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.... :)