One Bowl Chocolate Cupcake & Buttercream Roses n Sunflowers

Chocolate cupcake recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcake book..i love this book..all the cupcakes photos in her book look so delicious! The chocolate cupcake is chocolate-ty and moist and not very sweet which is what i like.

This is the FIRST time i piped roses!!! I didn't pipe the roses well..cos my hand kept shivering..LOL!.. I'll do better next time..i hope! However, does anyone know why the wilton gel color doesn't blend in too well with the buttercream and i can still see some grainy colors..(see the roses..it's more the roses than the leaves)..i wonder why? Or is it because i put too little tint since it is suppose to be red..but i put too little and it is pink? I'm very stingy when it comes to coloring..lol!


I piped another design on the same batch of cupcakes - "sunflower" this time!..:)

[NOTE]: Now i know why - i have to let the color rest for a while before i use the buttercream, so the coloring will be even..and will darken also after a while. :)

Traditional Buttercake

Traditional Buttercake uses half margarine & half butter...so the butter flavor is not so pronounced... I was too lazy to use the round cake tin, so i used cupcake cases instead..and easier to eat instead of cutting slices..:P

Mochi Cake

I made Lemonpi's mochi cake and it is absolutely delicious! It has that mochi chewy texture feel to it but yet in a cakey form. It actually tastes quite a lot like our 'Malay or Nonya kuehs'.. Hard to explain till you've tried it imo. I tweet-ed her a few days ago and she told me it's really good and she makes them almost every weekend. I believed her..since i love anything that is mochi - japanese mochi, chinese 'mauh-chee'..etc, i thought i should try mochi cake as well and decided that i must bake it this weekend. I was too caught up with the sugarpaste flowers yesterday but today i had some time and the recipe looked pretty simple.

I added sweetened red beans, i figured to give it a more authentic 'japanese flavor' since mochi is most often paired with red-bean. I was too lazy to cook the red beans, so i took the easy way out and bought Japanese canned red beans instead..LOL!

Even my husband who doesn't like any 'fusion' food or rather he prefers the conventional asian food..thinks this cake tastes great! I'm so happy that i made the cake today! :) And thanks Lemonpi for converting the recipe into metric...i feel more comfortable baking in metric..lol! Here's her recipe link.

Petit Four - Fondant Roses

Made mini-tier cake and used my sugar rose as deco. I dusted the roses with edible pearl dust to give them a shiny effect. It was running late at night and i had a long day today - cook dinner, do the roses etc, so i didn't roll the fondant well and i also didn't smoothen the fondant either, as i wanted to quickly get over and done with..so you can see some uneven markings.. :P

My First Sugar Flower - Rose

My very first time doing sugar flowers! I made Rose.. not easy..took quite some time and the results are far from being good.. and the hot & humid weather isn't helping and i had to put the roses in aircon room to 'dry' it.

Cornflake Cookies

These cornflake cookies are soooo very easy to make and yet so delicious! Really good!

Recipe coming up soon....

Cornflake Cookies by Betty Saw (from one of her books..Asian High Tea or something?!..sorry gotta check cos i am now typing this recipe by memory)

(Yield: about 32 cookies ...at least for me..)

Ingredients:-

105g of butter
115g of sugar
100g of raisins
1 egg yolk
90g of self rising flour
30g of all purpose flour
cornflakes (lightly crushed)

Method:-

1) pre-heat oven at 175c
2) cream the butter & sugar till light & fluffy
3) beat in the egg yolk
4) add self rising flour & all purpose flour and stir till just combine
5) stir in raisins
6) spoon teaspoon of batter and coat with cornflakes & place on greased* baking sheets (*according to book - but i didn't grease cos i didn't think it was necessary & didn't stick anyway)
7) bake for 10-12mins (for me..the cookies wasn't ready till 20mins..so really depends on your oven)


Happy Baking! :)

Japanese Sponge Cake

I tweaked the original recipe from Chef Alex Goh's Japanese Cotton Sponge Cake. His original Japanese sponge cake has a more egg-y taste to it and more spong-y. However, i wanted a more 'cake-y' taste, so i tweaked his ingredients quite a fair bit and ended up pretty smug about it..hahahaha... Well, at least it turned out well - the texture is heavier but yet moist and light at the same time - i like the cake and so does my family.. :D

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

This is extremely moist bundt cake and no matter how long you put the cake in the oven, the wooden skewer is not gonna come out 'clean'..! That's what i found out!

The cake is good on its own actually, but i just wanted it more chocolately but then too lazy to even do a proper frosting. I just did my own version of chocolate frosting using sour cream instead of pure cream and i didn't even bother to smoothen out the icing sugar properly either..:P ..hence you see that the frosting is kinna rough..:P

Sour Cream Pound Cake

Not totally happy with the Powdered Sugar Pound Cake, i flipped through Carole Walter's book again and baked her Sour Cream Pound Cake. Thankfully, it turned out great....moist, soft and yummy..exactly what i thought pound cake should be! Yippe! LOL!

No photos..cos my photog took photos of the mini fondant cake and doesn't want to take any more photos..LOL!..cos it's exam time.. perhaps i'll take some photos later..




Managed to get my photog to take these photos as she wanted to eat the cake with ice-cream, i made a deal with her..she takes photo while i get the cake & ice-cream ready for her..hahahahaha

Petit Four - Mini Fondant Cake

Made this mini fondant cake from the powdered sugar pound cake...i used a mini cookie cutter to cut out the shape and actually had a hard time cutting through the slice of cake...that means i'm gonna go buy some petit four cutters tomorrow..lol!

Fondant is the marshmallow fondant extras from my daughter's birthday cake. I freezed the excess fondant then and surprisingly it worked very well after it has been thawed (i thawed it last night)..imo, it actually worked better after i freezed it - more pliable.. So, at least now i know it is possible to freeze marshmallow fondant. :)

And this is my first time making a ribbon/bow..not too bad..but perhaps it is a miniature version so it is easier, i guess. :)

Powdered Sugar Pound Cake

No photos..cos i'm too lazy..maybe later...or tomorrow when i "dress" a slice up with some buttercream or something..


I baked Carole Walter's powdered sugar pound cake and i find it a bit too dry. It's not the moist type of pound cake and leave a strange after taste imo. However, i am strangely addicted to it somehow..i think perhaps it is quite bland and tasteless, hence i can eat one slice after another...weird..

Curry Bread Buns & Cinnamon Rolls

Buns with curry fillings..but i cheated cos last min i decided to make bread after work, so used canned curry..lol!


Cinnamon Rolls again..