Cake decorating course by Tan See Fong

Today, I had joined a cake decorating course by Tan See Fong. It seem he is quite famous in the area of cake decorating and had come up with a number of cake decorating books.

AS it was my first time to go for a cake decorating class and that my covering of icing is very bad so it was a challenge for me. But all it need was a bit of pratice. ANd practice made perfect. THis was the cake I had done.

Milky Mantou

Had not logged into all my baking recently.. had been lazy ha ha.. My Father in law had suddenly requested me to made Mantou yesterday. Was Surpised and excited as well. Previously I had tried it but it was a failure - the mantou was hard and the yeast smell was so strong.

So had been searching for the recipe last night and I found this sharing from 周老師的美食教室 . Her mantou was especially simple to made and only took a total of two hour and 40 min to get the dough double in size.

The result: Good to me. But it's still not the type my father in law was looking for so I'll still need to look for more mantou recipe. ha ha.. But here is the recipe from this teacher. Thanks to her I got the chance to try this milky mantou recipe. Happy trying

Milky Mantou - Makes 14 pieces

材料：
牛奶……………………………300克
快發乾酵母……………………1大匙
中筋麵粉………………………600克
細白砂糖………………………6大匙
沙拉油…………………………2大匙
手粉………………………………適量

做法：
1) 材料（除手粉外）攪拌成麵團，基本發酵1小時（可省略）。
2) 麵糰撲手粉，以壓麵機反覆壓到光滑平整，再捲起（要捲緊），切成14段。
3) 排在鋪了烤盤紙的蒸籠裡（每個之間要有足夠間隔，以免蒸好後黏在一起）。
4) 放溫暖處最後發酵30至40分鐘，至手指輕壓，痕跡較慢回復即可。
5) 從冷水開始蒸，用中火，籠蓋打開些。水沸後計時15分鐘即熟。熄火後放置片刻再開籠蓋，把饅頭取出放在乾布上，以免潮溼。

Marble Cake

Am still on my search for a nice tasting marble cake and therefore decided to try the recipe from Agnes CHang's marble cake recipe. My findings the cake is not as tasty as I wanted and there is nothing special about it. Maybe I'm picky but yet we are always searching for the one things that will give us the "On my gods!!" expression.. ha ha.. so it didn't really meet my expectation..

Cream Cheese Chiffon

Today I try a recipe from Alex goh's cheese book - cream cheese chiffon. I didn't took picture of the chiffon being it break during baking and I use a too big chiffon mould therefore the cake had came out very low and flat ha ha..

But though I would share on how these recipe turn out. Texture is good but not much of cheese taste in it. To me, the cream cheese in the cake is not enough and the cake didn't smell as nice as most cake would do when you add in cream cheese. SO maybe when I try it again I'll add more cream cheese so that you can really smell and taste the cream cheese in the cake. But still would like to share the cake recipe here..

Ingredient :
a. 60g milk
40g Cream Cheese
25g Butter
b. 65g flour
c. 4 egg yolks (large egg weight 60g without the shell)
d. 4 egg whites
100g sugar
pinch of salt
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Methods:
1. Cook (a) over double boiler until well blended and it thickens
2. Remove it from double boiler. Add (b) and mix until smooth
3. Add (c) and mix until well combined
4. Whip the egg whites in (d) until foamy. Add in the rest of the (d) ingredients. Whip till stiff. And add in the cheese mixture from step 3. Fold in by hand till well combined
5. Pour into 9" chiffon pan. Bake at 175 degree celcius for 35-40 min. Remove from oven and invert the cake pan and let it cool.

Overall, my son still like to eat the cake.. he he..

My first adventure into Bread Making

It had been in my plan to made my own bread at home. But due to lack of knowledge and no class on bread teaching around here therefore my adventure in making bread had not started till now. Had got inspiration from a lots of blogger on their bread. Therefore decide to take the challenge today.

I learn from Carol who is very expert in all kinds of bread making and it was also great of her to actually show the step by step explaination of how to made a bread. Yes the process of making the bread is really long I think to just let it expand in size it took around 3 hours and not to say that the time to mix the dough and baking it. So when u wan to made a bread you must really plan your time so that it can be in time for breakfast or even tea break.

With my new oven, I had really to explore the temperature as I had over burn the top of my bread so when it came out it was hard as a rock on the top. ha ha.. better adjust my temperature to less than 170 degree and also the bread was ready in 20 mins time instead of the recommended 40 min. So when you are baking do adjust the time according to your own oven temperature.

Yes the bread is definitely yummy as it was silky soft inside however need to improve in my bread making. WIll post in my next bread making adventure soon. Below is the ingredients for this bread, thanks to carol:

山形白吐司12兩帶蓋吐司模1個(20cmX10cmX10cm)

材料:高筋麵粉350g,速發酵母3/4茶匙,橄欖油(或無鹽奶油)20g,鹽1/2茶匙,細砂糖20g,冷水220g步驟:

1.將所有材料倒入鋼盆中攪拌搓揉成為一個不黏手的麵團 (液體的部份可以先保留20-30cc,在麵團已經攪拌成團後再慢慢加入)

2.繼續攪拌搓揉成為撐的起薄膜的麵團,將麵團滾圓,收口朝下捏緊放入 抹少許油的盆中

3.放入盆中,噴灑些水,表面罩蓋上濕布發酵60-90分鐘(約2倍大) (氣溫低將麵團放入微波爐中關上門做第一次發酵.在微波爐中放一杯 沸水幫助提高溫度.水若冷了就再換一杯)

4.將第一次發酵完成的麵團的空氣拍出,分割成2等份(約295g),搓成圓 形,蓋上擰乾的溼布再讓麵團休息20分鐘

5.將麵團橄成長形後翻面,由短向捲起,蓋上擰乾的溼布再讓麵團休息20分鐘

5.休息好的麵團用桿麵棍桿成長條(約35cm),光滑面朝外由短向捲起,收口 朝下間隔適當排入吐司烤模中(若不是不沾烤盒,請刷上一層奶油避免沾粘)

7.噴些水再發酵50-60分鐘至膨脹滿模 (氣溫低將烤盒放入微波爐中關上門做第二次發酵.在微波爐中放一杯 沸水幫助提高溫度.水若冷了就再換一杯)

8.進烤箱前在表面輕輕刷上一層全蛋液9.放入預熱到170度c的烤箱中烘烤40分鐘

10.出爐後馬上倒扣放在鐵網架上放涼

Happy trying.

New Animal cookie Mould

You know what!! I had been looking up and down for these animal cookie moulds which you need to buy from Y3k. Had been looking at the local bookstore, cake store selling accessories but not these cookie mould.

And guess what!! I found it at a supermarket. It's not actually a cookie mould but it's the same picture cartoon - 4 pcs only - for children clay mould. What a surprise that you can get these from the children book section.. and it only guess like B$2.50. COz I know if I were to order it, which I'm not sure how as they order send to Malaysian only, it would have cost me more.. So glad I found these mould that i can use for my cookie next time.. ha ha wat a great and surprise buy..

Father & Mother's Birthday Celebration

Today is mum's Birthday (Lunar date) and father's advance birthday celebration (6th March). So we went out for dinner at Thiam Hock and of course, I baked the birthdays cake for them. Yes two 7" cake.

I used Kevin Chai's birthday cake recipe and made one Mango blueberry Cake and Oreo Cake. It was my first time to decorate the cake with mango. And it gave me quite of a challenge in putting the slided mango on top of the cake and last minute due to I didn't buy any strawberry for decoration, I used chocolate for the top as decoration.

And well the Oreo Cake was meant for the kids as I know they might like the mango blueberry cake. Hubby commented that the Oreo Cake design is not nice coz it's plain black and white - whip cream and chocolate.

Am so happy coz everyone liked the cake. As predicted the children all asked for the Oreo Cake whereas all the adults prefer the Mango Blueberry Cake.