Cranberry Buttermilk cake

Despite having a bad cough.. I decided to finish the last batch of nutella tarts (no photos) and baked a cake using buttermilk. You see.. I bought 2 packs of buttermilk from Cold Storage and the expiry is 3rd November. Decides to bake a cake before the buttermilk is overdue. I adapted the reciepe from the blueberry one but instead of using all purpose flour.. i opted for cake flour. It turned out fluffy and soft. Sweetness was just nice. Instead of 1 cup of sugar.. I used 3/4 as the dried cranberries are already sweet. The reciepe calls for 3 cups of flour so ended up i had extra and decided to bake using the aluminium baking tray. Since am meeting my younger cousin to hand her the nutella tarts (which her kids simply love it) might as well give her the extras. She texted me said yummy. Another happy person and I'm happy too. As for my own consumption.. i use a 20cm springfoam tray and i had to bake it for at least 40 mins and half the portion.. i gave to my small boss.

The top of the the cake cracked.. very ugly looking.

The inside of the cake.. soft and fluffy.

 

 

Birthday Muffins

I baked BLUEBERRY & CRANBERRY BUTTER MILK MUFFINS with lemon streusel last Tuesday. This was for my small boss's mother 71st birthday which falls on Wednesday. For this I baked after my working hours. I know I had mentioned in my earlier blog that I should not do any baking on weekdays but as this was only for next day & i see no rush. Thankfully it turned out nice. As the birthday lady had too much of cream cake (2).. I decided to bake something which is very simple for her as a birthday gift.

I decided to do simple deco for the muffin as not to make it dull looking. As you can see i put marshmellows and blueberries to make it look like a garden. I had also use the fence cupcake liner.

I had also make a card for her but not going to post it here as i did not get obtain her consent. She was very happy with the muffins and birthday card.

Glad I had made someone happy.

NUTELLA TARTS

Got this idea from pineapple tarts reciepe. I used the pastry reciepe but modified certain ingredients (shh.. which i can't tell. sorry folks). An aunty wanted the reciepe so that she can bake for her grandchildren but I told her can't give her as I cracked my brains for this.  At times I admire myself. If i put my heart and soul to it.. i think i can bake well. I had baked this in 4 batches and everyone said is NICE!! I had intention to modify the pastry ingredients the next time round.. one with RUM..  probably will do it after my Hong Kong trip which is after 4th November 2012. You see.. I can only bake on weekends only, ie, Friday, Sat or Sun. I might be intending to sell these to earn extra bucks during christmas or chinese new year. Not sure how much to as my 16 yo son has 'directed' me to calcuate the costs of the ingredients and he will 'assist' me. I do intend to sell pineapple tarts but not so soon as I do not want to 'snatch' my aunty's business.

Comes in 2 different designs.. for the front tarts I had used the pineapple tart mould. As for the back.. i named it potty design. The latter can put more nutella fiiling. It all depends on individual whether they prefer more filling or adequate filling of the nutella.

 

Children's Day cupcakes

Baked these cupcakes and was very rushing as I have a day time job. Turned out the cupcakes were not beautifully done. Besides for my grown up kids.. i gave to my 2 cousin's children and my small boss's princess.

A lesson which i had learnt was never to bake after working hours.. especially when need to give it away on the same day.

As you can see the frosting melts as the cupcakes were not completely cool.

Children's Day

Friday is Children's Day. Tomorrow will be baking chocolate cupcakes and rainbow cupcakes after work. Have also prepared few chocolate abstracts to with it. Will be  giving to my cousin's kiddos and my small boss daughter some cupcakes.  Of course not forgetting my own kiddos. Though my boy is 16yo.. in my eyes he still a child.

Hope it will turn out well unlike the strawberry muffin I bake 2 weeks ago.  Cross my fingers and toes.

Strawberry muffin

The ugly strawberry muffins

Must be feeling a little tired today after coming back from morning errands (ICA).. turns out the strawberry muffin was terrible looking and does not turn out to be sweet. Taste was not nice either. Wanted to use the freezed buttermilk but turn out the buttermilk was sour so I had to threw it away and replaced with milk. 

To add in the misery, I used the wrong cup and the strawberry muffin went out of shape and a little 'wet' inside though I had baked for 25 mins.  I used the left over buttercream which was used for the puffle cake to cover the 'ugliness' with extra strawberries. 

So to 'keep' it safe.. i refrigerate the 'muffins' and see how the taste turns out tomorrow.

[the ugly muffins]

[the beautified muffins]

PUFFLE CAKE

Puffle Cake (Not so pretty and not so red cake).

This cake was requested by my daughter about few months ago but giving my baking skills i put on hold till now. Told her will try my best. The cake was alright as I used marble cake recipe and bake the cake a night before says the recipe.  I don't see any difference probably as more time is needed to cool the cake completely? But the 1st frosting was terrible so I had to re-do the buttercream frosting. The taste turns out alright and she said was nice.

 [the 'flop' buttercream cos of the color and texture]

[marble cake recipe.. intention was to put the chocolate flour at the base but haizz]

[and turned out the top look brown.  Drew the outline before cutting it]

[the nice color looking buttercream which was successful]

[opted out the white icing as not confident in drawing the eyes]

So this is it.. rather not ruin the cake. Keep it simple and nice.

:):)