Valentine's Day Cupcakes 2nd

Lemon Cupcakes with Raspberries Frosting

this recipe is adapted from All Recipes website............... Makes about 11 medium size cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 113 gm butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 vanilla essence
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 grated zest and juice of lemon
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees and line muffin tins with cupcake liners
2. Medium bowl: sift flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Large bowl: Electric mixer - cream butter, sugar and 3 tsp of lemon zest until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition. add in the vanilla essence and beat until combine.
5. Add flour, alternating with buttermilk and lemon juice. Beat until just combined.
6. Fill the prepared tins 3/4 full and bake 20 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Raspberry Frosting

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup frozen Raspberry, thawed
• 113 gm butter, softened
• 2 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar

Method: 

Using a sieve, puree the raspberries by pressing it through the sieve to get rid of the seeds.

Medium bowl: Electric Mixer - beat the butter and half the sugar until smooth. Add the puree, then more sugar until in a spreadable consistency. 

Valentine's Day Cupcakes

Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Been down emotionally. Not sure if its age catching up or due to heat flu. Singapore temperature has been like around 30 degrees and also been feeling down lately eversince my return trip from Europe in December. Have been sick in January the whole month and am still recovering but still feeling abit down, down, down.................  So, thought of perking myself up by making valentine cupcakes. I did marshmallow fondant a few days ago and have it stored in a container. Then realize that I didn't do well shaping the bears. They are of different size but would like to play more on the dough so that next time, I can shape a better looking bears.

Makes about 12 medium Cupcakes
Ingredients:

• 2/3 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 113 gm butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/4 cup apple sauce

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees and Line muffins tin with cupcakes paper.
2. Microwave bowl: microwave 2/3 cup chocolate chips + 1/4 cup milk. Stirring occasionally till chocolate melted into the milk. Stir until smooth and well incorporated.
3. Medium bowl: sift cake flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
4. Large bowl: Electric whisk - beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition scraping down sides of bowl as needed.
6. Add vanilla essence and cocoa mixture. Beat until combined.
7. Add flour and apple sauce, beating until just combined. 
8. Divide batter evenly among lined cups, 3/4 full.
9. Bake for about 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean with a few crumbs.

NB: the cake looks and feels light when baked. Love its texture.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:

Ingredients:

• 113 gm butter, softened
• 60 gm Philly Cream Cheese  (put only 1/4 blocked cos don't like it too cheesy)
• 2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 1 tsp whipping cream

Directions:

Medium bowl: Electric Mixer - cream butter for about 2 minutes then add in cream cheese. Beat until combined.  Add in 1 cup powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add another 1 cup + vanilla essence and continue to beat until smooth. Lastly, add in 1/2 cup sugar and beat till smooth. The frosting should feel very heavy and hard to beat by now. 

Using a large star tip, pipe frosting onto cupcakes and decorate in anyway your desire. 

Strawberry Vanilla Cake

6th February 2012

My girl make this Strawberry Vanilla Cake for her friend's birthday. The cake looked so delicious.

The 7" x 13" vanilla rectangular cake was cut into half. She put cream cheese and strawberry in-between the cake. The rest of the cream cheese was used to frost cake cake and decorated with strawberries.

CNY Sugar Rolled Cookies

23 February 2012
For CNY this year, I made some sugar rolled cookies to give away. Here are the picture.................

I did a round boy cookies head but have forgotten to take some picture. Well, maybe next time????

Sugar Rolled Cookies

Sugar rolled cookies are so easy to rolled and make. These cookies uses marshmallow fondant as base for the dress and once dried, I uses icing to draw the pattern. Then they were packed for my daughter's school parents meeting. 

Oreo Philly Cream Cheese Cake

This Oreo Cheese Cake with White Chocolate Topping are soft and tasted like NY Cheese cake. If you don't like Oreo, may substitute for digestive biscuits instead. I half the portion of the original recipe from www.dennyfoodandrecipes.blogspot.com. For the white chocolate topping, I uses Ghiradelli semi-sweet chocolate chip. They tasted like condensed milk but the hardened version.

Here's the recipe:
6 x 6 inch non-stick square baking pan

24 Oreo cookies, divided into 18 + 6
60 gm butter, divided into 30gm + 30gm
2 box Philadelphia Cream Cheese, 8 oz each
1/2 cup white fine sugar
1/2 cup light sour cream
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
100 gm White Chocolate Semi-sweet

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 160 degC. Line baking pan with foil or baking paper, with ends extending over side of pan for easy lifting of cake later.
2. FINELY CRUSH 18 cookies without cream using a grinder. 
3. Medium bowl: Melt 30 gm butter + cookies cream. Add in crushed cookies and mix well. Press onto bottom of prepared pan evenly.
4. Large bowl: Electric whisk - beat cream cheese and sugar until blended. Add sour cream and vanilla; mix well. Do not over stir as it will cause the cheese cake to crack when baking.
5. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating after each addition until just blended.
6. Chop remaining 6 Oreo cookies. Using Spatula, gently stir it into batter; pour batter over crust in pan.
7. To bake - Place a baking pan half-filled with hot water on the bottom rack of oven while cheesecake bakes on middle rack. Bake for 45 mins at 160 degC. Cheesecake is baked when center is almost set. Off the oven and leave cheesecake in oven to cool . The cheesecake will continue to baked at this stage (around 10-15 mins) DO NOT open oven door when baking cheesecake as this will make the cheesecake flop in the middle.
8. For Topping - microwave chocolate and remaining 3 gm butter; stirring until smooth. Cool slightly and spread over top of Cheesecake. Refrigerate for 4 hours. Use foil/baking paper handles to lift Cheesecake from pan before cutting into smaller square to serve.

Baby Shower Cupcakes

These Cupcakes were made for a Baby Boy shower. I uses Marshmallow fondant for the topping and the cake is from Cranberries Yoghurt recipe. Have put in too much Blueberries essence thus the fondant tasted like gum paste. Better to use vanilla essence next time.

Checkie Bear

Here's my newest member who has just join my bear family. Please meet Checkie, with a vest and his lovely tie. Checkie is made from synthetic fur and has paws and foot made from suede. Because of his size, I uses rubber ring instead to join his arms and legs. Checkie was completed at 11am on Saturday, 22 oct 2011. He is a duplicate from Twins. I made him a simple vest and bow tie to go with his "what's happening" kind of look.

Sugar Rolled Cookies

Hey, I finally found a rolled cookies that doesn't break nor spread when baking. So here it is.

These cookies taste best after a few days. Sorry, no recipe yet as I am still upgrading the ingredients to be perfect................

Yvette's Birthday 16 Oct 2011 sunday

It has been awhile since I updated my blog. Have been rather lazy and hooked on playing psp :)
Anyway, a friend ask me to help make a shocking pink cake and 100 cupcakes for her daughter's birthday. I spent the whole weeks trying out gumpaste and fondant. So, my verdict on gumpaste is that it taste like gum and tasteless. For the fondant, I prefer marshmallow fondant as it tasted better then the ordinary one.

Now here is the picture for the gumpaste roses and heart shape that I have tried:

Now, here is the cupcakes and cake:

 For the cupcakes, I uses red velvet cupcakes recipe to make the base and buttercream frosting. The pink frosting has a tinge of raspberry flavour while the white frosting is vanilla.

For the cake, the flowers are made from gumpaste. I uses rose pink colouring to get the shocking pink frosting for the cake. The cake base is made from butter while chocolate cake.

Now, I just hope the birthday girl enjoy her white and pink birthday. Here's wishing her every blessing and a Happy Birthday.