Closed for biz

Dear customers, friends and fans, I am no longer taking any orders until April 2012, since I’ll be off to Deutchland for 8 months for my studies. To those who have contacted me these past few days, I apologise for not being able to accept your orders.

Thank you for all your support, encouragement and being my cupcake monsters all these while.

CandyLand

The candy table at a wedding.

Our biggest project, yet. The one where we were so excited about since last year.

Mad rush for to get candy stash & decor stuff, and brainstorming, and  discovering all sorts of pretty glassware that our moms have.

The pictures just don’t seem to do it any justice. Darns.

Candy buffet — a huge success with the kids and adults. WOOTS!

One hundred and fifty & more

My dad asked me to bake him 150 cupcakes (and more) for his department.

So 11 sticks of butter, 2kg of flour, 2kg of sugar (and more), 1 big bottle of vanilla flavour, 14 hours of work later..

6 flavours. More than 210 cupcakes. A whole lot of mess.

  

1. Ferrero Rocher cupcakes

2. Walnut and mocha cupcakes

3. Cookies and cream cupcakes

4. Florentine cupcakes (which are basically vanilla cupcakes)

5. Chocolate cupcakes

6. Lemon cupcakes

I can’t believe I forgot to take pictures of the cupcakes, but they looked like this:

Spurs and Man U

Each time somebody asks me to bake soccer themed cupcakes, I get a little bit nervous.

I don’t watch soccer or football (whichever term you prefer), and I have no idea what all the terms. Or even, where the players are on the field, with the exception of the goalkeeper and referee.

Only thing I do know is to google their names and jersey numbers.

So I bought a packet of figurines from Wilton (which you could get from Phoon Huat or any baking shop)

and repainted them to the correct jersey colours with acrylic paint.

The Spurs team

The Manchester United team

Spurs vs Man U

Cupcakes: Cookies & cream
Frosting: Green buttercream

Walnut and mocha cupcakes

For the cupcakes:

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
1 cup superfine sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions:
1. Combine all ingredients except walnuts in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until smooth and pale, about 5 minutes on high. Stir in walnuts.
2. Bake for about 15 minutes at 170 C.

For frosting:

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
3 cups icing sugar, sifted (nt necessary to use all)
1 tbsp instant coffee granules (i used nescafe)
1 tsp hot coffee
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:
Beat butter and icing sugar until soft and creamy. Combine coffee granules and hot coffee and then stir into the batter. Stir in vanilla. Add milk or cream if frosting is too stiff. Pipe swirls onto cupcakes, and decorate with a mocha bean.

Ferrero Rocher cupcakes

Yet another recipe that I could strike off my 2011 baking list.

I got the recipe here, but I only followed the cupcake recipe, and changed the flour to cake flour instead. The cupcakes were incredibly moist, and soft, and not very sweet, which I guess is a good thing, considering it needed to be filled, and topped with hazelnut ganache.

I doubt I would do this again, unless it’s for a special occasion, because it takes quite a significant amount of effort.

First, I had to bake the chocolate cupcakes, let it cool, and then cut out circles in the middle of the cupcakes, so that I could fill them.

Well, as you can see, the circles got deformed after a while because I hate cutting out circles. Anyway nobody would see how ugly they were since they were going to be covered with ganache. Ho ho ho!

Remove the circle tops, and fill the hollow with nutella, the ultimate yummy goodness.

Top it off with ganache.

It doesn’t taste like the actual ferrero rocher, but the nutella filling went really well with the cake.

Best eaten fresh and warm.

Recipe for ganache:

250ml cream
200g dark chocolate, chopped coarsely
Chopped hazelnut, lightly toasted

Directions:

1. Bring cream to boil in a pot. Remove from heat. When bubbles subside, add chocolate and stir till smooth. Stir in chopped hazelnuts.
2. Let it cool on the countertop, before spreading onto the cupcakes or it will create a drippy chocolatey mess.

In retrospect, maybe I should have added hazelnut flavour to the ganache, but I couldn’t find any without alcohol :S

Oreo Pops

A more efficient alternative to cake pops, for the lazy bums in all of us, who don’t want to have to bake a cake and crumble it down yada yada, like what I did for cake pops previously.

All you need are:

Oreos or creamos (or whatever biscuit you want to use)
Cream cheese
Dark chocolate coverture
White chocolate coverture
Sprinkles, quinns, decor stuff

That’s it!

So here we go:

First you open an entire packet of oreos and try to resist eating them

Blitz everything in a food processor till fine. Repeat with 16 packets of oreos

Love this invention. One of the best thing ever!

If you don’t have one, don’t fret. Just put the cookies in a ziplock bag and crush it. I usually do this because I’m too lazy to wash the food processor, but not this time round. Why make life difficult right?

Next, beat the softened cream cheese. Then, add the crushed oreos bit by bit and mix, until you get the desired texture.

I honestly can’t remember how much I used because I made about 3 batches. But in all, I used about 15 packets of oreos, and about 700g of cream cheese. I think?

Shape them into balls and refrigerate for about 2 hours. Or freeze for about 10 minutes.

Work with one type of chocolate at a time. I chose to work with white choc first because it’s more difficult to handle.

Melt the white choc using a double boiler method, taking care not to let a single drop of water get mixed in with the chocolate. Remove from heat after all the chocolate has melted.

Remove one tray of oreo pops from the fridge, and then the fun begins!

Using a lolly stick (or in my case, a chopstick), dip one end into white choc and poke into the middle of the ball, ensuring that the ball does not crack. Then dip the ball into the white chocolate. Basically, the same method of coating candy melts onto the cake pops.

And sprinkle!

Stars…

Hearts..

Stars and moons..

Hundreds and thousands..

And repeat with dark chocolate. I find working with Tulip chocolate really easy because it hardens relatively quickly, so no messy drips!

Again with the hundreds and thousands..

Gold flakes..

Colourful diamonds..

Daisies..

Even the heart confetti looks really pretty against the foam board, don’t you think?

Must be really nice for little ants to walk through the forest of oreo pops. And look up to this sight:

I guess that’s how it is in Willy Wonka’s Factory right?

Vanilla and more

One thing I really love about vanilla cupcake batter is its versatility. It’s my basic go-to recipe, and then I work things out from there.

VANILLA BATTER +

1) Sprinkles/quills –> Confetti cupcakes

2) Lemon zest + juice -> Lemon cupcakes

3) Crushed oreo –> Cookies and cream cupcakes

4) Choc chips –> Vanilla choc chip cupcakes

5) Frozen blueberries –> Blueberries cupcakes

Well, you get the picture. The mix ins create endless possibilities!

Just to show how easy it is to do.

Pour sugar bunnies (or whatever you feel like using) into vanilla batter, and stir.

And because I wanted to see how they all looked inside

Check out the bits of sugar bunnies

And I really love this

And finally, the lemon cupcake

Nothing much to see here, except that it smells really good.

It would be so awesome if we could smell off the screen.

Rain & Full House

I remember the first korean drama I’ve ever watched — Autumn in My Heart, starring the super cute Won Bin and gorgeous Song Hae Gyo.

I’ve never finished watching the series because my head hurt from crying too hard.

Then Goong (Princess Hours) came along, and stole the limelight, as the best korean drama, which I still disagree vehemently.

Maybe Full House (which was very entertaining and funny) came earlier

but I’ve always been a fan of My Girl.

So you could imagine my excitement when I had an order for Rain/Full House cupcakes.

*rubs hands gleefully*

Not too bad. Hair, eyes, smile. check, check, check!

And we know that Rain’s a singer right?

He has a hot bod too!

Hehe. It was my sister’s idea to have the abs cupcakes.

Here’s something to Huda’s best friend:

Saeng il chuka hamnida = Happy Birthday!

Hope you had a great one

Bread Pudding

Bread.Egg.Butter.Milk.Chocolate. Like a Dairy Queen’s dream come true.

In oozing vanilla cream sauce.

Is there anything better in the combination? Except maybe, if there was cinnamon, or peanut butter.

Well, next time then, and I will omit sugar in the recipe.

Recipe adapted here, and here:

Bread pudding ingredients

9 slices old bread (as long as it’s not mouldy)
2 tablespoon butter, melted
4 eggs
Choc chips
2 cups evaporated milk
3/4 cup white sugar (can be omitted if you want to)
1 tsp vanilla

Vanilla cream sauce ingredients:

2 cups cream
2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
4 tbsp plain flour
4 tbsp butter

Directions for bread pudding:

1. Lightly grease 8in square pan. Cut bread into pieces and arrange to form 1 layer.
2. Drizzle melted butter over bread layer, and sprinkle with choc chips.
3. Bear sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla until combined.
4. Pour half of the mixture into pan.
5. Arrange remaining bread to form another layer. Drizzle with melted butter, and pour the rest of the milk mixture. Drizzle with choc chips.
6. Leave to soak milk mixture for about 20 mins.
7. Bake at 145C for about 20-30 mins till the top springs back when pressed down gently.

Directions for vanilla sauce:

1. Mix all ingredients in saucepan. Heat till it thickens. Serve immediately. (note: flour can be omitted if you’d like a very fluid sauce.)