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!