D e l i s i o u c i t y

As much as cupcakes are making such a huge impact onto the world of food today (note sites such as Cupcakes Take the Cake, and Iron Cupcake competitions), nothing seems to surpass the impact that my husband has on me when it comes to football. Let’s just put it this way: I used to own a few Manchester United clothing and was politely asked to throw them out. Subsequently I was supplied with some Liverpool FC frock ^_^ But don’t you be judging us! I think it’s somewhat endearing. I mean, how many of you out there can even dare to hum the melodies of ‘Glory Glory..’ in a house where you were cajoled to swear allegiance to the one and only football club that promises you’d ‘never walk alone’, without getting the pouty, hurt puppy look?!

That’s right. In a world where football club rivalry runs rampant, a divided household is not a happy home ;p So I’m afraid that I have succumbed to the euphoria of football fanaticism. No wait, that’s quite an exaggeration. Let’s just say I support him wholeheartedly and his *ehem* team, albeit from the sidelines. Fair enough? Football fans, and perhaps especially LFC fans, are a hard-core bunch… and I’m probably not wrong to say so. Who else would you see standing tall in silence, giving a respectful military salute to these cupcakes, for God’s sakes? It was hilarious to see husby like that, and I am not sure where the whole sense of allegiance, loyalty, and ultimately, love,  for a football club millions of miles away comes from. Any sociological theory taught by my lecturers on this, I most certainly have forgotten.

Anyhow, I quite enjoyed making the fondant toppers on Liverpool FC that you see here. It was the most fun because I had my husband fully on board, cheering on while I painfully roll and knead the fondants, carefully shaping them into these tiny pieces of edible artwork. Such memories. hehe.

I also found out later on that the family who ordered these had a fantastical party of the red-and-white-theme strain. I want, I want! It is so nice to view their pictures on FaceBook and how everyone is dressed in those colours, and the kids having a cake-eating competition with their hands behind their backs ^_^. They had two cakes, one done by myself and the other by the very talented Candy Chan (who does the most amazing, precise wee details on fondants). It was very funny too as we both found out that our fondant cupcake toppers looked so much alike! And we didn’t even know we were both doing the same project for the same family. Haha.

The jersey-shaped cake turned out shorter than I had conceptualized, boo on that. But it worked nonetheless. Maybe it’ll win something in a tiny-T-shirt contest. Insides Rich Chocolate cake with ganache and Valrhona pearls. Oh yes, the cupcakes are my apparently bestselling Fudgey Walnut Brownie Cupcakes, which is receiving a couple more repeat orders from this family ^_^ Jazakallahu Khairan!

To everyone else, here, have some balls and you’ll find that you’ll never walk alone *koff koff*:

[Eye roll]

xoxo
nix

I am simply ecstatic when someone writes to me to ask if I can do this or that… which is the case with this particular project where the question was: “Do I make 1 pound cakes?”. Truthfully, I answered that I don’t quite know what those are (hehe) because I never really sell cakes by their weight. It’s something that I possibly could look into in the future, but I think it’s safe to say that 1 pound cakes are close to 6″ diameter wide cakes.. and they are really really cute!

Well, perhaps not as cute as 3″ cakes

But here you are: my take on a simple cake for a girl and a boy. Thank you A, for the inspiration and the order!

Girly Theme, with Vanilla Victoria Sponge Cake and Hazelnut Buttercream

Football Theme, with Rich Dark Chocolate Cake, Ganache filling and Valrhona Perles

Just in case you are curious, those are not pins for a corkboard ;p they’re cocktail picks, here used to pin down the satin ribbons. If anyone is interested, I am offering an Introductory Price for both cake designs, for a limited time only. The Girly theme cake, for 6″, is $30 (based on Vanilla Victoria & Hazelnut Buttercream), and the Football cake is $35 (based on the Chocolate & Ganache/Perles). They’re both rather yummy if I say so myself ^_^ Prices will change according to the cake inside., and they will change after the promotional period (up till July 31st).

I wonder how this one would look in baby blue?

The football cake is actually quite apt for the upcoming Father’s Day on 21st June!

I know, I know… my last post was yonks ago. I have very good reasons for what people in the “industry” call ‘being on hiatus’. But I won’t bore you with them! I’m just glad to be back, and with loads of updates too ^_^ I’m starting with this one; a set of cupcakes with a graduation theme which I made for one of my friends (thanks doll!). She had ordered a cupcake each for all of her coursemates studying at our main university, who sat for their final final exams and now ready to get back to work as teachers. Don’t you just envy them?! They get to graduate a second time!

Well, not till September at least! Anyway, beneath all that fondant are the latest addition to my repertoire: Double Chocolate Fudgey Walnut Brownie cupcakes.

Just as it sounds, it’s a cupcake version of a brownie. Flaky and crusty on the top, fudgey and extremely gooey on the inside. It’s an absolutely decadent recipe that I adapted from Julia Child, but added significantly more chocolate (boo ya!) which is inserted in the middle of each cupcake to create a filling that melts as it bakes in the oven or when you reheat in the microwave. Yes, quite lava-cake like to be honest. Studded with walnuts generously strewn about in each brownie, and topped with a whipped ganache, this cupcake is easily worth ‘one hundred million calories*’.

I kid you not.

*said in the tone of Adam Sandler, Bedtime Stories*

For a simpler, lesser-calorie version (and also cheaper by the dozen!), I’ve now reduced the chocolate content and cut down on the walnuts (which are quite expensive and made the first version too costly to sell.. though I did manage to get a few orders). You may find this simplified version listed in The Cupcake Menu link on the sidebar ^_^

Happy eating!

I had been making an awful lot of children birthday party cakes and favours lately that I missed out on posting a couple of them here. This short post is all I can muster at the moment, so enjoy!

Sugar Cookies with Royal Icing for Aedan’s yacht club pool party guests:

These are bespoke items: hand crafted, custome-made, colour-coordinated, individually wrapped and heat-sealed. The level of customisation ensures Delisioucity’s clients receive premium quality products made out of passion and taste.
(Well ok, I tried very hard to make each one as perfect as possible!)

Amir’s brownie cupcakes. His family aren’t big fans of desserts or sweet things, so I settled on brownies (they’re a rather one-off consumption kind of thing) and the toppers are removable, bien sur! They had a proper ice-cream cake for everyone else too, so the 6 pieces were just right for themselves, post-partee.

I’m liking how Marie Elefantey is turning up to be quite a pseudo-mascot for delisioucity. (hehe)

I’ve been up to my eyes with rolling sugarpaste the past weeks that I find their very scent rather appaling! Quite right too, as I have been veering off a bit much from the main purpose of my blog/gastroventures, which is to unearth the secrets and techniques of classic (& classy) pastries and desserts. Certainly food decoration can be simple, elegant and tasteful and non of this have anything to do with fondants :p The whole sugarpaste phenomena probably became more significant with the advent of video tutorials, Sex and the City (with the cupcake scenes), flickr, and sugarpaste that are readily-available to home kitchens. If I never become a pastry chef in this life then I’d probably make half a career in food styling or something. I like! I want! And there’s so much to learn and get inspired from.

I’m talking about photography knowledge and skills here as much as a defined, crisp taste in spatial arrangements. Ok there you go. I am finally outing myself: I am a trained Geographer and I love anything to do with spatiality.. how things connect in a spatial context, where they are located, and why. Sometimes it makes a lot of sense, but most times (and architects alike will know this) it is about taste, and aesthetic pleasures… all working in tandem with functionality and practicality, of course. My perpetual fixation towards details can be overbearing at times, to the point of being completely anal. It frustrates me when overall pictures look great but details tell otherwise (such as the poor lighting in my photos, hence the shadows). I wish I could make time for lessons, but you know what? Minute flaws can be quite artsy too! (Such as crummies accidentally strewn about).

Anyhow, these “teacakes” are formed with a scone ring and are sandwiched together with Cocoa Italian Meringue Buttercream, a type of buttercream made with a technique akin to making the Italian version of macarons that I quite enjoy making it. The texture is silky too, and though I vouch for my dislike towards buttercreams in general, I do not mind these in small, small doses.  The cake here is adapted from Peggy Porschen’s recipe, and baked in a 10″ sheet. They rise quite well, hence the tall-ish structure, and when carved or cut, do not crumb too much. Pretty foregiving and decent for novelty cakes I must say; and according to Porschen, makes a great bottom tier for stacking.

It doesn’t end there either. These cakes are also moist and spongy, and the denseness is nicely cut with a light cream such as this. Although,… I probably won’t mind it even more if I drowned these poor old sods in Creme Anglais. Or or minty ice cream! Ouh the possibilities.. for all the senses!

Surely chocolate wins all the time, doesn’t it?

My niece Batrisyia loves green so much and wanted this ladybug cake made for her birthday party. The inside is a carved Rich Dark Chocolate Cake layered with Belgian Chocolate Ganache and frosted with Vanilla Italian Meringue Buttercream. Fondant covered, and decorated with fondant pearls. I thought the pale, pastel green makes it look sweet rather than alarmingly alien and unpalatable. But I don’t really know anyone who eats fondant covers or decors, really :p

Having said that, why do we bother with decorations in the first place? Most people just peel the fondant off and eat the cake. But cupcakes I suppose have come a long way… the amount of fancy designs that you can afford makes them a great gift item(s). And the added perk is the fact that the edible, yet uneaten, fondant toppers can be kept for a long time, so they can be picked off the cupcakes and be kept as a memento  As long as they’re away from too much sunlight, the colours will also fade slower.

The insides are made of Almond and Lyle’s Maple Golden Syrup Cupcakes, and frosted with whipped chocolate ganache. It’s a pretty nice combination, and one of the new recipes that I’m experimenting with.

Backbreaking work, these fondants @_@

In case you were wondering (though I’m sure nobody was, as I am just perasaan that I have lurking readers out there apart from bots who spam me), I am still obsessed with macarons. I still get thrills out of staring at the rise of their dainty little collar (a.k.a “feet”) in the first 7 minutes of baking in the oven. Yes, I still do sit on a tiny stool in front of my Ariston and stare at the macarons in their process of either blooming to wondrous joy, or exploding/cracking much to my utter demoralization. When the latter happens, and believe you me, they do (even after a year of *ehem* ‘cracking’ my way to finally be able to make them), I get quite a bit of loss. Let me indulge you in the following: Almond meals are not precisely cheap. They are $20 for a kilo. Meanwhile, icing sugar vary in prices, some shops sell them for nearly $2 for 500g, while others, selling the less-than-pure mixture of icing sugar + corn flour (= confectionary sugar), will cost less than a dollar. Next, the eggs. Eggs are fine but their prices do fluctuate as any home-economist will know.  The loss really, is in terms of wastage of the egg whites in which had to be separated from yolks. Subsequently I never know what to do with the tonnes of yolks I get as a result of macaronventuring. Not that I have an ice cream truck in which I could churn ice cream and sell them to kids. Or maybe that’s an investment worth looking into, one wonders?

In the next post I will show you what I did attempt with some leftover egg yolks, though. But let me move on with more macaron stories. I had made quite a bit in the past weeks, and the Italian meringue (au sucre cuit) method seemed to please. Perhaps it was the weather that day or maybe I macaronaged (folded) the batter with near-precision (*koff koff*), which led to nicely domed shells and no cracking at all. But when I tried this method again the next day, it all went down the bin. I still don’t know what it was  that went wrong, and I can’t even bother to speculate anymore other than the fact that sometimes you get plain jinxed for being so kambang (joyous, over the moon). They all failed miserably. So later, on I went with the au blanc monte method, or also known as the simple meringue, or French method. I concede to this: the simpler method is better. (As with all simple things, I suppose). *eye roll*

It is quite ironic though, because in all my research and reading, everybody seems to say that the Italian method will produce more consistent and reliable yields! ARGH! I know I have delved into this subject before, and some of you may find this a bit too repetitive on my side. But you see, I am at an utter loss as to why I can’t seem to master “the more reliable recipe”! *Pulling hair* The thing is yea, I would be more than happy to resort to only using the French method if it weren’t much sweeter than the Italian method. For some God-given reason, that’s the way it is. Some clients don’t mind it, but others cringe with a full glass of water on their other hand. Upon wallowing to some of my favourite bloggers who make beautiful macarons to no end (tartelette; madbaker; mercotte; veron) , I have been adviced (1) to take no heed to such complaints,  (2) learn and educate the fact that the French really do eat only one of these at a time, and (3) that Americans, at least, love things sweet. Now I know we are not USA, or Paris, but the one thing I do want to share with everyone is that like in all things in pastry, there is much chemistry between ingredients to be respected. No, I cannot tweak

I do try to balance the sweetness with fillings that aren’t designed “for the kill” though. But still, I suppose this petit four still remains a foreign culture to many who have really yet to taste the real deal in the likes of Pierre Herme, Laduree, or Cristophe Michalak (yummy bloke, by the way). Till then, I remain your humble purveyor of macarons, who will use the French method for as long they don’t jinx me instead (in which if they do, I will proabably retire from this obsession at last).

The French Method macaron recipe:

100g almond meal
90g aged egg whites
190g icing sugar
25g castor sugar
Pinch of salt
A few drops of food colouring

Sift your almond meal and icing sugar together twice until you get a fine powder. In a clean mixer bowl, beat egg whites with salt till foamy. Then add castor sugar a little at a time. Continue to beat till glossy/satiny and the meringue should hold soft peaks. Add about 1/4 of this meringue into the dry mixture and beat rapidly to break the mass. Add food colouring at this point if you like. Then incorporate all of the meringue into the mixture and fold gently without deflating too much of the batter. Do not overfold (or over-macaronage). You should aim to achieve a texture that is often called ‘flowing like magma’. Though I have never really been to a live volcano spewing hot magma, I will tell you that what you need to look for is a batter that holds a little beak, when picked with a finger, and that which will then fall back to the batter with little reluctance. Spoon into a piping bag attached with a round tip, and pipe onto a baking parchment. If you can find a silicon baking parchment, that is even better. Let sit for a while for the macarons to form skin on the surface (around 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the humidity level of that day), then proceed to bake at a temperature that best suits your oven type. That means you have to experiment (gasp!) Mine works best at 165C for about 12 minutes. Some people will bake at 170C, then go down to 160C after 5 minutes. If your batter was macaronaged with care, they should form nicely domed shells with a collar around it, called ‘feet’. Let cool, and do not pry the shells off the parchment! They should come off easily after cooling. Then, pipe in a filling of your choice, which includes jams, buttercreams, mousses, and ganaches. Enjoy, and bonne chance!

*In the pictures above, the flavours are my signature whipped chocolat (with the cocoa dust), and coffee ganache. Bonne chance!