Baking for a Good Cause

Isn't it great when you are able to do something out of your interest, and at the same time make a little contribution to the needy? Killing two birds in one stone, yea? ;)

My company holds this 'Charity Breakfast Event' every year where we sell our breakfast to company staffs and the proceeds will go to the charity. Breakfast items can be anything, from homemade to pre-order stuffs. Of course homecook dishes can reap more profits, with lower capital involved.

When I saw this email circulating, I was so excited and immediately contacted the person in charge to find out more. This is a great opportunity for me to put my passion to a meaningful use. Baking for charity! :)

There were many excellent cooks (my colleagues) who made delicious hot, piping breakfast items such as yam cakes, curry, bee hoon , glutinous rice etc. I really applaud their time and effort cos' they had to wake up early in the morning to prepare all the food. For me, I was already drop dead tired after using my whole of the weekends to bake cookies and cakes.

To be frank, I was initially hesitant whether to participate in this event. This would be the first time I'm actually selling my bakes to the public. What if I couldn't manage to bake the required quantity as planned? What if people finds my cakes not tasty? What if I make too little/too much?? These were all the 'what ifs' hovering in my head. Thanks to dd for his encouragement, and the support from my close colleagues, I decided to go ahead with it. Afterall, if I don't try, I would never overcome the initial hurdle.

One of my dear colleague, who shares this same interest in baking, offered to help me with the baking. We spent the entire Saturday baking chocolate chunk and almond cookies. It was loads of fun, undergoing QC for the size per cookie, rolling the dough, packing into cookie bags and discovering the 'scheming tactics' in businesss. We are learning to be future entrepreneurs :P
This is a very rich, yummy indonesian walnut cake. Although the method is more tedious (Uses a combination of creaming method, followed by beatng of egg whites to stiff to be folded into the creamed mixture, this produces a rich, yet soft-textured cake).

The actual day on a Monday morning. I was too busy tending to my stall as well as patronising other stalls that I've forgotten to take pictures of other yummy goods! It was only a short 1 1/2 hour event. We were overwhelmed when our bakes were sold within about an hour! (Actually that's because we did not make alot, hehe!) It was my first time thus I couldn't gauge well the amount I should make. Anyway, I felt that the quantity was just nice, if not just a little more would be sufficient as the crowd started to disperse at around 10am where everybody have finished buying their breakfast.

I was glad I plucked up the courage to give it a try, as it boosted my confidence to bake for more people. More importantly, we managed to raise some money for charity. :) Oh I forgot to mention that if not for my supportive colleagues and some bosses, I guess the cookies and cakes would not be able to be sold within such a short time frame! :D

1 Year of blogging & my Macaron Challenge!

How time flies...I couldn't believe that I've blogged for 1 year, which means it's already 12 months; or 48 weeks!

This 1 year happens in such a swift, that I actually find it rather short for me. I feel that I've not baked enough, or have accomplished much in baking or cooking. There are still many recipes which I have yet to try (though it's never-ending and the list just keeps piling up) and for certain baked items such as chiffon cakes or a properly frosted celebration cake, I've still yet to 'conquer' and baked to perfection.

I wished I had more time and energy to practise on my skills to bake beautiful and yummy goods, But, there are limitations since I only do baking as a hobby. There are many committments and activities that I also wish to enjoy, blogging being one of them, though it's rather time-consuming thus I'm not able to blog about my kitchen happenings that often. Nevertheless I'm glad that I've started this blog although I was rather uncertain one year ago.

This blog has affirmed my love for baking. Now I know I'd never get tired of baking or feel like stopping anytime. In fact I enjoy more than before. I've also taken much interest in cooking, to know more about the types of ingredients, condiments, herbs and methods of cooking, and to enjoy the whole process of cooking my own healthy meals. I'm now able to work more efficiently in the kitchen, as compared to many years back when I need to prepare meals for my mum after she was out from hospital.

This blog has allowed me to meet many wonderful people out there who shared the same interest as me, and whom I've learnt and draw inspiration from. Thanks to all out there who have helped me in one way or another. :) I'd continue to keep this blog going and learn as I go along. I aspire to be able to bake and cook yummy, healthy or sinful dishes for my love ones!

To give myself a little pamper, I'd actually wanted to bake a cake for my blog's one year birthday in Sep. hehe. But somehow for the past few weeks, I just don't feel like having a cake. I'm not a cake-lover anyway. I love baking before I actually love cakes :P. So I decided to bake something challenging - something I love to eat, had always wanted to try but kept putting it off. Yeah, that's macarons!

I fell in love with it after I first tried it at Bakerzin. Thereafter, I had tried it at different outlets. I told my dd that I wanted to try ALL the flavours that is available. Hehe...greedy right.. :P Though many had done it with success, the thought of having to deal with egg whites just scares me off. But this time round, I decided that I shall try making it for myself. :)

Here comes my challenge!

This was my very first attempt. I admitted that I did not do much research prior to making it. As it was my first try, I did not want to make any changes to the recipe. Thus I followed the full recipe using 100g of egg whites. It's a huge recipe, thus I really had difficulty getting the ground almond-icing sugar mixture through the sieve (mine has rather small holes). In the end, I gave up and went ahead with some sugar crumbs. But I guess that's not the real reason. The batter was thin and it spread a lot. The macarons cracked badly and no feet was developed. :( But as a chocolate lover, I did not discard it. They were still good cookies, but too sweet for me.

For my second attempt, I tried another recipe using only 1 egg white. Everything went smoothly, until I realised that the caster sugar required in the recipe was to be added during the beating of the meringue and not to be added together with the almond-sugar mixture! What a muddle-head I am! I did feel puzzled when I saw castor sugar being included in the recipe (for macaron, almond is always mixed with ICING sugar), and I should have been more alert to read the recipe once more. Result? Haha as you can see, big holes throughout the cookie, not even to mention whether there's 'feet' or not cos you can't tell. LOL. It actually resembles the almond crisp I've made previously.

FINALLY...

After two times of failure, I gone into more research, and try to analyse what probably might work for my oven. For this final trial, I used the recipe from here. Duncan Markham provided a very detailed write-up on macaron making, with pictures to show how would the correct batter (before piping) and a successful macaron would look like. He also mentioned the few methods which you could try. Do read his write-up for clearer explanation.

When I saw the piped macarons, my confidence was boosted a little as it was similar to what Duncan Markham showed in his write-up. The batter should be thick (but of piping consistency) with an ivory colour (if you are making plain ones).

It was really amazing that the 'feet' started to appear at around the 3rd minute. I followed his advice of opening door after 5 minutes as my oven tends to be too hot. The temperature of my oven actually fluctuated a lot but I try not to get distracted by that as I could only continue with the baking. I realised for those that were further away from the oven door, the macarons actually swayed sideways, i.e. only one side of the macaron developed feet while the other didn't. This was one of the problems that Duncan troubleshooted and what he could only advised was to let the piped batter rest a while before baking (which I did).

Still, I'm a happy girl cos' I finally get to make my own macarons, and more so happy when others tried and said it's nice (but too sweet which I found so too). I won't consider it a success for now since I have not had repeated success. But I would want to try out other flavours again. :)

Some useful info on how others had attempted this, you could see also here, here and here.

Banana Oat Bran Muffins

Recently I bought a packet of organic oat bran and was trying to find some oat bran muffin recipes to try. I vadely remembered seeing oat bran muffins at Happy Homebaker's. True to my memory, she had made this banana-raisin oat bran muffins and gave good reviews about it. I also had some ripe bananas, perfect! Some healthy muffins for breakfast the next day. :)

The muffins were really good, with just the right texture that I wanted. Wheat bran or wholemeal flour usually yields much coarser muffins but not oat bran. It was soft and had a very nice banana fragance. I felt healthy after eating it and it don't feel too oily either. Thanks Happy Homebaker for this recipe. Oh ya I added raisins and chocolate chips too. But it'll be good even without them :)

I'll definitely make this again!

A Day of Bird Watching

Does the title makes you think of sitting on a patch of grassy field, holding a binoculars and watching a flock of birds flying across the sky? Haa... that's just what comes into my mind when I wrote this title. Nah, we didn't held any binoculars to watch birds in action, my dd and I were just watching birds at Jurong Birdpark, a tourist attraction which boosts a huge collection of over 600 species of bird collections over the world. It was first opened to public 1971. To know more about Jurong Birdpark, please click here.

Despite being one of Singapore's tourist attraction, it was both our first time here. We had this opportunity as my company offers this corporate card which we could rent over the weekend to enter the birdpark for free. If not for this corporate card, guess at this age, we would never have thought of going! Well, this is something different for us at least since we are always trying to find more interesting and varied activities to do. :)

dd said he like this photo cos I looked chubby! :( This doesn't make me happy, but still I quite like this photo as well. So, ok who cares. :PI made 2 sets of bento. I don't think this looks very colourful as I do not have enough "accessories" to dress up the bento. Nevertheless most importantly it filled up his hungry stomach. :) It consisted of tuna mayo and egg mayo sandwiches, chicken karaage, chicken sausages with cucumber, baked sweet potatoes and crabmeat. Not in the picture were strawberries, cherry tomatoes and mooncakes. Yes I brought mooncakes cos' it happened to be Mid-Autumn Festival that day. But the weather was too hot. Before we could eat the mooncakes as our snacks, the poor mini champagne truffles and white ganache mooncakes were already melting away.

There were many species of birds and it's really an eye-opener for us.

We paid S$2 to feed these little lories with nectar. Just hold the cup in your hand and these little things would fly to your hand to feed on the nectar! Only on that day did I realise I'm actually terrified of birds! :P I was screaming when these birds flew onto my hand. I couldn't help myself not to be so fearful of flying creatures near me. So embarrased when children younger than me ain't afraid. :P

My favourite would be these penguins. They were so cute, just stood there and seemed to be enjoying the air-con and relaxing themselves. I actually sympathese with them not being able to be living in their true natural habitat. Hmmm well but who knows they could be happier since they would be safe from any natural disasters or predators that comes along in their harsh environment.

Back home, we lighted up lanterns and candles, my favourite childhood activity! Who say grown ups can't play anymore? ;)

Mom's not a fussy eater :)

Weekend is usually the only time I can put my 'culinary skills' to a test where I can cook some simple meals for myself and my mum. I'm recently experimenting with pastas which is quick and easy and can make a hearty delicious lunch.

As I was browsing through pasta recipes, I was deciding whether to make carbonara or just tomato-based type. I reckon that my mum don't like cheese so I decided to go for the tomato-based versions. She actually wanted me to make the olio aglio again but I told her I need to try new recipes please so she doesn't have a choice. Hehe... :P

I did not want to buy those store-bought pasta sauces which is easily available as I wanted to make my own. :)

First I cooked the pasta. Concurrently as the pasta was cooking in the simmering water, I fried some onions, added tomato sauce, fresh ripe tomatoes and water and cook until the sauce thickened; then I added mushrooms and fresh basil, seasoned with salt and pepper. When the pasta is cooked, my sauce was done and I poured the sauce all over and mixed throughly. Oh I forgot to mention that I also stir-fried some sliced bell peppers and red chilli at the beginning and set them aside. There you are, a simply tomato-based linguine!

Please pardon me for the bad description above as this wasn't meant to be the recipe that I'm sharing. I made this dish without following any recipe, so I don't think it's good enough to be shared. The sauce was not enough for two servings, and I think it could have been better with more herbs and onions; while the pasta was way too much for two persons. :( Poor judgement I have. Hehe. :P Luckily my mum is not a fussy eater and she actually finds it quite tasty. :)

I wanted to finish off with some cheddar cheese and only then did I realise the packet of cheddar cheese which I had used only once had gone mouldy. :( Thank god I did not attempt to make carbonara in the first place. Hmmm..I must really refrain from impulsive buying of ingredients if I don't intend to use it often.

I'm participating in this week's Presto Pasta Night again. :) This coming week's roundup will be hosted by Ruth.

Rum & Raisin ice-cream

With a bottle of rum essence due to expire, leftover whipping cream and raisins, I just couldn't bear to dump it. While searching for the right rum & raisin recipes, I recalled Happy Mrs Kwok's homemade ice-cream.

Thanks Mrs Happy Kwok for sharing your recipe and answering my queries on homemade ice-cream, I really made my own ice-cream! I never ever thought it would be so easy, and you don't need an ice-cream maker at all, that's true. Isn't that good news? I'm still wondering what is the purpose of an ice-cream maker, probably that would churn out creamier, smoother ice-cream?

The texture is good, but the rum flavour is a little artificial. I don't think I would ever buy rum flavour for baking again cos' I just don't like the taste and 'aroma' (mayb I don't know how to appreciate it :). If I'm making it again, I'll definitely try vanilla with chocolate chips or nuts, or green tea. :P

Another Birthday Post :)

It's another birthday post again...yeah it's our dear Shunmei here. :) How time flies...my first official post at Baking Cottage was her birthday post as well. So, this would also mark my blog's first anniversary! Baking Cottage's birthday is coming! Hehe... Well, I thought of baking a cake to celebrate this occasion, if time and energy permits. *lazy* :P
I like the overall presentation of this cake, simple and nothing elaborate but chocolatety. This wasn't my initial plan actually. My plan was to bake a black forest cake. Somehow, I overwhipped the whipping cream and the cream cuddled, so I changed my plan and made a chocolate ganache cake instead, since the cake was already baked that time and all I have with me was chocolate bars and the dark cherries.

Cake was sliced into three layers, layers brushed with cherry syrup, sandwiched with a simple ground almond-ganache and dark cherries in between, and finally covered with a layer of chocolate glaze. The glaze, when set was shiny because of glucose added to it. The chocolate sponge recipe was quite moist and soft, unlike some which were dry. The recipe was shared by my sister-in-law who attended some baking workshop before and here I am to share with you.

Chocolate Sponge Cake

Ingredients:

4 eggs
100g sugar
90g plain flour
10g cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
80-100g melted butter

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. Grease and line a 9-inch round baking tin.
3. Whisk eggs and sugar at maximum speed until light and creamy.
4. Fold in sifted flour, cocoa powder and baking powder, a little at a time.
5. Add melted butter and mix well.
6. Pour into baking tin and bake for about 25-30 minutes.
7. Turn out from tin and leave till cool before frosting.

Shiny Chocolate Glaze (Recipe from Phoon Huat & Co)

Ingredients:

250ml fresh milk
250g fresh whipping cream
50g glucose (can be found in baking supply stores - mine was from "redman")
1000g dark chocolate

Method:

Boil the milk, cream and glucose, then add in dark chocolate and stir till dissolve.

Note: I halved the recipe for chocolate sponge, and used only 1/10 of the recipe for the glaze as it's way too much. Do adjust your recipe accordingly.

We gave Shunmei a treat at this German restaurant - Brotzeit at Vivocity. The specialty for the day was pork knuckles! It was known to ladies to have lots of collagen who is good for our skin but we were just not adventurous enough to try it. We tried a a sampler of mixed sashimi, sausages, salads. The food were rather new to us as we've not tried German-styled cuisine before though we weren't that filling after the meal. I'm glad that xian mentioned that my chocolate cake completed the meal. :D

I wish I could upload more photos but blogger just don't allow me. In fact it took me days to get all these up, thus I have lesser postings this month. I'll try to get all my post up soon ;)