Durian Crepe Cake

we celebrated Jess' 21st birthday last friday at my place. had a simple bbq together with all her friends and the cblc peeps. good to see all of them after a long time :) and the food was good too!

baked this really challenging durian crepe cake for her birthday. the cake may look just plain simple and normal, but i tell you, it was sheer hard work! standing in front of the stove making layers after layers of crepe, and failing at the first 3 layers cos the pan i used wasn't non-stick. and i kept thinking i didn't add enough oil so i kept trying and then failing. zzz. so dumb! until i changed to another pan and each crepe came out perfect! :) awesome!

i think i managed to get about 20 layers in total. considering that i wasted some. haha i really scrimped on the batter to get really thin slices.


managed to get durians the night before at marine parade. phew! and they were pretty good too.

the choc layer could be omitted but i thought it would be more appealing to the taste buds. but i guess it would be as good without it too.

the recipe was obtained from florence's blog. find it here! i was more generous with the durian filling and added more than what she used, and used lesser whipped cream too.

to jess: wishing you an early happy 21st birthday! may you be happy, healthy and pretty always :)

Choc Snickers Muffins

another muffin bake, this time for sentosa's outing with cblc peeps.

it was quite disappointing cos so few people turned up :( but i had fun learning to play volleyball and getting some sun!

the muffins were barely touched so i gave everything that was left to his family, for their breakfast the next day.

i adapted this simple and quick recipe from Little Corner of Mine's Strawberry Muffins recipe.

for a twist, i added snickers into the batter and then topping it up with After Eight's peppermint choc.


quite a weird combination huh? haha but seems like it turned out pretty good from those who tried it :)

Choc Snickers Muffins
Adapted from Little Corner of Mine's Strawberry Muffins

(A) 2 cup self-raising flour 3/4 cup sugar

(B) 1 egg, beaten 1 cup milk 1/4 cup canola oil 1 cup Snickers choc, cut into cubes

(C) After Eight Peppermint Choc slices

Method:
1) Preheat oven to 200 deg C. Line the muffin pan with paper cups.

2) Place (A) in a big bowl. Whisk to combine. Make a hole in the middle and add (B). Stir with a spatula until just combined. Scoop batter into the muffin pan and decorate the top with choc slices.

Blueberry Muffins

recently, i bugged mama to buy some blueberries cos they were so cheap. decided to make some muffins with them. was thinking either chiffon cake or muffins but chose the latter cos it was lesser work haha ;) lazy me!


i have always wanted to try recipes from Pook cos her baked stuff always looks so good. and she takes the extra effort to take pics of the entire baking process. amazing stuff she has; you should pop by her blog one of these days :)

i got this blueberry muffin recipe from her and it's really simple to make. this recipe yields about 7 muffins for me using the standard muffin pan, so it's really ideal for a family - not too much and not too little.

giving these muffins to my auntie who's coming back to s'pore today!

Strawberry Yoghurt Cake

something i did pretty long ago but never had a chance to upload. blogger has been cranky. not sure if it's the same for you?

anyw i did a strawberry yoghurt cake with cranberries added.

it turned out really soft and moist..

but i cant rmb where i got the recipe from! gosh. maybe when i rmb i'll post it up here :)

Potato Chips Cheese Cookies

before baking!

i made these supposedly addictive cookies last week, taken from aunty yochana.

i modified the recipe a little, used ruffles cheddar cheese flavored potato chips instead of plain mister potato chips. and for everything else i used the same ingredients.

but somehow i was a little disappointed with the taste...althou the cookies were really crispy and crunchy, i felt that the cheddar cheese and potato chips flavor were not distinct at all :( what a waste!

scoop scoop scoop; nicely shaped!

since it was too late to make new changes or decide on a new recipe (cos the cookies were for almond as a farewell gift the very same day), i had no choice!

so sorry almond! haha next time maybe something better ;)

hope all's well for you so far!

and thanks for the seafood platter meal at fish and co. that day. yumm.

the picture quality in this post is really bad, forgive me! cos i took them with my hp :(

good meal!

Durian Puffs

my first attempt at making choux pastry; pretty satisfied with the end result. at least it managed to remain puffed up even after taking it out from the oven. the only thing is that i felt it was a tad too hard. i'm not sure why also; probably gotta do with the temperature? cos i'm pretty sure i followed the recipe exactly! i'll probably try doing it a few more times since it's so easy to do ;)


i stuffed fresh durain puree into the choux pastry. yes fresh durains - no cream or sugar added! just the natural taste ;)

generous filling!

nice ;)

Butter Cookies with Choc

i did this over the weekend. made 2 different variations - for one, i just drizzled choc randomly and the other was choc sandwiched in between. i adapted the recipe from aunty yochana; original recipe is called Polos. i added some ground almonds in there. simple and nice ;)

messy messy!

this is like a mini 'burger' haha.

was supposed to be brought to his sis's place, but it turned out that we din go in the end. so he brought everything home instead!

on another note, commencement is coming soon..got mixed feelings about it. but anyw, i'm still looking forward to that day!

Potato Cake

this is an easy one, adapted from Easy Stir 'N Bake Cakes!

i got the recipe from KWF.

it's an ideal recipe for people who don't have much time to bake. i did this in the morning for weng, was going to visit her in the afternoon. it took me just an hour plus to get it baked ;)

hope u recover soon weng!

Durian Bavarios Cake

happy 25th birthday to you!

baked a durian bavarios cake for him, pretty challenging and tedious! some hiccups here and there, the deco wasn't very pretty...but still satisfied with the end product :)


i adapted the recipe from aunty yochana. made some changes here and there. the original recipe is available here. as always the recipe is a keeper :)


i used 3 slices of sponge for this one so that i can stuff more of the durian mousse inside!

happy happy birthday!

Durian Bavarios Cake
Adapted from Aunty Yochana's Durian Bavarios Cake

Vanilla Sponge cake:

100 g top flour
30 g cornflour
25 g water
1 tsp Baking powder
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
80g sugar
10 g ovalette (cake stabilizer)
50 g cornoil

Durian Mousse filling:

400 g Durian flesh
250 g fresh milk
40 g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 eggs
15 g Gelatine Powder
40 g water
300 g whipped cream - (Pour N Whip)

Method:

1) For vanilla sponge cake, whisk all the ingredients together except the cornoil until thick and fluffy. Add in cornoil and mix till well blended. Pour mixture into 3 - 9" square trays. You can also pour it into 2 trays for a thicker sponge. Bake for 15 to 20 mins. at 175 deg C till cooked.
2) For durian mousse: Boil milk with sugar till sugar dissolves. Whisk eggs and salt lightly and pour in the hot milk mixture. Add in durian flesh and mix till smooth. Off the heat and let it cool completely.
3) Mix gelatine powder with water and let it sit for 5 mins. Microwave for 20 secs. then add into the durian mixture.
4) Whisk whip cream till fluffy. Fold into the durian mixture. Divide mixture into 2 portions.
5) Spread 1 portion of durian mousse onto 1 slice of sponge cake. Then spread the durian mousse again and then top up with the second slice of sponge cake and cover with the last layer of sponge. Chill in the fridge till set.
6) Decorate cake as desired. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Guys ;)

to wenphei, lung kwan and kang,

happy birthday ;)

it was my first time making such a huge cake. a mango chiffon cake covered with whipped cream and topped with mango and longans.

and i've got to admit chiffon cakes aren't easy to make. after subsequent failures :( some parts of the cake was actually hollow for this one opps! and since i had no more time to make another cake, clever me went to patch up those hollow parts with this.

but anyhow, it turned out decent enough ;)

at least kit volunteered to finish up almost a quarter of the cake. haha. give me face!

happy birthday guys, tis' probably the last cake i'm gonna bake for 17th mc.

to cblc's 17th main comm:

thank you for being my guinea pigs for the past year (and being my biggest sponsors! haha), giving me excuses to bake amidst my stressful final year undergraduate life, appreciating my amateur baking skills haha ;p and watching me improve with every bake? haha or is it!

bake-me-happy wouldn't have had been so lively and merry without you guys! cheerios :)

Mango Chiffon Cake

everything seemed so perfect after i took it out of the oven...

until...

it plopped like 2 hours into cooling..

and my heart plopped too ;(

the texture of the cake was good thou..must have been my error somewhere along..


i have to rebake another one tomorrow!

anyw i adapted this recipe from an orange chiffon cake recipe obtained from here. i'm sure it's a good recipe, gonna try making it again ;)

Double Choc Cake

i finally did some baking!

i've been enjoying myself so much ever since the exams were over.

and i'm so glad i've graduated! woohoo ;p

we had a mini gathering at my prof's house yesterday. and i baked a double choc cake; something easy and probably wun go wrong after having not baked anything for soooo long.

i was really nervous when the cake was in the oven haha.

yea it was successful! a super chocolatey cake adapted from M.eats. reduced the sugar as usual, and omitted the choc chunks and instead did a choc ganache coating on it. glad everyone loved it :)

apple/mango strudel and doughnuts courtesy of shinhui!

we all had a good time and i'm glad our relationship with each other doesn't cease with the end of final year projs and dreadful labs ;p

on another note, i'm really lucky to have had dr zhao as my fyp supervisor! hope everything goes well for her as she takes on her 2nd batch of honours students next semester ;)

Baked Tapioca Kueh

baked tapioca kueh today! mama bought 3 large pieces of tapioca from the market yesterday. yea so this morning she told me to use them all up by baking something.

so i found this recipe from Hugbear's blog. she has 2 variations of this tapioca kueh, one with just white sugar added, another one in which she adds gula melaka (palm sugar).

of course the gula melaka one caught my eye. she mentioned that replacing some of the white sugar with gula melaka gave a more fragrant kueh which was indeed true. in fact i replaced all of the sugar with gula melaka!

grating the tapioca was real hard work. haha my arms were aching halfway through ;p and all that hard work didn't even give me enough tapioca for a full recipe. i had only about 700g of grated tapioca ( after draining off the juice). the recipe calls for 1 kg!

this was hard work!

in a bid to make this healthier, i replaced all the coconut milk with fresh milk. and also cut down a little on the sugar. i guess it would have turned out more fragrant if i used coconut milk instead. but oh well, shall save the calories and cholesterol on this one! afterall tapioca itself is a healthy treat :) i think mine turned out pretty good too!

Chocolate Pie Topped With Fresh Fruits

it has been a long while since i last baked! the last post was on chinese new year goodies in fact - a month of baking hiatus :( i'm telling myself to bear with this last lap of my fyp. before i stop going to lab, i need to get some decent results. most days are spent at lab, otherwise at lectures or tutorials and weekends are when i catch up on lectures...that explains the lack of posts and energy to bake.

this weekend, however, i made an exception! which i'm glad i did :)

this recipe is adapted from Williams Sonoma's book, titled Pie and Tart. my auntie gave us the entire series of his cookbooks and i think they are awesome. very clear instructions and easy to follow steps, plus many helpful tips!


the original recipe actually omits the fresh fruits and it calls for a whopping 5 egg yolks! which turned me off a little, imagine the cholesterol in there~

in the end i used Godiva hazelnut chocolate spread as the choc filling. since it was a little thick i placed it over a double boiler and added some butter and milk to it to get a smooth consistent texture :D

i spreaded some raspberry jam on the base of the tart

added some macadamia nuts into the choc filling

i had a hard time peeling of the layer of skin off the tangerines, and gave up at some point haha

it's the bday month and this cake has been specially made for the 3 bday babies - shuyun, ben and kenny! happy birthday to all! and not forgeting aaron and jeanbean, happy birthday to you guys too ;p

Happy Chinese New Year!

here's wishing everyone a happy and prosperous new year of the ox! good health, good luck, good fortune, good relationships and a better economy ahead :)


this year i didn't bake the usual CNY cookies. so no pineapple tarts, kuek bangkit, etc...yea too tedious and i had too little time for those :( my final year project presentation took place about a week plus just before CNY.

in fact i baked these cookies just 3 days ago! haha but it's good too cos it's fresher this way. homemade cookies usually can't be kept for long.

these cookies took me a whooping 6 hours to prepare; really tiring but so satisfying! yea but i really dread the washing and cleaning up after baking.

i have finished giving everything out! to my friends, sis's colleagues, grandparents, his family and some to my neighbours. wished i had baked more cos there wasn't really enough to go around.

back to my bakes, i made cornmeal cookies, cheese sticks and crunchy oat delight. both the recipes for cheese sticks and crunchy oat delight are taken from aunty yochana. do check out her cake index for these recipes!

out of the three, i think the cheese sticks was the winner. yum! very savoury, loved the cheesy taste and it was something different from the usual CNY cookies :) received many good reviews for it too!

cheddar cheese sticks

healthy crunchy oat delight - has cocoa crunch and quaker oats in the cookie!

cornmeal cookies - something different as well!

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Here's wishing all a Happy 2009 :)

My wishes for you in year 2009:

Great start for Jan,
Love for Feb,
Peace for march,
No worries for April
Fun for May,
Joy for June to Nov,
Happiness for Dec,
Have a lucky and wonderful 2009.

i baked pandan chiffon cake for the new year, nothing too complicated. haha cos i used whatever ingredients i had in the kitchen.


i tried a new recipe from hugbear baking mum this time round. it calls for top flour instead of cake flour. see my previous recipe here.

i love this recipe as well. simple and easy to follow. really nice green even thou i omitted the green colouring and fluffy as well!