my godbro likes them!

my godbrother is so sweet...he dropped me a comment on the previous post! haha, so happy he liked the cupcakes! yeah! :D

Duo chocolate cupcakes (yinyang) with chocolate frosting

it's gonna be my godbro's birthday in a few days' time...and i thought ok, since I haven't been giving him any presents for years, how about making something this time?

so i decided to make yin yang cupcakes, with both white and black chocolate.

the frosting was made with some nice semi-sweet chocolate, with some kahlua...i coated a thick coat and then decided to melt some white chocolate to write 'Happy Birthday".

As you can see, the words look like of wriggly and ghostly. i thought they look more suitable for Halloween instead, hahaha!

So, with some sprinkles, and a silly looking penguin, i am set to give him this box of cupcakes tomorrow, hoping he will like them!

Next time, i will make buttercream frosting instead. I always think that swirls always look nicer and more elegant than chocolate frosting, of course, minus the ghostly words :p

more choc chip cookies!

more choc chip cookies! these are from the remaining dough which i chilled in the fridge...and of course, after being chilled, they are better than the ones i made on thursday. my chief guinea pig (aka my mum) took one immediately and said it was better :)

inclusive of the ones on thursday, the dough made 100+ cookies! so you see how much cookie shops are earning?

chocolate chip cookies

Thursdays and baking does not seem to ever go together. this evening, i had planned to come back on time to make some muffins or cupcakes for my friends when i meet them tomorrow.

As usual, when I plan something, it will actually go the other way. my work ended later than usual today and i got home only at 7.45pm. Frantic with the lack of time, and lack of milk in my fridge, i decided to find a recipe without milk, and it was cookies.

something however came over me, and made me want to put them on paper liners to bake instead. i seem to vaguely remember seeing an ex classmate do so, so as not to let the cookie spread out too much. But they ended up coming out with the lines of the paper liners, which cookies should not have. Moreover, i added less butter than called for, so the cookie is a bit too dry.

i rushed and rushed, because i had to shower (i was really stinky!) and had to make it in time for a flat-viewing appointment at 9.30pm.

the flat is nothing to shout about, and so are my cookies. this is one lesson i will learn. i have attempted to bake for my friends on a few thursday nights, and they always turn out wrong, because i do not have the mood to do so on thursdays, and i do not like to rush through the process which i enjoy.

this is not an excuse! i know it, because i have made nicer cookies than the ones i made tonight! And my mum agrees..

chocolate sponge cake attempt

last sunday i tried to make sponge cake, to see if i can replicate the results i achieved at the class i attended.

conclusion, i overwhipped the whipping cream, and so it could not be used for coating the cake. the sponge cake itself was rather fluffy and light, although there were patches of white, which was the meringue which i was afraid of overfolding.

so the following mornings, i had plain sponge for breakfast!

Hmm, more practise is needed huh? sure! i have bought more ingredients, ready to practise and make more mistakes! by christmas time, i should be good at it i hope!

Apple cinnamon bread

i was in a baking mood 2 evenings ago...so i thought hard on how i could make use of existing ingredients i have. i attempted a variation of my banana and choc chip bread (which actually is more like cake...it is in one of the earlier posts), and substituted with apples and cinnamon instead.

The result turned out well, and I like the fragrance of the cinnamon when it is baking in the oven. I only made a very small loaf, because I do not know how it would turn out. In the end, there were only 8 slices. I tried half as soon as it was out of the oven, and my mum tried the other half. Then she took 3 slices to office, I took 3 slices to dear, and left the last slice for my next day's breakfast. I have to admit i really like the taste when it was out of the oven. It was best when eaten warm, the sides are crisp, not exactly like potato chips kind of crisp, but there is a brown layer around the cake, and the inside, warm...it gives a good comforting feeling to have it in the morning.

As soon as dear opened the container, he liked the smell! And how it tasted! It was 8/10 :D

When I had it for breakfast, I warmed it up in the microwave for a little while. Then i added a scoop of ice-cream. Wow! I love it! ..with the soft chunks of apple inside..yummy!

My first birthday cakes!! *so satisfied*

Yippie! I graduated yesterday, with a certificate of attendance for Basic Sponge Cake and Decoration class. The cert is in dear's computer, I shall load it another day.

In the class of only 6, there are all females, and we all stood there, making cakes, from 1pm till 7pm!! It was supposed to end at 6pm but I tell you, you can't learn from scratch to make 2 cakes AND decorate them in 5 hours! I haven't stood for so long in a long time!! I think the last time was when I was working at part time sales person in the PC show a few years back.

We did 2 sponge cakes, and decorated them. The class is not cheap, but was fantastic. It precisely taught what I wanted to learn. Before I attended the class, I tried making a birthday cake once, and it was a flop. I had a few questions about frosting, and the sponge cake itself. The class answered my questions!

Here is a vanilla sponge cake with blueberry inside.

It was supposed to be a Miffy picture. Ok I know. I have seen Miffy before and she does not look like this...You know why? We used chocolate to draw a Miffy and let it set in the fridge. The design I drew was actually like the one on the left in the above picture. But my chocolate design was too thin and did not come out of the plastic sheet, and thus could not be transferred to the cake. So, I have to use another classmate's Miffy, which was not exactly very well drawn...and I was lazy to fill a piping bag with chocolate just to draw a cross as her mouth.

For the other cake, we played with clowns. We practised piping. I think I was not too bad, because I had learnt piping myself beforehand, some months back actually, by always surfing the net. But it was really tedious to smoothen the cream on the cake. And for beginners, it is not easy, because once you have done the top, you realised the sides are need to be worked on...and when you have done the sides, you need to work on the top again. We were all very quiet when doing this part. And we did it 4 times in all (for the 2 cakes), so by the second cake, we were better at it already. :)

Here is the second cake! I like the pastel colours! I mixed them myself! This one has cherries inside, like blackforest cake.

The sponge cakes were really light and fluffy. You will not have the full feeling after eating it. It was too bad that the sponge cakes 3 of us made were deflated in the middle. That is because the 3 cakes were placed in the same oven, and somehow the temperature was not even. That's why it is risky to make more than 1 cake at a time, because the more you put in the oven, the more it affects the evenness of the temperature.

And here is a picture of some our my other classmate's efforts! Yeah I know the one with the boy looks cute. But there is only 1 stencil for that, so only 1 of us used it.

After the class, I went to my aunt's house. One of my cousin's son was simply ecstatic over the moon in Miffy Cake. He insisted on taking a portion of the cake home, and of course I was glad to oblige. The rest of the Miffy cake went to dear's and his mum's stomach, and they gave it thumbs up. The clown cake is for my family, and it was thumb's up too! So happy!! :D

Tokyo Bananas!

these are not baked by me!! but i must say they are cute and rather nice. they are from my sis, who came back from Japan, and bought them at a place called Tokyo Bananas. I love bananas, and the chiffon is just so soft and light!! Yummy! :p