Disastrous Birthday Cake :P

I met my best gal friend, BK at Plaza Singapura, Tea Cosy for her belated birthday dinner. Tea Cosy is a mixed retail and dining outlet selling vintage classic furniture and ornaments. It's a nice, cosy place for high tea sessions or lunch/dinner gathering. We had dinner on that day and the food was quite average, in our opinions. Their high tea set looks more appealing so I migh be going back for their cupcakes and scones another day.

Ok...what is happening to the birthday cake that I baked for BK? Hehe.. as you can see from the photo, one side of it sank and the entire cake kinda swayed to one side, as if an earthquake had caused a landscape to be destroyed... or shall I say it's like ice caps melting? Yes I think that should be a better description... because that was exactly what happened. The Mousse cake melted.

My plan was intially to bake a chocolate layer cake. But BK told me that she had a bad cough. So I thought i had better not bake a chocolate layer cake that would most probably have made her cough even worse. Without insufficient time to get other ingredients, I decided on a green tea mousse cake.

I took this picture of the cake baking in the oven because I knew I had overbeaten the egg whites so I was monitoring whether the cake was baking well in the oven. It looked fine even until it was out of the oven but..... as with most chiffon cakes, some only sank when you overturn the cake to cool; some will not sink until you unmould the cake. I think this has got to do with the stability of the beaten egg whites. Some could still managed to "endure" without collasping in the oven but eventually they had to, while some were too weak that they couldn't hold one more minute inside the oven. I was hoping my over-beating could still sustain the stability..... So what was the result?

Well, I have some extra batter so I poured some in another small chiffon tin. The ones in the chiffon tin collasped badly, still eatable but as you know, it becomes moist and kueh-like. The other one in the round tin shrank a little, but still looked perfect. Although it wasn't the best texture that it should be, it still looked and tasted good. :)

I then got myself going with the green tea mousse. The recipe was taken from Florence's matcha yoghurt mousse cake. I have not had much good experience with making mousse cakes, so i do not know whether it should be the correct texture or not. The green tea flavour and colour wasn't that distinctive also because the powder could not dissolve well in the mixture. :(

My only decorating ingredients revolves around strawberries and chocolate. I know its very boring. Hehe... anyway, strawberry is a versatile ingredient isn't it? sorry my dearies, till when I'd improve my decorating skills, you'll still be seeing strawberries :P

When I reached Tea Cosy, I immediately asked for the mousse cake to be kept in their fridge as I knew the mousse cake was already melting. When we were finishing our dinner, the chef/waiter came to us telling us that the cake had melted badly because I should have told them that it was a mousse cake and it should be kept in the freezer instead. We told them that's fine and we would just like to have the cake served to us. They gave us a socking look with their eyes wide open" Are you sure? Its going to look quite bad."

So they took out the cake, placed a candle and even had it lighted up! Haha we weren't really expecting this, really. We thought we would just have a little photograph and enjoy the cake to ourselves without making a "scene" about the birthday cake. It was no wonder why they had to make sure whether we really wanna have our cake served. :P

Anyway, we do not really mind whether eyes were on the weird-looking cake. It tasted quite delicious actually. Because of the use of yoghurt, it was a rather refreshing, mousse cake rather than a creamy one. ;)

Honey Cornflakes

I took an entire week of my vacation leave for my Phuket trip. Following my return back, I simply rest and relax at home, rotting, surfing the internet and of cos' baking. Life's ought to be like this. You can't be working like a machine 365 days. You'll hate your job even more (unless your work is your passion but hardly do we fulfill that, do we?). After a break, recharged, and set the engine to work hard again! Hopefully I'll be able to recharge back to full power at the soonest. ;)

One entire day was spent baking a birthday cake for my best girl friend for a belated birthday celebration for her. It was one of the worst birthday cake I've made but we had fun laughing and eating it :P (More to be shared!)

On another day, I wanted to bake something yet not too tedious. I chosed this simplest of all - honey cornflake cups. I bought a packet of cornflakes during Chinese New Year to make chocolate cornflakes and kept the leftovers as breakfast cereals but I hardly consume it as I've shifted my preference for wheat cereals instead. So I thought making this is the best way to utilise it. ;)

I didn't managed to coat all with the honey-sugar syrup so it deosn't stick well but I think that's fine. It would not be overly sweet then and you can just pick at any loose cereal flakes from the mini muffin cup case. I randomly googled for this recipe and found one that suits me! It's here. Thanks Jussaemon for this easy and good recipe. :D

Sweet proposal @ Phuket :P

Updates: I've uploaded this photo cos' dd said he preferred this photo much more than the below one. ;)

I'm just back from a short trip to Phuket with my dd. It was a really relaxing trip.... beautiful beaches, pretty ladies clad in bikini and beach wears, men going topless walking along the streets of Patong Beach. It's the only place I don't have to worry about my image and can be as casual as I want. Haha... I just wish i wasn't back so early! :D

Best of all, my boyfriend, proposed to me. :P

Well, it wasn't as if i'm not expecting his proposal. Afterall, we have already make a booking for our future birdnest. *smile* Still, I can't take things for granted until he makes the first move right? Hehe...

This proposal really came as a surprise because he has been giving me the not prepared attitude. Haa, I thought that he hasn't made any preparation for our future yet. I didn't expect he would bring a ring all the way from Singapore cos' he'd always a cautious person and would never bring valuables overseas.

So, yeah, I accepted his proposal. :) I shan't go much into the details... *shy shy*..... only that after I accepted it, i remembered that my dream proposal has to come with a bouquet of flowers! :P Haha.... nevermind, dd, you promised you will make up for it. ;)

I'll share more of my phuket trip soon! I still need some time to get myself back on track... ;)

Banana Muffin - Mark this recipe!

I have some very ripe bananas and..... I'm sure this has been repeated by many and I don't have to repeat myself. ;) Over-ripe bananas are definitely every baking-enthusiast's best friend. So here you are, banana muffins. This banana muffin is so good that i think I've really found a treasure. Most banana muffins never come out of the oven a failure but this recipe is just simply perfect, texture, taste, shape and appearance and level of difficulty. That's why my purpose here is to share and make a note in case I forget. Thanks Little Teochew for sharing this!

Do hop over to The Little Teochew for the recipe!

I'll end this post here because i'm so so busy nowadays! On a positive note, isn't that good because judging from my workload, I'll remain employed for at least for the next 2 years!?! :D My colleague must be amazed that I said this... haa but i think positive thinking is what we should do, and I learnt that facing difficult times and cases actually make you learn more. ;)

Why is the cake so small?

"Why is the cake so small?" my nephew exclaimed when he saw the birthday cake I brought out of the fridge. :P

My eldest brother is turning one year older and since he came home for dinner this year to celebrate his birthday with us, I had the honour to bake his birthday cake again this year ;) How "fortunate" he is isn't it cos' he got a birthday cake from this dear sis of his for two consecutive years. Last year, it was a durian mousse cake ;) hahaaWell in fact It wasn't a successful cake, so i wasn't that honoured after all! :P The chocolate sponge cake somehow wasn't cooked entirely even though when I inserted a toothpick, it came out clean. I had to discard one of the layer so i ended up with only two layers instead of three, making it a really short cake.

Another hiccup arised from the whipping of diary cream. I couldn't whipped it to a peak so I left it for a while to get a bowl of ice as a cushion for the bottom of the bowl, only to get a curdled cream that got all separated miserably:( So I had to make do with only raspberry jam for the fillings between the layer. The ganache wasn't done as well as it could have been.

I actually had second thoughts giving this cake to brother but eventually I think he won't mind. :) Only thing was everyone had to admit the cake looked really small! Well, it was a 6-inch cake but because it was too short, it appeared small and of cos' one look at it you'll know its homemade. :P

I think i need to attend some cake courses, especially on cake decorating. It's always easy and fun to self-taught and learn as you experience failures but the process of learning is longer. I wanna learn how to bake beautiful cakes! Anyone wanna join me? :P

Back to Homemade Bread

I'm craving to bake a loaf of bread.. soft homemade bread with no preservative, not the wholemeal version or soft buns but just simply a loaf of white bread. I craved the aroma of freshly baked loaf out from the oven. With that, I set down to bread making on a Sunday morning. I don't know why, that day I suddenly craved for white bread for next morning's breakfast. Even though I try to be as health conscious as possible and am trying to lose some weight by eating less rice and carbo now, staples like white rice and white bread is still a must for me and if i have not had rice for a few days, I would feel really awkward.

I did not have milk or milk powder on that day and from my experience, most bread recipes would have milk in its ingredients list, otherwise, the softness usually do not last for more than a day.

I fall back on this chocolate chip buns recipe . This produces bread which remained soft for at least 2 days and does not has milk. Probably the eggs in tis case adds richness to it. But be prepared to handle a rather sticky dough.

I merely omitted the cocoa powder and chocolate chips, and baked them in a loaf tin instead of shaping them into individual buns.

I realised how important It is to keep some good to-keep recipes for the same baked item (e.g. basic white bread, basic muffin or cakes) because you may just have one ingredient and not the other. That's when we can make good with whatever we have and still have your favourite baked goods without having to buy that ingredient solely for that purpose. :)

My slicing was outrageous so I dare not show you the sliced presentation. :P It was a successful attempt after a long break from bread making. I'm a happy gal that day. :)

Suji Cookies

Meeting up with my girlfriends is one of the happiest moments in life. Don't you agree? :D Even though I bake frequently whenever I could, I don't think my sistas had enough of my bakes because we don't meet so often. :) During our recent gathering, I squeezed in some time in the morning to bake this easy suji cookies before meeting them at noon. They love the cookies! Especially Kexian... :) I knew it cos I know she love melting moments, though I baked this to be more on the crunchy side.

Crunchy Suji Cookies

100g ghee

120g caster sugar (i reduced to 90g)

1 egg yolk

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

150g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

egg glaze: 1 egg yolk mixed with few drops of water (i omitted this)

1. Mix ghee, sugar, egg yolk and vanilla essence till well combined.
2. Sift flour, baking soda and salt and stir well.
3. Preheat oven at 180°C for 10 minutes. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
4. Using a metal spoon, fold the flour mixture into the ghee mixture. Knead lightly to form a dough.
5. Pinch a small amount (about 1/2 tbsp) of dough and roll it into a ball. Place the cookie dough 2cm apart on the tray as they will spread during baking.
6. Brush with egg glaze.
7. Bake for 14 minutes. Let it cool for a few minutes on the baking tray before transferring to a wire rack. Allow them to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.

Recipe from: Oi Lin's "Delicious Asian Baked Treats"

Nice, cosy cafe but with food below our expectation. Nevertheless its the company that counts. Have not post our photos for a long time. :) Shunmei, Kexian, Kailing and me!