well..quite abit happened this week baking wise, so..ill start off with a THANKS to wanying, who gave me the bottle of malibu ive been needing all this while. for those who do not know, malibu is this really nice tasting coconut rum which works well for baking, and is the perfect kind of liquor for me, being sweet and having a very fragant scent of coconuts. and with that.i present, rum soaked cakes!
first up is my beloved bottle of malibu ( goes great with orange/pineapple juice)
the cake just out of the oven
in the midst of assembly
Sadly, I didnt get any good shots of the final product, firstly since I suck at decorating, and also coz my hands were shaking and I was in a bad rush.. oh well.. ill get it next time!
This recipe was one of the better ones i tried, being both simple, and producing a cake that had a nice moist texture, and a nice vanilla flavour, enhanced by my malibu. The final product was a little sweet though, coz of the syrup I added, but I was very happy that it came out successfully. I even added a coconut paste in the centre, which I thought was quite well done, but my bro reminded me that the cake tasted like those nonya kueh, not taht it was bad, just.. funny.
Well, im surely going to keep this as one of my standard recipes ill keep using, especially since it can be variated really easily around with.
And later on in the week ( just last saturday to be exact ) I attended a doughnut making workshop by Chef Audrey Tan at Shermay's Cooking School ( I used her recipe for my crepes )
It was my first time going for such a class, so I was a little nervous and all, but the class turned out to be really great, and totally worth my money. The whole lesson plan was very simple, starting off with a demo from the chef on making the dough, and then, we got to go down to the workstations and all make our own dough. It was here that I discovered that all the experience I had over the last 6 months amount to nothing when it came to kneading dough, i was totally screwing it up, but thankfully the instructors were really diligent in making sure everyone filled a tray with pieces of dough ready for frying, and it was a very good start for me in terms of working with dough.
After that, they showed us how to fry the doughnuts, probably the simplest part, save eating, and proceeded to show us how to top them off. This one was really interesting, as we were shown how to combine colours, make designs, pipe in jam, and flavour various chocolates. And, more importantly, we got to try it all out with our own doughnuts and bring them back, working with a huge selection of toppings provided by the school. Sufice to say, it was a really enjoyable experience and, I got myself a nice tasting box of doughnuts.
I was very impressed by Chef Audrey Tan too, not only was she very skilled and knowledgeable, I could tell she was very passionate about what she was doing, enjoying herself, and was very friendly and honest, wanting all of us to have the same joy she felt from baking/frying, which I think is very important as a chef.
Alright.. very very wordy post, and the worst part is.. I FORGOT TO TAKE PICS AT THE CLASS, too busy eating/ decorating my donuts =X
well.. i might take a very short break from baking.. just coz I have this weird impulse to make kebabs, so.. the next post you see might be about proper food for once =)
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