Happy Teachers' Day

Made this last night... started after Sheen hit the sack @9pm, and didn't finish until 3.30am. I know I am a slow baker... and really need to have a plan in place to do things faster and better

The base is chocolate cupcake (I will post the recipe later), with ganache. All the decorations are made with sugar paste (fondant)... I had fun playing with all my fondant cutter etc.


*************************

Updated 6 Sep with recipe and fondant tools:

this is part of the serrated round cookie cutter set:

New fondant press to create leaves and flowers:


this is used to neaten the fondant edge:

Flower plunger:

edible dust which I used to create the shimmering hearts:

The fondant roller and wheel - the roller is very useful cos it has the band on both sides to make help me roll out the fondant to even thickness Rose leaf cutter:

Roller to create the spiral imprint:

Chocolate Cupcake
Recipe source : Joy of Baking
Makes about 16 cupcakes

1/2 cup (50 grams) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 cup (240 ml) boiling hot water
1 1/3 cups (175 grams) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar - I used 150g
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C – I used 175C). Lightly butter, or line 16 muffin cups with paper liners.
2. In a small bowl stir until smooth the boiling hot water and the cocoa powder. Let cool to room temperature.
3. In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Then in the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating until smooth. Beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat only until incorporated. Then add the cooled cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.
5. Fill each muffin cup two-thirds full with batter and bake for about 16-20 minutes or until risen, springy to the touch, and a toothpick inserted into a cupcake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Baker’s Notes:
I subscribed to Joy of Baking and received notification on all the new recipes. The first time I saw this recipe I was not about to use it for only 1 reason - it requires an additional step to mix cocoa with boiling water. And this cocoa mixture is only added to the batter in the final step - quite unconventional from the way I usually make cupcake.

Anyway a popular local blogger used this recipe and recommended it. So there I went... On hind sight, I could be better off with my vegan chocolate cupcake recipe!

Personally I find it difficult to make the mixture smooth in step 4. I stopped when it was 90% smooth (means still have few small lumps). Those lumps turned up as white spots amidst the dark cupcake.

Also I do not find the cake as moist, and soft as I expected. But it could be me. If you feel otherwise, pls leave a comment for me.

Chocolate Ganache
200 grams unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
200 grams whipping cream

1. boil the whipping cream until almost bubbling.
2. Pour over the chopped chocolate, stir until smooth.
3. let cool to room temperature.
4. In the bowl of your electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, beat the mixture until smooth and creamy (~1 minute).

Goldilocks Polvoron

It is a filippino specialty - a cross between the shortbread and sugee cookie. And very very sweet. Not a surprise cos we know filippino has sweet tooth. But it is sooo great, my sensitive tooth withheld the ache so that I can savour the Polvoron in pleasure!

Apart from the sweetness, it is also high in Fat (41.5%) and Carbs (46.2%). I wanted my mum to try this but of not the one from goldlilocks cos the sugar level will kill her (no thanks to diabetes). Found the recipe now... just need to go out to get the sugar replacement.

*****************************

Polvoron

Recipe from here

Ingredients
1 cup plain flour
1 1/2 cup full cream powder milk (like Nido)
1/2 cup sugar ( preferable very fine sugar)
1 cup melted butter or half marg. half butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup roasted pinipig (an immature glutinous rice - read more about pinipig here )

Preparation

1. Roast the flour in a wok (slow heat to avoid burning) Roast flour until it is slightly brown. Take it off the heat



2. Mix milk, sugar, pinipig, salt and melted butter with the flour. Bind them together.



3. Try your molder : Mold one and if it is still too loose, add more butter to it. make sure that you could pick up the polvoron without it crumbling straight away



4. Wrap them with papel de hapon.

*****************************

If you visit Philippines, you can easily get it from the mall. The local told me Goldilocks is the best brand. Since I had no time to go shopping, I buy these from the airport, presumably at a premium :-(

Beary Happy Family

This is the cookie cutter I used:

Btw, I like to share this ecological idea - use the clean shower cap to replace your glad cling wrap. It is a more sustainable approach to the environment, you can use them over and over again!

Wordless Wednesday - Assorted sausage bun

My ABin5 which didn't quite make the cut...

I am using exacting the same instant bread recipe which I successfully got it right several times. But not this time, which you can already see.

The only thing I did differently was that this dough sat in the fridge for about 10days before it was baked. But this shouldn't be the cause of failure cos the recipe clearly says that it can be kept upto 14days.

So, my fellow friends who ranted endlessly about the bread failure... now you know you are not the only one!

Chocolate Bundt Cake

I realised some strange phemonenom; when you served cupcakes and bundt cake side by side, cupcakes are usually the one to go.


is it the individualism that cupcake can offer?
Or is it the human nature to keep things intact?

I don't know.

But I will make a bundt cake when I'm hit by the guilt for creating a small heap of waste from the cupcake cases.

*******************************

Recipe is from here.
Instead of using corn oil, I used butter. This makes the cake taste buttery rich.

Tuna Bun

This is basically the same trusty sweet-sandwich bread recipe which have served me well over the past year!

I used this reliable recipe to try out the fresh yeast that I have bought. Also I am trying to make it eggless. Finally I add a little more wholemeal flour to make it look better on the nutritional chart.

As for the filling, I drained the tuna, then add some chopped onions. Simple does it!