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.

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.

Baked Mango Cheesecake (Pudding)

The first time I ate a slice of cheesecake (during my CBTL days!), I immediately love it! Favourite part has to be the base – biscuit, sugar, etc. Saw somewhere online that this is the most fattening part! Wait, who am I kidding, the whole cake albeit a slice only is fattening! Must be the reason why I gained so much weight! Haha.

The “baker” in me decided to try baking a cheesecake. It must be cheaper than buying right.. So I googled the recipe and decided to bake a mango cheesecake since we had some mangoes in the fridge.

I thought I could magically whip up a delicious cheesecake! Think beginner’s luck . But as you might have guessed it, I failed. Unsuccessful again. It turned out to be like a cheese pudding with a hint of mango. You can only smell the mango but you can’t exactly taste it. 😦

*Anyway, this cake was an act of apology to Mama cause I made her angry the day before. (I must have forgotten that Mama don’t eat cheese.. haha!)

Before my next cheesecake try, I probably should:-

1. get a springform pan;
2. stick to basic cheesecake recipe (no mango added!!);
3. try a no bake recipe first. 🙂

Choconana

Oh na na, what’s my name?

I believe Choconana or better known as Choconashit is the very first cake I baked all alone. Right? I remembered I helped Mama in baking birthday cakes i.e. blueberry cake and strawberry cake but that was ages ago. By helping I mean not so much on measuring or baking but more on busybody-ing and decorating of course.

So on one fine day as I was busy bloghopping, I found a food blog that caught my interest. I read all her entries in a short span of time. I can’t exactly remember if I was still studying or am already working but yes, I was that free to read and read! This is where I found the choconana (or chocanana) cake’s recipe. 🙂

I don’t think I have the picture of the whole cake on the first try but I saved a photo back then. (Old photo from old memory!)

As you can see from the picture, it looks like shit alright! Hence the name “Choconashit”. Sometimes I think the “na” in Choconashit stands for my name.. I wonder huh.

But hey don’t judge the book by its cover! It taste quite nice right? Heavenly nice, yes? YES I know.

I tried baking this twice, thrice but I never get it right like the first time. Despair. Disappointed. Suicidal, not! Funny thing is, I double the ingredients for both second and third try. The nerve! Luck wasn’t on my side then and I was too over-confident.

The last I tried it was quite a success. Though I know deep in my heart that it just didn’t taste the same. I baked one whole cake (no picture!) and the remaining batter I baked them into cupcakes!

I think they look pretty!

 

Choconana Cake (adapted from Ovenhaven with slight edits)

2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cups cake flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
3 mashed medium bananas (or more)
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup oil
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180C. (and prepare cake tin by lightly grease it and line bottom with parchment paper.)
2. Sift and whisk cake flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt together. Set aside.
3. In another bowl, whisk eggs, mashed bananas, water, milk, oil and vanilla. (I don’t mashed the banana too hard cause I prefer chunky bananas in the cake and I used more than 3 bananas!)
4. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until just combined.
5. Bake at 180C for 35-40mins (or till the toothpick come out clean. Very important cause I underbaked most of the times! :()
6. Cool the cake completely and cut into two layers. Place both layers cut-side up and spread whipped chocolate ganache filling over the layers.
7. On one layer, arrange rings of banana slices (or caramelized bananas) onto the layer. Sandwich the layers together and frost the whole cake with a chocolate ganache coating.

P.S. By now you can see how unsuccessful I am in baking and in taking good quality photos.

Unsuccessful Baker

Hi, I’m the in-house unsuccessful/soon-to-be-successful baker! (of course!) 🙂

Lately, I have too many recipes I wanted to try out and I saved them in *my laptop under different docs – for raya cookies, cakes, breakfast, etc. I even saved blog links in *my BB or scribbled it on my recycled papers. 

Along my-new-found-baking-adventure way, I think I had tried out quite a number of recipes. Though come to think of it again, I usually tried the same ones over and over especially if it was a success the first time round. heh. One thing good about me is – I will not give up. Never! And that’s why I simply refused to remember how many times I failed miserably.  

If I ever succeed in baking, it’s usually thanks to the power of beginner’s luck! Fine I wouldn’t lie to you, sometimes I think it’s because of my wonderful baking skills!

Anyway, with this site, I planned to note down recipes, mistakes that I keep making, what I learnt online/classes, what to do or not to do..well, you get the drift. My goal is to become a successful baker like Mama. 🙂

Welcome to my humble baking abode y’all!!

Latest update: 15th Feb 2012