Fish and Tarts!

I think the best thing about living in a multi-racial and ethnically diverse country is that all major festival sets everyone in a festive mood! Now that the Lunar New Year is just around the corner, rows and rows of festive goodies deck the shelves of bakeries and supermarkets alike and everything's adorned in red. Needless to say, it's hard for me - and I imagine - everyone else to resist those delectable pineapple tarts and crisp prawn rolls begging to be taken off the shelves and just devoured...

What better time than now - when the craving hits the hardest - to roll out a fresh from the oven, homemade batch of my mum's finest pineapple tarts?! These buttery, sweet and tangy beauties need no introduction really. Just plop them in front of anyone and watch their eyes light up in delight! Heh..

Finally, I got to make the whole thing from scratch after watching my mum make them year after year and always not having the time during Deepavali due to exams and what not. Felt pretty good in the end!

I've only ever seen my mum make the fish jelly once and that was probably about 15 or 16 years ago but the image of it in my mind remains as fresh as the day I first set my eyes upon it.  The intricate arrangement of the scales combined with the fact that each "scale" has to be placed individually really makes this change one's perception that jellies are boring and easy peasy.

I was pretty worn out after trying my hand at it and it took almost half a day before it was finally ready to be unmoulded. It wasn't perfect but for my first attempt, I had no complaints!

Out With The Old, In With The New!

It's hard getting used to quite drastic changes in my schedule of late so the oven has been getting quite a bit of rest! A brand new year ahead full of challenges, rewards and of course - more, more and more cakes!

First up, I received another order for a log cake after a recommendation from my friend to another of his and I can't stress how grateful I am for that! Another chocolate hazelnut one to round up the year!

The new oven finally arrived in the last couple of days of last year and we had to try out the temperature settings to find out the optimal one for baking. There probably couldn't be a better excuse to get baking again in the new year! 

My mum had wanted to try out a black and white cake she saw on display at a shop some time back and I had two large bars of Korean white chocolate couveture just sitting in the fridge that I hauled back from my month long exchange trip there. It wasn't long before the cake was done and topped with both the milk chocolate couveture and the white chocolate one!

We got the new oven up and running and also had a sweet start to 2013 - two birds in one stone!

Yule Log!

To me, Christmas means Santa, snow and log cakes! Always have been, always will be. Even though 1) There's no Santa 2) It'll never snow here in Singapore. It's not an occasion that I celebrate but everyone just seems to get in the highly infectious mood don't they? 

The Yule log is a pretty uncomplicated thing when you're making it yet its held in such high regard especially when Christmas swings round. As a kid, I used to watch my mum make these on Christmas eve and it just added to the magic of Christmas!

So to say I was excited when I received my first order for one would be somewhat an understatement! I was extremely glad when my friend decided to get one made by me instead of buying one from the shops which - quite frankly - are grossly overpriced.

Having seen my mum make the Yule log countless times helped alot and I was able to start and finish it just the day before collection so that everything was as fresh as possible! My friend left the flavour up to me and although I'd prefer it if my orders were more defined, I decided to experiment a little and brought over the hazelnut chocolate mousse taste that I really liked, to the creamy log cake. 

Thankfully, it turned out well and now I've got another order via a recommendation from my friend! Woohoo!

Three For The Price Of One!

Gosh it has been a long time since the last post ain't it?! It's not that I've been sitting on my hands with regards to baking but I just haven't had the time to sit down and write a post!

Right, let me get down to it. First up, my dad's birthday cake! I think of all the cakes I've made, this took the cake(hehe) for having the most alluring yet the simplest decoration. Me and my mum were done with it in almost no time at all! The chocolate fingers were a last minute addition after the sides didn't really turn out smooth like I wanted but in the end, it was all good!

My dad always liked his cakes semi-sweet and he had taken a liking for the mango mousse cakes I made previously - he'd always ask if he could have another piece! So me and my mum decided that for his birthday, mango mousse cake it shall be.

There wasn't too many problems with the cake thankfully and we were really happy with how it turned out in the end!

Next up is a cake for a relative's birthday that almost didn't even make it into the oven! At first, I decided to cancel the order as it seemed that it was just too large for me to comfortably say I'd be able to make it. I'm of the opinion that if you're making a cake for someone, you have to be absolutely sure that you'll be able to make it and make it well. Especially in this case where it would be a first for me in making a cake of this size!

The order was a cake that had to feed about 50 people at a birthday party and it had to be a chocolate one. My mum suggested that I do the Nutella mousse cake that she thought was absolutely delicious, so I got down to it over the past weekend.

It wasn't exactly a cake that went the way I expected it to and there were quite scary hiccups and bumps along the way...however, it did turn out pretty alright in the end so it was a huge relief really!

My sister came over to help with the letterings and my mum set her creative mind to work on the decorations that would stand out best against the rich chocolate mousse base. It was quite a hassle getting nice looking strawberries and gooseberries especially...the quality of berries that end up on supermarkets shelves here can be quite atrocious honestly.

After a couple of minutes, the hefty cake was finally finished and picked up for the party! Always great to see smiles on people's faces when they're happy with what you've put together for them!

Next up's my own birthday cake! Of course, I had no hand in it - it was all my mum and I have to say I was completely blown away by the cake and the idea itself! I had seen a dome shaped cake before but honestly I thought it was terribly complicated. It was - but my mum managed it all by herself! Guess you can't take pure skill away from anyone!

Overdue Treats!

The oven in the kitchen has certainly been working hard these past couple of weeks...but it seems that I haven't! It feels like I've been spread too thin across all the stuff I have/want to do to recently that I just couldn't find the time to get cracking at posting here!

First up, red velvet cupcakes! It feels like eons ago that I set my heart on making these maroon beauties but getting the right recipe and thinking of the decorations seemed like too much work every time I wanted to get down to it, and I just kept delaying it over and over.

Eventually, I kind of stumbled upon a suitable looking recipe and decided that the wait had to end! To be honest, I had reservations about using such large amounts of food colouring, especially red food colouring, in a single recipe. This recipe calls for 3 tablespoons of the stuff which while I think is still pretty excessive, is one of the lesser amounts I've seen in a recipe. If you want to know more about the controversy surrounding red food colouring - Google it! Pretty yucky stuff.

Anyway, thankfully the cupcakes turned out alright - albeit being a little too small. Frosting them was fun though also extremely challenging given the terribly warm weather of late. The buttercream was almost impossible to pipe into patterns as it was just melting too fast once removed from the refrigerator. In the end, I decided that desperate times called for desperate measures and frosted the cupcakes in an air-conditioned room!

It wasn't an energy-bill-friendly solution but it did the trick! At least now me and my mum could pipe patterns without getting frustrated and covered up to our elbows in sticky rapidly melting buttercream.

I decided to take things slow and did the frosting over a couple of days, trying out various patterns and experimenting with the tons of frosting nozzles that my mum had accrued over the years. There were plenty of videos on YouTube as well to throw up interesting ideas and patterns.

The rose (the yellow one..my mum did the pink ones!) was the most challenging one but I managed one and needless to say, was extremely proud of it! Heh!

Next up was my sister's birthday and I knew she would want something chocolate-y but the obvious choices like a chocolate ganache cake or a chocolate mousse cake seemed kinda boring and I also wanted to do something new since I was looking for a new recipe to add to my stable!

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Hazelnuts are like Nature's complement to chocolates and I can't agree more. After some deliberation, I settled on a Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse cake, the only problem being - I had no recipe for it!

I had my basic mousse recipe but modifying it for this cake was quite tricky as I had to get the right consistency for the chocolate hazelnut mix. Too runny and it might not set at all! Too thick and I might end up with a clumpy mousse. 

I decided that using Nutella would be the best choice for giving the chocolate hazelnut flavour I was after, so it was a bit hit or miss with my dilution of about 270 grams of the gorgeous dark brown stuff with milk. In the end the mousse turned out slightly runny and this affected the overall smoothness of the cake. 

It also kept seeping under the half slice of cake and messed up the alternate arrangement of cake-mousse-cake-mousse that I wanted. Almost ended up with having not enough mousse to cover the top of the cake! That was a heart stopping moment for me I must admit...thankfully there weren't too many imperfections, although it wasn't the prettiest looking cake.

Luckily, the taste was the saving grace of the cake...and thankfully my sister loved the taste! That was encouraging enough for me to consign this recipe back to the drawing board for further tweaking!

The Hairy Baker Rises

It's great to be baking again! After almost 2 months out in the cold, I couldn't wait to get stuck in the thick of things again - and what better way to get back into the groove than by finally trying out the recipe I had for the Molten Chocolate Lava Cake!

I had this recipe on hand for something like 6 months now and I was really really really itching to suss it out for myself. This cake requires no other accompaniment or decorations - just pop the middle and watch the chocolate ooze out. That's all you need really!

I got the ramekins in preparation for this decadent dessert during the first week of the holidays but had to put  the plans I had for them off due to my trip and other stuff which came up in between. But I decided that the wait was long enough and today was going to be D-day.

Thankfully I made 3 of these chocolate wonders as only the first one unmoulded properly. The other 2 got stuck to the ramekins quite badly and were reduced to a gooey though edible mess. One plop of Anderson's Vanilla Bean ice cream - which melted a little too fast - rounded things off pretty well I must say!

Housekeeping!

I should probably clear the cobwebs here! It's been weeks since my last post and 2 weeks since I last saw home! I miss baking quite terribly but the cakes sold here in Korea are nothing short of gorgeous...the designs are pretty unique and I couldn't help but sneak a couple of photos! Even chiffon cakes are decorated so nicely..would be nice to learn some cake making here to be honest!