not even death can make us part

chocolate rojak cupcakes

mo and his box of cupcakes *heart*




mini cheesecakelets

good stuff cupcakes (as named by sher hann)

we had a law school bake sale today in college to raise some funds for the orphanage our school's affliated to. funds to get them christmas presents :) wei guan made a huge load of cookies, i made a huge load of cupcakes, and there were a huge load of hand made photo frames too.

all i can say is, the law school is the law school's biggest customer. the support totally overwhelms me. so sweet. mo, my classmate, bought the whole box of chocolate cupcakes. how sweet is that? :)

sorry to disappoint but i did not make any tiramisu cupcakes. i wanted to. the cupcakes were already in the oven when i realised it might not be such a good idea because the cream cheese will definitely melt in the sun. that's terrible! so i had to resort to sturdy buttercream instead. and that meant changing the face of the cupcake forever. btw, i'm talking about the cupcake with the oreo stuffed in the middle of the icing.

in the end i made cheesecakelets out of the cream cheese... and they weren't even supposed to be presented like that. i actually planned to have the whole mini cheese tart pastry thing going on... but then i ran out of egg. improvise!

tiramisu cupcakes another day. garrett has volunteered to be a guinea pig. :)

recipe:

Good Stuff Cupcakes

(yields 32 2inch cupcakes)

Cupcake:

2 cups all purpose flour/ cake flour

1 cup sugar

5 oz good quality butter, at room temperature

3 whole eggs

1 egg yolk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

pinch of salt

3/4 cup full cream milk

Fresh Coffee

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and baking soda.

2. Cream the butter till very creamy. Add in the sugar and beat to incorporate completely till fluffy. Add in eggs one by one, with a 70 second interval between each addition of egg (THIS IS CRUCIAL)

3. Add in the vanilla

4. Add in the flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with the milk. Continue to beat until all ingredients are fully incorporated. Add in a tbsp or so of milk if necessary.

5. Preheat oven to 180C.

6. Line cupcake trays and spoon into cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Bake for 18-20 minutes or until the cupcake bounces back lightly when touched.

7. When the cupcakes are cool, poke small holes into the cupcake using a fork. Spoon over a tsp the coffee carefully and making sure the cupcake absorbs it. Spoon another tsp of coffee over. (you can spoon more to taste)

Icing:

7 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature

12oz icing sugar minus 1 tbsp

1 tbsp cocoa powder

3 tbsps coffee

1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence/ mocha essence

small pinch of salt
*if you prefer not to have cocoa powder, just omit it.

9 oreo cookies

Chocolate rice (optional)

1. Cream butter, and add in the icing sugar and cocoa powder. Cream together until soft. Add in the coffee to assist in the creaming. If the icing is still a bit hard, add in a tbsp of milk. Add in the vanilla essence. Add in the salt if you think the icing is a bit too sweet.
2. Pipe over onto cupcakes.

3. Quarter each oreo cookie (but for the last cookie, you might have to divide into 5 segments)

4. Stuff the oreo into the icing. Sprinkle over some chocolate rice.

CALORIE COUNT: 196 calories per cupcake.



***

Mini Cheesecakelets

(yields about 42? mini tarts)

1/2 cup crushed oreo cookies

30 - 40g butter, melted

250g cream cheese

20g butter

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla essence

juice of 1/3 of a lemon

Some raspberry/blueberry/cherry/strawberry filling. Jam will do if you don't have filling.

1/3 cup castor sugar

1. Mix butter with the crushed oreo cookies and spoon 1/4 tsp full into each mini cupcake liner. Smooth out to cover the base of the liner. Let set in the fridge while you make the cheese filling.

2. Pre heat oven to 180C

3. Cream the cream cheese and 20g butter until smooth. Add in the sugar and egg. Add in vanilla and the lemon juice. Cream thoroughly until well mixed.

4. Fill the mini cupcake liner with a tsp full of cream cheese filling. Marble in the fruit filling.

5. Bake for 10-15 minutes.

6. Let come to room temp, and chill in fridge before serving.

CALORIE COUNT: 40 calories per cheesecakelet

boy you're my temporary high

been baking non-stop for the charity sale at school tomorrow. recipes soon ok? :) wait for it!

oh sweetheart put the bottle down. you've got too much talent

batch one of the cupcake frenzy. btw i think i'm backing out of the 3rd one omg because i am having problems with international lawwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww! maybe wei guan will make some tho? tomorrow, tiramisu! cupcakes with recipe! :)

you're not the boss of me now

supersara is on a weeklong baking hiatus (minus the fact that she baked some 30 cupcakes on friday - no pictures because they were gone before any camera could be whipped out) because she is getting ready for the major cupcake-athon next week!

100 cupcakes, possibly 2 days. are you ready for some action? and cyber-calories?
on the menu:

the ultimate chocolate rojak cupcake
soft fluffy chocolate cupcake topped with everything chocolate :) melts in your mouth, warms the tummy, gives you the mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. :)

tiramisu! cupcake
the classic italian dessert, tiny form! omg. frosted with cream cheese and all. no joke, baby.

the third i haven't decided:
it's either a
lemon cupcake with strawberry meringue icing
black forest cupcakes with whipped cream
caramel + cinammon + apple cupcakes
fluffy coffee cupcake

but i'll give you the recipe for the third one! whichever it is! maybe i should make a one-week poll for this. VOOOOOOOOOOOOOTE!

which cupcake!!!!!!!!

will you still love me tomorrow?

so how does that look? :) what if i told you it was healthy? :)!

and this? this isn't domino's. or pizza hut's. or anything else. it's home made, and even healthier!

mini version - about 8 inches in diameter.

if i haven't already told you, garrett and i are currently on a fast food ban for the whole of november. but it's not JUST fast food, it's also soft drinks and the processed junk food. however, with jiejie back for the weekend, and the parents out on a saturday night, we decided to cook a dinner of pizzas and burgers!

well, the only reason why we're on this fast food ban is because we are aiming to lose weight. it's not working for me, actually. but that's not the point. the point is, although we had pizzas and burgers for dinner, they were not unhealthy fast food! to tell the truth, they weren't even fast to prepare. HAHA. we used fresh quality ingredients, the leanest beef approved by weight watchers, freshly made pizza bread dough (yes, made from scratch!), fresh vegetables and mushrooms... we even used only olive or sunflower oil.

talk about healthy ;). so we decided we haven't broken the ban yet!


this is dad, trying to toss the pizza. hahaha. tossing the pizza is way harder than it looks. first of all, you would not know how or where to start. while tossing is necessary to stretch the dough to make it nice and thin, it also causes uneven surfaces. so, the middle portion will be scanty, and the sides (crust) will be thick. i suggest rolling them out to get a more even surface through out.

try making your own pizzas. it's great! :)

recipe:

Beef Pepperoni Pizza ala SuperSara!
(Makes 4 small ones or 2 big ones)

For the dough:
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
11g yeast (1/4 oz) - one satchet
1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tbsp olive oil
Herbs

For the Topping:
Beef Pepperoni
about 100g minced beef
100g white button mushrooms
2 - 3 fresh tomatoes
1/2 of a yellow big onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
Olive Oil
About 8 tbsps - 10 tbsps tomato paste
150g - 200g grated mixed cheese (or mozarella), or to taste
Pepper
Salt
Streaky Bacon, about 6 pieces
Garlic Powder, optional
All purpose seasoning, optional
Dried Mixed Herbs, optional

1. To Make the Dough: Measure out the flour into the mixer bowl. Meanwhile, dissolve the sugar and the yeast in the warm water for about 5 minutes, for until frothy and foaming.
2. Add the herbs into the flour and mix. Add in the olive oil and the yeast mixture and mix till it comes together. the dough should be a little tacky but will separate from your fingers. at first glance, it may look like it has not enough liquid, but knead a few times and it should be alright.
3. Lightly oil a large bowl with olive oil and place dough into that bowl. Cover with a kitchen towel. Let rest for about 40 minutes, and punch the air out of the dough. Knead 4 or 5 times more and let rest for 40 minutes again.
4. While waiting, sautee the garlic, followed by onion, mushrooms, and the beef. Fry till brown. Add some salt and pepper. Let cool.
5. Chop tomatoes into small cubes.
6. Knead the dough a few times and separate into two.
7. Let rest for 5 minutes. Place one half of the dough back into the bowl.
8. With a rolling pin, roll out the other half until it reaches your desired thickness. it should be at least 12 inches in diameter.
9. Pre-heat oven to 250C.
10. Make the Filling: Spread about 4 - 5 tbsps worth of tomato paste onto the pizza dough. Remember, you should not add too much paste because it is really thick. Sprinkle on the cheese generously. Spoon on the half of the portion of sauteed beef, cubes of one chopped tomato and the pepperoni. Cut some bacon and randomly place on the pizza.
11. Sprinkle over the herbs, seasoning and garlic powder, some black pepper and a small pinch of salt. Also sprinkle some olive oil over, sparingly.
12. Bake for about 15-20 minutes, then place oven on grill and continue baking for another 3 -5 minutes. Serve hot.
13. Repeat process for the other dough.
p/s: The dough will harden when it's cold, so you can warm it up in the oven (not microwave, or it'll get harder).

i hope you find a way to make it back to me

Made my most beautiful cake yet. the chocolate strawberry basket :) mmmmmmmmmmm! :) a three layer chocolate cake, filled with whipped cream. basket weave pattern all around the edges, with the occasional love letter sticks. topped with strawberries on a bed of whipped cream with some chocolate chips and crushed oreo cookies and more love letter sticks :)

2kgs!

papa, paparazzi

double whammy post! probably an indication that i won't be blogging for a while. i need to catch up with law school. subjects are getting way tougher and i'm already struggling to understand land law.

anyway, i named these things little cakes, because essentially, a cupcake is not a cupcake without its cup/liner. yes, originally they started out as cupcakes, but pretty soon they separated away from their containers and formed a ring of a gap. i didn't like that. so i just cut away those cups and christened them little cakes. :)

now, i have no idea why exactly this happened. since when do cupcakes separate from their liners? as far as my baking is concerned, i realise this only happens with this particular recipe. i reckon it is because of the butter. too much butter may have caused excessive wax around the rims of the cupcake liners, thus forcing the cupcake to tear away. i do not for a fact believe that it is the amount of liquid, because i ALWAYS make my cupcake batters super moist to ensure they don't dry out too quickly in the fridge.

oh well. :) sometimes, you need little cakes too. :)

one of the observations i've made lately is that i love company. that means, i love fusion. i love a mix of things, instead of letting one component be separated and be enjoyed alone. and one of the best fusions, i find, is the chocolate-orange fusion. i believe orange is the best citrus to go with chocolate, even better than lemon, and i don't think i want to try it with lime or pomelo. but the combination of chocolate and orange produces an aroma that is hard to resist gastronomically. :) of course, this comes from the girl who only ate one little cake. but that was all it took!

i don't confess to be a food fanatic. in fact, i'm a really picky eater although i won't deny i love eating what i love eating. however, i do really enjoy the fruits of my labour translated into happy grins and satisfied "mmmmmmmmm"s, so that's why i bake. just for the person who needs a little sugar rush.

i took in all, only about an hour or so to make these. below is the recipe for this little cake, but if you would like it to remain as cupcakes, i suggest you use only 50-60g of butter.

recipe:

Little Orange Cakes

as adapted from Bake and Destroy

75g butter, softened at room temperature

1 cup all purpose/cake flour, sifted

3/4 cup castor sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp orange oil

Zest of half an orange

Juice of half an orange

Small pieces of the fruit cut from the other half of the orange

2/3 cup milk

1 tsp baking soda

Handful of chocolate chips, optional

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C and line cupcake cases

2. Beat butter until softened. Add in sugar and beat till incorporated. Add the juice gradually for better mixing of butter and sugar.

3. Make sure butter and sugar are mixed totally, smooth and fluffy. Add in the egg, orange zest and orange oil and beat till very aerated and fluffy.

4. Add in the flour in three portions, alternating with the milk.

5. Beat to incoporate all ingredients fully and periodically scrape down sides of bowl. Stir in the chocolate chips.

6. In each cupcake liner/cup, add in pieces of the orange fruit. Spoon batter in 2/3 cup full.

7. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tops spring back when touched lightly.

*My theory is that the cakes will not rise as much, and will even shrink because of the extra butter. the cupcakes will shrink slightly upon cooling.

Chocolate buttercream Icing

2.5 oz butter, softened

3.5 oz icing sugar

0.5 oz cocoa powder

2 tbsps milk

1/2 tsp vanilla essence

1. Beat butter till smooth. Add in the dry ingredients, and mix. Add in the liquids to maximise proper mixing. Beat till smooth. Pipe on top of cupcakes.

Alternative Topping:

Chocolate Sauce

3 tbsp cocoa powder

1/4 cup castor sugar

3 tbsps liquid glucose (corn syrup)

3/4 tsp vanilla essence

1 tbsp rum (optional)

1/4 cup water.

1. Combine all ingredients except vanilla essence and rum in a saucepan over medium heat. Whisk together thoroughly until the mixture comes to a full boil. Continue whisking for another 1 or 2 minutes.

2. Stir in vanilla essence and rum, if using and take off from heat. Set bowl over a dish of ice and leave until the mixture is not piping hot.

3. The sauce will be pretty sticky, so work quickly. Spoon over the sauce over the little cakes and decorate with coloured sugar.

give us grace so we'll be safe

checkerboard cake part 2

the checkerboard plan started off well. i piped in the batter just until the threshold of the first line to ensure a uniformity of the batter. you don't want the batters suddenly mixing of uneven height!


unfortunately my excitement spree came to an abrupt halt when i realised i did not have enough batter to make the chocolate rings! i was upset that i didn't think of it any sooner! ROAAAAAAAAAAAR. try as i may, the checkerboard cake is not gonna happen. =(

in a frenzy i had to improvise. in the end i just removed all the rings and dumped all the vanilla batter in instead. scooped out some batter and mixed it in with cocoa powder and then marbled the batters. so instead of my checkerboard cake, i ended up with a layered marble cake.

just to compensate for its simplicity, i frosted the cake completely in swiss meringue buttercream, the best buttercream in the world! and made sure i made the cake look pretty for the architect. hope he enjoyed it.

sorry, but i don't have a more decent picture of the inside of the cake. i just wanted to show you how the marbling affected the whole presentation of the cake. :)





recipe:

Layered Marble Cake
adapted from Rose Beranbaum

4 large egg yolks
2/3 cup sour cream
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup sugar
2 cups cake flour (not self raising), sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla powder
1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder
some milk, if necessary
6 oz butter, softened to room temperature.
pinch of salt

1. Whisk together the egg yolks, 1/4 cup sour cream and vanilla essence till incorporated
2. In the bowl of your mixer, mix the flour, sugar, salt and powders together for about 30 seconds till well mixed.
3. Add in the softened butter and the rest of the sour cream and mixed till the dry ingredients are moistened. Beat until the mixture is aerated.
4. Add in the egg mixture in three parts in intervals of 30 seconds. Mixed till batter is light and fluffy. Add milk if necessary (if you think batter is too dry)
5. Pre-heat oven to about 180C.
6. Pour into your prepared pan, but leave out about 3 tablespoons full of batter
7. With the 3 tbsp of batter, sift in the cocoa powder, adding some milk if necessary to blend the batter.
8. Drop the chocolate batter on top of the vanilla one and marble using a chopstick or a skewer.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes.




Swiss Meringue Buttercream


1 1/4 cups caster sugar
4 large egg whites
1 cup butter, chopped into tablespoon sized pieces
2 tsp vanilla extract.


1. In a double boiler, whisk together the egg whites and sugar on medium heat until all the sugar is dissolved (if you touch with your fingers, you should not be able to feel the grains of sugar)
2. Take off the heat and beat the mixture with an electric beater on high until the bowl is no longer warm. It should be at room temperature.
3. Beat until the egg whites become glossy but not until the stage of dry peaks.
4. With the beaters at medium, add in the butter one at a time, waiting for the last to be incorporated before adding the next. The buttercream at this point may become soupy, but just continue beating on high.
5. When all the butter has been incorporated, the mixture may look a bit curdled, but keep beating and it should come together. Add in the vanilla essence.
6. Beat on high for another 2 minutes.
7. Frost cake. :)

that girl's a genius, oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh!

it's coming soon okay. i just need to read some law for a bit!

what makes your rising sun so new?

finally, a proper update! well, in conjunction with my clement's dinner birthday on saturday, i, as usual, will be making the birthday cake. he has given me the go-ahead to freely experiment and that's what i'll do!

i'm gonna make a checkerboard cake! do you know what that is? it's the kind of cake, where you see alternate squares of black and white - just like a chess board, when you cut into it :) who's ready for another adventure!

the only thing is, i don't have the designated pans to make a checkboard cake. but no worries - necessity is the mother of all invention so i'm gonna do just that. :)

presenting, checkboard cake part 1!

i plan to use 3 8inch round pans for this. feel free to use only 2 if you like. first, you should identify the amount you usually put into your cake pan. since i normally layer my cakes by 3, you can see that the amount of cake batter i put into my pan (per pan) is not much at all. anyway, you should be able to see the demarcation of the height of batter needed. take a clear A4 plastic scrapbook cover, and place it horizontally at the edge of the pan. mark the height with a water proof (marker) pen. my usual cake height is only about 1.5 inches tall.


next, do your calculations. being a law student does not mean i've forgotten all math :). the boundary of the outermost ring is the pan itself, thus its diameter is 8 inches. the second ring should thus be 5.5 inches in diameter; and the innermost ring should be 3 inches in diameter. but don't worry, i've counted for you! the parameter of the second ring is 17.3 inches, whereas the parameter for the third ring is 9.4 inches.


with the clear A4 plastic cover, draw 6 lines, each with the width of your cake batter height. since mine is 1.5 cm in height, the width of my strips are also 1.5 cm in height.

cut them two by two. so, you should get 3 sets of strips.
combine two of the strips with a celophane tape and measure 17.3 inches. draw a line vertically where the 17.3 inch mark is. mark also another line after the 17.3 inch mark, allowing a grace period of 1 inch in the middle.

cut the 2 combined strips at the 18.3 inch mark strip.

celophane tape the other end of the combined strip to the 17.3 inch mark. there should thus be an overlap of 1 inch between the celophaned mark.

you should get a perfect 5.5 diameter!

do the same for the 3 inch ring. measure out 9.4 inches, mark it, and then allow another one inch as a grace area. the whole strip should thus be 10.4 inches. tape one end of the strip to 9.4 inch mark, leaving an overlap of one inch between the celophaned area.

now, you should get a 3 inch diameter ring.
this will be how the cake pan will look like when we pour the cake in. however, seeing that the rings are only flimsy plastic, it would be better to have someone hold the ring down. tomorrow, when i make the cake, i will show you how to pour in the cake batter.

continue making for the other two 8 inch pans.