Felt really left out last week when I chose not to choose a cake. Call it a case of “spoilt for choice” that I couldn’t decide which cake to make. In the end I decided to make the White Velvet Cupcakes with the Golden Neoclassic Buttercream which, in the end did not get made.

*shakes head in disgust*

I gave a week’s leave for my helper to go home to Indonesia and she unilaterally extended her leave to 2 weeks and left us high and dry. MrGart and myself took turns to watch the kids and the last few days, we had to get my parents to come and help.

Well, she’s back now and so does me, the baker!

Excuses mexcuses aye?

Anyhow.

My camera’s battery’s dead as a dodo, and this came off my phone. Sigh!

I’ve never baked or even cooked anything with poppy seeds before. Images of poppy flowers came to mind, with people swaying in the wind singing. Wild, I know!

Well, I could not find a normal poppy seeds, assuming they are black. The bakery supplies store I frequent only had the BLUE poppy seed. I thought they looked awesome. In a cake, hmmm. Aliya had already frowned on the idea that I was putting those seedly stuff in a cake. But I read Rose’s page and again and thought that it’d be a shame if I bake a Poppy Seed cake minus the Seed. Plus, Rose said that the seeds give an interesting crunch. Aha!

As usual, sour cream isn’t widely available where I am and amidst the laundry and the dust in the house and the sprawling toys and Ben10 aliens of all manners and sorts everywhere I walk, I had to subs the sour cream for yogurt. And get this. The only version I could find was low-fat. Shucks!

Well, the mixing was fun. The poppy seeds got distributed evenly. I was afraid that it clumped up at one corner but it didn’t and the lemon syrup was easy enough.

I left it sitting in the fridge for a night and cut a slice to taste. What a tangy cake! Gosh! It looked benign and rather harmless but a bite and it just jolted you back to your senses.

The lemon tasted really great and Rose was right, the crunch was worth taking the risk of the blue poppy seed.

I sent the cake (minus one tiny slice) with these White Velvet cupcakes with Dark Ganache with Ariz to school this morning. Well, MrGart did. I had to rush to work before the sun comes up.

It’s his little birthday do with his classmates. I know I know. 2 weeks late. Yikes!

Note: My Golden Neoclassic Buttercream is currently sitting frozen stiff in my freezer. The only reason why it’s in the freezer and not on the cuppies is because I let it whip and whip and no way would be whipped and it stayed pretty much liquidy. I think when I put the butter in, it was much too warm. I tried cooling it a bit but no real progress.

So, I figured I’d freeze it and try again later. I wanted to do swirls but clearly that didn’t happen. I slathered ONE cupcake with this liquid-y buttercream which after a night in the fridge firmed up .. and Aliya raved about how good it tasted. i knew it was good as it smelled good. Guess the Lyle’s Syrup did the trick perfect. Any tips to salvage my buttercream?

Ariz turned 5 on Valentine’s Day. A big, huge 5 years old. I’ll write more on his birthday and the birthday boy more later when I have his pictures uploaded. I can’t believe he’s 5 yesterday. Feels like yesterday when the doctor told me the baby was a boy 2 weeks pre-delievery when through it all, she said “he” was a girl, doubtlessly. Anyways. More. Later. Fun.

In the meantime, let me share the disastrous cake-y weekend I had.

First, my Indonesian helper caused us a bit of a ruckus and we finally let her off to her hometown for a week off. Just received a txt from her unilaterally extending the 7 days holiday to 10 days, not a care of what she has promised me earlier. *about to blow off top*

Anyways.

Then it was Ariz’s birthday and my mom has already planned a day at her place for the special occasion and I just needed to bring a cake. Just a cake, she said. Make it your best, ever!

PRESSURE!

I just don’t do well under pressure, I kid you not.

Anyhows. I read through the recipe many times and figured that it’s one of those Marie-show-me-some-mercy cakes.

So, Saturday night, I started on the cake. Easy enough. Until 15 minutes into baking time, I smelled something burnt, cake-ish. I peeked into the oven and the cake had domed at least 4 times its height. Gosh! And the top really did look burnt. What went wrong, I shivered.

Until I looked at the temperature dial and it’s a blinking 250C instead of the 175C. Dang! What???

Was it me or Ariz or Adani who played with the dial ? Seemed unlikely. Unless, I accidentally turned it to max when I leaned over to get the clingwrap for the ganache. Well. Damage was done.

10 minutes before baking time, I took it out. It looked like Mount Kinabalu (the highest peak here in Malaysia) and very black. I decided to just continue and poked the mountain top and its valleys then brushed the ganache. 10 minutes later, I turned it over and while I was brushing the ganache, a crack appeared, then 2 deep ones and before long, the cake had disintegrated beyond repair. I guess the dome was too much and it just split the cake.

I thought I could salvage it and cleverly tucked it all back into the pan, ganache and all. Lousy idea! Because, it stuck to the bottom of the pan and refused to budge.

I had to use a spatula to scrape it all off onto a plate and brushed more ganache in the hope that it could cover the gazillion cracks. Wished I had raspberries.

Brought the whole mangled cake to my mom’s together with a cake I made later, TCB’s Orange Glow Chiffon Cake with Orange Curd Whipped Cream. Thank God for a back up cake. That cake was a winner. As always. It has never failed me. But then again I’ve never baked it at 250C. Yikes!

Anyways, my burnt cake was very dry but the ganache was good. Not many takers.

*head hung low*

p/s I guess this is the curse of a full height genoise aye?

I find that the more the PlanAheads there are, the more prepared I would be before I start a cake.

This cake certainly has its share of Plan Aheads beginning with the search for the elusive Seville oranges which I didn’t even attempt to find, living right here in the tropics. I used Navel oranges from my local grocery store.

The orange curd was just superb. The right tartness and the right sweetness. Perfect. The dark ganache i thought wouldn’t be enough but Rose clearly had more sense than me.

The genoise was something I meant to try from the TCB but never got round to it. Just the thought of cake brushed down by syrup ain’t appealing. But I’m a changed woman!

This is the cake, out of the oven. I adored the height, explaining why I took this picture.

For one I followed the instruction to a T and composed the cake a day ahead. When I licked my spatula, the mixed curd and ganache was just superb. It was hard waiting for the next day.

I was gonna have a cake-tasting session but we had a little kenduri at Leha’s place and I brought the cake, minus a slice.

The picture of the cake before it goes into the car. Well, the baker’s gotta taste it before it gets criticised. Excuses mexcuses!

Verdict. That was just heavenly. Orange and chocolate combination’s perfect and the genoise was moist and tasteful and just wonderful. Think I’ll be making this again. I’m not sure which I like better, this or the Lemon Luxury ?

Anyhow. A little delayed, but this is my Individual Pineapple Upside Down. The best little cakes I’ve made. I love the pineapply taste, sweet and just right. But I think it was a little underdone as it has compressed look near its bottom, but the pineapple slice hid it well.

Side View of the cake. Forgot to take the picture of a whole cake, so this was the cake at its one third stage.

Closeup of the cake. Looks spangled alright.

Gosh! I’m a bit late in posting this and I’m aghast at Marie’s and Butteryum’s Fallen cakes. Reminds me of Transformer 2, though. I digress. *hugs*

Anyhow.

I was looking forward to this as I’ve never made angel cakes before. The gazillion number of eggwhites just never add up. But there’s always a first time for everything and since I have 8 eggwhites sitting in the freezer, this was a great chance. I needed another 8 and the RHC’s Chocolate Marbled cake jumped out at me, as it needed 6 yolks. Yay! That tasted really good although I forgot to take a picture of it. *kicks self*

My angel cake rose wonderfully, but nearing completion time, it sunk back to the pan level. I thought that was funny since all my chiffon cakes rose and never sank back. Yikes! And plus, I’ve never used a spatula to coat the sides of the pan ever and I was worried about that.

But 1.5 hours later, as the cake hung precariously on the neck of a honey bottle, I guess all was safe.

I forgot to mention that the spangling went fine as I had the chocolate frozen at all times but processing the chocolate made a heck of a noise as it sounded like I was grating bricks!

The frosting went well. After the Les Treches, I had a newfound love for whipped cream and that tasted wonderful. Ayisha had her hand in my bowl all the time, asking me if this was raw eggs or not.

I cut the cake into 2 layers, as I thought if I were to cut it in three, I would never put it back together so perfectly and would end up with a severely lopsided cake. Heck, even with 2 layers, my cake was senget i.e. lopsided.

Slathered on the frosting and chilled it. I wondered how you would frost a cake with a big gaping hole in the middle. But i covered it anyhow and had aglob of creamy goodness inside as a suprise. Had some usual cake tasters friends in and they zoomed straight into the cake. I had the other less celebrated Chocolate Marbled Cake out but that lost out to this, even though it flew off the handle when I brought it into the office the next day.

It wasn’t that sweet, but I thought the texture was curious. Mine wasn’t moist and it tasted a little overdone. Of course I was jinxed by Marie when she warned against underbaking the cake. Now I understand.

Think I’ll try the non-chocolate angel cake next time I have a stash of eggwhites in my freezer.

In the meantime, this will be, in 2 months time, I hope, my new KITCHEN! Yay!

Behind plywood walls is actually my current living room. Once this is done, we’re gonna have to live like nomads and shift around until the whole house is done. Sigh!

What to do?

This was the cake I mulled over a few times before deciding to make.

First it was the complete and utter failure in finding a simple tin of sweetened condensed milk. Just shelves and shelves full of its inferior cousins made of palm oil. The second was the thought of a soaked cake. Not something I would do on a normal day.

But these days are not normal days. Rose and Hanaa did a great job of convincing me to make this. And Faithy saved my skin by giving me a link to make my own condensed milk here.

I discovered with a shell-shocked expression on my face that condensed milk has butter in it. But I was more shocked to learn that home-made condensed milk is far far superior than store-bought. Yummeh!

Anyhow. Made the Leche and it took me half an hour or so to reduce it to half. The only problem I had was the skins it developed while it simmered. Everytime I stirred it, I removed a skin off it. By the time I was soaking the cake, some of the skins were on the cake. On the hindsight, maybe I should’ve sieved it to remove the skin as it’s not pleasing to the eye. And I wondered too why didn’t Rose just recommended the use of evaporated milk instead of reducing whole milk?

The biscuit rose above its 3″ pan height and I was so pleased with it. And even after I unmolded it, it kept its height and I was so glad I went ahead and make the cake.

I must’ve messed up the crisscrossing of the wrap as when I was serving the cake, some of the leche was trapped in some nomansland zone. And I should mention that I had to soak the cake, one ladle at a time for about half an hour, I think.   I had to wait for it to soak before I add more, as it was spilling over.  Maybe because I didn’t remove the top crust, feeling such a waste to remove such golden crust.

Anyhow. I let the cake sit overnight and when I opened the maze of wraps, it smelled really really nice. And sure I had a puddle of leches in the serving plate. Good to know that early so I could put it in a plate instead of a board.

And it tasted really really classy and nice. I love the milky taste and although I thought it was an overkill to eat a slice with whipped cream, I found that I ate ALL of the cream that came with my slice. It was that good!

My brother loved the cake. My kids were squinting their eyes and my Mom loved it too. Guess this is one of those adults cakes.

Verdict: It was heavenly!

The cut cake. I really love the whipped cream. Overkill, but much needed.

Close up of side view of cake.  I wanted to show the skin on the sides. Not that cute, aye!

The Torta De Las Tres Leches

Almond Chiffon with Peanut Butter Whipped Ganache, decorated by Birthday Girl herself.

More cake view.

Aliya, surrounded by cousins.

What a hectic Sunday!

I know this was late since better late than never, I thought. I wanted to have a small do for Aliya’s grand 12th year birthday and called my parents, Mak and Abah and my siblings and a bunch of nieces and nephews. 13 of them grandchildren for my parents, counting mine.

Anyway. I said I’d bake a cake and make lasagne. Mak will bring lunch stuff and I’d cooked rice. And Mak came with buckets of food. From pecals to pisang to goreng and laukspauks. And I supplied rice. Well, I always always feel so inferior to her cooking, so we always get her to cook whenever she comes to the house. I know I know. *hangs head in shame*

So, we blew candles. 3 times and we hugged and we ate.

And Aliya turned 12! Yippee! Now I wish MrGart could take some time off and get her to get her formal first identity card. A cornerstone of adulthood.

Sigh! *feeling happy and restless all in the same line*

Don’t quite get along. But hey, I’m the admin and I do get to choose awful titles for my posts.  Hahaha.

Anyways.

Image courtesy of NutGraph

First up. Sweetened Condensed Milk. If you’ve lived in Malaysia for as long as I have .. *ehem ehem* .. all 36 28 years of it, you’ve tasted this tins of oozing, creamy stuff in your teh tarik or as I liked it, spread over a slice of bread and eaten as snacks during busy school days.

Now, fast forward back to 2010. Sigh! I’m saddened to report that I can’t find a measly tin of it anywhere on any shelves in any hypermarkets or minimarkets or even kedai pakcik ali at the corner anymore. What we have is this darn sweetened condensed creamer, which I never thought would matter. But a closer look would reveal that there’s not an ounce of milk in it. Just palm oil. Darn!

Now, read NutGraph’s take on why the sweetened condensed milk have been replaced by its inferior cousin, the creamer and you can join me in feeling like kicking someone.

Anyway. I’m ranting because this weekend’s cake for the Heavenly Cake Bake-Through is a Torta de las Tres Leches. A mouthful aye? I’ve not skipped any cakes yet and intend to skip only when my massive house renovation forces me to close the kitchen. So, the recipe calls for a tin of condensed milk and I can’t find any. Annoyed , I am.

So how now brown cow? I can sit it out, but Rose heightened the excitement by saying we’re all in for a treat if we make the cake. And I’m always taken by what Rose says anyway. I think I should just go ahead and use whatever I have and rant more and have a darn good excuse if I fail miserably, aye?

Now the dentists story.

My kids just don’t take vegetables but they love sweets and ice-creams and whatever’s not entirely good for them.  That makes them kids, I reckon.

Anyhow.  Knowing that, we’ve been religious in getting them to see our friendly, extremely nice dentist, Dr Rozita every 6 months.  All four of my kids.  One goes, all go.  No one sits this out.

So, the last week of 2009, there we were at the dentist’s office, expecting a long afternoon there.

It turned out that Adani and Aliya’s teeth were all hunky-dory and fine.  Phew!

Ayisha though has a caries and needed a filling.  A little history.  Ayisha turned 9 last December and exhibits all the Second-Child syndrome especially the tantrums and the grumpiness and the no-no and more no-s.  When something is not right, she’ll just shut down and refuse to do anything.

My dentist meanwhile must have training in child behavioural and she insisted that Ayisha takes responsibility over her decision.

So, the option was an anesthetic local injection which involved a little pain up front and a painless procedure later.  Or a painful procedure.  Ayisha clammed up and refused the needle.  She cried and she bawled and nothing could make her open up.  The dentist shooed me away and an hour later, Ayisha was cooperating, with tears and the filling was completed within 5 minutes.

I’m not sure to congratulate the dentist or to scowl at her.  Good thing she did was to talk to Ayisha like an adult, accountabilities and responsibilities.  But being a mom, it pained me to see Ayisha being put under such stress.  Maybe she needed to experience the effects of her choices and maybe the dentist was God’s way of showing us, a way to deal with Ayisha.  And I’m need of direction where Ayisha is concerned.  Alhamdulillah it came to me is a twisted way, but that’s Allah’s way.  So, this year, insyallah I’ve resolved that we may need to deal with her differently through her tantrums.

School has never been easy on Ayisha as it has been for Aliya.  I’ve always made excuses that she was born in December, hence she’s not as ready as her peers.  But she’s 9 now and she needs to really catch up, especially where Maths are concerned.  I’ve also resolved to have more patience with her and to work it out with her every night and not lose my temper, as I always did last year.  Nights where she had tears streaming down her face and me, tears down my face will be long gone.  Insyallah.

I digress.

Back to the dentist story.

Ariz, the not-so-baby in the family is one very opinionated boy.  He said no to sitting on the dentist chair and a lot of other things too.  Not even when he gets to wear the cool sunglasses if you sit it in.  All through Aliya and Adani’s breeze checks and Ayisha’s long, lengthy, full of drama and teary sessions.

I didn’t have high hopes that he could cooperate.  Suddenly just before Ayisha got off the chair, snoot and tears and all.  He asked me if it’s his turn.  I said Yes and almost ignored him, as I needed to comfort Ayisha.

He took off his shoes and climb up the chair, much to the amusement of the dentist and us all.  OMG!  Readily, opening his mouth even when the nurse wasn’t ready yet.  Unbelievable.  One thing I learnt there that I knew all along was that, Ariz is one of those kids who will just say no, but when the crunch time comes, they’ll be up for it.

He had to have a filling too and my heart sank.  But Ariz agreed to an injection to numb the pain and everything was over within 15 minutes.  He even dozed off and the dentist had to wake him up.

Aliya, Ariz and Ayisha.

Adani and MrGart

For 2 solid hours later, he amused us by him not being able to smile symetrically since the local anesthetic has not worn off yet.

I’m so proud of him and all of the kids.  I’ve warned them that this is 6 monthly affair and whatever you do, think about the next dentist visit.  Gertak!

A coffee lover, I was baffled when I couldn’t find coffee in the Cake Bible. And much later I found out that Coffee Cakes aren’t meant to have coffee in them, just that they’re meant to be eaten with coffee. Duh!

Anyhow.

This was one of the easiest cakes in the book. I decided to all all cupcakes since my only bundt cake pan is 10 cup. It was easy enough actually.

On the calls to use muscovado sugar, I used what we local call it “gula merah”. It’s deep amber, tend to clump and hence pretty moist. I’ve googled whart exactly muscovado sugar is supposed to be and it’s the highest content of molasses that characterised it. So I guess this comes close. I really shouldve put a picture of it. Next time, I guess.

Anyhow. Not much mishaps this time around. The struesal part was easy enough. And the batter was easy too. It definitely needed a spatula to smooth the top.

I used 12 liners and I was doubting myself as each cuppy was filled almost to the brim. I thought of adding more liners, but I had faith in Rose’s estimates. So, I trudged ahead.

And it turned out perfect. Although the baked cuppies rose above the top, it domed a bit and almost leveled itself off. The streusal chocolate did layered half way up, creating wavy lines.

I had one, when it was hot from the oven and it sure tasted great. The crumb was delicate and very moist. Opps, I subsituted sour cream with yogurt since I din’t have any. Guess that attributed to the moistness if the cake. If I had the real sour cream, it wouldn’ve been better, I guess.

I really love the streusal part. Not a cinnamon lover, the taste was perfect, although I braved it and not reduce the cinnamon.

Ayisha in this pic loved the cuppies and later was pinching off the crunchy tops of the cupcakes.

Verdict? Definitely will make these again. Easy and tasty. Rose, did it again!

Batter in cupcake liner.

All 12 cuppies in the pan.

The chocolate struesal. The best bit.

Official cake taster. Ayisha.

True to its name, the ingredients were just a whole lot of cream a few other very typical cake ingedients.

I used Anchor brand cream as it’s cheapest at my local bake supplies store and the other brands I checked out ahev their butterfat content at 35%. No where could I find anything at 40%.

Ah well.

The whipping was uneventful. Though rose warned not to chill the whisk, I chilled it anyway since it’s the tropics here and anything chilled gets back to room temperature within prolly 5 seconds.

I didn’t snap any pics of the in-the-process since it was over in a jiffy. Seriously!

My only grievance is that the came came out slightly underdone at the bottom. I had the oven temperature at 180C since the pan I was using was a dark pan and baked it for about 30 mins and tested it alright. But when I cut it, I was a little dissapointed. Another glitch is that when I leveled off the surface of the batter in the batter, it baked to the top but the sides remained lower than the center, making the cake looked like it was floating. Get what I mean?

Anyhow.

The taste was amazing for a cake with no butter and no oil. It was more delicate, I thought. Aliya liked it as she loves unadorned cakes. Ayisha didn’t as she likes her cake frosted to the moons. Adani and Ariz are not cake eaters. Mrgart finished his slice and mine. Sheesh.

I gave a quarter of the cake to GartRed (my twin) and another quarter to Ras. Haven’t heard from them yet.

All in all. A great tasting cake. Definitely a do-it-again especially if I have cream fast expiring on me. The best part was the crust. I love browned cakes and the crust was really nice.

An original, really! .. Kudos Rose!

The cut cake. See the underdone portion. Sigh!

Close up of the cake.

Having given the Gingerbread cake a miss, I was so eager for this. I even made this like 6 days before it was due and then posted a day late. Klutz!

Anyhow. For weeks I was torn in decisiveness. I wanna make the cake and the ganache. But I wasn’t sure of the fondant. I made Rose’s Chocolate Fondant from the Cake Bible many moons ago and it was seriously tasty but I had a lot of leftovers and after months in the freezer, I had to toss it.

Worse, this is the rainy season in Malaysia at the moment and it’s like 90% humidity here, so any fondant work is bound to fail. Weather rules aye. Not my laziness. It’s the weather!

So, I decided to make the roulade and everything else and not the fondant. The ganache was easy enough although I had a major issue with too small a food processor. But it yielded a lot of ganache for a little cake and from the picture you can tell that it’s more ganache than it was cake. But I like!

The cake was easy enough. 7 minutes was hardly time to even wash up.

So, I just lathered on the ganache and then rolled it back and frosted it with the remaining ganache.

Scrumptious!

The completed Non-Pine Cone Chocolate Roulade.

Seriously! I need to get some serious food processor here! I’ve been surviving on this teensy weensy food chopper, actually. This was meant to puree baby food for my babies, Adani who’s now 6 and the last baby Ariz who will be 5 on valentine’s Day. I can see you smirking. *wags finger* Sigh!!

The Ganache. I absolutely love this ganache. The chunks of almond made it all the better, although putting them on the bare no-so-pine-cone was a little none too pretty. This tasted just wonderful. I found myself licking it every now and then. And then I founds my girls been licking it off the bowl in the fridge, where I left it to stiffen a bit.

Beaten eggs. Did I tell you how big a fan I am of KitchenAid? I am. A huge, huge fan! It takes tasks like this effortlessly. What’s missing is a Beater Blade. Now, is MrGart reading this??

My favourite vanilla essence. I got this at CakeConnection where I teach the cookies class and I haven’t gone back to my usual brand. It does make a huge difference on everything that requires a spoonful of vanilla essence. Seriously!

Verdict!  Ganache was superb!

Despite Marie’s effort to keep the sanity of the Heavenly Baker group intact this hectic season, I decided not to take up the challenge for this cake.

First, I thought if a gorgeous prize winner, deliciously decorated carrot cake was a hard sell in my household, a plain gingerbread would be left alone. And I wasn’t a great big fan of spice cakes, anyhow.

Secondly. There’s just no secondly.

Funnily enough. When I decided not to bake it, I felt compelled to bake a cake, regardless. And I had a lot of eggs in the fridge. The day before I bought 3 pcs of 6″ tube pan for a steal. So naturally, I had to try them out.

No orange. So, can’t bake my favourite Orange Glow CHiffon. A Chocolate Chiffon it is. BTW, I shoudl mention that I still have about 7 eggwhites frozen from the Lemon Luxury Cake.

It was a scrumptious. Clearly, I didn’t take a photo. But I thought making them in smaller pans was such a great idea for giveaways. MrGart took one to his office, I took one for Haiza’s birthday and the last piece went to GartRed. The 4th piece was baked in a 6″ pan and it such in misearbly. hahah.

Ciao.
Excuses mexcuses aye?

.. and the Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting !

There!

I don’t eat a lot of cakes and least of all is cakes with vegetables in it. So naturally carrot cakes aren’t high on my list. So, I figured this is the only time you can get me to bake a cake with carrots in them.

And I made Rose’s Refrigerator Banana Cake with the same frosting and it had rave responses so naturally I would not want to miss this.

Marie was right. The hardest thing to do was GRATE the carrots. Gosh! I almost grated my palm off and I had stumps of carrots I was too afraid to grate left behind.

I baked the cakes and wrapped them up in the fridge the night before I was taking them to a family do the next day. I love the deep brown colour the cakes acquired. Looked so moist.

Since my white chocolate is just white chocolate, I thought I’d use a teaspoon of this super nice smelling vanilla bean paste for that speckled and dotted effect on the frosting! Worked like a charm.

I had 6 girls in the house and they all swooned over this design. I for one, thought I needed a new technique. This looked exactly like my Luxury Lemon Layer Cake. I tried the swirls but Ayisha commented that it looked funny. I tried the concentric circles. But my arms aren’t concentric enough and they looked funny. So, spatula markings it was then!

I had the cake as a masterpiece dessert for a big kenduri and it flew off the plate. I had a tiny bit but I didn’t like. the thought of carrots in a cake just put me off. Just like zucchini. Something mentally wrong with me.

But the rest of the clan thought it was a blast. Especially the frosting. Ohhh I have to mention here that I’ve finally figured out the white chocolate. The last time I did it, I microwaved it but it looked hardened. This time around, I stirred and I stirred and even though it was cooled, it was still fluid. Just stir it! It really works!

Anyhow, I also baked anoger German Chocolate Cake with Dark Ganache as a filling and Whipped Peanut Butter Ganache frosting. Another post I guess cos we’re off to watch the Princess and the Frog now. I look forward to a bucketful of popcorn on m lap and a cartoon!

I know this is a little delayed, but better late than never aye?

We didn’t have any canned pumpkin here in my local stores, but fresh pumpkins are a dime a dozen. Figuratively, speaking. Pumpkin or labu is better known as a vegeratble dish in coconut milk, best eaten with rice. Hardly ever in cheesecake, so I was thrilled.

I boiled the cubed pumpkin and pureed the flesh. Was worried that it would be too watery,but mine was thick, no problems there. I didnt have any 9″ springform but I do own a 10″. So there it goes, the gingersnaps base.

As expected, it didn’t go up the sides. But I looked at Marie’s cheesecake and thought the not so high sides are attractive too. Why not!

I made the Caramel Glaze and although I read Rose’s comment on it would come off as a big gob if the temperature was too high, I just exactly that!

It came off in one big gob.

Worse, my cheesecake was drenched in seeped water from the waterbath. I kinda suspected that since I saw bubbles in the water during baking time. I was red in the face but I had hopes, you see.

Taste-wise. It was super-nice. Although the caramel came off in one big gob, it was fought over by my girls, especially where the pecans were.

I think I would definitely make this again in the future. maybe quadruple my warpping of the pan.

[Edited to include pictures]

Truth be told that I nearly gave the cake a miss. One because the name suggested a cake with some salty/sweet interplay and I ain’t a big fan. But a couple of pages later. Heck, I could do this in a few hours.

All in the weekend where I taught a Cookies class, played futsal in a league and emerged as champions, visited a cousin at a hospital and her new cute baby after she had a very serious complication and packing for my meeting trip to Indonesia. There!

Anyhow. I am at Pekan Baru, Indonesia at the moment attending a meeting that’s to start in about an hour’s time and should be flying home to Malaysia tomorrow.

Well. I meant to write a post on it. Had a few pictures to upload and realised that my camera cable in not in my bag and my notebook doen’t recognise the memory card. Bummer. Imagine, can you?

Well. True, I would have passed by this cake if I didn’t join the group. But I did and it tasted a little not-my-favourite.

It was easy enough. I only have blanched almonds so my cake turned out whiter than Marie’s. That was ground with a couple of tablespoons of sugar. I think I didn’t grind it fine enough as the almonds was grainy in the cake. But I thought about pasty almond and that stopped me right in my track.

The eggwhites whipped up beautifully, all thick and glossy and the red, fireengine kitchenaid did all the work of the 20 mins of whisking.

I was so glad I found my 9 x 3 pan as the batter almost came up to the top of the pan. I did the parchment and thought it did look professional indeed, like I had a reason for that. And not merely following instruction. Heh!

Batter was runny but thick. I had high hopes when I saw it rising in the oven, almost to the top.

But after 30 mins, and I took it out of the pan in its parchment. Before my eyes, it sank a little. Aliya, my daughter touched the top of the cake but it didn’t spring back. It felt spongy and stuck to your finger. I pricked the cake and it’s done.

I now understand why it’s a pinch cake. You can’t slice this without messing up the cake or the knife. Pinching is the way to go. But I was going to a hospital and I sliced them up in a tupperware.

Verdict. Mine was fluffy at the top and became dense at the bottom. Mine sunk in the middle and if it weren’t for the tall parchment, it would’ve sunk right in.

The almond taste was nice but grainy and crunchy which was great. But it was a plain cake. I didn’t have raspberries and cream and that didn’t help. My kids just pinched the top of the cake and it didn’t have a lot of takers at the hospital, among aunties.

Hmm. I love sponge cakes but this is not high on my will-do-again list.

p/s will edit and include pictures soon.

The week’s cake …. *drum rolls*

Doesn’t it look just inviting ? But 4 pages later, I had doubts. There are just too many waiting time, and plan-ahead steps and “curdling” issues to deal with. But. I remembered AnitSirk’s comment and decided that if I didn’t try this, I’ll never figure it out. So, determined to show my kids that even if it looks hard, i’m sure it’s not THAT hard, I made the lemon curd.

Hmm, all is well .. and the curd’s chilling alright. Done for the night, Saturday would’ve been a busy day for me. The Custard Base and the Cake and gosh, there were so many steps. But, I’m persevering here, people!

The instruction for the custard base was simple enough, except that once I have the chocolate and the butter melting in the double boiler, I started to daydream because it was taking a while. Then suddenly, all the butter melted and it’s floating on top and the white chocolate remained as a big gob at the bottom of the bowl.

Gasp!

I decided to go ahead and add on the 4 eggs and whisk like mad, with the look of horror on my face. It was looking better. Phew! Upon reaching 60C, I took it off the heat and let it sit in a fridge for 45 minutes and started on my ingredients for the batter.

To make the buttercream, you’d have to beat butter till smooth and add the custrad base gradually.

Gasp!

Mine looked curdled to bits. Yikes! This spelled disaster. I turned the mixer on high and it still looked curdled. Ah well! I left it for 2 hours as intructed and proceeded with the batter.

Ingredients for cake batter. I used my last pieces of varlhona’s chocolate. This had better be fantabulous!

Now, this is right down my alley. All was well and I poured the batter into the pan and wondered it looked kinda of “little” in quantity. Looked around and saw my melted white chocolate sitting there staring and wondering why was it still on the counter and not in the pans?

Gasp!

Poured them back in the mixer, added the chocolate and poured in in pans again! Yikes! By this time, my pans were getting slightly or seriously messy.

But they smelled wonderful. The lemon zest was wonderful and both cakes had risen wonderfully, though one was slightly lopsided.

Now, time to assemble the buttercream.

I bet the custard base and butter the hell out of them and suddenly it looked so smooth and creamy. Amazing! It was so relief. I guess I really should’ve trusted the recipe more. When Rose asks you to let it sit for 2 hours, you’d better let it SIT! The lemon curd added later made it smelled heavenly.

I split the cakes into 2 and assembled it. Clearly my division of cake thickness was off, but hey, I’m learning here. Eye-balling things have never worked terribly well for me.

Tada!!

I was so impressed with myself. Wow!
Note to self: Must learn how to make decorative swirls. Rose made it sound easy but when I tried it, it looked messy, so I decided to go stripey. Easier and I thought this looked wonderful.

*some clapping would do wonders, folks!

And the cut cake. *dreams*

Gosh! I am so glad I made this because this just smelled heavenly!

SUnday morning, I called a few close friends for a cake-tasting session. Great idea to catch up with friends, I thought. And it was great.

Linda: The frosting was really delicious!

Ras & Amalina : Super nice. You should sell this !

I am just glad I tried it, it was superb. Worth all the effort and it was fantabulous, just as it’s supposed to be.

I was so excited that this is the cake listed for the week since this looks easy-peasy and even I can do it with not much of a drama.

Since the babies need to sit in the fridge for at least 4 hours, I did at at night, after work. I found in my fridge about 300g of varlhona bittersweet chocolate so I made up the rest of the 454g of the chocolate by some compound chocolate I had. *shudder*

Well. I love the ingredients list as it only has 4 items and 3 of them required me to just dump them in a bowl on a double boiler.

Melting the chocolate, butter and sugar.

Transferred to a large bowl with a large whist ready. Toldya I’m an instruction freak!

While I was beating the eggs, Munira who ordered 120 of baby shower cookies came over to pick them up and then I got a little frazzled. Good thing that Rose’s instruction about the readiness of the eggs was clear, otherwise, I wouldn’t have known when it would be ready.

I didn’t own any silicone muffin pan, but I do have 24 of these silicone mini cupcake. I knew 24 wouldn’t be enough since the eggs ballooned itself so I readied the tin cups.

Ready to bake. I used a measuring jug to pour the batter into the cups, even then I had chocoloatey batter on my counter and clothes and everywhere else. Klutz!

Ting!

Done!

My Baby Chocolate Oblivions.

But I think I must have overbaked them cos they cracked at the top and sunk in a bit. I know. I know. That these need to chill for 4 hours, but I couldnt help myself, it was sitting there, with wafting chocolatey smell all over the house. It was also past 10pm and I thought I deserved a pat at the back. Plus .. look at Ariz on his 3rd cuppy which he sneakily snatched from the cooling trays.

I succumbed to it and had 2! It was amazing. I thought it would be puddly in the middle, but it’s pretty firm and super moist! I was absolutely in love with it. I brought some to the office and the girls swooned over it .. and MissKLSentral was all over it.

I definitely would bake the again for the intense chocolate taste and its ease to make instructions.

I got it!

*jumping with joy*

Am looking forward to bake this week’s Cake : Baby Chocolate Oblivions and finally will be able to participate in the Bake Through. Yay!

*jumping rather un-fitly*

I would love to gloat here since I’ve been listed as one of the Heavenly Cake Bakers by the hugely funny baker, Marie Wolf.

But.

But.

But.

I have miserably failed to get a measly copy of the Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Beranbaum wherever I looked. *hangs head in desperation*

I’ve tried to book online from Kino at least 5 times only to be told only 1 measly copy is left and that’s reserved. I’ve also tried to charm my way to get it released to me. But obviously, people have more integrity than that and my charm failed miserably too.

Today, I walked all through MidValley and the Gardens from Borders to MPH and back, made the friendly and nice staffs of both chains of bookstores to call the other outlets only to be told that there’s no copies around and no information of reorder just yet.

*head hangs low*

I’ve been reading about the other bakers having fun with experimenting with the recipes of Barcelona Brownies and what’s next on the baking lists and I get greener and greener with envy. All because I’m without a book here, people !! Have mercy on me.

Gosh! I may start ordering from bookdepository soon, I guess.

Sigh!