Strawberry Flan ~ Dec 2010

Back in 2010, I took a 10-week french pastry course where I learnt how to make sweet tart pastries, french cakes & desserts, etc.  I enjoyed the course so much, it was fun.

Anyhow, this was a Strawberry tart that I made for a Christmas gathering.  The pastry is called pate sablee.  It melts in your mouth as it has lots of butter & sugar in it..... umm... yummy!  The pastry cream is called creme patissiere which I used vanilla bean paste to make.

My Macaron Madness

A few years ago, my husband & I went to Lindt Cafe to have afternoon tea with a friend.  We ordered a chocolate degustation plate.  In the plate, there were some chocolate macarons.  That was the time when I first knew about this "classy" french delicacy.  When I had my first bite on the dark chocolate macaron, I was thrilled.  The taste, the texture, everything about it was superb!  Since then, I became addicted to macarons.

A friend of mine is a qualifed chef.  Back then she was taking a professional course about baking.  I used to seek her advice whenever I came across any questions regarding baking & cooking.  When I told her I would like to try making macarons, she said it would be a very difficult task as she once saw the demonstration by her teacher.  Anyhow, what she said didn't scare me due to my madness about macarons.

I did heaps of research on the internet & watched some YouTube videos over & over again just for the sake of understanding the required batter consistency.  Oh man, that was hard job.  I tried using french meringue, italian meringue & swiss meringue to make the macaron shells.  It took me almost 10 attempts before I could make them successfully.  From my experience the french meringue method is the hardest though it is less complicated than the other two methods.  I just gave up on using the french method as I failed on it 3 to 4 times >_<

Since I've have successfully made macarons, I've tried making different flavours like chocolate, strawberry, raspberry, green tea, black sesame & pandan.  The ones that you see from the above photo are pandan flavor.  I did them in my friend's place back in July 2010 as she asked me to teach her how to make macarons.  The shells had beautiful "feet" :-)

Next time when I make macarons, I must take some pictures & publish them in this blog.  It's such a shame that I didn't take pictures on most of the previous ones that I made.  I'll share some details on the process too.  Hope it will interest some people to give it a go.  After all, making macarons is not that hard once you've mastered the required batter consistency.

Wedding Cake ~ Sep 2010

Sep 2010.  This was the first wedding cake that I've ever decorated.  It was for my friend.  When she told me that she would like to use yellow & purple as the theme colors in her wedding, I doubted how those two colors be put together as they have very different tone.   But when I started making the sugar flowers & put them together, I was amazed by how awesome they look!  The colors were so virbrant & made people so happy by just looking at them!

Churros ~ May 2010

My husband & I are dessert lovers.  We made these churros together using Gordon Ramsay's recipe.  They were yummy, best eaten when they're still hot!

Churros are very easy to make, but they're so expensive when you eat them in Spanish restaurants, what a rip off!  Better to make our own :-p

Engagement Cake ~ Jan 2010

This was an engagement cake that I decorated for my friend in Jan 2010.  It was a caramel mud cake bought from a shop.  Again, I embossed the cake using the quilt-pattern patchwork cutter.  It made the cake look so elegant!

Coffee & Walnut Cake with Frosted Fruits ~ Dec 2009

In Dec 2009,  my workplace had an "Around the World" Christmas lunch gathering.  Every participant was required to bring some "Chrismasy" food from their home country.  Since there's no such thing as "Chinese Christmas food", I made this yummy coffee & walnut cake decorated with coffee buttercream & frosted fruits.  The fruits were first dipped into egg white and then coated with caster sugar, looked pretty "Christmasy", ah?

92nd Birthday Cake ~ Nov 2009

Nov 2009.  I made a fruit cake for the 92nd birthday of my friend's mom.  Until now, I still think that was the best fruit cake that I've ever made.  Since then I haven't been able to make a decent fruit cake, I don't know why... Now I just don't make fruit cake anymore :-p

50th Birthday Cake ~ Nov 2009

Nov 2009.  My colleague asked me to make a birthday cake for his wife's 50th birthday.  I was thrilled.  This was my very first order (get paid, yeah!).   I baked a fruit cake.  Decoration wasn't hard, the real challenging part to me was baking a decent fruit cake as I was a lousy baker.  To my surprise, I was praised not only for the decoration, but also the taste of the cake!

Wedding Anniversary Cake ~ Oct 2009

Oct 2009, I made this for my sister & her husband as their 5th wedding anniversary present.  Well, I had to be honest, I didn't bake the cake, it was a fruit cake bought from supermarket.  But I DID do all the decorations, beautiful, ah?

I had just bought a "quilt-pattern" patchwork cutter & thought I'd like to try it out.  So I embossed the pattern onto the sides of the cake using the new toy.   It made the cake look so different!  I was so happy with the result.

Spring Dream Birthday Cake ~ Oct 2009

Back in Oct 2009, I made a birthday cake for a very adorable little girl (she was & is still my favourite as she has long curly hair, so pretty like a little princess....).  It was a fruit cake baked by myself.

I made some sugar frangipani & butterflies as decorations on the cake.  The butterflies were made using the help of patchwork cutter & I painted some colour on the top.  Not perfect, as it was my very first time to use those cutters.

The cake was iced perfectly; however, when I used the butterfly patchwork cutter to get the pattern imprinted on the cake, the shape of the cake went funny.... :-O.  I was told to put the pattern on while the icing was still soft.... but when I pressed the cutter onto the cake, the perfect icing was ruined.... Until now, I've no idea why it went like that, perhaps I pressed it too much?? But if I didn't press the cutter hard enough, the patterns wouldn't show up clearly on the icing... anyway, weird.  Since then, I haven't got another chance to try using patchwork cutter again.

Frangipani Basket Cake

Another sugar flower basket cake.  It was a gift for my colleague's birthday in Feb 2009.  I made sugar Frangipanis as they were her favourite flowers.

Rose Basket Cake ~ Feb 2009

I made a sugar flower basket for my friend in Feb 2009 as her birthday present.  Believe it or not, it's actually a fruit cake.  I covered the cake with RTR icing, embossed it with a basket wave pattern patchwork cutter & then painted it with food color & dusted with some gold shimmer powder.  As to the roses, it took me a month to make them.  I still remember the weather was so wet that I had trouble of drying them.

Sugar Roses ~ Dec 2008

Dec 2008.  These were the sugar flowers that I made as Christmas presents for my friends.

Birthday Presents Cake ~ Oct 2008

This was a cake that I decorated for a lovely girl's birthday party back in Oct 2008. The top tier was a medeira cake which was very difficult to ice well as the cake was in retangular shape & I had to cut it to a square.  The bottom tier was a fruit cake baked by the girl's mom.

21st Birthday Cake ~ Feb 2008

In Feb 2008, I decorated a 21st Birthday Cake for my friend.  It was a tedious task as those little flowers took me ages to make them. Back then I was only a beginner, most of the things that I made were trial & error).

Actually I didn't do this alone, I got a little helper to dust the shimmering powder onto the sugar flowers for me!

Roses Bouquet ~ Jan 2008

Jan 2008.  This was a mini bouquet that I put together using the sugar roses that I made earlier for my practicing exercise.

I didn't learn making these beautiful roses in the class that I went to last year.  I learnt them from a cake decoration shop owner.  She was so kind that she did a brief demonstration & gave me lots of tips. The roses that I learnt from the class were ugly as they did not look like roses to me.  When I first saw those beautiful roses in that cake decoration shop, I couldn't help but beg the owner to tell me how she did them!  Now I know the secrets.

My First Sugar Lily ~ Dec 2007

Dec 2007.  This was the first sugar lily that I made.  Since I saw people making sugar lily in the cake decoration class, I was obsessed & determined to make it (sugar lily was not part of the curriculum of the beginners class that I attended).

I didn't enroll in the intermediate class as I didn't like the teacher.  So I looked up onto the internet to find some info on how to make sugar lily.  After a bit of research, I found some basic instructions on a website.  I then went to a cake decoration shop to buy the tools.  With the additional tips given by the shop owner, I made an oriental lily successfully, yeah!

Chocolate Cake with Frangipani Deco ~ Dec 2007

In 2007, since I had just learnt sugar art,  I was so obsessed with this new hobby & made a number of sugar frangipani as my practising exercise.  However, I still had to find a chance to practise icing a cake.  I only did it once & that was in the class.

Back then the company where I worked was organizing a Christmas lunch gathering & everyone had to contribute some food.  Since I had some sugar flowers on hand & longed for an opportunity to practise icing a cake, I made a chocolate cake using one of those fool-proof cake mix you can buy from supermarket (I was a lousy baker & didn't know how to make a cake from scratch, hehe...).

So here we go, a chocolate cake covered with RTR icing with some sugar frangipani on top.  I brought this to work & everyone was amazed & said it looked like a wedding cake!

My Birthday Cake ~ Nov 2007

This was a pretty sad looking birthday cake that I made for myself in Nov 2007.  Well, actually, it was part of an exercise in the cake decoration class when the teacher taught us how to ice a cake.  I think I did a pretty good job as it was my first attempt.  I brought the cake home & didn't want to eat it as it looked so good though it was just covered with a layer of white icing.

A few days later, it was my birthday but no one bought me a birthday cake.  So, I took the opportunity to make some pink royal icing & piped "something" on the cake to practise piping.  I've to admit that I did a pretty crap job as I didn't have a clear idea on the design.  I attempted to pipe some roses, but it was too difficult that I just did one & gave up.

Learning Cake Decoration ~ Oct 2007

I started learning cake decoration in Oct 2007.  I took a beginner course in a community college.  The teacher taught us piping & making our own royal icing.

I was such a diligent student :-p  I did quite a bit of practise at home..... very messy though... Up until now, I still don't like piping, it's hard as I don't have a pair of steady hands (I'm not very old yet....).

Blog Finally....

Some time ago, my husband suggested me creating a blog about my baking & cake decoration.  So here we go, finally, action!  Feel so good..... hope I can keep this up.