Wednesday, October 29, 2008

My 1st Cupcake Sale

Piggy Gerry has ordered choc chip cupcakes for her colleague's birthday from me. That's my 1st sale, and I want to do the best. After much thought, I decided on Mint Choc Cupcakes of 500 Cupcakes and Muffins. But Piggy Gerry isn't keen on the mint, so I did w/o it.




Beat the butter and sugar 1st before adding the eggs.



Adding the flours, including the cocoa powder. After which, I dropped in the vanilla instead of mint essence and stirred in the choc chips.



Bake at preheated oven at 160 Deg C for 20mins.

But as usual, it took a longer time to bake the cupcakes.





The cupcakes turned out flat, similar to the ones shown in the book.



I followed the mint choc cupcakes' icing except for the mint essence and also added pink instead of green food colouring. It's for a gal, so they must be sweet looking of course!



I just bought a new piping tip. A great opportunity to put to use on the b'dae cupcakes.



Oooohhh... the deadly PINK buttercream.



Piggy Gerry also requested that I piped 'S' as the B'dae Gal's initial.

Unfortunately, my skill has yet make its mark.



I hope they would enjoy these at dinner the following night. Kinda worry alittle... of the comments that her colleagues will make [v_v]"


Monday, October 27, 2008

A final Success with Sugar Roll!

I told you I will not give up what I'd failed before. So I gave the sugar roll another try again.


I made sure I was well-prepared with all ingredients on stand-by mode.







This time round, I separate the batter into 2 trays.





The result was a thin but well done roll.





I spread the same strawberry jam on the roll.



Though the roll was on the verge of cracking, I quickly rolled it up to prevent the chance.



I dust it with icing sugar.



Though the Sugar Roll was flatter and didn't look as good as the one in Aunty Yochana's blog, I was pleased that I accomplished to turn another failure to a success.


Sunday, October 26, 2008

White Choc & Macadamia Nut Cupcakes

I took the recipe off 500 Cupcakes and Muffins for my Piggy Gang gathering, with addition of Lil' Braddy.


I omitted macadamia nut since I didn't have any nut at all at the time. It was an impromptu decision for this cupcake as you can guess.



Before the final touch.



Yes, the white choc chips were the last to stir into the batter.



Scooping the batter into each cup.



Anxiously waiting...



The 1st tray appeared to have the cakes shrunk from the sides.



For the second batch, I adjusted the heat and let the cupcakes cooked under a slower heat and longer time.

I realised this after a few faults with the outcomes of the previous cupcakes.



What a great difference!



Preparing the choc butter cream, by Chockylit.



I tried piping out with my new favourite snozzle.



And my camera phone was surprising obedient that nite, snapping great pics than ever!



A close-up of the swirl.





Decoration 1: Mini silver balls.



Decoraton 2: Colourful little teddy bears.


Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A Letdown at 4th Attempt of Swiss Roll

To truly understand how a real Swiss Roll should be, I went to 2 bakery shops that were on the same stretch and bought a few pre-packed rolls from them.


Look at how thick this choc roll with white cream was.





On a later date, I finally tried to bake another roll since I'd told my colleagues that I'd bake a sugar roll for them.


I used my new gadget which I bought some time back. It's not that user friendly as the egg yolk would some how still found its way to the bottom of the bowl.



Whisking the egg whites with sugar, before adding the egg yolks in one-by-one.



The batter after the addition of of flours and corn oil.



This time, I poured the entire batter into the tray not knowing the exact size.



The roll actually rose pretty high.



Though the time was up, the roll was still slightly uncooked.



I sent the tray back into the oven for another 5-10mins.





After cooling on the rack, the swiss roll cracked after I tried rolling.



I continued to spread strawberry jam on the roll.



And cut up the roll to slices instead, and shared with my dog.



Sugar Roll (http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2006/08/sugar-roll.html)


Ingredients:
4 egg white
80 gm. caster sugar
4 egg yolk
1/4 tsp. vanilla essence
100 gm. cake flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
40 gm. corn oil

100 gm. Butter cream
invert Sugar - very fine sugar

1. Whisk egg white for awhile, then add in caster sugar gradually.
2. Drop in the egg yolk one by one into the beating egg white until finish and continue beating for another 3 mins.
3. Stop the machine, fold in the cake flour and baking powder.
4. Fold in cornoil and pour into a 11" x 14" tray or 10" x 14" tray and bake at 200C for about 10 mins.
5. Take out from tray and leave on the wire rack to cool.
6. Spread butter cream onto the cooled swiss roll and roll into a swiss roll.
7. Sprinkle some sugar onto a greaseproof paper and roll the swiss roll to and fro until evenly covered with the help of the greaseproof paper.
8. Slice and serve.