One Tart to Rule Them All

Boy! I've really fallen off the blogging bandwagon haven't I?!

I have a special affinity to all manners of pastries over cakes and I'm inexplicably drawn towards pies/tarts for some reason. That buttery, crumbly crust cocooning a myriad of fillings just fills me with a warming sense of comfort...kinda like chicken soup on a depressing rainy day!

If I'm ever down, hand me a pie; that's the only anti-depressant I'll ever need.

Being a big fan of The Great British Bake Off, I was completely taken in by the Comic Relief Bake Off episodes which were bucket-loads of laughs with celebrities attempting recipes which they've mostly never ever heard of!

For the pie fanatic that's me, I was unsurprisingly enthralled with the episode that had the celebs trying their hand at making a Bakewell Tart.

Sweet, buttery, crumbly pastry layered with jam, topped with moist fluffy frangipane? I'm sold! Though, it did take me pretty much a year to get round to making it...I finally did a couple of weeks ago!

I searched high and low for a good recipe and finally settled for a Paul Hollywood one with a couple of tweaks here and there. It may not be the most awesome looking or authentic Bakewell tart ever made, but given that it was the first time I've ever made frangipane or attempted a Bakewell tart, I was pretty happy with what popped out of the oven! Best tart I've ever had in a long while and probably my all time favourite now.

Honestly, a gimme a warm Bakewell any day and I'll probably gobble it all down. It'll be mine and mine only. My preciousss.

A Rainbow Cake for The Big Baby!

The writing bug seems to have deserted me of late! But I believe a new update is waaay overdue and it's about time we had a new one..perhaps with more pictures than words!

Let's wind the clock all the way back to August where I was tasked by my sis to make a Rainbow Cake for her birthday. I was of the impression that these were more suited for little kiddie birthday parties but anyway...(hehehe!)

Looks pretty normal on the outside doesn't it! The ruffles didn't really turn out the way I wanted them to but that was the best I could pipe with a sore wrist unfortunately. Could have done with a little better contrasting between the roses and the ruffles too.

Ta-da! Was really glad that it turned out alright! Using a White Cake recipe was a good choice in the end as the egg yolk-less batter retained the vibrancy of the colours a lot better than a slightly yellow batter would have. Though it was seriously weird making a cake without any yolks!

It cut well, was pretty damn satisfying and the sis loved it..so all in all, time and effort well spent I'd say!

A Busy Baker Is A Happy Baker!

Time to dust the cobwebs off this place!

June was abit of a blur to be honest. Seemed like a lot of stuff went on - but looking back, it doesn't seem like much actually - and I finally got a break from my upside-down work schedule. Which is always cause for celebration!

Anyway.

June is the month where fathers get their turn in the limelight! Albeit a severely dimmed one in comparison to the rapturous adulation their spouses would have been showered with a month earlier...

Just as with Mother's Day, Father's Day is also celebrated with...............you guessed it, a cake, in my house. Dad requested for something coffee based this time so it didn't take too long for me to settle on one to make for the occasion, though I didn't want it to be just a regular old run of the mill coffee-cream-sponge combination. The man certainly deserves better!

A quick run through the recipe books and I stumbled upon one for a Tiramisu Cheesecake which seemingly ticked all the boxes I had in my head for the cake. Having recently decided to switch over from powdered gelatin to leaf ones, I had trouble estimating the conversion and ended up with a little too much gelatin in the rich mascarpone cheese mixture that enrobed the chocolate sponge interior.

That made for a pretty rubbery cheesecake which was abit of a let down for the perfectionist in me. But my dad didn't mind at all and happily tucked into his slice of the cake! Which kinda made all the scurrying around getting the ingredients and the hours spent assembling the cake worth it!

Next up was making wedding favours for my dear brother-in-law's brother which was a huge honour I must say! 100 Sugar Heart cookies with a Tiffany Blue icing seemed pretty daunting back when he first asked me but in the end, I was extremely glad I took it on.

It wasn't easy baking around a night shift schedule (as I've moaned about countless times before here =X) but I had a ton of help from my mum, without whom I would have been scrambling around till the last minute to get the whole thing decorated and packed up.

I also had the honour of making the desserts and a cake for the bride's hen party - a Thousand Roses Cake in the Tiffany Blue, a Nutella Brownie and Custard Cream Puff Swans! The Thousand Roses Cake was abit of a challenge as it has been some time since I'd made one while thankfully, the Swans and the Brownie came out alright...the swans were a real delight to make to be honest!

Always an awesome feeling to play a small part in these once-in-a-lifetime events! Great baking experience too I must say!

June and the tail end of May also saw some orders for cupcakes from my colleagues, with 2 lots of Red Velvets going out and some Hazelnut Chocolate and Mocha ones as well. Always a pleasure to bake for them!

That Important Day In May!

The annual Mother's Day celebrations in my house had to be put on hold for awhile due to my shift and stuff and it almost got cancelled but I really wanted to make a cake for her. What's the point of being into baking if you can't make a cake for the important people in your life eh?

With my mum, the flavour for a cake is never a problem as long as it revolves around the prickly, stinky-sweet Durian. You just have to decide how you want to present the durian in the cake! I decided to go for a simple durian mousse cake for the occasion.

With my schedule - and the time the mousse needed to be in the fridge to set - I had to get back home from work in the morning and bake the cake before collapsing onto bed while the cake cooled. I thought I had it all planned out but as usual, crap happens and the sponge cake interior turned out too low for a proper sandwiched cake and I had to make another!

For the first time in a long time, I actually had an idea of how the final cake would look like in my head - decorations and all! Unfortunately, the mousse somehow split and turned out extremely grainy, which gave a dull and rough surface. Fortunately though, it did set in the fridge.

Having attended a lesson in choux pastry some time back, I was extremely eager to try making the choux swans that I made during the lesson as I thought they would make a pretty awesome and unique addition to the mousse cake as decorations. Thankfully they turned out quite alright!

Turned the left over puffs into swan puffs with durian fresh cream and sent them off to the neighbours!

Baking Bread!

Be friends with people who share your interests or hope that the ones you have are mature enough to support yours.

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Do yourself a favour and start baking your own bread! Grab a factory made loaf off your supermarket shelf and take a look at the ingredient list. It's miles long and contains stuff that you wouldn't normally associate with food. The bread I managed to rustle up had 4 ingredients: Flour, water, yeast and salt. I'm not sure about you, but I'm picking homemade bread over store bought ones any day!

Bread making has always been seen as an extremely tedious process in my house. Probably because of all that kneading and mixing and resting for hours...it can be a whopping 6 hours before you're buttering yourself a slice of freshly made bread!

But it seems to me that bread was the reason why Man started baking. In the old days, sugar was a premium, top of the range product which was on par or maybe even more expensive than spices! Cakes would have been a luxury only the rich could afford. And however which way you look at it, cakes are meant to be admired before they're eaten. Kinda feels like they were created to impress instead of feed.

Breads on the other hand, come from a long long long way back in history. Its origins can be traced as far back in time as Ancient Egypt! When you look at a loaf of bread, chances are, you're not going to be mightily impressed. It's usually in a boring shape with a dark brown crust and nothing much else to it. The proof of the pudding is in the eating and once cut, each loaf unleashes its unique, often mellow, flavour and aroma based on the flour it was made from.

I think the sole purpose of a loaf is to fill hungry bellies. Bellies that possibly could not afford the finer things in life like sugary, showy cakes. Wheat flour, salt, water and yeast (or sourdough starter) - throw them in a bowl, mix them, knead it, rest it, bang it in the oven and there's your breakfast/lunch/dinner. Bread is pretty impossibly versatile!

So when my first ever loaf of bread came out of the oven, I couldn't help but feel like I've finally understood the feelings of those early bakers who baked bread as a means of keeping starvation at bay. It's weird - I know!

I managed 3 types of bread and each was an absolute joy! A basic simple white bread boule, a wholemeal loaf and a couple of pizzas. The learning curve for each wasn't too steep but it does take a fair bit of patience to learn the kneading techniques and the intricacies of how the yeast works its magic in concert with the other ingredients. I'm still learning!

I was lucky enough to have a great bread baking book on hand which I bought months ago but only just picked out from the back of my cupboard! I'm no bread expert by any means but I have to say I felt extremely happy when I cut into the loaves to unearth a soft, spongy center surrounded by a crisp and firm crust. It just made me want to bake more and more bread!

The pizzas were awesome as well and were a hit with my family which is what keeps me going!

Brilliant Bread by James Morton: extremely informative, well thought out and loaded with bread making nuggets of information for the newbies. Get it please!

A "Healthy" Solution At Last!

For the longest time, I've been searching for a snack that would tide me over from "lunch" to my breakfast and stave off my hunger pangs. I didn't want it to be empty calories that would just leave me high on sugar and reaching out for more nosh after some time. It had to be substantial, relatively guilt-free and interesting enough to make me wait eagerly in anticipation for snack time!

Here's what my nightly schedule is like:

7.15 pm: Drag myself off the transport and into the pantry to leave my "lunch" in the fridge. Head to the labs to check for stuff that needs handing over and join colleagues in the cafeteria.

8.00 pm: Begin work proper.

11.30 pm: If I'm lucky, I get to have my "lunch" before midnight. If not, it'll be at about 1am which is a pretty agonizingly long wait...

3 am: Head to the pantry to "forage" for food in the cupboard and fridge - often unsuccessfully. Bang in a sweet potato if I brought one. Or cross my fingers and head over to another building to see if they have anything nice in stock at the cafeteria.

6.30 am: Run down to the cafeteria for breakfast!

So if I can't get anything to eat at 3, it's quite a nightmare trying to quiet a rumbling stomach!

Those dark days look to be over though, after my first batch of Whole Wheat Banana Muffins came out of the oven looking all golden brown and irresistible...they're not *exactly* guilt-free with the butter and sugar in them but I'll be glad to have one of these in my bag when the gnawing hunger pangs start.

The whole wheat flour (much better than plain flour) is chock full of fibre and really gives these muffins a pretty chewy but soft interior which tricks your mind into thinking its full before you're even halfway through one! And the banana...well it's amazing how the smell of this fruit in the oven just seems so comforting and homely. Like a warm blanket around a freezing you. The yoghurt also adds a nice full flavour to these muffins!

Anyway, this muffin is pretty much a blank slate and is versatile enough to take on a couple of extra ingredients like a handful of chopped roasted walnuts, or chocolate chips if you're not too concerned about the calorie count, or fresh blueberries for a tangy zing.

Just let your imagination take over!  Probably should take more photos next time though...

A Childhood Favourite!

Sometimes I get struck by sudden bouts of inspiration which, more often than not, are brought on by my cravings...

Custard Creams were a childhood favourite of mine and still are after all these years. It's like having warm a bowl of chicken soup after a long day - its comfort food in cookie form! And its pretty simple to make from scratch so it seemed ridiculous to not at least make an attempt at a batch.

After rummaging through my (growing) collection of cookbooks, I chanced upon the recipe and was amazed at how simple it was! Getting the cookies done were another matter all together though as the super soft dough kept giving me odd shaped circles after cutting them out as even the slightest handling tended to pull the little dough circles out of shape.

Once baked, all that was left was to prepare the custardy buttercream, slather it on, sandwich and eat! Awesome when you're finally able to bake for yourself after a long time!