Annalisa's First Birthday - Littlest Pet Shop cake

I made a Littlest Pet Shop cake with cuppies for my niece Annalisa's first birthday. I tried making the pink snail. I like it's eye's which are so adorable. I got to use my new food markers and I'm so happy I bought them! The fondant was still a bit too soft and the cute little snail sagged a bit. It flattened even more when put on display during the party because the air-conditioning wasn't on. I guess I'll have to try the hard fondant recipe for modelling next time round. I still haven't gotten this right yet...

Other than the snail, a no.1 candle and a leaf with her name on it went on top of the cake. Unfortunately, I spelled my own niece's name wrong! :) Sorry Asa!

The cake is a chocolate fudge cake with buttercream filling and crumb coating, and fondant covering. I also made some coffee cupcakes with coffee flavoured fresh cream frosting. I made large swirls of frosting and stuck in some Littlest Pet Shop toppers which I made.

I displayed the cake and cuppies on a two-tier stand which I made for Eva and Solomon's birthday a few months ago. I just spruced it up a little with ribbons, wrapping paper and the furry feather boa thingie. The kids loved the LPS toppers the most.

Tiramisu Layer Cake

I made a cake for Sis no.2's birthday. Cakes for fondant icing are quite limited; they have to be firm enough to hold the weight of the fondant and cannot contain too much frosting or filling. So, I decided to make a layer cake instead of a fondant one because I wanted to try out different flavours with lots of yummy cream filling.

I decided to go with tiramisu. Tiramisu is basically sponge fingers dipped in a solution of coffee and liquor, then arranged in layers with cream in between. The cream is a decadent combination of zabaglione (Italian custard), mascarpone cheese, coffee, fresh cream and liquor.

For my version, I baked a butter cake and incorporated the coffee and rum (my choice of liquor) into the batter. Then I cut the cake into 3 layers. I filled the layers with a cream mixture consisting fresh cream, mascarpone, coffee, rum and sugar (I left out the zabaglione because I was too lazy and also short on time). I found the mascarpone rather tasteless, but its texture is marvelously creamy and rich!

I added chocolate shavings on the layers of cream and also a dusting of cocoa for the top layer. Then I just stuck on some pretty pastel 'Happy Birthday' candles.

Overall, it looked and tasted great. However, the cake was a bit heavy and the layers squeezed the cream out the sides when cut. I might try using a sponge cake recipe the next time around.

Minced Beef Pies

On Sunday I made some minced beef pies. I used the shortcrust pastry which I made earlier for the bases. Then I filled that with a minced meat filling and then topped it with mashed potatoes.

I rolled out the pastry and used a large round cookie cutter to cut circles. Then I pressed the circles into a non-stick muffin tray. I made a mistake by pulling and stretching the dough circles which caused them to shrink while I was fitting them into the muffin holes. This made the process quite frustrating!

For the filling, I stir fried some chopped onions with minced beef and added some tomato paste, a cup of instant beef and herbs gravy and some salt and black pepper to taste. I also used some red wine which rounds up the rich flavour of the beef. Oh yes, the mixture was a bit too watery, so I added some corn flour.

As a topping, I piped on some mashed potatoes using a star nozzle. It looked a bit 'poo-like' at first, but developed a nice pattern when the accents turned brown in the oven. You can use any mashed potato recipe you like. Here I used cream and a bit of salt and pepper with the potatoes.

The pies were lovely and the kids devoured them; except for Eva who's not into anything that actually requires chewing!

I might make these again, but maybe without the troublesome pastry!

Lollipop Cupcakes

I have been itching to practice my icing piping techniques, especially large swirls on cupcakes. However, I'm always too tired and too short on time to start from scratch. So, I finally cheated and bought cupcakes from the bakery just so I could decorate them! Why didn't I think of this earlier?

I tried a buttercream recipe using butter, icing sugar and golden syrup. It tasted a little better than usual buttercream, but I still do not like buttercream in general. I was hoping to find one which tastes good, because I like its stiffer consistency which produces swirls with sharper and more well-defined edges. But I feel it is still too much butter to swallow! I definitely prefer the taste of chocolate ganache and whipped cream.

Anyway, I piped buttercream swirls using a large drop flower tip which I modified a bit! I unfortunately do not own a Wilton 1M tip :( Then I sprinkled some non-pariels and stuck on lollipops which have been sitting in my freezer for ages.

Mango Pudding

Mango pudding doesn't require any baking, but I thought I'd share this recipe anyway, because it's quite simple and turned out rather yummy. My kids like it, I think it's nice but a bit rich though, so you can't have too much.

Anyway, my in-laws have mango trees in the garden and 'tis the season of mangoes. Since there's a glut and we're not eating fast enough, I decided to make something with them. Mango cake doesn't sound too appetizing, so I found this recipe for mango pudding instead:



Mango pudding

(makes 16-20 servings)

3 cups mango puree (strained and fibres discarded)
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 cups sugar
5 sachets gelatine powder (5 x 10g)
*3 cups cream
*extra cream for serving

Place water in large pot.
Sprinkle gelatine powder over water and let stand for 1 minute to bloom.
Place pot over medium heat and heat liquid until gelatine totally dissolves. (do not boil)
Add sugar and continue heating, stirring occasionally, until sugar totally dissolves.
Remove pot from heat.
Add cream and puree.
Stir and pour into individual serving bowls.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
Serve with cream poured over.

*(cream may be replaced with evaporated milk for a 'reduced fat' version)

Halloween sugar cookies

Today I baked sugar cookies. I used these Wilton 101 cookie cutters. They have many Halloween shapes like a cat, a witch, a haunted house, a ghost, two sizes of pumpkins, a bat and a moon. I used the ghost and small pumpkin mainly because I didn't want to use too much black colouring for things like the black cat and the black bat. A pink kitty just won't have the same Halloween effect... :)



Anyway, when rolling out the dough, I placed the dough in between 2 sheets of cling film (a trick I saw on tv). It made the process so, so much easier! I would recommend everyone to do this, as there is no more sticking to the table or the rolling pin. It makes all the frustration and hair-pulling disappear!

After the cookies were baked and cooled, I frosted them with cookie icing. I used a thicker icing to pipe out the outline. Then I flooded the inside with thinned icing. After that I added the details with black icing. This was all quite a bit of work and there was also quite some waiting; for the icing to dry.

The cookies turned out very pretty, but it took a lot of time and effort! So, I don't think I'll be using my cookie cutters for quite a while!

Shortcrust pastry

Last night I made some sugar cookie dough for baking cookies today. You can get the recipe here.

I also made some shortcrust pastry to freeze, because I intend to make some pies and quiche next week. I love puff pastry, but just looking at the recipe makes me feel tired! It's so much work, I'm too lazy to attempt it! Anyway, here's the recipe for shortcrust pastry which is so simple and straight forward.

I used all butter and no lard though, because lard is not very healthy, but mainly because I didn't have any! :) I'm hoping it will still turn out okay when I bake it!

Shortcrust Pastry

Ingredients:
225g flour
50g lard
50g butter
1/2 tsp salt
40ml water


Sift the flour together with the salt, high above the mixing bowl to incorporate more air.


Place fats onto flour and cut fats into flour with round ended spatula. Continue cutting until fat pieces are pea sized and coated in flour.

Use fingertips (so as not to introduce unnecessary heat from palms of hands) to rub fats and flour together. Lift high and let mixture drop into bowl while rubbing.


When mixture resembles uniform sized breadcrumbs, add 10ml water and stir with spatula.

Add another 10ml water and stir with spatula.

Add another 10ml water and this time press down with spatula.

Add the last 10ml of water and bring dough together with hands.


Knead dough lightly for a few minutes on a floured surface until smooth.

Wrap with cling film and refrigerate for at least half an hour (for the gluten to develop) before use.

Princess Castle fondant cake

Since I messed up the Belle princess cake topper, I decided to make a castle cake for my niece Michelle's 7th birthday instead.


I baked a chocolate mud cake for the 9" square base and a 6" round strawberry butter cake for the castle's main building. For the four towers, I used small swiss rolls purchased from a bakery. As for the roof of the towers, ice-cream cones were perfect.

After covering all the parts in white fondant, I stacked the circle on top of the square. Then I placed the four rolls upright on the four corners of the base cake and secured them by sticking a bamboo skewer right through, down to the cake board. I tinted some white chocolate with purple colouring and used it to coat the ice-cream cones. Then I placed the cones on the towers.


The windows and doors are made from purple fondant and the writing from buttercream. To top it all off, I stuck the purple feathery boa thingy on the cake board, around the base. That added to the whole girly princess feel.


The sparkly candle made the cake look like the Sleeping Beauty Castle with fireworks overhead!

Beauty or the Beast?

Last week I was itching to try some more fondant modelling. Since niece Michelle's birthday was coming up , I thought I would try making one of the Disney princesses which all little girls love so much. I chose Belle from Beauty and the Beast, because she has one of the prettiest and grandest dresses and it is only one colour, yellow, so I save time! :)

I was having fun getting into the groove of things, when I realised that my Belle was growing shorter by the minute! Apparently, my fondant was way too soft and the poor princess was sinking and sagging!

So, I ended up with a princess who looked like she had a growth hormone disorder and no neck!

*sigh*

Will try again when I have the energy and this time I'll use a plastic cone or something as a frame on the inside to provide some support. I'll also make sure the fondant is not too wet.

Shaun the Sheep fondant cuppies

I love this blog http://thefrostedcakencookie.blogspot.com/ Every Tuesday she will come up with a fondant cupcake topper and there will be a tutorial to teach us how to do it.

I really love the Wallace and Gromit cake and cuppies she made for her husband's birthday. So I tried making Gromit and Shaun the sheep (I'm assuming Wallace is the bald guy and Gromit is the dog) just for fun.

Her instructions made it really easy to make these two guys. I'm really happy with the way they turned out.

Here Annie tried her hand at modelling and made a birdie.



One set packed and ready to go.