Fruit Cake for Mummy's Birthday

Pretty satisfied with my attempt at making a Fruit cake - vanilla sponge layered with fruits and whipped cream, covered with whipped cream on the outside, decorated with glazed fruits on top and coated with toasted almond flakes on the side...

Here is how my cake looks like....

And on the inside...

I love the taste of the delicious fruits (strawberry, kiwi & peach) and the well toasted almond flakes. I am glad that the cream was whipped to perfection. But.... the vanilla sponge was not soft enough. I am not sure if it was the recipe, the 'too high temperature' or my folding-in process.. But one thing I am sure..I still have difficulties folding flour evenly into batter... need to brush up my skills.

The overall taste of the cake was okay but the different layers does not seem to complement each other well enough... Room for improvement! :)

Random Bakes 2 :P

Hopefully this will be the last of my mass postings... Here goes some of the more recent random bakes...

No. 1: This is a birthday cake for WQ, done in the wee hours, bet 12am to 5am, together with Weiling and the company of her cute little doggy, Sky. The difficult part of making this cake was in the ganache and decoration. The ganache we made did not manage to stay on the sides and slightly melted the cream layer. To save the cake, we covered the sides with chocolate sprinkes and chocoalate rice. With no idea of how to decorate and with limited equipments for decoration, we decided to piece her name together as deco.

I was quite satisfied with how the final cake looks but the taste part... hmm... cake was too dry. I guess we overbaked it.. but still, not too bad.

No. 2: My creation...

Not exactly my creation but I combined and adjusted the recipes. I changed the recipe for a pandan sponge cake to make the strawberry sponge cake. I found another recipe for cheese cream and used that for my filling. Unfortunately... it tastes weird! Haha... I guess I added too much lemon juice to the cream cheese and it tasted sourish. To make things worse, the sponge cake was slightly underbaked. But still... it looks nice.. just not very edible. :P

No. 3: Soft & Fluffy...

The one on the left is a strawberry chiffon cake, made by replacing the pandan paste & coconut milk in the orginal pandan cake recipe to strawberry paste and full cream milk. I guess I added too much strawberry paste and it was too sweet. The bottom right hand corner shows an orange chiffon cake... not enough of orange taste though.

No. 4: I finally made chicken pie on my own!!!

This was by the request of the birthday girl, YB. My San Jie, who made the chicken pie previously was not around and I had to attempt making puff pastry the very first time on my own... The first batch of puff pastry did not turn out very well. I changed and used another recipe for the puff pastry and it turned out better for the 2nd batch... though it had a strong pastry margarine taste. Sad to say, the filling was not up to standard. It was too dry... But overall, not too bad for my first attempt.

No. 5: On the very same day that I made chicken pie, I made this...

Another of my 'creation', inspired by the Coco Exotic cake at Four Leaves bakery. This was for my 4th sis's birthday.

I had a hard time making this cake as it was a combination of many many different recipes. Let me reveal what was inside the cake...

1st Layer (bottom): Chocolate Sponge Cake

2nd Layer: Chocolate Ganache

3rd Layer: Crunchy flakes with hazelnut paste & dark chocolate

4th Layer (light brown layer): Hazelnut Mousse

5th Layer: Chocolate Sponge Cake

6th Layer: Chocolate Mousse & Crunchy Pearls

7th Layer: Chocolate Sponge Cake

8th Layer: Chocolate Mousse

9th Layer: Dark Chocolate Ganache

Finally, it was topped off with chocolate sprinkles and Ferrero Rocher Chocolates, and an 'A', which is the first letter for my sister's name, was formed in the middle of the cake with the crunchy pearls.

There was a lot of hiccups in the process of making the cakes:

1. The crunchy flakes lost its crunch as it was stored for too long... but... I used it anyway.

2. I bought hazelnut ganache instead of hazelnut paste for the mousse so I did some adjustments to the recipe by omitting the milk.

The Verdict...

From my sisters' & mother's reaction:

It was way too rich... too much chocolate. But my San Jie who took it seperately said not bad... and she still thought we bought it. Haha... :P

My Bro-in-law:

Took one bite and said he didn't want to eat it anymore :(

Meili de mama:

Said it was quite nice except for the 'lou4 feng1' crunchy layer.

Meili de papa:

Took the first bite (top part of the cake) and told Meili de mama... "Ok ar... not bad ma...". He took the 2nd bite (middle layer with hazelnut mousse) and he kept quiet. He took the 3rd bite (with 'lou4 feng1' crunchy layer) and he told Meili de mama he did not want to have it anymore.

Conclusion:

This is definitely a rich cake, just like Coco exotic, which you can't eat too much. But... mine had 2 major flaws... the "lou feng" crunchy layer and the saltish hazelnut mousse. I must be more aware of my ingredients in future. But actually, I still think the cake is not bad la... :P

No. 6: Another Birthday cake made in the wee hours...

I love the appearance of this cake. Simple but Pretty. :)

Yes, this is similar to the original one that I made, except I changed the chocolate sponge cake recipe and omitted the hazelnut mousse and of course I got crunchy flakes.

Unfortunately, the chocolate sponge cake turned out terrible but I used it anyway as I had no time to make another. Later on, I realised the flour has expired. Heh... :P I didn't manage to eat the cake but my friend told me the ganache and mousse was not sweet enough. I shall continue to improve on my Crunchy Choco-Hazel cake.

No. 7: Yummy yummy...

A recipe from the "More from Magnolia" book by Allysa Torey which I have been wanting to try. With buttermilk in my fridge which was going to expire soon, I had to give this recipe a shot. This is an easy to make recipe... It is essentially a chocolate cupcake topped with cream cheese & chocolate chips.

I personally find that the chocolate part can be improved further... the taste was not good enough and it was quite crumbly... might be due to the mixing process. The cream cheese layer was good but sweet.

A sweet treat that might not be to everyone's liking.

No. 8: Simple roll cake...

The only difficulty in making this was folding the flour into the mixture... need to improve on my skills. It might have been more challenging if I made the kaya on my own. I read that you need 2 hours to make the kaya... and I didn't have the time to do so... Maybe another time.

No. 9: A different kind of Egg Tarts...I was hoping to make 'Tong Heng' style egg tarts but sad to say, they did not turn out that way. The crust was flaky but not as flaky as I hope they will be and some were even a little hard. The egg part was a bit watery and I suspect it might be due to the smaller eggs that I used. Overall, it was nice but not fantastic. One thing to take note, the egg part for this recipe was made with alot of sugar.... not very healthy...

Finally, I'm done with mass postings! :)

Baking at Sis's Place...

Over the Hari Raya weekend in Sept, we had potluck at my 5th sis's new place and I baked using her new built-in oven.

Baked Item No 1:

The crust was not very successfully made... but the filling was delicious. Apart from the main ingredients which were ham and mushroom, the filling was made up mainly of whipping cream, eggs and parmesan cheese. In my opinion, quiche are not to be eaten in large quantities. Reason No 1: It is unhealthy. Reason No 2: I get 'sick' of it easily.

Baked Item No 2:

Look at the 2nd photo on the right: The egg part expands like a balloon in the oven!

This was more of a dessert item. I started baking only after we finished our dinner. The crust was made mainly by my San Jie since she needed it for the food she was preparing. I only had to do some rolling and cutting. The egg part was quite easy to make but it was extremely fattening. It was made up of Whipping cream + Milk + Sugar + Eggs + Vanilla Essence. Yes, unhealthy again...

As for the end product, It had a weird taste (which I think was due to the pastry margarine), though my family thought it was quite acceptable. But... the egg part was sweet and yummy. :)

Anyway, along with me, I dragged my San Jie along and forced her to bake with me! Below are her baked items!

San Jie's Baked Item No. 1:

The one on the left tastes much better as they had my preferred ingredients-ham and mushroom, but it was not nicely shaped as we did not have enough pans.

It was so amazing to see her make the dough as it will actually expand! BUT.. it is hard work... need a lot a lot of hand power!!! I am interested to make but feel so lazy... haha...

San Jie's Baked Item No. 2:

Looks enticing right? Same puff pastry as my egg tarts. The clam chowder... hmm... tastes not bad with the puff pastry la. :P

So this was what we baked for the day. Of course we had other food for potluck - Zi char: tofu, prawns and vegetables, Mummy's 'Po Yi' (similar to meatballs/ngoh hiong) and I also forced my 5th sis to make Chendol agar agar which ended up dirtying her stove area. The agar agar was not easy to make as it had many many steps but it is an interesting dessert.

*Special thanks to Sally & Marc for allowing Ling & I to dirty your beautiful white kitchen*

Intermediate Baking Class

In comparison to Beginner Baking Class, my memory of the Intermediate Baking Class is not that clear... perhaps there was too much information coming in and too much things to do. Many of the recipes taught were also not my favourite...

I shall do a short summary of the cakes learnt during these classes:

Lesson 1 (29 March 2009):

The chocolate cake & ganache covering this cake was yummy... but I didn't like the pecan icing which was the filling.

And another item baked during this lesson...

We overwhipped the egg white and the Loaf cake turned out to be quite soggy... but still nice... :)

Lesson 2 (5 April 2009):

I destroyed the sponge cake by pouring it out from the container when I realised that I did not add baking powder... notice the super flat sponge layers. Anyway, the mousse did not taste nice.. maybe we did not cook it well...

Lesson 3 (12 April 2009):

Choconana cake was quite good. The pistachio sponge cake itself was good but the buttercream had a weird taste which not everyone can accept...

Lesson 4 (19 April 2009):

Notice the extremely nice cake made by my teacher on the top right hand corner... Beautiful! :)

Hopefully after I update all my 'overdue' baked items, I will be able to blog in detail to share the recipes and to remind myself of each baking experience.

Random Bakes :)

Beginners' Baking Class got me all excited about baking! And my most frequent bake is.....*drum rolls*.... PANDAN CAKE!!! Reason being... I had difficulties baking a perfect one at home. I was baking it almost every 2 weeks and my poor sisters & friends have to be tortured to eat it repeatedly.

It started off with a flat one, with a dense texture at the bottom...

After discovering that the recipe might not be meant for a 10-inch tin (my teacher says it can), my 3rd sis bought a 7-inch tin for me... (must be eat until scared le, want me to faster succeed and stop baking pandan cake. Heh :P) And I had better luck baking pandan cake...It was fluffier though there is still a denser layer at the bottom... read that it might be due to too high oven temperature or overwhipping of egg white.

Tada! My more successful pandan cakes!!

I still continued baking for a no of times before I finally decided it was enough. But at least this version had supporters... :)

My next most frequently baked item would be Cheesecakes! It started off with the mini cheesecakes which won many many fans.... to the bigger ones which I baked for birthdays and my sis's ROM...

The cakes are acceptable but not as good as my family's all-time favourite Hilton cheesecake below...

A different type of cheesecake which I tried making was this chedder cheesecake that you see below. Hmm.. unlike cream cheese, the chedder cheese was not nice.

Another cake which I have tried to bake a number of times would be Tiger roll. This is my 4th sis's & bro-in-law's favourite... but somehow, they dun turn out as nice as the one baked in class. The cream always makes the cake messy... perhaps I did not whip it well... shall try it again soon.

Other baked items with pictures are shown below:

Disastrous Looking Pandan Kaya Cake: Part of the kaya layer ingredients was burnt when cooking..and using only the remaining unburnt ingredients, the layer was super sweet. Thankfully, it was still finished up with some praises.

Christmas Log Cake-A group effort: Deco by HF... I think we spent like 30 mins trying to decide where to place what among ourselves. The inner roll was done made by me. Icing was done by Ah bu.... and it was quite crunchy as we did not have icing sugar and replaced it with caster sugar. Haha... Overall still quite nice la. :)

Chocolate Banana Cake: PL's cake for her father, with my guidance ->Bad teacher & not-so-nice cake. The chocolate ganache somehow harden and was difficult to spread on the cake. Apparently, PL says still quite ok in taste.

Chocolate Hazelnut Tart: This was for Mae's Birthday. I love the crunchy filling inside. Only complaint might be the saltish tart.

Checkerboard Cookies: This was what we learnt in our Intermediate Baking Class. It is supposed to be more checkered but the dough was too soft for me to create the original effect... might be due to my kitchen temperature.

Other items which I baked but with no pictures to show:

- Butter cake: not as nice as the one baked in class

- Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies (Soft)

- Classic Chocolate Chips Cookies (Chewy)
- Chocolate Hazelnut Cookies

This is what I can remember so far.... till my next post.... :)

Some of the things I baked (before attending classes)...

What you see in the first picture is definitely one of the most disastrous cake I have ever baked and I still had the cheek to give it to my colleagues. Haha... This was my first bake item after the purchase of my oven. Without any background knowledge of folding and other baking techniques, the cake turned out terrible..... full of air lobangs inside. Worse still, I baked a chiffon cake in a tube pan... I didn't know that was not a chiffon tin ma.... Heh :P

Okay, what you will see now looks slightly more professional... It is not really done by me, but it is made with my oven.. so must also put here... It is a chicken pie and I only helped to put everything together and cook the filling. The puff pastry was done by my sis. Actually the end product was not too fantastic... I rem the pastry was too thick and the chicken was cut into too small pieces... Not bad for a first time... have been telling my sis that I want to learn to make the puff pastry coz it is so amazing!!! But.... procrastination.... there always seem to be other more interesting and easier stuff to bake. :)

See my cute Disney characters butter biscuit!!! I remember it is not easy to make the dough. Not exactly very yummy but very very cute!!!!!! Some of my friends like the taste though....

Next up is a chocolate swirl cheesecake adapted from Happy Homebaker's blog. Didn't manage to take a photo of what it looks like on the inside as it was finished up quite fast. Chocolate and cheese is good!


One of the last photos that I can find in my picture folder for pre-baked items - Pineapple tarts. Mixed reviews for the tarts. Some find it too sweet, some feel that it has too much fibre, others think it is good. I personally feel that it is not the type of pineapple tarts that I like. Still looking for the perfect melt-in-the-mouth kinda tarts.... *drooling*


Okie.... this pretty sums up much of what I baked before I attended my classes... :)

Baking Classes @ Creative Culinaire

Great classes by a wonderful teacher. And I am going back for more.... :)

Together with Wenqi & Weiling, I signed up for the Foundation course for the Art & Science of Cake Baking at Creative Culinaire.

Lesson 1: The Art of Butter Cake (18 October 2008)

Being my first lesson, I was pretty apprehensive... I did not have much baking experience prior to the lesson and was worried that I will not be able to follow well. What's more, we had to make 3 different types of cake in 3 hours... *stressed -_-"*

The class started with the theory part which provided me with a lot of new and interesting information on baking. After that, we paired up to do the actual baking. Wenqi & I were a team for this class. We were very unsure throughout the whole baking process... We had to ask our teacher, her assistant, the other chefs, Weiling & her partner to make sure that we were on the right track..... from the creaming of the butter to telling if our cakes were ready. Haha... We were the last group to finish and left only at 7pm (class finishes at 6pm).

But glad to say.... the cakes that we made were yummy.... despite the fact that I'm not a butter cake lover..

Here's our CAKES for the day:

I like the Sunflower Cupcake and Basic Butter Cake the most. Not a fan of walnut....

I tried making the basic butter cake at home but it did not taste as good. Also tried the walnut cake with Wenqi & Weiling for my colleagues' birthday.... did not turn out very well too. More practise needed!

Lesson 2: The Art Of Chiffon (25 OCtober 2008)

Chef Judy Koh explained that making a good chiffon cake is not easy. She explained the importance of whisking the egg white until stiff peaks are formed and demonstrated how to fold in the mixture properly. This time round, I partnered with another classmate. She was GOOD! Chef praised our banana chiffon cake (which was mostly made by my classmate). But she did say the rest was good too. :)

I didn't really like the taste of the golden citrus chiffon cake. The rest were yummy!

I have tried making pandan chiffon cake prior to the lessons and they ended up with big lobangs & without the taste of pandan. After the lesson, I tried them again. The taste was much better but.... they did not rise up enough. Still wondering if it is the mixer or my folding in process. Shall try it again after my mixer is repaired.

Lesson 3: The Art of Swiss Roll (1 November 2008)

This is one of the lesson that I laughed the most. Weiling and I paired up for the lesson, all ready to make swiss rolls.... unfortunately... our first swiss roll became a layered cake...

On the left is the 'Rainbow Roll" that we were supposed to do.

First, we were supposed to whisk the eggs with some other ingredients until ribbon stage. I guess both of us were dreaming during lesson that day... so somehow... we forgotten how 'RIBBON STAGE' was like (actually I can't really remember now too :P). So we continued to add in the flour until suddenly I saw some egg whites in a bowl......

I read through the recipe repeatedly, trying to see where this should go in... but there was no need for any egg whites in the later part of the recipe. It was only then that we realised it should be added in when whisking... ha... we are too used to whisking egg whites separately. We decided to just add in the egg white, thinking that it will still work, It could have.... if not for us adding in the oil almost immediately.....

We saw that the mixture was way too liquid to do piping and seeked Chef's help. Initially she told us to whisk it longer. But when she realised we had already added in the oil, she told us it was impossible to make a roll... and suggested that we make layered cakes instead. I was very amused at the thought that ours will become a kueh or something not edible....

Fortunately, the end product was not too bad la... just a bit tasteless. The fun but tiring part was actually piping the fat and adorable mouse on the cake.

And our 2nd bake for the day went smoothly, with some help from a classmate who works at a bakery.

My Tiger Roll... Looks good, taste good!! :P

My Tiger Roll was a hit with both my friends & family. I tried making it at home again and it turned out well too.... but not as good as what I made during class. I love to make and eat Tiger Roll... If only I can find a recipe that uses the excess 10 egg whites.... I'll definitely make it more often.

Lesson 4: The Art of Sponges (8 November 2008)

This lesson touched on a little bit of simple cake decoration. It is definitely not easy making pretty cakes... But the satisfaction is great.

Blackforest Cake... just like what you see in bakeries

In my opinion, the most difficult part of making a pretty blackforest cake is applying the whipped cream and decorating it with shaved chocolate. Of course, to have a delicious blackforest cake, appearance is not everything. The sponge cake should be baked to perfection, accompanied by the chocolate + whipped cream + dark cherry filling.

The Pandan Sponge Cake had an interesting checkered design when cut.

I didn't really like the Sweetcorn Fudge cake. But the Blackforest cake and Pandan Sponge Cake were delicious.

My attempt at making the Pandan sponge cake at home did not go smoothly. The pandan kaya was burnt while cooking over the fire. Being trained not to waste food in class, I continued making the cake with the remaining mixture. It turned out edible but too sweet.

Somehow.... Cakes baked in classes always taste better. I guess I will need more practise. Shall attend the Intermediate class for the Art & Science of Baking soon.... :)