The rest of my BAKES in 2015

I haven't been baking much in 2015... so here's a picture post dedicated to the few bakes that I did...

One of my favourite bakes - Tiger Roll

Baking it to use up the egg yolks leftover from making macarons.

 

Baking with kids - Chocolate Cupcakes with strawberry frosting

This is one of the less disastrous looking ones... haha... baking with kids requires minimal waiting and minimal steps. Lesson learnt. :P

My 1st Kueh Lapis... not fluffy enough to my liking... will try it again sometime soon.

 

Happy Mid Autumn Festival 2015! :)

A combination of Salted egg yolk lotus paste mooncakes, Lotus paste mooncakes & Red bean mooncakes. Bought Kwong Cheong Thye pastes which are really quite good. Room for improvement for the mooncake skin. Shall try this again in 2016.

 

 Pandan Chiffon cake made using pandan leaves. Too bitter to be eaten. Haha... suspect the pandan leaves are not 'young' enough. Time for another attempt soon!

 

Looking forward to more time spent whipping up stuff in the kitchen for 2016! :)

 

Macarons for sale :D

Happy to be paid for another baked item from my kitchen - Macarons! It is not about the money... it is about the satisfaction.

 

This was for my dear friend's niece's baby shower. Glad it came out well despite the 'unsteady chef (= me)' + 'unreliable oven'. Feels good to receive great feedbacks... gives me the motivation to continue with my interest in baking.

 

Thanks a million for my dear friend's trust in me to bake for an important occasion. Always grateful for the support from people around me :)

 

Sweet Treats for Christmas! :D

Hohoho... Merry Christmas!! Spent a lot of time baking during this festive period... baking for sale and baking for friends. Apart from my usual Cranberry cornflake cookies, I baked these:

1. Macarons

Another successful attempt in making macarons! Nicely packaged for my dear friends! :)

2. Meringue Cookies

My very 1st time baking and eating meringue cookies. Someone told me there is a magical feel when she ate my cookies and she liked the melt in the mouth texture. Haha... found it quite amusing but glad they were quite well-liked. I am actually not a fan of meringue cookies as they are too sweet for my liking but there were simply too much leftover egg whites from making cranberry cornflake cookies. Since there are supporters, it might be worth baking them again soon!

 

3. Last minute Log Cake

With whatever ingredients I had, I started making this log cake at 12 midnight for my family Xmas lunch gathering the next day. Glad it turned out presentable and quite good tasting! :)

4. Reindeer Cupcakes

Don't you agree that these cupcakes look too cute to be eaten? Made these with my friends and 3 little kids over a Xmas bake & cook session. Feels happy just looking at them.

 

Looking forward to more baking adventures in 2015! Till then! :)

 

Xmas Cookies for Sale!

My very first sale of bakes - Cranberry Cornflake Cookies for Christmas!

 

This would never have happened without the support and encouragement of my dear friends who loved these cookies and gave me the opportunity to bake for sale. Thank you gals! :)

 

The excitement built up when I sourced for suitable packaging for the cookies. But baking 21 boxes of cookies was no joke at all... from the cutting of cranberries to the moulding of the dough to all the washing up and the packaging. It was definitely hard work. But it was heartening when I hear all the positive feedbacks from my friends and their recipients... Glad they enjoyed the cookies!

 

Macarons for Birthday :)

My 2nd attempt making macarons and I made it! :)

Happiness was seeing their feets grow in the oven! :D

These were made on the request of my dear friend for her birthday cake! A very last minute change from a fruit tart cake to macarons cake. Another stressful but satisfying challenge!

My previous attempt on macarons was on a rainy day. The skin never formed even after standing for almost an hour. I gave up and decided to just bake them. As expected, it was a failure batch. I read online that the weather might have contributed to it.

After doing some research this time round, I decided to do the Italian meringue method instead of the easier method which I tried previously... since Italian meringue is generally more stable... and I suppose it helped because I managed to bake these beautiful macaron shells! I used the pierre hermes macaron recipe which I found online.

It was a rainy day again when I baked these and I immediately shoved them into my air-con room after piping, in the hope that the dry air will help the skin form... and it did. In fact,  the skin appeared to be forming even before it went into the room... perhaps it was due to the Italian meringue. I was so happy when I saw the feets grow and  when I took my first bite into a baked macaron shell. My 1st taste of success with macarons. :P And this was my 1st time eating so many macarons in my whole life... haha... I had to  keep trying them to make sure that they were alright since my oven's temperature was not very stable.

I sandwiched dark chocolate ganache, rose lychee ganache and salted butter caramel in between these beautiful looking and great tasting macarons. All the fillings had their supporters! But I would definitely use a better quality white chocolate the next time I make rose lychee ganache.

This successful bake made me overconfident and I attempted a next batch a week later, using half ground almond and half ground hazelnut since I did not have enough ground almond on hand... I even did the more challenging chocolate version. And I failed terribly. The insides of the macarons were too sticky. Haha...

Fortunately, I baked these macarons successfully again for my Xmas gifts! :)

Happy Birthday Mummy!! :)

Not a perfect looking cake but it was the best I could do with what I had... initially planned to do some mousse cake but was too tied down a few days prior to my mum's birthday and could only come up with this, using whatever energy and time I had left.

A light cheesecake texture wannabe which was not too light and not too heavy... the texture was a little weird to me but taste was still good. I thought it was because I overwhipped the egg white but my 2nd attempt at this cake was still quite same... hmm... shall solve the mystery on my next cheesecake attempt!

My Frequent Bakes

I have been trying to perfect this bread because I like the combination of cranberry and walnut in a bread... In my 1st few attempts, the dough was always too wet so I switched to another bread recipe with a lower water content and it was much better. My 1st time using a loaf tin to bake this bread... it was a little stuck to the tin but overall, still not too bad... more butter on the tin the next time! :P

It has been a long while since I baked these Tollhouse cookies. Filled with hazelnut and chocolate chip goodness, they are usually very addictive for me... but not so much this time round because I did not use my usual chocolate chips. This version still has quite a number of fans though! Sinfully good!

My sister's favourite cinnamon rolls. Everytime I am baking, she will bug at me to bake these rolls. I would say these are not the perfect cinnamon rolls but they do smell so nice when freshly out from the oven and taste great when piping hot! There is another recipe which I have been wanting to try but have not gotten myself down to it. Too much recipes and too little time... till then! :)

I miss making Chiffon cakes!

This is a recipe which I copied down in my notebook years ago... and I finally got down to baking it! Happy to see my chiffon cake fluff up nicely. My first time using yoghurt to make a chiffon cake. Something interesting but too bland for my liking. Taste so healthy... maybe I should have used flavoured yogurt to add some taste to it...

A different kind of Birthday cake :P

A special birthday request by my friend... Char Siew Buo Luo bun. I made these for my baking exams before this attempt... not very successful. And this time round, it was still not very successful. :( Mine has a too thick pastry layer outside... and my char siew is too sweet! I guess it really takes some skills to make those delicious one which I like. Maybe another attempt after doing more research online.

Another satisfying Birthday cake creation :)

Another apple torte made using Professional Bakery class recipe but in heart shape! Simple and pretty I feel. Love my ingenious idea of using sponge cake to do the chocolate writing... was suppose to make a white chocolate board but my white chocolate seemed to have 'spoilt'... luckily I had leftover sponge. Taste was good but still not light enough for my liking. Maybe I should really invest in vanilla pods the next time I make them. Nevertheless, it was well-liked by the cake-eaters. Happy Birthday to my dear friend... :)