Retro Chic

I made this cake for myself, Sis no.2 and another 2 friends. It was for a lunch where we were celebrating our birthdays, cause the four of us are all October babies.

I'd been wanting to try out the circles design for a while, because I think it looks so classy and retro chic. So, a birthday lunch for four women was just the right occasion, in my opinion!

Anyhoo... I covered the cake in pink fondant and stuck white circles all around the sides. Then I made a small rope from chocolate fondant and wrapped it around the base of the cake. For the top of the cake, I placed a scalloped circle of brown fondant and on top of that, positioned three simple 5-petaled flowers which I had made ahead of time from gumpaste. I love the decadent look of the final product. This is truly one of my favourite designs.

The cake was a gorgeously delicious Mississippi Chocolate mud cake. I think this is the best mud cake I've tasted yet. It is dense and rich, yet not too wet or muddy and contains whiskey (I stole some of Hubby's Chivas!) so it tastes better after a few days.

 It's also so easy to make. The thing I like best about mud cakes it that you have to melt the butter, so it's not necessary to wait hours for it to come to room temperature after fishing it out of the refrigerator. I usually bake on impulse, so without planning ahead, my butter is usually still rock-solid sitting in the fridge when I'm itching to bake a cake!

I found this recipe in an Australian Woman's Weekly magazine. It is one of their top ten all-time reader's favourite recipe. It is definitely a must-try. Here it goes:

MISSISSIPPI MUD CAKE

Can be made 3 days ahead. 

Storage: Covered, in refrigerator. 

Freeze: Suitable. 

Microwave: Chocolate mixture suitable.

INGREDIENTS

250g cold unsalted butter, chopped
150g dark chocolate, chopped
440g (2 cups) caster sugar
250ml (1 cup) hot water
80ml (1/3 cup) whisky
1 tablespoon instant coffee powder
225g (1½ cups) plain flour
35g (¼ cup) self-raising flour
25g (¼ cup) cocoa powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten

METHOD

Grease 23cm square slab pan, line base with baking paper. Combine butter, chocolate, sugar, water, whisky and coffee powder in medium pan; stir over low heat until chocolate is melted. Transfer mixture to large bowl; cool. Stir in sifted flours and cocoa, then eggs; pour mixture into prepared pan.

Bake at 160°C for 1¼ hours. Stand cake 30 minutes; turn onto wire rack to cool. Serve dusted with sifted icing sugar.


Doesn't it sound way too simple?? Simple ingredients and simple method, to produce a mind-blowing cake! What are you waiting for? Go raid your liquor cupboard!

Chocolate cupcakes

So a while ago, I was browsing through this book my sis gave me. It is loaded with cupcake recipes and I really wanted to try making a good chocolate cupcake. However, they all sounded yummy, so how was I to know which recipe was the best? There are no pictures and no descriptions of the end product, so the only thing to do, was to try them all!!

I picked out four recipes:
1. Dark Chocolate Cupcakes
2. Fudge Cupcakes
3. Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes
4. Luxury Chocolate Cupcakes

I was rather disappointed with the recipes, except for one, no.3; Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes. All the other cupcakes were not chocolate-y enough, though no.4 did have very good texture. As a self-confessed chocoholic, one rule always prevails: "the more chocolate the better"!

Clockwise from bottom left: No.1, 2, 3 then 4.

As you can see, no.3 is the darkest one, simply because it has the most chocolate content. In fact, it's just plenty of melted milk chocolate with eggs and just a bit of flour. It is actually more like a self-saucing chocolate pudding and would do better in ramekins (individual oven-proof ceramic bowls) rather than paper cases. It is deliciously dense, sticky and gooey and seriously super-chocolate-y (just look at it's liquid centre!!)... any 'chocolate-ier' and you might as well just eat the chocolate bar!

So anyway here's the recipe if you want to give it a shot;

Chocolate Mousse Cupcakes (24 cupcakes)

Ingredients:
28 oz (800g) milk chocolate
12 eggs
55gg (1/2 cup) + 2 tbsp flour


Method:
1. Preheat oven to 160C and line cupcake baking tray with paper liners.

2. Break chocolate into a bowl and place over small saucepan of simmering water until chocolate has melted. Remove from heat.

3. Stir in the flour and eggs and whisk well. Fill paper cases to about 3/4 full.

4. Bake for 10-12 mins until the sides of the cupcakes are set, but the insides are still liquid.

5. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for 5-10 mins. Remove the cupcakes from baking tray and allow to cool.
(I prefer them hot and gooey though...)

My ever-willing taste testers...

Kitty Cake

A friend of mine requested that I make a cake and some cuppies for her little girl's birthday. She specifically wanted a tri-coloured kitten with blue eyes.

The cake and cuppies are American chocolate cake, a favourite for kids. The cuppies were frosted with large fresh cream swirls and topped with sprinkles and gumpaste daisies. I do enjoy doing cuppies, they're more fun and stress free compared to cakes.


Anyway, the cake was filled and crumb coated with a chocolate buttercream before being covered in fondant. I made the kitty and ball of wool ahead of time using gumpaste. They were placed on the cake on the day of the party.

I do hope the birthday girl liked her cake!

Strawberry Shortcake

I made a Strawberry Shortcake themed cake for my niece Michelle who turned 8 last week. Strawberry Shortcake herself and the miniature strawberry shortcake on a cake stand in front of her are made of gumpaste. (*phew* that's a lot of "cake" in one sentence!)

I really enjoyed making the miniature cake. I might just make some more for fun! :)

So anyway, the main cake is madeira cake, strawberry flavoured of course, with strawberry jam filling. I then crumb-coated it with buttercream, and covered it with fondant.


I found these oh-so-adorable, green-striped cupcake cases. So, I of course had to make some matching cupcakes to go with the cake. These are just madeira cupcakes with strawberry flavoured fresh cream topping.


I'm happy to report that Michelle loved the Strawberry Shortcake figurine. Only the kids are not so crazy about the cake. So far, American chocolate cake seems to be the most loved. So, I'm now going to work on finding yummier cake and frosting recipes which are also firm enough to hold the weight of fondant.

Forever Friends

I was surfing the net for cake ideas as usual, when I came across a Debbie Brown wedding design. It was a pair of Forever Friends bears, sitting on a sofa, holding a bunch of roses. It was just soooo adorable, I had to have a go at it.

The sofa is carved out of orange flavoured madeira cake and covered in fondant. I made the sofa a little too big though, so it's not a snuggly and comfy looking as the one in the original design.


The super cute bears are made from gumpaste. I love Forever Friends bears, they're so plush and cuddly. I only wish I had pink petal dust to give them rosy cheeks. This is the first time I've tried ribbon roses and they turned out to be very easy yet pretty!

I stuck on some heart sprinkles to make them look like scattered rose petals. I think it increased the romance level a notch. Hubby reckons it also helps fill up the empty space of the too big sofa.

We gave this creation to a couple of friends who tied the knot over the weekend. I hope they liked it! :)

Gift Box Cake

We celebrated Grandpa's birthday last Wednesday. I never seem to know what cakes to make for men. For children, there are plenty of cartoon characters or cute animals to choose from while flowers are pretty safe for women. A cake itself is so feminine, in my opinion. I think if men could have it their way, they'd prefer a birthday burger or birthday steak or something! :)

Anyway, after some thought, I decided to go with the classic bow cake, but with more 'manly' colours. I went with a square so that it would look more like a wrapped gift.

The cake consists of two 8" square American chocolate cakes. I leveled and torted the cakes and filled them with a mint flavoured fresh cream. I also crumb coated the whole cake with the mint cream before applying the fondant. The chocolate cake and the delicately minty and light fresh cream went very well together indeed. I might try this combination for cupcakes someday.


The chocolate fondant was made by using store bought fondant and adding plenty of good quality cocoa powder. I just kept kneading in more and more cocoa until it reached the right shade of brown. (It was quite a fair bit of cocoa powder!) When the fondant became too dry from the addition of the cocoa, I added a few drops of brown colouring. It turned out pretty yummy! Definitely nicer than ordinary plain fondant. It was like chewy chocolate candy!! :) Didn't I tell you chocolate makes everything yummier??!!

Anyway, the cocoa powder did not affect the texture of the fondant much. It was still very pliable and soft and I covered the square cake very easily, even though squares are so much more scarier than rounds!

I made the bow pieces from gumpaste around a week ahead so that they would have time to dry hard. Then I assembled everything on the day of the birthday dinner itself.

I think this classic bow cake is simple and impressive at the same time. It's not too hard to assemble, so I just might do some more of these in different colours in the future!

Chocolate Eclairs

Had a hankering for cream puffs the other day. Hubby and the kids also love cream puffs, so I decided to make a batch.

I've made puffs filled with fresh cream and also creme patisserie (vanilla pastry cream). I might try custard one day. This time however, I wanted to try making chocolate eclairs. There is a bakery near my shop which sells super delicious cream puffs filled with fresh cream. I decided to do the same but throw in a chocolate glaze to make them eclairs, since I adore chocolate and chocolate just makes everything even yummier dontcha think??!!

You can find the choux recipe for the buns here in my old post. Small round buns are called profiteroles and the larger ones are just choux buns. Eclairs traditionally come in finger shaped buns. Here are the recipes for the creme patisserie and chocolate glaze.

To make the cream patisserie:

1 1/4 cups whole milk
3 egg yolks
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/8 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoon cornstarch
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small saucepan, warm the milk over low heat until it is just hot enough to steam. While the milk is warming, whisk together the egg yolks, sugar, flour, and cornstarch until the mixture is completely smooth.

Once the milk is steaming, add half of it, whisking constantly, to the egg mixture. Add the milk and eggs back into the hot milk, continue stirring, and heat it for 1-2 minutes, until the custard is very thick. Remove from the heat, stir in the vanilla extract, and chill before filling pastry.

To make the chocolate glaze:

4 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream

Place the chopped chocolate in a heat safe bowl and set aside. Heat the heavy cream just to boiling over low-medium heat and remove from the heat immediately. Pour the hot cream over the chopped chocolate and stir until it forms a thin, smooth consistency. Set the chocolate glaze aside at room temperature for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Ladybird, ladybird

I made a ladybird cake for Eva to bring to school for her birthday. I baked a plain madeira cake in my stainless steel mixing bowl to get a dome shape. The dome turned out a bit too flat though, so I will be keeping my eyes out for a smaller mixing bowl, to produce more defined dome shaped cakes for future ladybirds!

I leveled and torted the cake and filled and crumb coated it with strawberry jam. Then I covered a third in black fondant, and another two thirds in red. I used pre-dyed fondant, because black and red are the hardest colours to tint. Then I added the spots and the eyes. I think I should have added a mouth, but had no idea how a ladybird's mouth is supposed to look like!

I covered the board with green fondant and used two balls of black fondant and curled wires for the antennae. Since I couldn't decide where to write Eva's name, I used some cupcakes instead for writing her name and also for sticking in the candles.

Ben 10 again

I forgot to add in this post. It was my nephew Ethan's birthday in June and he is another fan of Ben 10! :)

We bought the cake, a yummy chocolate cheesecake and I added gumpaste decorations. I made a 'Four arms', which was supposed to be standing on the centre of the cake. However, his many arms kept dropping off when I stood him up! So in the end I had no choice but to place him lying down.

*sigh*

I think I need to make some glue from Gum tex and water, or at least make royal icing to adhere body parts next time. I've been too lazy and only use water so far.

I hope Ethan liked the cake despite the floored Four Arms! :)

Care Bears and Safari cake

On Sunday we celebrated 3 out of my 4 kids' birthdays together! This meant that there was to be 3 cakes! I didn't think I would have enough time to make all the cakes because on the day itself I was going to have to cook as well.

So, I bought one of them, a Barbie doll one which Eva wanted. Barbie doll cakes are much better iced with buttercream, which is not my forte, so I got my cousin's wife to make one for me. She makes really pretty doll cakes and I asked for purple, which is Eva's favourite colour. All that buttercream piping is amazing! Look closely at the icing 'necklace', it says "Eva"!


For the other two kids, I made a Care Bear cake for Claire, and a safari cake for Solomon. The bottom tier for both cakes are fake (polystyrene), because mainly I was worried that there would be way too much cake for everyone eat and it would end up going to waste. Also, since the base was polystyrene, I was able to work on them way ahead of time. Unlike real cake, you have to decorate it as close to the actual day as possible, to keep it fresh. For these dummy cakes, I was able to complete the bottom tiers days ahead and then work on the top tiers the day before the party. This meant better time management and more sleep!! :)


The Care Bear cake has a gumpaste Sunshine bear on top and also a gumpaste rainbow. I had to make them a week ahead to make sure the rainbow would harden enough to stand. Even then, when I stuck the rainbow into the cake, with some satay sticks for support, it cracked a bit and was threatening to break in half and collapse! Luckily it was okay for the cake-cutting 'ceremony'.

There were also three gumpaste stars which I inserted into the cake with wires. I realise now that wires are more stable if you bend them into spirals (which I didn't, so they were leaning all over the place!). I also drew on the stars' faces when the gumpaste was still wet, so the ink became blotchy. That's another lesson, be patient and wait till it dries first!


As for Solomon's cake, I was initially planning to have more animals, like an elephant, a giraffe and a monkey. However, I prefer cakes which are not too 'busy'; I think there is better effect when there is only one main centrepiece for one to focus on. (Okay.. I was also lazy...)


The lion and the green bushes are made from gumpaste and were also made a week ahead so that they could dry up nice and hard. I really love the lion; he's such a cutie pie isn't he? I'm so proud that he's my very own original design.

I also love these gumpaste bushes...

So there you have it; three cute cakes for three cute kids! :)