Présentation de Crème Brûlée

Next up is.....not a cake. Rather, it's something that I thought was quite impossible to make at home due to the involvement of a torch. The nearest I've been to one was the Bunsen burner back in the chemistry labs in secondary school and I wasn't too keen on using one at home!

But as with anything else, I succumbed to curiosity and began researching for a Crème Brûlée recipe and most importantly, got the torch as well. It wasn't that difficult to get one but there were actually quite a surprising few varieties to choose from...

Once the recipe was chosen and the hardware in order, it was all about getting it done!

Unfortunately, other than having seen this decadent dessert on TV and being served to others in restaurants, I've never had one myself! So in the end, I didn't exactly have a benchmark to base my recreation of this French wonder.

I turned to the Internet once again to see what others would describe its taste, and I got words like creamy, silky, melt-in-your-mouth...along with specific notes (no surprises since it is a FRENCH creation!) on how exactly crisp the caramel on top should be.

Well, in the end I thought it wasn't the best Creme Brulee made by Man, but I wouldn't say it was too bad either. The custard was firm yet a little wobbly, it was smooth and silky yet rich and creamy, and the sugar shell wasn't unappetisingly burnt or too hard. And I had fun with the torch as well. So what can I say...it was a good day!

On A Bed of A Thousand Roses!

I'm not one to follow trends of any sort but a couple of months back, a trend began to emerge in the baking community here in Singapore that I simply could not ignore. It was and still is probably the prettiest cake I've ever laid eyes upon.

Introducing the Hairy Baker's Lana Cake! Or as I'd like to call it - the Thousand Roses Cake!

It wasn't a particularly difficult decoration to do, but it certainly lends an air of classiness and elegance to any cake that's adorned with these buttercream roses. When pictures of this decoration began emerging from all corners of the world and even here, I knew I just had to try it out for myself!

The first try was a little messy but with a couple of minutes of practice on an overturned baking tin, I got the hang of it and soon the cake was all done! 

I was even lucky enough for receiving an order from my colleague for this cake in Tiffany Blue for a birthday! 

Having nailed the pattern, the challenge with this order was getting the colour right...and I was at my wits end to replicate the famous jeweler's iconic colour with tries after unsatisfactory tries. Since the buttercream had a slight yellow tint to it, adding any form of green colouring turned the whole thing a dull purplish yellow colour which was no good at all.

Finally, after many experiments with combinations of colourings, I began edging closer to the Tiffany shade of blue. In the end, I felt the colour could have been a lot better but thankfully my colleague was happy with it...phew!

I had some stale cake left over and Mum suggested I use it to practice some new piping patterns since it was going to the bin anyway. Tried my hand at the basket weave pattern and I have to say...it was quite complex, requiring more concentration than the other designs I've tried so far.

Wasn't perfect but the flower Mum dug out of her cupboard gave the whole thing a more complete look I think!

Dainty Little Beauties!

Ah macarons. Where do I begin now?

Google "Macaron Recipes" and in no time you'll be begging for someone to throw you a lifeline and drag you out of the recipe tsunami. Not only are there possibly hundreds of recipes, there are also possibly tens of variations of each step involved and even variations in the pre-processing of the ingredients!

I foolishly decided that the best way forward would be to pick one recipe at random and just roll with it. I ended up with little maca-frisbees instead of dainty, well risen macarons and had to consign the whole batch to the bin. Hard lesson indeed.

Nevertheless, I decided that I had to make these or at the very least, turn out something that remotely resembled macarons. So began the long research and cross referencing between popular recipes, ditching some and picking others.

Shells aside, the filling had to be sorted out as well and a reliable buttercream recipe had to be found. It looked like my work was really cut out for me.

Thankfully I managed to stumble upon a buttercream that wasn't too cloyingly sweet and bitty with sugar crystals. Now for the shells. After reading through seemingly endless pages upon pages of tips and tricks, the gist seemed not to over mix the beaten egg whites and to sift in the ground almonds.

Armed with that, I set about making the macarons, determined to get at least one decent looking one that I could reward myself with for all the time spent on the research. The importance of using a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer cannot be over-emphasized enough! Using the much less powerful hand mixer gave me so much more control over the whisking process and I was able to stop before ending up with hard, foamy and chunky whites.

The batter still looked good after mixing the almond meal and sugar in with the colouring - not too runny and definitely pipe-able. Wasn't long before I had baking trays with little beads of glistening macaron batter neatly arranged in rows...very near the end now..don't screw up!

After resting the dainty little babies for about half-an-hour, in they went into the oven in a double tray to get that elusive "feet" everyone swoons about. After about 10 minutes of frantic finger crossing and pacing back and forth, they were done!

Oh what joy it is to find the feet on these lovely, fragile and temperamental beauties! Not the most perfect bunch of macs by a mile but compared to my maca-frisbees, these are a definite upgrade!

Mousse With A Twist!

This next order I received was a pretty challenging one being a mousse cake and a Gula Melaka one too. It was for a birthday for my friend's mom who was an ardent fan of the palm sugar so I really didn't want to disappoint!

It's no secret that I am crazy about anything made of Gula Melaka. If only it could be used entirely as a sugar substitute! Such a rich, smoky, velvety and deep flavour comes from this humble and less well-known cousin to the more popular ones like white/brown sugars.

I decided to move away from the standard mousse cake decoration I usually do and instead, cover this one with a layer of whipped cream to give an impression of a cream cake beneath that layer of cream cover on top. 

Not the boldest variation but I thought the white cream would make whatever decoration that went on top of the cake stand out a little more as compared to decorating a cake that had a pale brown top. I had in the back of my mind a worry that the mousse might melt a little too quickly if left outside for long so the cream  layer acted as some sort of an insulator to keep the cold in the mousse instead of it getting warm!

Thankfully all went well in the end!

Why So Serious?!

Here in Singapore, jellies aren't regarded as highly as cakes. Well, come to think of it, that seems to be the case everywhere else I've been to! It's probably because there's nothing much you can do with jellies..nothing fancy, nothing eye-catching, nothing amazing. Right?

I was quite amazed when my mum showed me pictures of jellies she had done in the past - it was pretty hard to believe that some were actually made of jelly! There were fish, rabbits, roses, dolls...all in jelly form! It struck me that this was one area that wasn't explored much here and there was a good chance that many had no idea of the versatility and creative edge that jellies had.

The clown jelly wasn't particularly hard to put together but you have to get your measurements and mould sizes right or the assembly would turn into a terrible mess! You'd need a little luck with the clown's frilly collar as the peaks and troughs of the mould can cause the jelly to get stuck in places.

I still can't get the image of the completed thing off my mind..it's just one of those things that you'd never imagine possible!

Cupid's Gotta Have Cake Too!

Ok I've been putting off posting here for too many tomorrows...it's been more than a month since my last post and the backlog has been piling up!

I had never taken a Valentine's Day order before but when the opportunity came up I said yes almost immediately..I'd love to get a cake specially made for me by my significant other but since that day hasn't arrived yet, I thought it'd be awesome if I could help someone else surprise their sweetheart instead!

Baking the 50 cupcakes after work was tough but compared to this, the cupcakes were a breeze. I wanted the cake to be as fresh as possible on delivery so I gave myself a 2 day window to get it done. But I completely forgot to factor in "getting off late from work" and "Murphy's Law".

So not only was I late getting back home to start on the cake, I also had problems with getting the right consistency for the fresh cream frosting. The hot and humid weather conditions even at night made things much worse for the frosting - it was melting too easily and you really don't want to be piping designs with ultra soft cream..

It's at times like these that I truly appreciate my mum's guidance and helping had. All that years of cake making and bags of experience really shone through and she saved the day (and the order!) for me. At the end of those 2 days, I was glad I had a cake that I could be proud of and confident it'll bring a smile to a lucky someone!

Red Velvet Mayhem!

Ok there's been such a backlog of posts building up and so much has happened since the last post! Well, not exactly a great whole lot has gone down but it FEELS like I made a million things back there...guess that's the feeling you get when you're just starting out!

First up would be the largest order I've ever taken thus far! 50 red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting..yep you read that right...F-I-F-T-Y cupcakes. I decided to go ahead and accept it anyway because I believe that if someone comes to you with the notion that you can do this, you might as well have a pop at it! What's the worst that could happen eh?

Well like all cakes, this too had its fair share of hiccups and the major problem was getting the right consistency for the cream cheese frosting. To be honest, I hate working with cream cheese. Beat it too little and you won't get much volume in the frosting, beat it just a little too long and it'll spilt. It doesn't help that each block of cream cheese costs a hefty 7 bucks.

I owed a serious lot to my mum for helping me in this order as it was the first time I had to juggle work fatigue with cake making stress and somehow we dragged ourselves over the finish line at 1AM on the day of collection! Thinking back, it actually wasn't too hard at all and everything depends on a successful frosting...get that right and you'll be laughing.

Frosting the swirls was kinda fun in the end and thankfully I got a positive review which made it all worth the effort! And special thanks to my mum for coming up with the innovative compartmentalization idea for placing 25 cupcakes in a box without them touching each other..she's a genius!