My+Little+Kettle

The Cake Pop!

2012-01-07T01:30:00.003+02:00

This is the best picture that I can get out of the cake pops that I made. I made milk and white chocolates and colored the white chocolate with pink and blue. They turned out to be really cute!

Adam's Birthday Cake

2011-12-18T01:21:00.003+02:00

It's Adam's birthday today and although he never asked me to bake him a birthday cake, I know it will make him really happy if I made one. I had been a real lazy baker all year, and most of the time, I would bake and would not be able to take a picture.

So today I made a Chocolate Cake from my dear Sarah Phillips, and with Chocolate Ganache. Adam's family is coming over today for his birthday so I had to make sure I have dessert. I also made a Raspberry Cream Cheese Pound Cake filled and topped with Raspberry Jam. It's a good way to eat cake right? Chocolate and Raspberry. It was yummy!

The Raspberry Macarons

2011-02-07T20:49:00.004+02:00

Happy new year everyone! The year so far had been really hectic with work that even if I wanted to keep my oven burning, I just did not have the time and the energy. I made some Macarons yesterday, Adam asked if "we" could bake some macarons because his sister loves them and it's her birthday. So "we" ( ~meaning me and my lonesome self) baked the macarons as a birthday present. I did the baking, and he did the tasting. :) It's pretty convenient knowing how to bake, worst case scenario is always having to give baked goods as presents - which is a very good gift actually. I would love to receive some homemade baked goodies myself, but I never get any.

My macaron recipe is of course from my dear Sarah Phillips of Baking911. Her recipe is very easy to follow, plus it does not require aging of eggs which I see in other macaron recipes. Making macarons is often time intimidating, and even if I made it several times already, I'm still crossing my fingers every time I put a batch in the oven. And look at how the macarons came out! They are so pretty. Macarons is love!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-30T08:33:00.004+02:00

Merry Christmas everyone!

This is my Christmas goody for everyone here in town. Some chewy chocolate chip cookies, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate revel bars and white chocolate chip brownies. All goodness in one can! Hope you had happy holidays everyone!

Cheers!

-odette

The Jungle Birthday Cake

2010-12-21T08:33:00.001+02:00

This was supposed to be Adam's cake, it was his birthday last Saturday, but this one ended up as a kiddie cake for Abelito's birthday. Abelito is Adam's youngest nephew and he is turning 4 today. This cake is a 3-layer cake of chocolate and orange butter, filled with orange buttercream.

Not my usual toned down simple cake, but the kiddo loved it!

Vanilla Vanilla!

2010-12-01T09:29:00.002+02:00

Yes this is all Vanilla - Macarons and Frosting. It's been a few months ago since I attempted making Macarons, with one batch out of 3 turning out successful. I had been planning on baking Macarons since, but these needs extra time and attention that is why I never attempted baking it. I felt that I needed a whole free day to be able to bake these.

So I finally made these again, and to my delight - everything came out perfectly (or at least for me, they're perfect). Maybe I could use some more feet, but I don't really know what a perfect feet would be. My first introduction to Macaron when I was in Europe, I was not baking yet so I did not look on the details of that little Macaron. My main goal that time was just to devour on that expensive diva!

I finally bought some new Silpats too! They are expensive at 20$ each, but it's so worth it. Seeing my Macarons look like these right out of the oven makes the Silpats some really good baking investment. Perfect shells, little feet - how lovely!

And they're not just pretty to look at, they taste so good! I very rarely eat a lot of what I bake, but I ate a lot of these Macarons! Even Adam's niece and nephews who are picky eaters loved this, and my favorite little girl Maia loved it! Can't wait to bake more! :)

The Thanksgiving Carrot Cake

2010-11-29T09:44:00.004+02:00

Adam and I were going to a friend's place for Thanksgiving dinner. With both of us not growing up here, Thanksgiving is not part of our culture. He's been here longer though, so he's gotten the feel of it, and they've had several Thanksgiving dinners and all with his family. As for myself, it is only my second Thanksgiving, having spent the first one is Houston with the Mantarings.

We were going to Fort Bragg for Thanskgiving and Adam's friend John knows that I bake and he asked if I could bake a Carrot Cake. "Well, definitely", I said. I know of a killer recipe from Sarah, I made it once and it was just heavenly. Sarah's Carrot cake recipe is so moist and just delicious!

I made the whole Carrot cake, and frosted it with Sarah's matching Cream Cheese frosting. I love Cream Cheese frosting. They're tangy, not so sweet, a little sour and there's a bite to it. Sarah's recipe calls for two 9x2-in pan, and I made mine on two 8x2-in ones so I had some leftover batter which I made into mini cupcakes. I started baking pretty late Wednesday already so after I finished, it was already starting to get dark and we had to go to Adam's house first for an early Thanksgiving dinner since we were leaving the next day. I brought the mini cupcakes to Adam's house and I am surprised that even the kids loved it! I thought they'd never eat anything with carrots, especially for a cake, but they muched on it like they're eating chocolates.

So with all the running and buzzing that I did before our Fort Bragg trip, I was not able to take a picture of my Carrot Cake. I knew I would not be able to, so I purposely left three mini cupcakes for a picture when I come back. And the mini cupcakes were even better after being left in the fridge for three days. Haha.

The Fancy Cake Balls

2010-11-15T09:11:00.005+02:00

I do think that photography and baking go hand in hand. It's a different genre but they do compliment each other. And I'm in love with both. I love taking nice photos of my baking. I think photography makes me creative, it makes me think of wonderful baking ideas that could turn into nice photos.

I had been thinking about making cake balls for sometime already, and I decided to make these last night. They are pretty easy to make, but glazing the balls is tricky. If you look at my photos of the cake balls, they're not perfectly round and smooth. But I'm fine with it. They're still pretty. The chocolate recipe is from my baking mommy Sarah, and it's the best chocolate cake recipe. I have tried other chocolate cake recipes but I always go back to her Ultimate Chocolate Butter Cake recipe. So after crumbling the cake, I just added a little chocolate frosting to make the balls.

Now the fun part, I melted some of the Ghirardelli bars that I got from Jojo as birthday present (it was from May!). I still have a lot of unused chocolates because I stopped baking for a few months. I enrobed the balls with those yummy melted chocolate. I can't stop licking the melted chocolates too! Once the chocolate coating settled on the balls, I melted some white chocolates, colored with pink coloring, and then piped it on top of the balls, then I just decorated it with some sugar flowers. I'm so thrilled with how it turned out!

It does look pretty, but it was also so tasty! Adam was just so thrilled with all the chocolate overload. Can't wait to make more with different designs!

The Gourmet Cake

2010-11-12T20:57:00.006+02:00

I had been thinking about making a layered sheet cake for some time, and I finally bought a new 13x9-inch pan to do the layers. With all the moving that I did the past 2 years, I have lost some of my stuff and I don't know where my 13x9-inch pan went (among other stuff).

I needed a sturdy base for the cake, so I made Sarah's Cream Cheese Pound cake. It holds, yet it is soft and moist. I first baked that on the sheet pan, and after about 20mins, I have my first layer. Then I made the Chocolate Cake. While I was baking, I made the Swiss Buttercream, halved it and flavored each half with Raspberry and Vanilla. I also made the Dark Chocolate Ganache.

Assembling the cake was so much fun, with all the variety and the colors! I cut the cakes lengthwise in half and I used the first half of the pound cake as the bottom layer. I still have some homemade raspberry jam, and I frosted the bottom layer with it. Then the next layer was the Vanilla Buttercream, and then the Chocolate cake layer. After the chocolate cake layer was the Raspberry Buttercream, and then the other half of the pound cake. It was tall enough without using the the 2nd half of the chocolate cake. I glazed the top with the chocolate ganache (which by itself is to die for!).

After putting everything together, I was thinking of what to put on top of the cake. I had always wanted to do sugar candies, spun sugar, or something like that. I think it makes desserts look fancy. I just never tried making it because it is messy! I made a simple sugar syrup for the sugar decoration. While I was boiling my syrup, my fire alarm came off! I was so scared that it went off since it was already in the middle of the night! It scared the wits out of me! After figuring out how to turn off the alarm (think Phoebe in Friends, lol), I continued with the sugar syrup. After much ado, I had my very first pretty sugar candies with only two burnt fingers to boot. Haha.

Banana Coffee Pie

2010-11-11T10:00:00.009+02:00

I am not a pie person, let alone whipped cream and pie together - not my palette. However, Adam one day wanted something with banana and chocolate and I thought of the Banana Coffee Pie, or the Banoffee. I remember this dessert being really popular back home in the Philippines, it being almost always on the menus of restaurants and coffee shops. Even Starbucks had it on their limited pastry choices.

As always whenever I need a recipe, I go to Baking911. I remember Sarah has a recipe there of the pie and I decided to make it for Adam. It has a wonderful pie crust made of grahams, a layer of chocolate, bananas and espresso whipped cream. I don't like whipped creams, but this one is to die for. It's so light, and tasty. This recipe is also very easy to make, and is ready to serve in no time.

The pie was an awesome dessert to our wonderful steak and potatoes dinner.

The Ultimate Chocolate

2010-07-24T21:52:00.004+03:00

If you've been following my blog, you'd know that I am not really a chocolate person. I would sometimes crave for some chocolate cupcakes and some dark chocolate ganache, but after eating half a cupcake, I would be all ok already. I made some chocolate cupcakes the other day though, because I was trying out this technique of making a ganache with the food processor. I basically just processed some chocolates in the food processor, heated the same amount of heavy cream, and combined them in the processor afterwards. And voila! I have a shiny chocolate ganache. So what to do with the ganache? Make cupcakes! So I also made Sarah's Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake which is my favorite, because it's soft, fluffy and moist - qualities not very easy to get from other recipes. I just made 12 cupcakes, ate that piece after taking a picture, and gave out the rest to Thet and to Adam's niece and nephews.

The ganache was awesome. I would be making more ganache from now on, since it's way easier to make with the food processor. :)

Maddie's Birthday Cupcakes

2010-07-20T09:33:00.005+03:00

As much as I'd love to bake, I really don't have much time lately to do so. I always have a lot of baking ideas and decorations in mind, but I very rarely get to execute them, or if I get to, I am already cramming. Much like the cake and cupcakes that I'm supposed to make for Maddie - Adam's niece. It was 3 weeks ago since I learned that I'd be baking for her birthday and all the while, I had so much ideas on how to do it. It's a pool party, so I was imagining beach, shells - and most of all - umbrellas! Her party was yesterday and I thought since it's a Sunday, I will have plenty of time over the weekend. I have all Saturday to do everything. Wrong.

So I woke up Saturday at 12nn! I overslept and Adam was calling me at around lunch time, and he was even apologetic for having woken me up. Haha, I needed to wake up already! And then I had a mail that I had to pick up and the post office closes at 3 on Saturdays. So after a shower and a sandwich, I was headed to El Dorado Hills Post Office, only to find out that they made a mistake and my mail is actually in Folsom. So I drove back to Folsom, barely made it, got my mail and brought some stamps. It was already almost 4, and I went to Michael's to buy matching blue and pink ribbons, some glue, and some tissue to cover the cupcake tower. It was already 6 by the time I got home. And then I got on the phone, with my mom and with Adam. By the time I started mixing batter, it was already 8. Huge headache + oversleeping = yet another sleepy head. LOL.

To cut a long story short, I already have 34 chocolate chip cupcakes, 20 vanilla cupcakes, and a 6in cream cheese pound cake at 4am, fully decorated and ready to go. Talk about Iron Chef baking. I'm so sleepy. These was one of those days though that I got close to what I had in mind. Close but not quite. For one - those darn wilton paper cups are so nasty. I will never use those again to bake! I'm happy that I was able to incorporate the umbrellas in the design. The kids loved it.

Here's while I was setting up the cupcakes.

Sarah's Glazed Lemon Cake

2010-06-20T00:31:00.003+03:00

After all the business trips, the travelling and the long hours at work, I am just happy to get a few hours of total freedom. I very rarely get days's off - a really free day, with nothing to do and no plans. I just planned on sleeping in today until around lunch time, but my stomach was already grumbling at around 930am. I was planning on going out of the house today, stop by the nearest Starbucks at Broadstone and get a coffee and a slice of their lemon cake. Their lemon cake is actually decent and I normally have it together with my morning coffee if I get the time before work. I was too lazy today though to get dressed and go out of the house, but the craving for the tangy lemon taste lingered. I decided to make my own cake with my own coffee. I still have a lot of Jamaican Ground Roast at home, and I love it. I just don't always have the time to make coffee at home.

I have Sarah's Glazed Lemon Cake on had, I've had it for so long and I had always wanted to try it since I love Lemon Cakes. So I decided to bake and while at it, I have started tinkering my new D40 and the new 17-55 lens. The lens doesn't fly with my apartment's low light and my kitchen, so I switched the lens with my trustee 50mm. Worked as always.

After about 45 minutes, I have that smell of freshly baked cake filling my kitchen. It smelled like lemons! I am hungry, and excited. I glazed the cake, cut it into 9 pieces since it's an 8x8 square cake, made my coffee, sat in a chair and started eating my breakfast. What a wonderful morning.

Birthday Cupcakes

2010-05-11T21:05:00.006+03:00

I went to Austin for my birthday and I made some cupcakes. Annie is throwing a housewarming party at the same time. :) It was fun making the cupcakes, at another house's oven and kitchen. It's a challenge to find stuff and to actually make the cupcakes rise since I'm not used to using her oven. It worked really well. I love Sarah's recipes, you can bake it anytime, anywhere. Just use the recipe to the T and everything will work.

We only had sprinkles to decorate the cupcakes. But it was still pretty cute. And the cupcakes were so yummy! These are the Ultimate Butter Cake filled with Strawberry Jam and the Ultimate Chocolate Butter Cake with Chocolate Chips, topped with Vanilla Buttercream.

My First Mini Cupcakes

2010-04-27T23:29:00.002+03:00

These are my first mini cupcakes. Yup that's right. I have never made minis before because I don't have any mini cupcake pan. When I started to bake again a couple of weeks ago, I bought some new stuff, one of which is a mini cupcake pan. I love the sizes, they're just about the right bite sizes.

Here I made the UCBC recipe by Sarah Phillips. This is my staple chocolate cake recipe, loaded with chocolate because of the powder and the melted chocolate combination. Whenever I crave for some chocolate cake, I whip this up.

I made these for Jojo's Despedida Party.

Cheesecake and White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse

2010-04-20T20:48:00.004+03:00

Ever since I started thinking of baking again, I had always wanted to make a mousse. I have never made a mousse before because in Israel, all the available cakes for sale were mostly mousse. I started to learn how to bake because I missed the bready, buttercreamy cakes. I also like my cheesecakes denser, and they're so fluffy in Israel.

Hence, necessity is the mother of invention.

Now that I'm away from Israel for so long (excluding that one excursion last March for a 2-week business trip), I long for some mousse once in a while. I had been thinking of what to do together with a mousse. I can't eat a mousse just by itself, I want something else with it. I was thinking of whether to do it with a sponge cake at the bottom, or some cheesecake. I opted with the later.

So here's my Cheesecake and Strawberry Mousse. It has some Graham Crust, Sarah's Luscious and Creamy No-Crack Cheesecake on the middle layer, then a variety of Sarah's White Chocolate Strawberry Mousse on the next layer, then some home made strawberry glaze on top, with some Italian Buttercream on the side. Sounds like a lot!

For the mousse, instead of using Raspberry, I used fresh strawberries, pureed it in the food processor for about 30 secs. And then I added an extra envelop of gelatin to make it hold as a layer when chilled in the fridge. I baked the cheesecake first, then chilled it, before adding the mousse layer on top.

The recipe takes a lot of time to make, but it's not really hard to do. All the wait was so worth it, everything was so good and the flavors just blended together! There's just everything to love about the recipe!

I was planning on taking a nice picture of a slice of it with some fancy garnish, but I ended up just taking a quick photo because I had to bring the cake somewhere else. Oh well, I can take a picture of a slice next time.

Chocolate Brownies

2010-04-18T20:35:00.004+03:00

You may have noticed that I very rarely make brownies. For all my baking life, I have baked brownies only once before - twice, if you would count my Chocolate Revel Bars. Adam said he loves brownies so I promised him I will make him one of these days. As usual, for all my baking recipe needs, I always run to Baking911 for a reliable recipe. These are Sarah's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Recipe.

I don't even remember anything while I was baking it. I was like on auto-pilot while doing it. All I recall is smelling that heavenly baking smell just when the brownies were almost done in the oven.

I am really not a chocolate person, and I would prefer my cheesecakes and butter/pound cakes over my chocolate cakes anytime, but I do make good of chocolates in the kitchen. These chocolate brownies are so good, I might be baking these again soon for other friends. :)

Some More Macarons

2010-04-07T09:39:00.004+03:00

These innocent looking pastries seem easy to make. Well they are, after a lot of practice and tons of almonds. After making my first macarons, and failing, I'd been itching on baking the perfect macarons. I got it perfectly after my 3rd attempt, although my choice of colors seem to have dulled. LOL. I will make brighter ones next time.

I used Sarah Philips' French Macaron recipe, filled it with French Neoclassic Buttercream. What's a baker got to do with all the left over egg yolks? Make a French Buttercream!

Shiny top, check. Nice little feet, check. Heavenly taste, super check. :)

My First Macarons

2010-03-30T10:28:00.004+03:00

I'm officially baking again and to start off my baking spree, I am making some Macarons for the first time. Macarons are the new Cupcakes now. Shops selling these had been popping all over and they sell it at an exorbitant 1.95$ per piece!

These are my first ever Macarons. I used some Almond flour that I made out of whole Almonds that I bought. I ground the almonds in the food processor and got some really nice flour.

I think I did well for the first time, but I'm not happy with it. Perfection. Perfection. Some of the Macarons had cracks on the surface, and these are supposed to be really smooth, delicate little pastries. As I got them out of the oven, I was disappointed that I had cracks. So what I did was to make what I do perfectly - Buttercream. I just filled the Macarons with Swiss Buttercream. They tasted heavenly!

I want to bake more Macarons. I want perfection.

The Day I Met Sarah

2010-01-13T10:24:00.004+02:00

It's snowing in New York! I woke up feeling groggy today because I have only slept for like 3 hours. It was a long night but I think I have enough rest for now. I'm pretty syched, I'm meeting my baking mentor, Sarah Phillips. I'm supposed to meet her at Les Halles at 9:30am and I started preparing really early (like 3 hours ahead of time). I don't want to be late, and I still have to study how to get there. After getting dressed, I'm off to the subways. After getting a feel of how it was riding the subway, it was fairly easily, and convenient. Plus very cheap!

After getting off the sub, I walked (giddily I must say!) towards the restaurant and it was snowing. I loved it. It wasn't that bad really. I got ahead of myself into fearing the cold and the snow in New York. I got at Les Halles at around 9:20am, and Sarah was already there. I can see her from the street. And when I got inside, I got a huge mommy hug from her. She was so warm and accomodating. And she looked prettier and younger in person than in the photos! I'm already in love with her. We talked about almost everything, like I've known her forever. Like a kid talking to her mom about her series of misadventures and bad lucks. :) We talked for hours in the restaurant while I'm having coffee and crepes (which by the way are sooo good!) until we had to go. Her daughter Liz had a doctor's appointment and she had to come with her. So we said our goodbyes and I headed towards the Grand Central. When I got there, I planned on going to Macy's or Bloomingdales for some window shopping. I got sidetracked a bit because I took photos in the station. While I was taking pictures, Sarah texted me saying that they did not have to go to the doctor anymore because the doctor's just gonna call them with the results. She's inviting me back to her house to bake some cakes! Omg! I was so ecstatic! While I was texting her back, she was calling me already. And so I walked back to her apartment.

When I got there, she asked me what do I want to bake, and I wanted a Genoise because that I feel is my worst cake. :) So on we baked with me wearing a cute apron and Sarah wearing her baking clothes. And off to work we went. I finally figured out where my Genoise went wrong, and it's in the folding. I was stirring instead of folding. While baking, I had a wonderful time talking to my "Jewish Mom". Sarah is really a wonderful soul. Very kind and very warm. And I also met Liz her daughter, who looks really beautiful. The smell of the Genoise in the oven filled her aparment and I was so excited to try it out. The Genoise rose really nicely, and the texture was very light. And the taste was so delicious. She made me a tall glass of coffee with the Genoise. Wonderful right? I was in baking heaven. I can't even take good photos because I was so distracted!

It was late in the afternoon already when I left her apartment, and I took half of the Genoise that we made. I walked aimlessly around for about an hour, getting a feel of New York living and then it started snowing again. I went to the nearest subway station and went back to the hotel. I took a nap for a bit, then had a wonderful dinner. Come to think of it, anything with an ice cold coke is wonderful. I bet I won't be sleeping again tonight with 2 cups of coffee and a can of soda.

Maia's First Birthday

2009-11-09T18:03:00.005+02:00

These are Maia's first birthday cake and cupcakes. The cake is a 6-inch Ultimate Butter Cake and the cupcakes were also the Ultimate Butter Cake, and the the Ultimate Chocolate Butter Cake recipe, all from Sarah Philips.

I'm really not very good at fondants but I think I did a decent job in the cake. The cake and cupcakes turned out really good! The kids in the party loved it, especially the icing. :)

Happy birthday again my favorite little girly Maia! May you grow up still smiling sweetly like you do now. :)

Thet's Surprise Butter Cake

2009-10-12T02:17:00.005+02:00

I made the Ultimate Butter Cake by Sarah Philips as a birthday present for my very pregnant friend Thet who celebrated her birthday last Thursday. She loves butter cakes and I made it just the way (I think) she likes it, butter cake and butter cream.

This butter cake is the first cake that I ever learned how to make and incidentally, I made it also for her birthday two years ago in Israel. And it gets better every time I make it! I took home a slice of it as dessert the next day.

Happy birthday again Thet!

Orange You Glad

2009-09-05T22:25:00.005+03:00

I made some Orange Butter Cupcakes last night as gift for Thet who is expecting her third baby. It was actually for her birthday two years ago that I made my first butter cake, when I was just starting to learn how to bake and since then, that butter cake recipe has been a staple for me. Sarah Philip's Ultimate Butter Cake recipe is the best butter cake recipe there is, because it bakes really flat, really moist and so delicious. And I get to make a lot of variations out of it, the most uncommon of which is probably the parmesan cheese variation that I made back home. I made some with mango too, but I guess it isn't uncommon.

I chose to make Orange this time because I have some Grand Marnier that I could use for the buttercream. And I wanted a neutral color for Thet, so I chose a color that is not specific for a girl or a boy (or come to think of it, orange is more of a girly color too!).

I wanted to make a cupcake with only one color, decorations included. I made some orange flowers to go with the cupcakes. Only when I was already making my gumpaste flowers did I realize that I left a bunch of my cutters and tools back home. I left my mini rolling pin, my 5 petal cutter, my daisy cutter and a few more small flower cutters back home! I remembered that I put it aside altogether after using it for Carlo's wedding. (And I also left a bunch of other non-baking stuff, including a few sheets that I love, favorite clothes, etc.). Anyway, here's how the cupcakes looked like. I gave all of it to Thet without having tasted the final cupcake. I just had the crumbs and a little of the buttercream separately. I do bet my life on it though that it is very good - with a perfect recipe and pretty baker, what could go wrong? LOL! Hehe kidding. :)

Best wishes to Mike and Thet! Hope you guys have a safe pregnancy!

Sort Of

2009-08-24T08:55:00.002+03:00

I'm back, sort of. I had friends, who I haven't seen in ages, coming over the weekend at my new home. I had not psyched myself that I'd already be baking so I was sort of forced to make a cheesecake. I requested them to bring me some local dishes (laing and sinanglay), and in return Pinchette requested for a cheesecake. I made Sarah's Luscious and No Crack Cheesecake recipe, which is my absolute favorite cheesecake to make and eat! I don't eat cheesecake in restaurants anymore after I had learned how to make this recipe. The topping is strawberry jam and the frosting is a Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

The photo above is the best that I could take with bad lighting (which I think looks decent enough).

Here's us over at coffee and cheesecake. Louie is my highschool bestfriend, and Pinchette is his wife (also our highschool batchmate). Pinchette and Fr Rodel were classmates.

L-R: Fr Rodel, Louie, Pinchette and me

The Cupcake Disaster

2009-03-30T06:02:00.002+03:00

These are the only photos that I managed to take out of the 120 cupcakes that I made for a wedding yesterday. It was a golden wedding anniversary and I decided to make a cupcake tower and a few souvenirs.

The cupcake flavors were Strawberry-filled Vanilla Cupcake with Raspberry Buttercream, Orange Cupcake with Orange Buttercream, Mango Cupcake with Mango Buttercream, Chocolate with Chocolate Ganache, Chocolate with Coffee Buttercream and Chocolate with Orange Buttercream. I know it's a lot of flavors, but it was more fun to make than building a tiered cake!

Ysabelle (my niece, who was better than Uncle Obet at building the boxes) helped me build individual souvenir boxes to be given at some guests in the wedding. We were able to make 10 pieces of the souvenirs. However, the boxes met an accident when a clumsy friend (haha!) tilted the box containing the souvenirs! The cupcakes inside the souvenir box ended up as snacks in the car.

The wedding is in Pampanga which is about 1.5-2hours drive from Manila, and as usual, I again had a major dilemma on how to transport the cupcakes. I placed the cupcakes in boxes of 12s and drove it to Pampanga. Transporting the cupcakes was fairly easy, except for a few minor scare of the cupcakes jumping out of the hole due to humps.

The wedding was at around 3pm, and we were there at 2pm. It was sooo hot in Pampanga! I think it was around 40C (no kidding!). Not having eaten anything for the whole day, we were treated to a wonderful feast and we were so full! We ate up even if it was too hot. A few minutes before 3pm, people in the house all went to the church for the ceremony, and we were left to setup the cupcakes. I setup the cupcakes, then left it to go to the church (or better yet, to eat halo halo beside the church. Haha). My brother took my camera to the church so I was not able to take a picture of the cupcakes immediately after setting it up. We left the cupcakes in the middle of the reception area (mind you the reception area was open with no airconditioning), and when I went back, the Mousseline frosting melted in the scorching heat. Here's how the tower looked like after an hour in the heat. Sobrang dugyot! I was so disappointed that I was not able to take a good photo of the tower before the disaster.

So here's how the wilted cupcakes looked like. I hope Allan and Beann gets a reception hall with full airconditioning! Even if the icing melted, the fact remains that the cupcakes were yummy and it got finished. :)

The Wedding Cake

2009-03-19T03:32:00.012+02:00

After much ado, I finally delivered my first wedding cake today - for Dodie and Weng's wedding. About a month ago when Dodie asked me to make their wedding cake, I was very excited because somebody finally trusted me to make a cake for their most special day. However, as the day grew nearer, I started panicking. First of all, I had only stacked 2 tiers of cake before, so making it 3 was quite a challenge. The flavors were easy though, they wanted Chocolate for the top and bottom tiers, and Vanilla in the middle. I made Sarah Phillip's Ultimate Chocolate and Vanilla Butter Cakes.

The cake tiers were 6, 8 and 10 inches. I originally planned on baking 2 layers for each tier, but it was not tall enough so I baked a third layer for each tier. Baking the layers were a breeze, this is my favorite part. Making the Vanilla Mousseline icing was a little easy this time. I made the icing in batches when I'm about the frost the layers so that I don't have to freeze or store the icing. All the 3 tiers were frosted with the Vanilla Mousseline Buttercream. After I had all tiers frosted, my biggest dilemma was how to stack the cake. I have never stacked and doweled something as big as this so I was scared to ruin the cakes. Plus I don't have spare cakes so there is no room for mistake.

While thinking about how to stack and dowel, I made the cake board by covering it with a lilac organza and yellow ribbon on the side. Then I started by securing the bottom tier onto the cake board. After an hour of just looking at the bottom layer and mustering enough courage to stack the cake, I placed the 2nd tier on the bottom tier. I doweled the 2 bottom tiers with a stick that I was lucky enough to buy in the supermarket. Lastly, I stacked the top tier. Voila, I now have a 3-tier wedding cake! The tiers looked really stable and it looked aligned and straight enough. Hehe. I was relieved! Then came the best part, decorating the cake. I had already made gumpaste flowers in advance according to the wedding's color motiff - Yellow and Lilac. I just covered the cake with lots of flowers and some butterflies. I also placed ribbons on the borders of the cake. I was done, I can finally sleep!

The biggest challenge was the long drive from my place to the reception. The first hurdle was bringing the cake from the 7th floor to the car. After a lot of fuss, the cake was finally in the front seat of the car because the box won't fit in the backseat or in the trunk.

On a normal day to work (which is near the reception), my travel time varies from 45 minutes to an hour and 15 minutes depending on the traffic. Today, however, it took me 2 hours to get there! I was driving with one hand, and holding the box with the other hand. Even if the cake was stable, it still took a beating out of the bumpy roads, the top and middle tiers slid back and tilted. The bottom tier also cracked a bit, good thing it was at the back part. Upon arriving at the reception, I setup the cake, smoothened the parts that slid and covered the crack with more flowers.

I was so concerned that because of the beating that the cake took, it would collapse on the cake cutting. Good thing it did not! The couple was able to cut the cake without any incident. :) After the ceremonies, most of the people waited for the cake to be served. They loved the cake and helped themselves with second servings! And that was the best compliment a baker could get, the second servings!

Now on to my second wedding cake on the 31st. :)

(Photos were taken the night before the reception, hence the bad light. More photos from the reception to come.)

The Sinful Cheesecake

2009-03-09T04:06:00.010+02:00

According to Donald, Ice and Bry, this is the sinful cheesecake. They said that eating it was like committing a sin.

I planned on making lunch for them (plus Ly and Manuel) last Saturday before going to MOA for the Eheads concert. However, I only managed to make the dessert, and my mama and the help prepared the food for lunch. It was all well though, the food they served was very good and I still managed to hit the gym.

I made the cheesecake at around 1AM already because I was out the night before for a despedida/farewell party. And I'm supposed to serve it for lunch, so how's that? I think I made the cheesecake half-asleep, and half-intoxicated. LOL. As a result, the swirls were not pretty at all! I just used a regular strawberry spread for the swirls, I think I need to find a better jam for the swirls because it did not spread well. It still looked good though after baking. The cheesecake is Sarah Phillip's Luscious and No-Crack Cheesecake Recipe, which is the best cheesecake recipe in the whole world. It's so delicious, and heavenly! My guests helped themselves with second servings of the cheesecake. ;)

After lunch, we went to MOA for the Eheads concert which I had been looking forward to in months. And it did not disappoint! It was sooo fun! Here's Ly's blog about it. It was so sulit! They sang my favorite song and I almost wanted to cry! LOL!

The Garage Sale

2009-03-02T04:50:00.002+02:00

I went to a Garage Sale yesterday with Lyra at the QC Circle Mabini Hall. The stuff being sold there were mostly clothes and baby stuff. She invited me to bring over some cupcakes, and give out fliers to people. I decided to decorate a few pieces and put in individual boxes as samples for weddings and occassions.

I made 2 flavors of cupcakes, the Chocolate and the Vanilla to sell and as samples, both recipes by Sarah Phillips. The sample of the boxed cupcake below got sold to a couple who is planning their wedding. She said that it's their color. This is a Chocolate Cupcake with Mousselline Vanilla Buttercream.

This boxed sample is a Vanilla cupcake also frosted with Vanilla Buttercream. This has got to be my favorite flavor of cupcake. Too bad I can't make the White Chocolate Ganache with it because it will be too expensive to sell!

This last sample is a classic black and white on gold box. I need to get better at this photo thingy. :) And only after taking all the pictures and keeping the camera did I realize that the ribbons are not yet tied on the boxes! The final products had ribbons tied to the boxes.

The Garage Sale was a wonderful experience. It was fun talking with people and introducing the products. Plus I had fun selling Lyra and Mia's stuff! I wonder how much they've earned? LOL! It was also always fun to see Baby Sam because it is very easy to make him smile and laugh! :)

Here's the flier that I gave out yesterday. Nothing fancy since I just had to print it out in the morning of the sale. I should be working on fancier flier. :) It will be coming out soon!

The Quest for the Perfect Swirl

2009-02-27T07:41:00.003+02:00

I'm sleepy. I was on a baking spree last night and I made some Mocha and Chocolate Cupcakes. Van and Ate Mayz ordered a bunch of those cupcakes. I started baking at around 8PM, and finished at past 3AM with a lot of welcome interruptions in between. I made 75 cupcakes, half of which frosted with Mousseline Vanilla Buttercream, and half frosted with Neoclassic French Buttercream.

The Mocha was a variation of Sarah Phillips' Orange Sponge Cake, and substituted the orange flavor with mocha and espresso. The cupcakes did not dome because the recipe is for a cake, and when baking a cake, it bakes nicely flat and very easy to frost. The cupcakes were still very cute though (although Van said, it's just a couple of bites to finish!). I frosted the Mocha cupcakes with the Neoclassic French Buttercream.

The chocolate cupcakes, which is my best seller, is of course Sarah's Ultimate Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Chips inside. The cupcakes domed nicely, and were very moist. I frosted it with Vanilla Mousseline Buttercream.

After baking all the cupcakes and before making the frostings, I ran out of sugar and it was already 1AM! I wondered where at this time could I buy some sugar. So I went out of the house and drove to 7-11 hoping that they were selling sugar. And they were selling sugar! I never thought I'd be buying sugar from 7-11, and then finding some in it.

I garnished the frosted cupcakes with a small piece of flower. I could only manage a single color at the ungodly hour. I was too sleepy to make it fancier. I also noticed that all of my frostings are just variations of white - from off-white, to beige, to slightly yellowish. For some reason, I always make the frostings when it is too late, so I never get to color it! Well I should next time, and if you request for it, I will color it to your liking. Price for the Mocha cupcakes is 460php for a box of 12 which is the minimum order.

And as for the quest for the perfect swirl? Well, the quest is still on. After 75 cupcakes last night, I still am nowhere close. I hope they loved the cupcakes though.

Red Velvet, Vanilla-Lemon and Carrot Cupcakes

2009-02-23T04:30:00.005+02:00

These are some of the cupcakes that I made last week because I had orders of the Red Velvet Cupcakes and the Vanilla-Lemon Cupcakes. While at it, I made some Carrot Cupcakes to give as samples. All recipes are of course from baking911.

The Red Velvet cupcakes were frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting. I love Cream Cheese Frosting on anything, and with Red Velvet cupcakes, it's just perfect. I still can't get enough of the red coloring, it's just lovely.

These are some of the Carrot cupcakes that I made, also frosted with Cream Cheese Frosting. Cream Cheese is expensive here in the Philippines!

And lastly, these are the Vanilla-Lemon cupcakes that I made, frosted with Italian Buttercream in Vanilla.

I gave this sample box to Ice and Ly, and they loved it. Even Bry who does not eat carrots tried the Carrot cupcakes. The cupcakes were decorated with sugar gumpaste and dragees.

Current prices are 520php (box of 12) for Carrot, Red Velvet. 460 (box of 12) for Vanilla-Lemon, Chocolate. Minimum order is box of 12 per flavor.

Chunky Cookies

2009-02-21T04:13:00.002+02:00

I was craving for cookies yesterday and I thought of baking some of Sarah Phillip's Thick-With-A-Chew cookies. They were really easy to make and my mom was amazed that I had it done in no time. I just kind of threw in the ingredients together, mixed it a little bit, baked and voila, I have freshly baked cookies to serve. I think these are the best cookies that I have made ever, is it me or is it the sparkling new oven? I think it's the oven. Hehe.

The cookies were chunky which I loved. When you bite it, it was crunchy on the outside, yet chewy on the inside. The mix of milk and dark chocolate chips were also a real treat.

Samples and Orders

2009-02-06T00:29:00.007+02:00

The last time that I baked was about a month ago and I have not been really on a baking mood ever since I came back from Israel. In fact, I think I despised the idea of hearing my Kitchen Aid churning. I dreaded the day that I will open my boxed baking stuff. I was basically out of sorts. I also never wanted to bake half-heartedly, or else it won't taste good. To cut a really long story short, I was forced to bake.

For the first batch, I made my most reliable recipes, Ultimate Butter and Ultimate Chocolate Butter Cupcakes by Sarah Phillips. I was able to yield 24 Vanilla Butter cupcakes and 36 Chocolate Butter cupcakes. I was surprised that it went perfectly, and none of the cupcakes fell off the liners. These became samples that I gave to my officemates, to daddy A for his birthday and as a thank you for driving for me, to the Dacios and to some of my Mama and Uncle Obet's friends. The cupcakes looked very elegant in the boxes. The boxes were a little expensive though, so Ly please go to divi with me. :)

The samples got rave reactions and I immediately got a lot of orders. Below is a glimpse of the orders that I got. I was only initially offering the Vanilla and Chocolate because I still had to compute the prices. Minimum order is box of 12 for 460php.

When I brought the orders, I also brought samples of the Red Velvet cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting. I was finally able to make it red, oh I love food colors here in the Philippines! The Red Velvets also got rave reviews. I don't have prices for the Red Velvet yet. I know I should be computing it really soon, as I already have orders!

Here's a sample of how the cupcakes look like in the pretty boxes. This is just a box of six though, as these are gifts.

Buche De Noel

2009-01-07T17:25:00.001+02:00

I made this for Ate Jen before I left Israel. I had this left on my drafts for the longest time and I'm posting now. This is to let everyone know that I made it safely home and I'm waiting for my baking gears to arrive from shipment. Till then! :)

Red Velvet Cupcakes

2008-12-21T04:50:00.001+02:00

I have made a Red Velvet once, as a cake, and I made it a year ago. It felt like a million years ago. I was not exactly proud of what I made last year because as far as I remember, I ruined the cake, broke it in half while torting and just frosted whatever is left of it. I promised myself back then that I won't make it again unless I can make it properly. And I forgot about it. After a year though, as I was browsing through my recipes, I thought of making it again (plus there is my handwritting on the printed recipe that says "try again after a year"). So I tried it again, though not because I am already worthy, but because those are the only ingredients that I have left in my kitchen. Hehe. I normally stack up on eggs and butter but this weekend I only have 2 eggs and a stick of butter. I am going home soon, that's why. I am starting to clear up my kitchen and finish all that's in the fridge. I only have a couple of cakes to go for Christmas and that's it, I'm heading home.

I made Sarah's Red Velvet recipe as cupcakes because of the available ingredients that I have. I can only make half the recipe, which is good enough for me, Manny and a few friends in the the office who are my regular tasters. Making it this time was a breeze after all the baking that I had the past year. I was worried though because after mixing the batter, it was not bloody red. It was red, but not red-red. I said red thrice in a sentence, and I used it in the last three sentences that I wrote!

I then put it in the oven for around 18 minutes and I was prepared to see it fall off the liners. I tend to have cupcakes fall off the liners the first time I bake a recipe, and I make the necessary adjustments when I make it the next time. I was so happy that it stuck on the liners even after cooling it on the rack. As I had expected, the cupcakes turned out as dull red, and not bright. The recipe called for liquid coloring and since I did not have it at hand, I used gel paste. I guess I needed to use more, I did not know how to substitute 4 tablespoons of liquid coloring to gel.

The not-so-red velvet cupcakes turned out to be very moist and delicious! Of course I am not surprised, Sarah's recipes are the best. I was supposed to frost it with Cream Cheese Frosting, but then again, I did not have butter anymore so I settled for the French Buttercream that I have frozen. It was a lovely combination though. And as always, I made Manny and a few officemates' morning happy. :)

The Ultimate Caramel Cake

2008-12-16T19:20:00.003+02:00

I had been in search for the perfect caramel cake for the longest time. I was looking for a cake similar to a childhood caramel cake that I remember, very light and soft cake with caramel frosting that is not too sweet but yet very much a caramel. After a few attempts using different recipes, I think I finally got it.

I found the perfect recipe of the caramel cake that I had been looking for. I used Sarah Phillips' Orange Sponge Cake recipe (without the Orange this time), and replaced it with Caramel Syrup. I'm totally in love with her sponge cake recipe, the possibilities are endless as to how I could vary the flavors of the cake (think lemon, mocha, coffee...).

I started with the usual beating and folding of the eggs and flour, I added a few tablespoons of caramel syrup and baked the cake for around 45 minutes. The aroma of the caramel again filled my little kitchen, it's heaven! I took out the cake from the oven, cooled it for 10 minutes, removed it from the pan and cooled completely. As I was cooling the cake, I made the caramel frosting. I made it using a vanilla mousseline buttercream and then I beat caramel syrup on it. After I got all the syrup that I needed from the caramel, I proceeded in putting it in the oven for about an hour to make it into a thin custard.

One important note though, don't start decorating your cake when you are sleepy! Hehe. I smoothened the caramel on top, piped the nice border swirls on the edge, but totally forgot that the sides are not yet done! Big no-no. I cannot pipe properly anymore on the sides without ruining the nice swirls on top. I think I managed to still make the cake decent but it was not how I originally planned on piping it. Or did I have a plan at all? I don't remember. LOL! Don't get fooled by the pipes on the side, they're really diagonal and not tabingi. Nevertheless after the piping boo-boo, the cake was so caramelicious, just the way I like it.

Black and White Cupcakes

2008-12-13T23:06:00.008+02:00

I made cupcakes again today. The cupcakes were made with the Chocolate Cake Recipe from Baking911 and I added a few chocolate chips inside so that it will melt once baked. The frosting is the Vanilla Mousseline Buttercream. The cupcake was a breeze to make and it baked nicely domed. It is one of those days too where I got lucky in baking cupcakes and I yielded 100%. Not a single piece fell off the liner. The buttercream gave me a scare though, because it started to get really thin when I started to add the butter, and got really liquidy once all of the butter were added. It was a lot more liquid than how I usually made it but it magically turned into a luxurious cream after beating it for a few minutes on high.

As you many have noticed, the colors are not my usual. In fact, it is my first time making black flowers. I would always plan on decorating cakes and cupcakes with a lot of colors normally with a lot of pinks and yellows, sometimes bordering on being over the top. Hehe. I notice that black and white cakes and cupcakes had been becoming really popular. I find it quite elegant actually, especially after making one myself.

The decorations were made of gumpaste flowers with sugar dragees, pearls and a little edible luster. I often get asked if the dragees or the flowers that I make can be eaten, and yes, it's all edible. However, I recommend eating only the frosting and cupcakes because the decorations can be really sweet, as it is almost entirely made of sugar.

The final cupcakes looked beautiful and really elegant, but best of all it was delicious. The cake was very good and particularly rich especially with the melted chocolates inside. The Mousseline is slowly creeping up in my list of favorite frostings, if only it were easier to make! :)

Yet Another Orange Sponge Cake

2008-12-10T22:43:00.004+02:00

I made Sarah's Orange Sponge Cake again last night because Manny has not tried it yet. I made my first orange sponge cake while he was out on a trip so he was not able to try it. I kept telling him how good the cake was and how much people at the office loved it, and kept telling him that he will surely love it because it is light, fluffy, soft and the icing is just so creamy and malinamnam.

We were out for a good 12 days and while at it, I kept thinking once in a while of what variation I would make next out of this recipe. I was thinking of making a caramel or mocha next. However, I wanted him first to be able to try the original recipe which is Orange.

So I made this cake last night while half-asleep. LOL! I was already very sleepy when I finished making the cake. I'm still very sleepy right now while blogging, and come to think of it, I'm always sleepy anyway. Hehe. I continued making the cake anyway because I had already sifted the flour and cracked and separated the eggs. I don't want to lose the freshness of the ingredients by refrigerating it and making it the next day. So I went on preparing the batter and folding ingredients, baking it in the oven and cooling it. After cooling, I also just dumped the frosting on the cake which I originally planned on piping nicely!

The final cake still looked nice nevertheless, and as expected it was so delicious! It was more delicious than I remembered it the first time I made it. Although I'm confident about the cake, I am still a little nervous at how Manny will like it having raised all of his expectations of the cake because of my weeks of talk about how good the cake was. And the verdict? He loved it and he's excited for me to try it with mangoes. It would be really wonderful! I will be making it though once I get home to the Philippines. For now, the Orange Sponge Cake had taken over our breakfast and lunch at the office. It's perfect with a latte!

Snickerdoodles

2008-12-09T00:35:00.003+02:00

I was out on a vacation the past weeks and I even auto-published my DB challenge on the deadline. When I got back here in Israel, the first thing that I baked was these Snickerdoodles by Sarah. I wanted to have some cookies for breakfast once we go back again to work. Manny wanted something with raisins so I just added a piece of raisin in the middle of the cookies. The cookies were very classic, and Kelly (from Baking911) even said that these are the type of cookies which you can pass on to your grandchildren. I totally agree. These are so delicious and chewy!

My mind is still on vacation mode, and I can't think of anything else to write on this post. Hehe.

November Daring Bakers Challenge 5

2008-11-29T03:08:00.004+02:00

This month's challenge is Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Lydon. I had made a caramel cake once, but the cake itself is not Caramel. It was a hot milk cake that I just frosted with some caramel. I told myself back then that I would make a real caramel cake one day, and I just totally forgot about it.

The challenge had 3 components - the cake, the frosting and the caramel syrup.

The caramel syrup was a combination of cooked sugar and water, brought to a boil with amber color, then later on poured with a cup of water to stop the caramelization. It was quite tricky, and scary because of the spatter from the smoking caramel. This caramel syrup once cooled will be a common ingredient that will be used for both the cake and the frosting.

We were free to decide what size of cake to make for the caramel cake and I decided to make it using a 6x2 inch pan. With the full recipe, I was able to make 3 layers of cake. Making the cake was fairly easy, starting with creaming the butter and sugar, then adding the caramel syrup, eggs. Then the flour was added 3 parts with milk added in between. The cakes cooked for 30 minutes.

The frosting is new for me, in that it uses cooked butter. I had to cook the butter until it was brown, then add the confectioner's sugar, heavy cream, caramel syrup, vanilla and kosher salt.

To assemble the cake, I just stacked it one after the other with a thin layer of frosting in between. I crumb coated the cake, and then added rope weaves all over the cake. I then decorated it with a few pieces of leftover gumpaste flowers and butterflies that I had.

I had quite a few expectations about the cake because I made it later on when I had read comments about it being too sweet from fellow DBers. I even made a concious effort in adding a little more salt to the frosting to cut back on the sweetness.

So how was the final cake?

First of all to note, the smell of the final caramel cake was just divine. I felt like a kid in a candy store. I sliced a small piece of it to try and yes, the frosting was really a little sweet to my liking. Or maybe I'm not just used to frostings using confectioner's sugar. The cake, however, was very good. It was moist and the texture was fine. And the caramel flavor was wonderfully infused in the cake. Overall, it was a tasty cake and the challenge had been fun.

Special Thanks to:

November's Challenge, Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting, is by Shuna Fish Lydon of http://eggbeater.typepad.com/
Host for this month is Dolores (http://culinarycuriosity.blogspot.com), co-hosts are Alex (Brownie of the Blondie and Brownie duo: http://blondieandbrownie.blogspot.com/), Jenny of Foray into Food (http://forayintofood.blogspot.com/) and Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go (http://glutenagogo.blogspot.com/)

Lemon Muffin Cupcakes

2008-11-22T13:55:00.006+02:00

It had been a very hectic week at work and some work still spilled over the weekend. I got a very early weekend work call at 7:30am after having stopped working at 2am. It's sick! I was so stressed that all week, I had been looking forward to a weekend of lazing around the house doing nothing, or maybe bake something.

I decided to make few cupcakes today, just to be able to get my oven burning, my creative juices flowing and keep my mind off work. I made some Lemon cupcakes today using Sarah's Lemon Blueberry Muffin recipe. I was actually browsing through my recipes and I found it sitting for the longest time in my to-try list. I did not have blueberries in the fridge, and I planned on substituting it for raspberry, but I got lazy. Hehe. I ended up with just the Lemon cupcakes.

Making the batter and baking was fairly breezy for me, and for some reason, making the frosting is a bigger for me. Not that it's harder to make, I just don't quite enjoy making it like the batter, but it's still fun nevertheless. Oftentimes, I would bake something and we would end up eating the cake bare because I got lazy making the frosting (most recently, the cream cheese pound cake eaten bare!). But this time though, I still have some leftover frozen Italian buttercream that should be good enough for 12 pieces of cupcakes.

The cupcakes were out of the oven after 30 minutes while I sat down by my PC reading about Iphone3G vs Blackberry Storm. Hehe. The cupcakes looked really pretty, they domed nicely and not one cupcake fell out of the liner! This recipe is quite a keeper, I said to myself. The cupcakes also never fell flat once cooled. I immediately tried one of the cupcakes and it was so lemony good! I was expecting the cupcake to be dense and heavy because the recipe was for a muffin, but I was glad that it was fluffy and moist.

I frosted some with a layer of the buttercream and then topped it with a piece of fondant. The others, I swirled with buttercream. My theme for decorating the cupcakes was butterflies, each cupcake with different colors, and I wanted to go over the top with the flowers. However, I ran out of fondant! So, some cupcakes ended up with more flowers than the others. So here are some of the cupcakes, my favorite is the white one (I know it's dull!). Tell me which one is your favorite. :)

Orange Sponge Cake

2008-11-15T19:23:00.005+02:00

I promised myself that I will not bake anything until I clean up my house and with that motivation, I started cleaning up yesterday non-stop. After a few scratches and falling from the chair while cleaning the ceiling, I finished today and as my reward, I baked Priscilla's Orange Sponge Cake with Neoclassic French Buttercream. The sponge cake is Sarah's recipe passed on to her by her mom.

I have made a sponge cake once, but it's the hot milk sponge cake which is made not with the traditional way of making one. I did not attempt making a sponge cake earlier because I know it would be difficult, like the genoise. I get second thoughts of baking anything that requires beating eggs and carefully folding the flour because it is very easy to ruin the batter, and waste ingredients. However, I do want to try cakes out of my comfort zone once in a while.

I needed 5 eggs for this recipe, and when I went to the supermarket, the chatty old man who works at the dairy area was there arranging new stacks of eggs. He would often chat with me whenever I get eggs or butter. I was looking for large eggs, and he told me that he had a stack of 12 XL eggs sold the same price as the 10 large ones. I told him that I needed large only, but he insisted on me taking the XL ones because he said it's a bargain, and with a hearty laugh, he asked me what difference would it make if I cook with it? Knowing that it would make a deal of difference baking with different sized eggs, but not wanting to disappoint the nice old man, and not wanting to have a lengthy argument (Israelis love to argue by the way :P), I just took the XL eggs. Anyway, no point of arguing because when I looked at the eggs in the carton, the eggs were NOT XL although marked as XL. Hehe.

So anyway, on with baking the sponge cake, I separated the whites and the yolks, beating both separately and aftewhich, I need to fold them together with the flour. Some people have heavy hands, and they often complain that they overfold eggs. As for me, my common mistake is I normally underfold. I'm trying to improve on this folding thingy, lest all my cakes will be sinking. I also used fresh oranges for the cake which I squeezed. I can't help it so I drank some of the juice. Hehe. After folding all the eggs, flour and the juice, I baked the cake for 40 minutes and it smelled wonderful!

The sponge cake was supposed to go with an orange glaze, but I had leftover egg yolks that I wanted to use so I made the Neoclassic French Buttercream. I made the orange variation so that it would go perfectly with the orange sponge cake. Making the French Buttercream was similar, even almost the same to the Italian Buttercream, only that the French uses egg yolks while the Italian uses egg whites. I also used some orange zest and juice for the buttercream.

Once the cake is cooled, I decorated it with simple pipes of the buttercream. After a few photos, I cut the cake and the texture was very fine. This is the fluffiest cake that I've ever made. The texture was so fine and soft, and the color was perfect light yellow. I'm so happy with how the cake turned out, it's so delicious. The recipe itself was a classic, and even if it is just my first time baking a real sponge cake, it was successful.

Allspice Applesauce Spice Cake

2008-11-09T17:59:00.007+02:00

For sometime now, Sarah's Allspice Applesauce Cake had been on my to-bake list and I finally tried it over the weekend. I am now officially in love with spice cakes! The cake is very fragrant and wonderfully moist, and the flavors on it were awesome.

The recipe was also very easy to make, and it baked nicely flat and straight. No need to trim or crop the sides or the top.

I frosted the cake with Italian Buttercream, which is not my usual buttercream. I was actually afraid of making the Italian version because it requires boiling the sugar first then pouring it into the egg whites. I think it is very easy to ruin the buttercream, but once I get started, it just went smoothly. I will be making some more of this, with all other flavors, to be able to say that it will be in my repertoire since it is harder to make. However, this first version that I made is fabulous! It is light, smooth, but luxurious.

It is very easy to forget calories while eating this cake because even if the cake is dense, you won't get easily full, or you won't get easily umay. The raisins and the walnuts yet add more flavors to the already delicious cake. I ended up chatting away and not noticing that I already finished a couple of slices!

One Fine Day

2008-11-07T18:36:00.021+02:00

Today is a special day and we thought of going out in the beach and have a meal at one of the restaurants downstairs by the beach. The beach was also very inviting, no waves and very few people so we also thought of taking a dip after the meal. However, when I went outside my terrace, the wind was chilly so we just decided to have our meal at my apartment. I will just be cooking with whatever I have at home and we will have a full course meal. Hehe. I'm so not into fancy eating and fine dining but it's OK with me once in a while. So I created today's menu. There's only that much ingredients sitting in my fridge. I was not able to go to the supermarket the entire week because we were busy with all of our test program releases. However, I think we did good with the meals we have and I'm still full right now, after 4 hours.

Hors D'Oeuvres

I bought Beluga Caviar when we went to Istanbul last September and we planned on eating it today. One of my main goals when I went to Istanbul was to hunt for a bargain caviar in the Spice Bazaar. We went to the Spice Bazaar almost closing time and once we got in and started asking for prices, it was ridiculously expensive! Well, for me at least. The prices started at 400 euros for 100grams. I won't be able to buy one, I thought. So much for my dream caviar. However, as we went deep inside the stalls, we stumbled on one stall ran by two nice gentlemen. My friends bought a lot of Turkish Delights and sweets from them. I was still not sold to the caviar. The gentleman started the price at 140 euros and then went to 70 euros for 100grams. I told him that I will come back and he said that if I come back, he will give me more discount. So the next day, I went back and redeemed the promised discount and after 30 minutes of haggling, I have my precious caviar for 40 euros with free 10 grams of Iranian Saffron. I was like scheming Blair Waldorf who got what she wanted. Haha! Manny told me that the smirk on my face that day was priceless!

Drinks

I'm no wine expert but I do keep a few wines at home for those meals where it's meaty and all. I opened a Chardonnay for the Caviar.

Appetizer

I made a Split Pea and Mushroom Soup. I was already hungry while I was cooking so I decided to prepare a hot soup for the grumbling tummy. The soup is made of peas and button mushrooms sauteed in garlic and shallots on heavy cream, with a dash of garlic salt and thyme. The bread is also homemade, this is my first time to actually make a loaf bread and it was a keeper. The recipe is of course from my mentor, Sarah Phillips. I used Wheat Flour for the bread.

Entree

For the starter course, I sauteed some Shrimps and Calamari and dressed it with White Wine Cream Sauce with a little Parsley on top. This in itself could have been a full meal already.

Main Course

As for the main course, we had grilled steaks. My rub for the steak was pretty simple, but the steaks are very tasty. I just rubbed it with Kosher Salt, crushed black pepper and Garlic Salt, then let it rest for a few minutes before grilling. I like my steak medium rare to medium, still a little pink on the inside but not bloody. Manny likes his steak medium to medium well. To go with the steaks were some buttered vegetables, which is basically just peas and carrots. Not being able to go to the supermarket means not having fresh veggies at home. :)

Dessert

For our dessert, I have previously made an Allspice Applesauce Cake with Mousseline Buttercream. The cake was very fragrant and bursting with flavors from all the spices on the cake, allspice, cinnamon, ground ginger. The buttercream is also a perfect compliment for the cake since it is very light and just yummy. Though it is not a typical dessert, it was what I have at the fridge today and it was very good anyways! After having made a few cakes a few days ago loaded with chocolates, this is a very nice (and yummy!) change.

So there goes our day. :)

Chewy Cookies

2008-11-05T23:53:00.005+02:00

I managed to bake some cookies today to send home. I was planning on making at least 4 cookie flavors but I ended up with 2. The cookie tin that I will be using to put the cookies in was a lot smaller than I thought and after putting in a few pieces of the first batch of cookies, there was very little space left. I made Sarah's Thick-With-A-Chew Chocolate Chip Cookies first, and then make the Peanut Butter Version next. I thought of making some cookies using a new recipe but I thought not to bother since I have very good recipes and my parents have not tried any of my cookies anyway. So I'm sending them the best cookies out of very reliable recipes.

I made the cookies while cooking dinner. It's easy to make but it's so good! During my pre-baking days here in Israel, Manny and I would go to the building next to ours and buy a 6NIS (or 2USD) to buy a piece of cookie, and it was not even that good! Hehe.

So now the cookies are all canned up and sealed ready to bring back home. I'm pretty sure these cookies will make it because it can easily be in the luggage unlike the cupcakes that I sent which the airport security turned upside down. The cookies were so chewy and the flavors are wonderful! I'm pretty sure they would love these, I just hope my mama would not give some of the chocolate chips to Creamy! :)

Pumpkin Walnut Cream Cheese Roll

2008-11-01T19:09:00.011+02:00

I made the Pumpkin Walnut Cream Cheese Roll by Sarah Phillips today. It's my first time making a roulade and first time making a cake with Pumpkin in it. The only vegetable that I have tried putting on a cake is Carrots and I was excited to taste how a Pumpkin would taste together with the entire cake ensemble. The Pumpkin Roulade is a traditional cake served on Thanksgiving and growing up in the Philippines, the only time I get to eat Pumpkin (or is it squash?) is when my father would cook his special Chili Crabs in Coconut Milk (yum!).

It's about time that I make a roulade. I kept putting it off since December last year when I thought of making a Christmas log. So I started with mixing the batter of the Pumpkin Cake. I went on the long route of making this cake because I cannot find canned solid pack pumpkin and crystallized ginger here in Israel. Yes, it's pumpkin and ginger together, with cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, lemon juice, nuts. The recipe required walnuts but I also cannot find any at the supermarket, so I substituted it with Pecans. Mixing the batter is similar to a genoise in that it starts with whipping the egg and sugar then adding the rest of the ingredients. After a few minutes of mixing, I spread the batter onto a floured jelly roll. The cake baked for 15 minutes and it smelled wonderful!

Once removed from the oven, I started to unmold the sides from the pan and then rolled it in a parchment paper over a kitchen towel. I left it to cool completely while wrapped in the towel. While the cake is cooling, I make the cream cheese filling. Once the cake is cooled, I filled the middle with cream cheese filling and rolled it again. I let it cool in the fridge, and while doing so, I made the spike cream. The spike cream is a mixture of heavy cream, vanilla, a little powdered sugar and a little rum extract. I beat it until it's stiff. After an hour in the fridge, I removed my rolled cake from the parchment paper, frosted it with some more cream cheese frosting and topped with spike cream swirls and walnuts. Here's how the cake looked like. It was not as hard as I thought it would be. And the taste was a real surprise for me. Having no idea how it would taste like, I anticipated not liking the final cake. And I'm glad I was wrong. It was so delicious that we needed second slices of the cake. I'm excited to have it again tomorrow, for breakfast. :)

October Daring Bakers Challenge 4

2008-10-29T09:27:00.001+02:00

This month's Daring Bakers' challenge is Pizza and Toppings. The Pizza recipe is Peter Reinhart's Pizza Napoletana which I had made a few times in the past and then a combination of sauce and toppings on top.

I was pleasantly surprised that this is this month's challenge. I love this pizza recipe, in fact this is the only pizza recipe that I bake. It is very easy to work with and the resulting pizza is just divine! It is perfectly crunchy and chewy, and it does not get soggy with the sauce and the toppings.

Making the dough, I started with combining the dry ingredients together and then slowly adding the cold wet ingredients. Having the water cold is a key factor. I then mixed the dough until everything is combined and starts to form a ball. Afterwhich, I kneaded it with the dough hook attachment until it is smooth but still sticky. Then I kneaded it for 2 minutes with hand. Cold hands for kneading is also important. When my hand started to get warm, I run it with cold water. At this point, I divided the dough into 6 pieces, lightly spraying each with oil before wrapping with plastic and then I made it rest in the fridge overnight.

The next day before using it, I took it out of the fridge 2 hours before baking to let it rise. Once the dough has risen, I attempted a toss but ended up rolling the dough. LOL! I rolled the dough in a sheet pan and baked it at almost 500F. After 5 minutes, I took it out and then I placed my sauce and toppings. For the sauce, I used a tomato sauce. I mixed a few teaspoons of lemon juice, spices like oregano, thyme and parsley, dash of garlic salt and pepper. For the toppings, I added some ground beef, green bell pepper, onions, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes and lots of mozzarella cheese. It was so delicious!

Here's how the pizza looked like.

And here's a fuzzy picture of me attempting a toss!

Very Chocolatey Cheesecake

2008-10-27T21:54:00.002+02:00

I had been on a chocolate baking streak and this time I made Sarah Phillip's new Very Chocolatey Cheesecake Recipe. Before I started baking, cheesecakes were one of my ultimate indulgences so when I learned how to bake, I swore that I will learn how to make cheesecakes because they're expensive to buy!

I was initially intimated to make cheesecakes, just because it seems like a lot of work. I then found out that it's not if you find the best recipes that are easy to work with and almost fool proof. It's my first time baking a chocolate cheesecake and I'm quite excited. The steps were almost identical to that of the regular cheesecake, and I just needed to add chocolates and adjust baking temperature and time.

After mixing the batter, I baked the cheesecake for about an hour. It smelled wonderful in the kitchen. I let it cool completely at room temperature for about 2 hours and then chilled it afterwards, for about 24 hours. The topping was a dark chocolate ganache glaze and some homemade gumpaste flowers.

The cheesecake was so good! It tasted like Rocky Road Ice Cream and the chocolate crust was a nice contrast to the smooth filling. I brought some to the office and they loved it, and gave some to our friends at 1106. It makes a really delicious dessert and elegant at that!

Chocolate Overload

2008-10-25T18:32:00.003+02:00

I have not baked anything with chocolates for the past month so I decided I will go over the top with chocolates. I baked the Ultimate Chocolate Butter Cake by Sarah Philips, filled it and frosted with Chocolate Ganache and then wrapped it with Chocolate Plastic. Everything will be chocolates.

Somebody asked me what I love the most about making cakes, is it decorating? Actually, no. I love baking the most, the part where you mix flour, butter and all other stuff, then put it in the oven and then have a pretty layer of cake or nicely domed cupcakes. I always strive for perfection on the height and edges of the cakes. I don't mind having imperfect icing or decorations as long as I have a good cake. That is why I get frustrated when I cannot get a recipe perfectly, I keep baking the same recipe over and over until I get it perfectly. Having said that, I baked my cake pretty nicely and that's what mattered most to me. I love stacking layers and not having to torte or trim edges. The chocolate cake was so moist and very decadent, because it has melted chocolates and cocoa powder on it. It's like those expensive European cakes in cafes loaded with chocolates. I then made the ganache and it was so rich and fudgy! Once the cake layers were cooled, I assembled the cake with the ganache filling and frosting.

It is my first time making chocolate plastic and it was easy. Putting it on the cake though is another story. I had a great time kneading the chocolate plastic, it was just like clay dough. I easily rolled it but I had a hard time putting it on the cake. I'm a total bummer with fondant and I think there is only one fondant cake that I had been happy about because I put the fondant nicely. The others had a lot of issues from folds, creases or cracks. As expected, I was not able to put on the chocolate plastic without issues. I had to do a lot of smoothening of creases after I put it. However, I think I produced a decent cake. I just topped the cake with a single rose and lined with a tiny lace at the bottom.

So here's my chocolate overload cake. We will have it for dessert tonight, I bet it tastes good! I should know, I've tasted the components individually while making it. :)

Raspberry Cloud Cake

2008-10-20T00:19:00.007+02:00

To celebrate my first baking anniversary, I made a mini-tiered cake. This is the first time that I made a tiered cake and since it's my first time, I tried with smaller pieces, a 4-inch cake on top of a 6-inch cake. I also wanted for days now to try the Raspberry Cloud Cake by Sarah Philips so it's like a match made in heaven. The Raspberry Cloud Cake is composed of a Genoise, Raspberry Buttercream and a Raspberry Syrup.

A Genoise, a type of Sponge Cake, is a light and airy cake which is made with gentle folding of flour into the beaten eggs. This is my first time making a Genoise and it was not as easy as I thought it would be. I had to make it thrice, having failed on the first two attempts. I was tempted to give it a rest and try it some other time but I was so decided on making it a success. After carefully thinking of what went wrong, I figured why. My oven rack was in the middle instead of the lower third! When I thought I had a breakthrough, I decided to give it a try again, very carefully folding again and following Sarah's very detailed instruction and I succeeded. After 12 eggs down the drain, I finally have two 6 inch and two 4 inch layers of Genoise beaming at me. It was very late at night, but it was so worth it. :)

While the cakes were baking, I made the Raspberry Syrup and when the cakes were totally cooled, I just brushed the layers with some Syrup. Yum, I could imagine already how it taste like once made. I gave my layers a rest for the night. When I proceeded, I made the Buttercream and added some Raspberry preserves and the Raspberry liquer. Yum again! But anything with Raspberries is just yummy! The liquer gave it a huge flavor boost. And after adding the raspberry preserves and liquer, the buttercream turned into a pretty pink color. Maybe I should do blueberries next time and I'll have a nice blue tint in my cake.

So I then frosted and smoothen the icing of the cakes and then stacked it up. I had to put a few dowels in the cake so that it would stand straight in the top layer and won't fall. I was so excited seeing the cakes one on top of the other! I then just decorated it with a few flowers that I made. I bought this edible lusters and it was fun brushing the flowers with it. It was like applying blush on. I was amazed at how pretty the flowers were after applying the lusters. I should probably get it in more colors. Hehe.

So here's the final cake, not perfect but not bad for a first time either. As they say, practice makes perfect. :) And greet me a happy baking anniversary~

White Mini Cakes

2008-10-11T21:24:00.003+02:00

We've had a lot of holidays lately because of the Jewish festivities. Last week, we had a 4-day weekend and it was really a quiet weekend because they shutdown operations at work so we did not get work calls. We were able to do a lot of stuff, like go to the supermarket earlier and not hurry that it's almost closing, swim in the beach because there were less people due to the holidays, watch tennis and play some vintage family computer Mario games that Manny downloaded (which I am itching to finish, LOL!).

I also had some wonderful time baking some mini-cakes over the holidays. My mini-cake pans are thanking me right now because they've been in good use lately.

These mini-cakes are made with layers of Creamy and Luscious No-Crack Cheesecake and Cream Cheese Pound Cake by Sarah Philips. I love how the flavors of these two cakes blend perfectly. Both cakes are smooth and light, and are complimentary in taste. I could have eaten the cake straight from the oven without frosting! I also frosted the cakes with Italian Meringue Buttercream which is also light. I did not want the frosting to overpower the decadent flavor of the cake.

As for decorating the cake, I just made some basket weave patterns of the first one and decorated it with royal icing flowers and leaves, and the second one just plain with some pink swirls.

And as always, the office breakfast gang loved it. They said they'll miss my cakes when I go home. *Sniff*

Strawberry Swirl Cheesecake

2008-10-05T23:30:00.006+02:00

I'd been dying for weeks now to make swirls on my cheesecakes. I made several attempts and I failed over and over. On those attempts, I had cakes that started from a cake that had been an earthquake epicenter, to another which seemed to have Chinese writings (or Manny called it the "olympic cheesecake"). And I'm not exaggerating!

This time around is a huge improvement from the previous hideous cakes that I made a few weeks back. Sarah told me to mix a little cheesecake batter on the strawberry jam because the jam is too heavy for the batter that it sinks, so I'm left with very thin pink lines at the top. I did as she told me and here it is, my swirly cheesecake. There's still a lot of improving to do with the swirls though, I did not get the deep pink/red color that I'd like it to be. I also think I incorporated air to the batter when I made the swirls so there were some popped bubbles on surface. For now however, I'm happy with the fact that I managed to do it!

The bottom of this cake is the Cream Cheese Pound Cake which I baked and cooled, and then I topped it with the cheesecake batter. I baked it again in a waterbath and once it's done, I took it out, cooled it at room temperature for 2 hours before chilling it for 24 hours.
To decorate the cake, I made some ladyfingers which I put on the sides. Then I piped some Raspberry Buttercream on the corner of the cake and the ladyfingers. Lastly, I tied the whole cake with a ribbon. It was so difficult finding a ribbon here in Haifa! I was so happy to find a store that sells one, but they won't sell me per yard. I had to buy the whole roll! Imagine buying a thick roll for an 8-inch ribbon? Oh well forget it, I ended up buying a pre-made ribbon at a giftshop that I had to break down to get a length that I can tie around the cake.
I brought my cake to office the next day and everyone loved it. I myself am surprised at how delicious the combination of the Cream Cheese Pound Cake and the Strawberry Cheesecake tasted like.

Mini Cakes

2008-10-01T21:52:00.006+03:00

I made a couple of mini cakes today because I wanted to try my 4-inch springform pans. I bought these little pans about a year ago (I think) and I had never made good use of them. I ended up making a Yellow and Pink Mini Cake.

The Yellow Cake is the Golden Butter Cake from the Cake Bible. I made it because I was planning on making buttercream and then I will be having some leftover egg yolks. The Golden Butter Cake uses egg yolks only and uses heavy cream instead of whole milk. I mixed up the batter and ended up with a thick one that I transferred on the springform pans. I baked the cakes for 20 minutes and once out of the oven, I left the cakes in the pan to cool for additional 10 minutes then took it out of the pan to cool completely. The cakes baked very even and flat. I made 4 layers of the mini cake out of the recipe.

The Pink Cake is the Cream Cheese Pound Cake by Sarah Philips. I baked the Cream Cheese Pound Cake for around 18 mins and I also cooled it in the pan for a few minutes. I took out one cake out of the pan to cool completely and the other I left on the pan. I had a leftover Cheesecake batter from a Cheesecake that I just made. What I did was pour the batter on the cake that is still in the pan, and baked it in a water bath for 20 minutes. After baking and cooling at room temperature, I refrigerated the cake to chill the cheesecake. I was able to make 2 layers of the mini cake, plus 1 layer of cheesecake.

While the cake was cooling, I made my buttercream. Once I had my buttercream, I divided it into half. I flavored one half with Raspberry and colored it Pink, while the other half I flavored with Lemon and colored it Yellow.

Lastly, I made a White Chocolate Frosting from Sarah Philips. I used Callebaut white chocolates. It was so good! I have learned never to scrimp on ingredients because it compromises the taste and whenever I need chocolates, I only use the finest, Ghirardelli or Callebaut.

I started to assemble the cakes as soon all are cool enough and the frostings were done. For the Yellow Cake, I stacked 3 layers of the cake with White Chocolate Frosting in between layers. I also coated the entire cake with the frosting and I let the frosting crust. I did not need to crumb coat it because the frosting was thick. I left it for a while to cool in the fridge. As for the Pink Cake, I stacked the layers and sandwhich the cheesecake in between. Then I used the White Chocolate Frosting the coat the cake, and then I left it together with the Yellow Cake to cool in the fridge. After around 20 minutes when both cakes are chilled, I frosted each with the Lemon and Raspberry Buttercream, smoothened it and decorated.

The Yellow cake slightly shrinked at the top, probably because of too much frosting. But it was still nicely upright. I piped a top and lower border for it and decorated it with some sugar flowers. I also left some buttercream to be colored green, but for some reason, I can't get a good green, therefore the dull color of the veins and the leaves. Hehe.

As for the Pink Cake, I tried it with some messy vertical lines on the sides. Not sure if it worked, but the whole cake looked cute anyway. Hehe. I decorated the top with some basketweave patterns and some sugar flowers.

Here are more pictures of the cake, I know it is overloaded with color but it looked very pretty! We had the pink cake for dessert already and it is so yummy!

Ladyfingers

2008-09-30T11:20:00.005+03:00

Ladyfingers are a popular pastry in the Philippines and it was one of my favorites growing up. It is more commonly known in the Philippines as Broas. I'm not sure where the best Broas were in the Philippines but I remember my mother frequently buying a lot of it whenever we pass by Quezon Province.

I was actually going to try to make Ladyfingers because I saw several cakes which had it as a component, like Tiramisu and Charlotte. I was intrigued by what this Ladyfinger is, and I never knew that it is our beloved Broas. Only after baking and trying it did I realize that it is the same thing! Boinks!

I baked Sarah Philips' Ladyfinger recipe and it tasted really good! I would say right now that it is the best broas that I ever had, but I'd wait to judge that when I go back home because I may just be Broas homesick right now. LOL! It was very light, tasty and crunchy, which is my kind of broas. I loved it too because it was not too sweet. The recipe required whipping the egg whites and the egg yolks separately, and then slowly folding them together with some flour afterwards. I was extra careful not to overmix the batter in fear of it not rising. It baked for around 10 minutes and once out of the oven, the smell reminded me of the good old broas days.

September Daring Bakers Challenge 3

2008-09-27T08:09:00.002+03:00

Lavash Crackers by Peter Reinhart with Toppings are this month's Daring Bakers challenge. Aside from the Lavash Cracker recipe, the toppings that will go together with the crackers should be vegan. It's a first for me, first time baking crackers and first time making anything vegan (or at least consciously). My staple pizza recipe is Peter Reinhart's so I know that the Lavash Cracker recipe will be just as good. Reference for the full recipe is Peter Reinhart's The Bread Baker Apprentice (pp 178-180).

I started working on the crackers by mixing the flour, salt, sugar, yeast and oil with water to form a ball. I used up all the 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp water for the recipe, because for some reason, my dough was quite dry. Once the dough was mixed and formed a ball, I kneaded the dough for about 10 minutes. After kneading, I coated the dough with a little oil, wrapped it with plastic and then refrigerated it overnight. When I was ready to make the crackers that next day, I took out the dough from the fridge and then let it rise at room temperature until it doubled its size. It took around 2 hours to let the dough rise enough. I rolled the dough in a sheet pan as thin as I could and cut it up into small squares with a pizza roller. I topped all of the squares with Kosher Salt, and then I made a variety of spice toppings on each row, with each row topped with additional Thyme, Oregano, Parsley, Sesame Seeds, Garlic Salt and Rosemary. I wanted to find out which combination will be the best one. I let the toppings settle for 3 minutes on the dough and then I baked it at 350F.

While the crackers were baking, I prepared the Salsa sauce. It's just a tomato sauce and I added some salt, lemon juice and pepper to it. The crackers were done after 15 minutes and I took it out to cool for 5 minutes. I tried each of the combination that I made and it was all so good! My favorite though would be the one with Oregano and Garlic Salt.

Here's how the final Lavash Crackers with the Salsa looked like.

White Chocolate Butter Cupcakes

2008-09-21T23:37:00.000+03:00

What do you bake when you've got a huge headache? Cupcakes, of course. :) These are White Chocolate Butter Cupcakes topped with Raspberry Buttercream.

I have not had Butter Cupcakes for quite sometime now and I kind of craved for it the other day. I decided to make some with the White Chocolate variation. The cupcakes were very easy to make, and I just added some Callebaut White Chocolates on the last mix with the flour. It also baked perfectly! Whenever I bake this recipe, I always end up throwing out a few pieces or leave it undecorated to be eaten as test pieces because the cupcake falls off the liners. However this time, I yielded a 100%! I did not have a single piece that peeled off from the liner. I cooled the cupcakes first and then frosted with the buttercream.

I also wanted to decorate the cupcakes afterwards with some fancy flowers but the cupcakes ended up being how it looks like in the photo. I had a really huge headache over the weekend and even if I really wanted to make some decorations for the cake, I ended up doing nothing. I very rarely get headaches and I hate it when I do because it will be some downtime. I even went to work yesterday, only to end up going home after an hour at work because of the horrible headache. Anyway, back to the cupcakes, it still tasted good despite the headache drama. The white chocolate gave the cupcakes a different layer of flavor and the raspberry buttercream was a perfect adornment for the butter flavor. I'm kind of loving the raspberry buttercream right now, it is very light but so delicious!

Meanwhile back home, Ly gave birth already to baby Sam a couple of weeks back, and Ice gave birth a few days ago to a baby girl named Jem. Congrats Ly and Manueli, and Bry and Ice!

And about the headache, I still have it right now while blogging. Please make it go away.

Breakfast Cinnamon Rolls

2008-09-20T23:31:00.000+03:00

These are Cinnamon Rolls that I made for breakfast over the weekend, some topped with Cream Cheese Frosting and others with Caramel Frosting.
I made the rolls the night before and left it to rise overnight. The next morning, the rolls have risen quite well and I baked it at 425F for 10minutes. Afterwards, I topped it with the frosting and voila, I have some freshly baked pastry for breakfast. With some hot chocolate, breakfast was perfect.

Cheesecake in Raspberry Buttercream

2008-09-13T16:18:00.000+03:00

For this week, I made a cheesecake frosted in Raspberry Buttercream. I made the cheesecake the other night and baked it for about an hour. After letting it cool on room temperature for 2 hours, I chilled it in the fridge for another 24 hours. Making cheesecake is relatively easy but takes a lot of patience because of all the time that it is required to be cooled and in the fridge before it should be eaten. I had some left over batter so I decided to pour it on some liners for a few cupcakes.

A week ago, I also did not get to bake anything because I was practicing how to make sugar flowers with royal icing. To give you an idea what it is, those are the traditional sugar flowers that we get on cakes bought on local bakeshops (i.e, Goldilocks in Manila). These were very sweet but I loved those sweet little flowers. It reminded me of my childhood because those were normally on the birthday cakes that I used to get. Anyway, it took me two frustrating hours to figure out how to get the correct consistency of the royal icing to pipe it into a flower. The flowers that I made were not good at all, but colorful enough to be decorated on a cake. As they say, practice makes perfect. :)

The flowers with stamen below were the royal icing flowers. The rest were gumpaste.

The next day, I prepped the cheesecake by unmolding it from the pan and thawing it to room temperature. I also prepared the Raspberry Buttercream and I found an already forgotten Raspberry Extract that I had all along. Manny bought it for me a few weeks back and I forgot that I have it. I opened it and I was so surprised how good the buttercream was after I added a few drops of the extract.

I then frosted the cheesecake with a good serving of the buttercream. The light raspberry buttercream was a perfect adornment for the rich cheesecake. We had it for dessert over dinner last night and it was so indulgent!

Here's a pic of the whole cake and of the few cupcakes that I made with the leftover. I still managed to make 7 more cheese(cup)cakes out of the leftover batter, 2 of which never made it to the "decorating stage" because Manny and I snacked on it. :)

August Daring Bakers Challenge 2

2008-08-31T21:42:00.001+03:00

The challenge for this month is Chocolate Eclairs by Pierre Herme. I have not made eclairs before and the August challenge is my first time making some. The challenge consists of 3 elements, the Pate a Choux or the Cream Puff Dough, Pastry Cream and Chocolate Glaze.

Having no prior experience to making eclairs or cream puffs, I was actually scared of making the eclairs especially after seeing that making it requires boiling the liquid ingredients first then adding the dry ingredients. I don't know when to add the dry ingredients, I don't know how the dough will look like afterwards and such concerns. I kept reading notes before attempting on making the eclairs but I guess experience is the best way to learn it. Also because of having no eclair experience, I followed the recipe to the tee.

I started boiling the milk, butter and water together on medium heat and once it got to a rolling boil, I added the dry ingredients consisting of flour, sugar and salt. Then I mixed it until smooth for 3 minutes while still on medium heat. Then I took it out of the heat onto the mixing bowl and beat it with paddle for 3 minutes until it was cool enough. I then added 5 eggs, one at a time, adding the next one only after the previous was well combined. Then that's it, that's my dough. I now piped the dough onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, about 3 inches long, 2 inches apart. I baked the eclairs at 375F for 7 minutes, and then after 7 minutes, I slipped a wooden spoon in the oven to keep it ajar, then rotated the pan when it was already in the oven for 12 minutes. I took it out after a total of 20 minutes in the oven.

Once taken out, my first batch lost its fluff, flattened out and got soggy in the middle. I was disheartened. I had never had such a baking disaster in the recent past. Nevertheless, the soggy eclairs were still very tasty. I was planning on leaving the eclairs for the day and give it a try some other time, but I can't get it out of my head. After an hour of reading about possible mishaps and thinking of what could have gone wrong, I was back in the kitchen for my second eclair attempt. I did everything all over again but baked it all throughout with the oven door closed all the time. It was at 375F for the first 7 minutes, and then I lowered it to 350F for the rest of the 20 minutes. Once baked, I turned off the oven, opened the door and let the eclairs cool there for 20 minutes. All the while, I kept checking if the eclairs will sink again to see where it will start to flatten again just in case I fail again. It didn't. I took it out after 20 minutes, transferred to a cake rack and cooled it completely. Here's how it looked like:

While the eclairs were cooling down, I prepared some mocha cream filling and chocolate glaze. Preparing these two went uneventful. I then filled the eclairs with the mocha cream filling and glazed the topped with the chocolate glaze. Once prepared, Manny and I sampled it and it was so delicious! Good thing it was at an odd hour that we ate it, or else we'll be skipping dinner again.

What's not to like? Eclair, good. Chocolate glaze, good. Mocha cream filing, good. :)

Useful notes:

In Baking911, Sarah Philips has a very informative page on eclairs (and pastries in general). See her Pastry101 page.

Pate a Choux, as I found out from Wiki, is "a light pastry dough used to make profiteroles, croquembouches, eclairs, French crullers, beignets, Indonesian kue sus, and gougères. It contains only butter, water, flour, and eggs. Its raising agent is the high moisture content, which creates steam during cooking, puffing out the pastry".

Our Weekend Get-Together

2008-08-24T10:28:00.000+03:00

We were busy the entire week and we never had the chance to celebrate Manny's birthday so last weekend, we decided to invite our friends over for a small get together. We haven't had a get together in a long while since most of the guys here went back home. We had our mini get together last Friday.

The past week, the earliest time that we get home was at around 9pm. We were never able to do anything else because we were so dead tired, and once home, we do get work calls from the night shift. We planned on going to the supermarket Thursday night so that we'd just be preparing come Friday. But then again, we were able to go home very late Thursday so we had no chance to buy stuff. I woke up very late Friday (at around 12noon) and we still needed to go to the supermarket. So we got moving at around 1pm, and I went to the dirty market for a while, and then went to my "suki" baking store (which I need not go to that day, but I can't help it!) and then off the the supermarket (which is a good 30mins drive from where we live). We were back at my place at around 4pm, and I invited people to come at 7pm. It's 3 hours away, and I have nothing edible yet (except for an unfrosted chocolate cake). And crammer me did not start cooking right away. I sat for a while, ate pistachio nuts, watched the olympics and before I knew it, it was almost 5pm. Hehe.

We started cooking at 5pm, Iron Chef style because of the time constraint. After 2 and a half hours of chaos, we started plating our dishes just in time for our first guests Daniel and Edsel to arrive. I was not yet done though. I needed to frost the chocolate cake and since I had no time, I ended up dumping the mocha buttercream just on top of the cake, hence the cake above. :) I was planning on frosting it nicely with pipes and sugar flowers but I never got the chance.

We had a wonderful dinner of spare ribs, mashed potatoes, pizza, fried dumplings, crab salad with desserts chocolate cake and cream cheese cupcakes, all homemade! We had a really hearty dinner! Afterwards, we just chatted the night away, had some wine and played xbox. Here's all of us.

Happy Birthday Kabibe!

2008-08-18T22:32:00.000+03:00

It's Manny's birthday today. Here in Israel, or at least in our office, the birthday tradition is that you are supposed to bring your own cake and announce to everyone that it's your birthday and you have a birthday cake in your cube.

I made him a Cookie Dough Cheesecake. Instead of a graham crust, I made a cookie batter and pressed it at the bottom of the pan to serve as crust. I chilled the cookie crust while I prepared the filling. I then mixed up the cheesecake batter and poured it onto the prepared crust. After removing air bubbles on the poured filling, I then put the pan to a prepared water bath with boiling water and then baked it for about an hour. Cheesecakes are supposed to be chilled overnight or up to 24hours before unmolding so I left it wrapped in the fridge for a day. Once chilled properly, I then unmolded it and started to decorate it. I put some strawberry syrup first on top for flavor and then piped Vanilla Buttercream on top.

We brought it to the office today for his birthday. Some of our officemates came back for second serving and before we knew it, the cake was gone.

Happy birthday kabibe! I hope you had fun today. :)

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2008-08-16T19:25:00.002+03:00

This week had been hectic at work and by Thursday, I was starting to dream of a weekend where I would lazily be glued to my bed watching olympics all day. It kind of happened, but only because I was feeling sick. I didn't want to move all day yesterday even if I was already hungry. I also got weekend work calls which I was forced to attend to. I started feeling better late in the afternoon, probably after getting a lot of sleep and popping two mefenamic acids. As my day started (which was already around sundown), I decided to bake something for breakfast the next day. I had been fancying baking the Cream Cheese Pound Cake recipe from Sarah. I love yellow cakes, and the recipe had been getting rave reviews from those who tried it at baking911.

The recipe is a variation of the original Pound Cake recipe by Nick Malgieri. The recipe replaces some of the butter with cream cheese (yummy!). The batter was very easy to make, and after mixing all the ingredients, I poured the batter on a disposable baking foil because I don't have a real tube pan. The cake was supposed to bake for 45 minutes and when the cake starting to brown, the smell swirled in the kitchen. It smelled so delicious. After 45 minutes, the cake was done and here's how it looked like in the oven.

I was planning on frosting it with some strawberry or chocolate syrup once served in the morning. However, it tasted so good that we did not bother touching the syrups that we had on the side. It's really that good! The crumb and the texture of the cake is also very smooth and fluffy and would be ideal to make and layer. I would make this again soon on a round pan, and try decorating as this one is also sturdy. I still have some leftover slices, I'll be eating it for breakfast again tomorrow in the office with some really hot coffee.

My Little Flip Flops

2008-08-12T22:17:00.000+03:00

I had always been inspired by my flickr friends with their cute cupcake toppers but whenever I plan on making something creative, I end up with flowers. For one, I love flowers and how it looks picture perfect. Plus, I was never an artsy person so you could safely assume that my imagination is very poor. Haha. This time though just for the fun of it, I attempted making some flip flops and bags on my cupcake. After a few attempts of rolling again and again my gumpaste, I ended up with these cute messy stuff. LOL!

The cupcake itself was a totally different story. It was so yummy! These are White Vanilla Cupcakes filled with Strawberry Jam topped with Cream Cheese Frosting. This cupcake is Sarah Philip's White Cupcake Recipe and I just filled it with homemade strawberry jam with bits. It's my first time baking this cupcake recipe and it was a breeze to make. The cupcakes turned out to be very moist and fluffy, and it domed perfectly. The filling inside made it all the more tasty. The Cream Cheese Frosting is also a favorite. I top it on just about anything, from my chocolate cupcakes, to carrot cupcakes and it never disappoints. I brought it to my office today and it was a hit. Even the decorations got eaten!

Molten Lava Cake

2008-08-01T23:25:00.000+03:00

Molten Lave Cakes or Volcano Cakes are usually mini cakes with gooey center which will flow like Lava once eaten. I wanted to make some fancy dessert for dinner today so I made some of these and planned on topping it with vanilla ice cream and strawberry syrup.

I made the cake at around 5pm and I was done after 30 minutes, including mixing the batter, baking the cake and surfing in between. :) I used a 70% extra bittersweet Ghirardelli bar for the chocolate and it turned out to be really decadent. While I was not able to look for that perfect recipe in the web, I manage to interlace a few to be able to come up with something simple that is perfect for my taste.

Taking a photo of the cake was a challenge because the idea was that the Lave cake was supposed to be eaten hot so that the fudge in the middle would ooze. So after 2 minutes of taking the cake out of the oven, I topped it with Vanilla Ice Cream, Strawberry Syrup and shaved chocolates. As expected, the ice cream would melt because it was still hot, and photo had to be taken fast. Even if we're fast enough, the ice cream still melted. :) I also tried to slice the cake in the middle to take a photo of the gooey center, but ice cream just flowed on it so no chance of seeing it!

After taking photos, Manny and I ended up eating the cakes already (forget about having it for dessert!) and it was so good! It was really fancy, like something that you'd order from an expensive restaurant. The Vanilla ice cream complimented the chocolately flavor of the cake while the strawberry syrup provided a nice contrast on the taste. We intended to divide one cake but we ended up eating one each so we just decided to skip dinner altogether. :P

July Daring Bakers Challenge 1

2008-07-30T12:50:00.001+03:00

The challenge for this month is Filbert Gateau with Praline Buttercream. It's my first ever Daring Baker's challenge and I was both ecstatic and nervous at the same time. Then I saw the challenge, and I was like - Filbert? Gateau? English please? :) After going over the challenge for the month, I found out that Filbert is Hazelnuts and Gateau is French for cake made with almond flour. After scouting my kitchen for what I have, the only ones I'm missing were actually the hazelnuts. I had almonds over but I still attempted to find some hazelnuts in the supermarket, to no avail. I just made some Almond Gateau with Almond Praline Buttercream instead.

I was back home in the Philippines when I read about the challenge, and in the middle of vacation, I was actually thinking of the cake and looking forward to actually making it. The recipe requires a lot of work, and it probably is not something that I will make spontaneously on a lazy Saturday afternoon. But of course, I'm up for the challenge (I think. :D).

I needed to prepare the Gateau, 1 recipe of sugar syrup, 1 recipe of Praline Buttercream, Whipped Heavy Cream (which I skipped eventually because the Buttercream was already very rich), 1 recipe of Strawberry Glaze, 1 recipe of Chocolate Ganache and some toasted nuts. I am pretty much familiar with the components of the recipe, except for the Gateau, so I had to re-read the recipe a few times before starting. The Gateau is made of processed almond nuts combined with cake flour. After preparing the batter for the Gateau, I baked it for 30 minutes and when it was almost done, the smell of the baking nutty cake filled the kitchen and I swear it was one of the best scents you'd ever smell! While the cake was in the oven, I started making a plain sugar syrup. Once the cake was cooled, I torted it and brushed the layers with sugar syrup.

Leaving the cake a while, I started to make the Almond Praline Buttercream. To make Almond Paste, I caramelized some sugar and added the Almond on it. This becomes some candied pieces and after it had totally cooled, I broke it down into manageable pieces and processed it until it was first powdery and then like paste. And then I had to make the Swiss Buttercream and once done, I slowly incorporated the Almond Paste. The buttercream turned out to be smooth and delicious!

I then filled the cake layers with Buttercream in between and once stacked, I brushed the top and sides with a pre-made Strawberry Glaze and I let it chill for about an hour.

While the cake was being chilled, I made the Chocolate Ganache (which I very often use for my cupcakes so it was a breeze!) and I had it also cooled afterwards. Once the cake was out of the fridge, I glazed it with the Chocolate Ganache and I made the top with mirror finish but the sides were ugly! I cannot smoothen the sides! But anyway, I still managed to cover the sides with the Ganache. Once the Chocolate had settled on the cake, I started to pipe it on top with the remaining buttercream. It took me half a day to finish the cake!

Cutting the cake was another story. I had never been able to cut any of my cakes perfectly! :P I loved the nutty taste of the cake even if I'm not crazy about nuts! Here's how the first slice looked like.

So there goes my first challenge, on to August!

Ice and Ly's Baby Shower

2008-07-22T22:48:00.000+03:00

Two of my bestfriends from college, Lyra and Ice are both expecting and are due to have their babies on September with Ly having baby Sam a few weeks than Ice's Jem. While I was on vacation in the Philippines, Chen, who's also on vacation in the Philippines, planned a baby shower for both of them and I volunteered to prepare some cupcakes for the party. So last July 11, the moms-to-be had their baby shower at Chen and Bondi's place in Greenhills. Wonderful photos are from Ging (visit her awesome photo blog!) and Tin and Buddy.

Here are the girls looking radiant with their baby bumps. They're even wearing coordinated shirts that says "Due in SEPT".

And the cupcakes. I made Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes and Strawberry Butter Cupcakes topped with Vanilla Buttercream. It was a little difficult making the cupcakes using an oven that I never used before and with very limited tools like having to do with a hand mixer. Mama's oven was pretty much unused for the entire year (the last use was Dec last year for some Christmas hams she made) so it was very "cold". It choked up a few times in the middle of my baking and temperature fluctuates so the cakes were not as moist as I wanted it to be. I was also supposed to make Pink and Blue cupcakes because Ly is having a boy and Ice is having a girl. The mint green ones were supposed to be light blue but for some reason, the color that I bought at the supermarket back home won't give me the light blue hue that I wanted. Here's how the cupcakes looked like. Here's Ly and Chen sampling the cupcakes.
Parents-to-be Bryan and Ice also taking a bite. And Manueli! I love this shot!
The Dacios, Manuel and Ly with Baby Sam in mommy's tummy, during Charades.

And the Cabicos, Bryan and Ice with Baby Jem.

Some of the fun games that Chen prepared for everyone. Here's Donald during Charades.

Roy and Buddy during that glug-glug game (I don't know how it's called!).

And it's us girls enjoying some Pancit and Barbecue for dinner.
I had fun at the party, and I bet the everyone had a great time. It was nice seeing old friends again. Thanks Chen for planning out the baby shower party. It was a blast! And here's Chen with her and Bondi's gwapo bundle of joy, Seb.

Back From Vacation

2008-07-22T09:51:00.000+03:00

I'm back from my vacation and back from my mini-baking hiatus. Of course seeing Creamy was the highlight of my vacation! (Kidding). Here's Creamy under the table watching me bake cupcakes. He's been waiting for me to give him a piece of cake.

My Mama, Tita Len and I also went on a 4 day vacation to Hongkong and Macau. I'd be back because I don't have nice photos. Hehe. Here's the Hongkong skyline as seen from Kowloon.

And the Venetian in Macau. This is their mini-version of St. Mark's Square.

They should have put Pigeons on it like in Venice and I will have my finger bitten again by those birds to feed them with some bird food that you HAD to buy for 2 euros. Hehe.

Summer Solstice

2008-06-21T15:16:00.000+03:00

I made a variety of cupcakes this weekend as I am preparing to go on vacation back home. These are Butter and Chocolate cupcakes topped with Cream Cheese Frosting.

For the Butter Cupcakes, I used the Ultimate Butter Cake recipe and I found Elle and Vire in one of the supermarkets here. Elle and Vire is an expensive French Butter which is being used in many successful commercial cupcake sellers and I tried it to see the difference with the regular Israeli butter that I am using. There is totally no difference in the taste of the baked cupcake. The only difference that I noticed is in the texture which turned out to be a little more smooth. Otherwise, it's totally the same! Oh well.

As for the chocolate cupcakes, Manny brought me some Ghirardelli chocolates from SFO. Chocolates here in Israel are abundant, from the more expensive Belgian/Swiss brands to the cheap locally produced ones. However, there are no Ghirardelli chocolates here. Manny bought me a lot of variety and for this cupcake, I used the semisweet chocolate chips. The chips are bigger than the normal chips, they're almost as big as the Hershey's kisses. The chocolate cupcakes turned out to be very moist and tasty. The kind of chocolate used really made a huge difference in the cupcakes.

I used Cream Cheese Frosting for both cupcakes. We kind of started liking the Cream Cheese Frosting because it's not too sweet and has a tangy taste. I normally use it for the Cinnamon Rolls and the Red Velvet Cake, only to realize now that they actually taste very good with chocolates. I always use Philadelphia.

The cupcakes were then topped with Frangipani sugar flowers with sugar pearls in the middle. I always get asked if the middle pieces are edible, and I always say, everything is edible - from the flowers to the dragees. The flowers are in Pink Rose and Blue with the Pink ones sprayed with pink edible mist and the Blue ones sprayed with yellow mist. I was pleasantly surprised at how the combination of the Blue flower and Yellow mist turned out to be - tropical like.

The cupcakes turned out to be very pretty with the bright colors. It reminds me of my favorite time of the year - Summer!

Pecan Carrot Cupcakes

2008-06-09T20:27:00.000+03:00

Today's my first time making a Carrot Cake and for the longest time, I never fancied making one. I tasted a Carrot Cake once and it was horrible, hence my dislike. However, over the past few days, a Carrot Cake recipe caught my attention and it's a very simple recipe called Classic Carrot Cake by Susan Purdy which I found in baking911 and had been since adapted by Sarah Phillips. I decided to give it a try after buying some carrots in the grocery for my chopseuy.

The batter was very easy to make. I had almost a cup full of grated carrots on the side before I started with everything else. The recipe also uses a few spices like cinnamon and ground nutmeg to, well...spice it up! After mixing everything, the resulting batter was a little thin but should hold good enough in the cupcake liners. While walnuts are regular garnish for Carrot Cakes (as I read it, it's not like I have eaten a fair share of Carrot Cakes!), I opted to use Pecans instead. The chopped Pecans were then added last to the batter.

I made a very small recipe (half of the original recipe) so that I would be making only a very few cuppies just in case I don't like it. The reduced recipe yielded batter for 7 liners. So I then poured (yes it's that thin, it can be poured!) the batter into the cupcake liners and baked for around 20mins. The cupcakes domed nicely after baking. I immediately took it out of the oven, took the cupcakes out of the tin and then let it cool in a wire rack for around 10 minutes. While the cupcakes were cooling, I started making the Cream Cheese Frosting for the cupcakes. I love Cream Cheese Frosting so I was telling the Carrot cupcakes to better be good or else I'd be wasting my cream cheese over them! LOL!
With everything ready, what is left is the assembly of the cupcakes. I swirled the frosting over the cupcakes and I also topped it with a homemade sugar roses. The colors of the roses are not my colors (Burgundy and Peach) but I tried it because those little color bottles are still unopened (plus my Pink and Yellow were almost done). I think the new colors worked beautifully with the Off-White frosting.

I was prepared to hate the taste of my beautiful little cupcakes. After staring at it for a few minutes and contemplating on whether to taste it or not, I decided to try it since no one else is here to try it. I took a bite and was pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted. It was fluffy and moist, and the the carrots were not overpowering. Needless to say, I loved how it tasted like and I will definitely be baking more of this. The cream cheese frosting provided a nice tangy contrast to the cinnamon/nutmeg spices. Overall, it's just lovely. ;)

Lemon Cream Tart

2008-06-07T22:56:00.000+03:00

Even if the lighting is bad and all, I just had to take a photo of my little Lemon Cream Tart before I demolish it!

This is my first attempt at making my own pie crust/tart crust and I was pleasantly surprised that it stood up, tasted good and tender on the bite. I don't have the pie/tart pans so I made use of my 4-inch springform pan so it does not look like the traditional tart crusts with ridges (i.e. Goldilocks tarts).

The Lemon Cream recipe is an adaptation of Pierre Herme's recipe. It uses 4 Meyer lemons including the zest which infuses an aroma that will surely envelop your kitchen once you start preparing the cream. I found this recipe in one of the sites that I read (not sure exactly where, maybe from Dorie Greenspan's) and I got excited with it because it looks elegant yet the ingredients were pretty common to be readily available right out of your kitchen - sugar, salt, baking powder, eggs, butter and lemon. So while the crust is baking, I mixed all the cream ingredients except the butter and whisked it over a double broiler until it thickened and reached 180F. Once done, I transferred it to a mixing bowl where I beat it on high and combined the butter. After a few minutes of beating, the resulting cream was an emulsion that is so silky and smooth. After chilling it for a few minutes, I scooped the cream onto the prepared crust and voila, it's ready to eat! And the taste? Sinfully, melts in the mouth goodness!

The Cheesecake Contest

2008-06-05T14:36:00.001+03:00

I did not win the Cheesecake contest in our office. There were around 15 contestants and only 1 winner was picked. However, my cake did me very proud because it looked pretty. I kept saying that if it were only for presentation, my cake would have already won and then after trying it afterwards, it really tasted very good! After the judging, we tasted all the entries and Daniel kept saying that mine is sure to be in the top 3! But then again, they only picked one winner and his (yeah he's a guy) cheesecake was also very good with some sugar crumbs on top. The winning cheesecake was more traditionally Israeli as well, I think he used ricotta for the cheese. As a prize, he got some restaurant vouchers.

I got an Israeli pastry book as a prize. The book was very fancy with glossy pages, but was written in Hebrew! Even if I could not understand a thing written on it, I will keep the book as a reminder that I once had the guts to join a cake contest. Hehe. It was totally fun, and it is especially heartwarming hearing compliments on how good the cake tasted or how beautiful it looked like. It was a wonderful experience that I'd remember for a long time.

After a few thought, I decided to make Sarah Phillip's Luscious and No Crack Cheesecake. For me, cheesecakes are the hardest to make as they are the most fragile. A little slip on the side can ruin the entire cake and frosting cannot hide cracks. As it turned out, the recipe was very baker friendly with Sarah's detailed explanations of each step. After 1 hour of baking on a water bath, here's how the cheesecake looked like in the pan. I needed to chill it for 24 hours before unmolding.
After 24 hours, I now had to do the most unnerving part which is unmolding it from the pan. It being my first time baking a whole cheesecake, I was read and re-read the theory of unmolding over and over (hehe). I did succeed in unmolding it though! Here's how it looked like after it was removed from the pan. It looks yummy already, but the smell was so enticing! I wanted to eat it right there and then.
I know the strawberry/blueberry cheesecake won in the poll that I had here in my blog but I'm sorry that I ended up with a chocolate cheesecake. I was supposed the use whole strawberries on top of a blueberry glaze but the strawberries that I had perished in the fridge and I miscalculated the blueberry filling that I had. So I ended up thinking of other options and the next best thing is chocolate. I made some chocolate ganache and glazed it on top of the cheesecake. After letting the glaze settle down a bit, I topped it with some sugar flowers and dragees. There was a little dent on the side of the glaze but I opted not to touch it anymore because the chocolate had already started to dry down.

Making the cheesecake was pretty smooth but not without a few fuss. Here's a full view of the cake, with some chocolate glaze that got poured on the crumbs.

Bringing the cheesecake to the office was another story. Daniel helped me bring it and there were a lot of close calls like the cover almost sticking to the cake, or the mini mishaps at the elevator and at the humps on the road. Here's a photo of the cake taken at the contest. Photo is dull, I just took this on the website of the event. I'm entry #13.
And here's half of the crowd who enjoyed the cheesecakes, half of it at the back of the cameraman. It was so fun! So there goes my cheesecake story. :)

My Whimsical Flower Cake

2008-05-24T19:26:00.000+03:00

I got my Cake Bible today as a present and I read it to look for that first recipe that I can bake straightly lifted from it. I opted for an easier recipe and decided to make a White Chocolate Whisper Cake. The cake itself will be made with some melted White Chocolates on it. Sounds yummy! Nobody's going to eat it though at the house so I will probably just bring it to the office for breakfast. I decided to frost it with a White Chocolate Raspberry Ganache for that ultimate White Chocolate blast!
The book was very good but had I started with it and not with baking911, the book would probably be lost in translation. I was even more meticulous this time, weighing my ingredients instead of measuring. Rose' recipes always start with mixing the flour first and then adding the butter and the liquid ingredients. As I had always been, I am not comfortable doing it this way. I am more comfortable doing it the other way around, that is creaming first then adding the flour at the last step. But this time around, I guess it was ok. I started getting a little comfortable with the inverted routing, this time I just need to soften the butter before hand.
The cake was done after 25mins in the oven and I frosted it afterwards.

Here's a slice of the cake. I kind of messed up cutting it because I don't have a really sharp knife or a cake cutter. It still looked good though. And at least the frosting inside looked decent enough to be served in a party. LOL!

Another shot of the slice. I wanted to take another slice for better photo but opted not to or else I will end up eating it!

Here's a closer look of the whimsical roses of the cake. These are gum paste flowers tinted in Yellow and Pink and the leaves tinted Green.
I just got today my Cake Bible from Tita Len and today's cake is the first that I directly lifted from it. I got from her a big box with pans, spatula, smootheners and even a shot glass! I was so happy, I was like a kid opening her 7th birthday present.

10 Random Things About Me

2008-05-24T09:46:00.000+03:00

I was tagged by Lyra but I probably won't be able to tag anyone since I don't personally know most of the blogs that I read and those who I personally know had already been tagged by Ly. :)

HERE ARE THE RULES:

1. Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.

2. Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 10 people to get tagged and list their breads.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Here's my 10:

1. I started getting interested in baking October last year after bumping through a website called baking911 and saw really beautiful photos and wonderful recipes. I had been homesick cake-wise for so long and I can't find a bakeshop here where I could really indulge so I started to make my own cakes, and the rest is history.

2. I collect shot glasses from cities that I had been. The most expensive shot glass that I have is a 5-euro Venice shot glass because I forgot to take my change. LOL!

3. I'm a huge tennis fan, and Rafael Nadal is my favorite player. Our whole France trip was planned on a premise that I'd watch the French Open to see him. I'm also a huge Sports fan and my TV is by default on Eurosport. I'd watch anything from NBA, Soccer, Baseball and even Cricket.

4. I'm a perfume addict. If others would feel naked without earrings, I feel the same thing if I'm without a perfume on me. My favorite is Creed Spring Flowers. Same thing with body lotions.

5. I used to be a picky eater growing up. I don't eat vegetables, beef and peanut butter. Now I eat almost everything, but still cannot take eating Beef Stew or Bulalo.

6. I can french tip my hands myself but haven't had a polish on my hand since I started baking.

7. I can also shape other people's eyebrows. There had been a lot of my girlfriends with virgin eyebrows that I shaped. I even got one straight guy officemate to agree for me to trim his eyebrows because his was very long and was irritating me! haha.

8. Whenever I travel, other people mistake me for a Japanese. The funniest one was in Florence where this Japanese family started to me and Manny in Nihonggo! One flight going back home, I was seated next to a Filipino guy who, from Germany to Guangdong, never talked to me because he thought I was Japanese.

9. I am always dizzy. Riding in the car backseat makes me dizzy. Riding the bus makes me dizzy. Taking the elevator makes me dizzy. And I'm also always sleepy.

10. I love the beach!

I'm tagging Thet.

The Travelling Cupcakes

2008-05-21T18:18:00.000+03:00

Manny is going on a business trip to San Diego next week and at the last minute, he decided to go home first before going to San Diego. So instead of leaving next week, he left very early today for a flight to Manila. Not without me sending some cupcakes for my parents and Creamy, of course. :)
I started getting interested in baking around October of last year, and the interest grew into a hobby, and now after 8 months, I'd say that it became a passion. My family had not tasted any of my baked goodies yet, and I think it was good that they were not there when I was just starting! My family is such a food critic and my brother is the worst of them all being the chef that he is! Had they tried my first attempts at baking, they probably would have told me to just be an engineer. LOL! So now, regardless of what they'd say about the cupcakes that I sent them, I would not be dissuaded, I am now a baker (a novice, that is!).

I sent them 18 cupcakes with four varieties. I wanted it to be a sampler of the chocolate, butter and fruity cupcakes that I previously made, but decided to just stick with basic flavors without the fruity ones. It surely would perish after the 16-hour flight.

This is the Ultimate Chocolate Cupcake by Sarah Philips with melted dark chocolate inside. The melted chocolate inside made it so decadent! I also glazed it with some melted bittersweet chocolates on top and frosted with Vanilla Buttercream.

This next one is still the same chocolate cupcakes with dark chocolates inside, this time topped with melted white chocolates and frosted with Strawberry Buttercream.

Yet this one is also the chocolate cupcakes, however this variety has melted white chocolates inside. I simply glazed it with melted bittersweet chocolate. This one is so sinfully rich with chocolates!

This variety is my favorite combination, the Ultimate Butter Cupcake with White Chocolate Raspberry Ganache. Just thinking about it makes me seem like I gained a pound or two!

And here's another shot of the lot that I sent home. I called my mom the other day and I asked her over and over again not to give creamy any of the chocolatey stuff! She easily gives in when Creamy stares at her with all those cute droopy puppy eyes.
I do hope hope the cupcakes arrive in one piece, although while Manny was in Amsterdam, he told me that the security officer at Tel Aviv turned the luggage over. Good thing we added support so that it would stay in place even if it's flipped over (hehe!). Anyway, I have photos of how it originally looked like so even if it get beaten, it should be good enough. I hope they would like the cupcakes!
Oh and while I was cleaning up stuff at my house today, I saw this bag which had the Hugo family's gift for me on my birthday. Iya wrote all the text below, she has such a nice handwriting for a four year old! :)

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T22:34:00.000+03:00

Happy Mom's day to all my mommy friends and family, and to the soon to be moms. Apparently, Israel does not celebrate this day as Mother's day so it was just pretty normal day here. And oh, I went back to work after a 4 day Israeli holiday plus weekend so I am still on the slow side of things.
Over the 4 non-working day, I just took time to get back on my sleeping groove, and that means sleeping at 11PM and waking up at 11AM, and then taking naps in between (the life!). I did not manage to get anything done except for few inevitable work calls. And because of this, I did not manage to bake anything new that I'd been wanting to try had I been given the time. I wanted to bake some lemon pies, make some gum paste sugar flowers, but I ended up baking the Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies above.
We managed to go to the market last Saturday though, out of sheer necessity. It was a dire need, otherwise I'd probably be eating flour for the weekend (hehe exag!). I have all types though, I have the all purpose, the cake flour and the self raising flour! LOL!
When we went to this Russian market, I bought 2 dozen eggs among other stuff. The last time I went there, I bought some eggs from the same stall and they're really very fresh. Now after going home, I was to cook some eggs for brunch and I was utterly surprised that the first egg that I cracked had 2 yolks! Pardon my ignorance but I had not been spending as much time in the kitchen as I do now, and I was really shocked to see the yolks that I had to take a photo of it.
Now as I finished (barely, after much laughs) frying the first one, I cracked another one again and it was the same, two yolks again! It looks totally weird! Imagine having your sunny side up eggs with 2 yolks! After brunch, I again cracked another egg for the cookies, and it's the same thing, 2 effin' yolks. Hehe. This time, I really had to google it, I can't go on having all my 2 dozen eggs to have multiple yolks. I found out that this is an abnormality in the reproductive system of the hen normally when the hen starts to lay eggs earlier than its full maturity. Anyway, the more important thing is that it's safe to eat. So there goes my strange encounter with eggs, and I'm still amazed. Now I still have to figure out how to adjust my recipes assuming all of the eggs turn out to be with the 2 yolks.

The Big Day (Not!)

2008-05-07T21:53:00.000+03:00

It's my birthday today and during the days leading up to it, we were once again too busy at work. However, one thing I am certain of, I never wanted to bake a fancy cake for my birthday because there's only the two of us here anyway. I just decided to bake something small and yummy! So here it goes, I baked myself a Hot Sponge Milk Cake with Caramel Frosting. Nothing fancy but totally yummy! I don't have a party anyway.
My day actually started on the dot of 12AM, and I was still at the office at that time, having only eaten 1 meal the entire day and having been buried with tons of work. A few minutes after, the shift leader of operations called to tell me that there were food downstairs and he knows that I am hungry already. So we went downstairs to the cafeteria and saw the same food that we had for lunch. There were tons of pans with cold Beef Asado, grilled chicken, meatloafs and all sorts of salad leftovers. We took some and heated it then had our "dinner". With the thought of going home soon, I finished my food and went up again to my cube only to find out that there were problems in the jobs in the test floor that I need to fix. So I spent another hour again trying to fix all of the errors. I need to finish all that I'm supposed to do today because May 7 is actually a holiday here. It's their memorial holiday so therefore no work on the daytime and we need all the jobs running before we go on a long holiday. Afterwhich, I needed to patch my TP again to be released. I am also waiting for input files from a guy also working over time (and still had to make a 2-hr drive to Tel Aviv) so while waiting I was chatting with Roy (who was the first to greet me from back home) and I also decided to call home. That's funny eh? My mom wants me to call her on my birthday! Anyway, even if I am still at the office on such an unholy hour, I was still up and about. I even heard Creamy burp! LOL! I was finally able to go home at 3AM.
After getting some much needed sleep, I woke up at 11AM with a very empty stomach. And to make matters worse, I don't have any groceries anymore (no rice!) and I don't have much options for a meal. Since technically it's still my breakfast (and I don't have any choice anyways) I prepared some cheese pancakes, sunny side up eggs, and fried a few bacon pieces (the last ones). I also made some hot chocolates a la Max Brenner with boiled milk, vanilla and melted dark chocolates. After having a hearty meal, I took a nap again with the oven pre-heating. Haha. Afterwards, I started baking my cake and it took around 2 hours including baking time until I have the final cake for blowing. :) I also cooked some pasta for dinner. Dinner time is my "happy birthday" time with the candle already lit on my simple cake.
May 7 being a memorial holiday here meant no programs on TV (even cable), all malls and groceries were closed, no making noise and no transportation. Bummer eh? Well not really, my day is perfectly fine as it is and at 9PM, they started the fireworks outside because it's now Independence day! Israelis normally celebrate their holidays from sundown to sundown. Fireworks lit while we were eating dinner and we went out to my terrace to watch. My apartment is on the prime vista point for the fireworks being at the 13th floor facing the sea. The fireworks lasted for a good 20mins.
Just when I thought my day was going perfectly, with all the sleep that I got and the fireworks, we started watching the Rome Master Series and saw my boy Nadal, who never loses on clay, lost to Ferrero. Bummer.
So there goes my day, totally better than last year when I was on the plane going to Arizona and people greeting me were random immigration people who would see on my passport that it is my birthday!
Thanks to everyone who greeted and remembered me today. I wish you all had a taste of the cake, it was so good! :)

Peanut Butter Chewy Cookies

2008-05-06T22:36:00.001+03:00

These are chewy Peanut Butter Cookies that I made a few days back for breakfasts with coffee. When I was growing up, I never like Peanut Butter, I guess it is one of those things which I acquired (like eating vegetables, Japanese, etc). Now, Reese Chocolates are even one of my favorites! I bought my Peanut Butter a few weeks back after craving for the Ultimate Peanut Butter Cake by Sarah. I made it and I was surprised that people liked it. And I also feel guilty about never asking people if they have peanut allergy when they took those cupcakes. Same thing now with the cookies. I never bothered asking if they have allergies! LOL

Apple Spice Cupcakes

2008-05-03T16:10:00.000+03:00

Before the cupcakes, it's happy birthday to my cousins Mommy Myleen (today, May3) and Buboy (May1). I'd make some cupcakes for you when I'm back home. :) There are a lot of us in the family celebrating our birthdays in May and when I was younger, I still was not yet over the feeling that it's my birthday, and then it's someone else's birthday already! But when you grow up (or old!), you start to hate the fact that it's going to be your birthday again. Hehe.
Anyway, on to baking. These are Apple Spice Cupcakes some topped with Swiss Meringue Buttercream and others with my leftover Cream Cheese Frosting. For sometime now, I'd been wanting to try out the spice cupcakes that I keep seeing in cupcake forums and blogs (like chai latte, green tea, honey spice) as I am intrigued by how it will taste like. I keep a Ginger Spice cupcake recipe and I could not imagine ginger being in my sweet and lovely cupcakes!
We are already almost out of groceries and we need to have one soon. However, we can't go out today as it is Shabbath, and as I was rummaging through my fridge and cupboards for something to cook, I saw this jar of unopened Applesauce that I remember buying ages ago. I immediately checked on the expiration date and it says 9-10-2010 so it would still be very good. I decided that for today, I'd be making some cupcakes using the Applesauce.
I have a recipe of Apple Spice Cupcakes and upon reading through it, I have all of the ingredients to make it. On top of the regular cupcake recipe, it needed some brown sugar, nutmeg, cloves and the Applesauce. After mixing the batter, I popped the cupcakes into the oven and it was done at 18min mark.
The cupcakes turned out to be nicely domed and fluffy, and the color was slightly gold/brown. It was perfectly baked and I let it cool on the racks. After it cooled, I topped it with some Swiss Meringue Buttercream that I made, and some of the Cream Cheese Frosting leftover that I had from the Lemon Cupcakes that I made. It turned out to be so good! It's the first time that I tried something like it and it was yummy.

Cheesecake Poll

2008-05-02T00:23:00.000+03:00

I have posted the cheesecake poll here in my blog because there is an upcoming cheesecake making contest in our office. The deadline for submission of entries is on May 18 and I'm thinking of joining. I'm still doubtful however because the only cheesecakes that I made (and you'll see it here in my blog) were Strawberry Cheesecakes, and the mini cheesecake cupcakes. I have very good recipes but I'm not sure if I could handle making a cake to be judged by someone else.
Anyways, while I'm still contemplating on it, let me know what your favorites are and vote on my poll! :)

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2008-05-01T23:08:00.000+03:00

These are Sarah's Thick With A Chew Chocolate Chip Cookies. I baked these last night with the intention of having something to munch until the weekend, or have something to go with coffee. However, it was all gone by the day's end today. For some reason, people kept coming to my cube today to ask something just about the test program that I just released.
The cookies, as the name says, were thick and chewy. I had always wanted my cookies to be like this way, that when you take a bite, you'll have something to chew. It turned out just the way I love my cookies to be!

Lemon Pound Cupcakes

2008-04-27T19:02:00.001+03:00

These are Classic Lemon Pound Cupcakes frosted with White Cream Cheese Frosting. I made the cupcakes using Nick Malgieri's Basic Pound Cake recipe, and halved it to make only a dozen of cupcakes. The full recipe would yield one 9x5x3 cake or about 24-26 cupcakes depending on the size of the liners. I added some lemon zest and lemon extract on the pound cake to make it lemon flavored. If you may have noticed, lemon cakes (or lemon cupcakes for that matter) are my favorite together either with a raspberry ganache or cream cheese. I bake chocolate cupcakes most of the time for other people. I try to intentionally avoid making these lemon cupcakes as I eat too much of it. I normally cannot resist it! At the office today, I brought a few pieces for breakfast and to share. However, we decided to skip lunch and just ate the cupcakes with coffee. So now, I haven't had a decent meal the entire day but I'm still full because of the cupcakes.

Dulce De Leche Brownies

2008-04-25T22:37:00.000+03:00

These are Dulce De Leche Chocolate Brownies with chopped nuts. This is my first time making brownies because I had always been addicted to making cupcakes and cakes. However this time, I need to make something fast because I cannot afford to spend much time in the kitchen with all my office work. This recipe is by Sarah Philips and that in itself has already a stamp that says it is very good. I made these because Manny and I finished the cinnamon rolls that we're supposed to bring to the office as breakfast (which sometimes could be lunch and dinner). So we brought the brownies 8 pieces at a time to the office so that we'll have something to go by because we were so busy. However, each batch that I brought ended up being finished even before lunch because our officemates who drop by either mine or Manny's cube would take one. And they loved it, one of them even went back to take another piece and another one dropped by my cube the next day looking for some. :)

Pecanbons

2008-04-25T22:23:00.000+03:00

I made these pecanbons about a week ago but was just unable to blog because I was dead busy at work. I baked these last weekend with the thought of having something to eat during the busy days but then, we finished the cinnamon rolls over the weekend!
These are cinnamon rolls topped with caramel sauce and garnished with chopped pecan nuts. These were to die for. Last Saturday, we were so busy working that we ended up eating the rolls for lunch and dinner.

Happy Birthday Iya!

2008-04-18T23:01:00.000+03:00

My favorite little girl here Iya turned 4 last April 15 and she can't have a real kiddie party here in Israel because first, there are no kids other than her, and second, there are now only five of us here to party. Thet and Mike decided to just have a small get together for her. I made her some cupcakes with sugar flowers because she loved the valentine cupcakes that I made back then also with sugar flowers. She told me to make her pink cupcakes with yummy chocolates and flowers. See, she's only 4 but she knows what she wants already!
I had always planned on making her cupcakes anyway, regardless of whether she will have a real kiddie party or not, and whether they'd buy her a birthday cake or not. However, as the day drew nearer, I got busier by the day at work and the eve of her birthday was the busiest day ever in a long time. I made the sugar flowers and dried it up two days earlier so it had been done already but I still need to whip up the chocolate cupcakes and the vanilla buttercream. So on the eve of her birthday, I planned on going home early to watch Tennis and make her cupcakes at the same time. But lo and behold, that did not happen. Moore's law is really true. I was home at around 11pm, but I cannot stop working yet because I was fixing the test program for my night jobs. I stopped (but not finished) working at 2am, and started working on Iya's cupcakes. I was too sleepy already, but when I started Blacky (my kitchen aid mixer), I seemed to have gotten a boost of adrenalin. Chocolate cupcakes are one of my more comfortable recipes so I finished pretty quickly and while the cupcakes were in the oven, I made the buttercream just in time until the cupcakes were ready to be frosted. By 3am, I was already taking photos of the finished cupcakes. You could imagine that I was so groggy the next day at work.
So these are Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes, topped with Vanilla Buttercream and decorated with hand made Sugar Flowers from a stored home made fondant that I have. My recipe yielded 12 regular cupcakes and 2 mini-cakes.

Cinnamon Rolls

2008-04-15T18:09:00.000+03:00

Back in the days when life was simple, Fridays were normally dinner in Makati, cinnamon rolls and lemonade in Cinnzeo and Hot White Mocha in Starbucks to shake of the sleepiness. I remember us Intel jologs with our heavy bags and office laptops scouring through Greenbelt just for that and have those long talks and make fun of each other. I also had very good Cinnabon memories always having the classic rolls at Podium, always bringing something for my mom as I used to always drive by it back then before going home to Antipolo. The last time I had cinnamon rolls was a month ago at Cinnabon in Mecca Mall in Amman. Since then, I had always been craving for it and there is nowhere here in Israel where I could find anything like it. And as always, I braved to make it myself.
I was not able to find a definitive recipe in the web so I again combined what I feel is the best out of each recipe. There are three components to the rolls, first is the bread roll, second is the cinnamon filling and third is the cream cheese frosting. Making the bread is tricky, I kneaded to combine yeast, sugar, salt, milk and flour, then knead it for 10mins and let it rise until the dough has doubled. It took about an hour for the bread to rise to double its size. After which I rolled out the dough into the square 9x13 baking baking, then covered it with generous cinnamon filling (brown sugar, melted butter and lots of cinnamon), then I folded it into dough rolls which I then cut into serving sized breads. And then I let it rise again until each rolls doubled up which took about another hour. After that, I just baked it for 18mins until it is golden brown, took it out and smudged it all over with cream cheese frosting. It was sooo good! I even amazed myself at how it tasted! We have not even finished it yet and Manny wanted me to make new batches already! But as they say, eat it today, wear it tomorrow. Holy smokes, there goes my diet.

Butter Pound Cake with Lemon Fondant Glaze

2008-04-14T10:46:00.001+03:00

Pound cakes are traditional American cakes and are called as such because it requires a pound of each of the ingredients like flour, sugar, eggs and butter. These cakes are lighter but has a burst of butter which provides a very rich taste and denser feel to the cakes.
This is my first time to bake a pound cake. I had always wanted because I had been keeping a good Pound cake recipe from Nick Malgieri (of the Institute of Culinary School NY) but as usual, I don't want to bake anything excessive that we will not be able to finish.
Last Thursday, Thet asked me to bake a Pound Cake and I was excited just because I now have a reason to bake a Pound Cake. However, I was too busy to be able to work on it as soon as I wanted to. I even had to go to work on a weekend because of too much work load because of my impending test program release. Thet requested me to bake a Flo Braker recipe which I assume when she saw made her crave for one. LOL! Flo Braker is also a very respected and popular baker but this is my first cake recipe from her. I always had mine from Sarah Phillips, Rose Levy Berenbaum, Nick Malgieri, and from my fellow baking911 members. I finally got to bake last Saturday night after dinner and finished up before midnight. I know I'm such an addict, considering I'd be going to work again the next day.
Preparing the batter for this recipe required sifting the cake flour three times to achieve a fine texture for the cake. After creaming the sugar and butter, and after mixing with the eggs, I had to just fold in the flour delicately to avoid overmixing. I also don't have a loaf pan that is normally used for Pound cakes so I had to just resort to my 8X3 round pan and in doing so had a little extra batter for a pint sized mini cake. The cake baked for 40mins, and I took it out and cooled it in a rack for another 30mins.
While the cake is cooling, I prepared the fondant glaze (imagine those sugar frostings on top of a krispy kreme donuts or even dunkin donuts). Once the glaze is ready, I drizzled the hot onto the cooled cake for a first coating of the entire cake. Then after the glaze has slightly cooled and the consistency had slightly thickened, I poured the second coat on top of cake in the middle and let it spread by itself. I took the photo while the cake was still on the drying pan, and then transferred it onto another clean pan and covered it ready for handling. Not without saving a mini cake for me to try if it is good though. And now I can blog about it because we ate the small piece from a leftover batter and it was all praises from Manny's discriminating taste. ;) It was very luscious and rich without being overpowering and the hints of lemon on the cake and glaze provides a good flavor kick on the cake.

Happy Birthday Creamy!

2008-04-13T00:44:00.000+03:00

Happy 3rd birthday my big baby boy Creamy! My boy is growing so fast, and I'm missing on his growing years! Hehe. He had his indulge day on his day, he ate some pancit and lumpia and ice cream!
Tomorrow, he will be back again on his meat stew, no-salt, no-carbo diet because he is obese at 125lbs. LOL. He probably is getting sick of the food he is eating, I would imagine it does not have any flavor to it because it is just a little meat, vegetables and water stewed for about an hour. It does not have any salt or spices to it.

Mocha Buttercream

2008-04-05T15:07:00.000+03:00

I had originally planned on working this weekend but after having had a very early meeting yesterday, I ended up sleeping through the entire day. And because I had a lot of sleep during the day, I slept very late already, and woke up very late today! It does become a vicious cycle! Haha. As always during weekends, I plan on baking something that would get us by the breakfasts in the office. Breakfasts here in our office are european/mediterranean. I always bring my own breakfast because I am not really into eating bell peppers, fresh olives, tomatoes and cream cheese in the morning. I want my fried rice, egg and daing!
Anyways, I made some Yellow Vanilla cupcakes topped with Mocha Buttercream today. The Yellow cupcake recipe that I used turned out to be slightly crunchy and dense making it very filling. It is my first time making some Mocha Buttercream which turned out to be very rich and yummy!
I swirled the frosting on top of the cupcakes and I topped it with a few pieces of silver and pearl dragees. I will be meeting up with Thet and Ate Jen later so I'll bring them a few pieces.

I Got Featured!

2008-03-30T23:54:00.000+03:00

I was thrilled that the girls of the most popular cupcake blog "Cupcakes Take the Cake" featured My Blueberry Cupcakes on their blog. I was so excited that they took notice of the blueberry cupcake photo and they posted a link of my blog in their blog together with a full entry. Cupcakes Take the Cake is a blog created by 3 cupcake loving friends from NY. It features cupcakes from all over the world. I read from their blog that they will be in the Martha Stewart Show tomorrow. :) Please check out the link above for their entry on my cupcakes.

Blueberry Mud Cupcakes

2008-03-30T19:33:00.000+03:00

I found a blueberry pie filling in the grocery and I bought it with a cheesecake in mind. If you noticed in my previous entries, I had been thinking of making cheesecakes for weeks but I never get to doing it because it is hard to make in small quantities and if I make it in full cake size, nobody will finish it. When I saw the pie filling sitting in my counter, I decided to open it and try to taste it and I was amazed at how good it tasted. The pie filling will be able to hold a flavor on its own because I was initially thinking of kicking up the flavor by heating it with some sugar and fresh lemon juice. Since the blueberry itself was very tasty already, I thought of making topping it on a plain butter cupcake.
So I then made the vanilla butter cupcakes which were out of the oven after 20 minutes of baking. As for the frosting, I made made some white chocolate mud icing and folded with it half cup of the blueberry filling. The resulting emulsion turned into a slightly violet/bluish mixture and the texture was like a mud. I then topped the cooled cupcakes with the frosting and decorated it with white sugar sprinkles for some color contrast.
The photo does not do justice to how the cupcakes tasted like! It was bursting with flavors from the blueberry and the slight whisper of the white chocolate. It's now one of my favorite flavors and definitely a keeper!

My Pandesal

2008-03-29T23:19:00.000+03:00

If I were in the Philippines, it would be very impractical to bake my own Pandesal because it is sold in every corner. Pandesal sa Pugon was just very near our house and regardless of what we had for breakfast back home, there would always be Pandesal. Even Creamy (my dog) has his share of Pandesal every morning (but he's on a diet now, so no Pandesal for him in the meantime).
I had been craving for Pandesal for ages and I had been looking for a recipe so that I could make it on my own. I found several recipes, but since all of these recipes uses evaporated milk, I would always just ditch it because I cannot find any evaporated milk sold here in Israel. I decided to try replacing the evaporated milk with regular whole milk and see what will happen. There's no harm in trying. So last night, I made sure that I had all the ingredients at hand so that I would make Pandesal first thing in the morning for breakfast. But lo and behold, I woke up at 1pm! Technically, it would still be my breakfast since it's my first meal so I still decided to bake the bread. After much ado, I went to my kitchen and started preparing the dough. It's just a combination of very small amounts of milk, sugar, butter, yeast and flour plus other leaveners. After combining the ingredients, I left it on the stand mixer on kneading mode for 15mins. After kneading, I left it for another 15mins again so that the dough would double up in size. Once the dough was double its size, I used an ice cream scoop to make the individual Pandesal. My small recipe yielded 15 pieces. After baking it for 10mins, I have my freshly baked, golden brown Pandesal! I opened a Spam, made some fluffy scrambled eggs and opened a can of Reno to go with the bread. I know it's too much but I just had to taste all of it all at once! :) Manny and I never got to finish everything though, it was very heavy and filling. The Pandesal tasted like a real one (but it's real anyway! :D), and it was crunchy on the outside but soft inside.

Cuatro Leches Cake

2008-03-23T21:06:00.001+02:00

Every time I bake a whole cake, I would always plan on taking a picture of the cake after it gets sliced for serving and I would either get lazy or forget about it. This time, I made it a point to take a nice photo after the first slice.
After a day of wondering what to bake, Manny thought that he wanted a Cuatro Leches cake. I have baked it before but it was rather improvised because I did not have all the ingredients back then. As I have learned from baking911, this cake is called as such because of the four types of milk used. It's basically a Vanilla Sponge Cake soaked in a four milk sauce, covered with Swiss Meringue and drizzed with some Caramel sauce.
After assembling the cake, I left it to settle for a while and we went to grill some barbecue for dinner. We were so excited with the barbecue so we set the table and then I immediately cut the cake without realizing that I have not taken a photo of the whole cake!
Anyway, Manny cut a clean and picturesque slice of the cake and I plated it, wedding style. I have always loved how sliced cakes looked neat and elegant at Martha Stewart's website. Here's a photo of my imitation. My cakes will never get nowhere close, but what the heck :)

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

2008-03-23T12:15:00.001+02:00

I had been contemplating on making some cookies but I don’t have a cookie sheet and when I finally got one, I let it sit for weeks in my cupboard. Having seen a good oatmeal cookie recipe in baking911, I decided to try making one. I wanted to try few flavors all at once, but again, no one will finish it! The recipe that I got was very easy and quite healthy because of the oats.
As always during weekends, I immediately turn on my oven when I wake up (this time at around 11am) to bake something, and normally, I get started at around 2pm. This time around, it was already 3pm but I have not decided to bake anything yet. I had thought of baking some cheesecakes for today but it will take us forever again to finish it! As much as I wanted to eat it, as I got older, I realized that I cannot just eat anything without gaining any weight! So anyway, while I was still thinking of what to bake, I decided to bake something quick in between and decided on popping some cookies in the oven.
After 5mins of making the batter, and 12 minutes of baking, I have freshly made oatmeal cookies. Ate Jen went by our house today to have her laptop installed with some softwares and she initially did not want to eat anything because it was Good Friday. But then I tempted her with some cookies (and some beef with oyster sauce and broccoli meal) and she gave in! :) The cookies were soft and chewy, and smelled really good! We had some after dinner (cookies for dessert, weird eh?) and I forgot to send her some when she went home. My bad!

Chocolate Revel Bars

2008-03-14T18:19:00.000+02:00

Today is my first free day after 2 weeks. I had been very busy at work for the past 2 weeks, and then we went to Jordan for a quick 3-day vacation last weekend. We drove to the border, then took a taxi going to Amman where we stayed for the entire time. Then we went to Petra for a day trip. I was tired after going back here in Haifa! As they say when you take a vacation, "you need to take a vacation to relax after your vacation!".

I spent the entire day today fixing things around the house. I have a 3-week laundry load that I started to do today (and at 11pm, I have one load of beige/cream colored clothes left). Then there's the sheets that I needed to change, bed that I needed to do, dust the entire house, clean the bathroom and cook meals for my hungry tummy! I pretty much did everything today, and when I was standing at the middle of the living room, I saw one big something that I forgot to do...remove the Christmas tree! It's already March and I still have it in the middle of the room! :)

Anyway, in between all of those things, I managed to take a nap, and bake something just to satisfy the sweet tooth craving. While cooking tapsilog for brunch (which is more like a lunner, or dunch...because it's at 2pm already), I prepared the batter for the Chocolate Revel Bars. I remember talking with Lemon in YM a few months back and she said she loves Revel Bars. I thought I haven't tried one yet and I googled it and found that it was how it is called! I have tried it already after all! I started looking for a recipe back then. However, I can't find a decent one. I tried looking again today (with the laptop in the kitchen counter while cooking) and I failed to find that perfect recipe. What I just then did is to take 3 recipes from the web, and interlace it based on my very short baking career. LOL!

I did the mixing of the batter in parallel while I was frying the beef tapa that I made, and by the time that the beef was done, I was starting baking the Revel Bars. After finishing our lunch, the Revel Bars were also done. It baked for around 40 minutes. We had it for dessert and it was very good. Not too sweet, chocolatey, soft and crunchy because of the oatmeal. It was very good for a quick baking fix. Let me know if you'd like some! :)

Rolled Fondant Cake

2008-03-02T19:14:00.000+02:00

There really is no occasion this week to make a whole cake and fancy at that. I normally make cupcakes only just to be able to bake and to try out new recipes in small quantities. This is the first weekend that I had a free weekend so I decided to try out making fondant. Or this could be my Tita Len's belated happy birthday cake! :)This is my first successful attempt at making rolled fondant from scratch. The recipe for the rolled fondant is Toba Garrett's which I got from baking911. It's made up of gelatin, corn syrup, vanilla extract and confectionary sugar mixed and kneaded together to form the dough like consistency. The final fondant was slightly on the dry side, so I had a lot of creases and folds on the cake which I cannot straighten out because of the dryness. Creases were more obvious on the bottom part of the cake.
The cake inside is also something that I made for the first time. The cake recipe is Rose Levy Berenbaum's All Downy Yellow Cake. It was very good (based on the crumbs that I got) and very... yellow (but of course! LOL!). I frosted and coated the cake with some Vanilla Buttercream.
After assembling the cake with the fondant, I topped it with some sugar flowers, sugar pearls and silver dragees on top. I would have wanted to make the flowers from gum paste (which would have made it thinner and more realistic) but since it's a no-occasion cake, I just settled with some fondant sugar flowers. After having the final cake done, I can't wait to make another one again! :)

Dulce De Leche Cupcakes

2008-02-27T21:34:00.000+02:00

These are White Cupcakes filled with Dulce De Leche and topped with Vanilla Meringue. This is the first time that I used my blow torch and at first it was scary using it but it gets fun afterwards. LOL. Meringue really tastes better torched. I made these cupcakes after 2 weeks of hectic schedule at work, and after finally releasing my test program. It was also my record breaking baking time, everything was done from the baking to the frosting after an hour!

Here are some more photos of the cupcakes. Pictures are not so good because I took it. Hehe. I keep saying must be because of the different camera, but I guess it's me. :) And of course Manny and I cannot (or should not!) finish 16 cupcakes before they perish so I brought the rest to our morning meeting at the office. Together with a hot coffee, the cuppies were a hit!

Birthday Cuppies

2008-02-23T23:52:00.000+02:00

It's Ate Jen's birthday today and as a gift for her, I made her some cupcakes. She wanted a chocolate mousse cake, but I did not have the time to make her one, so instead, I whipped up a chocolate cupcake recipe that I could make fast. Manny's parents were already going back to San Jose today and we brought them to the airport in Tel Aviv at 2:30am. We were back in Haifa at around 6am. Being tired and all, I slept until 2pm, stayed in bed until 3pm, got up only when my stomach was already grumbling from hunger :) Plus, I ate my very late lunch for more than an hour because of the Sharapova-Radwanska Qatar Open game on TV. Having slept almost the entire day, I was not able to make Ate Jen's chocolate mousse.
Anyway, I managed to make her some chocolate cupcakes with melted chocolate filling inside frosted with raspberry buttercream and topped with some sugar dragees.
Manny and I went to her place at around 9pm. She had a party and we had some Filipino food for dinner. She liked the cakes and cupcakes that I previously made and she did not want to share these new ones to anyone! :) LOL!

Coffee Crumb Cupcakes

2008-02-23T23:23:00.000+02:00

These cupcakes are leftovers of the Coffee Crumb cake that I made below. It is made of a butter cake in the bottom, topped with a generous layer of coffee crumb on top. It was so good! Sorry about the photos, I just had to take a picture before they're all gone! And gone they were! :) This cake is not very sweet, and has a big crunch when eaten. Definitely good with coffee too!

Cuppies Boxed Up!

2008-02-18T23:06:00.001+02:00

These cupcakes went all the way to Eilat (southernmost Israeli city which is on the border of Egypt and Jordan) as presents for Manny's relatives living there. His parents who are here in Israel for vacation brought with them the cuppies. It seems like my Chocolate Cupcakes which is a version of Sarah Philips' UCBC are becoming bestsellers. I again made the Chocolate Cupcakes with Fudge in the middle, this time topped with Vanilla Buttercream. They said the kids loved the chocolate!

Happy Valentine!

2008-02-17T19:30:00.001+02:00

My valentine cupcakes are made of double chocolate fudge cupcakes topped with raspberry buttercream. I brought some to the office to spread some love to my Israeli officemates who celebrate valentine's in July. :) I also gave some to Thet and little Iya who probably won't be able to eat it because it's sweet and she has coughs. I hope Iya gets well soon so she could enjoy Europe!

My New Kitchen Aid!

2008-02-12T20:33:00.000+02:00

I bought my new black Artisan about a week ago and after staring at it for a week, I finally found time to bake something. These are the first cupcakes that I made using it. It really is the coolest mixer ever! :) The cupcakes turned out very soft, fluffy and moist.

These double chocolate blast cupcakes were made with 75% Cocoa Belgian chocolate and all natural cocoa powder. Because of all the chocolates, each tasted like it's made with some expensive European chocolate. Some Vanilla Buttercream on top.