sonya's been baking lots of cakes, but I've been doing breads. This is my first serious cake, that involves decoration and some kind of design! In the past, I've done butter cakes, sponge cakes and Japanese-style cheesecakes, but I have never tried decorating them before.


This should be familiar, because it's what sonya made a few posts back, for another birthday across the ocean. It was really rewarding to make such a gorgeous cake, and it's inspired me to try baking more desserts, not just breads. I'll be on the look-out for not just new bread recipes but also desserts now!

It was a fantastic group activity, because of all the people involved. The person who lent me the electric mixer, my wonderful helper in the kitchen, and the talented cake decorator who gave advice and oversaw the attempt to decorate the cake.


The coolest part was covering up the uneven surface with chocolate ganache, which despite its fanciful name, is just melted chocolate in butter... it makes the cake look really cool! It reminds me of nail polish... apply a coat, let it dry and watch it shine unnaturally... only, it's edible.


Of course, no cake is done without strawberries on cream, and the usual frosting for decoration! I got a chance to practice my calligraphy, which I have not used since I've started uni... I guess because I'm not doing a course that requires handwriting. It's really a pity, that nowadays we tend to buy things instead of making them.

So, challenge yourself to bake your own cheesecakes, instead of buying them! The best part about this was being able to control the amount of sugar going into this thing, and being able to work on perfecting the cheesecake, the brownie and the cheesecake crust instead of settling for whatever Costco/TOPs is putting for sale on the shelf. Most importantly, people appreciate it if what they're eating was handmade.

Enough ego boost, back to work. Happy baking!

two things, just because im anal and extremely uptight about some things.

i made a danish braid just to see how it would be, and because it really didnt sound all that difficult. despite the repeated foldings and restings. BUT THEN i didnt forsee the butter tearing out of the dough while i was rolling. presumably because i dont have a rolling pin (!! something sonya doesnt have) and was using the long handle of a silicon spoon to try and roll it out decently.

over and beyond butter breaking out of the dough and getting on my hands and not staying in :( the dough kept shrinking. it was simply impossible for me to try and get the dough to stay the size i had rolled it out to. but i kept trying and eventually when it hardly rose -forget about doubling- during its final rise i got so upset and rather disturbed by the whole waste of time that i went out and made a gigantic apple cake. just because i hate not at least churning out one good thing when im bothered to switch on the oven.

the gigantic part of it was not my fault. or perhaps it was, for not having read the ingredients and then computing that to equate to a large cake. but in went 6 apples, a massive load of flour and all sorts of other ingredients and i was left with a cake that fully utilised the capacity of my brand new DEEP cake pan.

i've just bought a new vanilla extract that comes with seeds and it made both the danish and the apple cake smell very good. have i ever mentioned that typical vanilla extract i find in the uk smell like cough syrup? not so much in the finished product, but before it it has got a sickly smell of sweet cough syrup. NOT APPETISING. but this vanilla-seeded-vanilla-extract smelled wonderful.

the danish pastry was a little tough in the end to spread with the creme patisserie i had made for it. and because i didnt have chocolate chips as specified in the original recipe, i used two strips of nutella in the filling just for that chocolate taste. AH nothing beats nutella, really. about that creme patisserie also: anyone who has read my previous entry would know that i have a recipe for a fantastic dark chocolate pastry cream, so i have high standards. this one was a little tough. the yolk-conrnflour mixture was lumpy in the hot milk, and i had to stir like crazy. PLUS it took so long to thicken it, and i could see the cornflour cooking - there were transparent lumps in the milk that i had to mash just to dissolve. NOT VERY HAPPY ABOUT IT. and i was so darn upset because my new vanilla extract had gone in there, and i didnt want to waste all the pretty seeds in the milk. plus i think i might have been too impatient and left the creme patisserie a little more watery than intended.

braiding was tough as well, because the dough was shrinking. so i couldnt really braid it and afterward, during its non-existent rise, the strips shrank further and so the braid didnt really hold. doesnt sound all too optimistic does it! it wasnt. which was why i made the apple cake.

the apple cake was typical, if just a little large. i think i have far more experience with cake anyway, so im prepared for most what happens, and this apple cake was rather typical in texture and ingredients. only thing was that it originally required a bundt pan (!! which is another thing i dont have. people, here are ideas for my birthday present. which is coming up, by the by :D) so using my ultraDEEP cake pan, i baked it in the oven for almost 2.5 hours, covering it up with aluminium halfway.

baking both made my kitchen very very fragrant, and im rather pleased with what came out of the session. take a look! the pastry looks rather decent, and im only a little fussy about wanting it to have been a little thinner. but you can see the layers! and for that im pleased, at least.

you can see as well from the picture that the apple cake is really rustic looking. autumnal really, rather than summer. but i was desperate to bake (since i thought the danish wouldnt do too well) and i only had apples.
there's a layer of apples in the middle that help keep the cake moist as well! all in all i think these were actually rather good.

AFTER a very long absence, it's finally time for me to post again! Behold, choux pastry!

Here's some hard facts:
3 batches
2 trays
3 rows each
7 columns
= 126 puffs
(which feeds 10 people watching Monty Python and all the random passers-by)



The full recipe is here, but here's some tips to make them better:

I used (each batch):
4 eggs (lightly beaten)
1/2 cup salted butter (ie, one helpful stick)
4 ounces self-rising flour
1 egg with 1 tsp water for egg wash (optional, I find the mixture is enough to give it a really brown crust)
8 ounces water

Fillings:
Durian/B&J Creme Brulee and Vanilla ice-cream

Instructions:
1. mise en place. measure out everything. prepare two baking trays lined with parchment and lightly grease them. preheat oven at 420F
2. water in saucepan, add butter in chunks. put on high until all the butter melts (and you should observe boiling)
3. immediately turn down to medium, stir in all the flour rapidly using a wooden spoon. stir the mixture until the flour comes away from the edges and forms a dough. should be around 30s-1min
4. let it cool 1minute, or until you can touch it w/o burning yourself
5. using a whisk, mix in the beaten eggs slowly into the mixture.
6. eventually, you will be getting soft peaks and a cream-like texture.
7. using two spoons or a piping bag, make little lumps of cream. make sure the surface is relatively smooth! place them on the baking trays. my lumps were around 3-4cm diameter.
8. once you are done, place them all into the oven.
9. DO NOT open the oven until 10mins later. then, quickly shift around the trays and continue backing for a total of 25 minutes.
10. puffs should be brown. turn off the oven, and leave the door open. wait 5-10minutes for it to cool down
11. take it out, and let it cool further, poking holes in the shell using a toothpick or fork.
12. slice horizontally, and put ice-cream/filling to serve immediately. if you want to consume it later, freeze it- w/o filling (but since it was ice-cream, just prefill it). this maintains the crispness of the puff.
13. invite friends over :)