1st gathering of 2010 & Happy New Year!!

Wow time had really passed so fast and now we are in the year of 2010.. A new year.. a new beginning.. ha ha.. Last month was really a very tiring month and really stay home time for me as my maid was on a one month holiday. So there wasn't much time to bake or even shop coz I had to take care of the two boys.

Hubby had decided to have a small gathering @ home to welcome 2010 and to had a few cool drink and since it was a saturday what better to do then have friends to spend some times together. So i had just made prata sausage for the gathering as it's the fastest. And yes this was a finger food gathering meaning that we are serving only finger food and drinks.. ha ha.. It was good that our friends brought some food over to share as well so decide to share with you all what we had..

And Would like wish all the beloved bloggers a happy 2010!!

Chocolate Cream Cake - Birthday cake for my niece Xin Xin

Wow.. two weeks had passed since my maid had gone on a month leave. It had been hectic looking after my two boys coz both are very attached to me and wish that they can be hold by me all the time. So I had not had time to do anything except to play with them, wash them and feed them.

Both am glad tat hubby finally took time off for a few day to help me and my niece's birthday is tomorrow so decided to made a birthday cake for her.. my excuse to bake a cake so can try a different and new flavour cake.

Had been trying to decide what cake to bake and hubby finally say that it's best that I check with my brother on what cake his baby girl like .. Xin is turing 5 yrs old. So today the chose of cake is a "Chocolate Cake".

So check my cake book and look for a chocolate and yahoo.. got a simple recipe from Kevin Chai book on a chocolate cream cake and decide to put it to the trial ha ha.. It was quite a simple recipe and I got most of the ingredients.

However, I find that the chocolate cream is so little so not sure whether the cake is creamy enough ha ha as it's a cake for kids and kids just love cream right?? Since it's a cake for a kid and time is short so decided to put a simple design for it.. So the cake topped with fresh whipped cream with M&M chocolate on top and is cover at the bottom with flowery mashmallow..

A Happy Birthday to you Xin, hope you like the cake yee yee made for u...

Giant Oreo Cupcake

Been thinking of making something different which is nice and easy to made. Finally decided to make cupcakes for this time round. I particularly saw this simple looking recipe and spotted this nice picture of a Oreo & Raisin Cupcakes from Aunty Yochana.

The ingredient was so simple and only few ingredients was required to made it. As I only have a simple small desktop electric oven so was going through my cupcake mould to see how many can fit it and my gosh... I can only fit in 9 cupcake mould and this is a big size one as well.

Had not done any cupcake before and the recipe did not state how many cupcake i can made. So i decided to just use the 9 big size cupcake mould and throw in all the batter.. ha ha .. and i think i overfilled the cupcakes almost to 90% coz I dun wan to leave any batter behind. And it was really a mistake as the batter start to rise, rise and rise and overflowed out from the cupcake mould. And so it was another mess that I had made he he..

I think maybe some one can help me out on this as to whether i can just leave the batter and put it in after the 1st tray of cupcake is done. coz for most cakes it's best that once u mix everything together u must straight away put the cake batter into the oven to start baking or else the cake will be deflatted.

This is the biggest problem with a small oven. How I wish I can get a bigger oven to made life more simpler ha ha.. so I can bake with more fun and not going around worrying whether the cake pan can fit.. So Santa pls help me send out this msg for a new oven.. ha ha n thank you..

Ok ok coming back to the cupcake, beside having cake batter flowing out everywhere in the oven, my giant cupcakes turn out alright. Ya i forgot to mention that I didn't add in raisin as I'm not a great fan of it and for the oreo part I just put in 80g instead of the 100g mentioned and yes it was just alright for me.

When I try the cupcake the top was a big harder ( coz i overbaked i think) but surprisingly the texture inside was just soft and nice. It was a bit sweeter becoz of the oreo cookies added in so if u are not a person with sweet tooth then maybe u can reduce the cookies or reduce the sugar in the ingredient.

Another thing I would like to mention as well was the oreo cookies - I had chopped it into small pieces but not till it all crumbs. I think it taste better as u can taste the oreo and it become soften when u it baked.

So my 1st experience for the first cupcake baking was great he he.. except for the oven complaint part. Thanks to Aunty Yochana for her great recipe and here is the link (recipe) if u wish to try it for yourself. Do try it...

Light soft Yummy Cheese cake

Had been busy with chasing sales and taking care of the two boys. So by the time I'm free already too tired to think of baking. However, recently saw a blog pal sharing on a light cheese cake recipe so decided to put it to trial.

Years ago I had eaten a very nice yummy fluffy cheese cake and ever since that had been wanting to make one myself but fail to get a nice recipe for making it. By thanks to Little Teochew's cotton japanese cheese cake recipe, I get the chance to try it again.. For the recipe pls refer to Little Teochew's blog.

Yes the cake was like what she had shared.. light, fluffy and cheesy. Her tips was nice as well but coz we were going out so I had taken the cake out from the oven straight after it was baked. It was fluffy and full but as u see from the picture when the cake was let to cool on a wire rack the top just sink in. So this is to tell u better to hear what other advice ha ha.. I didn't have a 8 or 9 inch cake pan as I only got those that is loose pan one. I didn't use as this recipe call for baking a in water bath. So i used a square pan -not sure wat size is it. SO when I pour in the batter it was almost 90% full..

So at first, I had try to put a aluminium foil on top to cover but coz the batter was too full it was touching the foil so I decided to take it out. Scare that I overbaked the cake so I lowered the oven temp to 150 degree celsius and extended the baking time to 1 hour 30 min. when it was baking for almost 40 min I lowered the temp again to 140-130 degree so it cook slow and with a nice golden colour on top.

But the cake is just very nice. ANd my son being very picky had eaten a few more pieces than usual and this was the same to my in laws. I must say if u are looking for a light spongy cheese cake this is a cake recipe that u must try..

Banana Chiffon Cake

There was quite a lot of banana leftover and seem like no one are eating it ha ha. So I thought why not made use of it and decided to made another round of banana chiffon cake. Had not made this cake for quite sometimes and had already forgetton all abt it.

As usual chiffon most impt technique i guess is beating the egg whites to stiff consistent and another one would be mixing it with the egg yolk batter and made sure that it's not over mixed. I think I'm getting better with chiffon cake making and it's quite easy.

I added an additional egg to the actual recipe as the egg was quite small. I guess the actual recipe asked for medium or large egg so decide to put in an additional one more. The cake turn out as expected very soft - when I cut the cake, the was a watery sound so am not sure whether is it I put too much egg so it's too soft and wet. But when I taste it, it was just nice but it was a bit sweet. I totally forgot to reduce it. So will try to remember to reduce the sugar the next round.

Chocolate Banana Cake again!!

My Brother in law was having a gathering for his office collegue yesterday so invited us to go their house. There was bouncer for the kids and foods for the adult ha ha.. We weren't expected to bring anything but I thought that I can made a Chocolate Banana Cake for them to try.

Making the cake was not difficult. I think the challenge I have with this cake is how to put it on a wire rack after icing and transfering the cake onto a cake board once I had pour the chocolate ganache on top. I had friends sharing how they had to lift up the cake and then slowing sliding the cake so that it can be transfer to the cake board.

I try it but it didn't work for me. It was really a big mess. Not sure how to do it better. hmm.. Will try to see what is a better option to transfer the cake next time.

Boy... I made a real mess on transfering the cake with chocolate everyway- on the table, the board, my hand n my t-shirt. I try sliding the cake but it didn't slide at all. If you see from the picture i took, i accidently cut the side of the cake when trying to transfer it.

Butter Cake

It had been quite some time already since I last made some cake. Partly coz of work and partly coz of my sons. Wee had been very "manja" lately and it's making it kind of hard for me to spend some time on my baking. So I had to temporarily put down my passion and try to made him at ease and secure coz he is always looking for me and making it very hard for me to leave home for work or even spend some time doing other things.

Today I just thought that I had to made something up so after work I straight away go to the kitchen and made a butter cake which the recipe I got it from Kevin Chai's Book - Butter Cake. The recipe seem very simple and i got all the ingredients in my kitchen.

Well, eventhough it's plain old butter cake but I find it that I had so far not yet got one that look nice, come with nice texture and taste nice as well. All the recipe that I got were all nice to eat but when cut it's got a lot of crumbs - not like those sold in the bakery which is nice and got good textures.

As I only got small egg so I decide to put in an extra egg as the original recipe call for 5 egg only. I find that most recipe books dun state the size of the egg they use which might also affect the texture of the cake. When the cake was out, It sure taste nice but still I didn't get the nice texture cake which I was looking for and the crust was a bit over baked so it was hard. Guess I better start looking for other better recipes..