Babyshower bake: Cute baby cupcakes

Crying baby!

So this was my next event to bake for! A baby shower! Was my first time attending a baby shower too! Had lots of fun :) And hope a smooth delivery for both mums-to-be!!! =D
After googling "baby shower bakes", I found a lot of recipes for decorated cupcakes. Many of them used fondant but I decided to just stick to buttercream icing. I made 2 flavours of cupcakes - Raspberry and White chocolate and Mocha and Chocolate chip.

Many baby faces

Raspberry and White Chocolate cupcakes

Recipe adapted from Creative Gourmet

Ingredients
125g softened butter or margarine
1 cup caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup milk
75g white chocolate bits
1/2 cup plain flour
75g Creative Gourmet frozen Raspberries

Buttercream Icing
50g butter
100g icing sugar
Up to 2 tbsp milk

1. Preheat oven at 180ºC (fan forced 170ºC). Fill a 12 holed muffin pan with cupcake patties.
2. Cream butter, sugar and vanilla together with electric mixer until light and fluffy.
3. Add eggs, self-raising flour and milk and mix to make a soft, smooth batter.
4. Fold in white chocolate chips and frozen raspberries. Spoon into muffin pan and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked. Stand for 15 minutes before turning out onto a cooling tray to cool completely before icing.
5. For icing, cream butter and icing sugar in a small bowl, adding enough milk for a smooth consistency.

Mocha Chocolate Chip cupcakes

Same recipe as above but sift 2 tbsp instant coffee powder and 4 tbsp cocoa powder into cake mix. Fold in 75g dark chocolate chips.

I had so much fun decorating these cupcakes! The icing pen was so useful ^_^ I tried to make each face different, giving them their own personality =p haha! I hope you all enjoyed them =) =)

Decorating goodies! special thx to TZ for the Baking Bling all the way from NZ ^^

Laughing, crying and sleeping babies.

Message for my siblings

Work catering #17: Green Tea Time! (my Aspiring Baker's entry)

Since this month's Aspiring Baker's theme is all about TEA!! I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone.. so to speak =p Any recipes that use tea (not coffee) are accepted so I played around with my favourite tea... GREEN TEA =D Also known as Matcha!

Perfect bite size green tea cheesecake bites :D

I use Green Tea powder bought from a local asian grocer and use it just like cocoa powder ^_^" So you just add it straight into your dough or cake mix. It has a subtle flavour, not too sweet with a slight bitterness. New exotic and interesting flavour for some of my work colleagues =p

First up is CHEESECAKE! These little bites are the perfect size and they are so smooth!!! Like eating Green Tea mousse :D
Green Tea Cheesecake Bites
Recipe adapted from The Hungry Excavator

Ingredients
250g Arnotts Nice biscuits
120g unsalted butter, melted
300ml thickened cream
250g cream cheese
1/2 cup caster sugar
150ml milk
3 tbsp green tea powder
3 tsp powdered gelatin
4 tbsp boiling water

1. Grease and line baking tray (20x30cm) with baking paper. 
2. Crush biscuits in food processor until fine crumbs. Stir in melted butter and mix until well combined. Press tightly into base of tray and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. Beat thickened cream with electric beater until soft peaks form. Set aside.
4. Place cream cheese in separate bowl and beat until smooth. Add sugar and beat until well combined.
5. Place gelatin in small bowl and mix with water. Set aside.
6. Heat milk in small saucepan until just comes to the bowl. Remove from heat and whisk in green tea and gelatin until dissolved and no lumps are seen.
7. Add milk to cream cheese and beat until smooth. Fold mixture into thickened cream until even. 
8. Pour mixture over crumb layer and spread evenly. Chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

silky smooth ~~

Ready to serve!

Close up. You can see the green tea specks

And to compliment these cheesecake bites, I made some COOKIES! The great thing with this recipe is that you make the dough the night before, leave it in the fridge to rest and the next day, all you have to do is slice up into cookies and bake! ^___^

Stack of cookies

Green Tea and White chocolate Cookies

Recipe adapted from Nami from Just One Cookbook

Ingredients
240g plain flour
15g green tea/matcha powder
150g unsalted butter, softened at room temp
130g pure icing sugar
pinch of salt
2 egg yolks 
1/2 cup white chocolate chips

1. Sift flour and matcha powder together and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add yolks and salt and beat well.
4. Gradually fold in flour and matcha. 
5. Shape the dough into 2 logs and wrap them tightly in cling wrap. Rest in fridge overnight.

~THE NEXT DAY~

6. Preheat oven to 150oC and line 2 baking trays with baking paper. Slice cookies into 7mm thickness and place on baking tray.
7. Bake for 20 minutes or until slightly golden. Allow to cool on rack.

Tray of cookies! yum yum!

These cookies are the melt in your mouth texture. The flavours of the green tea and white chocolate go so well together! I also love the GREENESS to it ^^" really delicious cookies!

Gone quite quickly ^_^"

Close up of GREEN-NESS!

So I am submitting this post to Aspiring Baker's #30: It's Tea Time! Hosted by Food Playground. 
HAPPY BAKING =D!!!! Why not try out using Green Tea? =)

Work catering #16: One can of condensed milk

One simple can of condensed milk, yet so much can be done with this humble ingredient! It works well with both baked slices and cheesecakes and no bake cakes.

This week I made two quite different slices but both using condensed milk. I've also posted up many other recipes that use condense milk such as Choc chip and macadamia cookies, Rumballs and Strawberry Jelly slice. So here are 2 more to add to the collection!

The original recipe baked the cake in a 20cm round spring form tin however for the purposes of work catering I turned it into a slice =) I'm also loving this new Baking website called Baker's corner. It has so many simple ideas using similar ingredients =D You guys should check it out!

Raspberry Crumble Cheesecake (slice)
Recipe adapted from Baker's corner

Ingredients
375g plain sweet biscuits, crushed
150g butter, melted
250g cream cheese, softened
1 can (395g) of condensed milk
2 eggs
1/2 cup (125ml) thickened cram
1/2 cup (75g plain flour)
200g fresh or frozen raspberries

1. Preheat oven to 180oC/160oC fan forced. Grease and line 20x30cm slice tin.
2. Combine biscuits and butter in large bowl. Reserve 1/4 of biscuit mixture for the topping. Press remaining biscuit mixture into the base of slice tin and refrigerate for 20 minutes or until firm.
3. Beat cream cheese and condensed milk with electric beater until smooth. Add eggs, cream and flour and beat until combined.
4. Gently fold in raspberries. Spoon mixture evently over crumb base. Sprinkle reserved crumb mixture over cheesecake.
5. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until set. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until set.

Crumble on the top and the bottom! Love it!

I love <3 love <3 love cheesecake (if you haven't already noticed) and this was my first baked cheesecake in a while. I love the crumble mix however I found the base to be a bit dry so maybe you can add a little more butter next time. The raspberries were a little tart but was good to cut through the sweetness.

Choc chip Fudge Slice
Recipe adapted from Baker's corner

Ingredients
1 can (395g) condensed milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup hazelnut meal
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
125g butter, melted
3/4 cup white chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Line 20 x 20cm tin.
2. Combine condensed milk, cocoa powder, flour, sugar, hazelnuts, coconut and butter in a bowl and mix well.
3. Spoon mix into prepared pan and press chocolate chips on top.
4. Bake 20-25 minutes until golden. Cool in tin before slicing.

This is such a simple "All-in-one-bowl-and-mix" recipes =D Love it! Turned out really yummy and fudgy! Kind of tasted like a rumball slice, I guess because of the coconut.

Yummy and chewy inside~~

Work Catering #15: Not once, not twice but TRIPLE chocolate muffins

Hello all! Had a nice one week's break from work catering but I'm back to it this week :)

Finally time to bake a request from a work friend for "Dark Choc Muffins". Hope they were what you expected!!! ><" To tell the truth... I wasn't really happy with how the muffins turned out. I could tell when I was making the batter something was wrong but not too sure what it was. After baking, my sister tried one and her first comment was "This tastes weird.. something is wrong" >___<"

The ganache made it taste better

Not a good start! After tasting, the muffin was quite dense, not light and fluffy and also not very sweet. However when I brought it to work the next day, I was surprised at all the good comments and empty food tray! People commented that it had just the right sweetness and tasted chocolatey! I couldn't believe the comments so I went home and tried one again and realised they tasted much better the next day! haha! so PHEW! I can share the recipe now =p

Triple Chocolate Muffins
Recipe adapted from Baker's Corner 
(this new baking website with lots of yummy and simple recipes!^^)

Ingredients
1/2 cup cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups self raising flour
1 cup dark chocolate chips
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups milk
100g butter, melted

Chocolate ganache
100g chocolate melts
80ml thickened cream

1. Preheat oven to 200oC. Line 36 cups of mini muffin tin with paper cases (or 12 large)
2. Sift cocoa and flour into large bowl. Stir in chocolate chips and sugar.
3. Whisk together egg, milk and butter. Stir into the flour mixture. 
4. Spoon into prepared muffin cases and bake for 12-15 minutes or until cooked. Cool on wire rack.
5. Make ganache by melting chocolate and cream in heat proof bowl over pot of simmering water. Allow to cool before icing muffins.

• 

  Glistening muffins

  

  Triple choc - 1) Cocoa + 2) Chocolate chips + 3) Chocolate ganache
  
  

  I also made Apple and Raspberry Crumble slice using the same recipe as the Apple and Raspberry Cake I made over the long weekend. The only difference was that it turned out to be thinner but still as tasty. 

Slice =)

Not so much cake but more slice

Close up of Apple and Raspberry Crumble Slice

Wedding bake: iheart macarons

Just a few pictures of some iheart macarons I made for a wedding I attended last month. 

Congratulations Austin and Sharon =)

L-O-V-E

Was a lovely wedding :) Glad to share it with you guys!

A <3 S

Thanks for the invite and was so happy to share the special day with both of you ^_^
Stay tuned for the next event I have to bake for :)

Long weekend baking =)

Don't you just love the long weekend? =D You can sleep in, go out on day trips or just stay at home and bake! (which is what I did a lot of ^^). I tried to make the most of the the time I had and decided to make bread (as that needs time to rise). I baked some savoury scrolls using the Cinnamon Scroll recipe but added different fillings - sweet chilli and ham and cheese & basil pesto and cheese.

savoury scrolls! Sweet chilli, ham and cheese & Basil pesto and cheese

Also with the bread theme, I baked some savoury croissants with freshly grown chives from the backyard ^_^

Savoury croissants filled with bacon, chives and cheese

But the recipe that I would like to share today is for this delicious Apple and Raspberry Crumble Cake. The original recipe was actually for Apple and Strawberry but I used raspberries instead (still a red berry ^^).

The cake is lovely, buttery and soft while the apple and raspberries give a good tang and to top it off, the crumble is crunchy and sweet! Just an irresistible cake! Was gone in 2 days! 

Apple and Raspberry Crumble Cake
Recipe adapted from taste.com.au

Ingredients
200g butter, at room temperature
155g (3/4 cup) caster sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 eggs
150g (1 cup) self-raising flour
150g (1 cup) plain flour
185ml (3/4 cup) milk
1 Granny smith apple, peeled, cored, thickly sliced
100g raspberries, frozen or fresh

Crumble topping
75g (1/2 cup) plain flour
50g chilled butter, chopped
55g (1/4 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar

1. Preheat oven to 180oC. Grease and line a round 20cm springform pan.
2. Beat butter, sugar and vanilla with electric mixer until pale and creamy.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 
4. Fold in combined flour and milk with large metal spoon until well combined.
5. Spoon into prepared pan. Use the back of the spoon to smooth the surface. Arrange the apple and raspberries on top.

Apple and raspberries arranged on cake

6. For the crumble topping, place the flour and butter in a bowl. Using fingertips, rub butter into the flour until mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar.
7. Sprinkle the crumble topping over the apple and raspberries. 
8. Bake in oven for about 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Leave in pan to cool before transferring to wire rack. 

YUMMMMYYYY! =D =D =D

Breakdown of the cake.

It's a good things I'm not on holidays everyday! Would be baking wayyyyy too much >< haha!