My first two tier cake

My second cake order.. This time for one of my close friend's birthday. I would naturally made a cake for her anyway, but this time, her sister made a special order from me. I'm so happy. I'm getting sick of making chocolate cakes, so I decided this time I want to make it interesting. The birthday girl is someone who really appreciates food, so I can be a bit fancy here. At first, I want to combine raspberry with chocolate. Classic flavour combination, nothing can go wrong with that. However, I just bought a bottle of Yuzu lemon Juice that already passed it's best before date, so I need to use it right away. Ever since I read about Yuzu lemon, I was intrigued. I always thought there was only one type of lemon in this world. But now I've been hearing about Yuzu & Meyer lemon.. Of course, Australia being very remote, don't have those two fruits. So I'm on a man hunt for some kind of extract or some sort of puree. I finally found it at Simon Johnson two weeks ago. But it's price makes my jaws drop! $50+ for a 500ml bottle!!! you got to be kidding me!!

But wait! there's hope after all. when my housemate told me Simon Johnson is having a warehouse clearance, I literally jumped for joy. So off we go at 7.30 in the morning to Port Melbourne. When she told me she wants to go at 7am in the morning, I thought she was out of her mind, but it turns out to be quite packed when we got there. By 8.30am, some stuff has already run out. And yes, my Yuzu juice was on sale!! down to just $10. Fabulous!! Less to say, I couldn't keep myself composed on that sale. I was like a kid in a candy store. My biggest splurge would be the 4kg bags of Valhorna chocolates. Gosh! all that chocolates!! my mind was spinning from thinking the numerous fabulous dessert I can create with that. I wasn't the only one that went mad with chocolates. by 8am the once high piles of Valhorna chocolates was cleaned out. At $15-$20 a kilo for what normally is $50-$60 a kilo, that chocolates are a steal!

I can keep the chocolates for a while, the Yuzu juice on the other hand, need to be used immediately. I think I will have "Project: Yuzu Lemon" for the whole next month. So far, I can only think making lemon curd and lemon mousse. Any better ideas??

Back to the cake.. if I had trouble decorating for guys because I'm too feminine, this time I have trouble because there is just too many options!! I tried drawing inspirations from what I know about her. She's fashionable (a fashion desgner I might add), very feminine, likes owls, loves chocolates. Oh gosh! the options! As always, I turn to Flickr for inspiration. Then I saw a wedding cake with black and white polka dots and a fabulous flower details on them. It looks like a fashion hat. So I used that as inspiration. With every cake, I like to push myself everytime. This time, I challenge myself to make a two tier cake. Chocolate cake as the base, with lemon and chocolate mousse filling, chocolate IMBC frosting and chocolate flavoured fondant.


A little drama.. the flower decorations turns out quite brittle. I may have went overboard with the CMC therefore it's very dry and brittle. I should have used gum paste instead. One other thing, I forgot to let the frosting hardens before enrobing it with the fondant, therefore the fondant didn't have a solid ground to hold on to, that's why I can't get the edges to be sharp and the frostng actually got pushed down, creating a bulging bottom. Aside from that, I love the design. The combination of brown, green and red is very chic and gorgeous.

Chocolate mousse
Recipe taken from Delicious - June 2009

• 300g good-quality dark chocolate, roughly chopped
• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup (55g) caster sugar
• 1 tbs good-quality cocoa powder, sifted
• 300ml thickened cream, plus extra whipped cream to serve
• Grated chocolate, to serve

Method

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of gently simmering water (don't let the bowl touch the water). Stir until melted. Remove bowl from heat and set aside to cool slightly. Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in cooled chocolate and cocoa powder until combined. In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened (be careful not to over-beat). Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the chocolate mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible.

Yuzu Lemon Mousse
Recipe taken from Delicious - June 2009

• 1 eggs
• 100ml of Yuzu lemon juice
• 1tbs finely grated lemon rind
  
• 25g caster sugar
• 150ml thickened cream

Method

Place eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with electric beaters for 5 minutes, or until mixture is pale, thick and doubled in volume. Fold in juice and rind.
In a separate bowl, whip cream until thickened (be careful not to over-beat). Use a large metal spoon to carefully fold the cream into the lemon-egg mixture, trying to keep the mixture as light as possible.

Asian night

What better ways to spend an evening catching up with an old friend over a hearty bowl of laksa lemak. It's wholesome goodness packs a spicy punch to a chilly evening. I went all out creating a three course asian dinner started with fresh oysters with asian soy dressing, laksa lemak and a refreshing mango pudding with strawberry pearl and condensed milk for a sweet touch at the end of the meal.



It's definitely not mango season here in Melbourne, but I can't find anything better to end the night. So I substitute the mango puree with a fresh mango sorbet from Jones the Grocer. Well, I thought of making some egg tarts, but I want to try my hands on Molecular Gastronomy inspired by chef Ferran Adria from the renowned restaurant il Bulli in Spain. And again, I am just to lazy to make pastry. When doing last month's DB challenge on cheesecake, I was in awe looking at what Pretty Tasty Cakes manage to put together. She then referred me to Michael Laiskonis from La Bernadine who taught her how to create the pearls. I don't have a picture of the mango pudding or the pearl i'm afraid. The stupid pudding didn't set properly!! But I promise this won't be the last time I play around with fruit pearls.



You can find the recipe for Laksa Lemak here.

Asian dressing

Sake
Soy sauce
Rice wine vinegar
fish sauce
Lime juice

chilly, thinly sliced
cucumber, thinly sliced
tobiko (red, black or wasabi)

Combine all the sauce ingredients according to taste. I like mine sour and acidic, so I put extra vinegar and lime juice.
When ready to serve, pour about 2tsp (depending on the size of each oyster) of sauce in each oyster shell, top it with chilly and cucumber. Put generous amount of tobiko on top.

Japanese Night

A Japanese friend once told me "Oyako" in Japan means "parent and child" (I always thought it meant egg - silly me). In the Oyako don that you usually get from your normal Japanese eatery, this dish usually consist of chicken and egg - hence the "parent and child" combination. In this dish however, it would refer to the salmon and the salmon roe.

As a child, my dad used to take me to this fabulous Japanese restaurant at Kempinski Hotel in Jakarta. Their specialty was "Kamameshi" combined with fabulous grilled Yakitoris which basically means satay. Due to its minute size compared to the usual satay skewer, I always refer them as "mini satay". Kamameshi itself is basically rice steamed in a cyprus container with some sort of beef, seafood or vegetables. The rice itself is very tasty and full of Japanese flavours.



Ever since I moved to Melbourne, I have only found one Japanese restaurant that does this dish, but it's hardly something to rave about. So I guess I have to have a go at creating this myself. I don't know where to get the cyprus container nor would I even know where to begin looking for it here. After turning to my trusted friend, Google, I found a recipe at RecipeZaar that uses rice cooker to cook it. Brilliant! I say. Here I thought I will get to use my new claypot dish I bought from the courtesy of my mum's credit card (tee hee hee - in my defense, the eftpos machine wasn't working that day at Essential Ingredients, with no cash on hand, I only have my in-case-of-an-emergency credit card's). So I just use it to serve the rice at the end.

I adjusted the recipe for 2 and to use salmon instead of chicken. Please excuse the crappy photos, I left my SLR at M's house, so I had to use M's crappy camera.


Salmon Oyako Kamameshi
Original recipe taken from RecipeZaar

1-2 cups rice
1 cups chicken broth
1 cups of dashi (made from 1 cup of boiling water to 1-2 tbs of dashi powder)
1/4 cup onion, chopped
1/4 cup shiitake mushroom, chopped
1 fillet of fresh salmon, cut in 4 slices
Red tobiko for garnish
a handful of boiled edamame

Sauce

1-2 1/2 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic salt
1 tablespoons sugar
1-2 tablespoon sake
1 tablespoon mirin

Wash rice until the water almost clear. Drain. Mix all the sauce ingredients with the broth. Put the rice and shiitake mushroom in the rice cooker. Pour in the liquid and cook. In the meantime, boil a handful of edamame in a slightly salted water for about 3-5 minutes. Remove the pods from the skin. Once the rice cooker finish cooking, put the salmon fillets on top of the rice and let it steam no longer than 10 minutes. Remove from the rice cooker, stir in tobiko and edamame. Serve with a glass of sake, extra edamame, Japanese pickles or a simple Japanese salad of beanshoots in rice wine vinegar and a dash of soy sauce.

My first cake order - Madagascar theme cake

Baking can be quite an expensive hobby sometimes. Especially when you're a self thaught novice where mistakes and wastage are inevitable. Especially in my case, where the number of recipes that I want to try my hands on doesn't really balanced the level of consumption of me and the people surrounds me. I'm running out of people to be treated as "lab rats" or probably nicer to say "taste testers". So, when my friend ordered a cake for her nephew's second birthday, eventhough i'm in the middle of two major assignments, I just couldn't say no. My first official order? The first time I actually getting paid for doing what I love? How can I possibly say no.

The biggest question here is not what design or what flavours should I make the cake, it was how much should I charge? With little to no experience on pricing strategies nor business strategies for that matter, I would just have to guess it this time. I still feel inadequate to charge for my time. With the quality control being inexistent, I still feel very scared of how people might think of my rates. I'm happy enough if people exchange me for all the expenses of buying the ingredients. The most expensive ones would be the chocolates. I thought by using the supermarket brand, it would be much much cheaper. But I was wrong. The couverture chocolate sold in the supermarket is actually almost doubled the price of my fancy Lindt couverture chocolates I bought at Essential Ingredients. I guess buying in bulk really pays off sometimes. I thought of using compound chocolates, but for the chocolate ganache, it will go through several times of reheating. And to my knowledge, compound chocolates are not meant to be reheated. Couverture in the other hand will be fine. I may be wrong on this, but the limited time that I have will not allow me to do a trial and error.

I want to try using a lighter chocolate cake this time. I'm not a big fan of mud cakes or any dense cake in that matter. Ideally, I'd go for a sponge cake anytime. But I know, sponge cakes cannot suffice the weight of the icing, it needs a dense cake. I just realized by doing this cake that I actually don't have a basic chocolate cake in my recipe repertoire. You would have think for someone who bakes as much as I do, chocolate cake recipe should have been one of my staple recipe. I found a recipe of a chocolate cake that I found interesting. So based on that recipe, I start calculating my cost. Give and take here and there (I can't really measure the cost of my flour and sugar as I buy it in bulk and was too lazy to calculate how much it cost per 100g) I ended up with a couple of options. $45 for choc cake with choc buttercream, $55 for choc cake with choc mousse filling and choc buttercream, $65 for choc mud cake with choc ganache. To serve 30 people, I think that's a very good price. I absolutely have no idea whether those prices are good or not. More experienced cake decorator out there, please help me out.......

I ended up over budget since the chocolate cake recipe said it would serve 15, but it ended up not rising and quite short, so I have to make 3 times the recipe instead of 2. My friend opt for the cheapest option, which uses choc buttercream. It actually work to my advantage, one, I get to try Cake Journal's IMBC (Italian Meringue Butter Cream) recipe and two, I don't have to sacrifice my chocolates even more, because even at $65, I don't think it will cover the cost of the chocolates. There must be a better way.. I need to do more research.


The birthday boy loves sponge bob, Alex the lion from Madagascar, and Thomas the Tank. So naturally, that's what he wants for his birthday. At first, the thought of modelling all the Madagascar cast seems very daunting, and Thomas the Tank has navy blue and christmas red colours (the two colours that are hard to produce in icing). So I pushed the sponge bob idea. But it's very unlike me to turn down a good challenge. After hours of looking at Madagascar pictures, I decided to go ahead with the madagascar design. In one of my cake decorating books, I found a cake design where it looks like a round jungle with animal heads popping out between the trees. This is perfect for my Madagascar cake. I only need to model the heads of the cast, I don't need to do their bodies.

Out of the four (well, Melvin the Giraffe has to be singled out as I ran out of time), I think my Gloria the hippo looks the most like the real one, with the Zebra (I forgot his name) being the hardest one to sculpt. The feedback from everyone has been fantastic. They loved every bit of the cake. The flavour, the look, everything. It's a job well done!

Step-by-step chocolate cake (for this cake I made 3 times the recipe)
Recipe taken from Notebook - September 2007, page 136

125g butter, chopped
2 tsp instant coffee powder
3/4 cup (185ml) water
100g good-quality dark cooking chocolate, chopped
1 cup (200g) brown sugar
1/2 cup (75g) self-raising flour
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
1/4 cup (30g) cocoa powder
1/4 cup (30g) almond meal
1 egg, lightly whisked

Preheat oven to 160°C. Grease and line the base and side of an 18cmround (base measurement) cake pan.Place the butter, coffee, water, chocolate and sugar in a saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring, for 2-3 minutes or until butter and chocolate melt and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and set aside for 5 minutes to cool slightly.Transfer mixture to a bowl. Sift the combined flours and cocoa powder over the chocolate mixture and add the almond meal. Use a balloon whisk to gently fold the flour into the chocolate mixture. Add the egg and stir to combine.Pour cake mixture into the prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from oven and set aside for 30 minutes before turning on to a wire rack to cool completely.

DC May 2009 - Ricotta Gnocchi

The first ever daring cooks... YAY!! soo excited.

I was less excited when reading the first challenge I'm afraid.. gnocchi - good, ricotta - BAD! I'm not a big fan of ricotta. I prefer my cheese to be gutsy, full of flavour with a hint of smokiness or tartness. Ricotta in my opinion, feels no different than tofu.. tasteless and very mushy. I was contemplating to use a good Greek Fetta or a blue cheese instead of the Ricotta, but for the first challenge, I think I better stick to the brief. I never made a gnocchi before, so I don't want to be a smart ass and end up wasting good cheese. I did change the sauce. Adding a creamy sauce and an aioli that turns out beautifull with the gnocchi.



I have a lovely salmon fillett in the freezer so I made a salmon, oregano cream sauce - with heaps of parmiggiano regiano of course. For a lighter version, I also made a truffle infused garlic aioli with roasted cherry tomatoes and roasted garlic. Not sure if this will be something I will enjoy, I decided to make just half of the gnocchi. It still produce quite a lot. Enough for 3 meals for me. I'm eating the last batch as we speak. I personally love it with the cream sauce, the parmigiano helps to add more flavour to the gnocchi. I'm still not a convert i'm afraid. I do like the texture of the gnocchi. It is much nicer and creamier than potato gnocchi. It has that melt in your mouth feel to it. It's not very attractive though.. or maybe that's just my lack of gnocchi-shaping experience..

Zuni Ricotta Gnocchi

Source: From The Zuni Café Cookbook.

Yield: Makes 40 to 48 gnocchi (serves 4 to 6)

Prep time: Step 1 will take 24 hours. Steps 2 through 4 will take approximately 1 hour.

Tips:

- If you can find it, use fresh ricotta. As Judy Rodgers advises in her recipe, there is no substitute for fresh ricotta. It may be a bit more expensive, but it's worth it.
- Do not skip the draining step. Even if the fresh ricotta doesn't look very wet, it is. Draining the ricotta will help your gnocchi tremendously.
- When shaping your gnocchi, resist the urge to over handle them. It's okay if they look a bit wrinkled or if they're not perfectly smooth.
- If you're not freezing the gnocchi for later, cook them as soon as you can. If you let them sit around too long they may become a bit sticky.
- For the variations to the challenge recipe, please see the end of the recipe.

Equipment required:

- Sieve
- Cheesecloth or paper towels
- Large mixing bowl
- Rubber spatula
- Tablespoon
- Baking dish or baking sheet
- Wax or parchment paper
- Small pot
- Large skillet
- Large pan or pot (very wide in diameter and at least 2 inches deep)

Videos that might help:

- Judy Rodgers Gnocchi Demo
- Making fresh ricotta demo
- Making ricotta gnocchi

For the gnocchi:

1 pound (454 grams/16 ounces) fresh ricotta (2 cups)
2 large cold eggs, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) unsalted butter
2 or 3 fresh sage leaves, or a few pinches of freshly grated nutmeg, or a few pinches of chopped lemon zest (all optional)
½ ounce Parmigiano-Reggiano, grated (about ¼ cup very lightly packed)
about ¼ teaspoon salt (a little more if using kosher salt)
all-purpose flour for forming the gnocchi

For the gnocchi sauce:

8 tablespoons (227 grams/1/4 pound/4 ounces) butter, sliced
2 teaspoons water

Step 1 (the day before you make the gnocchi): Preparing the ricotta.

If the ricotta is too wet, your gnocchi will not form properly. In her cookbook, Judy Rodgers recommends checking the ricotta’s wetness. To test the ricotta, take a teaspoon or so and place it on a paper towel. If you notice a very large ring of dampness forming around the ricotta after a minute or so, then the ricotta is too wet. To remove some of the moisture, line a sieve with cheesecloth or paper towels and place the ricotta in the sieve. Cover it and let it drain for at least 8 hours and up to 24 hours in the refrigerator. Alternatively, you can wrap the ricotta carefully in cheesecloth (2 layers) and suspend it in your refrigerator for 8 to 24 hours with a bowl underneath to catch the water that’s released. Either way, it’s recommended that you do this step the day before you plan on making the gnocchi.

Step 2 (the day you plan on eating the gnocchi): Making the gnocchi dough.

To make great gnocchi, the ricotta has to be fairly smooth. Place the drained ricotta in a large bowl and mash it as best as you can with a rubber spatula or a large spoon (it’s best to use a utensil with some flexibility here). As you mash the ricotta, if you noticed that you can still see curds, then press the ricotta through a strainer to smooth it out as much as possible.

Add the lightly beaten eggs to the mashed ricotta.

Melt the tablespoon of butter. As it melts, add in the sage if you’re using it. If not, just melt the butter and add it to the ricotta mixture.

Add in any flavouring that you’re using (i.e., nutmeg, lemon zest, etc.). If you’re not using any particular flavouring, that’s fine.

Add the Parmigiano-Reggiano and the salt.

Beat all the ingredients together very well. You should end up with a soft and fluffy batter with no streaks (everything should be mixed in very well).

Step 3: Forming the gnocchi.

Fill a small pot with water and bring to a boil. When it boils, salt the water generously and keep it at a simmer. You will use this water to test the first gnocchi that you make to ensure that it holds together and that your gnocchi batter isn’t too damp.

In a large, shallow baking dish or on a sheet pan, make a bed of all-purpose flour that’s ½ an inch deep.

With a spatula, scrape the ricotta mixture away from the sides of the bowl and form a large mass in the centre of your bowl.

Using a tablespoon, scoop up about 2 to 3 teaspoons of batter and then holding the spoon at an angle, use your finger tip to gently push the ball of dough from the spoon into the bed of flour.

At this point you can either shake the dish or pan gently to ensure that the flour covers the gnocchi or use your fingers to very gently dust the gnocchi with flour. Gently pick up the gnocchi and cradle it in your hand rolling it to form it in an oval as best as you can, at no point should you squeeze it. What you’re looking for is an oval lump of sorts that’s dusted in flour and plump.

Gently place your gnocchi in the simmering water. It will sink and then bob to the top. From the time that it bobs to the surface, you want to cook the gnocchi until it’s just firm. This could take 3 to 5 minutes.

If your gnocchi begins to fall apart, this means that the ricotta cheese was probably still too wet. You can remedy this by beating a teaspoon of egg white into your gnocchi batter. If your gnocchi batter was fluffy but the sample comes out heavy, add a teaspoon of beaten egg to the batter and beat that in. Test a second gnocchi to ensure success.

Form the rest of your gnocchi. You can put 4 to 6 gnocchi in the bed of flour at a time. But don’t overcrowd your bed of flour or you may damage your gnocchi as you coat them.

Have a sheet pan ready to rest the formed gnocchi on. Line the sheet pan with wax or parchment paper and dust it with flour.

You can cook the gnocchi right away, however, Judy Rodgers recommends storing them in the refrigerator for an hour prior to cooking to allow them to firm up.

Step 4: Cooking the gnocchi.

Have a large skillet ready to go. Place the butter and water for the sauce in the skillet and set aside.

In the largest pan or pot that you have (make sure it’s wide), bring at least 2 quarts of water to a boil (you can use as much as 3 quarts of water if your pot permits). You need a wide pot or pan so that your gnocchi won’t bump into each other and damage each other.

Once the water is boiling, salt it generously.

Drop the gnocchi into the water one by one. Once they float to the top, cook them for 3 to 5 minutes (as in the case with the test gnocchi).

When the gnocchi float to the top, you can start your sauce while you wait for them to finish cooking.

Place the skillet over medium heat and melt the butter. Swirl it gently a few times as it melts. As soon as it melts and is incorporated with the water, turn off the heat. Your gnocchi should be cooked by now.

With a slotted spoon, remove the gnocchi from the boiling water and gently drop into the butter sauce. Carefully roll in the sauce until coated. Serve immediately.

Variations: For the gnocchi, you can flavour them however you wish. If you want to experiment by adding something to your gnocchi (i.e., caramelized onion, sundried tomato), feel free to do so. However, be forewarned, ricotta gnocchi are delicate and may not take well to elaborate additions. For the sauce, this is your chance to go nuts. Enjoy yourselves. Surprise us!!!

Freezing the gnocchi: If you don’t want to cook your gnocchi right away or if you don’t want to cook all of them, you can make them and freeze them. Once they are formed and resting on the flour-dusted, lined tray, place them uncovered in the freezer. Leave them for several hours to freeze. Once frozen, place them in a plastic bag. Remove the air and seal the bag. Return to the freezer. To cook frozen gnocchi, remove them from the bag and place individually on a plate or on a tray. Place in the refrigerator to thaw completely. Cook as directed for fresh gnocchi.

Salmon Oregano Cream Sauce

30-40g of parmigiano regiano
200ml of thick cream
1 salmon fillett
2 tbs of dried oregano

Cook salmon for 20-30 seconds. Add the cream and let it boil. Put in the cheese and oregano, stir until the cheese is melted through. Set the flame to low, cook until the sauce thickens.

Trufle infused garlic aioli

1 stalk of vine ripened cherry tomatoes
3 cloves of garlic
white truffle infused olive oil

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees. Combine all the ingredients on a baking tray. I usually don't bother peeling the garlic when roasting. drench with olive oil. Seasoned lightly with salt and pepper. Roast untill the tomatoes are wrinkled.

McBurger Birthday cake

I'm quite girly and feminine as a person, so decorating a cake for guys can be quite difficult for me. Flowers & hearts are definitely out of the picture. My colour palette is usually quite feminine too with pastel colours as a favourite. Usually, I always opt for chocolates as it is quite universal. But I like to push myself everytime, I'm bored playing it safe. And I want to practice my fondant skill after my last disaster. Lately, I've been going to flickr for decorating inspiration. You really can find some great ideas there. In there, I've seen a few burger shaped cake that I thought was pretty cool and perfect for my friend.

He loves chocolate so I'm making the basic chocolate mud cake in the shape of a burger. Strapped for cash and time due to my assignments, I decided to use whatever's available in my pantry. I don't have time to go to cake deco to get red, yellow and brown icing colourings for the tomato, cheese and the buns. Luckily, I still have caramel brown icing from the course and green from Zio's cake. I incorporate some plain white icing to 3/4 of the brown to get that faded brown colour for the buns. For the beef, I wanted a deep brown colour. In painting, caramel brown + black would equal dark brwon, right?........ wrong! in icing colouring, it would equal to a yucky greyish colour. so I ended up leaving the meat part covered in chocolate ganache without a fondant covering. Since my friend is not so fussy about cakes and he's happy enough if someone would take the time to make him one, so I tried not to went over my head. I decided to put just a few layers of lettuce and a slice of cheese. Just call this a meaty burger with little toppings.

The drama was kept to a minimal this time, in fact, there's hardly any. My ganache worked perfectly! I found out why it didn't work for me the first time. It's because I set it in the fridge rather than in room temperature. However, due to this crazy freezing weather, my kitchen feels like a fridge, so I put it in my oven overnight *turned off obviously*, and warm it up in the microwave for 2 minutes on low to soften it up. Ideally, if you have time, try to make the buns in white chocolate mud cake and dark chocolate for the meat. Therefore, when they slice the cake, it will look like real burger.


My fondant skills nor my covering-the-cake-with-ganache skill is still faaaarrrr from perfect but I'd like to think I'm improving. Still a crack here and there and ganache stain as well, but it's getting better. I'm planing to get some stirofoam made up in different sizes so I can practice and not waste any cake.

I will post the recipe this time.. you can also find it in Paris Cutler's Planet Cake book along with fabulous cake decorating ideas.

Additional info:
This morning I read this post again and thought I'd like to share more about the process of making this cake. It may not be new to all of you experienced bakers and cake decorators, but perhaps this will be beneficial for us novices. In decorating with fondant, it would be good to divide the work in a couple of days rather than finishing it at one go. Unlike sponge cakes, or when you decorating with buttercream, fondant cakes can be handled better when the cake had enough resting time. Time wise, this could actually be an advantage. Especially for someone who has a tight schedule like me. When my friends asked me "how long does it take you to make that cake?", I said "four days" they all looked at me with a blank face. It's actually not that long. perhaps in that 4 days, I only spend around 1 - 2 hours of active time, the most time is spent on the final day when you put it all together (It took me. Please keep in mind the cake can keep around 7-10 days once it's taken out from the fridge. So for ecample in this case, if you are having the party on Thursday, you should bake the cake at least Sunday or Monday the latest. The cake itself when stored in the fridge can last up to 3 weeks. Here's a detailed rundown of the schedule:
- Day 1 -> bake the cake, mix in colours, make decoration if using (I only had to do the sesame seeds for the bun, so this process is quite quick for me)
- Day 2 -> Make the ganache (it has to be set overnight)
- Day 3 -> cover the cake with ganache (keep it in an airtight container to prevent drying)
- Day 4 (this is where you need the most time) -> cover the cake with fondant and put in all the decorations. For this burger cake, It took me around 2.5 hours to do this part including making the lettuce and cheese, and I'm considered quite slow.

Hopefully this will help you plan your cakes better and avoid any drama =)

Chocolate Mud Cake makes one 22cm (9in) round cake or 20cm (8in) square cake. For this cake, I only made 3/4 of the recipe

220g butter
220g dark chocolate, chopped
25g coffee
125g self raising flour
125g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
480g caster sugar
4 eggs, lightly beaten
7tsp vegetable oil
100ml buttermilk

Put butter, chocolate coffee and 160ml of water in saucepan and melt under low heat stirring constantly. Sift the flours, cocoa and bicarb of soda into a large bowl. Stir in the sugar and make well in the centre. Add the combined egg, oil and buttermilk and the chocolate mixture to the flour, stir well with a large spoon.
Pour the mixture into the tin and bake for 1 hour and 40 minutes in a 160 degrees oven. Cooled completely in the tin. Cake can keep in an airtight container for up to 3 weeks in the fridge or 2 months in the freezer.

Chocolate Ganache
(again, I use 3/4 of the recipe)

600ml of cream
1.2 kg of bittersweet chocolate couverture - (I use Lindt 58% bittersweet chocolate couverture)
A little note: For friends I like I usually use Lindt chocolates (they're pretty good and quite reasonably priced), for the so so friends, I just use the general brands like Cadburry couverture or Nestle couverture since they are much cheaper. For myself or loved ones, I always chose the best and my most favourites like Valhorna or Kennedy & Wilson. They are superior with also a premium price especially here in Melbourne as there's only one store that stock Valhorna.

Chop the chocolates as finely as you can and put in a large bowl. Heat the cream in a saucepan until it reaches just bellow the boiling point. Pour cream over chocolates, whisking constantly. Whisk until smooth. Don't use a mixer as you will incorporate too much air to the ganache. Cool completely. After cooled, cover tightly with glad wrap with the wrap touching the surface of the ganache to avoid skin forming. Leave to set overnight in room temperature. When you're ready to use, if the ganache is too hard, heat it up in the microwave on low for 1-2 minutes and until it reaches the desired consistency. You're looking for a nutella-like consistency.

Assembling the cake

Syrup
2-3 tbs of jam (any flavour)
20ml of liquor (any flavour - jamaican rum, cointreau, grand marnier or tia maria are always nice with chocolate)
150-250ml of water

Instead of getting rid of the bump on the top, I usually cut thinly on the hard skin of the cake, and reserving it to patch uneven surfaces later. to get a perfectly level surface of the top, use the second layer or the cake as the first layer. Brush each layer generously with the syrup to moisten the cake. Wait until the cake absorp the liquid before putting the ganache. Cover it with ganache. Let the ganache to set in room temperature. When ready to cover with fondant, brush the cake with the syrup or water to help the fondant to stick better to the cake. Here's a video on covering a cake with fondant:

Cheesecakeletes three ways - DB April 2009

I admit my defeat. I finally caved in to these cheesecakes. I never used to like cheesecakes. The texture, the sligtly tangy and sweet taste just never work for me. Especially that stuck-in-your-throat feeling you get everytime you eat a spoonful. Bleh! The one and only time I ever made a cheesecake, a baked one I might add was for my boss's birthday and I still wasn't sold by this dessert. However, I think I might just found a recipe that could change my skepticism.The recipe that is this month's Daring Bakers challenge was soooo creamy and the texture was so soft (soft enough for me to wreck one when I tried to unmold it). Not the easiest or simplest recipe I'm afraid. The baking time plus resting time, and the water bath makes this recipe quite challenging (coming from a girl who burnt herself in too many occasion from trying to remove the heavy water-bath-filled pan). But this water bath is the key to achieve it's creamy texture.



We were given total freedom to change the recipe this month. In fact, that is part of the challenge, creating different flavour combination or ways to serve the cheesecake. Me being the indecisive that I am, of course couldn't decide on one flavour, so instead, I did it three ways. The three most favourite ways of how I do dessert. Fruity, chocolatey and not forget the very best, cookies and creme. You can say that my love of desserts are summed up in this three cakelets. Eventhough I adore figs, but this is not actually my first preference, but my all time favourite, the berries and cherries are long gone since we are well in the winter season now here in downunder. And figs seems to be at it's top of the season, so I paired it with a lovely bush honey for my fruity cheesecake.



Before I forget, this is the official blurb that needs to be posted:
The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey’s Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.


Abbey's Infamous Cheesecakeletes:
(2/3 of recipe) I use three ramekin dishes

crust for the honey and marble cheesecakelets:
120 g graham cracker crumbs
74g butter, melted
16g caster sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Oreo crust:
60 g Oreo biscuit, set aside the white parts for the cheesecake
37g butter, melted
8g caster sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract

cheesecakeletes:
450g cream cheese, room temperature
2 large eggs
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract (or the innards of a vanilla bean)
1 tbsp liqueur, optional, but choose what will work well with your cheesecake

Honey & Fig:
25g sugar
25g bush honey
3-5 dried figs

Plain:
50g caster sugar

Cookies & Cream:
25g sugar
white cream leftovers from crust
3-4 oreo biscuits, roughly crushed into big chunks

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (Gas Mark 4 = 180C = Moderate heat). Begin to boil a large pot of water for the water bath.

2. Mix together the crust ingredients and press into your preferred pan. You can press the crust just into the bottom, or up the sides of the pan too - baker's choice. Set crust aside.

3. Combine cream cheese and sugar in the bowl of a stand-mixer (or in a large bowl if using a hand-mixer) and cream together until smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, fully incorporating each before adding the next. Make sure to scrape down the bowl in between each egg. Add heavy cream, vanilla, lemon juice, and alcohol and blend until smooth and creamy.

4. Pour batter into prepared crust and tap the pan on the counter a few times to bring all air bubbles to the surface. Place pan into a larger pan and pour boiling water into the larger pan until halfway up the side of the cheesecake pan. If cheesecake pan is not airtight, cover bottom securely with foil before adding water.

5. Bake 45 to 55 minutes, until it is almost done - this can be hard to judge, but you're looking for the cake to hold together, but still have a lot of jiggle to it in the center. You don't want it to be completely firm at this stage. Close the oven door, turn the heat off, and let rest in the cooling oven for one hour. This lets the cake finish cooking and cool down gently enough so that it won't crack on the top. After one hour, remove cheesecake from oven and lift carefully out of water bath. Let it finish cooling on the counter, and then cover and put in the fridge to chill. Once fully chilled, it is ready to serve.

Pan note: The creator of this recipe used to use a springform pan, but no matter how well she wrapped the thing in tin foil, water would always seep in and make the crust soggy. Now she uses one of those 1-use foil "casserole" shaped pans from the grocery store. They're 8 or 9 inches wide and really deep, and best of all, water-tight. When it comes time to serve, just cut the foil away.

Thai Sunday

When the wind is gushing outside with a speed that can blow you away and a house that feels more like the inside of a fridge, spending your time in front of the oven actually feels like heaven. Another excuse to keep pending my assignment. Yes, I have yet another assignment lined up next week. But this time, is a group one, so the work is shared.

I have defrosted a nice fillet of fish in the fridge that is ready to be prepped. When it comes to savoury food, a combination of sour, salty and a nice kick of heat is always my favourite, especially when it comes to seafood. That's why I always cook my fish, Thai style.

To make it even more Thai, I also made a fresh pot of Thai milk tea. Eventhough I always tried to make everything from scratch, this time, I chose to go the instant way with a sachet of ready made thai milk tea. I always loved this rather bright orange coloured drink. Not just because it's attractive colour, but also from it's sweet and fragrant take on the ordinary milk tea. And it complements Thai style dishes perfectly. However, this is the first time I drank it hot. With this weather, I certainly didn't feel like for ice cold drinks.

For the fish, I decided to bake them instead of frying them. Making them healthier and fuss free from dealing with hot oil splats. It uses all the traditional Thai spices like lemongrass, ginger, coriander and kaffir lime leaves. I did cheat a bit by using store bought red curry paste.. but you can always make them yourself if you like. A little warning, I can handle a little bit of heat, so this recipe is quite hot, however, if you like to mellow the heat, you can deseeded the chilli or leave it out all together.


Thai chilli fish
adapted from here
2 fillet of white fish
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
a handful of fresh coriander, chopped
about 2 cm of fresh ginger, grated
1 lemongrass, chopped
1 tbs of red curry paste
2 kaffir lime leaves, chopped
2 tbs of sweet chilli sauce
3 tbs of lime juice
2 chillies, chopped
3 tbs fish sauce
1/2 tbs palm sugar

Clean the fish and make 3 or 4 large score on the skin. Combine all the ingredient in a shallow oven proof dish. Mix in the fish and combine the marinating ingrediant to completely coat the fish. Refrigerate for up to 2 hours. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 180 C. Bake fish covered in aluminium foil for 20-25 minutes. Remove foil and place fish on the top rack of your oven and grill until the skin are crispy, usually takes about 8-10 minutes. Serve with jasmine rice and Thai milk tea.

A hearty breakfast when time is on your side

Nothing can make my day brighter like a good hearty breakfast in a lazy weekend. For once, time is on my side this morning and the rainy weather is perfect to be spent with a hearty comforting vanilla rice pudding. Rice puddings are not hard to make, but it can be quite time consuming. A good one will take at least one hour with constant stirring. I have been looking for a recipe for making it in a slow cooker, but I haven't had much luck.



I first tried making rice pudding when I bought the Marie Claire breakfast book. It calls for a lot of spices like cinnamon, cardamom and nutmeg, just the way I like it. But when I cooked it, I ended up with a mess. It seems to need almost double the quantity of milk as what stated in the recipe, but the rice was still undercooked at the end. What a disappointment from what seems to be a very promising start. Not until I tried making Aran's arroz con leche when my faith is restored. Her version is so simple with only cinnamon and milk but it was soooooo good. To satisfy my need of spice, I added the spices from Marie Claire's recipe and cook it using Aran's method. I end up cooking it for almost 90 minutes to 120 minutes to achieve a thicker rice pudding. I have some left over of fleur de sel caramel sauce from the pancake I made a couple of days back, so I add it to the vanilla rice pudding. yumm yumm yumm.


Vanilla rice pudding

1 litre milk
100g arborio rice
50g sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp freshly ground cardamom
pinch of fleur de sel or sea salt
1 vanilla bean, seeded

In a heavy based pan, heat the milk, salt, spices and cinnamon stick to a gentle simmer. Try to keep the heat very low. Add sugar and rice, stir to combine. Stir every 5 minutes or so and cook gently until it thickens. It took about 90-120 minutes for me to get a thick consistency. Serve with any sauce or on its own with a dash of freshly grated cinnamon.

Fleur de sel caramel sauce

250g brown sugar
400ml thickened cream
1 vanilla bean, seeded
60g butter, chopped
1/2 tsp fleur de sel

In a heavy based saucepan, cook sugar, cream, vanilla and butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly, cook until it boils and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in fleur de sel. Set aside until it thickens to the desired consistency.

Happy belated easter

I had macaroons for Christmas, hot cross buns for Good Friday, and now red velvet for Easter. In the shape of eggs of course. Eventhough it's almost a week too late, I hope everyone still in the mood for Easter spirit. Sorry, life keeps getting in the way and I'm behind on my posts. Now you know why I made the red velvet cupcake the other day.

I got my hands full with all the hot cross buns and church on Easter weekend, so I didn't have time to properly decorate the eggs. Colouring chocolates is just not the extra work I needed when I'm trying to juggle between masses, bread baking and catching up on some much needed sleep after a crazy week. If you've been paying attention, I had a super hectic week before Easter. That's why my single most important mission during the 4 days Easter long weekend plus 2 extra days of annual leave was to do "absolutely nothing". Well, nothing that I don't like anyways. Sipping coffee in a quaint little cafe with a good book or a good company and sleeping in is what I intended to do for the whole Easter break.

So, to avoid more work with the chocolates, I did what I do best, paint. I used oil candy colouring to decorate the eggs. I was so lazy, I only painted these 5 eggs and left the rest plain white and brought it to the Easter dinner on Good Friday.

I used Stephanie Jarowski from joyofbaking's recipe for the red velvet cake and Jennifer Graham from Crabapple Cupcake's for the cream cheese frosting.

Happy belated Easter everyone!

Cream cheese frosting

125g unsalted butter, softened
400g cream cheese, softened
1.5tsp vanilla essence
6 cups icing sugar

cream the butter for 1-2 mins. Add cream cheese, vanilla and 3 cups of the sifted icing sugar and beat for a further 3 mins or until the mixture is light and fluffy. Gradually add the remaining icing sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy and of a spreadable consistency.

Red velvet Cake Chocettes

Red velvet cake. you can find the recipe here
Cream cheese frosting
1 packet of white chocolate (use compound for a shortcut, so you don't have to temper the chocolate)

Bake the red velvet cake.
Make frosting.
Both of them can be made one days in advance. Keep in the fridge in an airtight container.
In a large bowl, crumble cake using your hands or a mixer. Mix in frosting gradually until the mixture is moist. Carefull not to add too many frosting or not you will have trouble shaping the chocettes. Take one teaspoon at a time and shape the dough into egg shaped. Put in the fridge for an 30 minutes to firm it up. While it's chilling in the fridge, melt the chocolate using a double boiler or in the microwave. Dip the chocettes in the chocolate and put in a baking tray to set. Try to place the eggs with the bottom of the egg touching the tray so you will end up with a nice smooth egg-shaped chocolates. Decorate by colouring chocolates and piping it or if you're too lazy, just paint some design with oil colouring.

Perfect buns for Good Friday

In an Easter fashion, especially on Good Friday, it's only natural to have hot cross buns. This year, I decided to try my hands on making them. I tried two recipes that I found interesting. One is Meeta's from What's for Lunch Honey and the other one is the one I found on this month's Delicious magazine, my favourite cooking magazine.
I actually made this one yesterday and brought it to work as a trial. I need to try the recipe first before I make the real one for our Easter get together today. Even with all my traumatic experience with yeast, this buns are quite easy to make. And a good recipe that offers windows of opportunities to alter. On the first one, I made the traditional one with lots and lots of raisins. It became the talk of the office. My 'buns' was the hot topic of the day. =)

On the one I made for our get together, I substitute the raisins with chocolate chips, because one thing I know for sure about my friends are if there's raisin or dried fruits in them, there's no way that they're touching them. I made 1.5 times of Meeta's recipe and after adding the chocolate chips, I divide the recipe in half and put all water in one and half water and half coffee on the other one to make a mocha hot cross buns.

One thing I learned from this, is when making it with choc chips, add them last after you mix in the yeast and the water, so the chocolate will not melted through the dough.

the right to vote

In a patriotic spirit to my country, I decided to dedicate this red velvet cupcake to this democratic day where all Indonesian in all corners of the earth share their rights to vote in the hope of a better future for the country. Well, actually, that's just my excuse to make red velvet cake and made a simple icing decoration in the shape of our red and white flag. Any excuse will do, right?

I didn't even share my vote today.. hey, not my fault they decided to do it on Holy Thursday. I was planning to vote before work or before church, but it turns out they only open the ballot from 9.30am to 7.30 pm, I start work at 9 and there's no way I can take time off work since this will be my last chance to catch up with my boss before her trip to China, and the mass is at 6pm - 7.30pm. What a girl to do?

I have a strong opinion on the fact that they held it on Holy Thursday, but I decided to spare you my rant, anyways, today is Holy Thursday..

cake scraps = cake chocettes

I have some cake scraps from the baby block cake I made last weekend and whole lot of cookies and cream frosting from the cupcakes. Not wanting to waste any of this, I decided to make same cake chocettes. I know I know.. I should have been relaxing and catching up on some sleep after being sleep deprived for more than a week, but I just hate to waste all this up. It's very simple to whip these babies up anyways, and by using compound chocolate to dip it, takes the hassle from having to temper the chocolates.

I made some into choc-kabobs and gave it to some friends as an early easter treat.

Special cake for a a special one year old

A very close friends of mine is having a birthday party for their beloved one year old. Zio along with their parents are some people I hold dear to my heart. I have always been there since this baby was brought to this world, a tiny 600grams premmie to the chubby boy that he is now. So, when the mother asked me to make the cake, it's a task I take very seriously. This will be my first baby cake and since this will be a big party, I can go all out. I'm planning to make a baby blocks cake as the centerpiece and also cupcakes. What's more perfect than cupcakes for a kid's party. For the flavour combination, I decided to make chocolate mud cake for the block cake, and chocolate cupcake with cookies and cream cheese frosting. You can never go wrong with chocolate.

If you can think of things that can go wrong in baking and decorating a cake, I have just experienced it all at once when making this cake. If you think that I didn't think it through enough or plan it enough, you were wrong. I planned the whole thing more than a week in advance starting from getting all the ingredients, the decorating tools also the reference pictures to help me in creating the decoration. I even scheduled the whole thing to the last second. Create the figurines on Monday - Wednesday, bake the cake on Thursday, make the chocolate ganache on Friday night, colour the icing on Saturday morning, decorate the cake on Saturday night and make the cookies and cream frosting for the cupcakes and finally, bake and decorate the cupcakes on Sunday morning just before the party so everything will be nice and fresh. Up until Friday night, everything was on schedule and went according to plan. Even my essay was on schedule I even felt proud of myself for creating the figurines (the first time I ever made one I might add). Not until Saturday morning when the series of disaster began. One, I found out that the essay was 3000 words, not 2000 words as I thought it was. Panic mode: on. And this is not due to my ignorance to the brief, the lecturer have been saying it's 2000 words in class all the time, so I just take her word for it, but the official brief states 3000 words, so to be safe (and it's too late to write an angry email to her asking which is the right one), I decided to aim for 3000. So I have to put my essay first over the cake. Assuring that everything is in place, if I just wake up really early on Sunday, I can finish decorating the cake and the cupcakes. Or so I thought...


Starts off with the ganache not sticking to the cake.. I have worked with chocolate ganache before, but this is the first time this ever happen to me. Have any of you experience the same thing? The ganache is just very oily and paste-y. It's really hard to get it to stick to the cake, and when it's cold, it set hard like a chocolate block, not soft as it should be. So, it's impossible to get that sharp edges on the block cakes. Pressed for time, I just have to live with it. It looked more like a blob than a baby block. Of course, without the ganache having sharp edges, it would be impossible to get it from the fondant. While waiting for the cake to set, I decided to move on to the cupcakes. Another disaster! The cupcake paper I bought yesterday was too big for my cupcake pan. I have moved beyond panic mode to nearly hyper-ventilating. M tried to calm me down by driving me to the homeware store to get some. We stopped to get some coffee in the hope of it calms my nerve a little bit.

When I got home, it only have gotten worst. the blue fondant was too soft to work with, so I tried to fix it by adding some CMC to it. It helped a bit, but it's still very tricky to work with. By this time, M has moved to become my sous chef. Poor him, I was actually turning into Gordon Ramsay in the kitchen. I have seen my version of a mad woman.


Eventhough we were an hour late to the party (hey, we're Indonesian, being on time is not in our blood), we manage to get the cake there in one piece. It still looked cute on display. The proud parents still very impressed. Thank God for the figurines, it manages to make the block cake still cute. I ended up not putting the block cake on top of the cupcake tower, because it was too heavy.
I need a lot more practice with fondant decorating. Hopefully I can be a lot better at it. Just glad it's all over, and I manage to finish my essay on time. This essay has been a wake up call for me. The very reason why I was done with being a student. Only 3 more months to go till I graduate. I think I'm going to take 2 days off after easter. I really need to unwind after a very stressful week.