Chocolate Chip Cookies

No pics today, but I baked a batch of choc chip cookies ( 4 trays rather), trying out the recipe from my new book, Baking : from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan, tastes quite similar to the standard toll house cookie imo, but maybe im not measuring the exact amount. Anyway, coz of the lighting and time, didnt really wanna post the pics i took of the cookies, but ill definitely be making more, maybe as gifts for pple once I perfect the shape =)

Happy Birthday Belicia!

Man, its been 2 weeks since I came here, been kinda busy doing all kinds of other stuff, so I just realised that while I have been posting regularly (though not very often), I never really spent time to do up the blog properly, shall promise to devote more attention to improving this space.

Also, tastespotting.com, the place i get all my inspiration and ideas has closed down! Sigh... Luckily I managed to hear of new places I can go to continue to find recipes and the like, such as the New York Caramel Apple Crumble Cheesecake I just saw, and am now dying to bake and eat.

Ok, back to baking, I didnt post the previous week since it was supposed to be my trial for what I baked yesterday, which was supposed to be a birthday cake requested by Wanying to give to Belicia, who is turning TWENTY today. =) Anyway, I didnt know they were only meeting a week later, so I had baked the cake early, though I got the birthday date correct, haha, but, on persuasion, I decided to deliver the cake rather than let it go to waste ( or just eat it myself =X) So.. hope she likes it!.

The top pic was my trial last week and the bottom was the actual item, haha, sadly, I was rushing so I didnt get a nice pic of the actual one, and I had my bro and Jolene over to help me take pics of my trial run. Anyway, the main idea was a chocolate cake ( for which I used a very interesting recipe that includes blackcurrant jam and seems to taste great) with a layer of cherries, somewhat like a blackforest. In the trial I used chocolate sauce as a filling, but I decided to do a vanilla buttercream for the actual thing, which I thought would go better with the cherries and look nicer as well. I wont really know the actual taste, so.. that will all be up to the birthday gal to decide.

This is probably my most successful attempt at frosting and layering a cake as well, but I think it would be better if I frosted the sides as well, gotta work on all this more, until I can make those really nice layered cakes. Oh, Janice came over to help me out with baking it too, so THANKS JANICE! always great to have company and help when baking, haha, and of course people to share the joy of it too.

Btw, notice the heart shape? I dropped by Phoon Huat, this baking shop in hougang to buy the box and base for transportig the cake, and just couldnt resist buying and using a heart shaped pan to make the cake. I am so so so going back again just to buy more and more tins and ingredients, such as the giant muffin tray I saw, and cookie cutters!

Is it a brownie? Or a cake?

Firstly, I need to apologize to Jolene, coz I gave her a bad corn muffin. =X



As I was saying earlier on, I wanted to try something new this week, my first idea was a chocolate banana cake, but.. my house kinda ran out of bananas when I wanted to bake, so I settled for this thing called a Chocolate Almond Torte. This was interesting to make too, especially since it used alot of methods I am not familiar with, most of the cakes I've made so far all use the creaming method, so its nice to try something else for a change.



Here it is, I wasn't really sure if I did it right, since it was quite soft, but held its shape well, and it tasted cooked, so I assume it should be like that. Then again, maybe I didnt whisk my eggs properly. But, the overall feedback was quite good =) Brought some out for the RJ pple when I went to meet em for dinner yest. ( thanks guys! ) It was abit too rich on the chocolate, but luckily, not too sweet that its sickening, and the texture was a little soft and mushy, kind of like a Mrs. Field's Brownie, but a little softer. Sadly, after all the work buying and toasting almonds, I couldnt really taste em =X, next time I do something like this, I'll make sure I use whole nuts, bet that will be alot better. But generally, I thought this was one of the better things I have done so far. Really pays off to try something new.


Well, for those who are wondering what a torte actually is, it just means a flourless cake, which explains the brownie like texture and the softness. This is the first time I had to whisk egg whites, and I dont really think I got the technique yet, to be honest.. I didnt even dare separate the whites and the yolks myself. And I learnt something new, cream of tartar is used to stabilize egg whites, like wth? I imagined it to be used to make tartar sauce, and stabilize?? I kinda felt that I was working with like hazardous material or something. Well, always good to gain new knowledge.


After all this time baking, I realised that cakes are still way more fun to make than muffins or cupcakes, I dont really know why either, but i gain much more excitement from baking cakes, as well as thinking of what cake to bake, maybe its because theres just so many different things I can try. Also, I realised that there are loads and loads and loads of baking ingredients that I really want, I'm starting to build up my small stash of baking goods already, but it's not enough =P Im definitely going to go shopping for more, I heard theres a shop near sembawang mrt that specializes in baking goods, have to check it out. Stay tuned for next week! Hopefully I'll be able to get down to making my banana cake, or, perhaps a cheesecake, been ages since I did that =)

I want the Kenny Roger's Muffin Recipe!

Ahh.. its been a tiring few days, for some reason, I didnt even have energy to come and blog about what I just baked for 2 days, and this time, I dont even have pictures, fall asleep the moment i enter my room and touch my bed. But, for once, I actually have more time in the weekdays with this being my rest week before I go for my run on Sunday, so I decided i have to make use of this spare time to bake something since I didnt get to bake the week before.

I had decided quite early that I was definitely going to do muffins, but couldnt decide what type, jam, banana, chocolate, blueberry, etc etc, but Ive done all those before, and I thought Id try and be adventurous. Searching around abit more, I stumbled upon some recipes for corn muffins, immediately I was reminded of the muffins at Kenny Roger's, those sweet, fragrant and totally delicious corn muffins of which I can easily eat half a dozen. So, with that hope in mind, I took the time to go shopping, and bought some corn kernels, and got down to baking once I got home. ( After a few rounds of Call of Duty 4, which my brothers and I are hopelessly addicted to. 25 hrs of play time in 6 days..omg)

Well, sadly, the muffins did not turn out like kenny roger's, the cornmeal I used was very rough and it left the muffins quite grainy in texture, there was quite a nice corn flavour though, and my Mum found the sweetness just right ( which would mean I didnt find them sweet enough =P ) I'll probably have to scout around and try a few other recipes until I can get one that is close to that amazing Kenny Roger's muffin taste.

Alright, short post, now I gotta start thinking of what to bake this weekend, Ive set my mind down on a cake, but I cant seem to decide what, I think I always tend to avoid certain recipes coz they either seem hard or need ingredients not availible at home, which is quite a bad mindset, since it limits the choices of stuff I am making by alot, so this weekend, I definitely have to do something beyond the normal butter cake =)