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

I never really know what to give little kids when it comes to desserts and sweets. Somehow I’m stuck in the genre of “desserts for adults” which often either end up being classic cakes (or petite macarons that not many here really appreciate ), or stuff spiked with espresso (thanks to my cofeeholic husby). I know that chocolate-type desserts, on the other hand, are sure winners and just any age group can and often will appreciate in a heartbeat. So when the opportunity came up to re-acquiant myself with my kitchen and re-establish my baking mojo, I immediately thought of chocolates. But ahhh, what form do I translate these brown beauties into?? Tough, I thought, because I was baking for a charity event that was held at a school. So the products had to be cost-effective and sellable to little kids. Not exactly something I’m used to, unfortunately. So far my clientele have been of a particular demographic group – ones who do not mind the extra cost derived from imported pure vanilla or couverture chocolate, for example. So with much tweaking and planning ahead, I managed to come up with options for the event that didn’t really hurt the purse for both the baker and the little kiddy customers (and their parents, to some extent )

Use cheaper chocolates, and make do with a basic buttercream recipe
Fondant topper? Simplicity is the way to go. You can also make your own fondant of course.

Much ‘a-Moussed’ about chocolate nothings?
Make mousses with whipping cream instead of heavy cream. Same effect, less cost.
Topping: Ganache, or feuillete. You can easily mimic the latter with cheaper options like Nestum or Cornflakes Special-K instead of Gavottes.

Teddy bear Chocolate Sugar Cookies. Well ok,
these take plenty of man-hours (or rather, baker-hours!) to make. But they’re so fun and cute!

You can find these till tomorrow, Saturday 7th March at this school. There’ll be other desserts available too, such as my niece’s gargantuan chocolate chip cookies If you visit and buy our desserts, 20% of sales go to the needful in Palestine. So go on then! This is one ‘moment on the lips’ that’ll not just stay ‘forever on the hips’…. it’ll also stay forever in your list of good deeds 2009 And while you’re browsing the school’s website, do check out their volunteering programmes, or fill in their form here.

*Update 7th March 09*

More stuff from the last day of the bakesale!

More chocolate & sprinkles abound on these easy doughnuts and cheesecake choco chip truffles

…and finally! A non-chocolate entry: A Pina Colada Blizzard cupcake. Moist and dense coconut cake (using coconut cream), white chocolate & cream cheese buttercream with a chunk of crystallised pineapple on top

At last, I’ve finally been able to finish a Daring Bakers Challenge after so long! I’ve been so tied up the past two months and missed the Buche Noel challenge for December and the Tuilles challenge for January… (Sorry DB!!) For the month of February, a flourless cake recipe from the infamous Chef of pot-pet, Chef Wan (of Malaysia) had been chosen. A big thank you to Wendy at wmpesblog (Arizona) and Dharm at Dad – Baker and Chef (Malaysia) for hosting this delightful challenge which opened up plenty of possibilities for some creative work

“Sandwhiches”:Chocolate Valentino & Homemade Buttermilk-Mocha Ice Cream

I chose to bake the cake in a jelly roll pan, which produced this thin layer of *ehem* cake that I used to make a valentino and buttermilk-mocha ice cream sandwhich. Oh yes, did I tell you? As part of the challenge, we were supposed to also make our own ice cream! Making ice cream is always a challenge for me because I am yet to own an ice cream machine (boooo~) and so have to resort to other means of production ^_^ For an ice cream recipe that doesn’t require a machine, head over to David Lebovitz’s website (here I’ve provided you a link for the vanilla ice cream recipe. You can improvise on that one for any flavour you wish).

Let’s talk about the cake first! Here’s the recipe for Chef Wan’s flourless chocolate Valentino. Prior warning though: this cake will truly reflect your choice of chocolate, so it’s gonna be bitter bitter sweet if you choose to use that option. Also, ensure you use good quality cooking chocolate, or if you can muscle out the extra dosh, a pish-posh couverture chocolate

Chocolate Valentino by Chef Wan
Preparation Time:  20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated
*optional: 1/2 C almond meal

1. Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

You might have noticed the sheer simplicity of the recipe and method. Don’t be fooled though, you really need to be weary of the beating process for the egg-whites. Do not overbeat or your cake will flop in the middle (as tried and tested by our many DB members!) Also, watch over the baking time.. naturally, if you spread the batter over a thin jelly-roll pan, you would significantly reduce the amount of time taken for baking. I did some minor adjustments for this by reducing the temperature to 180C and baking for about 10 minutes (perhaps I should have gone less really, because the cake became biscuit!) It also depends on the reliability of your oven. As a general rule for my Ariston, cakes I bake use the fan-forced setting.

As you can see, I also baked the batter in tiny tartelette moulds for the base of a different dessert presentation:

Chocolate Bombe: Valentino, Feuillete, Homemade Buttermilk-Mocha Ice Cream, Chocolate Mousse, Chocolate Ganache, and Mocha Beans

I used the valentino to act as a sable or a dacquoise even, and it worked quite well. The bombe structure is quite easy to make, and really you don’t need a special mould to do it Just a little ingenuity with a metal ikea bowl does the trick! Just make sure you line it with saran wrap, and freeze as you go. The hot weather here has NOT been nice at all mind you. Anyway, for the chocolate bomb, here is the breakdown of the innards (which I spent half an hour drawing!):

I was itching to try out the feuillete that was featured in the Buche Noel challenge which I missed out, so I went ahead and made it. I am pretty lucky to find that some stores here in Brunei actually do sell the authentic French gavottes for the feuillete, but if you can’t find it, I am told that Rice Krispies will also do the trick. If you are familiar with the Nestum product, it is possibly the closest I can think of to what the gavottes are in terms of taste and texture. So you may also use that

The resulting feuillete is the one featured in the above picture, on the bottom left. It is so delicious on its own!! I pressed the same tartelette case on it, and got the round shape that was to be inserted in the bombe.

Ingredients for the Feuillete:
3.5 oz (100g) milk chocolate
1 2/3 Tbsp (25g) butter
2.1oz (60g) lace crepes(gavottes) or rice krispies or corn flakes or Special K or Nestum

1.    Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
2.    Add the coarsely crushed lace crepes. Mix quickly to thoroughly coat with the chocolate.
3.    Spread between two sheets of wax paper to a size slightly larger than your desired shape. Refrigerate until hard.

So there you go. I had fun making these, but only wish that I had some extra heavy cream to make a shiny glaze for the bombe’s outermost skin layer (instead of the matt effect I got up there. boooo~) Perhaps another day then, after all, this dessert is through and through decadent chocolate What’s not to re-make?

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*A little formality that needs to be done for the blog auto-checking process for the DB group:

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. We have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

Since I’ve been piping down, blog-wise, an awful lot lately,  thought I’d put up stuff that fall under a theme that I rarely touch on nowadays. One that doesn’t require me to bake anything or subsequently feel guilty about. And that theme, my fellow food-lovers, is ‘dieting etc’. The past year I’ve packed enough weight to account for the daily nutritional requirements of a whale/rhino/woolly mammoth; thanks to those evil things known to mankind as cakes and confectionaries. Sigh. It is indeed time to re-evaluate a much re-evaluated stance on food and calories.

During busy times, meals somehow magically transform into what is often a  cornucopia of calories derived from gargantuan portions of takeaways or tapaus. God knows I am in a much-needed doze of detoxification from not only the things that come out of my kitchen’s oven, but also these tapau quick fixes (ok, ok, full-blown meals then!) from the shops/restaurants. So I’m now trying to clean up my act by eating only sarnies for lunch. It’s at least portion-controlled, and I get to choose better and healthful choices The sarny here is a very quick and easy one.. a lunch to go if you like. Ideally, I’d use soft white bread any day, thank you. But I’ve been getting used to low GI breads – wholemeals with plenty of roughage and fibre in the form of mixed seeds. I’m not sure if it’s an acquired taste sort of thing, but it might take you a while to get accustomed with the brown muck of a bread ^_^ I used only one slice of that, with chicken toast pastrami, add about 1 to 2 ounces of mozarella cheese (light, if you insist!) and slices of fresh tomato. I just adore the two tomato colours that came in that one box I found in the vege aisle!

Enjoy with a cup of hot creamy chicken soup from the pack, and off you go! Funny how I was quite satisfied with such a light light lunch. But this arrangement is not bad at all for my much-needed calorie-counting exercise. For now that is. hehe.

The options for fillings of an opened-face sarny is endless! Above is from another day’s lunch: same low GI bread, slices of beef with pepper, tomatoes and avocadoes (which, I realised was getting old and oxidizing away in my fridge). And the wonderful thing is that these lunches are within the range of 250 to 300 calories.. or probably less!

Thought I’d put up a post to tell you that I’m having a temporary freeze on baking activities because of work and life commitments. So much going on and so little time!

Quite aptly too, here’s a picture from my sister’s place in Paddington Square, London. Apparently the snow/blizzard was paradoxically beautiful. She made the snowman and posted to us all so we can cheer up from the foul rainy/stormy/floody (?) weather we’ve been experiencing here lately. Thoughtful! ^_^

Praises to Allah that the rains have stopped and we’re now back to sunny, humid and hot Brunei. I hear a drought is coming next.

To sis, I hope your timberland boots and new Chanel valentine’s edition are keeping you cosy in what appears to be a wretchedly cold winter ^_^

Oh my! Drool-worthy indeed.

My best friend’s son’s 1st birthday and I was on my feet for 14 hours making these and his two cakes. Could I feel my soles anymore? No. Was he a happy bunny? Yes. Apparently Amshar loves Cookie Monster and he ‘sings’ with his granny:

“C is for Cookie… it’s good enough for me…“.

Aww! Too cute huh? ^_^

These are Madagascar Vanilla Sugar Cookies, and made customized with a couple of cookie cutters. Cookie’s face is made of royal icing. I think I get utterly possessed when I get my hands on royal icing, piping and flooding the cookies with uninterrupted determination. Almost trance-like really ^_^ Anyhow, the birthday boy loved these and wouldn’t let go of them and had a resultant blue mouth. hehe. The rest of the cookies are my signature hippos and chicks, which were apparently a big hit:

And some white chicks ^_^

These were packed in an aluminium bag, and heat-sealed. My husband had lots of fun in this area, stamping the bags with the sealer and putting on the sticker We had a proper production line at home over the weekend! Woot!

As for the cakes, I made the Death By Chocolate cake (which my best friend’s husband dubbed as “Bladi hell delicious”; yes, in these exact words), and Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake. The latter is beautifully soft and white, but after layering and decorating, it turned out tooo sweet with the buttercream and jam filling. So I’m seriously reconsidering her much well-recommended cake for events such as this. Here’s the recipe nonetheless, which you ought to tweak for the overall level of sweetness:

Perfect Party Cake

From Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours” (and hijacked from Ezra Pound Cake)

Makes 12 to 14 servings

For the Cake

• 2 1/4 cups cake flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/4 cups whole milk or buttermilk
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
• 1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon pure lemon extract

For the Buttercream

• 1 cup sugar
• 4 large egg whites
• 3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 large lemons)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For Finishing

• 2/3 cup seedless raspberry preserves, stirred vigorously or warmed gently until spreadable
• About 1 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Getting Ready: Center a rack in the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9-x-2-inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make The Cake: Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.

Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add the butter and, working with the paddle or  whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light. Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed. Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated. Add the rest of the milk and eggs, beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients. Finally, give the batter a good 2-minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated. Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the tough – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unmold them and peel off the paper liners. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up. (The cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.)

To Make the Buttercream: Put the sugar and egg whites in a mixer bowl or other large heatproof bowl, fit the bowl over a pan of simmering water and whisk constantly, keeping the mixture over the heat, until it feels hot to the touch, about 3 minutes. The sugar should be dissolved, and the mixture will look like shiny marshmallow cream. Remove the bowl from the heat.

Working with the whisk attachment or with a hand mixer, beat the meringue on medium speed until it is cool, about 5 minutes. Switch to the paddle attachment if you have one, and add the butter a stick at a time, beating until smooth. Once all the butter is in, beat the buttercream on medium-high speed until it is thick and very smooth, 6 to 10 minutes. During this time, the buttercream may curdle or separate – just keep beating and it will come together again. On medium speed, gradually beat in the lemon juice, waiting until each addition is absorbed before adding more, and then the vanilla. You should have a shiny, smooth, velvety, pristine white buttercream. Press a piece of plastic against the surface of the buttercream and set aside briefly.

To Assemble the Cake: Using a sharp, serrated knife and a gentle sawing motion, slice each layer horizontally in half. Put one layer cut side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper. Spread it with one third of the preserves. Cover the jam evenly with about one quarter of the buttercream. Top with another layer, spread with preserves and buttercream and then do the same with the third layer (you’ll have used all the jam and have buttercream left over). Place the last layer cut side down on top of the cake and use the remaining buttercream to frost the sides and top. Press the coconut into the frosting, patting it gently all over the sides and top.

Serving: The cake is ready to serve as soon as it is assembled, but it’s best to let it set for a couple of hours in a cool room. Serve it at room temperature with anything from milk to sweet or bubbly wine.

Storing: The cake is best the day it is made, but you can refrigerate it, well covered, for up to 2 days.

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The cake is decorated with rolled fondant, which I planned to adorn with muppets’ faces on the surface. I made the muppets the night before, which apparently wasn’t enough time for them to dry. So they broke. And it was SUCH a stressful thing to have happened!

So what happens when your friendly muppets decide to screw you over at the very last minute? You rummage through your royal icing stash and hope to God that your mediocre piping skills will save your baker’s rear end ^_^ This all happened, of course, at the 13th hour of my baking marathon. Like I didn’t have enough time and energy already. Sigh. The results:

So many lessons learned from this experience, such as starting the whole project earlier or preparing each component in multiple phases; and not using royal icing for the cake decoration (it was too darn sweet already!) I did manage to save Big Bird and Cookie Monster which dried good enough to lift off. But they did break anyway, and left a siginificant amount of undried sugar on the acetate. It’s beyond me that I had forgotten to use rolled fondant to make the muppet heads in the first place (but not so much fondant figurines though). I could’ve easily gone hopping mad right there and then. I did hop a little bit though. All in all, what a gastroventure!!

A note to Amshar:

Dearest Amshar. It will be a few years more till you can read (or allowed to read) auntie Nikki’s website. But I want to tell you that I’m sorry that your birthday cake wasn’t as perfect as Dorie Greenspan claimed it would be. I’m also sorry if you got sugar-high yesterday because of the rolled fondant, royal icing, buttercream filling, jam filling, and brush of simple syrup. I know I make no sense to you right now, but please be assured that Auntie will strive to excel even more in her baking adventures ^_^

Love always, and big Muppet Monster hugs.

hehe.

Another day, another gateau. I’ve become slightly obsessed with cakes and baking in general (and of course, the accompanying batter-licking-off-the-bowl! ^_^). This one is a test cake for an upcoming birthday for my best friend’s son who is turning one this weekend. He’s as cute as a button! Of course, the actual birthday cake will not appear as the one in the picture,..as this one really is just an adult’s version ;p Also, I’m not so sure if my best friend would agree with this flavour as she actually did request for something not too chocolatey. I am unfamiliar with the concept ;p  It’s like there is no such as thing as too much money, likewise: there’s no such thing as too much chocolate (hehe)

I have never really been such a huge fan of chocolate but occasionally I do crave for them. My family on the other hand, and my husband in particular.. well, that’s a different story. My mom for instance, has been actively encouraging my sweet tooth all my life by buying me big bars of chocolate that she carefully puts on the egg tray section of the fridge as I was growing up. Now she does it to her grandchildren ^_^ One wonders where the fictional character one reads in bedtime stories come from! You know, that old lady with the lure of the sweets and candies… and apples ^_^ (just kidding mum!)

Anyhow. This is my version of a Mousse a Chocolat gateau; and I call it Death by Chocolate because it is downright decadent and you need to have a glass of water/milk/light tea with a small slice! I guess I went overboard with the whole chocolate theme but really, it’s soooo good that I’ve forgotten that I didn’t really like chocolate in the first place! And now I’m hopping about as a much chocolate-induced wabbit as can get. Here are the details of the cake:

Chocolate cake recipe, adapated from tartelette (thanks Helen!)

1 stick (113gr) butter
1 cup (200gr) sugar
1/2 cup (45gr) natural cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups (185gr) all purpose flour
1 teaspoon (5gr) baking powder
1 teaspoon (5gr) espresso powder (Optional)
1/2 teaspoon (2.5gr) baking soda
1 cup (250ml) warm water

I tweaked and replaced  a few things but didn’t include them in the recipe here. For instance, I replaced the warm water with an ingredient that I found ensures a fluffy and dense texture (you might already know what it is). Also, I skipped the espresso bit. You also need to make the filling, and construct the cake by layering in the mousse between the cakes. The top is covered with bittersweet ganache, piped with mousse, and adorned with Varhona chocolate balls. C’est magnifique! The Valrhonas are such a wonderful accompaniment that adds a crunch to the cake, and the ganache texture (when cool) meets well with the mousse. So much dimensions! And to emulate many, many gateau creations by patissiers out there, I ‘glued’ the sides with macaron shells.

*Hop*hop*skip* ^_^

Cherry blossoms and a ‘Moo’ year!

The new year is here (again!) Last night the skies were flooded with fireworks and the air was filled with the din of crackling festivity explosives. These started at 12 am.  The rain finally stopped at that hour, but I heard from the news today that the two-hour rain earlier in the night had caused some major flooding (again!) in some parts of the city. I hope that doesn’t dampen the festive moods of our Chinese friends (or whoever is celebrating, for that matter). P and I have our own version of ‘celebrating’ the New Year eve last night: by getting lost together. Hehe. You would’ve thought, yea, that since Brunei is so small, you would always find your way. But nope, we spent a good hour or so looking for the house (well, mansion, really) for the desserts on order. The skies were already raining a wee bit, and the roads dark enough to dampen our own mood… but at the end, we had a good laugh at ourselves for the silliness indulged ^_^ It was even sillier since the house is humongous and has a policeman guarding the entrance and despite all that we actually still got lost!

Classic Coconut Cake with an Asian twist.
This was before piping the words on the right side

Anyway, classic cakes and desserts are truly becoming my forte and personal favourite for some reason. They taste great, and always a winner; but can take ages to make if you don’t organize your mise en place. I really did enjoy making the orders, and decorating them was just plain fun. The other gateau I made was a classis Caramel Cake, decorated with croquant on the sides and cashew brittle. This cake is really really super moist! Based on experience, torting it is a pain because of the soft moist texture, so I made sure I saved time and effort by baking the layers separately.

And, a lovely gold-themed presentation is quite apt for the well wishes of prosperity and longevity, don’t you think? ^_^

This is resonated with more of that hue/tone with these boxes of macarons: the Signature flavours of Chocolat and Madagascar Vanille, and a smaller box of Pandan and Citron.

Have a Great Chinese New Year!

xoxo
Nikkita

At last, my long-awaited DSLR camera has arrived! I am yet to really enjoy this new toy, and I am yet to migrate to proper-proper photo editing using the tools of the trade. With so much on my plate at the moment, having a hobby (baking, initially!) has taken quite a lot of my time… let alone start a new one. But I am a person who loves to set “ridiculous” goals, and enjoy a few challenges here and there ^_^ Nothing is ridiculous, really. You’ll never know what you’re capable of till you start doing things and exploring your multiple intelligences! (there is such a thing, no?)

I had an opportunity yesterday to take some photos around the house. I grabbed the camera and took pictures quickly because the weather (and sunlight) is really unpredictable nowadays. The rain pours and pours; and my macaron-making has suddenly taken a bad turn as the shells get affected by the major bout of humidity. It has been so frustrating!! I wasted three whole batters because of the humidity. The shells just ‘exploded’, and their innards stuck to the parchment. That’s three batters! You could hear me hopping-mad if you were nearby. So I had to diverge. Thank goodness for the new toy ^_^

some shots from our atrium

After a few random shots here and there, I am now just plain slobbering over the mere thought of future prospects in taking close-up pictures of foods et al. Of course, it’d be a lot better if I had the extra dosh for a macro lens… plus it’d be quite a shame if I still insist on doctoring the photos with mediocre software,… but seriously, right now I can’t be bothered with the (possible) differences. So much to do and so little time! I hadn’t even gotten around to installing the softwares and trying them out :-/ Dessert orders have been pouring in, and apart from the day job that I have (that requires a serious amount of research and reading up!!), the lure of another couple of hours sitting on my rear end & learning a software doesn’t sound so enticing

edible home decorations

I have more pictures coming up later! It’s Chinese New Year holiday today and that means time to unwind, watch a little tv, and heck… maybe I’ll even get around to doing some more sitting down, learning how to Photoshop.

Last night’s storm and endless rain brought plenty of floods in the city and suburbs of Bandar Seri Begawan. It was very scary. We’re quite lucky and blessed that we very rarely get the remnants of furious weathers or shifting tectonics like those seen elsewhere; so you can imagine how flash floods like last night’s can be quite alarming. The semi-circle roof of our atrium  shuddered all night and the sound of water droplets dumping and streaming on the pvc roof was unnerving. We barely slept; as nearby just 8 minutes away from our house, my sister’s place began to get inundated with flood waters. She called us at 1 am and reported that the water came seeping onto her dry kitchen area, which has never happened before (yes, her area does get flooded quite easily). It was, like I said, quite unnerving. P and I sought comfort, (or whatever it was, really, to escape from thoughts of impending disaster thanks to the shuddering, leaking atrium roof), in watching the joyous inauguration of President Obama. His speech was very inspiring and in his commanding, thunderous voice, gave hope and calls for the revival of dreams. I thought for a second that the world might one day see peace at last, especially when looking at the image of all those people of all colours, who voted, supported and congregated at the inauguration. I had goosebumps and saw my husband’s face frowning and lighting up in consecutive, punctuated, and repeated moments as we silently listened to the new president. Of course, next came our usual banter and commentaries on politics and hopes. Yes, this was all despite the odd hours, floods, rain, and the shuddering roof ^_^

I thought I’d stop waiting for the new camera to arrive for now, and just post these with the horrible-resolution pictures. I figured that it doesn’t really matter, as long as the ‘need’ is served, after all, we should be thankful we even have access to cameras and the internet I’m also putting these pics up so this post can be in memoriam of the floods, the inauguration, and ultimately, of hopes and dreams of all for comfortable living. Butterflies, I think, represent so much of freedom and flight, and how change can be a beautiful thing.

The petite fours/cakes here are also made of classic Victoria sponge (as the previous post), layered with madagascar vanilla buttercream and framboise jam. The top is layered with marzipan, and covered with rolled fondant. The butterflies are quite an interesting project to do on their own; it took 3 days to make them, including drying and ultimately attaching to the cakes. I think they look gorgeous ^_^ The cake is also extremely delicious that this is definitely something I would recommend for foodies who love a little bit of classic to try.

I also had the opportunity to make proper petite fours, in the traditional sense of the word. This was again using the same layer cake, but poured fondant is used to cover the cakes. I also made pink roses and piped leaves to adorn the top. My niece was visiting over the weekend and thought these weren’t edible (oh she also thought the petite cakes with the rose buds and butterflies were tiny tissue boxes). Bless you, Umsie! ^_^

Pretty, non?

Well anyway, let’s hope and pray that we will see a brighter day, clearer skies, and a prettier future… in all manner and understanding of the words. Whether it’s the raging weathers, or the conflicts in war-stricken worlds; whether it’s the changes in management at work, or in a country; and whether it ‘s the losses we’ve made or that others have forced on us; I truly hope this year spells better things for many.

*My deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the storm last night.

I thought I’d show you some other easy fondant projects that you could do to embellish your petite cakes or cupcakes, (for that matter). Whether you are comfortable with using a flower plunger or a small flower cookie cutter, these sugary flora are an adorable way of presenting desserts for adults. They’re a bit time-consuming, but I think well worth it ^_^. Not too high on the complexity level, just roll out your coloured fondant and press with the cutter or plunger.  It’s far simpler than the rose bud embellishments in the forthcoming pictures (of the petite cakes), and the ‘proper’ roses that I will show soon enough. By the way, the silver bearings can be placed in the centre of each flower with a tiny amount of royal icing.

It’s rather stunning too, I think. The other thing I wanted to say is that these are made on cupcakes that I had taken out of their linings for a more elegant look (as a petite cake) and placed in the desserts pvc petri-dish kind of contraption. The cake is then dipped in another form of fondant: the poured type. Poured fondant can be made by applying heat to your ‘solid’ fondant (store bought is fine too)… of course, this can be achieved wither by microwaving carefully (a few minutes at a time) or placing in a bain-marie (double-boiler). The key point to remember here is to not over heat the fondant up to the point of boiling as it will lose its lustre and shine. I didn’t really do a good job at this though >:-/ It was pretty hard to heat up the fondant to the right consistency. More research & practice beckons!

And then of course, the petite cakes that I had made earlier:

Hey hey! Don’t be fooled, this petite four is as small as your fist. It consists of two layers of classic Victoria sponge cake, Madagascar vanilla bean buttercream, framboise/raspberry jam, a layer of marzipan, a coat of warm apricot gel, and finally rolled fondant/sugarpaste. The embellishments include a piece of cloth ribbon, basic fondant roses and royal icing.

Of course, this is just one out of a set. The idea is to present this by the numbers and create a jardin, or garden of roses. Contemporary weddings and brides have frequently now opted for their wedding cakes to be in this form rather than the towering thousand-dollars worth of tiered cake. It’s quite an effect too! When placed on tiered plates, these petite cakes look so elegant as a whole.

Of course, there are other possibilities in presenting these mini cakes, such as engagement gifts (Hantaran), or wedding favours; especially when your guests are seated at a round table. These can be placed individually on their plates.  Now that’s downright stylish, snooty, posh isnt it!? I mean cupcakes can be lovely, but they can get a bit overrated, especially the ones that use heavily coloured basic buttercreams, and cupcake recipes that aren’t tasty. But don’t get me wrong! I love them to bits , especially when they’re decorated with fondant ^_^ But I’d love it more if I had made these petite cakes myself when we got married, but of course, I would’ve been nuts if I had gone and made these that time and had other things to worry about ^_^ Plus I had the whole winter wedding theme going on, and that alone was kinda hard to achieve. Sigh. More white and silvers, shop people!

Anyway, I have other ones but I’m waiting for my new camera for snapping at those. Yes, I am so done with point and shoot. Come back in a bit!

xoxo
Nikkita