Mermaid cake

Baked this mermaid cake for my niece for her 9th birthday. I think this is probably the most colourful cake I have ever made. Its fresh cream cake with blueberry filling. Mermaid, flowers, crab and starfishes are fondant.

Here's a closer look at the mermaid. Heee.. a fat mermaid, not quite like my skinny weeny niece.

Back view. Looks a little plain...

Happy Fathers' Day

On 15 June, I had my family over to celebrate fathers' day.

My hubby and MIL made delicious laksa and chicken rice and I baked a little cake.

Unfortunately, my oven was cranky. I believe the thermostat is not functional. For a 30 minute program, it keep stopping at every 5 minutes or less and my cake got burnt. The sides of the cake were black, so were the to and bottom. Fortunately, the inside was still good, so I managed to salvage the cake, albiet a very little one after shaving all the burnt parts away.

So here's the mango cake we had for fathers' day. Too dismayed to make an elaborate design, so just some simple piping with fresh cream.

Happy Father's day to all fathers. God bless.

Yummy-licious Carrot Cake

My husband is a fan of carrot cakes and can't stop raving about the carrot cakes from Cedele. Rightfully so.. Cedele carrot cakes are moist and oh-so-generous with their carrots and walnuts. As for me, I am no fan of 'sweets'. I rarely ever finish a piece of cake by myself, usually just pinch a few small bites from hubby.

The last time I baked a carrot cake was for his birthday last year. I remembered it as laborious and extremely sweet, definitely not trying that recipe again. Searched the internet and decided to use the one from Allrecipes.

The result was extra-ordinary!! I had many rave reviews. My hubby said it was better than Cedele's and not overly sweet. Maybe he said that to please me (considering I am heavily pregnant now....). Either way, I am grateful for the compliment. Here's a pic of the cake. The fork in the foreground was my son eagerly waiting to dig-in.

My FIL and MIL enjoyed the cake too. A family friend also commented that its as good as Cedele's. Ha ha.. think I'm surrounded by very kind people who tries to please a heavily pregnant woman!

As for me.. well.. I did manage to polish off a single slice of the cake. Here's the recipe if you are keen to try.

INGREDIENTS
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar (I used 1 cup brown, 1 cup white)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts instead)

1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.

Note : I recommend to line the cake pan with baking paper. I only greased my cake pan and the cake got stuck. When I tried to force it out of the pan, it broke into many pieces.

Hope you and your family enjoyed it too!

Ballerina Cakes

Wow, have not updated my blog for more than three months already!

Am expecting my third child and the first trimester wasn't fun. So was certainly in no mood to bake nor decorate cakes. Now that the 'toilet bowl is my best friend' period is over, I can pick up my whisk again!

Apologies to my family for not baking them their special birthday cakes! I will now be able to bake and decorate for birthdays between June and September.

No new pictures to post yet, but here are two cakes that I baked for a friend's daughter. The 3-D cake was a trial cake, the 2-D one is the actual birthday cake.



This cake was inspired by Debbie Brown's ballerina cake. The ballerina figurine is fondant. The dress is a small 7 inch cake. I cut the top of the cake to resemble the folds of the dress. The ruffles underneath are just piped whipped cream. The bottom is just a 10 inch sponge cake, with rosettes and garlands.


This trial cake was shown to my family and drew lots of criticism, hence I dropped the idea of making this cake for the birthday girl.

This is the second cake.

I adore this cake. I thought it looked lovely with two toned stage curtains and a wooden stage. The ballerina looked much more adoable too. I even managed to put some sparkles on the dress.

Phoon Huat stores had been out of Wilton fondant for the longest time. I certainly miss fiddling with fondant. Anyone tried the house brand fondant before? Any comments?

Monkey Queen

Had not been baking much lately due to work commitments. But for my MIL's birthday, I just had to bake a special one. She's the one that's always standing up for me and being there for me and my children.



She's born in the year of the Monkey, so here's what I baked for her :



Its a mango sponge cake (her favourite) and the monkey is modelled using home-make gumpaste. Only after cutting the cake did I realise that I forgot to give the Monkey a tail!

Happy Birthday Mom!!

Pandan Chiffon

Have not baked a chiffon cake for quite some time. Love the ultra-soft texture of the chiffon cake. So while I still have some coconut milk from the supermarket, decided to try the pandan chiffon cake.

The secret of the chiffon cake is really in the beating of the egg white. Here's what it should look like... a little shiny and gathers around the whisk.



The yolks, coconut milk, pandan paste and flour are mixed together in a seperate bowl.

Put about half of the egg white in the egg yolk bowl and fold it in.

Then pour all of this mixture back to the egg white bowl and fold it in. Here's what it looks like when the folding is complete.



Remember to run the spatula through the cake mix in the tin or drop the tin from about 5cm from table a couple of times, to get rid of big bubbles.






And here's the end result. Nice and fluffy!

New Year's Day Feast

Did I ever mention that my mother-in-law is a great cook? To borrow a word from my son's vocabulary - the 'bestest'. :-)

To her, to cook is therapeutic, so despite her bad cough, she cooked up a storm for us on New Year's Day. On the menu : her famous Nonya Poh Piah (must stress that its Nonya), mee siam and fish porridge.


Here's the table setup. Ingredients include (clockwise direction), starting from vegetables (chinese lettuce and chinese pasley), raw garlic paste, chilli, ground peanuts, finely chopped hard boiled eggs, prawns, fried eggs, chinese sausage, cubed tau kwa, shredded cucumber and bean sprouts. Oh, and the sweet sauce. The middle bowl is for the turnip.




You see the up-turned bowl in within the larger bowl? That's to help 'dry' the turnip, the sauces will flow into the bowl and keep the turnip drier for easy handling.

This picture's with the turnip. Oh, there's also my favourite deep fried garlic (missing in pic).

Here are some samples of the poh piah creations.My mother-in-law's version that has everything, except peanuts:

My brother-in-law's friend's version. He made the most jumbo of all poh piahs with tablespoons of sweet sauce. One can conclude he has a sweet tooth plus a jumbo appetite.

Another of my brother-in-law's friend's. He's either very creative or just trying to be funny.

Anyway, after its all wrapped up, they all look similar, like this:






Oh, my mother-in-law also made pie tee shells.. which unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of.



Here's the mee siam and silly me forgot to take photos of it in a bowl. Too busy slurping it up. :)





In the evening, my husband, the fisherman who abandoned his wife and kids to go fishing on new year's day, came back with sotong, fish and prawns which was promptly steamed and served. So quickly was it eaten.. there were no photos.

Hopefully, this year I can learn to cook too... at least some simple dishes. I am really hopeless in this department! My wish is to be half as good as MIL. Eh... that's too ambitious, just 1/8 is good enough. Ha ha.