When Baker Barks

Eclair Meets East

2008-08-31T16:23:00.005+08:00

Have been missing in action for some time now - for catch up's, meet up's, updates in the blogosphere and the past Daring Baker's challenges. Our bad.

Even fur-cut or better known as a grooming session scheduled for our monstrous-looking precious pea; Rufus, wasn't running on the right time. Planned but things meant to go out of our plan. Consequently, Rufus had outgrew his pure roots; from a white miniature Schnauzer to a white furry Poodle. That's not too bad, we have ventured into a new breed though. Of pom-poms and poodles.

No, we aren't guilt-free yet. Explanations are necessarily needed to diminish our guiltiness - be it lame or logic. We have been tied up with uncountable college's brain-straining workload, final exams and multiple errands for the past months. Past month. Past months sounds better, it signifies us in a word - diligent!

Last but not least, an event to work with; the Arts & Culture @ The Podium, solely organized by the Multicultural Arts Malaysia. Arts & Culture @ The Podium opens during the weekends, every Saturday and Sunday, from 11am - 6pm at Menara Hap Seng, Kuala Lumpur. It is located in Jalan P.Ramlee, opposite Shangri-La Hotel, which is a 10 minutes walk from the nearest monorail station of Raja Chulan. There are various spread of talented artist with their work-of-art, ranging from paintings, sketches, handicrafts, custom-made jeweleries, patch works and independent T-shirt label designers. These vendors are listed as below:

Penny Yuen - Eco Products
Pei Chee - Handmade Cards
Sue - Soft Toys
Agnes - Handmade Accessories
Sarah - Handmade bags
Zou - Handmade scarf and broaches
Ahmad Fauzi, Azhar, Amir - Acrylics Painting
Gajah Gajah Gallery - Native Arts
Fatass Michelle - Cupcakes (Oh, how rude! Nah, just kidding)
Azria - Chocolate Roses
Shermaine Ng - Costume jeweleries
Angkatan Baju Malaya - Independent t-shirt label
Oh Boxes Enterprise - Gift boxes
Heavenly Beauty Enterprise - Wax products
Patches of Love - Patch works
Karen Tan - Handmade earrings
Jennifer - T-shirt printed design
The Kraft Store - craft designer's products
Hermes - Batik Art

Of arts, some may say. We will then labelled our cupcake bakesale as the art in edible form. Edible arts; the cupcakes! We are working it by being adventurous and generous. Generous, ahem.

We are having a bakesale at the podium and will be selling various exotic flavors and old time favourites of cupcakes. In the meantime, here's a few good schweets to be showcased, and yet, more flavors to come:

1. Moist Chocolate

2. Cookie Monster (Flavored Cookies and Cream)

3. Lavande' (Flavored Lavender with Chantilly Cream Filling)

4. Elmo (Flavored Raisin And Rum)

5. The Zombie (Chocolate Brownie With Cookie Crumbs)

6. Ispahan (Flavored Rose Cupcake With Whole Lychee & Raspberry Cream)

7. Green Tea (Flavored Green Tea With Chantilly Cream Filling)

8. Red Velvet (Flavored Red Velvet Cake With Chocolate Filling And Cream Cheese Frosting)

9. Chickadee (Flavored Moist Chocolate Cake with Banana Frosting)

10. Chocolato (Flavored Moist Chocolate Cupcake With Chocolate Cream Filling)

Speaking of which, these cupcakes are priced at RM3.90 each and you can get it from The Podium @ Menara Hup Seng for only:

BAKESALE : 3 LARGE CUPCAKES FOR RM10
on every weekends!

Moving onto the next topic, we have been fiddling with puff's batter lately; with the aid of Pierre Herme's eclair recipe from his book collection; a cookbook written by Dorie Greenspan: Chocolate Desserts By Pierre Hermé . After finding out that Daring Bakers Challenge for the month of August was the eclairs, we crossed our fingers tightly as to walk our plan in order. We planned to post. And this was it, our Daring Bakers Challenge #3.

By proceeding to our third challenge of Daring Bakers, we are too happy for words when we knew that Pierre Herme's book can now put into good use. The very 1st challenge that we have participated were Cheesecake Pops, followed by the 2nd challenge; the Opera Cake. Daring Bakers challenge has always been fun and oh well, challenging. The 3rd challenge was experimental, and was hosted by Tony Tahhan and MeetaK. The challenge was made known that the eclairs must include at least one portion of the chocolate family, whereby we were given the option to choose whether to fill the eclairs with chocolate pastry cream or topped with a chocolate glaze with the recipe given, or both.

We have taken a rather exotic route where mix-and-match happens. We opted for something more "Asian" and came up with the Chocolate and Green Tea Eclairs. Alterations were made. The original recipe calls for a chocolate pastry cream instead of the one below; which is the green tea and white chocolate pastry cream.

The beautifully puffed up eclair is paired up with a smooth and fluffy portion of Green Tea pastry cream with a hint of white chocolate sweetness, and then glazed with dark chocolate glazing. The eclairs became iresistible and sinful when green tea were matched up with the whites (white chocolate). Like they say, that is to spice things up.

The eclairs consist of three vital parts; the puffs, the pastry cream and the glaze. Whipping up the eclairs was easy as D-O-G, baking them was tougher than we thought. The last time we tried our hands on the puffs; which was many years ago, we ended up with pretty puffed up cream puffs, but not this time. The first batch was a failed attempt. The dough puffs puffed up (or shall we say, inflate?) prettily and it does looked thrice bigger during the baking session. But good things come to an end when we started to poke our nose and fiddle with the oven door. The puffs deflated, our hearts crushed onto the baking trays and we did shook our heads while checking out on our flat puffs. Flattened puffs were used as disguise for an elongated oval shaped pancake.

By googling back and forth, we were overjoyed and glad to know the problem incurred which made our puffs deflate and deform into something weirder than how the actual pancake would look like. That's what most of our gramps would say, success comes from multiple failures. That proves the point. As for the situation for deflated cream puffs, this is due to the fact that the babies are somewhat premature. Premature babies is a no-no for cream puffs. Thus, it is clearly unambiguous that underbaked is the case. Though the cream puffs may have exceeded the baking time, believe your poochie-instinct that the puffs aren't ready yet unless the puffs are baked until golden brown, firm and has freaky cracks on its surface. The recipe is followed below. We divided it into 5 parts, ranging from part A to part E; which dwells in between of Pierre Herme's Cream Puff Dough, Green Tea and White Chocolate Pastry Cream, Chocolate Glaze, Chocolate Sauce and Ways to Assemble The Perfect Eclairs.

Pierre Hermé’s Éclairs
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé (makes 20-24 Éclairs)

A.) Pierre Hermé’s Cream Puff Dough

• ½ cup (125g) whole milk
• ½ cup (125g) water
• 1 stick (4 ounces; 115g) unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
• ¼ teaspoon sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (140g) all-purpose flour
• 5 large eggs, at room temperature

1) In a heavy bottomed medium saucepan, bring the milk, water, butter, sugar and salt to the boil.
2) Once the mixture is at a rolling boil, add all of the flour at once, reduce the heat to medium and start to stir the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon. The dough comes together very quickly. Do not worry if a slight crust forms at the bottom of the pan, it’s supposed to. You need to carry on stirring for a further 2-3 minutes to dry the dough. After this time the dough will be very soft and smooth.
3) Transfer the dough into a bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or using your handmixer or if you still have the energy, continue by hand. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each egg has been added to incorporate it into the dough. You will notice that after you have added the first egg, the dough will separate, once again do not worry. As you keep working the dough, it will come back all together again by the time you have added the third egg. In the end the dough should be thick and shiny and when lifted it should fall back into the bowl in a ribbon.
4) The dough should be still warm. It is now ready to be used for the éclairs as directed above. Once the dough is made you need to shape it immediately. You can pipe the dough and the freeze it. Simply pipe the dough onto parchment-lined baking sheets and slide the sheets into the freezer. Once the dough is completely frozen, transfer the piped shapes into freezer bags. They can be kept in the freezer for up to a month.
5) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Divide the oven into thirds by positioning the racks in the upper and lower half of the oven. Line two baking sheets with waxed or parchment paper.
6) Fill a large pastry bag fitted with a 2/3 (2cm) plain tip nozzle with the warm cream puff dough. Pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in long, 4 to 41/2 inches (about 11 cm) chubby fingers. Leave about 2 inches (5 cm) space in between each dough strip to allow them room to puff. The dough should give you enough to pipe 20-24 éclairs.
7) Slide both the baking sheets into the oven and bake for 7 minutes. After the 7 minutes, slip the handle of a wooden spoon into the door to keep in ajar. When the éclairs have been in the oven for a total of 12 minutes, rotate the sheets top to bottom and front to back. Continue baking for a further 8 minutes or until the éclairs are puffed, golden and firm. The total baking time should be approximately 20 minutes. The éclairs can be kept in a cool, dry place for several hours before filling.

B.) Green Tea And White Chocolate Pastry Cream
• 2 cups (500g) whole milk
• 2 tablespoons green tea powder
• 4 large egg yolks
• 6 tbsp (75g) sugar
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz (200g) white chocolate, melted
• 2½ tbsp (1¼ oz: 40g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1) In a small saucepan, bring the milk to a boil. Mix in green tea powder into boiled milk and stir till combined. In the meantime, combine the yolks, sugar and cornstarch together and whisk in a heavy‐bottomed saucepan.
2) Once the milk has reached a boil, temper the yolks by whisking a couple spoonfuls of the hot milk into the yolk mixture. Continue whisking and slowly pour the rest of the milk into the tempered yolk mixture.
3) Strain the mixture back into the saucepan to remove any egg that may have scrambled. Place the pan over medium heat and whisk vigorously (without stop) until the mixture returns to a boil. Keep whisking vigorously for 1 to 2 more minutes (still over medium heat). Stir in the melted chocolate and then remove the pan from the heat.
4) Scrape the pastry cream into a small bowl and set it in an ice‐water bath to stop the cooking process. Make sure to continue stirring the mixture at this point so that it remains smooth.
5) Once the cream has reached a temperature of 140 F remove from the ice‐water bath and stir in the butter in three or four installments. Return the cream to the ice‐water bath to continue cooling, stirring occasionally, until it has completely cooled. The cream is now ready to use or store in the fridge. The pastry cream can be made 2‐3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator. In order to avoid a skin forming on the pastry cream, cover with plastic wrap pressed onto the cream.

C.) Chocolate Glaze
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé (makes 1 cup or 300g)

• 1/3 cup (80g) heavy cream
• 3½ oz (100g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 4 tsp (20 g) unsalted butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature
• 7 tbsp (110 g) Chocolate Sauce (recipe below), warm or at room temperature

1)In a small saucepan, bring the heavy cream to a boil. Remove from the heat and slowly begin to add the chocolate, stirring with a wooden spoon or spatula.
2) Stirring gently, stir in the butter, piece by piece followed by the chocolate sauce. If the chocolate glaze is too cool (i.e. not liquid enough) you may heat it briefly  in the microwave or over a double boiler. A double boiler is basically a bowl sitting over (not touching) simmering water. It is best to glaze the eclairs after the glaze is made, but if you are pressed for time, you can make the glaze a couple days ahead of time, store it in the fridge and bring it up to the proper temperature (95 to 104 F) when ready to glaze.

D.) Chocolate Sauce
Recipe from Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé (makes 1½ cups or 525 g)

• 4½ oz (130 g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup (250 g) water
• ½ cup (125 g) crème fraîche, or heavy cream
• 1/3 cup (70 g) sugar

1) Place all the ingredients into a heavy‐bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil, making sure to stir constantly. Then reduce the heat to low and continue stirring with a wooden spoon until the sauce thickens.
2) It may take 10‐15 minutes for the sauce to thicken, but you will know when it is done when it coats the back of your spoon.

E.) Assembling the éclairs:
• Chocolate glaze
• Green Tea And White Chocolate Pastry Cream
• Cream Puff Dough or Eclairs

1) Slice the éclairs horizontally, using a serrated knife and a gently sawing motion. Set aside the bottoms and place the tops on a rack over a piece of parchment paper.
2) The glaze should be barely warm to the touch (between 95 – 104 degrees F or 35 – 40 degrees C, as measured on an instant read thermometer). Spread the glaze over the tops of the éclairs using a metal icing spatula. Allow the tops to set and in the meantime fill the bottoms with the pastry cream.
3) Pipe or spoon the pastry cream into the bottoms of the éclairs. Make sure you fill the bottoms with enough cream to mound above the pastry. Place the glazed tops onto the pastry cream and wriggle gently to settle them. If you have chilled your chocolate glaze, reheat by placing it in a bowl over simmering water, stirring it gently with a wooden spoon. Do not stir too vigorously as you do not want to create bubbles.
4) The éclairs should be served as soon as they have been filled.

Here's a sneak peek of what will prevail the up-coming post (shot below)...

And we will be counting days, just to get our darling Arisa's butt back to Malaysia - 125 days that is. Last but not least, Happy Merdeka peeps.

P/S: Season greetings Holy Molly. Amen. :-)

Wallpapers : Kuala Lumpur Bird Park

2008-08-24T12:31:00.000+08:00

Photographed by: Steven Wong
Edited by : Mcwhisky
Location: Kuala Lumpur Bird Park
Sources: http://herworldhisworld.blogspot.com/

The original shots are superb. We can't deny that Steven's photos are prettily taken- with right angles, shutter speed, lighting etcetera. Photos were taken by Steven Wong, hailed from a wonderful photoblog: Fragz&Feebz's - which is accompanied by descriptive comments and personal reviews, last but not least, gorgeous crystal clear shots, taken with a camera model of Panasonic DMC-FZ7.

Click on images (or right-click to open link in new tab) to preview the full-scaled shots. These smaller version shots below were too blur, which is an eye-sore. (*pun intended*)

To set these wallpapers on desktop, right-click on the image of your choice and choose "Set As Desktop Background" (or "Set as Background" in Internet Explorer). If the image appears stretched across your desktop background, go to Desktop (on Windows: Control Panel > Display > Desktop), and choose Center as the display mode of the background image.

Comments and reviews about the shots taken by Steven are highly welcomed and very much appreciated. Happy downloading.

Do You Know The Donutman?

2008-06-10T11:44:00.003+08:00

"Do you know Ginger?", an adorable yet a chubby girl in her kindergarten pinafore asked in a polite manner, while assuring us that she knew Ginger in her life with her convincing expressions.

"Oh well, Ginger... The ale Ginger, my dead Sharpei named Ginger or the human Ginger?", we questioned back sarcastically as response.

"Oh goodness gracious, you know, Ginger! Don't you know who Ginger is?", she fumes while stomping her feet profusely.

"Okay, wait a minute young girl. Let's play this. Knock, knock", we said cheekily.

"Duh, who's there?", she rolled her eyes and that was real sarcastic, so wanna pinch her fat cheeks.

"No! You lead us! You'll start of with that knock knock thingy", we exclaimed impatiently.

"KNOCK KNOCK!", said the chubby lady in a loud voice.

"Who's there?", we questioned back.

"GINGER!", she scowled.

"Ahhh~ Ginger who?", we said in a melancholy tone.

"GINGER THE BREAD MAN!", she backfires in a fierce and high-toned voice, with that annoying glare that she used to give us.

Yes, that glare, like the prosperous owl above (The very tame and photogenic owl was found somewhere near a park, and we were so lucky to get some shots out of this gorgeous fat bird). Boy, that hits us hard to the rock-bottom of our self-esteems. That was a very good one indeed. We have never know kids nowadays are that good at riddles, jokes and knock-knock's. We were embarrassed by how the knock-knock riddle turned out, and ginger the bread man? Oh gosh. That hits us real hard. We should not have suggested knock-knock's at first.

We were not satisfied by how the kid managed to come up with a rather sarcastic answer, which made us in awe, made her stand out within, outshining other kindie kids. But, it was so unethical to run us down publicly with spoken words, just in seconds. In seconds! We wouldn't even mind if it was in the period of an hour or so. Killing our dignity within seconds is just too overrated and so untrue. ;P

Enough of ginger, the bread man. The word kept popping and wandering in our hollowed minds while we were prepping for a doughnut dough. Mixed feelings and highly possible; the feelings of anger and being embarrassed gradually faded after letting go by releasing our anger on the doughnut dough. Light punches and blows, followed by quick and consistent jabs were thrown onto the poor and innocent doughnut dough. It worked! The tension were released. The dough was doing just fine - no bruises but partly deformed. We then let the dough rise by proofing. After the dough doubles up in size, we proceed to dough-cutting, using a doughnut cutter.

As we were rushing and in a hurry, gingerbread man cookie cutter (pardon us, did we just heard ginger?) was simply used to hasten things up. We managed to come up with a doughnut shaped gingerbread man. As weird as it sounds, let's put it this way - donutbread man; gingerbread man's blood-related cousin.

The doughnuts taste just like how doughnuts ought to be. The sticky dough produce a lighter and fluffier bread texture, which is perfect for tea breaks. The dough that was ready to be dipped into a pool of hot oil will be handled gently before it gets into the oil. After frying, the golden brown and tanned donutbread man will be powdered by sifted powdered sugar, and best eaten while it's hot - Ouch!

Donutbread Man

500g plain flour
1-1/2 teaspoon instant yeast
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
50g softened margarine
40g sugar
1 medium egg

1. Place all the stated ingredients in a big bowl. Knead till soft dough are formed. Roll dough into a large gigantic ball.
2. Leave the dough in the bowl and cover it with a piece of plastic sheet. Scrutinize the dough, let it rise for about an hour, where you'll see a double sized dough by then.
3. Next, roll dough into the size of +/-1cm thick.
4. Cut the dough with a small gingerbread man cookie cutter and place them onto greased tray. Cover with a plastic sheet.
5. Scrutinize them closely for about 40 minutes. As long as these uncooked doughnuts rise again, they can be cooked just in no time!
6. Heat oil in a deep pan. Fry the doughnuts in the preheated oil till golden brown.
7. Dip the hot doughnuts into a plate of sugar (granulated or caster will do, brown sugar perhaps?). If you prefer coating the doughnuts with royal icing, chocolate or buttercream, or even icing sugar, coat them after cooling them for a few minutes.

Knock, knock,
Who's there?
Donut,
Donut who?
Donut, the bread man.

Creme Brulee : The Westernized Egg Tart

2008-06-08T01:17:00.009+08:00

In most Asian countries, egg tarts rules when Creme' Brulee tries to invade. However, it goes sideways when it comes to the Western countries, be it urban or sub-urban areas. The chinese egg tart; with flaky and crispy puff pastry, always remain as one of the best egg dessert among the Asians. Moreover, it is commonly served during breakfast; which is during the chinese Dim Sum session. Best eaten while it's hot, and accompanied by a freshly brewed chinese tea.

This may applied on the Westerners as well. A Creme' Brulee would be the one of the hundreds of egg desserts which would score high points and win the hearts of the Westerners. As Creme Brulee has an absolute advantage on showcasing the wonderful color of egg yolks in custard form, overlooking the texture and even the taste of the pastry crust-tart might not be a daunting sight after all.

The scores are in, egg custard work wonders. Just take a look at the evil-looking yet sinful baked cheesecakes which very much resembles the picture and texture of a egg custard with an aroma of full-fat cheese. Eggs play a vital role by adding fats, moisture and also binding the half-set cheesecake by setting up a protein matrix. It is sometimes surprising to find out how eggs consistently and successfully work its magic to the world of baking.

We have always been loyal consumers of chinese egg tarts as we love egg custard pretty much. Thus, not making a Creme' Brulee sounded villainous and silly; of bird brains and pea-sized brains, that is so Homer Simpson. We prepared the Creme' Brulee in 2 sizes, one into medium-sized flan dish and the remaining was as cute as mini cupcake-size.

The medium-sized Creme' Brulee inherits its forefathers' features, which has a slightly burnt top (of burnt and caramelized sugar) while the mini Creme' Brulee replicates the features of the normal sweet-crusted egg tart with no burnt top. We will have the time of our lives downing the egg-bakes one by one, savoring the true delight of Western egg tarts; the Creme' Brulee.

To some, Creme' Brulee might be tad plain to be devoured, but simplicity and the velvety and smooth egg custard filling is the key to a perfect Creme' Brulee. Nevermind the pastry crust first because the egg custard IS the sublime of the entire Brulee tart. It is best eaten while it's slightly cooled to room temperature. While the crust is prepared as thinly as possible, the egg custard on the other hand calls for one who bakes his/her way to generosity. Be generous with the filling. We filled the crust until the egg filling itself leveled with the sides of the crust. Goodness and very luscious brulee we've ever had (Isn't this the first time we had Brulee's?). The full-fat dairy whipping cream and vanilla extract lends a great help, aiding to a very vanilla-ish and silky Creme' Brulee.

The burnt top, made out of burnt sugar or caramelized sugar brought in the extra ummph, which makes the Creme' Brulee tasted pretty good though it's partly cold. The caramelized top can be done by pointing the blow torch towards a pool of brown sugar sprinkled onto the Creme' Brulee's surface. Otherwise, you can caramelized the top by sprinkling a layer of brown sugar on its surface and then, bake the Creme' Brulee in the oven (set at 180"C, lay the Creme' Brulee on the highest rack possible). The mini Brulee's or shall we just name these babies as Creme' Brulee Tartlets, make it to the dinner table while it's half-cooled. Nothing much in comparison except for the caramelized sugar, these Creme' Brulees rocked the dinner tables for good.

Creme' Brulee (Yields: Two 6-inch Creme' Brulees)

For the Tart Crust:
100g butter
50g icing sugar, sieved
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 egg, beaten lightly (for the remaining beaten egg mixture, add into the filling later to avoid wastage)
200g all-purpose flour, sieved

1. With an electric mixer, beat butter, icing sugar and vanilla extract until creamy.
2. Add in the egg and mix until smooth. Add in flour and mix until well-blended.
3. Gather dough and wrap with a cling film. Set aside at a cool area while making the filling.

For the Filling:
4 large egg yolks
50g caster sugar
1/2 tablespoon custard powder, sieved
375g dairy whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. With a hand whisk, whisk egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl until pale yellow. Add in custard powder and mix until combined. Set aside.
2. In a medium saucepan, boil whipping cream over low heat. When it starts to boil, remove from heat. Gradually add in whipping cream into the egg mixture in a slow stream, while continuously whisking the mixture. Keep stirring until well blended.
3. Strain mixture into a clean saucepan. Stir with a wooden spoon over low heat until the mixture thickens. Remove pan from heat. Add in vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Let cool. This will be the filling for the Creme' Brulee.

To assemble:
Portion of tart crust
Portion of fillings
1/4 cup brown sugar
Baking beans (Red beans or green beans can even be used; for blind-bake)

1. Preheat oven to 190"C. Grease the 6-inch flan or pie moulds with melted butter.
2. Divide the pastry dough into two portion as you will need to lay the pastry dough onto 2 of 6-inch flan or pie moulds. Roll out the pastry with a rolling pin to about 2-3mm thick and line onto the pie moulds.
3. Prick the pastry with fork to release air bubbles. Line the pastry moulds with greaseproof paper and baking beans. Bake at preheated oven of 190"C for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and beans and bake for another 5 minutes. Set on wire rack and let cool.
4. Spoon the filling into the already baked pastry crust until the filling is leveled with the top sides of the pastry crust.
5. Refrigerate the tarts into the refrigerator for at least 5 hours, best for overnight.
6. Remove tart from from refrigerator. Sprinkle the brown sugar on th surface of the tart. Using a blowtorch, caramelize the sugar.
7. Refrigerate for extra 2 to 3 hours. Serve with a dollop of whipped cream and strawberry sauce to enjoy the euphoric moment.

Tattooed

2008-06-07T23:46:00.012+08:00

An Idea To Art
By R.L. Danner

As I walked my path through life
My body being my temple of ideas

I wanted to express myself, my own way

Walking into the shop that day

I found my expression waiting for me
Custom drawn just for me in black line art

I made my way into the studio in the back
My nerves dancing in my skin and mind

As I sat down in the chair I knew this was it
Forever in my skin it would lay

As the artist prepared the machines
I watched in awe of his precision and care

The time had come and that buzz and click began
My flesh was prepared to receive its gift
As the razor slid down my back I closed my eyes

It was time to lay the idea into my skin
With artist vision the hands and steel became one

Flowing over my back in defined motion
A picture became a living portrait of life
As the minutes passed I felt the ink be laid
Into my skin like a humming bird kisses a rose

When all was said and done I stood once more
This time to see my idea frozen in time

As a portrait of vision in my skin
Laid in brilliant color for the first time

Now I understand the meaning of a Tattoo

Model: Arisa
:)

Easy Breezy Chilled Lemon Cheesecake

2008-06-04T22:43:00.001+08:00

After rounds of bake sale which is mostly baked cheesecakes, we managed to steal time and came up with a chilled cheesecake (no baking/oven involved). As for the bake sales, we are now planning to venture into online bake sales, which is something we have planned months ago. To jump start the venture, we are now happily baking cakes, cheesecakes and tortes for try-outs besides than prep-ing the ready-made baked goods for a cheap photoshoot. May things go well, considering that we're great procrastinators.

As of the chilled cheesecake, we went back to the basics. How about a chilled lemon cheesecake, something simple and flavorful, we reckon? Speaking of the truth, we have always been alienating chilled cheesecakes especially the plain ones, as we find it rather disgusting due to the uninviting aroma of gelatine - think of liquid glue. Things are different when there are more flavorsome and appealing aroma that will overcome the gelatinous smell or best yet, empower the entire chilled cheesecake.

Since our helpers and the kids can be categorized as ardent lemon lovers, why not a chilled cheesecake flavored lemon? Though we would love to have a green tea infused chilled cheesecake at first. At least, the chilled lemon cheesecake will be wiped off clean from the serving plate just in 2 days compared to the green tea, thanks to the natural citrus flavor in lemons. Like how democratic countries worked, the majority wins. Green tea cheesecake will only cost us more leftovers and extra pounds as the intensified ones tasted rather bitter and smelt grassy.

The chilled lemon cheesecake tasted not as jelly-ish and gooey as we have already stereotyped on most chilled cheesecakes. The lemon flavor was just right, identifiable flavor which is not intensified. One of my helper, which is an even straight arrow person, claimed that it was a creamy cheesecake, and ended with a but. But. Here goes the usual but from her, which sometimes prickle us off. And that is what we wanted to hear, because there is always a room for improvement.

Pleased, and at the same time, confused, she mumbles as she was spooning the chilled cheesecake away from her serving bowl. Standing still impatiently as we waited for her to finish half of the serving slice, we stared foolishly at the sliced-up cheesecake. What is wrong with the chilled baby? Minds pondered. It's either the gelatine cum glue-ish aroma, or it might be the coarsely chopped lemon zests, we thought for awhile. We soon stared strangely back at her; one of our helper and asked for unravel reviews that she had planned to give us. "The lemon aroma was there, but I can hardly taste it".

That's it! The lack of lemon juice. Which brings us to a more subtle lemony cheesecake. It was quenchable and creamy, just like how texture of mousses are, with a hint of cream cheese. We doubled the digestive crust for the extra crunch, as to blend in with the mousse-like cheesecake. The topping were made out of lemon juice, water, gelatine, a tiny bit of sugar and yellow coloring - a jellified layer which looked pleasant and tempting on the chilled cheesecake.

Before the jellified layer was set, the arrangement of sliced lemon were aligned decoratively onto the surface of the cheesecake. The sliced lemon were somehow too sour and hard for human consumption. If there's another quickie to be done the next time, we will definitely forgo the lemon slices though the chilled lemon cheesecake looked simply divine with it.

Chilled Lemon Cheesecake

For the cheesecake:
300g digestive biscuit (we used McVities)
150g butter, melted
250g Philadelphia cream cheese, thawed at room temperature
1 egg yolk
1 egg white
80g caster sugar
1-1/2 tablespoon gelatine powder
3 tablespoon water
3 tablespoon lemon juice (we used 2-1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice, and thus the subtle cheesecake)
1 tablespoon lemon zest, finely grated
225g whipping cream (measured at 225g before whipping, whipped until firm peaks, let chilled)

1. Finely crushed biscuits - either with a rolling pin or a blender with sharp blades. Combine finely crushed biscuits with melted butter. Press into the base of a 8 inch round springform cake pan.
2. Using electric mixer, in a bowl, beat cream cheese until creamy and smooth. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Add in egg yolk and sugar. Beat until well combined. Set aside.
3. Mix gelatine with water in a small bowl. Stand the bowl in hot water until gelatine has dissolved (the mixture will look ooey gooey and sticky!)
4. Add the gelatine mixture into the cheese mixture. Mix well. Add in lemon juice and lemon zest. Mix until well combined.
5. Mix in whipped cream with a rubber spatula.
6. Beat egg whites until firm peaks formed. Fold gently into cheese mixture with a rubber spatula until well combined.
7. Pour mixture into prepared pan. Chill for about 2 hours before proceeding to the topping.

For the jelly topping:
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 teaspoon caster sugar
250g water
2 teaspoon gelatine powder

1. Mix all the ingredients above. Boil on a saucepan over low heat till sugar and gelatine powder dissolves. Remove from heat and let cool until slightly warm.
2. Pour onto cheesecake. Put into fridge and let to set. Happy baking!

Some blur poochie shots (dated months back) to indulged in. There's a huge difference in photo editing, which is pretty bad. Bear with us. ;)

A grown-up and untrimmed Miniature Schnauzer, with pepper coat.

Months-old young Miniature Schnauzer, yawning continuously during a cat nap.

A young Beagle posing macholy.

Beagle Pose.

Last shot of the young Beagle.
Enjoy! ;)

Banana + Toffee + Pie = Go Figure ;)

2008-06-02T03:56:00.003+08:00

Lo' and behold, our most unforgettable yet favorable sum of all; banana + toffee. You need to add, and please, do not subtract for the sake of the quote 'live to eat' in order to get the exact jargon that is implied in here. Now, do the math. Tell us, what can you conclude with the unresolved stated sum? A rather positive answer which we all would mostly agree and love to have during sugar high weekends? Or was it a negative account? You be the judge. It was decades ago since this combo flavor was invented; the bananas and the toffees. Partly dumb, we have always mistaken caramel for toffee and toffee for butterscotch, vice versa. Ever since we laid our eyes on the Toffee Sundae from McDonalds which has a blend of bananas and toffee sauce, we knew that there's no point of return. We need TOFFEE and BANANAS for brunch! And something tarty too!

So, let's settle down with the very delish mathematic equation;

Banana + toffee = Ban(offee) = Banoffi
Banana + toffee + pie = Banoffi Pie

That does make real sense. Banana and toffee, which will be called as one; Banoffi, when merging occurs. In case, one may wonder, who is the mastermind behind this particular heavenly creation with the luscious perfect combo? It is absolutely a bullseye, really did hit the nail on the head. The humble and generous man who has nailed the divine-looking Banoffi Pie was Ian Dowding, the man who we have no doubts that he's in the D.T.E category. D.T.E; which ambiguously stands for down to earth.

It was known that the the very first Banoffi Pie was served at The Hungry Monk in Jevington, East Sussex during the year 1972, and that was baby Banoffi's birthplace. From other sources that we found in the world wide web, it stated that the banoffi pie recipe was devised by Ian Dowding and Nigel MacKenzie.

From the article titled "I invented Banoffi Pie" by Ian Dowding, from July 2007's Reader's Digest, he said it is her sister who told him over the phone on the steps to making soft toffee by boiling a can of unopened condensed milk in water for several hours. From there, he resurrects Rusell's; Blum's Coffee Toffee Pie. With Nigel MacKenzie, they were on the hunt for a newer dimension of the toffee pie, trying out from apples to mandarins. They knew they had cracked the secret code when bananas were used. Thus, the invention and the crown.

We boiled around 3 cans of condensed milk for the toffees too, with the aid of Ian Dowding's Banoffi Pie recipe. The first can didn't make it (shot above). It was just too watery and light in presence, thanks to the young minds involved; who can't wait too much longer and claimed that they should go on with the can opener. The verdict; that is just so not the toffee that we wanted because the recipe has assured us that the consistency of the toffee will be something spreadable. We boiled for the extra 2 hours and things flowed smoothly thereafter. Lumpy and spreadable toffee in cans! Here's the way how the boiling method works, hailed from Ian Dowding's website.

Toffee (by Ian Dowding, from http://www.iandowding.co.uk/)
Ian Dowding: "Over the years I have become increasingly concerned about the danger of boiling cans of condensed milk. There is no danger of them exploding unless the water in the saucepan boils dry. If this does happen the result is terrifying and can scald anyone close to it. It has happened to me once and that was enough. Because I now teach and demonstrate a lot I like to make sure my instructions are safe so I have devised this method."

1. Find a deep saucepan or casserole that will go in the oven.
2. Put into it as many tins as will fit. (THE TINS MUST BE UNOPENED). It worth doing several at a time to save on power.
3. Cover the tins with water and bring to the boil.
4. Cover with a lid and transfer to the oven set to gas mark 1 / 140 C (less for fan assisted).
5. Cook for 3 ½ hours.
6. This way there is no danger of the water boiling dry and being in a more controlled temperature you get a more consistent result.
7. Lift the cans from the water, cool and store.
8. An unusual bonus comes from storing these tins over a period. After some months sugar crystals begin to form in the toffee and you get crunchy banoffi - mmmmm.

Banoffi Pie (by Ian Dowding, from http://www.iandowding.co.uk/)
You will need a 10 x 1½ inch (deep) loose bottomed flan tin
Oven temp: 180 C / gas mark 4

For the pastry:
250g / 9 oz plain flour
25g / 1 oz icing sugar
125g / 4½ oz butter
1 egg and 1 egg yolk

1. Place the flour and sugar in a bowl, cut the butter into cubes and then rub it in to the flour / sugar until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Work in the egg to form a paste.
2. Chill for half an hour then roll out to the thickness of a pound coin and line the flan tin.

3. Prick the base, line with parchment paper and weigh down with dry beans (we go full force with grains of rice)
4. Cook for fifteen minutes then remove the beans and paper.
5. Put the pastry case back into the oven and cook until it is evenly golden.
6. Remove from the oven and cool.

To assemble:
1 ½ tins of banoffi toffee (see note below on boiling the tins or click here)
5-6 ripe bananas
425 ml / ¾ pint of double cream
1 teaspoon of instant coffee
1 dessertspoon of caster sugar
A pinch of ground coffee

1. Carefully spread the toffee over the pastry base.
2. Peel and split the bananas lengthways and arrange them on top of the toffee, (see how they fit the curve of the pastry - that’s why God made bananas curved).
3. Whip the cream with the instant coffee (if they are granules they will dissolve as you whip the cream) and the sugar until it just holds its shape - take care not to over whip it.
4. Spread the cream over the bananas right up to the pastry edge then sprinkle sparingly with the ground coffee.
5. If you are not serving it immediately cover first with some baking parchment or greaseproof paper directly onto the cream and trim the edges then wrap in cling film.
6. It does not lend itself to being frozen.

The final outcome was a blast. Bananas will never (ever) go wrong with toffees. Speaking of the tart which is also known as the pastry itself, it remains its tartness though left overnight in the ice-cold refrigerator. It was slightly crunchy and dry, which blends in well with the fluffy yet pillowy coffee cream. The toffee was the sublime of the grand pie. This is definitely a keeper, the only thing that bugs us out is toffee-making, which takes time. But it was worth the time-consumption, as we are all toffee's die-hard fans. Divine and delicious, enough said. =)

The very last month, we hooked up with The Loaf's public favourites; U Hu! Hu! Cheesecakes. The cheesecakes were the latest sensation from Japan, and these lovely babies are now our latest BFFs. Ehem, doughnuts, cupcakes, anyone?!

It was worth buying, since we don't really go for wholesome cheesecakes. Light ones will just do more than enough. Each costs us RM5, and by purchasing 6 cheesecakes, you will only be paying for the price of RM25. Let's just put it this way, buy 5 free 1.

It was not as cheesy as we've expected, it tasted more like a light and fluffy cheese souffle which melts in your mouth. Something people would go for as refreshments, okay, maybe it's just us. We wanted more, but our bulging belly stopped us spiritually. We ordered 3 of the wide-range cheesecakes.

The cheesecakes on the display area were distracting, we can't stop drooling over the cash-counter. Gosh. We had a lemon cheesecake, chocolate cheesecake and the delished longan cheesecake.

Longan cheesecake (or was it lychee) was flavorsome and fluffy. The toasted almond flakes lend a great help by creating an addictive crunchy top for the pillowy soft cheesecake. The biscuit base was annoying as it kept falling onto the ground after one bite. Overall, we've gone u hu hu after downing the cheesecakes. Yum!

The Loaf (Pavilion Kuala Lumpur)
Lot 3.13.00 & 4.12.02,
Level 3 & 4 Pavilion,
Kuala Lumpur,
168 Jalan Bukit Bintang,
55100 Kuala Lumpur.

Plumped Plum Marries A Big Fat Tart

2008-05-30T19:54:00.001+08:00

Recently, we have been occupying most of our time collecting good reads, streaming the very talented and charming David Archuleta's performance cum shows and experimenting tarty bakes. Lives get busy and healthy (think of going for walks and jogs every other morning for 2 hours straight with the girls, and more trekking to come on weekends), updating blogs came off pretty infrequent, which is something bad, we reckon. Well, speaking of good reads, let's just forget about Danielle Steel, J.K Rowling, J.R.R Tolkien and Dan Brown this time, and hop onto the other genre which is very much related to the world of pastry and baking. For the record, we're still craving for Kim Young Mo's hard-to-get cookbook, after hustling all over the town's bookstore for a wider huntdown. Not getting Kim's winning cookbook was not as devastating as we would have predicted though, since other cookbooks came along at the very right time.

Most of our profit made from the sales of our cakes and cupcakes were happily exchanged with few other good reads - be it a local cookbook or one that's distributed internationally. And yes, we spent on one which we found it to be quite pricey (RM188), as we thought it was a steal since it was left alone in one piece, with no clones left; Pierre Herme's Chocolate Desserts. As we stroll along the aisle of the bookstores's bookshelves, we bumped into Daniel Tay's new book; Just Desserts and Other Baked Treats for the price of RM 88.80. Without hesitation, we grabbed along the 2 reads - what we would love to have in our personal bookshelves. We haven't had the time to lay our hands on any of Pierre Herme's recipes, unlike what we have already done on Daniel Tay's book. We must say that Daniel Tay's recipes came off pretty delicious. We've altered one of its tart by substituting apples with juicy red plums as we would love to have plum tart for brunch.

The original sable dough, which weighs in at 1.2kg was supposed to be the base for two 11-12 inches wide flan pan. We halved the dough recipe to spare extra cup of flour for the apple and plum cake. We have not heard of sable dough when it comes to tart-making, and efforts for spending on a bar of pure french butter didn't hurt much either as we totally agree that these are the best flavorsome melt-in-your-mouth tart that we've tasted. Unlike the very usual shortcrust tart, this has made a cut - think of melt-in-your-mouth butter shortbread which has a light crisp texture on the outside, fully engrossed with the aroma of pure unsalted butter. If you're eyeing for crusty and hard in texture tarts, Daniel Tay's sable dough tarts will not fulfill your request, but it will definitely made it into your baking wish list.

Wait! There's more plus point if we speak of the sable dough. We, basically don't fancy making pies and tarts as we find the sides of the tarts were usually messily trimmed and we were obviously disturbed by it; which looked unprofessionally done - or shall we say; unimpressive. It used to be an excuse to dodge request for tarts, but this ain't going to happen no more. The sable dough was perfect and less time consuming; no gentle hands were needed to smoothen out or trim the sides of the dough when it has been laid onto a tart or flan pan. It is easily handled since it is pliable and smooth, thus, small cracks can be hardly noticeable after side-trimming was done with a pastry cutter or even a knife.

The verdict of the tart; we would say the overall tart was indeed tasty. The fillings; which is known as almond cream in the book blends in well with the sable dough tart. Almonds and butter will come into our mind when this grand tart runs into our taste buds; which we find that is the two main flavor that plays a distinctive role in this tart itself.

The baked-in fruit toppings vary from pear to peaches, and not to be left out; plums! As for other options like strawberries, blueberries and raspberries; it will be laid onto the tart once the tart is fully baked - bake the tart with its fillings, let cool and topped with your choice of berries, brush with apricot glaze and serve.

Almond Plum Tart (Adapted from Daniel Tay's Just Desserts And Other Baked Treats)

Tart:
175g unsalted butter, barely thawed for about 10 minutes in room temperature
250g all-purpose flour, sifted
A tiny pinch of salt
100g icing sugar
35g finely grounded blanched almond
1 egg, medium-sized, lightly beaten

1. Cut butter into small cubes and place in a mixing bowl. Add flour, salt, icing sugar and almonds and mix with an electric mixer at medium speed to form a smooth dough.
2. Beat in eggs and mix on low speed until smooth.
3. Cover dough with cling film and refrigerate for 2-3 hours before using.

Almond cream:
125ml single (light) cream, leave to thaw at room temperature for 10 minutes before use
180g grounded almonds, finely grounded
30g corn flour, sifted
150g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
200g icing sugar, sifted
2 eggs, medium-sized
2 tablespoon rum liquor

1. Place almond, corn flour, butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat for about 8 minutes until batter is free from lumps.
2. Add in eggs one at a time to avoid batter being curdled. Beat until smooth. Add cream and rum and stir until smooth.

Assembly:
1 portion of tart (recipe above)
1 portion of almond cream (recipe above)
5 large plums, cored and thinly sliced into wedges form
Apricot glaze, for glazing

1. Preheat oven to 170"C
2. On a lightly floured surface, roll out sable dough into a 0.5 cm thick sheet, large enough to cover the base and sides of 12 inch tart pan. Line pan and trim edges to neaten.
3. Spoon in almond cream and spread cream out evenly with an angle palette knife.
4. Arrange wedged plums on top of the cream. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until the tart has turned golden brown. Remove from heat and set aside on wire rack to cool.
5. Brush the top surface with apricot glaze. Serve warm, best with a cup of freshly brewed unsweetened tea.

Just in case there are abundance of red juicy plums on the kitchen counter, fret not. Get down and dirty for the next baking session; which may sound like baking from scratch. A loaf of tea cake; which may sounded similarly to a plum cake.

We have stumbled upon Nigel Slater's plum cake recipe, from The Kitchen Diaries, and it was undoubtedly good, moist and refreshing. We altered the recipe a little by adding slices of apples on the top of the cake (that is how the lonely green apple ended its life, how sweet) and decrease the number of plums to 5.

Fresh Plum And Apple Cake (adapted from Nigel Slater's Fresh Plum Cake, The Kitchen Diaries)

75g butter
75g caster sugar
1 egg
35g all purpose flour, sifted
3/4 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
90g almongs, finely grounded
5 plums, stoned and cut into 1 inch cube
1 green apple, Granny Smith's, cored and cut into thin wedge slices

1. Preheat the oven to 180"C.
2. Line a loaf tin with baking paper. We used a loaf tin, which measures at 16cm x 6cm.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg. Fold in flour, baking powder and grounded almonds with a spatula. Fold in the plum pieces into the batter with the spatula.

4. Pour the batter into the loaf tin and arrange the sliced apples on top of the batter.
5. Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Remove from heat and cool slightly in the tin. When the cake is warm to touch, remove the cake from the tin and cool on wire rack. Serve warm with tea. Yield 6 slices.

Well, we now love brunch and tea-times.

Tr'opera: Tropical Opera Cake

2008-05-28T22:40:00.016+08:00

Our Daring Bakers Challenge #2

From the reference above, it seems that we have now proceeded to our second challenge of Daring Bakers. We are too happy for words and greatly satisfied with our 2nd challenge. The very 1st challenge that we have participated were Cheesecake Pops, and as of this month's challenge, it was our most fearful cake of all time, the Opera Cake. An Opera Cake, consisting of the main jaconde sponge, intensified flavorful syrup, buttercream, mousse, ganache and also glaze, with the usual rectangular shape as part of its identifiable features. We have always been keen to make perfect buttercream with only butter itself, and not buttercream which need to be folded with stiff egg whites. Speaking of the grand Opera cake, which involves jaconde, our unskilled physiques on whipping up a fluffy jaconde wasn't that good either. The last time we tried our hands on jaconde sheets, we ended up feasting on hard tuiles. Over baked, that might be the answer. Wait a minute, it might as well be over whipped egg whites since the batter had sunk quarterly after a few rounds of fold-cum-mix sessions with the rubber spatula. To bake or not to bake, that will be the question this time round.

The 2nd challenge was hosted by Lis and Ivonne, together with the other two newer members of DB; Fran and Shea. Baking an Opera Cake (which is originally made with chocolate, almond and coffee, with coffee buttercream) is kind of challenging, but baking an Opera Cake with light flavors and light colors (white chocolate, vanilla, lemon etc) is way upon challenging - which made this DB Challenge truly a challenge. On the same week itself, which is most probably the first week of the month of May, we sat and brainstormed the availability of flavors to be used to re-create the new Opera Cake quietly, right in front of our computer desk. Matching and pairing up the flavors was neither easy, the unsuitability of two distinctive and individual flavors might lead to bad repercussions; which spells opera cake disaster. We gathered resources and feedbacks from the kids. One suggested that the question should be served to Mom. And why Mom, we wondered for a while. Mother's Day's on the 12th of May, we were too old to be blamed - forgetfulness. That's it! Mom will then decides the flavor of this Opera Cake, specially created for her, with flavors quoted by herself.

Mom hinted that she would love to have a Mother's Day Cake which consists of real chunky hazelnuts to bite on, uber green kiwis to chowed on, white chocolate mousse to licked on and a refreshing cake which will take in passion fruit puree as well. That sounds interesting, think of bright colored fruits, well - think tropical! Thoughts of a soul which undoubtedly belongs to a novice baker whispered softly; that is a very daring move when it comes to a whole new creation of an opera cake. Daring, and our minds are mentally challenged.

The original opera cake recipe was based on Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets and Tish Boyle and Timothy Moriarty's Chocolate Passion. Alterations were made, starting off with the jaconde itself. The original jaconde calls for almond meal, but we go otherwise - hazelnut meal, since Mom does not favor almonds. We have made our very own hazelnut meal to substitute the almond meal.

Hazelnut meal in our local bakery store (Malaysia) was known as grounded hazelnuts and it is blended not as fine as what most hazelnut meal was.

For homemade hazelnut meal; blend a pack of hazelnuts by an electric blender while gradually adding teaspoonfuls of flour to avoid oily paste, and last but not least, sieved the finely blended hazelnuts by spoon-pressure through a flour sifter. Voila, hazelnut meal! Next up, the buttercream were infused with kiwi puree and passion fruit puree. On the other hand, the syrup was made out of honey with a hint of Australian wine.

As we were afraid that the tropical opera cake might taste too bland, the search for another tropical fruit as the cake's fillings were held. Ripened Alphonso mangoes goes in perfectly! We omitted the white chocolate mousse as there were excess of buttercream left in the refrigerator. The glaze was made out of white chocolate, and the temptation to brush on a thin layer of light green colored apricot glaze were done as well. As to finalize the Tropical Opera Cake as a product, slices of kiwis and halved mangoes were arranged on the surface of the cake. The recipe below will bring about 6 parts; hazelnut jaconde, honey syrup, kiwi and passionfruit buttercream, white chocolate glaze, mango cubes, and the way the cake being assembled.

Part One: Hazelnut Jaconde

(Note: The joconde can be made up to 1 day in advance and kept wrapped at room temperature)

6 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 tbsp. (30 grams) granulated sugar
2 cups (225 grams) ground blanched hazelnuts
2 cups icing sugar, sifted
6 large eggs
½ cup (70 grams) all-purpose flour
3 tbsp. (1½ ounces; 45 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1. Divide the oven into thirds by positioning a rack in the upper third of the oven and the lower third of the oven.
2. Preheat the oven to 425◦F. (220◦C).
3. Line two 12½ x 15½- inch (31 x 39-cm) jelly-roll pans with parchment paper and brush with melted butter.
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment (or using a handheld mixer), beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks. Add the granulated sugar and beat until the peaks are stiff and glossy. If you do not have another mixer bowl, gently scrape the meringue into another bowl and set aside.
5. If you only have one bowl, wash it after removing the egg whites or if you have a second bowl, use that one. Attach the paddle attachment to the stand mixer (or using a handheld mixer again) and beat the hazelnuts, icing sugar and eggs on medium speed until light and voluminous, about 3 minutes.
6. Add the flour and beat on low speed until the flour is just combined (be very careful not to over mix batter)
7. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the meringue into the almond mixture and then fold in the melted butter. Divide the batter between the pans and spread it evenly to cover the entire surface of each pan.
8. Bake the cake layers until they are lightly browned and just springy to the touch. This could take anywhere from 5 to 9 minutes depending on your oven. Place one jelly-roll pan in the middle of the oven and the second jelly-roll pan in the bottom third of the oven.
9. Put the pans on a heatproof counter and run a sharp knife along the edges of the cake to loosen it from the pan. Cover each with a sheet of parchment or wax paper, turn the pans over, and unmould.
10. Carefully peel away the parchment, then turn the parchment over and use it to cover the cakes. Let the cakes cool to room temperature.

Part Two: Honey Syrup
(Note: The syrup can be made up to 1 week in advance and kept covered in the refrigerator.)

½ cup (125 grams) water
⅓ cup (65 grams) granulated sugar
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons Australian wine

1. Stir all the syrup ingredients together in the saucepan and bring to a boil.
2. Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature.

Part Three: Kiwi & Passionfruit Buttercream
(Note: The buttercream can be made up to 1 month in advance and packed in an airtight container. If made way in advance, you can freeze the buttercream. Alternatively you can refrigerate it for up to 4 days after making it. To use the buttercream simply bring it to room temperature and then beat it briefly to restore its consistency.)

1 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
¼ cup (60 grams) water
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1¾ sticks (7 ounces; 200 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2 kiwis, pureed and strained through sift (juice wanted)
2 passionfruit, medium-sized, pureed ( juice wanted)

1. Combine the sugar, water and vanilla extract in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves.
2. Continue to cook, without stirring, until the syrup reaches 225◦F (107◦C) on a candy or instant-read thermometer. Once it reaches that temperature, remove the syrup from the heat.
3. While the syrup is heating, begin whisking the egg and egg yolk at high speed in the bowl of your mixer using the whisk attachment. Whisk them until they are pale and foamy.
4. When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature and you remove it from the heat, reduce the mixer speed to low speed and begin slowly (very slowly) pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl being very careful not to splatter the syrup into the path of the whisk attachment. Some of the syrup will spin onto the sides of the bowl but don’t worry about this and don’t try to stir it into the mixture as it will harden!
5. Raise the speed to medium-high and continue beating until the eggs are thick and satiny and the mixture is cool to the touch (about 5 minutes or so).
6. While the egg mixture is beating, place the softened butter in a bowl and mash it with a spatula until you have a soft creamy mass.
7. With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding in two-tablespoon chunks. When all the butter has been incorporated, raise the mixer speed to high and beat until the buttercream is thick and shiny.
8. At this point add in your kiwi juice and passionfruit puree. Beat for an additional minute or so.
9. Refrigerate the buttercream, stirring it often, until it’s set enough (firm enough) to spread when topped with a layer of cake (about 20 minutes).

Part Four: White Chocolate Glaze
(Note: It’s best to make the glaze right when you’re ready to finish assembling the cake.)

14 ounces white chocolate, coarsely chopped
½ cup heavy cream (35% cream)

1. Melt the white chocolate with the heavy cream. Whisk the mixture gently until smooth.
2. Let cool for 10 minutes and then pour over the chilled cake. Using a long metal cake spatula, smooth out into an even layer.
3. Place the cake into the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set.

Part Five: Mango Cubes
(Note: It’s best to cubed the mangoes before assembling started.)

5 large Alphonso mangoes

1. Peel the skin of the mangoes with a vegetable peeler.
2. Cut the mangoes with a knife in the size of 1 inch cubes.
3. Set aside.

Assembling the Opera Cake
(Note: The finished cake should be served slightly chilled. It can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 1 day).

Jaconde
Honey syrup
Kiwi and Passionfruit buttercream
Mango cubes
White chocolate glaze
Some light green colored apricot glaze (optional)
1 large Alphonso mango for decoration (optional)
2 large kiwis for decoration (optional)

1. Line a baking sheet with parchment or wax paper.
2. Working with one sheet of cake at a time, cut and trim each sheet so that you have two pieces (from each cake so you’ll have four pieces in total): one 10-inch (25-cm) square and one 10 x 5-inch (25 x 12½-cm) rectangle.
3. Place one square of cake on the baking sheet and moisten it gently with the honey syrup.
4. Spread about one-third of the kiwi and passionfruit buttercream over this layer.
5. Place half of mango cubes onto the buttercream.
6. Top with the two rectangular pieces of cake, placing them side by side to form a square. Moisten these pieces with the honey syrup.
7. Spread another third of the buttercream on the cake and spread remaining mango cubes on the cake.
8. Then top with the third square of jaconde. Use the remaining honey syrup to wet the jaconde. Spread the remaining buttercream on top of the final layer of jaconde and then refrigerate until very firm (at least half an hour).
9. Make the white chocolate glaze and after it has cooled, pour/spread it over the top of the chilled cake. Refrigerate the cake again to set the glaze.
10. Once set, lightly brush top of the glaze with the green colored apricot glaze. Topped the cake with sliced mangoes and sliced kiwis.
11. Serve the cake slightly chilled. This recipe will yield approximately 20 servings.

As for the leftover jaconde, we assemble 4 layers of jaconde brushed with honey syrup, with slices of kiwis in between of the kiwi and passsionfruit buttercream, and topped off with the white chocolate glaze. The other opera cake to date; a Kiwi Opera Cake! We feasted on this baby and was fully satisfied with the result. The buttercream was creamy and not overly sweet, and we recommend that the Opera Cake should be eaten at room temperature. Or maybe slightly cold.

After a bite out of the Tr'opera Cake (Tropical Opera Cake), we make comparisons and came to a verdict that the Tr'opera Cake tasted way better than the Kiwi Opera Cake. The very sweet and juicy Alphonso mangoes were addictive, which turns out to be the main attraction of the cake. After combining the three tropical fruits; mango, kiwi and passion fruit (which is also Mom's favorite), there was no doubt that the thirst-quencher cake tasted refreshingly luscious, best eaten in hot and humid weather. However, we will definitely increase the amount of whipping cream in the white chocolate glaze as many had told us that the glaze is too sweet. Oh, here goes the meassage; Happy Belated Mom's Day, Mom! And to all mommies out there!

Going Bananas Over Bananas

2008-05-11T23:40:00.002+08:00

Our evil eyes stare coldly at the almost-ripened bananas on the kitchen counter. We don't fancy almost-ripened ones when it comes to making banana bread or even banana cake, thus, we dump them into the refrigerator to further ripen the bunch of bananas that we have. Fully overripe; that's what we love to have our hands on. The darker and the browner the bananas are, the better the cake turned out to be. Cakes or breads baked using awfully dark brown (the best one were all blacks) and mushy bananas appear to be more good-looking, in terms of more refined banana strands can be seen, which we find it beautiful.

One do still wonder be it banana bread OR banana cake, both were almost the same. Almost, what say you? We can't even differentiate what's the difference and the unlikeliness between these two bakes; the refreshingly sexy and fancy banana cake and its handsome cum down to earth twin brother; the banana bread. Now, that's one shallow and ambiguous comparison to date. Simply, banana bread which is baked in a loaf pan, is in the middle of a bread and a cake texture with a low intensity of pure banana flavor. On the other hand, the banana cake is more to the crumbly side, most of the cakes were pretty-looking and sweet, which kids would love. We love to have both as they were great accompaniments to a hot cuppa.

As for the past week, we rendered into dozens of Cavendish bananas to enjoy the very well-defined banana week. Packed with extra calories and a few extra pounds, we wouldn't mind either since we were then crazy over bananas - especially caramelized bananas and banana milk shakes.

We were thinking, since it was a balmy banana week, participating NQN's Banana Bread Bakeoff Event will be fun and definitely motivating. It can keep track of where all the black bananas have gone to, while sparing us extra reasons to bake more banana breads and even cakes. After the banana week were all over, our bleary red eyes paid off as we were about to post three adapted recipes, hailing from various sources; banana bread with caramelized walnuts and caramel icing from Ma, up-side down banana cake from Women's Weekly, and last but not least, a loaf of simple yet refreshing banana and coconut bread adapted from a local cookbook; which is Delicious Cakes by Amy Heng.

The outcome was a blast-off. We totally had fallen for Ma's not too sweet caramelized walnuts and the moist banana cake itself, and also the upside-down banana cake. As for Ma's banana cake, we were very lucky to stumble upon her very own piece of cookbook - full of comprehensive written notes and recipes that were meant to be the family's favorite. As the bread was moist, soft in texture and pleasant-tasting, it was a definite keeper. As for the not-too-sweet caramel icing, it blended well with the bread as it was a softer icing. The caramelized walnut lends a big help of crunchiness to the entire bread. The banana bread can go with or without the icing and caramelized walnuts, but be sure to take a sip of a just-brewed hot cuppa for the extra umphh.

Ma's Banana Bread with Caramelized Walnuts and Caramel Icing

For the banana bread:

125g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
280g caster sugar
2 medium eggs, lightly beaten with a fork
2 cups of mashed overripe bananas
1/3 cup fresh milk (mix with 1 teaspoon of lemon juice or white vinegar and set aside for 10 minutes)
2 cups of all-purpose flour, sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
pinch of salt

1. Prepare all the ingredients at room temperature. Preheat oven at 175"C or 350"F.
2. Grease and lined parchment paper into a loaf pan; 9x5 inches.
3. In a medium bowl with electric mixer of a whisk attachment, beat butter and sugar for about 3 minutes till light and creamy. While the mixer is still creaming the butter mixture, gradually add in the eggs and continue mixing to avoid curdling. Add in the mashed bananas and mix till incorporated.
4. In another small bowl, mix sifted flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside. This will be the flour mixture.
5. Fold in the half of the flour mixture into the batter, followed by half of the milk, until combined. Scrape the bowl. Fold in the remaining flour mixture and the remaining milk into the batter. Fold until the batter is smooth.
6. Pour mixture into prepared pan and bring into the preheated oven. Bake for about 30 minutes where the surface of the bread will be golden brown or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the bread.
7. Cool bread in tin for about 5 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack. While cooling, proceed to the icing and caramelized walnuts, which is optional. (recipe below)

For the caramelized walnuts:

1/3 cup water
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup walnuts, coarsely chopped

1. Combine the sugar and water in a medium, heavy based saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and let the mixture come to boil. Boil for 10 minutes, occasionally swirling the liquid around the saucepan. When the caramel mixture has turned dark brown, remove from the heat.
2. Quickly mix in the walnuts into the caramel and toss the walnuts until coated evenly. Spoon the caramelized walnuts onto the surface of the cooled banana bread.

For the caramel icing:

1/4 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup brown sugar

1. Combine the sugar and whipping cream in a medium, heavy based saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and let the mixture come to boil. Boil for 2 to 3 minutes. Keep stirring with a wooden spoon, until the mixture had turned golden brown. The mixture will be soft and slightly thick. Remove from heat and stir the icing continuously until warm to touch.
2. Pour the icing onto the bread. Allow to cool.

Caramel and now what? The other banana baked goods winner was the upside-down TOFFEE banana cake from Women's Weekly. Toffee is sure to made us all go happy, as we are caramel and toffee fanatics. With slices of bananas and soft toffee as toppings, it was indeed sinful. Not very rich but still, sinfully tasty.

The cake was not as sweet as we have expected and our helpers convinced us that this upside-down cake is better than any upside-down cake that we have approached. It was very light and fluffy. Slices of bananas were laid onto the surface to enhance the distinctive banana flavor. After the cake was left for days, the top becomes pudding-like texture. So, gobble down everything as it is best eaten on the day it was baked. In this cake, vegetable oil was used instead of cubes of unsalted butter.

Upside-Down Toffee Banana Cake (adapted from Women's Weekly; Best Food Desserts)

1 cup (220g) caster sugar
1 cup (250ml) water
2 medium bananas (400g), sliced thinly
2/3 cup (160ml) vegetable oil
3/4 cup (165g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup (100g) plain flour
1/3 cup (50g) self-raising flour
2 teaspoons mixed spice (we substituted with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon powder)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup overripe mashed bananas

1. Preheat oven to 180"C. Grease deep 22cm round cake pan; line base with baking paper.
2. Stir caster sugar and the water in a medium saucepan over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves; bring to a boil. Boil, uncovered, without stirring, about 10 minutes or until caramel in color. Pour toffee into prepared pan; top with sliced bananas.
3. Combine eggs, oil, brown sugar and extract in a medium bowl. Stir in sifted dry ingredients, then mashed bananas; pour mixture into prepared pan. Bake, uncovered, in preheated oven about 40 minutes. Turn onto wire rack, peel off baking paper; turn cake top-side up. Serve cake warm or at room temperature with thick cream, if desired.

The last banana baked good was the Banana and Coconut Bread, for the ones who like it plain. The bread was not as moist as Ma's Banana Bread. This might be the pure banana bread; drier, less crumbs and denser; a basic recipe from Amy Heng's Delicious Cakes. It was plain and we would like to stress on the importance for a hot cuppa to go along with this bread. Besides, this bread itself calls for corn oil, banana essence and ovalette or emulsifier; a thick light orange gel.

However, alterations were made by adding 1/2 cup of dessicated coconut and 1 cup of 1/2 inch cubed bananas. Cubed bananas were incurred to moisten the bread as we prefer moister ones. Besides, these chunky cubed bananas made good surprises in a loaf. Omit the cubed bananas if you prefer having a simple yet light banana bread. The original recipe do also call for evaporated milk, which lends a pleasant aroma to the bread. We also stick to the original recipe by not substituting the ripe bananas with the overripe ones. It will yield 2 loaves of banana bread though.

Banana and Coconut Bread (adapted from the original recipe of Amy Heng's Banana Bread)

5 eggs
15g ovalette or emulsifier
230g caster sugar
170ml corn oil
230g cake flour, sifted
1 teaspoon double-action baking powder, sifted
250g ripen bananas, mashed
60g evaporated milk
1 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
1 teaspoon banana essence
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
1 cup of 1/2 inch cubed bananas

1. Line and grease two 9 inches rectangular pans.
2. Preheat oven at 180"C.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs, ovalette and sugar at a high speed until light and fluffy.
4. Gradually beat in the oil, flour and baking powder at low speed until just incorporated.
5. Scrape the sides of the bowl and add in mashed bananas, evaporated milk, baking soda and banana essence. Mix until combined.
6. Fold dessicated coconut and cubed bananas with a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour into two prepared pans. Bake for 55-60 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the middle of the bread. Cool cake on wire rack before turning onto serving tray.

Happy baking and Happy Ma's Day!

Rice Krispies : The Rich Or The Delicate?

2008-05-03T00:02:00.002+08:00

Rice krispie were some what new to us. Love the cushy popping sound that rice krispie make though. Most of us here do not really enjoy cumbersome procedures and instructions, mainly when it's coming from book recipes. We do think that rice krispie bars are too complicated to be done; the inner soul of a novice baker convinced us that it is. Surprisingly, it took us about an hour plus to get 2 trays of rice krispie bars - proven that rice krispie bars ain't that troublesome. Strolling down one of the aisle of a nearby bakery mart, we were stupefied and dumbfounded when we saw the price tag of a huge pack of rice krispie, let's say 500g in weight for just RM3.80. It was a steal, definitely cheaper than what we have thought. Out of curiosity, we've spent on a pack of it. At least, just if lady luck and the kitchen god aren't with us, the ruined and disastrous rice krispie bars will only cost us a few penny. It is money, but the highs and lows are the one that counts. Toying around with rice krispie bars during bored weekends, what's not to be excited about?

As 500g of plain rice krispie are considered as abundant compared to most of the recipes we've gotten, we go full force with two different rice krispie recipes for the sake of wiping all of the krispie out of our food cabinet. The first batch of rice krispie dawdled around in the line for Chocolate and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars. It was a pure crowd-pleaser and a definite keeper. Our dead beat faces were all enliven after ONE bite. Chewy, with a perfect blend of peanut butter and chocolate chips, it can't be wrong! It was really good. Hands down, as words can't enlighten how great these krispie bars tasted. Stumbled upon the lord of sugary dessert which is Chocolate and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars recipe from Monkey Eat Food. The original recipe was known that it was from How It All Vegan Cookbook and it can be found from Monkey Eat Food. We altered the recipe a little as we found out that sprinkling the chocolate chips layer by layer will be less messy and the intention for licking the wooden spoon will be less encouraged. In addition, we have added a coat of chocolate frosting on the surface of the rice krispie bars to fulfill our sugar-high pulses.

Chocolate And Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars (adapted from How It All Vegan)

1 cup sugar
1 cup corn syrup or brown rice syrup
1 cup creamy peanut butter
6 cups Rice Krispies or puffed rice cereal of your choice
2 cups chocolate chips
125g dark chocolate
2 tablespoons butter

1. In a small saucepan on medium heat, mix together the sugar and syrup until hot and bubbly.

2. Remove from heat and add the peanut butter; stir in together until well mixed.

3. Pour the puffed rice or rice krispies into a large bowl. Stir in the peanut butter mixture and mix together well with a large wooden spoon until combined. The rice krispies will be coated evenly with the peanut butter mixture.

4. Pour half of the mixture into a 9x13-inch or 8x14-inch pan and press flat with the wooden spoon. Sprinkle 1-1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Pour the remaining mixture and press flat with the wooden spoon. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of chocolate chips. Press flat with wooden spoon so that the rice krispie bars have a leveled surface. Place the rice krispie bar with the pan intact on wire rack to cool while proceeding to the frosting-making.

5. For the frosting, melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler over barely simmering water, without touching the water. Stir until combined. Quickly pour onto the rice krispie bar. Let cool for 1 hour on wire rack before cutting into squares.

6. Cut into dainty 2-inch blocks with a sharp knife as these bars are super rich. Enjoy!

Next up in line; White Chocolate And Rosewater With Pistachio Rice Krispie Bars. We tried to toy around with the original white chocolate rice krispy bars by infusing rosewater extract into the white chocolate frosting and adding pistachios into the bars itself. Compared to the Chocolate and Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Bars, the white chocolate bar is more crunchy and less chewy. The pistachio nuts were lightly toasted to garner a fresher-tasting bar. Pairing up with the rosewater infused white chocolate frosting, it's a great combo to play with. Snapping off the white chocolate bar while digesting the previous chocolate bar were unforgettable, as the white chocolate bar is pleasant-tasting and light in flavor, while the chocolate bar is super rich. Yin and yang - perfect balance.

White Chocolate And Rosewater With Pistachio Rice Krispie Bars

3/4 cup (180 ml) sweetened condensed milk
280g (10 oz) white chocolate, chopped finely
2 tablespoons butter, softened at room temperature
2 cups rice krispies
1 cup pistachios, lightly toasted and coarsely chopped
1/2 teaspoon rosewater extract
125g (4 oz) extra white chocolate, chopped finely

1. Grease a 9x9 inch square pan with vegetable oil.
2. Place condensed milk into a medium saucepan. Heat over low heat for 5 minutes, stirring continuously. Stir in the 280g white chocolate and butter, keep stirring until the mixture is smooth and incorporated. Remove from heat.

3. Mix the rice krispies and pistachios in a large bowl. Pour the white chocolate mixture into the rice krispies and pistachios. Mix with a wooden spoon until the rice krispies are coated evenly with the white chocolate mixture. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan. Level the surface by using the wooden spoon to flatten the surface. Set aside on a wire rack.

4. For the frosting, melt the 125g white chocolate in a double boiler over barely simmering water, without touching the water. Stir until smooth. Add the rosewater extract into the melted white chocolate. Pour onto the rice krispie bar. Let cool and let the white chocolate to set for about 30 minutes on wire rack before cutting into squares. It makes about 20 squares. Happy baking Krispies!

The Apple Pie Fantasy

2008-05-02T00:29:00.002+08:00

Have been tempted into baking pies lately, and we thought, why not an apple pie since apples and pie tarts are one perfect match made from the worthy dessert heaven. We WILL definitely starve the whole day just to grab a bite out of the to-die-for apple pie. That will probably be one halcyon moment that we would love to have. Our ideal and perfect apple pie, which is still no where to be found, is one with loads of medium cooked apples and caramel filling, encased by a very buttery layer of flaky crust (of fat lard), topped with a streusel-like flavored cinnamon top-crust. Last but not least, home-churned creamy vanilla ice cream to top the good-looking hot pie; that's basically a great apple pie to die for. If that is what a good ole apple pie ought to be, perhaps, opting for Emeril Lagasse's recipe will do us something good. After googling and checking around in Emeril's cookbook, it seems that we must spend on dozens of granny smith's apples in order to try Emeril's variations of apple pie. The notable celebrity chef has came up with recipes like Big Apple Pie, Apple-Raspberry Crisp with Oat Topping and also, the simple Apple Pie with Lard Crust. Definitely will work our hands on Emeril's apple pie soon, as the recipe's name itself sounded tempting.

As for our previous attempt on an apple pie recipe, we hooked up with the Apple-Caramel Crumb Pie from a book titled 500 pies & tarts, written by Rebecca Baugniet, from PageOne. Love the book as we are given variety of alternatives and ideas to revamp and alter the original recipe. We garnered juicy red apples and a tub of finely milled cinnamon from a nearby mart for the luscious apple pie. Rebecca Baugniet's apple-caramel crumb pie consists of thick chunky red apples coated in caramel and topped with streusel-crumbs. Before starting off with the apples, the crust were kneaded and lined onto a 9.5 inches of pie dish. We opted for two pie dishes; measuring at 5 inches each, because we were dying to see how a flat surface and crumbly surface of an apple pie would affect the appearance of the entire apple-caramel crumb pie.

Apple-Caramel Crumb Pie (adapted from Rebecca Baugniet, of 500 Pie & Tarts)

For the basic crust (for a 9.5 inch pie dish)

140g (5 oz) plain flour (sifted)
Pinch of salt
60g (2 oz) cold vegetable shortening (cut into 1-inch cubes)
60g (2 oz) cold unsalted butter (cut into 1-inch cubes)
1/2 large egg (lightly beaten)
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 tablespoon ice-cold water
Extra flour to flour surface
One 9.5 inch (24 cm)pie dish
Rolling pin

1. Combine the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add the vegetable shortening and butter to the flour mixture. Using a pastry blender or two knives in a criss-crossing motion, blend the butter and shortening into the flour mixture until it has a consistency of damp sand, with a few pea-sized pieces of butter and shortening remaining.
2. In a small bowl, beat the egg with the vinegar and water either with a fork or a wire whisk. Slowly pour egg mixture over the flour, stirring only the mixture is moist. The dough should stick together and be able to hold the form of a ball.
3. Wrap the dough in a plastic wrap and smoothen the ball of dough with a rolling pin so it forms a flat disc that fills the corners of the plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of half an hour.(If it has been chilled for a long time, it may need to soften slightly by placing it in a room temperature before use.)
4. To roll out the crust, unwrap plastic and place on a lightly floured surface. Roll the dough from the centre of the disc to the edge, until the crust is the desired thickness. (usually 1/8 inch or 3mm in thickness.) If the dough is sticking on the rolling pin, try placing a sheet of plastic wrap over it and then rolling it out. Remove the plastic wrap and transfer the crust into the 9.5 inch pie dish by rolling it onto the rolling pin and then positioning it over the pie dish. If the crust is sticking to the rolling surface, carefully separate it by sliding a sharp knife or metal spatula between the crust and the rolling surface. Carefully press the dough into the pie dish. If any cracks appear during the transfer, use lightly floured fingers to push the seams back together.
5. Crimp the edge decoratively and chill in the refrigerator.

For the fillings

8 cooking apples (we used red and juicy apples, apples are peeled, cored and sliced into 1 inch cubes)
35g (1-1/4 oz) flour
280g (10 oz) granulated sugar
60ml (4 tablespoon) water
3 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2 tablespoon water, extra

1. Preheat the oven to 190"C or 375"F.

2. Place the apple cubes in a large bowl with the flour. Toss the flour and apple cubes to coat evenly. Set aside.

3. Combine the granulated sugar and 4 tablespoons of water in a medium, heavy-based saucepan. Stir over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and let the mixture come to the boil. Boil for 10 minutes, occasionally swirling the liquid around the saucepan. When the caramel mixture has turned dark brown, remove from the heat. (We've burnt our caramel mixture and the outcome was the full flavor of bitterness. Hence, before the mixture turns into dark amber, quickly remove from heat and keep swirling the liquid around the pan. The mixture will slowly turns into amber while undergoing the process of cooling off.)

4. Warning: Overcooking caramel mixture will result in tough and hard caramel candy when the caramel mixture cools off to room temperature.
5. After cooling the caramel mixture for a few minutes, add in 3 tablespoons of unsalted butter and the extra 2 tablespoons of butter; swirl the liquid and combine. Return to the heat and stir until smooth. Pour the caramel over the apples and toss with metal spatula to coat evenly. Set aside for 10 minutes, while the apples release its juices.

For the streusel topping

100g (3-1/2 oz) plain flour
55g (2 oz) light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (the original recipe calls for 1/2 tsp, but we've choose to have 1 tsp instead)
pinch of nutmeg
pinch of salt
6 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened at room temperature

1. To prepare topping, combine the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl.
2. Using your fingers, rub the butter into the flour mixture until large clumps form. Set aside.

To assemble

1. To assemble the pie, remove the crust from the refrigerator.

2. Spoon the caramel-apple mixture into the pie crust.

3. Sprinkle the streusel topping or crumble over the apples. You can also smoothen the streusel out (picture on the left) if you prefer over the sprinkling method (picture on the right). We are quite fickle-minded. Thus, we chooses the smoothen and sprinkling method since we have 2 mini apple pies.

4. Bake the pie for 1 hour or until the apples are soft and the crumb topping is golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

The apple-caramel crumb pie is best served with a scoop of home-churned pure vanilla ice cream, which equals perfecto. The streusel topping was so good as it's crunchy and sweet, filled with a hint of cinnamon. The filling - the caramel lends a great distinctive flavor to the not-too-soft and juicy apples, which blends in well just fine. The crust was not as flaky as what we have expected for; it was a bit to the moist side. One can gobble down the entire apple pie from the top to the bottom of the crust as the caramel and the streusel topping were addictive. The quest for the hunt of a perfect apple pie is still on the run. Emeril Lagasse's will be next!

Cheesecake Pops: When Cheesecake Falls For Lolly Sticks

2008-04-30T19:59:00.000+08:00

Our Daring Bakers Challenge #1

This post should be posted up right on the 27th of April, which is Sunday and shoot, we've just managed to get the baked goods done on the day before. And these dainty looking miniature Popsicles were all gone the next day after. That was fast. Without hesitation and worries for contributing excess calories into our body system, we've grab a few sticks to kick start our pulses. It WAS as good and delish as it claimed to be.

Procrastinating is killing us, and we have just thought it over; well, better late than never. Though we were 3 days late for posting this up. We're very determined now; as this is our first Daring Bakers Challenge to be. Our very first task is cheese on sticks; which were called as Cheesecake Pops to other bakers.

Daring Bakers (DB) Challenge for the month of April; Cheesecake Pops from a dessert cookbook titled "Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey", written by Jill O'Connor. April's DB Challenge were hosted by Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasm and Deborah from Taste And Tell. We were totally excited as it was our first DB challenge. Enthusiastically joyful when the lip smacking cheesecake pops were done.

Days before the big day (of messing around in the kitchen), we were strolling around the city in the hope of getting ourselves a humongous packet of lollipop sticks. From bakery stores to big marts, none were to be found. Alas, after searching for days, we've gave up and get down and dirty with a chock full of lean wooden sticks. Let's say, skewers, which were made out of wood or may be bamboo. Each and every single stick were measured and cut into a length of approximately 3.5 inches. We hate to say this, but many were dumped into the bin due to the icky splinters, frustrating. Very frustrating.

Cheesecake Pops (Yields: 30 – 40 Pops)

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature

2 cups sugar

¼ cup all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

5 large eggs

2 egg yolks

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

1. Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.
3. Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.
4. Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

5. When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet.

6. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

7. When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety.
8. Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.
9.Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionery chocolate pieces) as needed.
10. Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

We took more than stated, to bake the cheesecake. An hour plus. We covered half of the pops with white chocolate while the remaining was covered in dark chocolate. A mix of shortening blends perfectly into the chocolate-dipping pool, where chocolate were easily set once the cheesecake pops had finished swimming and swirling. Toppings were sprinkled onto the pops before the chocolate has set entirely. A block of Polytherene was used as to keep the cheesecake pops in an upright position to let the pops set properly. We were afraid that the toppings on the half-set pops might fall off if they were laid onto the tray - lined parchment paper. Toppings include toasted almond flakes, finely milled digestive biscuits, finely milled black sesame and colorful hundreds and thousands.

Since we have some chocolate as leftovers, it was then melted and piped onto the cheesecake pops. A cute-looking rodent was created. A female rodent with a rose bud on its ear, to be exact.

The other two came along; a pooch and a cold fat lard; a piggy. Poor quality shots, because we were in a hurry. The verdict; the cheesecake pops were creamy and its luscious cheese filling is the star in its own form. It may looked unimpressive, but taste wise, the kids are giving in their two-thumbs up.

MADtv : The Funnier Version Of Hit Series

2008-04-21T18:49:00.000+08:00

Stumbled upon MADtv, a sketch comedy series based on the latest hit series, after the urge to google for the trailers for Finishing The Game in YouTube. It really kills one's boredom and let's just put it this way, it's the best antidote for curing one's boredomness. It was funny and that's how we like it. Something that we would love to watch every Saturday night - with fizzy Cola and homemade caramelized popcorns. The slow-streaming was worth the waiting though. That's how part of our holidays were spent. Despite of the low-rate streaming, well, it features the comedic version of television hit series like Heroes, Korean drama series and American Idol. Even Spielberg's movie, Memoirs Of The Geisha was not left behind too. The idea was brilliant and to cut things short - one will either in the state of LOL, ROFL, ROFLMAO or LMAO. We were too. Do look out for the amusing Asian Americans in there - the very comical Bobby Lee and Sung Kang. Happy watching and streaming!

MADtv: Heroes

MADtv: Memoirs Of A Geisha

MADtv: Korean Drama Series With Bobby Lee & Sung Kang (Part 1)

MADtv: Korean Drama Series With Bobby Lee & Sung Kang (Part 2)

MADtv: Korean Drama Series With Bobby Lee & Sung Kang (Part 3)

MADtv: Korean Drama Series With Bobby Lee & Sung Kang (Part 4)

MADtv: American Idol With Bobby Lee

MADtv: High School Musical

The Return To Aussieland

2008-04-16T23:18:00.000+08:00

Much loved relatives from Aussieland had came to Malaysia, last month to pay grandma and all of the Wong's a visit. There were Uncle Richard, Aunt Liz and the other two young entertainers; Adam and Erica. The days spent was well-worth and memorable, especially with long-distance relatives which were closely related.

Had great fun with the two young adults; Adam and Erica. We do realized how old we were getting when we were with them - with the gap of 10 years. Both were the ones who entertained us and the pooches as well. Well, as we're typing this, Erica reminded us of a game pata pata pon and bee hives. On the other hand, Adam, with his groovy and relentless dance moves.

Futsal matches were held and the match itself might seems to be a little quirky, because dad was part of the players as well. It was funny and at the same time, an enjoyable match to date. One match that my aunts and us all would look forward to. The boys were having a blast on that night, no doubt. And we were surprisingly entertained, it was a fun outing nonetheless.

Having the time to bake some cupcakes though finals is just days ahead, little did we know that Erica do bakes and pipes too. Thus, the remaining mini chocolate cupcakes were left untouched. The untouched were then decorated and piped with colored buttercream - personally by Erica. While the other moist chocolate cupcakes were topped with Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Malteser Cake icing, and hence, the invention of the malted cupcakes.

The icing were malty and smooth, which goes well with any cupcake flavor for the matter. Paired up with the kids favorite moist chocolate cake , and voila - something new. Though the malty buttercream does not taste as chocolatey as we all have expected, it does really come off as a definite keeper for our up-coming cupcaking session.

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Malteser Cake's Icing (From Feast)

250g icing sugar
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
45g Horlicks powder
125g softened unsalted butter
2 tablespoons boiling water

* For the ones with processor: Put the icing sugar, cocoa, and Horlicks, in the processor, and blitz to remove all the lumps. Add the butter and process again. Stop, scrape down and start again, pouring the boiling water down the funnel with the motor running till you have a smooth buttercream.
* We were keen on using the electric mixer, hence, for the ones with electric mixer: Beat the softened butter until pale yellow in color in a medium bowl. Sift all the dry ingredients; icing sugar, cocoa powder and Horlicks powder, and add into the butter. Continue beating with the electric mixer. Scrape down and beat again for 8 to 10 minutes. Scrape down the cream from the sides of the bowl. Beat again, while mixing, add in the boiling water. Mix till incorporated or smooth at high speed - almost 5 minutes. Buttercream is ready to be used.

The buttercream was yummy. And shall we add in; glossy. Topped off the moist chocolate cake with a swirl of malted buttercream and dusted off with cocoa powder. The last attempt was the decors - decorated with cookie crispies. Cheap-skate-looking but all in all, the buttercream was the headline of the day.

So wanted to top each and every cupcake with a Malteser, but much were gone into the other cake; Strawberry And Maltesers Cake. Since we have quite an amount of edible roses; molded from dark chocolate, the intention to top the remaining frosted cupcakes were highly encouraged.

As for the Strawberry and Maltesers cake, it was a 3-inches tall cake with 2 layers of moist chocolate cake and a layer of vanilla sponge cake filled with maltesers, strawberry slices and cream chantilly. And lastly decorated with toasted halved pistachios and strawberries. The cake was generally part of Erica's idea. The voice of a young and up-coming baker. We were amused by her choice; why maltesers, strawberries and chocolate cake? Was told by her that she loves strawberries and maltesers. It would be a great combo we bet!

Everyone loves maltesers. Well, who doesn't? The outcome of the cake turned out to be good. We're happy for the reviews that we've gotten. Some say that it tasted something like a Black Forest Cake, the only difference is the fruits incurred.

Overjoyed that bad comments failed to exist on that particular day. Good reviews do please us in every way, and we love comments and reviews. Highly appreciated! Now, at least, Erica has proven to us once again that part of her soul belongs to the kitchen. (*Grin*)

These much-loved people flew back to Aussieland on the first week of April. No doubt, we miss them soooooo much. Erica, if you're reading this, Uncle David wanted to say HI TO OBEAST. Take good care and may god blesses you guys in Aussieland. Xoxo.

Speaking of the very well-known Aussieland, which partly one of the preferable educational hub in the nation, there was once a special request for an airplane cake with Australia's flag from a dear friend. Was also informed that it was a gift to a girl which will be setting off to Aussieland soon, for furthering her studies. Dear friend insisted having the cake in 2D as 3D airplane cake will be time-consuming and troublesome. The thought of baking a 3D cake kept bugging the mind of one who've always had the intention to mold a 3D model out of a cake. Thus, came to a great conclusion, with a favored win-win situation, to 2.5D; which is an airplane cake that does look like one in some perspectives.

The request sounded simple and just right, an airplane cake with durian mousse and cream chantilly as the frosting - buttercream, marzipan and sugarpaste are definitely not welcomed in warmth. Mind kept wondering, if there's a need for a 3D mousse cake that needs to be frosted with sweetened whipped cream and refrigerated as it's filled with durian mousse, is there any possibility that the so-called airplane cake can be molded smoothly into a 3D piece of art? Plus, is there any chances that the set-up cake will melt and fall off into big chunky airplane-parts since the weather here is undeniably hot and warm. Can the airplane cake withstand the heat if chantilly cream were used?

We googled for reliable sources and information, none were applicable and mostly, fondant or our least favorite food of all, sugarpaste were highly recommended for most 3D cakes. To hell with it, we tried our hands on the chantilly cream. Crossed fingers were there all the time, and we remember that getting a smooth finish on the cake's surface was very stressful but fun; in a challenging way. First off, to kick start things, we baked the vanilla sponge and whipped up the durian mousse the day before - this includes the assembling of sponge layers and mousse into 2 square springform pan. We also molded the Australia flag, windows and logo for the airplane with colored white chocolate, since sugarpaste/marzipan/fondant were not in favor.

On the next day, the cakes were taken out from the fridge and from the springform pan. Then, the cutting and arrangement begins. We do not remember the details of how we got the shape of the airplane, but there's this tutorial which we found it really helpful when it comes to making a 2.5D airplane cake. 2.5D? Hmm... We've started off with crumb coat which is the first coating, with cream chantilly. Back to the freezer (not the fridge) for setting up period - almost 30 minutes. Then, here goes the second coat - with generous amount of cream chantilly to cover the imperfection and unfavorable flaws. Back to the freezer for 30 minutes again.

For the entire coating process, we tried to be very patient and at the same time, gentle. Then, after setting up for 30 minutes (approx) in the cool freezer, we smoothened the airplane surface with long spatula - that was the time when we got all stressed up. After a long hour, we proceeded to the molded from white chocolate's pieces.

The logo were adhered onto the airplane's tail, while the Aussie flag were placed onto the top of the tail. The Grey windows were placed onto the place that they should be in. Then, the piping of a pink fine line were piped in a horizontal line on the airplane's body. The remaining cream chantilly were tinted with blue coloring and piped with rounded tip nozzles to resemble the puffy looking clouds.

We were told to pipe the word "One yatch wind smooth" onto the 2.5D airplane cake. After everything were done, we quickly bring the fragile 2.5D airplane into the fridge. The good news was we got great reviews about the airplane cake. And now, the bad news, the airplane's tail had slipped off, might be the softened chantilly cream since the cream started to melt when it was exposed in room temperature. As for us, we might try our luck using buttercream the next time - for a change. And here's the 3D airplane cake tutorial; click here.

The Mohawked Alien

2008-04-09T21:35:00.000+08:00

As we're typing this, we're kind of frustrated over Picasa Web Album for letting us down once more. We have been uploading the similar shot to this blog, over and over again. Sad to say, we uploaded the lost shots once more, but to no avail. We convinced ourselves, maybe it might be our PC; got laggy when the transference of uploading images were in the mid of the process. Or maybe, it's Streamxy. We googled and seek for advice. Aha! Knew that Picasa Web Album and Blogspot were the culprits. It's time for us to back-up the shots though; Photobucket, rather than jumping to another blog host, since we hardly can adapt to changes. That is the major reason why we are still advocating Barisan National until today. Passe', like most of the people might say. Doubt it, we say.

On the last month, we were put to good use. One of the assignment were almost due. And hence, camera tags along to snap a picture or two of the recent new wing of UCSI for the assignment. It was just a stone throw away from our home. Nevertheless, the car does tag along too, for the ease of not getting burnt by the scorching hot sun. It was HOT. And we can't really stand the weather though the AC were switched on to the maximum. We bet that not even our long-haired fuzzy, fluffy, curly Rufus can stand it too. Rufus were scratching all over, and red bumps and rashes can be seen when one snuggles him. Not even a second, plans of shaving his curly white fur has struck into our minds. From a long-haired fuzzy, fluffy, cute and chubby monster...

To this...

Mohawked Alien to date. That is only the back view. The side and the front full view was shocking. He looks pathetically weird with that cockatoo mohawk. Hairy; only on the head but bald on other sections. He does not look like a sheep nor the very protected wild life; polar bear, anymore. We were shocked too when we picked him up from the pet shop on the same afternoon.

Ma and the helpers were all stupefied by his new urbanite-look and appearance. They insisted that we shouldn't have the mohawk hairstyle on him because he's simply beautiful and adorable with that sheepy look of his. We couldn't even take our eyes off him. He looks completely different.

We were all in awe when he stared strangely back at us. He had encaptured the looks of an alien. Scary. But true. Molly tagged along and kept silence once the mohawk hairstyle on Rufus was shown to her. Spooky and it was uncanny to watch Rufus staring blankly in front of our sliding door - reflections can be seen. We felt so sorry for him for getting the mohawk haircut. Truly sorry... But boy, he was raised to fame for that day itself. Caregivers were being attentive to him, feeding him junks which we would crave for days. Love sums it all.

After sending Rufus home and letting him run freely within the house compound, we set off for our cupcaking session. We managed to get about 50 medium-sized and 30 minis of moist chocolate cupcakes. The first 18 piece which is in medium range were used for the devil's food cupcake with ganache topping and chopped salted pistachios. The extra cupcakes were mostly gone down into our hungry stomachs since those cupcakes were overflowed.

We were too lazy to get the raw pistachios from the grocery. Thus, one of our junk; the salted pistachio with the shells intact were put to good use. Peeling off the shell and blanching the rough skin off from the green pistachio kernels by bare hands and dry towels were painful. Painful to the hands.

The intention to toast the pistachios in the preheated oven were gone when we found out that we favored the very contra color that the green pistachio kernels gave to the devil's food cupcakes. The colors were just right - vibrant!

We whip up the chocolate ganache and buttercream for the extra cupcakes which were all scattered on the trays and table. When the chocolate ganache were too little to be spreaded onto the surface of the cupcakes, we frost the remaining reserved cupcakes with vanilla buttercream and drizzled them with the chocolate ganache leftover. The final task to be done before the devil's food cupcake with ganache topping and chopped salted pistachios were all set to queue up in line in the cupcake boxes was the sprinkling of the salted and chopped green kernels. They were given away as gifts; forgot who got them though, cause the day itself were busy - loads of cupcakes waiting to be frosted.

Then, the remaining unfrosted cupcakes were reserved for the special someone. People; the very friendly and lovable group of kids. The medium-sized cupcakes were divided into two boxes, with 16 chocolate cupcakes each. The first box of medium-sized cupcakes were frosted lightly with vanilla and strawberry flavored buttercream. Colorful sprinkles were sprinkled onto the cupcakes to finalize the whole batch of cupcakes.

The next box, which also contains 16 medium-sized cupcakes were the ones; frosted with strawberry buttercream and heart-shaped edible sugarpastes, and the other one was topped by a swirl of dark chocolate buttercream and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands.

The last 25 minis were given a simple swirl on its surface. Vanilla buttercream with colors infused just to get the theme right. The blue frosting were sprinkled lightly with purple crystallized sugar. Once everything were done, we pack the cupcakes into the boxes. The 3 boxes were not stacked together as we were afraid that the turning of the car into another junction will probably, mostly leads to a batch of fallen cupcakes. So, off we go, we got back into our vehicle and set off to the children's shelter. The kids over there were extremely polite and friendly in person. Greetings and hand-shakes were given; by the kids. They were all tiny tots, cute lil fellows with very good manners. Speaking of the existence of ethics. There's this kid with a charming and evil grin, with his bandaged and injured hand, speak to us in a boyish mannerism of his, "Hai kakakssssssssssss..." which means "Hi sis....." It melts our heart though. It does.

The lil fellow was so sweet, with his cheeky and at the same time, his charming grin imprinted on his lips. We had a fun-filled time on the day itself; rushing for cupcakes, delivering cupcakes to the tiny tots to savor on, and last but not least, demanding a new mohawk haircut for Rufus the alien-looking pooch. We do still love you poor poochie.

Churn, Baby, Churn!

2008-04-07T23:34:00.000+08:00

"Aww, bread machine perleasssseee...." We do remember the times when we tried to please our dad just to get us a bread machine. Why bread machine? We found out that most of the home kitchen appliances which were already laid in the kitchen and store, getting infested with webs and dusts varies from waffle pan, the very old popcorn machine, sandwich toaster, noodle machine etc. We wanted something different and more sophisticated - let's just say hi -tech. There's only two that we wish to lay our hands and paws on - the ice cream maker and the bread machine. One was granted; the ice cream maker, and now awaits the bread machine. And hopefully, in a year time, we'll make use of the kitchen appliances more than once. It's such a waste to put them aside as displays, that's what we have just realized.

{Shot lost, no thanks to Picasa Web Albums}

Recently, we have got back on our hands and paws on our brand new ice cream maker. Brand new? The usage does not even exceed 2 times and oh well, guess that it's time to churn something up before the icy maker gets rusty. We were searching for the simplest recipe of all, easy yet very creamy. Googled and lady luck was with us, the recipe was short and nicely summarized, and of the ingredients that we have in excess; white chocolate and macadamia nuts. Think of white chocolate chunks and macadamia nuts toppled into a big bowl of the very creamy vanilla ice cream. Sinful, isn't it? The after-churn of the second product was pure white and smooth. The first was a failure, devastated by the clumpy custard - we ate some of it though, and it tasted like scrambled eggs in hot soup. And it was "overheating" to be blamed. It was gone for good, into the bin, after our stomachs called for the urgency of diarrhea pills... Gotcha!

{Shot lost, no thanks to Picasa Web Albums}

Plights shed; we prefer chunky bits of white chocolate and nuts being seen on the scoops of ice cream though but it doesn't turned out to be what we have wanted. It might be the amount of nuts and chocolate chunks, it might be too little. The other alteration we have made was substituting the vanilla beans with 1 generous tablespoon of vanilla extract. After the custard almost freezes while churning in the ice cream maker, we quickly add in a pack of macadamias (a pack would be 250g) and handfuls of chopped white chocolate which will be... Approximately 200g, I guess. (*Smacks face*)

{Shot lost, no thanks to Picasa Web Albums}

The recipe stated that it will yield 6 servings, but somehow, there's more than stated. We've scooped the ice cream from the ice cream maker (after chilling in the freezer for some time) into a tight-lit Tupperware. The ice cream itself was creamy and the additions were the specialties. We have fun chewing off the frozen white chocolate chunks (approximately in 1-inch cubes) and snacking on the nuts.

Hopping over to the next calorie-plus goodie; a batch of cupcakes and a cake for a birthday girl that we love, Pohsan. The cupcakes were vanilla cupcakes (Billy's) with strawberry jam fillings, peppermint ganache filling and lavender cream filling. The pink buttercream is the one with strawberry fillings, which were then topped with slices of fresh strawberries. Nah, we don't grow the berries. The term fresh indicates boxes of berries that just got out from the freezing cold aisle; the fridge. The green buttercream were flavored with mint essence , drizzled with melted chocolate and decorated with Alpine mint chocolate slices. The purple buttercream, a vanilla cupcake with lavender buttercream as filling, topped off with crystallized sugar flavored lavender (the sugar were mixed with a little drop of purple coloring and a sprig of lavender leave were stored together with the sugar, thus, the lavender sugar!).

The birthday girl requested for a strawberry and chocolate flavored cake, decorated with pure strawberries. A chocolate and strawberry fanatic, we should say. We came up with this very tall cake, with 2 strawberry sponge cake (in pink) and 2 moist chocolate devil's food cake (in dark brown). Each cake sponge was brushed lightly with a simple kahlua-infused syrup. Seven layers in total, following by the first layer, which is the chocolate sponge. Second layer - fresh cream with a layer of strawberries slices. Third layer - strawberry sponge. Fourth layer - chocolate ganache. Fifth layer - strawberry sponge. Sixth layer - fresh cream with a layer of strawberries slices and the last layer will be the chocolate sponge.
The entire cake was then frosted thinly with the remaining fresh cream, and placed into the freezer for almost 30 minutes for the coating of fresh cream to set. While waiting impatiently, we worked on the strawberry sticks. The long flimsy wooden stick were used. The strawberries were caramelized for sometime - on pan, with butter and some sugar. The caramelized strawberries were let dry on the parchment paper as it was soaking wet. It seems to be.

Back to the cake, we took the cake out from the freezer and topped the cake's surface with chocolate ganache and the sides with chocolate curls. After the chocolate ganache has begun to set, the skewed strawberries were placed onto the cake. We have much trouble on the issue of how the skewers will look good on the cake. And we managed to make it look better by putting them in cross-wise. The piping of "Happy Bday Pohsan" were done with buttercream. The last thing to be done was arranging the cupcakes around the cakes. And we were glad that the girl likes it as much as we did.

Next up, we, which now includes Molly, has brought a batch of devil's food chocolate cupcakes with extra dark chocolate buttercream frosting for Mamin, another birthday boy last month (shot taken above). We ran out of ideas on what decors and flavors to go for as we wanted to give him a big surprise. Surprise. The cupcakes were slightly bigger than the usual mini ones - thus saves time. The cupcakes were filled with 2 different fillings; peanut butter cream cheese and the other one would be thick chocolate ganache.

We'd realized that piping pretty swirls is pretty hard and intense when it comes to larger cupcakes. From the statement made, complete swirls basically equals dollops of buttercream slabbed onto the cupcakes. Very high in calories and VERY creamy. That is why cupcakes are eaten together with the cream, not alone. But oh well, the fact is our cupcakes were loaded with too much frosting. That was Mamin's comment and comments are mostly welcomed - where alterations leads to improvement. We molded the roses with cooking white chocolate and used it as the cupcakes' decors. White roses were chosen; that's the rose that Mamin is using as his display picture in his msn, and we had not seen any other display pictures other than that gray-scaled shot of a white rose.

The center of attraction, amount of 4 cupcakes, were cupcakes decorated with chocolate flakes and chocolate-molded coffee beans. The coffee beans were made out of dark chocolate where tempering is involved. Then, this comes down to pouring the melted dark chocolate into the coffee-bean mold and let it set at room temperature. Our conscience told us to put them into the freezer. And within 10 minutes, those coffee beans chocolate popped out easily from the coffee-bean mold. The cupcakes (4 of them) were not done yet. We've pipe words with a beige-colored buttercream; Happy Birthday Mamin!

Without mercy, the remaining piece went down to our stomachs. Ours were more like it, dollops of dark chocolate buttercream piped in dainty swirls (shot above). Upon the visit to give Mamin a surprise, we felt so excited in meeting him, and that was the first time seeing him ever since we finished our A-Levels. Enjoyed the way he ate the cupcakes, which was part of a token of appreciation presented to us. And we miss him greatly. =)

Mouse Baked Alive In Our Home-Oven!

2008-03-29T15:26:00.000+08:00

Partially, this post belongs to the previous posted post. An unfinished ramblings of baking goods, celebrations and the past. Speaking of the past, the eve and the actual celebration of this year's Chinese New Year was not really enjoyable and does not seem to be one. That was the term where distressing news arrived; grandma with her badly infected ulcer needed to be warded and hospitalized. It's a pity to see such an old-aged sub-consciously mumbles about the excruciating pain she had been suffering since the admittance. With frail movements and a stop to pant for more air, that was painful to see. Even more painful to withstand. A tough woman as all I know, may god blesses her all the time.

The days were gloomy and the celebration was not happily celebrated. Thus, cookie-making were not as much as what we have for the last time. Only some of the favorites were there to entertain the guests and shall we say, us. Most of the time, we visited grandma and it's pointless somehow, for guests to come over. We've celebrated the new year with grandma, that's the least that we can do for her.

The truth is; that is the only time we sincerely had a talk or two with her. Her existence and consciousness was very much appreciated and that is the time when I, myself had realized that I couldn't care less to share my thoughts and days with her when she's all good. Pathetic. Grandma is now all good, though she might have some breathing difficulties at times. We were grateful to have her with us, knowing that part of her blood does run through our veins.

Apart from pooches and our personal ramblings, we do speak of rodents too. Since this year is the year of rodent and mouse, we get in touch with other bakers and manage to get a pineapple tart recipe, which will be in the form of prosperous rodents. The mouse-look alike pineapple tart were small, moulded in bite-sized pieces. The tart was not as great as we've expected. We wanted a smoother and milky texture; the one that melts in your mouth kind of tart. As lazy as we usually are, the pineapple fillings were bought from the bakery supplies. Not a wow-tart after all, since the fillings aren't home-cooked.

The other mousse-look-alike cookie that made into our list of new year cookies were the one on top (shot above). These babies were made out of butter, flour, baking soda, finely grounded almonds and orange zests. Orange zests were used to spice things up, we were afraid that the cookie tasted too bland, hence here goes the zests.

Moulded the dough into an oval shaped-cookie, stuffing in chocolate rice to resemble the eyes and the nose of a mouse and lastly, two almond flakes for the ears! The rodents turned out flatter than they do before they were trapped into the oven. And we've missed out their tails. Let's put it this way, we've actually docked their tails. Ouch!

Mom had her best cookie on the mill too; almond cookies and groundnut cookies. Thus, the cashewnut cookies does not leave far behind too. The cookie was a normal shortbread cookie with addition of grounded cashewnut to it.

The grounded cashews were lightly toasted to enhance and to intensify the cashewnut flavor. The surface of the cookies were brushed twice with beaten egg yolks after each of the cookies were decorated with halved-cashewnuts. We love the egg-washed cookie's color though - golden brown.

The one with great crunchiness all over were these home-baked melting moments (shot above). The other name christened to these babies were cornflake-cherry cookies. The secret to a melt-in-your-mouth cookie is a sticky dough. Too much flour will only lead to bad repercussion; hard as a rock cookie. The cookie was a simple shortbread cookie. After rolling a cookie dough approximately 1 tablespoon in size, we rolled it onto a bowl filled with lightly crushed cornflakes. This ends with the cubed cherry as topping.

The shortbread was so crunchy and melts-in-your-mouth at the same time, we went crazy over the dough and came up with a simple chocolate chip and butter cookie; chocolate chip crunch. The cookie jar which was the home for sheltering the choc chip crunch lasted for 2 days. Much were gone into our stomachs. It was very buttery and crunchy. This was one of our favorite cookie of all. Yum!

The same shortbread cookie recipe for used for the M&Ms choc chip cookies. The only difference were the additions of handfuls of M&Ms. But we found out that the M&Ms was tad hard after the baking session. But the cookie was still good.

We have so much leftover cereals - cornflakes. We bumped into our CNY book recipe, and land our hands on this (shot above). The cornflake cups were easy and doesn't involve much work. We replaced the golden syrup over honey. Yum! Oh yeah, last but not least, happy belated CNY. This is so over. Like the old adage goes, better late than never.

Reviving The Dead Blog - Our Last Xmas

2008-03-22T18:51:00.000+08:00

Blog has been in a coma status for, lemme see, 3 months at least? And it's a wake up call to kick start the blogging craze after finding out that the pen drive is jam packed with hundreds of unedited shots. Thinking aback, things happened pretty quick, which came into our favor since grandma were hospitalized for a very long period, no thanks to the infection and ulcer that she had been suffered from. We were glad that grandma is doing just fine right now. And yea, it's time to jump start old posts besides working on our new layout for our blog. Once we have upgraded our blog version, old template was gone for good, which lures in the new background. It might be too messy, like they say; overwhelmed with calligraphy-drawn cherry blossoms. As for the banner, we managed to squeeze in the fantastic four; the four best loved pooches. Take a quick glance at the top banner which is embedded with a pink border; you'll see (from left to right) Whisky the Australian Silky Terrier, R.I.P Missy the mix Spitz, Rufus the White Miniature Schnauzer and last but not least, Boobie the Golden Retriever. A brand new layout for the brand new year; which seems to be the first post of the year 2008. =)

Well, we will start off with our last Christmas baked goods, and no sooner or later, there will be the other procrastinated and outdated post of the very belated Chinese New Year celebration. On Xmas, we loathe on buttercream, cheese and chocolates for goodies like cakes and cupcakes. Where else, on CNY eve, we loathe on tubes of butter and flour for cookie-making. The similarities; festive seasons is all about baking, family gatherings and the kindness of sharing. (when you have too much cookies in the cookie-nook) =P

On the Xmas eve, we lay our hands onto rolling a baked chocolate sponge; a Xmas Yule log cake for a small Xmas Gathering in our low-cost home. We've always wanted a Yule log cake for Xmas, and we thought this might be IT. Our first Yule log cake. A Yule log cake; a rolled cake with luscious filling modeled similarly like a fallen log, frosted with cream and decorated with chocolate shavings, icing sugar, meringue mushrooms, cocoa powder and dummies. We slack off, and leave the meringue mushrooms behind. As for the dummies, a mini Mr. Santa will do just enough though we love the reindeer and the elves. A spongy chocolate sheet were baked and laid on a parchment paper. The parchment paper were lightly sprinkled with fine sugar to avoid cake sticking onto the parchment paper. We proceeded to the creamy chocolate buttercream and a simple Whisky-infused syrup while cooling off the chocolate sponge. After spreading the buttercream with a long spatula, we begin the rolling session. While rolling, brush the chocolate sheet with the syrup to forbid the sponge from cracking. When the rolling is done, we frosted the entire log cake with the remaining buttercream and top off with chocolate shavings, Mr. Santa, peppermint flavored candy canes and edible firs; made out of buttercream. More details about Yule log cake here.

How can we not bake cupcakes during the festive season or even gathering?! It consumes less time and just by venturing into different flavor and colors of buttercream, we will have many cupcake flavors to offer. By whisking the vanilla cupcake batter, we manage to offer four flavors to the crowds; vanilla cupcakes filled with either chocolate ganache, strawberry jam fillings, peppermint chocolate ganache and vanilla pudding. Vanilla cupcakes filled with chocolate ganache were given a swirl of green vanilla buttercream and a snowflake-like design.

Shot above; vanilla cupcake filled with peppermint chocolate ganache and topped off with vanilla buttercream and halved candy cane. To pull the peppermint-look, mint leaves were used as its decor.

Then, we have this vanilla cupcake with vanilla pudding as filling. The pudding were filled into the cupcakes using the cone method; see here. It was then topped off with buttercream which resembles an Xmas tree decorated with pink ornaments. A star-shaped sugarpaste were placed onto the top of the fir-tree.

The strawberry cupcake; a vanilla cupcake filled with strawberry jam filling were given a purple swirl buttercream and ended up with a yellow star-shaped sugarpaste.

As we still have two tubes of Philly's cream cheese in the refrigerator, we were keen to whisk up David Lebovitz's Black Bottom Cupcakes as there were rave reviews about it. The chocolate cupcake batter were moist and not as dense as we've expected. And the cream cheese as part of the cupcake filling is real yummy; to be licked with bare fingers.

Our version of Black Bottom Cupcakes rises too much and it might be over-filled. Thus, we came up with chocolate whipped cream as its frosting. We so wanted to serve these babies without frosting, but the fact is it's too volcano-like; a volcano waiting impatiently to erupt. We opt for the lighter frosting; whipped cream rather than the usual buttercream though it can withstand heat better than the former. Lastly, we top the cupcake with halved bittersweet chocolate block. The Black Bottom Cupcake was a hit relatively to the plain cupcakes. The chocolatey cupcake blends in well with the light texture of cream cheese and whipped cream, and it was not too creamy and sweet for the hard-to-please people.

Henceforth, the last and remaining tube of cream cheese went to the White Chocolate And Banana Cheesecake in cupcake form - spoon to eat. The recipe was basically adapted from Women's Weekly. The change were the addition of melted white chocolate into the cheesecake, white chocolate ganache topping and digestive biscuit cum walnut base. The cheesecake filling; mashed bananas and silky white chocolate ganache teamed up with the digestive biscuit cum walnut base was half the divinity. We should have sprinkled handfuls of chocolate chips in it; and it'll be a definite keeper for the night itself. The topping; white chocolate ganache hardened; which leads to the conclusion of one fourth of divinity. We ARE still wondering why does it harden though there were quite an amount of whipping cream which were used to infused with the melted white chocolate. It forms into a hard yellowish disk and people were ditching away the disk just to get a taste of the filling. Oh boy.

The last baked goods of the night was a pan of Walnut Chocolate Brownie. The brownie does not turned out to be as moist as the book have stated. It might be overbaked but we were very sure that it wasn't because the brownie was already taken out of the oven a few minutes earlier. This calls for sweetened syrup to be brushed onto the brownie's surface and hot chocolate fudge as its topping. It might not sound appealing but it DOES save the night. The brownies were sliced into mini rectangles, and lastly topped with toasted walnuts, a dust of icing sugar and mint leaves.

There were many left-overs though. Some of them packed the goodies away while some went down to our stomach. Let's just say; OVERDONE! The Xmas gathering was a fun-filled night, plus, it's peaceful - just the way we like it. =)

December Roundup - An Old Post To Date

2007-12-31T00:10:00.000+08:00

We love December. Yes, we always do. Xmas, birthdays and long holidays, tell us, who doesn't? We were happy to find out that close friends were here to support us - financially. That's what we get when cupcakes and cakes orders flows in. The money were well spent though (and all gone, ahem) ! We've added a new book into our baking bookshelf; Pierre Herme's and Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Desserts, the book that we were dying to have since bumping into one through online. And we thought we would never ever lay our sweaty hands (and paws) on it since we've been asking about it from major bookstores. Lady luck was with us, we found the one and only piece in Border's after many trips to the other bookstores. Overjoyed. The book was great indeed. =)

1. Cupcake and cake orders. The money flowed in from orders; chocolate cupcakes and a key-shaped durian layer cake from Mandy. The cupcakes were plain Janes. Moist chocolate cupcakes filled with peppermint ganache and topped with simple buttercream flavored vanilla. The other batch were banana cupcakes filled with chunky banana fillings and topped off with the same buttercream as well. See the wordings? It was a painstaking session. Fatass piping skills were pretty - pretty bad.

On the same day itself, Mandy requested for a custom made cake; a key-shaped durian layer cake. Durians. We got to know that the week itself was not the peak season of durians, hence, ended up spending ka-chings from our latest paycheck. There were 4 vanilla sponge layers encased with 3 layers of durian cream. The durian cream were as smooth as what we have expected it to be, thanks to us, we've squash the durian pulps profusely for half an hour with our sweaty palms (or paws). Highly exaggerated...

The cake were then covered with unsweetened whipped cream and white chocolate shavings. And the number 2 and 1, made out of dark chocolate were placed on the top of the cake. The feedback of the cake were somehow better than the cupcakes, ahem. They love the durian baby. Yay!

2. Our first ice cream maker! We wanted a bread machine at first but Pa insisted to get the ice cream maker since ice cream make a better spoon-licking dessert where one can easily indulge in; compared to bread which needed loads of the ever rising cost of hi-protein flour. And a big thankyou to our fav man of the year, Pa, for the ice cream maker. =)

3. Baby Glider. On the same week itself, Pa got Kidd a baby glider. To be precise, a sugar glider. He even has his own retro pouch as his bed. A tiny velvet cloth, as his blanket to keep him warm and fuzzy. He was real cute and macho at times. And he loves marking his own territories, like how poochies mark them. Sweetest rodent we've ever seen. Unsurprisingly, he do glide! And the maintenance were pretty costly since he hates starchy fruits like bananas, apples etc; speaking of pureed fruit as heavy meals and honey as desserts. (*Grin*)

4. Cryshelle's 20th. A big thankyou to Crystal for what she had done. The night itself were great, including the girls who made the night even better; our besties Cryssie herself, Molly, Claudia and Cath! Cryssie were stunning. (*Nose Bleeds*) It was a fun and we were all happpppppyyy. =) Cryssie were celebrating her buttday on the night too!

We got her a white chocolate cake filled with roasted macadamia nuts on the other morning. Three layers of vanilla sponge filled with two layers of velvety white chocolate mousse and roasted macadamias. It was then frosted with whipped cream by Fatass Mich. There were flaws! Fine lines and tracks can be easily identified, though the process of smoothing the lines were done. It was then topped of with molded white chocolate flowers, which was pretty fun to mould if it's compared to mini roses. Happy Buttday Cryssie! We lap you!! =)

5. Churn baby, churn! Pistachio and chocolate mint ice cream came into our mind. We followed everything from the instruction book, only a few additions were made. A hint of light green coloring, generous amount of chopped dark chocolate and pistachio nuts, followed by a scalded milk boiled with a few sprigs of mint leaves. It was then topped off with a dollop of mint ganache and roughly chopped pistachio nuts. The ice cream turned out to be real yummy though it's not as creamy as we wanted. The ice cream maker was nonetheless a good churner. =)

6. Kids Give-Out. Kidd requested some cupcakes for his fellow friends. Since there's a need for us to walloped most of the ingredients from the refrigerator, we agreed to get these kids some cuppies for free. Like they say, sharing is caring, ahem. The cupcakes were chocolate mint cupcakes. The one with white chocolate curls were filled with chocolate ganache and topped with easily spreadable chocolate ganache. The other batch were frosted with swirls made out of chocolate whipped cream and lastly topped off with a peppermint stick. And we were real glad to know that the kids love these babies. =)

The Baking Month

2007-12-21T13:30:00.000+08:00

It's been weeks since the last time we've updated our blog. We've been spending loads of our time, trying fattening baked goods and putting more pounds than usual. The horrifying outcome; Fatass have a big fat chubby face now, and aged pretty quick, thanks to her owl-lifestyle.

As we've been working hard on fusing new flavors for our cupcakes and beefsticks, we were glad that there have been orders, though it doesn't exceed 100 for each order. It was fun. Rushing for orders, choosing the right design and carriage for the cupcakes, and having sleepless nights. It is stressful. But it was worth it, since the payoff was satisfying - payoff; in terms of good reviews and ahem, ka-ching's. The first batch went down to Phoebe's corporate get-together.

The request was real simple; 50 cupcakes - chocolate cupcakes or anything that's tasty. Experiments and more white rodents to sacrificed. (*Devilish Grin*) The good part of it; Fatass would be able to fuse for new flavors to post it under our up-coming cake blog; Temptationz, which is now under construction. The sad part; there's none. =)

Speaking of new flavors, there were four. Sassy May Sesame (picture above); a moist devil's food cupcake with black sesame and white chocolate cream as filling. It was then frosted with dark chocolate ganache and covered with fine white chocolate shavings. Lastly, topped of with piece of chocolate, flavored; toasted black sesame.

The best of the four was Cashramel (picture above); a moist chocolate cupcake with cashewnut cream as filling. Topped off with home-cooked caramel frosting and ONE baby cashewnut. We were told that the office workers crave for this baby and it gone real fast compared to the others.

Next up; Rosie O' Pistachio (picture above). Fancy name, close to Rosie O' Donnell's. Formerly known as the rosewater and pistachio cupcake. A rosewater cupcake filled with generous amount of pistachio cream as filling, frosted with rosewater buttercream and pistachio bits. We should have work on this piece! A cute mini sugarpaste - red roses, will do just enough. Purrrfection! =)

Last piece to babble on, Pop-A-Mint (standing on the third row - horizontally); a moist vanilla cupcake with peppermint chocolate cream as filling, frosted with peppermint cream and topped of with dark chocolate curls. The cupcakes fit nicely into a big red box, real big. And delivered to the company on the next day. A great companion were there to lead the route to the KOM-PA-NIE; Molly. Thanks for that! Appreciate it very much! =)

Next up, cupcakes for a wed-dinner. For Ryo and Mizuki's wedding dinner. A big thankyou to O-man (you know who you are) for this! Appreciate the biz! =)

They were tryouts though, and the tryout's babies were the Banana Cupcakes above. The banana cupcakes were just fine, not as fluffy as we have expected, which calls for more sour cream for the next round. Filled with banana pastry cream and as for the frosting, it was pure buttercream topped off with slices of bananas and chocolate. This baby here doesn't make it to the tiers, blame the browned bananas. (*Grin*)

The other baby that weeps quite a lot for not making into the finals was S-berry Cupcake. It was a simple and moist vanilla cupcake filled with luscious strawberry jam cum puree, frosted with whipping cream and topped off with strawberry halves and chocolate curls. Molly and us do agree that the strawberry seems to be too huge for the cupcake itself. We did some work though, we search for tiny ones but to no avail. Sad case. Besides, the strawberries seems to rot a little, once left at room temperature. Blackened, rot - perhaps, blackened should be the proper word. =)

There were three others who made it though; Matcha Earl Grey Cupcakes, Banana Cream Cupcakes and Blueberry Bleu Cupcakes. Matcha Earl Grey Cupcakes were basically an idea of the bride to be. We personally love the combinations too - fusion of Western tea (Earl Grey) and Asian tea (Green Tea). The cupcake itself is an Earl Grey cupcake with a generous amount of dried fruits baked in with. The dried fruits were wickedly sweet though. It was then topped off with a green tea frosting and a white chocolate rose.

Thinking aback, the white chocolate roses were painfully moulded. Excruciatingly painful. Very very time consuming. We'll go for sugarpaste the next time though sugarpaste turn us off. (*Chuckles*)

As for the banana cream cuppy, it was a banana cupcake with banana pastry cream filling. It was frosted with unsweetened whipping cream and chocolate rose buds. It looked way too pure, and simple.

Hence, this calls for our fav garnish of all; peppermint leaves! It looked better though - at least it doesn't look like an unfinished cuppy.

Lastly, the Blueberry Bleu Cupcake. A moist vanilla cupcake with blueberry filling and whipping cream, topped off with three' blueberries, chocolate sticks and peppermint leaves - again.

We opted for blueberry fillings than blueberry jams as the filling itself contains real chunky blueberries.

As to end this part, wishing the couple a fun-filled happy years to come; Ryo and Miz. =)

The other order was actually a non-cupcake order, which put our frosting-with-spatula skills to test. It was a big cake; which resembles a PUG. A dog. No! A pug! Okay, maybe it doesn't really resembles a pug. But at least, it's a dog. =)

It was a chocolate cake with chocolate and banana cream. It was then frosted with banana cream, which is pale yellow and the sides were then covered with chocolate shavings - to hide the flaws. Ahem. Then, piping chocolate ganache begins. The kitchen were stained with fingerprints - chocolate. To finish it off, a white chocolate rose were adhered onto the dog's ears. The review we've gotten was the cake itself were prettily creamy. We'll work on that. We will... ;)

As for sleepless nights, it's time to take some doggy nap; recharge. We see no sun. =)

10 Things We Did Last Month

2007-11-26T16:35:00.000+08:00

1. The Raya Mood. We have been feasting our heart out during the long Raya celebration. That is obviously one main reason why we love this country; the food was great , whether in terms of its colors or flavor, and phenomenally diversified. Since we have been going crazy over the food sold in the bazaar, it was a very wise decision for us to get a snap out of it. The bazaar that we went into were crowded with hungry people and fatty food.

2. Experimenting An Upside-Down Cake. We were curious. Thus, here goes the experiment of the Caramel Hazelnut Cake. It was infamously known as the Upside-Down Caramel Hazelnut Cake as the baked cake will then be turn over from a pan and be eaten upside down. We would love to have a Pineapple Upside-Down Cake, but the helpers insist that hazelnut will taste slightly better. Here goes the one with Hazelnut.

It was moist, airy and not to forget, nutty.

The caramel and hazelnut topping set into the base of the pan, right before the batter goes in.

We were sure that the hazelnuts were insufficient in amount. Oh well, the caramel takes the lead though.

A dollop of vanilla whipping cream infused with frangelico will be perfect for this upside-down cake.

3. Indulging In Lemon Meringue Tarts. Tarts are troublesome, unlike cupcakes. The tarts were made and cooled, coming down to the fillings whereby cooking on the stove were a part of it. The consistency and liquidity of the filling will resemble of the taste and the texture of what a lemon curd should be. Zesting the lemon zest with a small serrated knife is painstaking as thin and fine zest were needed. After spooning the fillings into the baked tarts, the egg whites were whisked together with some caster sugar to form cups of meringue. The meringue were then spooned onto the tart and a swirled effect were quickly done before popping them back into the preheated oven.

The tarts were filled with home-made lemon curd

The end result of our lemon meringue tarts. Swirls is way prettier than spikes. =)

The lemon curd was smooth and might be too watery for our liking. Blame the omission of teaspoonfuls of cornflour. Best eaten the day it was made as leftover tarts turned out to be soggy while the meringue will be less fluffy and airy.

4. Calvin's Birthday Cupcakes. We were invited over his crib for his 20th birthday, and thus goes the night of baking mini cupcakes. We tried to put in fillings by using the cone method. And voila, successfully done though cutting off the top of these mini's requires meticulous skills. Thanks to Molly, things were pretty quickly done. Compared to the cupcakes we have now, we bet that Calv's cupcakes are wickedly sweet! Millions of apologies. Oh yea, your pooch was fluffy and gorgeous. X)

Mini cupcakes filled with blueberry filling with the cone method

Main favs with less powdered sugar

Frosted cupcakes; readily to be packed into cake boxes

From the first row to the last; Chocolate Ganache & Choc Bars Cupcakes, Coffee Cupcakes, Strawberry Cupcakes, Peanut Butter & Choc Cupcakes, Blueberry Cupcakes.

5. Galdon Gan & Rachel Koh's Cupcakes. One box were presented to Galdon while the other were given to our lovey dovey kickass joker; Rachel Koh. The cupcakes were only taken the day after it was made. Some of the frosting has melted. We know, we know. Some look ooey goey and not that pretty. We are dogdamn sorry. We'll promise to get you guys pretty cupcakes the next time we see you. (*Fingers crossed*)

6. Buttday Celebration With Mandy. It was fun. A get-together with people whom we care about is down right fun and cozy. The actual cake was a Durian Mousse Cake. Unfortunately, there were none of them. Blame the season. The weather. One biggaboo Black & White Chocolate Nut Cake were given to her. We had not have any chance to grab a bite out of the cake though since we've been fed fully with grilled meats and seafoods. =)

The vanilla sponges were filled with white chocolate and dark chocolate mousse.

It was then coated with chocolate ganache and buttercream rosettes. Last but not least, toasted almond flakes and whole walnuts.

Voila!

The piping were badly done - as usual. May she love what Molly and both of us had done. =)

7. Kids College Cupcakes. We sounded THAT old. We preferred calling our brothers (rivals of the throne) as kids more than any other names. So, in the reality world, we're THIS young. Back to the cupcakes, the kids were going to have a get-together in the college and requested a few boxes of chocolate cupcakes. We wondered and suggests them to dine in a fine dining cum mamak stall, they insisted to bring their fellow friends the cupcakes. It was weird, till we found out one day, from one of their MSN message, written; "10s 4 ur cupcakes. It taste nice n now we know u r a good baker. I luv d cream. Miss u." Oh doggy.

Vegan Chocolate Cake, waiting to be frosted

Marble Orange Cupcake

Chocolate Ganache Cake With White Choc Flakes

Chocolate With Chocolate Ganache And Choc Bar

Marble Orange Cupcake With White Chocolate And Orange Segments Frosting

The overall chocolate collection

8. Munka's Buttday Celebration. The cake were bought as we were real busy that week. Keng throw a surprise party to Munka. And here goes the shots of happy people chilling in a dark, gloomy and secluded room. May you get the best MS with fuzziest chest in the world! X)

Smile for the camehhhrahh

"I wish that I'll be having the fuzziest MS in the world" =P

Munka =)

9. Playing with the Baker Barks Bakerie logo. It was time-wasting since we've already decided to dump them into the recycle bin. Brainstorming for the right logo was in fact tiresome and bothersome. We'll try, we'll try.

10. Playing with Le Bakerie's logo. We guess we better lay off our hands from the computer. The second design and background layout to be dump into the recycle bin. There'll be third, there'll be... Years to come.

Missing Missy

2007-10-18T20:11:00.000+08:00

In loving memory; dear Missy,
Do rest in peace,
That's the last word,
Which each of us uttered,
On the noon of October 18th,
The family greatly misses you,
Reminiscing the fond memories,
That you've given to us,
Treasuring the losses,
We do love everything about you,
You've been here since we're walking toddlers,
Watching us grow,
You are more than just a pooch,
More than a buddy to jog with,
More than a guard woman,
More than one who obeys orders,
More than one who shares our love,
More than what we need in a pooch,
You are simply one of us,
One strong family we are.

Exclusively Made For The One In UK

2007-10-13T15:43:00.000+08:00

Once, they were all young, innocent and naughty or shall I add in - horny, schoolchildren. The one who invented the new child's play from the very widely-played Mahjong game. Little did we know that the rectangular erasers which had colored country's flag printed on its surface can do so much; from entertaining to earning some side income of a ringgit a week. We do not really gamble though. It was played for the sake of filling breaks and having a good time with the creative minds. Those were the good old days.

Sugarpastes; roses which had yet to blossom.

Remembering those faces which resembles enthusiast and happy elf? That's the faces that one will catch to see once those dainty clean erasers were poured out from that good old plastic bag. Ahh, speaking of entertainment and enlightenment.

The left wing sugarpastes.

Until now, the inventor was no where to be found. It's more like a collaborated team who had invented this game, which I appreciated a lot more. An effort of a team cant beat an effort of an individual. I don't quite remember how it was played, but then, I love them more then the actual Mahjongs do. One simple reason; I know nothing about those Jongs.

The right wing sugarpastes.

Thinking and looking aback, the girls were great. Starting of with thirteen of them, as years goes, many of them are now in somewhere far, studying abroad. Esther, Joling and now, Yvonne. Yvonne, who's now currently burning the midnight oil, having a good cup of latte' while flipping the law book is in UK. That's real far. And we hope that she'll be doing great there. She will. Definitely will be. ;)

The star-shaped sugarpastes, which reminds us of Vincent's song 'Starry starry night' and the phrase, 'Reach for the stars'.

As for our favorite bluryone Yvonne, we; inclusive of Molly got her batches of cupcakes before her headings to the new surroundings in UK. Before anything was done, the idea for her cupcakes were brainstormed and drafted. The ideas consists of having the sugarpaste as its topping. Hence, we made and molded the sugarpaste before the day of her gathering. We came up with brilliant but complicated designs. The sugarpaste of white rose buds were made. It's more clean cut and less messy. Then, the other design for the related batches of cupcakes does also includes the very well-known phrase; "Reach For The Stars" whereby stars and the wings were molded. Molding the wings were tough, as there's two parts; the left and the right wings. They differs though.

For the first cupcake, we topped the vanilla cupcakes with pure vanilla buttercream. The buttercream swirl stayed put till the last bite. Creamy and not as tough as we have expected. By then, we topped it with a star-shaped yellow sugarpaste and a pair of white wings.

The outcome of the entire cupcake were as cute as Whisky's butt. It was real cute and looks fragile. The tryouts left for us were staying where it was, because it was way too cute to be eaten. Hence, we've been taking many shots of this pretty little cupcake in many different angles.

We really can't resist snapping these C-grade babies. From sideways to front view. We wouldn't get as bored as that. It was fun though.

At one point, it reminds me of Frank Sinatra's song; Fly Me To The Moon. Flap those wings, baby.

They even looked good though pairing up with toilet rolls. Kill us.

These babies were designed with the theme reach for the stars. As Yvonne's going to further her studies in UK, it's obvious that the cupcakes were speaking for the both of us; congratulating her for being able to strive for what she had wanted for.

It was then arranged accordingly in a box. Normally, the box itself can carry 16 of those mini cupcakes. With the additional long-stretched wings, the numbers had reduced from 16 to 9. We've always been asking for opinion once the decors were nicely done. It seems lacking of something. Seems to be.

The kids preferred the cupcakes to be sprinkled with colorful sprinkles. Honestly speaking, these icing balls tasted not as good as we've thought. It was crunchy and we felt like munching on cracked egg shells. Oh boy.

If you ask us, we still prefer the one with no colorful sprinkles. With sprinkles, it looks more like, we don't know. Anyway, it still looked good and looked edible from the shot above. We were satisfied with the final product though we do not fancy the colorful sprinkles.

On christening these babies, we were out of great ideas. We'll go with Starry Starry Night Vanilla Cupcakes then. ;)

Starry, starry night. Paint your palette blue and grey, look out on a summer's day, With eyes that know the darkness in my soul. Shadows on the hills, sketch the trees and the daffodils, catch the breeze and the winter chills, in colors on the snowy linen land. =}

The other cupcake gift to be was a box of moist chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream. The Chocolate And White Roses Cupcakes.

It was topped off with 3 roses rather than one as it looks better with 3 on it. The moist chocolate cake were best served cold and days later. We realized that most moist chocolate cakes taste better in that conditions. Hence, the chocolate cake were planned to make a day ahead before the vanilla cupcakes were made.

The cupcakes were delivered and presented to Yvonne on the her gathering itself. Hoping that she'll be in her best day everyday. Best regards woman! We know that you'll fit in there, perfectly. Hugs and kisses. ;)

Blueberry Buzz

2007-10-09T15:39:00.001+08:00

We had a joyous blueberry moment last week. From buns to cupcakes, we've been experimenting blueberries and its preserves. We do prefer the preserves over the jam itself. First, we had the milk bun, or shall we say, Blueberry Milk Buns.

While awaiting for the bread dough's proofing time, the fillings were made. The fillings consists mainly of butter and milk powder, which smelt more like a vanilla pod rather than an infant's puke. (*Snorts*)

The fillings were used and divided accordingly. After wrapping up the filling with appropriate size of bread dough, it was then placed carefully onto a large baking tray for proofing once more.

Our favorite baking procedures of all then occurs, which is after the bread doughs have doubled in size; piping poolicious filling on the surface of the buns. We enjoy and love looking at the swirls. See, some poos are cute too. ;)

Next, the sweet and addictive blueberry jam on its top. It was piped out for the piping bag too. Lucky us for investing on stacks of disposable piping bag. And the last thing to do was popping them to the preheated oven.

Once baked and cooled on a wire rack, one can chow down these C-grade babies. The best part out of this bun was probably its milk based fillings, and oh boy, not the blueberry jams. The bread dough was pretty badly kneaded. And that is maybe why the bread had gone as hard as an artificial bone in days later. Well, no wastage. Let's play fetch and catch with the other poochies.

Some of the buns were sent to our loved ones. As for this month, we're working on fluffier buns. More experiments to come.

After the buns, dozens of vanilla cupcakes were baked. We ran out of ideas - in terms of the cupcakes flavors and toppings. Since we're in the heat of chowing carbs accompanied by blueberries, we bet that some blueberry jam slabbed on the top of the cupcakes will do just enough. Presenting the Blueberry And Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcakes.

We planned to cut the top a little and filled it with the fillings, too bad, it'll take time. Hence, we jumped onto the bandwagon and end up with the filler with a long rounded nozzle. The blueberry jam was then filled into the cupcakes.

Next, the purple buttercream were made. As we do not want much coloring paste to be infused into the buttercream, we add in sufficient amount of blueberry jam into it. Less icing sugar were used, as to fulfill Ma's wishes.

Then, sugar bug came to bit us in the arse. It's time to add some real rough purple colored sugars on the top.

As for the topping, we fully utilize the Blueberry chocolate coated marshmallows from Hershey's. Thumbs up for Ma, so happened that she bought packs of these!

We slice the marshmallows into two and top each of the cupcakes with a slice of it.

And we did slice the decorated final product; the cupcakes into two too. The main reason was to see how much filling can the long nozzle can filled the cavity of the cupcakes. Just a little. We'll try the cone method one fine day.

And the overall product was looking pretty. Taste wise, the blueberry flavor was not as strong as we have expected. We'll definitely scoop in the blueberry preserves - both; to fill or to be used as decors the next time.

The Topless Tiramisu

2007-10-05T16:40:00.001+08:00

The family's current obsession is the homemade sambal. A friend of Pa, who opens up a restaurant, shop, whatever it is in Serdang, serves great luscious sambal dishes. Ranging from seafoods to veggies. As their sambals were addictive and delish, it was not surprising that he has been selling buckets of it; just for a sum of RM10. The sambal were sweet and best of all, loads of dried prawns. Very very fattening and high in calories.

We found out that the sambal was best served together with coconuts and glutinous rice. Hence, we were then hooked up with the Grilled Glutinous Rice With Sambal. Or shall we say this in Bahasa Melayu; which is Pulut Panggang.

Helpers came in to pluck, wash, cut and dry the fresh banana leaves, taken from the graveyard nearby. Okay, we're not that daring. They plucked it somewhere though. Ma helped too, as this is her main yet brilliant idea. We would love to use the banana leaves to wrap up the glutinous rice but we still prefer using the aluminium foil as it doesn't absorb oil and is more convenient. Ma insists that the banana leaves is a better choice to picked as it basically had a sweet and fresh aroma which will heightens the flavor of the glutinous rice while protecting the rice itself from direct heat. And boy, it was so true.

As for the filling, which is a combination of brown sugar, fresh grated coconut and sambals, it blends well together and tasted good. Recipe as follows;

Grilled Glutinous Rice With Sambal

Glutinous Rice;
500g glutinous rice
3 cups of drinking water
1 grated coconut
1 teaspoon salt
Some oil, for the use of brushing during grilling
Approximate 6 banana leaves

1. Wash the banana leaves with boiling water to eliminate contamination and dirts. Pat dry it with a clean cloth. Cut the leaves into squares of 15cm long.
2. Soak the glutinous rice into 2 cups of water for an hour or so. Set aside.
3. Add 1 cup of water into the freshly grated coconut. Squeeze out the coconut milk or santan with a cheesecloth. This will probably yield 1-1/2 cups of coconut milk. Set aside.
4. After an hour or so, drain the glutinous rice. Combine the glutinous rice with the coconut milk and salt. Scoop onto a rectangular baking tray or stainless steel tray. Bring to steam until cooked. This will take about 20-25 minutes. Do not overcooked because the rice will turn soft and sticky.
5. Once cooked, set aside to cool completely.

Fillings;
2 tablespoon cooking oil
1/2 cup young grated coconut
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1 cup of ready made sambal
1 teaspoon salt

1. Heat cooking oil on a pan on low heat. Add in the coconut and brown sugar and fry.
2. Mix in sambal and salt. Fry and mix until well combined, takes approximately 5 minutes on low heat.
3. Set aside to cool.

Assembling;
1. Get the banana leaves, glutinous rice and fillings nearby so it becomes more handy and convenient. Place 3 tablespoons of glutinous rice onto the banana leave. Spread and flatten the glutinous rice by pressing the rice with the other side of the banana leave. The rice will look like flattened, and as large as 8x8cm.

2. Then, place a tablespoonful or maybe even more fillings onto the rice. Lined the fillings on one side of the rice. Hold two ends of the banana leaves and press lightly. Open up the banana leave and place some glutinous rice to cover both ends. Hold two ends of banana leave and press lightly on the top and sides of the rice. It will look like the shot above.

3. Roll the banana leave like the shot above. Secure the two ends with a stapler. Repeat procedures until the ingredients are wiped out clean!

4. Then, place each of the wrapped up glutinous rice onto a baking tray. Preheat oven on 150''C. Brush with some cooking oil on its body. Bake for 5 minutes. Then, turn the rolls on the other side. Bake for another 5-8 minutes. Serve while it's hot. =}

On the main topic of the post, we, basically had made a topless cake for Uncle Phill's 51st birthday. It was Pa's idea for having a Golf Course Tiramisu Cake with the obvious theme of; golf and turfs, for his recuperated brother. Uncle Phill is recovering from his bypass surgery and we were blessed that he is in the pink of health now.

We laid our paws and hands onto the cake, be it decorating or stacking up sky-high cakes, on the day before his birthday. We've found out that the sponges are lack of coffee aroma and taste though heaps of tablespoonfuls of instant coffee powder and coffee emulco have been forced to blend in with the former vanilla batter. More sachets of instant coffee were used just for the sponges.

While the sponges was then sent to the preheated oven for baking, we chop the dark cooking chocolate into chunky thin films, prepare the coffee syrup and most importantly, beat up the sponge fingers batter. The sponge fingers were devastating, in terms of its shape. It looks like dried fawn baby corals from far. Nevertheless, it tasted like a real sponge finger. =)

Once the baking is done, the coffee sponges and sponge fingers were cooled on a wire rack. We slice the coffee sponge into 3 slices since we opt for a tall cake. The first slice were laid onto the cake board, followed by brushing the coffee sponge with coffee syrup, sprinkling chunks of thin-filmed chocolate chunks and arranging the dipped-into-coffee-syrup sponge fingers onto the first cake sponge.

Next. we poured in a generous amount of coffee whipped cream, this is followed by the yummy mascarpone cheese mixture. We find that a single colored cream is dull and bored, so, we tried to go for two tones; the coffee whipped cream was light brown in color while on the other hand, the cheesy mixture was pale yellow.

After assembling the sky-high cake, it was then covered with tasteless whipped whipping cream. Then, the watery chocolate ganache was the next thing for us to fiddled with. Melting the ganache was easy. But identifying the right consistency of the ganache was way harder than we've thought. The outcome was B-okay. It looked smoother on the top relatively with the sides.

During chilling the whole cake in the refrigerator, we land our paws and hands onto the edible golf balls. Rocher's were used since it is large enough to portray golf balls.

By then, we flattened the white sugarpastes with the roller and wrap it around the Rocher's. Disposable gloves were used as we were too afraid that the cost of paying off doctors' bills exceeds the cost of the cake. To look more like a golf ball, tiny holes were crafted.

Next, we molded the flagpole with the number 51 written on the flag. The flag was made out of sugarpaste as well, while the pole was a wooden chopstick. The crafted sugarpastes were placed into a container and it will be used to decorate the cake on the day it was cut.

We moved on with the artificial turf. And we were speechless when it comes to THAT artificial green turf.

Rather than kneading a green fondant to portray the turf, we opt for the green ganache. We mixed in too much of the whipping cream into the melted white chocolate during the boiling session runs. It looked uber slimy and poisonous. Very toxic-looking. Here comes the ugly. Blame Fatass's instinct!

Lastly, the piping session. We prefer piping these words in non-italic fonts as our cursive were not that pretty to the eye. And yeah, we omitted 'Uncle' as this is part of Pa's gift. He pays, we bake! ;)

As for the cake itself, it was real sky-high tall. It tasted not too bitter and not that sweet either. The mascarpone cheese was the best part. Oh boy, here comes the naked truth, most of them preferred eating the cake than the green slime. Hence, the cake go naked without its coat. Well, one word; topless.

The picture above; the cake's eye view. Despite of the green ugly watery slime, we were happy with the end result though the decorations turned out ugly. One shoutout before this paw-printed post ends, Happy Buttday Uncle Phill! =)

Confessions Confessed

2007-10-04T14:33:00.001+08:00

A bond which has been left untouched, far apart, and unconnected for a period of 3 years, or may be even more. Oh poochie Whisky, let me take it from here.

A cup of scraps from the chocolate genoise and a hole to bury the past.

It started off just like most cat fights did which does not involve drastic pull-hair actions and claw-fights. And, honestly, I must confessed that I was glad. Glad that bad things happened pretty quick, that surprisingly taught me lessons that I wouldn't think of learning. Being independent, treasuring none-cookie cutter people, learning the implicit rule of the well-known term 'sharing is caring' and having the time of my own; which partially injected the baking craze in me.

The oreo and whipping cream. Looks can be deceiving.

Jealousy, misunderstandings and immature minds of young school kids. That may be the reasons of the whole past historical occurrence. No offense to anyone, that is just a set of stereotypes of the usual school kids, which includes me as well. x)

Where the burying begins. Filled with Oreo cream and covered with whipping creams.

Looking on some perspectives, there's absolutely no regrets on befriending her. Though the feud over the past years had been a definite cold silent war, in return, God had arranged someone new for me to venture with. Perhaps, it's just what destined us to be far apart at one point. And then, back together on the other, to instill values that we have always wished for. That is the thoughts that came running through one mind of mine.

Filling the top with a whole tube of Oreo. Surprise, surprise.

There's even times that I would not want to believe the hidden actions; actions behind the veil. But, see; there's always a but, sighting a green homemade friendship voucher of hers in a box filled with buddies' birthday cards and letters changed my mind.

One word; Flat. Topping more Oreos to get the piled-up appearance.

After some time, I'd manage to let go and get back on my dirty hiking tracks with someone new. That is one reason that my other blog, which revolves stuffs about the feud, has been put down. "So, what's the use of having that blog for," I thought, once realizing both closest buds have already been putting their faith and trust in me. The blog's officially buried deep down under. No, I would not be digging for its' remains though, but I'll be keeping it as it takes me days to google for one right choice of worthy life-time quote. =)

After pilling up, the top gets the prize. Prize of being piped with hippy happy words.

After the years of text messages fun-filled with apologies from one and another, vice versa, the truth begins to emerge itself. Years passed, feuds over, things change and so does each and every girl which gives an impact into my life during my good old naughty days. The sincerity and warmth can be felt, and I was freed, spiritually. No burdens. None, for now. I treasured the losses. And my girls.

An Oreo surprise for the roundest buttock woman. A big smack on her butt. (*Smacks*)

A procrastinated paw-printed post, dedicated to the one who came on the 12th of September 19XX, Shuet Theng. Happy big ol Buttday, Shuet Theng!

Heating Up Pan Dulce

2007-09-23T21:41:00.001+08:00

As we tried to google up the other recognized term for Pan Dulce, we found out that these sweet baked goods were generally originated from Mexico. Easily defined as a sweet bun which have been topped off with sweetened streusel topping, best yet, traditional ones were pretty colorful. The Mexicans christened these sweet buns as Mexican Sweet Bun. And obviously, Mexican Buns does not only refer to the very famous Roti Boy. Roti Boy, buns filled with melted butter and coffee flavored streusel topping were surprisingly part of these Mexican Sweet Bun. There were hundreds when one speak of the colored toppings and shapes. More samples of Mexican Sweet Buns from this link; Rico Pan Dulce. As for the recipes, click here; Pan Dulce's recipe.

As the bread dough were proofing, we got ourselves into topping-making. Two toppings and one portion of bread dough. No fillings were incurred as we were out of time - Fatass Michelle needs to prepare for her college's stuffs.

This is down to the sweet vanilla streusel topping with white icing and the other was the coffee flavored streusel sprinkled with colorful chocolate rice. Coffee topping were spread onto the proofed bun, followed by the colorful chocolate rice.

Within an hour and the half, the Pan Dulce With Coffee Topping were done.

Next up, the Pan Dulce With Vanilla Topping.

The vanilla streusels were rubbed with fingertips, onto the surface of the unbaked bun in order to looked as crumbly as possible.

Once baked, it was cooled on a wire rack.

Icing were made and spooned into a piping bag. By using a small round shaped nozzle, the piping begins. Patterns varies.

Some were perfect; with beautiful swirls which is good enough to catch some unwanted attention.

While some others looked sperminated. (*Devilish Grin*). Hmm, this calls for more food porn. x)