2010 X'mas Cupcakes & Cookies

Baked & decorated the cupcakes yesterday evening:


Baked & packed these raisin cookies this evening:


Gift box for Simon & Josephine (1 each):


Left: Outer appearance
Right: Contents -- Rock Candy (from taka) & a pack of my homemade raisin cookies)

really satisfied with my "output" this year!

tomorrow is my last lesson with Simon, just nice coincide with x'mas!! thank you for being so patient with me and for teaching me this past year.. definitely learnt a lot :)

and to Josephine, thanks for encouraging me to sign up in the very beginning! i have absolutely no regrets and i thank you for being so nice and friendly! keep in touch :)

Merry Christmas to all!! (^_^)

Hello Kitty

From my colleague as a x'mas gift! She ordered it from her friend :)

Have yet to try it but super cute right????

Size is about the area of a clenched fist.

Cupcakes for Bun's Housewarming

Thought it looked quite pretty.. the dark brown cupcake, with white chocolate & strawberry-flavoured chocolate chips :)

Happy Birthday Mum!

Super belated post.. i have extremely poor photo editing skills so please excuse the blob :)

Second birthday cake I baked for my mum.. the first was a simple banana cake many years back.. and now, i put what i learnt to use! this chocolate cake is coated in chocolate frosting and iced with the frosting i learnt from my icing class.. i wanted to line the sides of the cake with love letters (the biscuits) but i forgot to buy it so i substituted with shaved white chocolate instead.. taste yummy! but recalling the amount of cream, butter and sugar used....... (-_-)

sometimes ignorance is bliss.. :)

White Chocolate Drizzle

Lovin' the colour contrast! Chocolate cake slices with white chocolate drizzle..

Juz to share, I learnt that you can't use normal melted chocolate for drizzling cos it doesn't harden (at least that is what has happened to me before).. basically, you gotta use dipping chocolate.. e.g. Tulip brand.. they have dipping chocolate in chocolate, strawberry chocolate and white chocolate.. these when mixed with a small amount of butter or shortening will harden much faster and easily..

Bakey Bake Weekend...

Started yesterday night baking the chocolate muffins...

This morning, went on to bake the orange chocolate chip muffins...

Then in the afternoon, started doing the frosting...

Work-In-Progress:


Finished!!! I think the red looks good with the yellow.. :)


And how can I forget the birthday boy.. Eegan!


Of course I don't expect him to eat it.. (he's only 1-year old) but couldn't help doing this for him.. hehe.. :)

Chocolate muffins with chocolate chips & "gao gao" nutella frosting!!

All these for my ex-colleagues whom I'll meet at the birthday celebration tomorrow :)

This is how I packed it:


But i thought the bottom-left muffin looked a bit plain.. since I have frosting left over, I decided to play around with it....

Just 3 of the several faces I made.. Hope they'll like it :)

Pandan Cake

mum suddenly had the mood to bake pandan cake.. 2 cakes to be exact!! i did the baking but she did the prep work like squeezing the pandan juice and coconut milk... she also helped mix the stuff together for 1 cake and i did the other.. obviously, chef mum's cake turned out poofy and yummy.. we haven't tried mine yet.. it's still in the tin.. but my cake didn't rise as high as hers.. it's quite a skill to master.. also, i can't remove the cake from the tin properly.. so mum helped with that.. haha..

this is my all-time favourite cake from my mum.. i never get tired of it :)

Mayer Cake Demo Class

Attended my first cake demo class organised by my company...

Pardon the photos quality, it's taken with my phone.. :)

Chef Tania in action:

Some of the stuff baked:

Peanut Butter Zebra Cake

Brownies

Cookies

Carrot Cake

Whole Cake:


Cut:


Slice:


Oil was used instead of butter.. I used about 6 carrots and surprisingly, there's no carrot taste!! There's a slight hint of cinnamon and the walnuts add a nice crunch to the texture..

Orange Flavoured Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

don't underestimate the power of baking powder and self-raising flour combined!!! one word... POOF!!

Cookie Faces

From top-left clockwise: Laughing, Constipated, *Ouch*, Smiley

Wilton Method of Cake Decorating Course 1 (Lesson 4)

Our finale cakes!!!!


Cynthia's


Juliet's


Orlanda's


Elaine's


Aida's


Hamida's


Cedric's


Mine!!


I like Elaine's deco.. reminds me of a wedding cake..The colour combination v nice too..

Orlanda's roses are really unique.. white with a tinge of colour at the top..

Hamida's & Juliet's cakes looked as if they're taken from the fridge of some cake shop..

Aida's roses on the cake look real..

Cedric's cake is really cool with the black roses..

and *ahem* I think my cake's really different from the rest.. in a positive way.. haha.. It's kinda kiddish but it embodies almost all the techniques we learnt during the course! the Wilton rose, leaves, clown, flower, shell...

phew! I'm glad it's over.. I think I need a short break from baking...

Wilton Method of Cake Decorating Course 1 (Lesson 3)

Clown! Relatively easy to make..


Wilton Flowers:


Top left: Base
Top right: Done by teacher
Bottom left: My first attempt
Bottom right: My second attempt

I think my first attempt is nicer than my second attempt!

We gotta make 5 roses and bring to class on Weds.. I've made 2 so far and they suck.. but I too lazy to re-do them.. Still need to make 3 more AND I gotta bake a cake as well.. my right arm already a bit aching from doing the roses... sigh.. and it's 8plus pm already!!! better start baking the cake now..

Wilton Method of Cake Decorating Course 1 (Lessons 1~2)

I've signed up with B-I-Y. Cost fee amounts to $270.

But by the end of the first lesson, I think I spent at least $100 more just to get the additional tools and ingredients required for the class..

Just some of the stuff I bought:


Stuff in Phoon Huat definitely is much cheaper! I could have saved like 10bucks if I bought all my stuff at Phoon Huat instead of B-I-Y! grrrr..

1st lesson - teacher "lecturing" and doing demo..

2nd lesson - hands-on.. we had to bring an iced cake to the class..

I did a chocolate cake.. The instructor taught us how to ice a cake in lesson 1.. So I iced my chocolate cake with yellow frosting..

During lesson 2, we were taught simple piping techniques.

Here's my cake after lesson 2!


The rainbow design is transferred to the cake.. The words are piped by me.. quite ugly lah.. I still haven't get the hang of it..


Close-up on the rainbow.. nice tiny piped stars!


Breakfast for today!

I scrapped off most of the icing when I ate it.. too sweet for me.. I think only kids can take this kind of sweetness..

No cake required for Lesson 3 but we have a final project to do in Lesson 4 which would require us to ice a cake in our own design.. Will post more photos after the last lesson (lesson 4) :)

Banana Bread

Chunky gooey mixture before it enters the oven:


Ta Dah! End product!


Cut!


With my swordsfish bread knife! courtesy of cousin bun!

Tasted not to bad but would have tasted better if the bananas were more ripe. I had to make do with whatever bananas were left hanging by my kitchen window.. as usual, it was a last minute decision to bake.. Nonetheless, it was my first time i tried this recipe and will prob do so next time!

I guess it's called Banana Bread instead of Banana Cake 'cause it has a more dense texture than cake.. though no yeast or bread flour was used... walnuts were added to the recipe for that extra crunch..

Birthday Cupcakes - Jan/ Feb

For Mdm Foo:


For Miss Pek:


For Snowy Kiddo:


Happy Birthday Girls! Hope you enjoy the cupcakes!

According to Amy, muffins are those with the exploded tops and usually do not have any icing on them.. Cupcakes on the other hand are smaller and usually have icing on them.

Thanks for the enlightenment Amy! :D