ANOTHER NITE MARE!

My Nightmare Before Christmas

Last Christmas, I made a cake for 32 Bistro & Bar... This is my 'Nightmare Before Christmas' and actually it is a witch's hat...!!! I wonder why it has to be a nightmare for such celebration??? It supposed to be... HO...HO...HO... MERRY XMAS...!!! with colorful red, green and gold... Ermmm, I guess it's how they want to celebrate the eve, having nightmares after party... hehehehe... drinking too much is bad for health and beware of nightmares too... It's butter cake and I covered the cake with rolled fondant, I made pumpkins and grave stones using pastillage and chocolate frosting for the affects of grass.... It took me 5 hours to complete everything, including the baking of the cakes... But it is just so fun playing with colorful fondants and I just love to work from home... HOME SWEET HOME ....

HAPPY HOLIDAY

American Chocolate Cake

Still on holiday, everybody is here except for two of my brothers back in Kuala Lumpur working. Ya, when I woke up it's a beautiful morning and surely it's a beautiful day... I woke up with a sleepy smiley face being surrounded with beautiful smiles. Shara serenade me with a beautiful song 'Run to you' and keep on repeating the same song over and over again. I was caught between the lyrics, IT'S BEAUTIFUL.... a song by Lady Antebellum. It's true when the time passing by, what we see around is the world turned changing, sometimes life gets harder, people going crazy and problems getting ugly... so what you need is a someone to rely on, I can't be alone, you can't be alone too, nobody can be alone...!!!

Ya, everybody needs somebody to run to ... that's how we play by the rules here, it's written there... So, that tells why I run ... we run and you run too... YEAH ...for now I have all these beautiful faces right before my eyes... the loves of my life... even the world out there is going crazy ... I am still glad that I have another day to be embraced by hugs and kisses.

For this wonderful holiday and for the love of chocolates, I made this delicious American Chocolate Cake. Moist chocolate cake layered with smooth chocolate spread, the chocolate spread was prepared earlier. It was cooked with a double boiler and let cooled for half an hour till the sauce become a little thick and poured cover around the whole cake. Sprinkle some thousands on the cake and it is just beautiful for a beautiful day... May everybody around the world have a beautiful day as well, loving is believing ...

Chocolate spread :

100 grams chocolate compound

100 ml milk

1 teaspoon cornflour

1 teaspoon butter

ORANGE BUTTER CAKE

How to make orange butter cake ....

Ingredients preparation ahead from baking process or 'mise en place'. All ingredients weighted in the right amount and set aside. Sieve flour, baking powder and milk powder. Leavening agent or any kind of ingredients in powder form need to be sieved in order to get a smooth texture of flour and powder.

Place butter and castor sugar in mixing bowl and cream mixture with K beater in a medium speed for about 10 mins. The mixture will turn out white in color due to the mixing of milk and fat comes from butter.

Separate egg yolk from white and set aside separately, use hand gently to hold egg yolk and place in other bowl. Use another mixing bowl for egg white and during separation process avoid water, egg yolk or any alien ingredients from the mixture. Egg white meringue might not be fluffy and airy if mixed with other liquid. Mixing bowl need to be wiped clean before use.


Butter and sugar mixture turn a little pale in color, so add in egg yolk little at a time. This is to avoid cream and yolk to curdle and yolk will be separated from cream if not mixed properly. After a little mix of egg yolk let it beat for awhile till the mixture is well mixed then only continue pouring little more of egg yolk.

In another mixing bowl, place egg white and beat with whisker till fluffy and medium stiff . Beat with medium high speed till meringue become airy.


Add in cream mixture in egg white meringue a little at a time and let it well mixed.

Next, add in sieved flour and mix well too. In baking process, dry ingredients will be mixed with creamed ingredients before adding in liquid, procedure has to be in the proper steps to avoid mixture to curdle.

Add in squeezed orange juice, the taste will differ in the using of additive flavor such as emulco and essence. Natural flavor is more tasty and smells better.

Zest orange peel, avoid the white meat of the orange peel. It's bitter, zest the outer part which is orange in color only. Mix in orange zest into the batter slowly fold with spatula and don't over beat the batter.


Cut parchment paper in appropriate size to the mould of the baking tin. Place parchment paper at the bottom of the tin.

Weight the cake mixture in a good amount for each tin, divide into same quantity for each of the tins. Scoop mixture with spatula into the tins not more than 3 quarter metric of the tin to avoid mixture from over spill.

For loaf size butter cake, bake in 180 C for 30 mins and rotate the tins after 1st half to allow cake to bake evenly. Cake will turn less soggy after 1st half of baking, rotate the tins and bake till cake is well cooked. Use metal tester or wooden stick to check, no more batter or uncooked mixture sticked to the tester indicates that the cake is done.

Orange Butter Cake

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 cup flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 orange
• 3 eggs

Enjoying my Aidil Adha celebration with family back in Jitra, well my mom ordered for orange butter cakes. Ya... I I BOSS ...I love butter cake... we love butter cake ...mmmm... mmmm... who doesn't ????

So, I believed sharing is the way of describing the significant of Aidil Adha.. Today, I am happy to share the recipe and method of baking this tasty Orange Butter Cake ... To those pilgrimages in Mekah, May be granted with a 'mabruh hajj' and safe journey ... Happy holiday everybody and Good Luck...!!!

CELEBRATE RAYA WITH CHOCOLATE

Moist Chocolate Cake

It's Hari Raya again ...10th Sept 2010, I wonder why am I so excited to meet Hari Raya again after last year. But I guess this year is better than last year and few years back, and this year is so meaningful to me as I am being a free person ...Last 31th August was the 53rd anniversary of Malaysia's independence, it's my independence day as well... i am free again, can feel my feet back on the ground...!!!! YAY... It shows how excited am I this 2010 raya... as excited as I was 8 or 9 years old??!!! I haven't gone back to hometown since last May, really missing everybody ...spending 6 to 7 hours drive wasn't a problem to me, the happiness is in the air... I can't wait to be home again...
Cakes and cookies will always be a popular demand during Raya celebrations, we used to bake using an old fashioned oven which uses gas and I can assure you it was not an easy task ...i had the chance to see how my mom used the 14 inch tv sized oven ....It took hours to baked only few jars of cookies ...Can we imagine how patience our moms were??? Compare to us now???!!! I wonder.... :p Anyway ...It was Shara who baked cakes and mom was in charged in baking cookies with the assistance of Mr Jojo and Ms Donut. I baked back in Kuala Lumpur and I have made some side income with cookies business besides working everyday ...but very unfortunately all cookies were sold out and nothing left for me ...But it's OK, because i missed mom's ...YEAH....
Shara made Moist Chocolate Cake, our all time favourite ...Fluffy moist chocolaty cake with semi sweet chocolate fudge. Back in KL, this type of chocolate cake is sold RM55 per kilo ...It ain't cheap especially home made, even what we can get from the bakery shop priced around RM50-RM60 per kilo ....nowadays people don't mind paying as long as it is worth buying ...Quality over quantity....Some like fudge but some like ganache as the topping, I like both because they are both chocolate and it is just irresistible right? Fudge is more suitable for decoration purpose but ganache look so delicious, chocolate sauce on cake is just so tempting ....YUMMYY
Selamat Hari Raya for all Muslim around the world and a very happy holiday everybody ....May we enjoy the joy of sharing and forgiving .... from Jitra with love and lots of love

Chocolate Ganache :

1000 ml cream
750 grams dark chocolate compound
750 grams milk chocolate compound
200 grams glucose

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAK MOK !

It's Sera's birthday

18 th June... It's sera's birthday, I have not gotten any present for her. Since I started working in Bijoux, my life is only either home or kitchen. I don't even have the time to update my blog..!!! That explained .... No time for leisure nor for Sera, and she is getting mad when every time I had to turn down on our dates... I know... She is just missing me... Ya... That's it... Anyway, our every year tradition... I will bake a birthday cake, and this is it... a butter chocolate cake with chocolate frosting comes together with 4 cupcakes sprinkled with silver balls.

Bitter sweet chocolate frosting good with chocolate cake, I prefer butter chocolate cake compare to sponge cake. It gives richer and more chocolaty taste, and the butter smells so wonderful and you just can't resist it... YUMMMY.... It's so easy just mix butter, icing sugar and coco powder...

Sera loves classic but simple... It just white frosting piped on the coated cake, classic design with leaves... A simple black and white token of our friendship over 20 years... BLACK N WHITE OF OUR FRIENDSHIP... I love you babe... Happy Birthday Sweet Heart...

MY GARDEN WEDDING

An Endless Love

I introduce 'Endless Love'.. Its my inspiration of my affections in garden wedding theme, I love the concept of an open wedding ceremony... Celebrate the 'Big day' with the gratitude to the mother nature. White as pure as an endless love, live everlasting harmonized with the sophisticated color of life, live with the color of red, gold and green, prosperity and happiness. Nature is the best next to love in describing life... Aren't the color of life is interesting...? So I symbolized white in the name of purity...

HAVANA TORTE

Havana Torte

Doesn't it looks delicious....? I craved for this one since the past couple of months... that was the first time I baked it. I got it from mom's book, she has these collections of recipes... and I still can remember that I've tried all of them. One of them is my favorite Mr Havana Torte, Vanilla sponge layered with chocolate pudding and iced with whipping cream. If you can notice from the picture, I used longans in my recipe. Instead of longans, peach and banana goes well with this cake. It gives a little surprises while eating the cake, what we have here...?... fruity surprise...!
Mom used to bake all kinds of bakeries and pastries when we were younger, our childhood was really sweet... and I mean REALLY SWEET...! It is so true, I have the evidence on that in my childhood photo album. It was really embarrassing, photos of a small girl with hollow smile, MMM.... I wonder who is that pretty, sweet and adorable girl ...? only the smile is not as pretty as mine... :p .I mean NOW ... Those cakes and cookies surely know how to destroy your smile but they are so much irresistible, look sweet and yummy and how can you banish the memory, the moment you indulging Moist Chocolate Cake, Banana Chocolate Pie, Blueberry Cheese Cake and etc...etc...of those yummies... And I am still enjoying my self with varieties of pastries and bakeries but me, I am baking for myself with less sugar... because I don't enjoy Hollow Smile...

MARBLE CAKE

Marble Butter Cake

I love butter cake, everybody loves butter cake... I chose to bake marble butter cake today, as usual I am using Fern's Butter in my recipe. I prefer to use butter than margarine because of the milky taste and I think it also contributes to the texture. But some like the tastes and smells of margarine, it has a bit of saltiness and less buttery milky smells... Anyway I love butter , even though it will boost the cholesterol level...! The recipe is simple, butter, sugar, eggs, flour and leavening agent. And most butter cake recipes have the same proportions and quantity of butter, flour and sugar. To make marble, you can choose any flavors... Chocolate, strawberry, pandan or screwpine leaves, orange coffee. Mostly chose chocolate marble, it taste as wonderful as it's looks right...? The method of preparing is not complicated, creaming method or batter mix later with meringue to form a more spongy and soft texture. MMMM.... This is splendid with a cup of hot tea for the evening....
This is some tips for baking, to avoid butter cake from cracking... 200 C for the first half of baking later maintain 160 C for the second half of baking.

TUTTY FRUTY KIWI CAKE

Kiwi Cake

Greenish and very appetizing right? Ya, kiwi... sweet as it's looks..Iced with kiwi flavored fresh cream and garnished with fresh sweet and sour sliced kiwi. You can always change the flavors.. peach, pitted cherry or strawberry. MMMM... fresh, colorful and appetizing right. Doesn't it looks just perfect for fruits lovers? As a birthday cake perhaps? :-)
Semanis seindah rupa,
Pemanis mulut pembuka selera,
Banyak khasiat vitamin pun ada,
Mari lah cuba mari lah rasa....

CHEESECAKE VARIOUS IN FLAVORS

Baked Chocolate Chip Cheese Cake

I always love cheese cake, today I baked Chocolate Chip Cheese Cake..One of my favorites besides Mr.Delicious Blackforest. I can't resist the sour milky taste of cheese cream combined with bittersweet chocolate chips... MMMMmmm... Oatmeal biscuit crust, some like chocolate crust, some like sponge cake base... So many flavors can be chosen from tiramisu, chocolate orange, chocolate, lemon, apple spice, blackforest and starwberry cheese cake. Doesn't matter what flavor it is, a perfect cheese cake is a delicate delicacies..Making crumb crust, baked in a water bath slowly and evenly... and WALAaaaa... A cake with a very smooth silky texture... Try one!(...Back to basic traditional cheese cake recipe, Original memang sedap..)

FONDANTS TO PLAY

Fondant Bags...This is the trend for now, wedding gift or hantaran, birthday gift are very popular with this trend. A lot of choices of bags, brand and sizes...Not only limited for bags but it women sure love branded shoes too.. There are more to be posted in the blog...Everybody shall be informed in the future... (...Memang seronok playing with fondants..u can create almost everything in this world using fondants...branded bags and shoes...Just imagine u can have salvatore ferragamo bag as a gift for ur loved ones with out spending thousands...hehe...Macam-macam lagi...semuanye atas permintaan pelanggan...yang tak ade pun boleh diade kan...Nothing is impossible la...)

CUPCAKES EVERYBODY!

Cupcakes everybody ! Roses,daisies and morning glories...small beautiful flowers...Flavors to choose... Vanilla, orange and chocolate (...Kek yang enak dan hiasan yang menyelerakan sesuai betul untuk majlis...)