Orange Chiffon Cake

Made an orange chiffon cake filled and covered with orange cream and covered with lightly roasted almonds.
Not a big fan of this cake because of the amount of eggs involved and cream squeezed in on request.

Red Velvet Cupcakes topped with Cream Cheese Frosting

Originally this would have been the valentine cupcakes and also planned to top each with a few red hearts and cherry blossoms but didn't get around to making them before the dinner.
I enjoyed the taste but few people were not comfortable with the red colour that is part of this cake. Chances are this will only be make on request but still a good experience.

Happy Chinese New Year - 恭喜發財

Yes, It is Chinese New Year and I made up a mud cake and shaped it into a chinese gold ingot.
Covered it with gold dust to give it that bling.
The small little red things are supposed to be red envelopes.
All's well for another year as this year being the year of the Metal Tiger which is associated with big changes and social disorder. Interesting...

恭喜發財!

Valentines Day

This year Valentines day falling on the same day as Chinese New Year. I originally was going to make a cake for Valentines and another for Chinese New Year but would be too much effort and too much to finish since family has gone overseas for a month.
So I am currently working on a cake for Chinese New Year and just whipped up a quick Valentines treat for one.
Made hearts out of egg and ham thanks to Aeri's blog.
Happy Valentines!

Frangipanis

First day back in class for 2010. Frangipanis this time. John says you got to make them so thin I should be able to read a newspaper?! I tried but the wire just keeps coming through the flower paste. Will just have to practice, practice practice..

Sad Day - RIP Brauny

Today is a sad day for me. My good and trusted friend for the last 6 years has given up the go and packed it in.
That is my Braun electric hand mixer. Did almost everything with my little friend, whip, blend, chop, grind...everything. And now feel lost without it. I think I over worked it trying to puree some prunes. Smoke started coming out of the motor which was first sign it was over. baahaa :(
Trying to do things completely manually is like going to the stone age.
Now on the hunt for a new hand mixer. Saw Braun Hand mixers comes in 600W. That's 100 more than my old one.
Just keep an eye for them to come on special.
RIP my little friend.

Blog Page Revamped

My Bubblegum page gets a long overdue rebuild. I have been longing for an update for over a year now that I feel is more suitable than the plain template that comes from blogger. It is still not fully what I am looking for but will do for now. Me a very happy happy Bubblegum..Hehe..

Will's "Rolada" - Prune and Walnut Log

My wife introduced this treat called Rolada which is found in the gourmet section of your deli.
These little treats seems to be becoming popular and it best served along a cheese platter with crackers and a nice glass of wine or coffee.
Effectively it is a Prune and walnut or fig and walnut logs.
I tasted it and looked at the ingredients and thought can't be that hard to make. And it wasn't. There aren't any definitive recipes that I could find anywhere so I played with the flavours and recipe till I thought it was right. It is a mix of prunes, walnut, sugar, lemon and honey. Rolled them up and slow baked and bingo.

Hong Kong Egg Tarts

It has been a while since I made a batch of egg tarts. I love them and started making them when I was in Canberra years ago. I resisted from making them now since one of my children has a slight egg intolerance.
I make the Hong Kong version with the puff pastry as that is the one I know and love the best.

Cookie and Cream Cheesecake

The first attempt at this cheesecake I didn't add enough gelatin and the cake would collapse with each slice. It was miserable.
This time it turn out well. I felt slightly less gelatin would be make it just perfect.
This non bake cheesecake was easy to whip up with little effort involved. Thinking of making a fruity cheesecake next since its summer and all the summer fruits like strawberries, mangoes. Mmmm ........mango cheesecake is sounding good.

Moichi Moichi

Housewarming was up and coming and whipped up some moichi to take over that morning. Moichi is always best when they are freshly made. The ones that are shop bought are normally made weeks or months ahead and just can't compare with fresh ones.
In this batch there are fillings with black sesame paste (covered with roasted sesame seeds), peanut paste (covered with peanut powder), coconut and palm sugar mix (plain).
I told my wife to remind me, next time to I make a suggestion with moichi, remember the cleanup. Yes..the clean up.

Orange Syrup Cake

This is a simple and quick cake and always delicious. Made a orange sponge cake and made up some orange syrup which is poured over the cake as soon as it comes out. Let it soak a little and then serve.

CWA Scones

Made some CWA scones for our day trip to Yarra Glen. Love these scones, they are quick and easy and the recipe has never faulted. Perfect every time. I use double acting baking powder which gives it that extra rise. The normal baking powder from the supermarket shelf just doesn't cut it.
As soon as they came out of the oven, straight into the car and to our destination. Kids went off yabbying at the dam and we sit back and enjoy the scones and tea (Devonshire Tea) and an afternoon in the countryside. How nice that?



Served with Strawberry Jam and a dollop of cream

Christmas is here!!

Christmas is here and for me it is a time for a break from work and time with family get togethers. It has been a long but thoroughly interesting year.
To celebrate the festive season I made a fruit cake and decorated it with inspiration from Su Yin. It is actually my first fruit cake. I am in general not a fan of fruit cake but it is a requirement as a celebratory cake standard as well as being a heavy cake required to build multi tiered cakes.
The christmas tree is actually a ice cream cone piped with royal icing. I wanted the cake to be playful and have an essence of what Christmas should be.
In one part of the cake I have my little friends working together decorating the tree. On the other side of the cake is two friends having a snow fight behind a snowman they had jsut made. The little one holding the ribbon near the tree was originally a naughty friend going for a number 1 next to the tree. I was going to add a few drops of yellow to the cake in that area but I canned this idea as it would not be appropriate but was on my mind when I was building the cake. Hehe..
I thought everyone enjoyed it. Merry Christmas.

Jonathan's 4yo Thomas the Tank Engine Cake

Thanks to Debbie Brown, this Thomas the Tank Engine cake was by far the most difficult and time consuming cake I have done so far. I am not critizing Debbie at all, her books are by far some of the best avaiable. It is more a comment for myself to take on such a big project whilst still an amateur. In the end it took way too much time for my liking and hope not needing to do another Thomas anytime soon.
The cake itself was a chocolate sponge, which was my bad move. I should have used a heavy cake like fruit or mud cake. Then I filled and coated with white chocolate ganache. As it was a biggish cake I made extra ganache which was fine but found it took so long to set I should had made it the night before and not the day of the build.
As I used sponge the cake had difficulty holding its shape and soon my Thomas was becoming funny looking.
At the end I finished it without the wheels, By that time I was tired and just had enough of spending any more time on it.
I presented it to the party and thankfully it was a hit.
I served the cake with a choc chip cupcake as my secondary backup if there was not enough cake for everyone.
I think as a comment for future cake desgin publishers to include an estimate time required to build a cake for novice or intermediate cake decorators so it helps guage and manage our time.
Only a thought, doubt anything will come of it.

Spray of Calle lilies

Unfortunately one of the tips broke off the lillies.
Thanks John, it has been a great year. I have learnt leaps and bounds with cake decorating and flower making.

Flowering gum nuts

Lillies

My first lillies. They were quite easy. Using flower paste to make the stems and the flower. The stamen is covered with polenta which made it look like the pollen of the flower.

Tare Panda Mud Cake

This time round, made a Tare Panda on a aeroplane with little rabbit waving goodbye and another rabbit guiding the plane off.
The cake is a straight mud cake but didn't turn out that nice. It was so frustrating to have the butter leak out of my tin. I used a spring form tin and half the butter leaked out. The cake turned out dry and crumbly. Learnt my lesson on this one.

First Sugar roses

Have been attempting sugar roses. Not that good really. Actually pretty bad. The hard part is getting it into the shape and mould the petals to be the right thickness. Have been advised the petals shold be so thin I could read a newspaper with it. Well that is really thin!!
Will have to keep on working at it. Eventually will start adding some colour.

Out of flower paste and will need to make a whole new batch.
Where is that recipe I got..hmm