Adik’s Birthday: Macaron Pyramid and Bouquet of RVC

Finally!! I cheated a little and bought the macaron pyramid from here. Baked macarons on the previous weekend using the same recipe as always.

Ta-dah! Macaron “Tower”. Wait, it’s Macaron Pyramid. It reminds me of the Lourve Museum. I went there last year but I didn’t get to take the photo of the pyramid. Regrets! Only the picture below.

Anyway, Mama baked Red Velvet cupcakes and this time she used the recipe from Bisous À Toi. Mama added nutella creamcheese frosting inside the cupcakes and top it with the normal creamcheese rosette. And she made them into a bouquet of flowers. Last minute idea in the middle of the night!!

I hope Adik is happy with the bakes we did for her birthday. Did not really have an actual round birthday cake though. And after one year, finally, there’s macarons! With pyramid!! 😀

I shall try to bake something else soon.

Mama’s Orders

Mama had quite a number of orders yesterday. And for the first time since I came back, I went to help her for 11 hours. Mixture of main dishes and desserts; that explains the long hours!

We did the Apam Polkadots.

And brownies with all the drizzling and m&ms.

And the frosting of 100 rainbow cupcakes. I had to do this alone cause Adek was working yesterday.

Had a hard time frosting cause I haven’t been doing them for a long time. Mama used cream cheese frosting and since my hand is always unnaturally warm, the frosting always melt by the 3rd cupcake.

Thought of baking macs again soon! Cause Adek wanted a macaron tower since last year. :S Hope I make it in time for her birthday this year. I’m already 1 year late though.

Eat: Red Velvet Cupcakes

//Updated and Edited//

I have been very lazy lately. Also have been enjoying myself ordering cakes/food online.

Ordered Red Velvet Cupcakes via facebook from<deleted> last week. You can also view their website <deleted>.

Photo <deleted>.

Love the cupcakes! Especially the surprise chocolate filling. We gobbled them up in less than a day! 🙂 Great service too cause they will reply to your queries promptly. Almost within the next second!

Thought I share this photo as well. Even Baby D loves it!

A little disclaimer: I am not a food critic or anything, I just love to eat. Haha!

*Decided to delete every info about the cake seller. The cupcakes were good, their online service was okay but the delivery wise, not at all. Mun ordered a rainbow cake earlier and the delivery was 4 hours late!! Today, 24th April 2012, she ordered another cake (giving them a chance) and they were 2 hours late and the quality of cake sucks. I’m surprised!

Cupcakes for Hantaran Part 2

Remember the post where I said that Mama volunteered my “service” out? Wahaha! I baked Martha Stewart’s Devil’s Food Chocolate Cupcakes.

Made Decorator’s Icing since my Krimwell Buttercream practice didn’t turn out that well. See my pretty flower:

If you must know, this was done after the hantaran with stable hand.

Here’s the final product:

My hands were too shaky and I wasn’t satisfied with the  final product. 😦 I am really sorry but I can’t write nicely! I was and still am sorely disappointed. Closer look at my “handwriting”:

Ugly right!! 😦

I don’t know if I were too nervous or what but it’s so ugly and I am really sorry. I put small hearts to cover the weirdness of my handwriting but the heart shapes makes it weirder. They said I should practice on tracing paper or plate. Oh well.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Krimwell Buttercream

Pardon my not so nice pictures with ugly tray. heh.

As usual I’m on a “hunt” to find the best chocolate cupcakes/cakes! I always googled for recipes and spent hours staring at the photos of the cakes. Previously I tried Martha Stewarts’ Devil’s Food Chocolate Cupcake and I like them a lot especially when I top it up with chocolate ganache. But then lately I realised that the cupcakes are not so devilish afterall. Mainly because Mama had made Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake (twice!!) that is so divine! I had it for breakfast and dinner and no, I’m not dieting so don’t worry.

Maybe I should just make cupcakes from the above mentioned Devil’s Food Chocolate Cake but then, that’s not fun. I must try new recipe and pray that I don’t messed it up.

I find the batter to be velvety.

Anyway, I again googled for the best chocolate cupcakes. And I found this:

“Best Moist” Chocolate Cupcakes
(recipe from here.)

Ingredients
3/4 cup / 170g butter
1 cup soft dark brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 tbs coffee granules
1 1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Method
1. Preheat to 190 deg Celsius.
2. Beat butter till soft, smooth, creamy and pale.
3. Add sugar and beat till creamy.
4. Beat in eggs one at a time.
5. Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa and coffee granules together.
6. Mix the vanilla and milk together in a small bowl or pouring jug.
7. Add a third of the dry ingredients into batter, mix well.
8. Add half of the liquid, beat well.
9. Alternate till you end with the dry ingredients.
10. Line muffin tray with liners. Fill cups 2/3 full.
11. Reduce oven heat to 175 deg Celsius. Bake 25-30min.

And I pair them up with Krimwell Buttercream because I wanted to use up my Krimwell stock. Hehe.

Verdict:
1. I don’t know where I go wrong (impossible! haha!) but these cupcakes are not so moist for me. In fact, mine were dry. Choke-able dry. 😦 I suspected that my oven wasn’t set correctly!
2. I shall not try new recipe while, er, practicing for the hantaran cupcakes. Duh!
3. The krimwell buttercream turns out okay. Not sweet and taste like store bought creamy cake. However, the buttercream still doesn’t hold its shapes that well. Not as define as I like it to be. We suspected that the krimwell were “spoilt” cause it was store at a very hot place during the trip back to Singapore.
4. I am disappointed.

Anyway, here are the random pictures I took:-

Try making ruffle cake. See here for tutorial.

Obviously I need to practice more huh.

Was trying to use most of my tips. Trying out the basket weave.

My rose! Again but this time I just found out about the leaves!

Super ugly rosettes. I can’t make them nice at all! 😦

Another failed rosette (with leaves!!)

Happily making leaves and realised that this can turn into sunflower as well!

Bigger rose but senget liao.

Mixed the colours by then.

Last! Dinosaur-ish. Haha. Think Barney!

I like playing with my set of tips. But I have yet to try them all! Have to check out Wilton website for examples and such. Will be back to post picture of my hantaran “project”. Heh! 🙂 Till then.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Krimwell Buttercream

This is the great month to clear leaves! I had long weekend again and hence practicing on my piping skills, heh!

There’re many type of buttercreams and I’ve yet to find the right one for me (not too sweet or buttery but still manage to hold up its shape nicely). Prolly cause I don’t dare to edit recipe.

Types of buttercream (source – here):

1. Meringue Based:
   Italian Buttercream: A cooked meringue made with a hot sugar syrup.
   Swiss Meringue: A meringue made from whites and sugar warmed together over a bain marie. This dissolves the sugar.
2. Yolk Based:
   Pâte á bombe: Sometimes referred to as a French buttercream. A buttercream here is made with yolks and hot sugar syrup.
3. Butter Based:
   Here you will find basic recipes ranging from only butter and powdered sugar to the incorporation of other ingredients such as cream cheese, melted chocolate, cream or non-fat milk powder. Sometimes shortening or an emulsified shortening is added for stability.
4. Shortening Based:
   Sometimes referred to as Decorator’s Icing or Decorator’s Buttercream. While this buttercream can be used for icing a cake, it is used mainly for decoration like roses and for piping borders and edging. Shortening has a much higher melting point making it suitable for those decorations needing a firmer look or handling. Since shortening does have a higher melting point, it will not have the same mouth feel as the above buttercreams, and can be very waxy to eat. If used for icing rather than strictly for decorating, butter and/or a liquid will be added for better mouth feel and flavor.

My IMBC was a failure. Unless somebody buy me a candy thermometer.. till then, no IMBC for me, haha. I have been using Decorator’s Icing but I still find it too sweet (same as butter based). Anyway, I might be trying yolk based in the near future but for now I’m still making some sort of Decorator’s Icing though this time round I’m using krimwell that Mama bought in JB instead of shortening. Then again, krimwell is a type of shortening right?

I baked simple vanilla cupcakes! (And add cocoa powder to my vanilla batter to make chocolate cupcakes for BIL .) Maybe I should have put my books to good use huh..

The buttercream with krimwell (recipe was googled) does not turn out nice for cupcakes. Maybe for layer cakes cause it doesn’t hold any shapes that well. Was quite disappointed actually.

 My rosette looks a bit droopy. 😦 heh.

The krimwell itself is more oily than normal shortening so I guess this is the reason why my buttercream is on the wet side. I even added more icing sugar than needed but it still doesn’t work.

My so called sunflower. Hehe. Didn’t use the correct tip though.

With skittles.

I wanted to make like the 3rd video I posted here.

Overall, I don’t think I will be making the same recipe again. Need to search for the right one to use up my remaining krimwell! Oh well!

Update: Mama just gave me her buttercream with krimwell recipe! ((: *giving the double chin smile actually.

Research: Hantaran Cupcakes

I might have volunteer myself to do hantaran cupcakes again for Mama’s friend. I am an amateur baker/decorator/whatever-er. The only experience I had (wait, was that even called experience?) was for.. Zie’s engagement. And I couldn’t even take nice picture of it. (But I do enjoy doing them!)

So now off I go to “research” (Thanks to Google and Youtube!).

Here’s a couple of videos to be amazed at:-

The complicated rose.
Slightly simpler rose or rosettes?
Pretty neat:


Sunflower:

And lastly, the WOW videos – bouquet of flowers cupcakes.

One thing that I wonder regading the bouquet, will the buttercream just simply fell off? Hmmmm. Too risky but very interesting!

Looks like I have to practice right? hee. Excited!! 🙂

Random: Rose Cupcakes

Amidst the busy-ness, I managed to pipe in rose pattern that I learnt from youtube!

 

LOVE it!

Cupcakes for Hantaran

Did it for Zie’s engagement yesterday. Only one lousy photo cause I was busy. Excuse the messy background. 🙂

Used the Devil’s Food cupcakes recipe and decorator icing recipe.

Updated: Stole it from Zie’s picture album. Wahaha. Better picture:

Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla Decorator Icing

I was trying my best (not so much honestly) to find the most delicious-o chocolate cupcakes ever from my limited number of recipe books. Prolly for Zie’s engagement. I tried choconana recipe (without adding bananas, duh) but I find the cake too crumbly. Devil’s Food Cupcake is still better for me. But I want the best chocolate cupcakes ever!

On a mission, I tried chocolate cupcakes from my Betty Crocker’s The Big Book of Cupcakes. At least the recipes is not easily available on the website. You need to be exclusive member in order to access it.

(I’m so trying high hat cupcakes soon.)

Somewhere along the way while I was adding the ingredients, I must have gone wrong because my chocolate cake sink half the size. I stacked two cakes to make it look like one whole cupcake! 😦 Failed! Taste wise was okay I supposed. Normal chocolate cake, nothing wow.

The icing (also from the same book) is superb! It’s sweet but not too overly sweet. One cup lesser sugar than the usual typical vanilla buttercream recipe that I googled. It even has a shiny outlook. I’m using this recipe for Zie’s engagement.