Something baked for the family when i went back early last month :)
Green tea cupcakes with green tea cream cheese frosting
It was quite a disaster.. heh.
The cake was not as nice as the first time because i somehow beat all the eggs together instead of doing the usual because i was pressing for time!
So the cake was very muffin like instead of light, fluffy and to-die-for.
Quite an embarrassment i must say.. but i still gave the bestie some!
I am shameless :P
AND sadly, the family dislike cream cheese frosting, just as i had expected! But i couldn't do buttercream frosting fearing that they will not be able to withstand the long journey.
Another cake i did was chocolate yogurt cake with lotsa walnut which i LOVE to death [a recipe which i thought of myself! :)]. Unfortunately, i didn't manage to take any pics of it.
Everytime when i received a notice from the boys' school saying they'll be having party and food needs to be contributed, i'd start having headache.
Because the party isn't just once a year, it's every term and it could be twice a term sometimes!
Term 4 just finished last week. The last day of term 4 usually means X'mas party for the boys and parents are asked to contribute food if possible. This time round, i feel i should make something nice for the teachers as well instead of just for the the children hence, more headache!
I have to come up with something that will entice the old and young. Chocolate is out of the question because i bake chocolate cake too often for the parties. So, what's left for me to bake?
Orange cake?
Not sure if the kids will like them.
Oreo cake sounds good.
But i didn't have the ingredients on hand.
Then, i went browsing.. looking through my handwritten recipes and cookbooks for ideas and i finally came up with something.
Peanut butter cupcakes!
I like the way the peanut butter came oozing out a little. Biting into these babies are totally orgasmic especially when they are fresh out of the oven.. Very very yummilicious.
Which is an excellent choice.
i- it's simple and easy
ii- i can finally clear my peanut butter which will be expiring end of this month!
iii- not many adults and children will say no to peanut butter, right? *i hope*
But as they were cooling on the rack, i thought they look a tad too plain for the children to fancy it. For one, i know my boys will not go 'wahhhhhhhhh' when they see it so, i decided to play dressing up!
Keeping in mind that i need to finish the decoration within 15-20 mins, i came up with something really simple again.
Peanut butter cupcakes with Nutella. Should be quite a nice combination me think.
Nutella, right from my unopened bottle.
Then, with some variety of toppings ; rainbow sprinkles, heart shapes, candies.. the boys were all ready to go!
And of course, i left some naked.. for the teachers who might not like them dressed up :)
Whenever there is an opportunity, the family will ask me for my bakes. Very 'fan' you know! [hint to the no-automatic sisters, HINT!] :P
Initially the greedy sisters and mother wanted 3 different type of cakes! But because of my tight schedule nearing the weekend, i could only squeezed in one. Hehe...
And i picked lemon yoghurt cake which i had done once earlier.
Reason being is that i needed to clear my yoghurt and lemon.. Lol.
And of course, they are truly delicious despite on their plain look when not dressed up. Plus, my younger sister in law has been requesting this cake for sometime already ever since she last tried it. So frustrated she is until she wanted to 'order' from me :P
In total, i baked about 3 dozens of them.
Gave a few to boy2's teachers, some for testing, some for sil and the rest, my greedy family :)
Because i didn't have enough yoghurt (short of half a cup), i substituted it with 1 cup whipping cream + another cup of milk. I remember quite clearly that the last batch could have used another cup of milk for a perfect texture, hence my adaption for this time round.
I was half accurate.
When the cakes were fresh out of the oven, it tasted so heavenly. Moist, soft and just right for everything!
However, after being contained in the container for 1 day, the cakes became a tad too moist for my liking. Now i know what to do for my next time round.
If yoghurt isn't enough : 1/2 cup whipping cream + 1 cup milk.
If yoghurt is enough : 1 cup of milk.
But i tell you hor, no one else noticed the extra moistness in the cake leh! I was the only one... they were nicely chomping the cupcakes away till no more left.. oh, left 1 actually :P
This was made last minute for hb's aunt's birthday celebration quite some time ago.
Volcanoes : these moist chocolate cupcakes with creamy cheesecake centres are sure to be a hit with both children and adult.
How very true.
I tell ya, it was really good. The adults and kids love it tons!
Of course, i didn't send these cuppies the way they look here. I got them all dressed up in pink buttercream frosting together with some colorful sprinkles and wordings. At that time, i had enough of 'all-dressed-up' cupcakes photos since i just baked the teacher's day batch not too long ago. So i decided not to take anymore pics with the decoration.
But now, after a month of not seeing any colourful pics of desserts on this blog, i kinda miss looking at them. In fact, i yearn to see some colours again! Too bad about my decision then.. hehe.
Anyway, this cuppies are so delicious and very easy to make too! They'll be on my often-bakes list for sure. Writing this entry makes me wanna eat them right now.. *drool* :P
The original recipe calls for quite a bit of cocoa powder which i simply refused to follow. It was a bit too much in my opinion. I cut down almost 2 tbsp from it and the cuppies still turned out fantastic.
That left me wondering.. what 'if' i actually follow the recipe to a t. Will the cupcakes taste much much better?
Recipe :
Ingredients :
Cream cheese filling
115g cream cheese
55g castor sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 large, lightly beaten egg
Fudgy chocolate cupcake batter
100g cake flour
5 1/4 tbsp cocoa powder
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/3 tsp salt
100g butter, softened
20g castor sugar
70g light brown sugar
2/3 tsp vanilla essence
1 1/2 eggs, lightly beaten
140ml milk
Method :
1. Prepare cream cheese filling. In a medium bowl, blend cream cheese, sugar and vanilla essence until smooth and creamy. Gradually add egg, beating until smooth. Set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 182. Line cupcake tin with cupcake cups.
3. Stir together cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt until well blended.
4. Cream butter, caster sugar and light brown sugar until smooth and fluffy. Gradually add in vanilla essence and eggs.
5. Add flour mixture and milk in 3 separate additions, starting and ending with flour mixture.
6. Divide batter. Create a cavity in the centre of each cupcake with the back of a spoon. Fill cavities with cream cheese filling.
7. Bake for 25-30 mins. Leave to cook in tin for 10 mins.
8. Remove cupcakes and leave to cool completely on wire rack before serving.
Makes 12 cuppies.
a HUGE hug and thank you to you who ordered :)
It was a sold out order! (but we had 4 ourselves as a reward which is a must! :P)
The design this time round was almost the same as some of the previous ones. Reason being is the design which i had in mind didn't work out! Boo-hoo..
A teeny weeny change for this one. Reminds me of lotus somehow, but don't ask me how even though it really doesn't look like a lotus!
The initial design involved drawing a heart shape in the middle with pink butter cream and then filling the hearts with 1001s colourful sugar balls. As for the side, it'll be stars and more stars with different colour.
After trying the design out on more than 4 cuppies, i realised that my imagined design will be just that, an imagined design. Heh.
It will not work out on the real cupcake especially if i'm using a pastel colour for drawing. The 1001s' colour are over powering!
Another not-much-change-design :P
However, i will not give up!
I will try again the next time round using a more vibrant colour. No more pastel!
Let's see if it works. If it doesn't, hehe.. then an imagined-design it will be.
A slight close-up shot of my cupcakes
Anyway, i love seeing the teachers' face when they received the cuppies! :P
It makes me happy seeing them so happy. So i guess the 7 hours of back breaking labour were worth it after all. Yes, 7 hours or more all together! Baking, decorating and packaging...
Who says cake selling is a piece of cake?
If not for my passion, i wouldn't do it for sure!
A not-so-close-up photo of the cupcakes
For this sale, even though i mentioned i was gonna advertise it else where besides the blog, i ended up didn't. A bit shy ah! Hahaha.
Yes yes, shy! Imagine. I'm pretty good when it comes to selling and promoting stuff for others (i've done sales quite a fair bit during schooling time -road shows mainly-) but when it is MY own stuff that i do it myself (selling my brand new unworn clothes not included!), i simply cannot. The face skin not thick enough. Grin.
But err, blogging doesn't count okay? I'm merely stating facts when i blog. Not good i'll tell you. Good i'll tell you too. After all, i started this blog for myself, when i'm old and needed to walk down the memory lane. Heh.
Last but not least, they are finally all dressed up and ready to go!
Some went to the teachers and some for customers' own consumption :)
Oh, to the still angry Primary 1 teacher who bought from me.. If you're ever gonna try giving me a $10 +/- tips again in the future, i will n.o.t take your order again even though i was as pleased as a er er.. what ah? *scratch head* Anyway, I'm very the serious hor!
Again, thank you all for buying and support! ;)
Dear lovely readers,
I'll be having a first come first serve open-to-all order for this month's teacher's day celebration. As i'd be making cuppies for my boys' teachers, i thought why not make more? :)
The 'gift' will look something like this :-
However, do ignore the cuppies inside! The decoration on the cake will be more cheery and pretty. The above (green tea cuppies) was merely for our own consumption ;)
If you are interested, read on..
The cuppies giftpack.
No of cuppies : 2
Flavour : chocolate
Frosting : buttercream
Ingredients : as usual only President's butter will be used for frosting and as for the coco, i am using Val Rhona coco powder. So, does that make my cuppies trans fat free? :P
Min order : 1 box
No of boxes available for sale : 25 boxes only
Price : $4.50
Payment : $2.50 down payment through IB transfer to confirm your place. The remaining balance will be collected when we meet
Collection : 30th August, Thursday, my place at Choa Chu Kang (anytime) and CCK mrt / Lot 1 : from 4pm - 5.30pm or Yew Tee mrt : 6.30pm - 6.45pm
The gift pack will come with a similar looking ribbon above and a small card that writes "Happy Teacher's Day!"
Of course, if you just want the cuppies minus the ribbon and the little card, it is also possible. For this, it'll just cost you $3.90 and not $4.50 =)
So, if you are interested or have any other enquiries , do email me n.o.w as i'm advertising this elsewhere too.
makan makan!
Heheeeeeee...
The tittle is sooooo out i know! :P
But i did these cuppies on the eve of the National Day plus i ran out of idea so, mari kita it is lor..
Ordered by a blog reader, Val.. who requested for the same design as Celest's.
For Valerie
However, because the main order would be for Tim, Val's friend, who was gonna bring them as pressie for his pal's baby boy's full month celebration, i adapted the blue and white colours instead of pink and purple which i feel isn't that suitable.
As for the design, it was just a slight twist to the original's since my customer has already specifically wanted Celest's design :)
For Tim. Guess i MUST practise more on writing aye?
Feedback was good. I've got happy customers. I like having happy customers, but who doesn't yeah? :P
Poor Tim, from what i heard from Val, he didn't even get to eat the cuppies. It was snap snap snap (photographed) by his friends and then gone. ALL of them. But like Val said, 'at least we know everyone loved it'.
Heeeheeee, yeah!!
Almost last but not least, raspberries!
Definitely my fav food photo in my entire blog! :D
I am now back to using my antique digital camera which was bought way back in 2001 during our honeymoon. The new pocket size Olympus Mju which hb bought for me last year really cannot make it.
No more Olympus for me, ever! (both my cameras are Olympus)
An aiming for a Canon or Nikon next, when our wallets are abit fatter. Grin.
Anyway, this cake.. was love in first sigh, as of with other cakes actually. Haha..
It's a rather special and unique cake. Hazelnut meal, raspberries, chopped roasted hazelnuts, sour cream, mascarpone cheese and frangelico (a type of liquer).
It is a very rich cake, made mostly from butter and lotsssssssss of raspberries. The taste is as good as it looks. Again, very unique!
It's buttery and you can definitely single out the strong hazelnut nutty taste and the raspberries really added the extra punch, sourish but so good to eat together in 1 mouthful of cake. For myself, apart from the raspberries, the highlight gotta be the chopped toasted hazelnut in the oh-so-light-but-so-yummy-frosting. Crunch crunch crunch is all i can say...
Hahaha.. sooo cheesy!!
But but, seriously lor... :P
The cake is an 8" round cake, as you could see in the second pic, the already sliced cake but i also did a couple of cupcakes with it.
Also, it wasn't meant for refrigerating (think you can tell from the texture in the sliced cake, most butter cakes are not meant to be refrigerated actually, room temp is the best) but i still refrigerate them anyway. Don't think the frosting could withstand our tropical climate's heat. And honestly, i like it better when it's hard and cold - only this cake ah. Grin. But that's just me of course :)
Recipe (which i've tweaked):
Cake :
250g butter, softened
1 cup caster sugar
6 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
1 cup hazelnut meal
2/3 cup sour cream
150g fresh raspberries
Cream :
250g mascarpone
1/2 icing sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tbsp frangelico
1/2 cup roasted hazelnut, chopped
1. Preheat oven to 180. Greast, line the side and base of the cake tin
2. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add in eggs, 1 by 1.
3. Stir in flours, hazelnut meal, sour cream and raspberries. Bake for 1 hour or till skewer comes out clean.
Cream :
1. Combine everything together except nuts. Stir till smooth. Add in nuts.
Have fun baking!
Have you ever met a buyer who kept telling you this when you are selling something?
.Make sure you are earning some money from my purchase!
.Do remember to include your transportation fee yeah!
.Make sure you really are making some profit (again)!
Soooooooo sweet hor?
Of course i got touched!
Initially, i wanted to bake 3 packets of cookies for her when i do my delivery yesterday. Unfortunately, because i was experimenting with the new buttercream, i ran out of butter and time didn't permit to do anymore baking as well. Sigh.
Oh well, next time!, i vowed.
Celest's order :)
I'm so so happy to see their ecstatic faces when they opened the cake boxes when i delivered to Celest's office. I couldn't stop smiling.
Silly me! Heh..
ETA : Woweee.. my happy customer gave me $2 tips! HAhahahahahhaha :pppPPppP
Sometimes i really think i'm an extremely daring person.
I have only baked cupcakes twice in my entire life and yet, i actually dare to take up my gf's challenge to sell her my cuppies for her farewell giveaway on her last day of work yesterday! Can you just imagine if my cuppies turned out all wrong and inedible?
Or if the buttercream which i did last time couldn't be replicate?
I would be so dead!
Just one sentence from her and i said okay. She said, i trust you Sherie.. and i was sold! Hahaha..
Nonetheless, fyi, she has eaten my cuppies before from here :P
Thankfully all went well, except erm.. at the last minute, i couldn't find my piping nozzle which i intended to use for a specific design. Hence, out came the blue cuppie design, wave with little candies on top which was a tad time consuming and my gf finds the colour abit odd too! Lol.
However, the rest of us were quite taken by its colour though. Us = me, helper and the little boys lah.. Helper thinks of it as an ocean with little colourful boats on it. But then again, maybe that shouldn't count aye? Since boys simply lurvee blue.. :P
The huge cuppie was meant for my gf whom specifically requested for TONS of cream. Her instruction was a simple one..
"Sherie, if you have any leftover of your cream, just dump all in yeah?"
But of course, i didn't do that lah.. i piped hers last. So, all the extra pink buttercream went to her :)
And these special 6 were meant for a very very nice, kind, good, thoughtful girl, imp. Unfortunately, it was a last minute thingie so the cuppies didn't reach her due to some unforeseeable circumstances.
Such as the boys and my helper ate them in the morning before i woke up thinking that it was ok to do so since i brought them home again after wanting to deliver them the night before :P
2 big boxes for the gf and 1 small box for the good person - almost!
I really enjoy doing cuppies. Love doing designs and decorating. Love giving my brain a bit of exercise now and then! :P
Yesterday was my newborn's full month celebration. Got it brought forward because the actual day falls on a weekday.
Despite being in confinement which i'm supposed to be fully rested on bed most of the time, i 'keh kiang' - stubbornly insisted on baking some cupcakes to liften up the normal full month party mood :P
Below are some of the cupcakes i made the day before. It was a real hard work. Back breaking one in fact but i think it's pretty worth it. Let's hope that a day's hard and back breaking work will not take a toll on my future's health as what my confinement nanny warned me before i started my 'venture'. In all, i made 60 of them and total hours spent including baking and cooling time -> 3.5 hours! Really not used to decorating / piping yet :P
My 2nd attempt on cupcakes, my first attempt on playing with colour on the icing. What's my cupcakes compare to the professional ones yeah? Anyway..
My cupcakes.. :)
With flash
Without flash
Didn't have the time to really take nice shots because the guests were 'pouring' in by the time i laid these cupcakes out. So, just anyhow snap snap snap 2-3 of it :D
Also realised the swirling design uses an awful lot of cream, goodness me.. so after i swirled 3, i decided to stop doing that design thinking that no one will wanna eat a cupcake with so much cream but boy, was i wrong or what! Lol.
I've got a couple of gfs who love the frosting so much that they suggested next time i should just dump the whole cream on the cakes and also a few uncles and aunties who specially choose the ones with the most cream on it :D
*whack*whack* back bone. Guess it's time to rest..
ps : the swirling design looks like cowdung, no? :PpppPPppppP
pps : maybe it's just me and my lousy piping skills lah yeah? Hehe..
Green tea cupcakes with green tea cream cheese frosting
