Claire's 4th Birthday - Hello Kitty cake

We celebrated Claire's 4th birthday yesterday. I made two cakes for her; one to bring to school and another for the party that night.

She requested for Hello Kitty cakes, so I made one with a 3D model of Kitty and another with an appliqued Kitty.


I baked two 9" round chocolate fudge cakes. I used the recipe from The Cake Bible and I think this is the yummiest one so far. I iced and filled the cakes with a light chocolate ganache.


This time round, I got the rolled fondant recipe just right. It's texture was wonderfully soft and pliable. It was a delight to work with. There wasn't a crack in sight; just a few air bubbles. I made the 3D model and the flowers a few days ahead of time, so that they would be nice and dry when I needed them.


All in all, I think this is my best work yet, so far.

70th Birthday Cake

We celebrated my Father-in-law's 70th birthday on Saturday night. I baked a two tiered cake. The top tier was a 7" round butter cake filled with peaches and fresh cream. I reduced the sugar for the cake and that made the texture a bit harder and drier.

The lower tier was a 9" round chocolate butter cake filled with fresh cream and whole Oreo cookies!

I made the fondant number 70 a few days earlier. This time round, my fondant was off. It was very dry and cracked easily. I think it has something to do with the fact that my gelatine just did not want to dissolve into a clear liquid when I was making the fondant.

Anyway, since I had no time to make a new batch, I worked with what I had and covered all the ugly cracks and tears with green fondant and also a green ribbon!

Then I just topped it with the numbers and real vermilion gerberas.

Happy Father's Day

I got a new book from Amazon.com, "The Cake Bible", by Rose Levy Beranbaum. It's a great book with a complete range of cake recipes and what I like most is the detailed explanations of the science behind cake-making. It tells you what every ingredient is for; in the physics and chemistry of the cake.

Anyway, I made the 'All Ocassion Butter Cake' from her book, for Father's Day. The cake was great, it had a good texture and lovely taste. I levelled and torted the cakes (I made two) with the Wilton cake leveller which I also recently purchased. It's a very useful tool indeed.

I filled the cakes with lemon curd which unfortunately didn't go down too well with the children! I iced it with the lemon curd then a simple buttercream. I was going to use my leftover fondant, but found that it's texture had gone off and I did not have time to make a new batch.

Since I was short on time, I just tied a red ribbon round the sides and wrote a simple 'Happy Father's Day' on top.

Yummy Cream Puffs or Profiteroles

My children love cream puffs. So the other day I tried to make a batch. I made the choux pastry buns and filled them with whipped cream. If I had more time, I would've liked to make some chocolate sauce to drizzle over the cream puffs! Yum.. The children loved them as they were anyway.

The pastry for cream puffs is called choux pastry and it's unique because you have to cook the dough before baking. I found it quite easy and straight forward to make.

Here's the recipe I used, which I got from my mum's book, 'Home Baking Made Easy':

Ingredients:

65 g plain flour
2 medium-sized eggs
50 g butter
a pinch of salt
150ml water
a few drops vanilla extract

Method:

1. Sift flour onto a piece of grease-proof paper. Place eggs in a basin and whisk lightly together.

2. Place butter, salt and water in a saucepan over a moderate heat. Bring slowly to the boil, stirring.

3. Quickly draw the pan off the heat and tip in all the flour. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth.

4. Return to pan to a low heat and beat vigorously for 1-2 minutes until the mixture forms a smooth ball.

5. Draw pan off heat; allow to cool for 2 minutes. Beat in eggs a little at a time until incorporated.

6. Beat in vanilla extract. Spoon teaspoonful of the mixture on to baking sheet which has been lightly greased and dusted with flour.

7. Bake at 200 degrees C for 15 minutes, then 190 degrees C for 10 minutes.

Hugh's baptism cake

This is the baptism cake I made for my nephew, little baby Hugh. I made the baby and the two cakes a few days before hand. I also had the soft fondant done and coloured, so I wouldn't take too long assembling it right before the baptism dinner.

The cakes were chocolate mud cake for the top tier and caramel mud cake for the bottom one. Mud cake is really heavy and moist, but I think I still prefer the fudgy brownie cake recipe. The truffle mixture for the filling between layers was too sweet. I think I'll stick to dark chocolate ganache next time or maybe try chocolate mousse. I still intend to explore and try different cake recipes until I find all the ones I like.

Anyway, I covered the cakes with blue soft fondant and stacked them. I put ribbons around the bottoms. I could've sworn I had solid white ribbons, but I only had this gauzy, silvery, white one. It turned out okay, but I think solid white would've looked great. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to rush out and buy some though.

I cut a crinkle circle of white fondant and made it into a doily by indenting the scallops and poking hole patterns with a bamboo skewer. I placed the baby on top and wrote 'God Bless Baby Hugh' with white fresh cream.

It looked great.. now I'm really hooked and counting down to the next birthday...

Baby cake topper

I made this wee baby cake topper for my nephew Baby Hughie's upcoming baptism. I was inspired by the baby cake in the Wilton Fondant book. I like his hair and pacifier! :) I think his legs are a bit not proportionate though.

I finally found the right fondant recipe for modelling in our humid climate. It was shared with me by the generous ladies from 'resipidotnet', a Yahoo group. It's a recipe from a certain Chef Asma. It dries hard, but I found it a bit too dry and it cracked, so I had to add some warm water to get the right consistency. The texture would be much easier to work with if you add gum tragacanth. It makes fondant more elastic and pliable. I think I'll need that if I plan to make more intricate models in the future. I have already ordered some through the internet but they are out of stock and it will only get to me some time next month. I have had no luck finding it in baking shops here.

I found the hardest part was tinting the fondant. It was pretty messy and tedious. I was afraid I wouldn't get the right shade of beige, but succeeded by mixing lots of brown with a bit of pink and yellow. I found that covering your hands with a bit of shortening not only prevented the fondant from sticking, but also reduced the stains from the food colouring. The modelling part was fun and I definitely want to do more of this soon...

This is the recipe I used for the hard fondant:

Chef Asma's Hard Fondant Recipe

1/4 cup cold water
5 teaspoons gelatine
1 tablespoon glycerine
2 tablespoons liquid glucose
1 tablespoon Crisco (vegetable shortening)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 kg icing sugar, sifted

Sprinkle gelatine in cold water. Heat up in a bain marie (a bowl fitted over a pot of simmering water) until gelatine dissolves. Stir in all the other ingredients except for sugar. Cool slightly, then add, bit by bit, to the sugar. Mix until it forms a workable dough. Add more sugar if too wet, and warm water if too dry.

Double wrap with cling film and keep in an airtight container for 12 hours before using. This fondant can be kept this way for weeks in a cool place. Do not refrigerate.

Sugar cookies

Last night I baked some sugar cookies which I need for an upcoming "project". They were pretty easy and straight-forward to make. The hardest part was lifting the cookie shapes onto the tray without distorting them. Here's the recipe I used.

Ingredients:

• 1 bar (225g) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 cups self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  

Makes: About 3 dozen cookies.

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 400°F/200C. In mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and extract. Mix flour and salt; add to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Wrap dough in cling film and chill in refrigerator for half an hour. Divide dough into 2 balls. On a floured surface, roll each ball into a circle approximately 12 in. wide and 1/8 in. thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour before each use. Bake cookies on ungreased cookie sheet 6-7 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned.
I only used half the dough and freezed the rest for future use. I had more than I needed so I made the rest into small cookies for the kids to bring to school today, since I forgot to buy bread anyway :) I got to use my sprinkles and the kids loved them.

The photos are really crappy because it was late at night, so the lighting wasn't good and I was not bothered to try harder because my bed was beckoning!

Allyson's birthday cake

This was a last minute cake for my niece Allyson's party tonight, so I didn't have time to use fondant. I baked a chocolate mud cake, using a recipe I found on the internet and have been dying to try. The batter was really watery and I was worried the texture would go wrong, like my Devil's Food Cake disaster. Instead, it turned out to be surprisingly light and moist.

The filling is a yummy chocolate truffle and I iced it with the easy packaged type of non-dairy topping. I wanted very strong primary colours for the decoration so I had to add a lot of food colouring. I think I'll look for food colouring paste, instead of liquid, the next time I hit the shops.

I will be needing much more practice in piping icing, but I think overall it turned out okay for an amateur. I like the sides of the cake, but am not too happy with the top. I was just itching to use my lovely sprinkles. From now on I think I'll just leave the sprinkles for cupcakes.

The cream curdled a bit while I was doing the big round dots which are supposed to be balloons! I have no idea why. I could have overwhipped the mix or added too much liquid in the form of food colouring. I also realised I used the wrong tip for the border. I used the star instead of the shell. Learning... learning...

Annie's birthday cake

 On Friday, we celebrated my daughter Annie's 8th birthday. I wanted to make a special fondant cake for her. I baked four layers of chocolate cake (two 6" rounds and two 9" rounds) and made a two tiered cake. I was inspired by the candy cake design from one of my Wilton books.

I used the fondant recipe which I got off the blog "Zoe bakes". The taste and texture of the fondant was good, and it also didn't use any shortening (trans fat), but it could not stand up to the heat and humidity of our climate. Even though I kept the air-conditioning on, the fondant began to sweat and wilt after awhile.


I am therefore now out on a hunt for the right fondant recipe. Hope I can find one just right for our weather here.

Choc chip cuppies with fresh cream & fondant

 Annie and Claire celebrated Teacher's Day at school on Friday. So, I made some chocolate chip cupcakes for them to share with the other kids during the class party. I cheated and used Betty Crocker muffin mix. It saved me so much time and of course they turned out great!

I took half of the cupcakes to decorate as gifts for the teachers. I iced them with fresh cream and made fondant apples to place on top. An apple for teacher!