speed limit

Janice sent me the msot interesting email yesterday, containing a link to the recipe for a FIVE MINUTE CAKE. This was so amazing I just had to try it for myself, and the cake really did take just 5 minutes to bake ( if a microwave can be considered baking ).

Well, you can check out the recipe at http://www.dizzy-dee.com/recipe/chocolate-cake-in-5-minutes ( I cant figure out how to link stuff! )

Well, heres my pics ( kinda ugly ) for that short 5 minutes of work.



The cake just poking its head out of the cup when I put it in the microwave.




After removing from the cup.

The cake tasted kinda different from normal cakes, but thats expected since it only took 5 minutes, im thinking that it works on the same principles as popcorn, but then again, I cant be sure. Strangely, I thought it felt abit fake, but tasted alright, and I guess I can keep this recipe handy for when my house runs out of food and I am dying of starvation. If anyone out there is bored, go ahead and try it, I'm going to think of weird ways I can improvise on it too =)

Pasta 101

A sidenote from baking..

I made Spaghetti and meatballs this week! With a little help of course, but it was pretty fun, and they did turn out quite alright, so I guess I can now make my own pasta for dinner when no one is around to cook for me. Sadly, no pics since I went straight to eating it. Next time I do this I'll make really really big meatballs then post up some pics of course. Strangely, I didnt have half the ingredients the recipe called for, so ended up improvising all the way and it worked, thats the interesting part bout cooking, theres alot more room to play around, and you dont have to be so exact, but... that also means theres more room for failure, at least with baking everything can be nciely measured and calculated, which suits me better.

Also, I went for dinner at Garibaldi on sat, this Italian restaurant along purvis street, gosh, it was just superb. I started off with a piece of foie gras, which is thoroughly sinful yet totally tantalizing, and had a very tender and flavourful piece of beef. Then I ended it all off with a slice of molten chocolate cake. I think in future I should bring my camera out to such places so I can share all the stuff I had, I better make sure I earn loads of cash in future so I can fuel my taste bud's desires, and also to build my ultimate dream kitchen.

One month later...

Oh man.. i havent posted in a whole month!! Well, its not that I havent been baking, just that i eat the food b4 i can decide to get the camera, and having no pics is just quite boring. But in case anyone is curious.. in the past month ive done a Chocolate Torte for Janice, Chocolate Chip Cookies for Jocleen, and Banana Muffins for myself =) ( Sidenote : the banana muffins were damn good if I must say so myself )

Anyway, after the unfortunate events that have happened to me, I finally picked up some time to do something I havent done in awhile, Vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting! So enjoy the pics! These tasted wayy better than my first time, and the frosting has a nice pink colour and strawberry flavour. For those who watch sex and the city ( I dont =X) the recipe is supposed to be the same as the magnolia bakery that they showed there.






Ive been kinda lacking inspiration for awhile too, which explains the lack of posts, but I think i kinda got it back alr, been flipping through my recipe books a few more times and tagged out all those recipes I can try next, so hopefully, if time permits, you get to see more stuff come out soon. Prob want to start to pick a few cakes to set as my signatures and practice them like mad for the birthdays of certain important people =))

( The frosting looks v nice rite!!! I think this is my best atttempt at frosting ever. esp the pick colour.. i wanted to sprinkle those multicoloured tiny balls over them, but I think that would just make it too sweet )

lesson 1 : lemons are sour

Wow.. saturday is probably my worst day in the kitchen ever, period.

I had this great plan to turn up for my sentosa outing with a bag filled with food and treats..but... i ended up going there with an empty bag =(

Well, everything started off with my blondies, which were doing really well, until I put them into the oven, waited for 30 mins and went to check on them. To my horror, my blondie had turned black!! sighhh apparently, I had forgot to check my oven temperature and had it set 40 degrees too hot.

After that, I went on to make the kebabs I had been wanting to make for ages. They actually looked pretty good, but, I had used too much lemon juice in my marinate and they tasted really lemony and sour. So, in all, I spent 3 hours +++ in the kitchen, only to produce... abosulutely nothing.

Well, on a brighter note, this is my first 'food' post! since its my 1st time making food of any kind, maybe in the future ill have more roasts/grills etc etc etc to spice up the blog from time to time instead of all those cakes and sugar.

Here's my deceptively nice kebab pic

of coconuts and doughnuts

woohoo..my title rhymes..honestly, i didnt mean it.just came out that way =X

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 =)

Nutella Muffins, and some other stuff

Man.. this post is wayyy overdue.. wonder what ive been doing that made me put it off.

well, it was the day of my camp's family day, so i had like a 2 hour work day, and decided to do something simple in the morning, and these nutella muffins were perfect! Really simple to make, and they tasted pretty good, but maybe its coz i ate em fresh out of the oven. I tried out a new style of muffins, which didnt need milk ( thank god ) and it turned out pretty good, kinda butter cake-ish thou. The nutella is really easy to use as well, almost like an instant topping, just add it in and swirl.. poof.. muffins!

Heres my pic : ( i thought it was pretty nice btw.. makes alot of diff to have the daylight)



On another note, I got the place for my donut class this sat! If my payment gets there in time that is, i dunno why i didnt get the 1st email they sent me to say i got the spot.. but it was kinda nice of em to keep it for me until now.. hopefully ill have donuts on my next post!

And..with further deviation.. i did this from Janice's blog.. so.. im going to post it here. Some personality thingy =)

Considerate Experiencer

Crepes!

oh my god! i made crepes today, think i got super high after making them and started sending the pics out to everyone i knew.

i was flipping through my new recipe book and saw one for crepes, and had this huge urge to make them instantly. So, anyway, i got down to work and cooked up some apples and bananas to top off my crepes and mixed up the batter, which wasnt really too hard, just abit time consuming. But, in the end, it was totally worth it, frying the crepes was really fun, and trying to flip them, and topping them off too, I so have to think of different things i can top them off with. Anyway, here are the pics, the recipe said serves 4-6, but I think i had enough for 20 crepes, shall use half next time.

Btw, im really happy with the pics that came out today as well! Here goes ( and i want nicer plates, hint)



ok, heres my workstation just before I mixed all of them one by one to get my crepe batter.



Heres the apples and bananas I cooked up to top off the crepes, the apples taste like apple pie filling =X




The final product, I was planning to make more kinds, but there arent enough people to eat at my house =(

New cookbooks!

Gah.ive been on the hunt for some new inspiration aside from cheesecakes, since im wayyy to lazy to go and buy cream cheese, esp since it doesnt keep too long so Im afraid i end up not using it in time, so I popped by Kino, and in the midst of a very very sinful book shopping spree ( I have alot of those ) , i picked up 2 new recipe books! ( I wanted to post up pictures, but im still not sure if thats against any copyright/legal/ip/ etc thingys)

First was a book called Muffins Galore! which, from the title, has like over a hundred muffin recipes, which i really need since Im kinda bad at muffins, dont know if its me or the recipes im using, so I thought Id try and get more material on it. The other book is by a Singaporean Chef! called Lust, which features a big handful of chocolate desserts, something I totally have a soft spot for, who doesnt like chocolate after all.

Oh, this same Singapore author, Audrey Tan, is also holding a donut workshop in Sept, hopefully ill be able to get a place for it and learn to make my own double chocolate donuts ( Watch out JCO! )

I made orange-blueberry muffins this week as well, didnt really turn out that delicious, though they were edible, I should have used fresh/frozen rather than canned blueberries as those kinda spoilt the texture for me.

Mann..long, wordy post, but I havent really made anything worthy of pictures yet, oh wells, getting too busy in the weekends, and weekday baking is too draining for me to grab the camera, haha

我回來了!!

Gosh, i havent posted in a month!!! to be honest, I actually baked cookies a few times in july, but.. was too lazy to put them up, more busy eating em =)

Anyway, now that im back from my extremely amazing taiwan trip, I can get back to baking, and the first thing I did was this banana cake, using my Doris Greenspan recipe book, and since I finally have ripe bananas at home.






i had quite good hopes for this cake as i was mixing up the batter since it already gave the nice banana cake smell ( im a huge fan of banana cakes), and it didnt let me down at all, i would have preferred it a little sweeter, but in the end, the cake turned out with a nice balance of banana and cake flavour, and had a soft and moist texture that i love in banana cakes.

im starting to run of out ideas of stuff that i can do without having to go and buy ingredients, so i guess its time to get hardworking and go shop for stuff, such as cream cheese for cheesecake. Also, maybe ill take some time off and attend a few workshops when I got the time, wanna learn how to decorate my cakes. Everyone else seems to be able to make prettier cakes than me =X

Muffins (part1)

My mum bought me muffins from some place called Buttercup(?) on wed, which were delicious, and so, im now inspired to make my own perfect muffin recipe..

Well.. the first try was kinda a failure, but I guess Ill just learn from it ( Though im not sure what really happened =X) These are supposed to be Jam filled Muffins/Cupcakes but then.. for some weird reason, for most of em, the centres sank in and became very mushy, and the jam sank to the bottom as well! Gah! leading to my first official failed baking attempt. Weirdly, some muffins actually held up and were edible, and tasted pretty decent, so I am now at a loss to explain what even went wrong. I tried to change the recipe a little with brown sugar and honey to get a better flavour, but it didnt seem to do anything, so I guess I have to try something else next time.

I really cant figure out how that shop makes such great muffins, but i guess Ill just keep experimenting until I figure it out... so I think ill be posting alot bout muffins from now on.

Please dont laugh at the funny looking muffins in my pics. I decided I wont take pics of those that look ok, but keep those that look bad as a reminder of this.

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 =)

ill never forget the eggs again

Vanilla cupcakes

This week I was going to be baking only on a weekday, so i thought I'd do something quick so as not to lose sleep especially since i gotta get up for wakeboarding the next day. I was kinda lost for inspiration at first, then suddenly remembered that I had always wanted to redo the vanilla cupcakes I tried and failed at several months ago. This time, I tried a new recipe, and even prepared a piping bag so as to give a nicer top of frosting. ( the first time i did this my frosting was just randomly smeared on =X)

Anyway, everything was going according to plan, I was quite proud of myself since I am now experienced enough to work almost without directions, just needing the proportions in the recipe, and I did everything as I should, creamed the butter and sugar sufficiently, sifted my flour, mixed my milk and vanilla, and took great care not to overbeat when combining everything together. However, just as I was spooning them in the muffin cups, I felt that something seemed weird, the colour and texture was off, and after a few moments thought, I came to the most shocking realisation ever, I HAD FORGOT TO ADD IN MY EGGS! Oh my god, I can remember myself just staring at my incomplete batter in total shock, and cursing myself for being too overconfident. Well, luckily, i managed to cheat and just beat them into the batter at the end and the cupcakes turned out edible. They were a little mushy and sweet, and far too milky for my preference ( I hate milk ), but it was still smooth and had a nice vanilla fragrance, and it was a huge improvement from my first time making this ( Maybe its the recipe).

To decorate, I went with a lemon buttercream frosting, but, my lemon was very very very sour, so my frosting tasted abit strange, with the sourness of the lemon conflicting with the icing sugar, but at least it looked nice, especially with the hundreds and thousands sprinkled on top. Ill probably try other frostings in future, less creamy ones since i prefer it sugary. I did something different with a few of the cupcakes, something I learnt in a blog somewhere ( Sorry to the owner, I cant remember what your blog is, but i remember the recipe), where I dip the tops of the cupcake in melted butter then roll it in cinnamon sugar giving it a cinnamon sugar coat, I might have did something wrong here, since I couldnt really taste the layer of sugar on top, or the cinnamon, maybe the flavour of my cupcakes was too strong, ( If anyone else tries this and it works, please let me know how you did it ).

Anyway, heres the recipe, its really quite simple, so anyone who wants to try should go ahead, Ill probably make this again, when I have more ideas for toppings, and maybe tweak the recipe around until I get the perfect vanilla cupcake recipe =X

Magnolia Vanilla Cupcakes

105g self raising flour

90g plain flour

115g butter (add 1/2 tsp of salt to the recipe if using unsalted butter)

180g caster sugar

2 eggs ( PLEASE DONT FORGET THEM LIKE ME)

1/2 cup milk (Try to be exact, I went slightly over half cup and it turned out abit too moist and milky)

1 tsp vanilla

1. Mix the milk and vanilla together, set aside.

2. Sift flours together, set aside.

3. Cream butter in an electric mixer, then add in the sugar and cream until white and fluffy ( 3-5 mins minimum)

4. ADD IN EGGS ONE AT A TIME, MIXING THROUGHLY AFTER EACH ADDITION

5. Add the dry and wet ingredients to the butter/sugar/egg mixture alternatingly in many parts, starting and ending with the dry ingredients ( flour, milk, flour, milk, flour). Mix just enough to combine after each addition ( DO NOT OVERBEAT)

6. Spoon into muffin tins and bake at 180 degrees for 25 mins, taking them out when a toothpick inserted into each cupcake turns out dry.

7. Allow to cool and top with whatever you like

Sorry, the lighting in my house is really bad at night. (WTB Photographer, and food decorating course )

Can the weather get any hotter? (Apple Crumble)

Omg, totally screw this weather, its just gettting hotter and hotter everyday, to the point even my baking is affected, I couldnt get a cab home when I went grocery shopping yesterday, so my sticks of butter had to brave the heat as I walked home from the mrt, thank goodness, while I was sweating enough to fill a bucket, my butter did not turn into a bag of liquid fat.

Well, that butter was for my most recent baking foray, an apple crumble, which is by far one of my favourite desserts, which I made for my mahjong khakis to munch on while i take their money off their hands, and of course, so I have an excuse to eat lots of it claiming its all a taste test.

To continue on this "perfect" weather we are having, apple crumble requires me to make a pastry by cutting in cold butter with flour, and my butter was melting alot faster than I could work, until I could not follow the recipe properly anymore, since my pastry was turning from nice crumbles to a big slop of dough. Bleah. I had to make 4 batches of it, and it was driving me nuts.

I also didnt forsee any problems in trying to cut the apples, which I thought would be quite fun, until I almost cut my fingers off, thrice, causing my Mum and my maid to chase me away from the chopping board and end up cutting the remainder of my apples forme, well, Im quite thankful of that for sure, since by the 3rd time the knife reached my fingers, I was beginning to get very very nervous.

Luckily, after all thr frustrations and dangers involved, the crumble turned out quite nice, I thought everything was just great, except the bottom layer of pastry ( My mum suggested a base for it, but I had no idea how to make one, so I just used packed up crumble pastry and it didnt really bake as well as the rest of the crumble) At least, most people liked it, my mahjing khaki almost finished all of it, so I assume it tastes fine, and even better with ice cream. I dont think I can be a good judge since I am totally biased towards almost any crumble being nice, so ill just make more in the future and let others findout for themselves. But of course, like everything I bake, I seem to have added a little too much sugar. =)

Sadly, crumbles dont seem to give nice pics thou, so heres the nicest I have, and if anyone wants to help me take pics, or teach me how, you are most welcome, coz I really dont know how to take nice pics =X.

And for those who watch Yakitate Japan, I would really want to see how anyone with Solar Hands try and bake in this weather.

brownies : simple.. yet delicious

I had these great plans to bake cupcakes for my family for mother's day.. but then. my 3 hour wait at ICA to collect my passport killed them off totally, so I had to go through the weekend without turning on my oven at all. Well, to make up for it, and just to pass time since i got home early today, I found a simple 1 bowl recipe for Double Chocolate Brownies in the new baking book i bought ( Baking - A commonsense guide by Murdoch Books), which btw, has a whole ton of recipes and tips and will prob be one of my bibles for a while.

Amazingly, this recipe was so simple and easy to prepare, and yet, the brownies turned out almost perfect, cept that i was playing my ds and took them out 3 minutes late, but aside from the edges of the pan, the rest of the brownie was nice and soft, not too sweet, and had an intense chocolate flavour, but just enough so it didnt get bitter. My only complaint was that the edges were a little dry, but at least the centre was fine. I bet anyone who hasnt baked before could probably create this with little difficulty even, really one of the simplest yet nicest recipes ive done, and to top it off, it requires very few bowls! So.. I wasnt spending another hour at the sink trying to wash everything up.

Well, at least getting this done right helped to cheer me up abit, my mood hasnt been at its best lately ( not emo thou), its amazing how much better I can feel after baking something that turned out right, of course, on the other hand, when things screw up, I feel completely disappointed with myself. But yea, thats where the fun is I guess, when I put something into the oven and wonder how its going to turn out.

Anyway, I was really tired, and had no ideas on how to make it look nice, so I just took a simple ( and ugly ) photo of my brownies, cut up into small chunks so I can share them round office tmr ( think the people at camp must think im crazy, who bakes stuff and brings it to an airbase ) . I was considering a vanilla cream to go with the brownies, but.. might be abit hard to store, so maybe Ill just whip one up when I get home tomorrow and finish up whats left of them. Hopefully I can use this recipe as a stepping stone to make more varieties of brownies ( peanut butter + oreo perhaps?) , so if any one of those people I see regularly read this post, give me ideas for what I can put into my brownies in future k =)

Ok, enough crap, heres the ugly photo. =P ( sorry for the bad background, but my Mum was making bread for my bfast tmr behind me, so I dun wanna disturb her ingredients. )

Chocolate Muffins

Bahhh.. was still feeling the after effects of having a bad week, so i decided to bake something just to try and start this week off well. Was surfing through recipes in office today, and suddenly chanced upon this recipe for chocolate muffins and thought Id try it. Can't really bake anythign complicated since its a weekday and I have to fight with everyone else for the kitchen. (my kitchen is way too small for 3 people at once, esp when there are dishes to wash after dinner )

Ok, before I start rambling, here are the pics of my muffins :

I think i screwed up all my proportions for this recipe alot.haha. Firstly cause it gave everything in cups, which I totally have no idea how to measure accurately, and also, I only wanted to use half the recipe, but I kept screwing up my calculations, esp with the chocolate, where I was supposed to half the amount again to melt, but forgot to do so. Also, I did not want to open a new stick of butter, so i ended up estimating with what I had left from last time. Well, in all, considering all this, it tastes pretty ok, quite chocolatey, but not sweet enough, since my Mum said my stuff always turns out too sweet, so I controlled my sugar alot this time as well, and I ended up adding too little =X. I think I might have overbaked them, or overbeat them, or added too little milk/butter or added too much cocoa, coz the muffins are soft and seem moist, but are quite drying when I tried one, not very sure about all the theory behind chocolate muffins, haha, but I swear in time I will finally bake something that is so perfect that I cant complain about it. Its kinda demoralising that I bake so much stuff and all of it seems to have shortfalls. I WANT TO MAKE DELICIOUS AND PERFECT FOOD!

Oh, something I learnt from this recipe is about buttermilk, apparently, to make that, I just need to add vinegar to fresh milk, which does not make any sense at all to me, buttermilk sounds like it would be a more buttery and rich milk, not anything to do with vinegar! But well, thats what all the baking sites say, so I just follow. I gotta go and research more to find out how it affects the stuff I bake, really have no idea about it, and http://www.joyofbaking.com/ does not have an entry to explain it, so I need to search further.

Aside from the amazing difficulty I had in getting the right amounts of each ingredient, this recipe was quite simple, I went to ask my maid to get ready the mixing machine for me, only to realise its not even needed at all, just melt the butter and chocolate, sift the dry stuff, mix the buttermilk, and combine it all together. I think I overbeat it, which of course, is another bad habit i need to fix. But, at least it was quite exciting to end up having to estimate every ingredient, and figure out how to compensate for having too much chocolate/too little butter/ extra egg and more. Tomorrow I start reading my book on baking science and theory, so hopefully once I am done with it, Ill be able to understand how everything works, instead of just following recipes blindly.

Alright, baking at night is quite tiring, so I am going to stop here, its like a mad rush, I have to squeeze around in the kitchen coz all the after dinner cleaning is going on, then I have to get all the cleaning done before my parents want to off the alarm and stuff or I might end up attracting all kinds of stuff into my kitchen, and I definitely do not want that.

Heres the recipe, courtesy of 'slowlikehoney' at http://slowlikehoney.net/2008/04/13/recharged/ , who for some reason, I imagine to be really nice and that I can relate to ( seriously,dont ask me why), haha. I melted down all my chocolate left, so I added hershey's semi-sweet chocolate chips to my muffins just for a stronger flavour =) ( I hope its ok to just paste someone else's recipe here as long as I put a link to them, not sure on the etiquette on all this )

Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins from Baking: from my home to yours
Ingredients:

3/4 of a stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

2 cups all-purpose flour2/3 cup sugar1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

1 large egg

2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Directions:Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan or fit the molds with paper muffin cups. Alternatively, use a silicone muffin pan, which needs neither greasing nor paper cups. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.Melt the butter and half the chopped chocolate together in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water; or do this in a microwave. Remove from the heat.In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg and vanilla extract together until well combined. Pour the liquid ingredients and the melted butter and chocolate over the dry ingredients and, with the whisk or a rubber spatula, gently but quickly stir to blend. Don’t worry about being thorough-a few lumps are better than overmixing the batter. Stir in the remaining chopped chocolate. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin molds.Bake for 20 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool 5 minutes before carefully removing each muffin from its mold.
Yields 12 regular sized muffins, 24 if you use mini muffin tins.

Coffee cake.. my first self-made recipe(sort of)

After baking a few cakes and reading so many recipes, I decided to try and bake a cake without following any recipe or directions, and coming up with the amounts on my own, based loosely on the proportions used in the various cake recipes ive done. So.. the end result was my coffee cake!

Heres the nicest shot of it I got all day, most of the others are boring ones where the cake is in the tin and stuff like that. Its just a basic coffee cake, with added Kahlua ( thanks to my bro for the idea of putting kahlua in, really makes the taste loads better), and its supposed to have a center layer of coffee frosting as well as all round the cake, but I only had enough for a thin layer in the centre and on top ( more on what happened later )

Anyway, I am not sure if I have an accurate taste test since I had to put it in the fridge before the frosting started to melt due to the extremely hot weather today, and so I ate the cake while it was just out of the fridge awhile later. Well, the cake is edible, has quite a nice coffee flavor, and the frosting has just the right sweetness. But, there isint enough frosting on it to be nice, and Im not sure if its coz of the fridge, or my baking, the cake isint soft enough and the texture is a little tough, compared to the soft and moist aim I had, I'll need to try it again tomorrow when it has time to settle to normal temperature just to know what it really tastes like

Well, what happened with my frosting was that I made a first batch that was quite good, but I unknowingly left it in the open and the cream started to curdle ( Sigh.. its been getting hotter and hotter each day) So.. I had a whole wasted batch of frosting, and I had to make a second one, but... I was almost out of icing sugar, so I just made as much as I could and tried my best to frost the cake ( unsuccessfully)

It was great fun making this cake anyway, especially since it was like working blind, I kept worrying that I did something wrong on every step and that the final result i put in will just be a lump of coal ( or something similar ) So Im quite pleased it actually turned out edible. I really dont know if what i ended up putting into the cake was what I had initially planned to when I worked out the recipe in my head, but here it is anyway. ( As much as I can remember or measured)

Coffee cake :
200g cake flour

2tsp baking powder

2 eggs

200g castor sugar

110g butter

1.5 tsp vanilla essence

100ml milk

Mixture of concentrated coffee ( dissolve in hot water and let cool) and Kahlua ( I really have no idea how much I put in, I mixed up until it didnt taste too bitter and I could taste the Kahlua and the Coffee together, then just keep adding it to the batter until it turned a light brown)

Frosting :

150g Icing Sugar

2-3 tbsp Cream

50g Butter

Coffee and Kahlua mixture

The steps are really easy, firstly, cream the butter with an electric mixer for about 1-2 minutes, then add the castor sugar and continue to cream until fluffy ( 3-5 more minutes) Next, add eggs 1 by 1, beating well after each addition, and then add the vanilla essence and the coffee and mix it all in ( add the coffee bit by bit, and stop when the batter turns a nice light brown)

Next, Sift the flour and baking powder together, then add the flour and milk to the batter in 5 seperate additions ( flour,milk,flour,milk,flour) For some reason, you have to start and end with flour, then mix gently after each addition,just enough to incorporate em together.

Pour it into a greased cake tin and put into the oven at 180 degrees for about 1 hour, until the sides start to pull back from the in and a wooden stick comes out clean when inserted into the centre.

For the frosting, what I did was simply mix all the ingredients together with an electric mixer, going slowly from low to high speed, and adding more coffee to taste, and more cream when I wanted it smoother. Have to improvise abit here, just keep tasting the frosting until you get the taste you want. ( Dont leave it out in our warm weather! or the cream will curdle)

At the end, all I did was cut the cake in half after it cooled, let it cool slightly longer, then add a layer of frosting in the middle and a layer on top. Ta-Da

Omg.. such a long post, and I doubt people will even care about my recipe, but, I kinda made it myself, so I feel a desire to post it online, hopefully more will come.

Ok, here are the random pics i have for the day

This is my workstation after I was half done with my cake.

And heres the cake after taking out of the pan and cutting it along the sides =)

Chocolate and butterscotch chip cookie pie!

Ok, after drooling at the recipe and pics for almost a week, i managed to get down to trying out the chocolate chip cookie pie i found on bakerella. ( credits for this recipe goes to http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2008/04/chocolate-chip-cookie-pie-oh-my.html). Sadly, what i got looks nothing at all like the pics i saw, go take a look, i swear anyone will drool straight away.

Here goes :

Yeps, so here are my first pics of my first attempt at baking since setting this blog up. I really need alot more camera skills, and I gotta learn how to present my food better. This was quite an easy recipe to make at least, but.. the recipe gave the amount of butter in cups! how does anyone measure a cup of butter?? so I tried and converted to grams myself based on some weird idea I had. and I ended up adding too much butter to the pie. It was really oily when i first took it out of the pan, but luckily most of that excess oil din stay on it when it was transferred to the plate. The recipe itself is quite foolproof though, just take everything, and mix them with a mixer in the right order. Almost impossible to screw up.

In the end, the taste was quite alright, I think i made it abit too sweet though, I have this tendency to always add slightly more sugar than called for, and I added Nestle Butterscotch Morsels as well, firstly since I poured all the choc chips I had in and it still was not enough ( I think) and also cause I just wanted an excuse to use those butterscotch chips ive been nibbling on each time I walk past the jar sitting on my dining table.

I considered making my own chocoloate syrup to top off the pie, and then eat it with ice cream, but on the first sampling, I realised, all that sugar will probably get someone killed if they so much took a slice of it, so Ill leave that till the next time i try this recipe again. And, Ill make sure I actually bother to make a pie crust ( when I learn how to ) to line the cookie.


Yeps,my first official baking post! Thanks to all who dared to try it and told me it tasted fine =)

P.S
HJ- If i ever do this again, Ill make sure ur the first person who gets to try it.

Omg.. i actually made it

Woot! I finally made this thing, Ive got so much to learn about this blog stuff anyway, never imagined in my life id even have a blog, but here i am.

Well, i hope everything turns out well enough, I always give up on things halfway, so hopefully ill be able to keep this going on as long as possible. And I have totally no camera skills, no decorative skills, and almost no baking talent either, so im quite worried that its just going to be boring. I can imagine like 20 posts about plain butter cakes. ggxx.

Ok, i should stop here, dun wanna spoil the place with non-baking related stuff, my first creation since setting this up is going to be posted soon! Once im done eating it that is. And most importantly, if I do end up with some skill at baking and manage to fill this site with pictures of mouth-watering cakes/cookies./muffins/etc etc etc. credit will go to Belicia. for linking me to www.tastespotting.com which inspired me to do this, my mum, for teaching me how to bake and paying for all my ingredients ( $9 for 200g of chocolate chips??? wth???), my maid, lita, for cleaning up the kitchen everytime i spill eggs/flour/sugar/butter, and to anyone else that ate my stuff and supported me =)