Pain Crème (Whipping Cream bread)

This is another recent baking adapted from http://dailydelicious.blogspot.com/2008/05/pain-crme-whipping-cream-bread.html

I read the comments & decided to give it a try since i have a small pack of whipping cream at home. So after i reach home, i quickly take out & measure all the ingredients. Used the mixer to knead the dough & let it proof for 1.5-2hr. It really worries me when i notice the dough didnt raised to its double size.. so i let it proof for a longer time, punched out the air & put into the fridge for overnite as per the recipe instruction.

The following day, after i reach home from work, i quickly take out & shape it with bakkwa, porkfloss, ham & some plain buns & final proofing for 1hr before sending into the oven for 15mins.

Wow.... these buns are sooooo soft that i can't wait for it to cool down to try a small piece. It is really a good recipe to keep. I gave 2 to my in-laws & my MIL called me just to tell me the buns are really nice & soft especially when it still warm. You must really try this recipe.

Snow Skin Mooncake

This was my 1st homemade snow skin mooncake. There are so many recipes from all the blogs so i choose the one that looks & sound nice & yummy - rainbow ice-cream soda snow skin mooncake.

My sis & I brought ingredients from phoon huat & we started the project last sun at my mum's plc. It was really fun wrapping, moulding & knocking these mooncake. As the dough was still very sticky, we used lots of kou fen during the process as it makes it easier to unmould.

After we let it set in the fridge, it taste really soft & yummy. Thereafter, we happily packed & brought back home & i kept it in the fridge. As i wanted to bring it to the office to share with the folks on wed, I took out from the fridge to check on the texture on tues nite. To my horror... the snow skin already turned dry & hard.... sob.. sob :'(

Wondering what went wrong... could it be i used too much kou fen during the wrapping & moulding, or was it due to the proportion of the ingredient from the recipe?

This sat Ii shall try using the other recipe since i still got some paste in the fridge. We will not be making the baked mooncake as we have got mooncakes from nanny, plus i ordered 1 box of during mooncake.... will be too much for us to finish.

Sept Bbs Birthday Celebration

Finally, the 3rd birthday celebration for Evan together with his Ah Gong, Jek Jek & Kor Kor. They are all Sep babies... so is really fun to get them celebrate together... hehehe.. and this was also the Ah Gong, Jek Jek & Kor Kor 1st & the last AEROPLANE Birthday cake (from eCreative).

We had lots of BBQ foods catered from BBQ wholesaler - chicken wings, kebarb, satays, sting rays, lamb & other dishes like porridge, beehoon, roast duck, siewmai, cream puffs.. etc.

Everyone was happy & busy eating & giving ang baos to all the birthday boys & gal....

Prince 3 yrs old Birthday celebration - 2

15 Sep - actual Birthdate for Evan. I had long prepared to celebrate for him in the child care centre with his friends.

This round, i ordered the Bob the Builder cake from Polar & prepared the gift pack for his to distribute to his friends.

When i reached the centre, he just woke up from this afternoon nap. He was delighted when I showed him the cake & all the gifts. The teachers are busy arranging the tables & chairs after all kids woke up & tidy up their mattress, pillows, towels etc... except for 1 little boy still sleeping soundly .... & he actually slept throughout the whole celebration ;D

While all other kids were sitting at other 2 tables together, the birthday boy sat by himself at the other table... hmm.. he must be so happy & feeling so special that is his turn to sit on that "Emperor Seat"... haha.

After all the birthday songs, he kept blowing & blowing the candles but they just won't go off.... all the kids & teachers were laughing. Everyone was happy with the gift Evan distributed out & they happily eat their cake for the tea break except for 2 twin classmates because they are allergy to eggs... so i must take note to order eggless cake for his next yr Birthday.

Thereafter, we brought him to Downtown East Kids Explorer, Mini bowls, Mini Ferris Wheel ride, Train ride & he was so excited when we bumped into a Dinosaur & Elephant giving out ballons. We are happy that he enjoyed hisself on his birthday.

Prince Birthday Cake - Humpty Dumpty

This was my 2nd layered birthday cake. I used the same recipe as the 1st chocolate birthday cake with Chocolate ganache Bananas as the fillings. The sponge cake & the ganache recipe was from http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2008/01/chocolate-fudge-cake.html.

The most challenging part was for me to draw the Humpty Dumpty on the cake - special request from my Prince. With all the tools & ingredients i bought such as the colorings, piping jelly, whipping cream & the decoration nozzels, i started this project on the Fri night before this Sat celebration.

The chocolate sponge cake turned out to be fine though it sank after out of oven. I prepared the ganache, leave it to cool, slice the cake into 2 layers, spread a layer of ganache, assemble the sliced bananas & topped with 2nd layer of ganache. Covered the whole cake with whipping cream & finally the most challenging & fun part of the drawings.

Well i would say it was pretty good & cute with the Humpty dumpty holding ballons instead of falling off the wall ... ^-^

Prince was so happy when he first saw his Humptt dumpty cake & shy when everybody sang him the birthday song.... The cake was soon distributed out & i almost forgot to take a pic of a slice.

Evan has got lots of presents... got baseball set, fishing toy, another fishing toy, learning latop toyset, balls, wooden clock blocks, Lego etc... wow... i am wondering how to clear his old toy & keep all these new toys. These are not the last... there are more to come for his actual day birthday & 3rd celebration at the great-grandma hse this cmg sat.

Cinnamon Roll & Assorted Buns

I have not been successfull in making bread or bun recenty because the dough just wouldnt raised during proofing. I finally know who was the culprit... YEAST.

My both attempts got the same problem so i recall shirely told me about her stone bread due to the "inactive" yeast. This means that the yeast already "dead" so it doesn't proof at all. but my yeast was all the while kept in the fridge right after use unless it died during a power tripped happened abt 1-2 mths ago.

So i went to get a new instant yeast for my assorted buns.

I used Alex Goh's Sweet bun dough for Cinnamon rolls, Bak kwa/floss buns, Melon Pan & 1 suasage bun.

I was happy when i see the roll & buns raised & turn into BIG rolls & buns. This seems to be the most successfully attempt of my bun making.

Hub love the cinnamon roll & bak kwa but not for the melon pan because my top pastry was too thin & little after the buns raised almost triple its original size (once during the 2nd proofing & once during baking).

Chocolate Cream Puffs

Recently my colleagues have been boorrowing recipe books from the library. wow... flip & flip through those yummy cakes & pastry makes me more into this hobby.

These recipe books were all tag with post-it by them for copying. Me too copy quite a few recipes for my reference.

This cream puff recipe was from 1 of the book. It was a sure to keep recipe beacuse there are pictures on the steps & also consider a successful attemp for the 1st time.

I use my whipped cream to mixed with coco powder for the filling, the puff was crispy when out of oven, after cooled, i piped in the chocolate cream & keep in the fridge.

These puffs were soft, yummy & well receiving from colleagues & family ^-^

Ingridents:

Puff Pastry:
125 ml. water
50 gm. Butter
pinch of salt
3 gm Castor sugar
75 gm. Cake flour
2 eggs
1 egg (for egg wash on top of the piped paste)

Chocolate cream filling:
200 ml whipping cream
flavor - 1~2 tbsp Coco powder (depends on own preference for Coco richness)

Method for Puff pastry:
(1) Boil water, butter, salt & sugar till boiling.
(2) Pour in all the flour and stir vigorously with a wooden spoon till paste is not sticky and leaving the side of the pan. Remove from heat and let it cool a little.
(3) Stir in eggs and mix till it becomes a smooth paste.
(4) Fill paste into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto a baking tray to about 2-3 cm round shape. Makes about 20 nos.
(5) Brush the paste with egg wash & bake at 180C for about 20~30 mins. or till puffed up and golden in colour.
(6) Fill Chocolate cream into a piping bag with a round tip nozzle. Make a small hole with the nozzle & pipe in the cream till full.
(7) Chilled in fridge & serve.

For filling:
(1) Use electric mixer to beat whipping cream till stiff perk.
(2) Add in the coco power & gentle mix till well blend.

Vannila Swiss Roll

I kept thinking how to utilise my whipped cream in my freezer & have no idea how long can i keep it frozen. I can't possibly wait for another 2 weeks to make another layered birthday cake for Evan birthday, so searching for bakings that i can use up my whipped cream.

Swiss roll was the 1st that i can think of. So i flipped through Alex Goh receipe book & use the Fruity Swiss Roll Sponge cake recipe with my whipped cream sprinkle with chocolate rice.

I was so happy after i rolled up the cake beautifully... yippee.. i can't wait to cut a slice & try. It was nicely rolled up with but the cake tasted slightly salty & dry. Maybe next time i shall cut half of the salt portion & also reduced on the baking time. I think the dryness was due to small baking tray & also thinner batter. I shall try again with my bigger swiss roll baking tray next time.

Teacher's day Gift Packs

Finally, the last resort to try on the Sponge cupcake. But Thur 27 Sep was a bad day for me. I got problem with the normal eggs beating & the batter turn out to be bubbly. So i knew the cupcake will be a failure. The strawberry Jam sank right to the bottom instead of staying in the centre due to the watery batter :(

So left with the last 2 eegs, i turned to the last alternative to bake the orange cupcake that i had done before. but again the batter curdled when i added in the eggs into the creamed butter & sugar... tried adding in flour but it just won't work. i was so mad & frustrated... so just proceed on to whisk up everything & put it into the oven.

Overall still edible, both still got the nice aroma but the texture wasn't what i expected. Since i am running out of time, i just had pack it up with the Coin purse gift that prince had packed before he slept.

Vanilla Sponge Cake with Strawberry Jam

This was another experiment after the pandan cupcake.... again the cupcake raised mighty high but collapsed after out of the oven.

I used Alex Goh sponge cake recipe for the Fruity roll & i added the strawberry jam as the filling. I love the taste & the texture was very soft & cottony.

Overall this recipe is great but the collapsed & the wrinkled surface that make it no so presentable.... so need to find other alternative recipe.. but time is running out!

Pandan Sponge Cupcake

I was experimenting the bear shape pandan sponge cake for teacher's day gift but the result wasn't too good. Can't see the bear face at all & the cupcake collapsed significantly after out of the oven. However, the taste was yummy... & the texture was more like a chiffon cake rather then sponge cake. My prince & hub love it ... so i will try this again using plain flour instead of the Hong Kong flour.

I used Yochana's chocolate sponge cake recipe & replace the chocolate with pandan paste & water with milk.

Ingredients A:

80 gm. Plain flour (I used Superfine/Hong Kong flour - could be the reason why the texture turn out to be like chiffon cake)

1/8 tsp. Baking powder

1/8 tsp. Bicarbonate of soda

1/8 tsp. salt

30 gm. sugar

2 egg yolks

25 gm. cooking oil (any brand)

55 gm. Milk
1/8 Tsp Pandan paste

Ingridents B:

2 nos. egg white

1/8 tsp. cream of tartar

40 gm. castor sugar

Method:
(1) Mix all the ingredients (A) together into a smooth batter.

(2) Preheat the oven at 170C & line the cupcake moulds.
(3) Beat egg white until foamy, add in cream of tartar, beat till soft peak & add in sugar & continue beat until stiff peak.

(4) Fold 1/3 of the beaten egg white into (A), combine well & fold in the balance egg white till well combine. (Take care not to over-mix)
(5) Pour the batter into the cupcake tin with liner and bake at 175C for about 15 mins. (I bake at 160C for micro-wave oven)