'd see the day.

My birthday coincided with Vietnamese/Lunar New Year so I had more incentive to bake some bday items. These were a bit rushed but still delish nonetheless.

These are chocolate cupcakes - devils cake recipe from my Hummingbird cafe cookbook. I put a dollop of chocolate ganache in the cupcake.

These are a vanilla buttercake (made with ground almonds), filled with lemon curd.

Oh and that is persian fairy floss on top - so pretty and tastes lovely.

Both are topped with white chocolate italian meringue buttercream, YUM

chocolate gooey stack

2009-10-25T21:28:00.003+11:00

This is what the recipe is called in Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess. I made this for a family dinner I went to. It's essentially 3 layers of chocolate meringue, sandwiched and covered with a chocolate creme patisserie (transalation - 3 layers of YUM sandwiched and covered with more chocolate YUM)

OK yes I can see it's kinda collapsing, sliding into a heap of YUMNESS hehe. You try to make 3 flattish even sized meringues!

I topped this with strawberries as I love chocolate and strawberry... mmm nom nom

quick bday cupcakes

2009-10-25T21:02:00.004+11:00

I made these vanilla cupcakes with lemon icing for a friends' birthday. I love how cupcakes are so quick to whip up.

I also like using the smaller size cupcake liners, although it does tend to mean you eat more of them!

brownies - another recipe

2009-09-06T21:07:00.005+10:00

I received the hummingbird cafe book as a birthday gift from my lovely friends in the UK and there are some mighty yummy looking recipes in there. Had some girlfriends coming over for a fun fun night of dress ups gangsters and flappers style so thought I'd make some treats to munch on.

I'm not 100% convinced on this recipe - they aren't cakey at all and when I had to remove them from the tray they were very crumbly, flakey and I guess didn't quite hold their shape (eg edges, corners crumbling away). I put them in the fridge and this helped to firm them up... so maybe I was just being impatient trying to get them from oven tray to plate!

Anyway they do taste quite nice and very rich :)

Funnily enough I took some brownies and the cherry+frangipane tart to my parents place and everyone seemed to prefer the tart!

cherry and frangipane tart

2009-09-06T20:58:00.004+10:00

I'm still feeling rusty with my baking but it's nice that I'm getting back into the groove and also getting to try all the new recipes from the numerous fantastic baking books I received this year!

I got the call from my mum to make something for fathers day... had some options but she requested something with fruit - so with that in mind and a mental run through of the ingredients I had on hand I decided on this. The recipe actually is for raspberry and frangipane but I'd been reading other recipes that have combined cherry and frangipane.

BTW frangipane is like an sweet almond filling used in tarts - yum not overly sweet too.

green tea cupcakes

2009-08-29T11:35:00.001+10:00

I made these a while ago as well, I think I put too much green tea powder - whilst they tasted ok it was slightly more bitter than I would have liked... I do quite like making green tea cupcakes though. Tastes lovely with chocolate icing.

get your bake on!

2009-08-29T11:21:00.002+10:00

wow - March!

Life has been crazy and draining these last almost 6 months... work has almost zapped my will to live, plus pole was taking up creativity (after dropping it for 4 months last year I kind of went class crazy earlier this year). Too hard to keep up both actively so pursuing pole more - more impressive doing the splits ;)

So I have baked the odd thing here and there - banana bread, date scones, sticky date pudding, wagon wheels (YUMMM yes home made wagon wheels!) I haven't had a chance to dedicate to serious decorating and no photos :(

I made some cupcakes the other week for week 8 pole and for my family - just plain chocolate and vanilla. The icing was absolutely delish - baileys (lots of it!) or pandan... nom nom

cake cut outs

2009-03-29T10:41:00.002+11:00

I was getting a bit over making cupcakes all the time so wanted to play with making miniature cakes by cutting them or making individual portions.

I made Nigella's chocolate loaf cake (which is a divine recipe!) but poured into a shallow tray and then used cookie cutters to cut these shapes out.

A bit more effort than cupcakes but I like the effect.

birthday cupcakes

2009-03-29T10:30:00.003+11:00

My birthday called for extra special cupcakes of course! I whipped up 2 batches, mainly because I am indecisive and I like to put more pressure on myself than I need to, haha

These are an almond sponge cake topped with cream cheese icing. Topped with pretty raspberries and white chocolate curls - which were tricky initially but eventually I got the hang of it. White chocolate melts quite easily at room temperature due to high fat content (I think) so it was tricky shaving (chocolate has to be at the "right" temperature to curl right) and then transporting to the cake. I got there for the most part!

The second batch are choc cherry cupcakes, topped with chocolate italian meringue buttercream. This is my new favourite chocolate icing - it's much easier to handle than chocolate ganache and tastes absolutely divine!!! Ganache can be a bit tricky with getting the right temperature to pipe and then I worry I will overbeat due to the cream content. The chocolate IMBC you just melt the chocolate into the cream, let to set. If it gets too hard, beat again!

Unfortunately I didn't get to try these however I was assured they tasted good! I love the maraschino cherries with their stem!

random chocolate cupcakes

2009-03-29T09:47:00.003+11:00

I had an order for baby shower cupcakes so whipped these up

My favourite chocolate cake recipe topped with piped chocolate ganache and jumbo confetti, so cute!

whoops, life took over

2009-03-29T09:44:00.003+11:00

No posts <> no baking

So many christmas orders and I got a little creatively drained. Also I started up pole again this year (yippee!) and went a bit crazy with my class schedules, so my mindset was elsewhere :)

I have had some baking expeditions, mind not much but I will post about those shortly!

at the last minute

2008-12-23T16:40:00.002+11:00

I have issues saying no - I somehow sometimes feel like I am missing out if I'm asked to do something and don't do it! So my sister asked me to make some cupcakes to take to a BBQ she was going to.

I think my creativity tank is at a low, these look ok but I guess they were just practise as such :)

Cupcakes were vanilla topped with italian meringue buttercream. The cakes were delish btw :D

christmas gifts, I can't resist

2008-12-16T22:54:00.003+11:00

Just as I finished my last baking order I had in the back of my mind the desire to give my team at work some cute christmas gifts. So up I got on Sunday morning (the only free time I had) - 2 days after I was rejoicing at no more orders - and whipped these up.

I'm not sure how normal/abnormal my mind is but I find myself having random thoughts about how I can make a new dessert or decorate a cake/cupcake/sweet... more frequently lately. I guess it's good to have those ideas floating around... as it takes a bit of the pressure off when I do actually need to make something!

I love love love making beautiful creations (edible ones at that!), but I think some of the stress with my orders comes with the pressure I put myself under. The pressure to make something stunning/amazing/perfect. I feel sorely disappointed if they don't give me a wow factor or if they don't turn out how I envisage them... So it's not exactly baking for baking sake, but baking to make something visually stunning.

Ahhh challenges... but I digress.

So I made these babies for my workmates/immediate team at work. I didn't take pictures of the packaged products but I do love making presents - wrapping in ribbon, little touches and decorations to make them look special. I hope they enjoyed them!

These are chocolate cupcakes covered in white chocolate ganache. Topped with italian meringue buttercream and a choc dipped strawberry - yum!

more christmas cheer

2008-12-13T19:31:00.004+11:00

My last order for the year (that I know of) - it's been a very busy last few weeks! All that sampling along the way doesn't count right? ;)

More christmas themed cupcakes - a mix of vanilla and chocolate cupcakes. These candy canes were easier to unwrap.

Why do miniature things always look cute? Baby animals, cupcakes, these baby candy canes...?

I like how the icing colours interspersed, especially with the hints of colour on the piped edges, I will try to play with this idea more.

it's the silly season

2008-12-06T12:44:00.003+11:00

Yes, it's that time of year! I still seem stuck on perfecting the xmas cupcake and trying to make it look as festive as possible! This is my first attempt this year and at first I wasn't quite sure about it at first, but I think I quite like it - the glitter and white sprinkles make all the difference!

The cupcakes are chocolate (my favourite recipe from a Family Circle book) - the cake is so soft and moist... mmmm. I covered them with a bit of chocolate ganache and then piped on the attempted festive colours!

The candy canes... ahhh the candy canes. Work has been very busy and rather taxing mentally atm so I had not had enough chance to pre-plan candy cane purchase or thinking the logistics of it. I was at coles when I remembered I needed xmas decorations! I bought these candy canes... when it came to decorating I discovered the candy canes had been shrinkwrapped - ie very fiddly unwrapping every candy cane!

My next batch I have already purchase candy canes that are simply in a plastic bag and not requiring as much effort to unwrap.

I have another cupcake order and that is all for this year (that I know of!). It's been very draining these last few weeks with so many orders but at the same time I've loved the challenged - I've learnt lots of little efficiency tips (make the IMBC in advance!) and I feel my decorating is improving heaps... bring on 2009 and all the baking and decorating challenges in store.

playtime

2008-12-06T12:40:00.002+11:00

spare cupcakes + leftover icing + energy = playtime!

I had some leftover cupcakes and thought I'd try some different piping ideas. I must say I'm quite pleased with how they turned out!

giant cupcake take 2

2008-11-30T10:16:00.003+11:00

The reason I purchased the wilton giant cupcake mold was to make a 1st birthday cake for Audrey - my sister's good friends' daughter (now that was a mouthful!)

I am glad I had played around with using it a few times beforehand as there were some tricks to using the mold to ensure both the top and bottom cooked evenly.

I bought the cupcake liners and thought it would be cute to have the giant cupcake to kind of look like the normal sized cupcakes. I wasn't too pleased with the final result (mind it was 3am by that stage!) and thought it looked a bit too amateurish, but when my sister saw it she said it looked great. I hope Jenny+Audrey loved the cake too.

The giant cupcake is another choc vanilla marble cake - I used the Nigella Victoria sponge recipe which I think produced a tastier cake. The cupcakes are a mix of vanilla with lemon curd filling (mmmm) and the banana, walnut, pineapple ones (double mmmm)

biscuits

2008-11-30T10:04:00.003+11:00

I had an order for 20 boxes of biscuits to give away as gifts. I decided on making gingerbread, passionfruit shortbread and granny boyd. However for some reason I didn't get the same result on the granny boyds as I have made in the past!

The gingerbread and shortbread turned out very yummy :) I didn't get a chance to take a photo of the biscuits (I am making more shortly so I will take pics then) but I took a pic of the boxes as I think they look very nice :)

more cupcakes

2008-11-22T20:56:00.004+11:00

I got an order from my sister to make some cupcakes to take to her work for a morning tea. I have difficulties saying no to such requests (even though my week was scheduled to be extremely busy already!)

Cupcakes don't actually take that long to bake and decorate (provided you are prepared!) I had fun making and decorating these.

I made two batches - banana, pineapple+walnut (called St Lucia Banana cake in my cake book) and Nigella's Nutella cake. The banana cake called for a cream cheese icing which was fantastic to work with piping wise, I love how it was the right consistency to leave a nice pointy tip when finishing off a swirl.

The Nutella ones are covered with a chocolate ganache. The green icing is italian meringue buttercream. I bought myself a candy thermometor (awesome!!! fun times ahead :D) and decided to try IMBC and had much success, I think I will make this instead of swiss meringue buttercream from now.

rose piping tip

2008-11-12T20:18:00.003+11:00

I bought a piping tip that can create a rose style flower (you pipe the petals) ages ago, but I never got around to using it until recently. I guess I was a bit scared of how difficult it would be.

I had some leftover icing and thought it was about time I tried it! Here are my results, which I'm most pleased with! It was actually quite easy to use which I am very happy about and I am sure I will be creating more cupcakes with roses piped on top :D

PS I piped these on top of some leftover profiteroles I had baked as I couldn't find anything else to put them on. It actually worked out quite well and I might do that next time but with filled profiteroles!!

giant cupcake

2008-11-12T20:04:00.002+11:00

I recently "invested" in the wilton giant cupcake mold (I use the term invest as it's slightly easier to justify in my spending mind :P) as I was asked to make a centrepiece cake.

I'm not very good at making those stylised types of cakes (I prefer the french patisserie/pastry chef style using fruits, chocolates etc if that makes sense - making it look yummy instead of arty)

Anyway I tried it out the other weekend and I quite like the results, very cute! I tend to overlook the bigger picture and can only see the minor faults and mistakes (eg dodgy piping, weird colours) but if I take a step back I don't think it looks too bad :)

I'm not 100% happy with the cake inside - it turned out a bit dense - so I might try another recipe that yields a slightly lighter/softer cake. I thought I'd go fancy so I made a vanilla/choc marble cake (marble cakes are cool!! 2 flavours for the price of one)

moose caboose

2008-11-12T19:55:00.002+11:00

On my wonderful travels to Finland I became slightly obsessed with all things moose related. Unfortunately I didn't get to sample moose itself (I did get to try reindeer though... yum!) but coming in at a very close second, my lovely mate Jaana bought me a moose cookie cutter :D

I finally had a chance to use it and it makes some sexy looking biscuits indeed.

I fell short of time to ice them properly with a cute face so it's just plain icing for now however I look forward to my next batch of moose biscuits!

blueberry cake

2008-10-19T20:53:00.003+11:00

A lovely friend cooked me up the yummiest indian feast - lamb bhuna and bombay aloo (I think from memory!). Pilau rice, cheese naan... yummmm. I offered to bring some dessert so I made this cake. The recipe called for cherries but they aren't quite in season and I had some blueberries on hand and the replacement worked a treat. A really simple recipe but no less tasty!

artisan breadmaking class

2008-10-12T11:52:00.003+11:00

Good Food Month in Sydney means lots of foodie events happening throughout town (and any diet plans get thrown out of the window!)

I've always wanted to attend at least one of the cooking classes so I finally got off my rear and booked myself in. I attended the Artisan Breadmaking class held by Brasserie Bread and it was so much fun. We learnt about making sourdough, the various products Brasserie Bread have (the best part was the tastings... yummmm) - my favourites were the original sourdough, their new quinoa and soy loaf and the sour cherry loaf. Carbs - so bad but so good ;)

The course also got us making our own sourdough from Brasserie Bread's very own starter. Because this needs to sit overnight we used some pre made dough to then make our own loaves the dough made with the starter we took home to bake the next day.

As you can see we made a LOT of various shapes - I loved making the plait. They also showed us to make the dinner rolls, we had to roll a ball of dough in our left and right hand at the same time which was fun, apparently this is a test they put all new bakers through as any baker with experience would have no problem doing this!

They were so generous in their sharing of knowledge and their yummy products, I will definitely be on the lookout for brasserie bread products in the future when shopping :)

bombe alaska

2008-10-11T23:02:00.007+11:00

There is a recipe in one of my books I've wanted to try to ages, purely because the photo in the cookbook looks so good (and thus setting the expectation incredibly high to try to replicate the end result!)

The cake is a simple sponge cake but with almond meal instead of flour, then a layer of cherry jam, whipped cream, then meringues (I choc dipped my meringues... because chocolate makes everything better :) )

The sponge was absolutely devine and definitely on the make again list - as it was so simple to make and tasted sooo good. I went to have a small spoonful of the slice I had taken home... 2/3 later I had to stop and give the rest to my sister otherwise I would have eaten it all in that one hit! It was so good I couldn't even wait for my cup of tea to be made to eat with the cake... hahaha

Otherwise the cake was very simple to assemble, just time consuming overall as the meringues need to be made the day before. If I have to take a cake to "impress" to a party, this will definitely be considered :)

PS pardon the crap quality photos, my camera battery had died thus forcing me to use my mobile camera.

new cupcake liners

2008-10-11T22:51:00.005+11:00

My mind never strays too far from cakes and desserts. It is especially difficult to not think about cakes whilst in Japan - they have the most beautifully decorated cakes, desserts etc over there. I love how they are very much into presentation of all things - from gift wrapping to food presentation.

Anyways, I stumbled across a food packaging shop in Dotombori-bashi and found an excuse to purchase these cute cupcake liners - making cupcakes for my sister's friend's birthday.

The end result looks great unfortunately they were a bit impractical to eat as the liner didn't exactly tear away like the normal paper cupcake liner does... so whilst I'll use these again I'll have to bear practicality in mind - doh!

Cupcakes are just a simple vanilla cupcake with swiss meringue buttercream and a chocolate cupcake with piped chocolate ganache. Yum :)

holiday

2008-09-22T20:41:00.003+10:00

Hello for anyone that may still be out there... I've been on holiday for 5 weeks! I got back the other week, had a lovely time enjoying the northern hemisphere summer. The lead up to my holiday was very hectic so no time to bake. But now, I have my baking to keep me company with my friends distributed around the world so I will try try for more frequent posting :)

not quite here and not quite there

2008-07-11T21:52:00.002+10:00

wow, my last post was in March!

I've been baking very intermittently since then, I'm trying to concentrate more on my breads and they are very slowly getting better - eg. the dough rises for a start! and they don't end up as rocks. Also taking up a lot of my time (besides work, pole, splits) is planning for my holiday which I'm off for in a month :D All that budgeting means I'm cooking heaps to take lunch to work, dinners etc which leaves little energy to be baking up treats as well.

Here are some things I've baked in the months that have past, nothing too exotic or excting... I'm sure when my holiday is all over (noooooo) I'll find solace in whipping up new treats and practising my piping skills!

the last of the cupcakes

2008-03-09T19:48:00.003+11:00

I had about 5 cupcakes left when I ran out of ganache and swiss meringue buttercream... But luckily I had made up a batch of icing for the gingerbread so I used these on the cupcakes.

Sometimes the simplest things can produce such pretty things, I like the plain white with the coloured sparkles, it just feels like I haven't tried hard enough when I don't pipe something on.

rose cupcakes

2008-03-09T09:44:00.008+11:00

I made up a batch of cupcakes as a sample for some wedding cupcakes I'll be making (yippee!!) as well as for a baby shower my sister is attending. The request was for red cupcakes with a rose style swirl.
I tried oh so hard to get the icing red red but this was the closest I could manage - the colour is quite rich anyway so I think it looks good. The recipient was happy with how they turned out yay.
I have so many baking cook books (but there is always room for more ;) ) and yet I still find myself using the tried and tested recipes. I really should get around to trying some of those other ones.

I did 2 batches of cupcakes so I covered 1 batch with swiss meringue buttercream and the other with a chocolate ganache. I used double cream instead of single cream in the ganache but for whatever reason my ganache didn't turn out smooth... I may not have let it set long enough before whipping but I've had better luck with ganache anyway! I thought they looked quite cool in my shiny roasting tin (shiny = never been used YET)

more gingerbread

2008-03-09T09:41:00.005+11:00

I had to sneak in a little pic of some gingerbread I made, I was going to use them to decorate some cupcakes but then thought the cupcakes looked ok on their own :)

banana, coconut+walnut muffins

2008-03-09T09:30:00.002+11:00

I don't quite know what the exact difference between a muffin, cake or fruit "bread" but I'll call these muffins because the other 2 names don't feel appropriate.

I had some old bananas in the fridge and I hate wasting food, so I made up a batch of these. The recipe contains no butter (which calls for a thicker layer of butter when eating them, right??).
No pretty piping, icing sugar or fancy decorations, however I am proud of placing a whole walnut on top of each!

green tea weirdness

2008-02-15T20:47:00.003+11:00

Another workmate farewell, another reason for some yummy cakes :) He requested green tea cupcakes - half jokingly/half serious and I am always up for a new flavour challenge!

These turned out really yummy I must say. I simpled added 2 tbl (rather heaped) of green tea powder and took out 2 tbl of flour from the ingredients. The recipe was a simple butter cake recipe.
They tasted yummy and buttery with a nice, refreshing green tea aftertaste. I paired the cake with a whipped white chocolate ganache. The first batch kind of died as I overwhipped the cream (I'm using double cream from now on if I want to whip my ganache). Mistakes are good, I really think I've learnt so much over this past year and have improved a great deal - yay!

more biscuits

2008-02-15T19:59:00.002+11:00

I think I prefer making cakes/desserts etc but biscuits are much easier to give as gifts to friends and loved ones! They keep for much longer too.

I made this batch for a lovely person I was lucky enough to meet and work with for a short period of time. It gave me hope that there are good managers out there! :)

The stars are granny boyd biscuits, from How to be a domestic goddess (btw I am loving this book, I'm getting most of my baking recipes from here atm). I don't know where the name originates from, but they are chocolate biscuits simply made from butter, sugar, cocoa and flour. I covered them in white chocolate and used my sexy new edible glitter (but I want more colours now too!)
These are... I don't know what their official name is but are plain butter biscuits sandwiched with jam. They look oh-so-pretty with the window to the jam... mmm...

The second most fun part is then packaging them up!!

biscuits

2008-01-26T17:34:00.000+11:00

I made these for a lovely friend of mine I caught up with when I went to Melbourne the other week. No I didn't watch the tennis (!), yes I did lots of shopping, no I didn't buy anything, yes I went to Chapel St/Prahran/Little Collins St/Little Flinders Lane. The weather wasn't great as I was considering getting a day pass on Sunday... nonetheless Melbourne is only an hour away and I can go next year to the tennis if I so desire :)

Anyway, my workmate knows about this blog and my various baking creations so I couldn't not bring him anything! He also helped me out with some fabulous Melbourne suggestions which were great and I didn't feel like an idiot wandering around not knowing where to go!

The biscuits are plain shortbread but I put some nutmeg and cinnamon. The filling is a rose buttercream (I thought the cinnamon+nutmeg would cut the rose cream well). I only tried a small bit and it was nice, but I hope he liked them too!

happy new year

2008-01-02T21:35:00.000+11:00

I splurged this (whoops, last) year and bought some baked treats (they have some yummy german treats in DJs this time of year) which I have been wanting to try for ages. A mini stollen (I waited until after xmas so I could buy this half price, did someone say tighta$$ haha) as well as 2 different types of gingerbread. Both were thicker but softer than what I make, a mix between a cake and a biscuit? I was so busy with work and life I didn't get a chance to make any gingerbread... I'm aiming to try for a gingerbread house for Winter this year... mmmmm :D

Anyway, the only baking I got done for Christmas were a second batch of christmas cupcakes I made for my friends, family and neighbour - same styling as you can see but the cake is a really yummy vanilla buttermilk cake (recipe from my domestic goddess book). I'm always surprised by how good some of my cakes taste, I should have more faith! I like how these cupcakes turned out, namely because I used much more frosting so I didn't have to worry about running out!

I also made a trifle for christmas which was soooo yummy :) Trifles are so not trendy but taste so good, I'd feel like such a dag making one for dessert if I was to have people over for dinner. I'd probably make some fancy looking torte or fruit tart, but deep down wished I'd made a trifle instead ;)

christmas cheer

2007-12-20T19:09:00.000+11:00

of course I can't pass this season without making at least one christmas-themed baked delight :) My workmates were the lucky recipients of these ones. However I just find that I have these grand visions in my head of what they might look like, but then when it comes to the crunch they just don't hit the mark... hmmm... maybe I'm just too hard on myself :P

The cupcakes are sour cream chocolate cupcakes (from my domestic goddess book) with a swiss meringue buttercream (win!). I made some plum pudding vodka a few weeks ago thinking I might give it out as gifts however I don't know if people would use it... so it's been sitting in my fridge and so then I thought I could use it to drizzle over the cakes - yum! I was a bit disappointed the cakes didn't have an alcohol-y taste to them but you could really taste the spices I infused the vodka with.
I am now also sick of my pastel coloured creams turning out! Time to invest in proper gel colourings!

baking for a good cause

2007-12-02T18:55:00.001+11:00

My sister volunteered me to bake her some goodies to take to work to sell as part of fundraising for her charity swim (she is participating in the Cure Cancer Australia Can Too program). Goodness knows how I managed to squeeze time in to bake some goodies as work has been a madhouse lately.
If work wasn't so busy I would have made more, but alas I only baked some chocolate cupcakes and passionfruit shortbread for her to sell at work.

I've discovered my new favourite icing - swiss meringue buttercream. I previously used to just use plain buttercream (butter+icing sugar+milk) however had read about all these other types of icing so I had been keen to try this out for a while.

It was so easy to make, fluffs up beautifully and isn't as dense as buttercream so this will definitely become my new icing staple! :D Sometimes it's not so bad trying new things hehe.

My sister sold everything and I received some emails on how yummy they were, yay!

tarty good

2007-12-02T18:40:00.000+11:00

My sister's friend was having a high tea baby shower so she volunteered me to make some goodies (and I got invited as well hehe). We finally decided on a combination of tarts - fruit tarts and lemon tarts.

Fruit tarts are great to make as they rate high on the wow factor and require minimal effort. That being said, I'm not happy with how the creme patisserie turned out - it was my second time using the Stephanie Alexander recipe and both times it didn't thicken enough so I'm on the hunt for another one. Because it wasn't thick enough, the fruit kinda sank and it didn't quite hold shape when biting into the thing! It tasted nice though :)

The lemon meringue tarts were meant to be just lemon tarts (tart filled with lemon curd). However on filling the tart shell it didn't come to the top of the casing... I woke up at 7am that morning and had a revelation that I could top the tarts with meringue and they wouldn't look too empty - win! I'm very happy with how these turned out and will be sure to make them again some time soon.

it's about time!

2007-11-13T20:47:00.000+11:00

No pretty cake pictures to post, just that I am the proud owner of Nigella Lawson's "How to be a domestic goddess" - I've been wanting this cookbook for over a year I think!!! I've borrowed it from the library, I've borrowed it from a friend and now I have the special little book to call my own :D

In addition, I've bought my own copy of Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion - an invaluable resource (it's got the recipe I use for gingerbread men as well as other basics/staples)

Much cooking to be done soon I hope :)

peanut butter goodness

2007-10-24T20:15:00.000+10:00

I went to the movies the other week (the movie wasn't that great) and since it was straight after work I kinda had the munchies. I picked up some peanut butter M&Ms... omg they were good! I'm glad I ate them in the cinema (well actually I ate half the pack waiting in line) as I scoffed them down and I'm sure it was an ugly sight for all hehe

Anyway, the point of the story is that the taste of peanut butter+chocolate stayed with me... some boys from work had their soccer final so I thought that was a good enough excuse to bake some goodies (as I'm still kinda ODed on eating any cake)

And here is the final product. I didn't really eat the final creation however the cake mix sure tasted great, I think next time I will put a little dollop of peanut butter in each cupcake before baking.

I was also a bit worried about the icing looking like errrr... something that might come from a dog :P I might have to stick with the star tip nozzles hehe. And excuse the stars, I thought they looked a bit plain without any decorations but I think they look better without!

I can't believe it's not a pie

2007-09-30T21:15:00.000+10:00

A boston cream pie, that is! An american workmate has told me about these cakes called boston cream pies - which are a sponge/butter cake, sandwiched together with creme patisserie and covered in chocolate. You can find details on this cake here.

I found some more excuses to make these so dutifully off I went, making the creme patisserie - which is basically a thicker type of custard. It's the stuff you usually find in fruit tarts, eclairs etc.

I am now officially caked out - I think I've eaten cake every day this past week!

brownies take 2

2007-09-30T21:09:00.000+10:00

I found a brownie recipe involving cocoa only and I found an occasion to make them :) A workmate was leaving to move to Singapore and had mentioned he liked brownies so I thought I'd bake them for him as a little going away gift - win win!

I quite like the taste of these - they taste more "cakey" than the brownies with chocolate so I guess which recipe I use will depend on what ingredients I have on hand! :)

I also purchased a pot of edible glitter which is so much fun to decorate with! It shows up much better than the Wilton sparkle dust I have... the edible glitter is not cheap but you only need a little to get a good effect - I've already got my eye on pots of other colours...

when colours go wrong

2007-09-15T17:04:00.000+10:00

I made these cupcakes for a lovely friend who lent me some of her cookbooks whilst she was away on holiday. These cupcakes are the burnt butter cupcakes from the Nigella Lawson "How to be a domestic goddess" cookbook (which is currently on my want list!)

I had visions of the icing turning a lovely purple colour but the colour was a lot softer than I had in my mind. I either need to shift the images in my head or use better colouring tools... I think I will choose the latter ;)

birthday blackforest

2007-09-15T16:49:00.000+10:00

This cake was made for my friends' Birthday dinner - a blackforest delight (the cake, not the dinner). It was a bit nerve wracking as I haven't actually eaten a birthday cake I've made for someone before! So I had to bear with the potential wrath of unhappy cake eaters...

However they all loved the cake and it was really yummy. I don't know why I haven't made a blackforest cake sooner as it is one of my favourite cakes! Yum yum

brownielicious

2007-09-07T10:08:00.000+10:00

Brownies are easy to make and taste rather delicious. My mum used to make them for us aages ago and unfortunately that recipe is forgotten by both of us :( I then found another good recipe but that cookbook is no longer with us! :(

I find most recipes out there contain real chocolate but for whatever reason I would prefer one with cocoa only (biased from the recipe my mum used I think). These brownies contained melted chocolate and were very tasty however I will still hunt for a recipe that uses cocoa only... I guess I like a baking challenge haha

These were made for a friend for his birthday - the pink is supposed to be red! I can't bring myself to add the amount of food colouring "red" requires.

I've also got a couple more baking projects coming up... yay! :D

ginger-laydeeeeez

2007-09-05T22:25:00.000+10:00

I was so busy making these babies that I forgot to take pictures of the actual biscuits! So instead I grace you with ones of the final packaged product. I enjoyed making these (as I always do with gingerbread) and trying to make them girly... I wish my decorating had more of a professional finish - they tend to look more amateurish-kiddie-cute... so not sure I could get away with selling them if I ever decide to go down that path.

But hey... perhaps there is a niche market for the "made at home with lots of love" look :D

pole dancing cupcakes

2007-08-23T21:48:00.000+10:00

no, these cupcakes don't pole dance as such... It was my week 8 performance at pole dancing and I thought what better excuse to make some cupcakes :) The teachers and staff are all so lovely and nice. Really supportive of us all, even when we are looking like crap and clumsy as hell they're all like "you're doing great, you can do it!" so I thought I'd make them all some cupcakes because week 8 is all a bit of fun etc.

I had a bit of dramas with these cupcakes - didn't have enough milk for the batter, didn't have enough icing sugar at home for the icing so had to pop out at 9pm to buy some! The cupcakes kind of pulled away from the lining (which has never happened before!) - I just didn't have my baking mojo/luck. But I must say, without the luck, my experience from other baking adventures played their part and experience with using substitute ingredients etc. So that was a really good feeling!
The cupcakes are a chocolate butter cake (from the trusty Family Circle book) with a chocolate ganache on top, the *cough*flower*cough* and (dodgy looking) leaves are piped buttercream. I love the colour scheme, but I must say I was very much inspired by these cupcakes I saw on cupcaketastic's blog which I read and admire! :)

And then I ran out of chocolate ganache! But I must say, these turned out just as gorgeous, if not more than the original ones! I kept these babies for myself ;)

new cookie cutters

2007-08-21T23:22:00.000+10:00

doh I took these pics the other week but then got caught up with life and completely forgot to post! Anyway I was doing my thing at Bondi Junction the other week (read shopping) and I saw these awesome cookie cutters. Since I've kind-of started making biscuits too I couldn't resist buying them - they are the type that cut out a shape in the middle of the cookie. And I figured there is nothing wrong with investing in my creative interests hehe
Anyway I christened the cutters by making these babies - they are gingerbread sandwiched with a chocolate cream (melted choc+sour cream make a great cake icing). I melted some leftover white chocolate to highlight the cutout shape in the middle.

After a day or so the biscuits ended up chewy (rather than crisp) so I'm not sure if there is any way I can prevent biscuits sandwiched with cream to stay crunchy... there must be as there are plenty of bought biscuits out there that do that! Anyway, biscuits aren't my forte but they are fun to make and nice to branch out every now and then...

starry starry night...

2007-08-03T22:13:00.001+10:00

A lovely workmate asked me to make birthday cake for her friend (her friends 40th at that!) which I was very flattered I was asked to make a cake for such a momentous occasion :)

All I had to work with was that she had german heritage and likes gingerbread and chocolate (I like this lady!)

So I made a chocolate cake decorated with gingerbread :) And I never thought I'd say this, but I think i'm starting to OD on gingerbread now hehe
The chocolate cake recipe.... absolutely fab! I got it from my cookbook "gorgeous cakes" and it tastes absolutely devine - not too heavy or dense like a mudcake but not as light as a sponge. Hard to describe but it manages to be indulgent and chocolatey but not too light either. I think it will be one of my regular chocolate cake recipes!

And I packaged up the leftover gingerbread for her to munch on later :)
I hope she has a great 40th! :D

jam drops

2007-07-28T16:02:00.000+10:00

A picture of jam drops I made for a friend who recently had a baby. I was good and didn't even sample any of these! (quite possibly because I'd OD'd on gingerbread and shortbread)

I think next time I will try sandwiching 2 flat pieces of shortbread with the jam, top biscuit with a hole completely cut out. Essentially it will look the same, but it does mean more jam / biscuit ratio :)

It's all about the little details!

a bouquet of cookies

2007-07-20T21:48:00.000+10:00

I love the idea of converting an everyday object into something that can be eaten.

Bunch of flowers = bouquet of cookies!

The biscuits are gingerbread and passionfruit shortbread. I think I made the shortbread too thick as they were kinda not quite done in the middle... the edges were yummy though. I omitted lemon rind but I think I will put in next time as it needs the tangy-ness to contrast with passionfruit, sugar and butter.

Well even though the end result looks more like a jar of lollipops, I still think it looks quite effective :)

Lessons learnt - don't bake cookies on a wire rack (I ran out of baking paper and was afraid using foil would stick to the cookies...) - or don't be so lazy and just walk down to the shop and buy baking paper, it's only 2 minutes away! My gingerbread people have ridged backs!

my god it has been that long

2007-07-07T16:03:00.000+10:00

no baking lately folks, I started to feel those extra dips in the cake batter and inevitable sample tastings take their toll on my waistline :P And I've also been trying more yeasty goodies like finger buns, hot cross buns and cheese, bacon + pineapple rolls lately. No pictures as they don't look cute or involve piping :P

I'll try and do something soon... promise! ;)

make yeast your friend

2007-06-12T20:52:00.001+10:00

My I did have a busy long weekend in the kitchen. I've been meaning to improve my attempts at making bread or anything with yeast. I've always had problems with the dough not rising properly and thus ending up with bread that could compete with rocks in the density stakes. I thought about perhaps putting it in the oven to rise... but I wasn't 100% certain on this. So I was reading on some forum (yes I read baking forums!!!!) that lots of ppl do this and this made me feel much better!

So I made the dough, let it rise in the oven (our fan forced oven at the lowest temp possible) and pulled it out all risen. Let me tell you, there is nothing more exciting then seeing your dough (which you've spent the last 10 fricken min kneading and kneading and kneading) rise!

And voila, I made cheese, bacon + pineapple scrolls! Yay, onto more bread/baking ventures. I'm determined to make some decent Hot Cross Buns (once a year for those things isn't enough...)

blood sweat and cupcakes

2007-06-12T19:50:00.000+10:00

These cupcakes sure did contain a lot of love! I think the main issue was that I didn't have a guitar or pick shape cookie cutter, hence I had to improvise (and very poorly I might add). But nonetheless, people were able to make out what they were supposed to be, which is the most important thing!

The jam donut cupcakes were totally delish, definitely on the "make again" list :)

The biscuits are gingerbread... which I totally love. They contain a bunch of different spices and hopefully I'll get to the stage where I can rattle the correct quantities off the top of my head! Nutmeg, cinnamon, all spice, ground cloves, white pepper, salt, ground ginger... mmmmm. I must make a gingerbread house sometime in my life... yay! Another one to add to the to-do list... mmm

The chocolate ones are "devils food cupcakes" - I must look up exactly what devil's food cake is. They were yum but nothing out of the ordinary - my favourite chocolate cake recipe to date is one from my (*cough*mum's*cough*) Family Circle book.

i love the smell of fresh gingerbread in the morning

2007-06-09T17:41:00.000+10:00

It has been bucketing down with rain as well as gale force winds - so I didn't feel too guilty spending all night last night and all day today making Project C - my brother's birthday cupcakes.

I have also eaten a heap of gingerbread dough and raw cake mix (so yummy but bad!)

Here is a taster of what the end result looks like - not too professional looking but cute I think :)

More pictures to come, I'm tired and I have to go to dinner now!

a cupcake idea is born

2007-06-06T21:35:00.000+10:00

Devil's food cupcakes and jam donut cupcakes... watch this space :)

this little piggie tasted rather good

2007-05-29T18:52:00.000+10:00

I haven't had much time to bake lately (and tbh I'm a bit caked out after our Biggest Morning Tea) so I'm posting a picture of these gorgeous cupcakes a friend of mine baked for her sister's party - oink oink!

My baking downer

2007-05-23T18:48:00.000+10:00

I finished my cupcakes for my work bakeathon, I won a prize for best presentation - yay!

However I wasn't 100% happy with my final product (I think I was on a baking/decorating high from Project A that I didn't think this one through as much?)
The cupcakes look cute, but they don't have wow factor... :(

I made the apple sauce and cinnamon cupcakes from my 500 cupcakes cookbook and the cupcakes, whilst yummy - I wasn't that happy with the texture on them. I don't think I'll attempt more recipes that contain a fruit puree, the texture was kind of spongy/rubbery...

The profiteroles were very tasty though

Another lesson - don't use thickened cream when mixing with chocolate. It turned an awful texture (like when chocolate seizes up when melted if it gets into contact with water) - I rescued it by melting some butter in it but it never regained that silky, smooth chocolate texture.

I think I've eaten my share of sweets for the week - workmates brought in heaps of yummy treats - my favourite was a lemon meringue pie (yum!!!) and another workmates' brownies... mmmmm (I saved some for "later" hehe)

I think I have a lot of spin sessions coming up!

Choux fly, don't bother me

2007-05-21T21:35:00.000+10:00

I love making choux pastry as it's probably the easiest pastry to make of them all! No kneading, rubbing flour into butter etc, it's all stir stir stir (albeit in a few years time my right arm may be noticeably larger than my left!) Not only that but when baking it looks awesome fresh out of the oven, all puffy and golden brown and crackly looking bits if I'm lucky.

Today was even more exciting as I used my piping bag to pipe the balls - I feel so much more professional than just using a spoon to drop them on the baking sheet haha.

Due to my fantastic consistency/estimating skills you can see that they all are the same size :P

I started off ok, but then thought I should make them smaller... but of course overzealous me made them too small so started increasing their size... then whaddya know they ended up too big!

I also made the creme patisserie (sorry I can't be bothered finding the fancy keys on my keyboard) to fill the profiteroles - I found a recipe that used brown sugar instead of normal castor sugar for a more caramel flavour... omg what a find!

So halfway to completing Project B :D Tomorrow night I make the cupcakes and then assemble!

More projects!

2007-05-20T01:06:00.001+10:00

As mentioned previously, I've got my work bake-athon coming up next week so that will be my Project B :) Can't talk about it here until I've made the final product! ;)

Didn't get around to making anything for my mum... but I know my mum can't have too many sweets and she probably feels bad receiving them all the time so it wasn't too bad. However my older brother mentioned he will be having birthday drinks in June (long weekend) and asked me to make him a birthday cake... yay! His only request was that it will be chocolate - I now have Project C to think about!

So I've got some ideas on how to decorate and what to do. I've noticed some recipes for devils food cake which I've never tried before so I think I will make that for him. My brother has been in various bands for yonks and playing guitar forever so what I think I will do is make a square shaped devils food cake, make guitar shaped biscuits (maybe gingerbread?) and stick those to the side of the cake. I might try to make plectrum shaped chocolates and then stick those on the top of the cake. I'm thinking of a brown+yellow colour combination.

Anyway, early days yet...

Project A - complete

2007-05-19T00:06:00.000+10:00

Yay! I must say I am quite happy with how it turned out, it looks quite pretty :) The choc dipped strawberries I didn't quite end up using as much as I thought I would (I thought it would look too cluttered on top of the cake so I only used those 7). I like the green interspersed in the pink and the green touches. I did have some dramas though

my newly passed down gift of the handheld mixer from my mum broke!!! One of the beaters just decided it didn't want to beat butter any more and kinda broke... (wtf!) I was almost worried I'd have to resort to beating by hand again! Argh luckily it survived beating with one beater (mainly for the buttercream icing on the ice cream cones so they were nice and fluffy)
I take crap pictures :((( I'm not sure if it's due to my camera or my inability to take a stable shot, I think I need a better picture environment (my kitchen isn't the best)
overfilling the ice cream cones with batter! I have this notion that something isn't enough (not enough filling, not enough food blah blah - repeat "less is more!" so some of the ice cream cones.. kinda... over flowed)

bad =

good =

My workmate was kind enough to give me this book as a thank you - what a lovely lass! (NB I am more than happy to make any cake for you ppl out there if I have the time, I need the practise atm! I accept gifts of all forms hahaha)

Next stop - either making something for my mum as we're heading back home to have our belated Mother's Day dinner tomorrow night (except she's diabetic so can't have too many sweets... doh!). Otherwise more planning/thoughts into our bake-athon happening at work next week.

Project A - part B

2007-05-13T10:45:00.000+10:00

Finally finished the sample cake. My sister's response wasn't so promising "errr what's it supposed to be, a castle? How come there is only a quarter??" Haha after I mentioned it was only a sample and it wasn't meant to be anything she said it looked ok :)

Overall I'm happy with how it turned out and I am sooo glad I did this prototype as I've learnt some lessons.

If I'm storing the cake in the fridge overnight, cover with glad wrap or it will dry out
I need more piping practise
I will split the cake into 3 sections (and double the cake recipe) as it needs the height so it looks decent with the cones around the edge
Don't trust egg cartons to "hold" the ice cream cones, after I iced them I dropped the bloody things and had to start again!!!! (mind it was only 3 and it was also probably a blessing in disguise as my piping got remarkedly better after I'd piped for the 6th/7th time

Also it definitely passed the taste test! I think the ganache works quite well with the light sponge, and with the cream+jam in the middle.

Here is a single cupcake with more of the colour scheme I will go for (mainly pinks but with hints of green as my workmate said she liked pink and green)

knackered!

2007-05-12T23:20:00.000+10:00

Making a test run for my workmate's cake (which I will from now on refer to as Project A)... which I am so glad I did! Basically just to prove my proof of concept... I have decided on the recipe for the cake - which will be from my (mum's) Family Circle Cakes book. A cornflour sponge cake with some cocoa powder to make it a chocolate cornflour sponge!

The ice cream cone cupcakes still work a treat :)

But I did have to test how I would put them around the circle shaped sponge cake which is still a bit tricky... I'm going to cover the main cake with a chocolate ganache and then use that to "stick" the ice cream cone cupcakes to the side of the cake (and I have cut a slight curve out of the main cake so the bottom half of the cone sits kinda flush with the side of the cake)

So the next steps are to ice the ice cream cone cupcakes, then cover the main cake with ganache then stick the cones to the side of the cake (and hopefully covering up any dodgy bits :P)

Oh and most importantly... the taste test tomorrow :) This sample one I will give to Rosh as a housewarming!

Australia's biggest morning tea bake-athon

2007-05-10T14:18:00.000+10:00

So we're having a bake-athon at work as part of the Australia's Biggest Morning Tea fundraiser. Something has taken over me (with this bake-athon and making my workmate's birthday cake) because cupcakes and all things cake decorating/baking have consumed my every thought. I'm constantly trawling through endless pictures from google and flickr trying to get inspired and find some ideas etc

I have a good idea what I'm going to make for the bake-athon (can't reveal anything yet!) - and just when I thought I was being original... bam I found some pics on line and also discover it is mentioned in a cupcake cookbook! Oh well, I will personalise them with that 'Ann touch' ;)

Popped by Lincraft to get some ribbons to tie around the birthday cake... I am so bad on making a single decision so end up buying 2-3 items to make the comparison on what will look the best :)

I've got pole class tonight which means at least a guaranteed hour or so with my mind away from cakes

my first post (very original title)

2007-05-08T21:41:00.000+10:00

So on a whim I've decided to start up a blog on everything I bake or anything I do that is related to the art of baking (which these days is a lot). It might alleviate the pain I'm putting people through when all I ever talk about is baking hehe.

***News***
- my workmate has asked me to make her birthday cake (how exciting!) I have some ideas for how I want to decorate (using ice cream cone cupcakes around a round cake, choc dipped strawberries). Hopefully I'll get time this weekend for some semi-prototypes
- I visited BakerySugarCraft on the weekend which was a lot of fun! Picked up some new piping tips and cool cachous-type decorations as well as a new piping bag and some couplers, yay!
- To test out those piping tips I made a chocolate sponge cake and decorated with some very dodgy looking flowers. I need piping practise! Unfortunately I didn't have my camera so no pictures :(

I look forward to posting my pictures and baking stories!