my 'task' is done..

the bake was over!

I actually did 2 trays on Friday night, but they turned out not good enough. It was my fault actually. I tried to deviate from my usual practice of using the measuring spoon to measure the flour, and measured by weight instead. Wrong move. 1 cup of flour is not equal to the usual 1 cup volume of 240g. They turned out hard. Dear thinks they taste more like bread than muffin. My sis was making fun of me, saying that if we fed them to the birds, the birds' beaks would bend...hahaha.

Saturday morning, I woke up at seven plus and brought out the butter. Then I went back to laze in bed for a while. I started work at about a quarter to 9am, churning out trays after trays of muffins. I enjoyed it. It made me memorised the receipe, and doing the same thing over and over again is really good practice. Because my oven is not the big ones, I need more time to bake. All in all, I took about 6 hours to churn out 54 muffins (2 hours in between to cater to some urgent personal matter), so in actual fact, it was 4 hours+ for 54 muffins.

I would say it wasn't too bad. The colour may look a bit dark, but I quite the moist taste. As usual, my mum and dear's comments were encouraging. Even the "hard as rock" type, dear actually ate quite a few. Ok, they are not really that much like rock, but I don't like them.

can't wait to hear my friend's comment tomorrow....don't dare to ask actually...I am not very confident...

standing orderly in attention

my 2 boxes of muffins for my friend, hope she and her guests like them...

stressed...

bought many bananas today, preparing for my long banana-muffin-baking-marathon this Fri and Sat, for my 'order'. Quite stressed....what if they dun turn out nice, like my delinquent muffins??

aarrgghh...i never felt more stressed! help!

Mugshots of my Delinquent muffins

Here are my delinquent muffins, with my new muffin tray..

Now, I realise consistency is not an easy thing...

Banana muffins - delinquent is my middle name

I am physically tired. I was already lying down, getting ready to sleep, when I thought about my muffin attempt just now. It made me so sad that a tear actually fell.

Tomorrow I am meeting the girls, and today I thought I shall rush home to bake something for them to try, since they have only hear me talking about it so much recently and tried none of it.

Before lunch, I was contemplating on what I should do today. There are 3 things I want to squeeze into the rest of my week. Firstly is to wash my car, which I usually do personally. Secondly is to bake and try my new muffin pan. Thirdly is to try a new baking receipe. I realise there isn't enough free hours for the rest of the weekend to squeeze them all in. So today, at lunch, I went for a carwash. After that, I went to the supermarket and bought some walnuts and some bananas which were riped perfectly.

When evening came, I hurried home, finished dinner and started to bake. This is my third attempt at banana muffins, and my worst.

1) There was too much banana essence. I still like my first attempt which I did not use any essence at all. I put a little on my second attempt, but it was not enough. So tonight, I added more, and it turned out too much. The smell of the essence was overwhelming when you bite into the muffin.

2) I did not beat long enough. It was funny. I beat them quite long the past 2 times. Tonight, I was afraid of overbeating them.

3) The holes in the muffin tray are wider than the aluminium cups I used to use. Previously, I would put the paper cup liners into the aluminium cups, and into the oven. The batter was contained by the small diameter, so they came out looking taller. Tonight, I used the muffin tray, with paper cup liners of course. But the diameter of the hole in the tray is a bit wider than my paper cup. Hence, when baking, the batter would spread itself until it takes the shape of the tray, which resulted in my muffins looking more dwarfey. They still rise, nonetheless, just that they look stout. I do not like my things looking stout.

As usual, I took some pictures. From the pictures, things do not look too bad. But they certainly do not taste right.

I'm sad and very disappointed. I ate 3 of them at one go just now, the more I ate, the more sad I am. Tomorrow, I will be stuck with my not-very-nice muffins for breakfast, as well as about 20 of my peanut butter cookies which are not crispy. At least the cookies do not taste very bad, just that they are not crispy. I wouldn't say the same about the muffins though.

Sorry girls, I have to crawl back bed, and hide under my quilt, with my bolster over my head, sulking over my delinquent muffins.

Pictures? Another day.

I haven't felt so sad in many weeks..... *WAILS LOUDLY*

Peanut butter cookies

Today, I baked cookies instead of muffins. I baked peanut butter cookies. My sister is complaining that if this goes on every week, the whole family will get fat in no time. This was also what I warned dear last night, because if we have our own house in future, he will be promoted to my full-time guinea pig and likely to get fat. He is game for it, he wants to see if he will get fat or lose weight (means I am a bad cook and is starving him.. :p)

Back to the cookies. They do not turn out very crispy, just like the chocolate chip cookies I usually make. Well, but to be honest, I like chocolate chip cookies not to be too crispy. I like them to be more chewy. However, today's product is peanut butter cookie, which I had wished could turn out more crispy than they did.

The recipe only used 140g flour, and I spooned a small teaspoonful for each cookie. Still they turn out to be like the size of a butter cookie, those we buy in tins. I churned out about 60 cookies just by using that little flour.

It was not too bad, just that they are not crispy. That leaves to be improved. And since I am not perfectly pleased with them, I am not giving any away....and so that explains my own expanding waistline....

I now think that baking is a hobby which we should start when we are feeling skinniest. All the butter, shortening, testing of food is not going to aid any diet plans!

My Scanpan Muffin Tray!

It is quite strange how the GSS this year does not entice me very much. In fact, I have only bought a pair of shorts and a top from G2000 and that is IT! The rest of the time, I have been spending more on baking what-nots instead.

On Friday, I saw a newspaper ad on Isetan's 35th anniversary sale and it got me excited like crazy.

This is my purchase.

YES! My muffin tray! I have been contemplating for so long whether to get one, and here it is! It is not only a muffin tray. It is a silicone muffin tray....it's Scanpan....and it's $54.90...BEFORE discount!!! Thank goodness for Isetan's whopping 35% discount, it was about $35 after discount, and after using a $5 voucher, I paid about $30 for it. What a steal!

Well, but unless you are a sucker for such stuff like me, you will not understand why a muffin pan can get me excited and jumping up and down!

Next week's program: to start using my new muffin tray! Yahhooooo!

cupcakes again!

i'm back from my cupcake class! so what happens when you pay half the cost of my previous class (i know I'm bound to compare)?

Instead of:

1) Bringing back 6 BIG cupcakes of 2 flavours each, I bring 3 SMALL cupcakes from 3 flavours each

2) Having aprons and boxes provided, I have to bring my own

3) Having a dishwasher in the classroom kitchen, I have to do my own washing of the equipment used

4) Having a 3 small groups of 3 pax in the class, there are 2 BIG groups of nine pax!

5) Having branded equipment to work with, I used non branded ones

6) Having an aircon classroom, I have a non aircon one (although the place was windy and has a nice view facing the sea)

7) Having cupcakes that rise nice and evenly, we have trays of cupcakes which all turn out loop-sided and no one told us what to do to avoid it (phew! good thing I already knew!)

Well, the crowd is different, the place and everything is different. I am seriously thinking whether there will be a second time for me here.

The reason why I am there today is to learn more different flavours of cupcakes and different types of frosting. There are not much tips to pick up, because honestly, whatever she says, I already know...and for the questions raised by others, I already can answer them as well.

I have earlier seen the pictures of the end result in the email ad of this place, and I had to admit I was not at all attracted by the look of its cupcakes. They taste and smell quite good nonetheless, but cupcakes are like human beings --LOOKS DO SELL.

The reason why these cupcakes I learnt today are not very professional looking is also partly because of the colour. All the 3 cupcakes I learnt today are black, or almost black, and so are the 2 frostings. Black on black does not stand out very well obviously. And the other reason, is of course, my lack of creative decoration skills.

I did not take many pictures of the cupcakes today because

1) they are not very photogenic

2) i don't even know whether i can say i made them. it was a hands on class, but because the group is so big, there wasn't much that I could do except to sit and let others do what they want to do.

I met 2 who look my age and have not baked anything before, so they are pretty eager to do things. I on the other hand, actually do not enjoy baking with other people because I want to do things MYSELF. And I cannot stand people who just want to spend time measuring exactly 200g of flour when they already have 198g on the weighing scale. This kind of people, I realised, pop up in every class. I think this is what I can call the newbie-kiasi-and-nonsensical syndrome.

I would say that seeing the recipes, they should taste quite nice. Actually I tasted one just now and it wasn't as nice as I had imagined (which was disappointing). I shall taste the rest tomorrow and try baking them myself some time soon. I can't wait to get my hands started on the one with nuts, bananas and chocolate.

Meanwhile, here are the not too photogenic pictures.

my carrot cupcakes

Today I tried making carrot cupcakes. It sure took a lot of time and effort..Grating carrots, jucing oranges to get the juice to soak raisins in....and of course the usual of making the batter and frosting. Took me about 4 hours to make 23 cupcakes.

Of course, they didn't taste as nice as when I made them at Palate Sensations under the supervision of a chef. I think I know what is the problem with them, and what caused them to be harder on top, yet still moist below.

Anyway, I made the cream cheese frosting. I had decided not to pipe carrots like before, because I do not have green food colouring (for the carrot stem). I thought I had orange colouring only. But when I started to add the colouring, I realised it was yellow and not orange. Goodness, really good thing I did not intend to pipe carrots!

The yellow was not going to be obvious against the rest of the white cream cheese, so I simply added a few drops of blue. Lo and behold! They turn out to be a nice green!

I piped some flowers and it was not easy. The tip was a bit not right and the flowers din turn out proportionate, but piping really need some practice.

The ones below are the more photogenic ones. See the one which has many piped flowers on top? Mum says it looks like a cactus. haha!

just what I have been thinking...

my sister has eyes which only look out for muffins nowadays. almost whenever she sees muffins, she will buy for me to try.

The other day, she got one from a Delifrance, which costs only $1 but is superbig. Not too bad, chocolate flavour, except that you can only see that it's chocolate flavour, not so much of tasting the chocolate itself. The muffins cracks up on top, and is way above the height of the paper cup. It looks very much like a "huat kueh", if no one told me it was a muffin, and if it had not been blackish. If it were orange colour, we could have put it on the altar for prayers...hehe...change the menu for the deities once in a while!

Yes, I am going for class next week! Hopefully it will be good. I have seen the pictures of the place, and it is far from Palate Sensations, but then the price is also half, so I will have to half my expectations as well. Aprons are not provided, and you can BUY boxes from them if you do not have your own Tupperware....that is the difference. And of course, no beautiful kitchen equipped with branded and mouth-drooling kitchen equipment.

I have to manage my expectations, I'm a big sucker for fanciful kitchens!!

Meanwhile, plan for tomorrow....carrot cupcakes! Just went to buy my cream cheese this morning, but they have run out of cinnamon powder! An excuse for me to make another trip to another PH outlet! ok....i know there are cinammon powders in almost all supermarkets...but the one I went to this morning doesn't have!! So, I will just take an 'excursion' tour to PH again... :D

Class is FULL!!!

I just realised today, that one of my pictures in my last post is wrong. Instead of showing my cupcakes cooling down, I showed my muffins cooling down instead! Can't blame me! They wear the same clothes and look the same!! Anyway, I realised my mistake, thank goodness.

One sad news though...the cupcake class I had registered for this Friday is full!!! And they have another session next Friday, if I manage to squeeze into the class as well....boohooohoooo.... :(

And I was looking forward to it so much I dream about it all day..... I was looking for containers to bring for the cupcakes, and thinking how my Tarepanda apron would be happy to be happy to be taken for a walk for once (we have to bring our own aprons to the class, you see...).

Sigh, well, just wait for news.

my first cupcakes

tried making cupcakes today. I followed what was taught, for the cupcakes and the chocolate ganache. The end result? Not too bad, except that the frosting was too sweet.

For the cupcakes, after the whole mixing process, I was afraid that mine would fail because the consistency of the mixture did not look alright to me. But it turned out fine, thank goodness!

I did not follow the frosting receipe taught by my 'teacher' because that involves too many steps. I tried another receipe, which flopped the first time, just because 'tsp' was wrongly written as 'tbsp' in it!

Wasted 120g of butter and 250g of icing sugar (which was actually to much and in the end made the frosting too sweet...I must tweak the dam* receipe), and so, I had to wait for my butter to soften again, and do it over again. It sure took me a lot of time and washing today. I spent about 3hours plus in baking about 22 cupcakes ( myself too! I was sweating so much today!).

Will definitely try again!

hot from the oven...uneven height...need more practise..

making 'wells' for the chocolate ganache

some colourful star sprinkles and strawberry sprinkles

not too bad huh?