My wedding cake adventure

It seems like I have been abandoning this blog again and I'd like to apologize for that. I've been having this thing called laziness. It was hard for me to focus on both my food blog, and book review blog.

Anyway...

Last month, I was super busy with a friend's wedding. Since she's one of my closest friends (I've known her for 20+ years!) I told her that I wanted to make her a wedding cake (for practice purposes) and some decorated sugar cookies as the door gift.

Let's talk about the wedding cake first.

I sucked at cake decorating. And I have not much experience with fondant. I didn't even know how to cover a cake with fondant. So, I took a class on fondant cake decorating a few months ago. And it was super easy to cover a dummy cake. And with the help with the amazing instructor, I managed to make my fondant cake looked as amazing as the picture below. 

As you can see, the pretty roses was done by the instructor. I managed to make only one of them, and they didn't resemble rose very much. I need practice!

I was confident that I could perhaps make a cake that resemble something like this again. My friend (the bride) loves black, and gray. I thought that I could probably make a presentable cake. But this is what my cake looks like...

I know.

I'm so disappointed with what I did to my friend's wedding cake.

If you look closely (at the top tier), you will notice how I didn't have much skill with fondant or cake decorating. It was a good thing that I have those store bought gum paste roses. And it's a good thing that I was planning to make cupcakes and put them on a stand like the picture above. I'm not so sure if I can handle a 3 tier fondant cake. And people didn't really care about the cake on the top tier once they saw the mini cupcakes. Ha!

Oh! And those are chocolate cake with salted caramel buttercream.

Let's take a look at the sugar cookies I made for the door gift.

First, I have to draw the black section, and let it dry. Then, the white section. After the white section dried, I have to draw the lace with the white icing. It was a good thing that I got an amazing set of lace stencils from an art store. I was planning to buy some stencils from Wilton, but they are too expensive for me. When the white lace, dried, I have to paint them with AmeriColor' air brush gold color.

Frosting these cookies took so much time. But the bride requested some black and gold. And I decided not to frost them all with black as I was afraid that people might freak out with the color. I'm glad that I frosted them with a bit of ivory. They looked much nicer, sweeter.

I have a few extra sugar cookies and decided to make them into this:

The extras look pretty good. I googled a few pictures and decided to try them. Frost the black section, draw some flowers with white icing, dragged them with brushes for the texture, and painted them with gold. I really like this one!

Now I'm done with my wedding cake & sugar cookie adventure. I'm not sure if I'll be updating this blog as frequently. But will try my very best as I do have some photos of cakes I haven't shared, and recipes I haven't posted yet.

Until then...

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cookies!

I rarely bake cookies. When I do bake cookies, it is usually for the eid ul fitr preparation. I have lots of leftover peanut butter sitting on my shelf. And his year, I baked some peanut butter cookies drizzled with chocolate!

First, mix the dough. Shape the dough into balls, and roll them in sugar.

Arrange them neatly on tray. Press the top gently using a fork.

Then, press halves peanut on top. Bake. Cool. Then, drizzle melted chocolate on top. This process will help the peanut to stick to the cookies.

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cookies

(recipe adapted from Bake at 350 Peanut Butter Blossoms)

1/2 c. butter

3/4 c. creamy peanut butter

1/3 c. castor sugar/fine granulated sugar (plus more for rolling)

1/3 c. light brown sugar

1 egg

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp coarse salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 & 1/2 c. all-purpose flour

1 bag peanut - halves

1 bar compound chocolate for drizzle - melted

1. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper (or use a non stick baking tray).  Preheat oven to 175°Celsius.

2. Using a whisk, sift flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl.

3. In a new bowl, beat butter and peanut butter using the paddle attachment. Add in both sugars and beat until smooth. Then, add in egg and vanilla. Next, add in flour. Mix until well combined. Scrape the bottom and side of bowl once or twice to ensure that all ingredients are well mixed.

4. Shape the dough into1 inch balls and roll them in the extra sugar. Place coated dough balls on the baking tray. Press the top of balls with a fork gently to get the pattern. Then, pressed halves peanut on top.

6. Bake cookies until they are a very light golden color, in about 10 minutes to 12 minutes. Meanwhile, melt the compound chocolate in a microwave for about, 30 seconds.

7. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely. Then, drizzle the chocolate. Wait until the chocolates are well set. Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Brownies

Anyone here love brownies?

I have jars of brownies balanced from chocolate making for my brother's wedding and been looking for recipes with peanut butter as ingredients. Then I found this recipe of Peanut Butter Brownies from Bakerella, one of my favorite place to search for dessert recipes and ideas.

Then I made three different brownies using the same recipe. The first one is Peanut Butter Brownies and Chocolate Chips.

The second one was Peanut Butter and Jelly Brownies. I piped strawberry jam and made the pattern on top of the brownies. It looks really pretty in red, don't you think?

The third one was Peanut Butter Brownies and Chocolate. The chocolate was made of Chocolate paste/spread, or you could use Nutella.

And they were baked to perfection. YUM! Don't they look delicious?

Peanut Butter Brownies madness!! Which of these three are your favorite?

Please visit Bakerella for the recipe.

Experimenting: Decorated Sugar Cookies pt.2

The last time I made sugar cookies for my sister, I had trouble to flood the icing on the cookies as my icing was too stiff. A couple days later, I read that I could actually add in some water into the icing to thin the icing. So, this time, I decided to try again. This time, I made some gingerbread cookies.

This is how my cookies looks like! What do you think? I bought a packet of instant royal icing from bakers' city (I usually used egg white to make the icing), and they turned out really good!

Festive Cookies: Honey Cornflakes

A friend asked me if I could make her some honey cornflakes cookies. It's her favorite cookies and she can't find anyone selling them. So, I told her that I could make some honey cornflakes for her as sample (since I've never made them before). It turns out that my little sister loved them too! Honey cornflakes cookies were one of the easiest. All you need were cornflakes, butter and honey.

Honey Cornflakes

4 cups Cornflakes, (crushed coarsely)

2 tbsp Honey

2 tbsp Butter

Sprinkles (cherries, chocolate rice, anything you like)

1. Heat the oven to 180 degree Celsius.

2. Melt honey and butter together.

3. Mix cornflakes together with melted honey and butter in a bowl.

4. Scoop the cornflakes mixture into a small size paper cup. Sprinkle with your desired sprinkles.

5. Bake for 10 minutes in the oven.

6. And they're good to go :)

Experimenting: Macaron 2

This is my second attempt to make macarons. Well, if you remember, the last time I make macaron, it didn't have the smooth shell, and they were a bit burnt. I was glad that my second attempts turned out a little better, though I could improve more in making this cute little cookies. Anyway, I was wondering if there's any recipe with less sugar in them. Most of my family members thought that these cookies are too sweet for them.

Experimenting: Decorated Sugar Cookies

Last Tuesday was my kid sister's final day in primary school. Next year she'll be going to secondary school. So, I was thinking of making something for her to give to her friends as souvenir. And I thought that I could make some decorated sugar cookies!

I decided to go with chocolate sugar cookies as I am a big fan of chocolate. Of course, I let mysister to pick the color for the icing. She decided with blue and a bit of purple. Frankly, this is the first time I'm making this decorated sugar cookies. I've never learn how to decorate them. This could be my first experiment on making them. I was thinking of preparing a cookies with the kids name on it. So, I was a bit excited and nervous.Of course, my sister was excited too when I told her my idea,and requested her classmate names.

I used the flower cookie cutter as it is the only cutter which is big enough to write on :) And it was the first time for me to write in small letters (I usually pipe in capital letters). There were 31 pieces of cookies, including my kid sister's teacher. I hope they were all happy to receive these cookies :D

Double Pops!

Lovely Cake Pops and Blue Monster Cake Pops. Which one did you like the best?

I bought a packet of Oreo a few days ago. I saw this Oreo truffles on Bakerella sometimes ago, and I thought of making them today. This was the easiest version of pops and truffles. All you need is a packet of Oreo cookies, 125g of frosting (I like cream cheese frosting) and some chocolate or candy melts for coating.

Oreo truffles on board, ready for the dipping process

First, finely crush those cookies in a food processor. Add in the cream cheese and combine them well. Roll them into a ball and set aside. Melt the chocolate or candy melt, and start dipping! Set them aside on a cookie sheet to dry. Sprinkle them with your favorite sprinkles! How simple is that?

I think this one will look pretty for a wedding too~

I made some white Oreo pops using white chocolate (Candy melts is a little bit expensive in my country). I seems to always fail in melting them. Seriously, how do I melt them right? Then, I attached the jumbo red heart sprinkle, and drizzle them with some strawberry flavored chocolate (Thank god the strawberry flavored was easier to work with).

Oh~ an angry monster on the left!

I intended to make some blue colored cake pops. So I added in some blue coloring into the white chocolate. However, I accidentally add in too much, making it much more harder to work with. I don't want to waste any of them, so I coated the pops, took a toothpick, and start drizzling and dabbing the pops with the blue colored chocolate (head over to bakerella to learn how to drizzle and dab them). Now, nobody is going to notice that I'm suck at coating with white chocolate XD

Festive Cookies @ My Home

I had my camera downstairs as I was planning on snapping a few picture of my new experiment dish. While I'm at that, I've snapped some pictures of cookies served in my home for Eid al Fitr :D

We had some mini spring rolls.It taste really good too.

Some nutty cherry - thumbprint cookies with cherries on top, and sprinkled with almond nibs.

The traditional batang buruk. It's made of mung bean or green bean.

Pecan Pandan.

and some chocolate cookies sprinkled with shaved dried coconut.

Festive Cookies @ My Grandma's!

It's Eid al Fitr! Of course, there's a lots of cookies served for the guest. These are some cookies being served at my grandma's. I was the one who were in charge of stuffing those cookies in the jar in the morning. But some of those jars were emptied just before noon by my cousins :D

This one is one of the traditional cookies served on Eid al Fitr. It's called Kuih Bangkit, I think...

Rolled Pineapple Tarts! Don't we just love them?

Of course, I did bring some of my Almond London to my grandma's. XD

This one is called Semperit Cookies! I just love the colors!

I have no idea what is this cookies called. But it has some chocolate jimmies in them and chocolate chip on top.

Of course, there's also the chocolate chip cookies!

Well, there's just some of the cookies being served at my grandma's. I'm going to take some pictures of cookies served at my house for Eid al Fitr when I get the chance to :D Stay tuned!

Experimenting: Macarons

I got extra egg white from the last time I made London Almond Cookies. As the recipe only needs egg yolk, I saved the egg white, hoping that I could experimenting on some macarons/macaroons.

But...

It didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. It didn't have the smooth texture like macarons supposed to have. Then, I realized that ground almond bought from the market was not as fine. I should ground those ground almond next time!

However, making those macarons was super fun! I should try experimenting them again sometimes :)

Festive Cookies - Almond London

Cute cookies

Yes, it's that time of the year! In Malaysia, most Malay would be busy baking some cookies for Eid al-Fitr. During this time, most mothers, daughters and sisters would spend their time together in the kitchen, baking many types of cookies for the festival.

Baked Almond London in tray. They're made of flour, egg yolk, sugar and butter.

Every year, I would be preparing this cookies called; Almond London (I had no idea why they were called Almond London). These cookies had a whole almond in the center, covered in chocolate and sprinkled with some almond nibs. And preparing them requires lots of patience - there's the 'wrapping the almond in dough' process, and 'dipping in chocolate' process. So, usually, I would bake those cookies a day earlier, and the dipping process will be done in the next day.

Recipes

500g Flour

250g Butter

2# Egg Yolk

50g Confectioners Sugar

Whole Almond - toasted

Chocolate (for coating) - I'd use compound chocolate for shiny appearance!

Almond Nibs - toasted

Small Paper Cases

1. Beat Butter and sugar until light. Then, beat in egg yolk. Stir in the flour and blend well to form a dough.

2. Take a small piece of dough, wrap it around the whole almond and shape into an oval ball.

3.  Place dough on lightly greased trays. Bake in preheated oven at 175°C for 10-15 minutes or until  golden. Remove and cool on wire racks.

4. Coat the cookies with melted chocolate, put it in the cases, and sprinkle with some almond nibs.

Finished product, lined in tray.

A few years ago, I would be melting chocolate for these cookies using double boiler. And it was really tiring, as you had to stand before the stove to coat all the cookies! These days, I used microwave! It's time saving, and I didn't get tired from standing too long.

If you're interested in these cookies, and would like to place an order, please do not hesitate to contact me. :)

Chocolate Chips Cookies!

I have always been a failure in baking chocolate chip cookies. Give me whatever recipe you have, and I'll be sure to ruin it. The cookies will usually get burned, uneven cooked and out of shape. It doesn't look good, or taste good. My mother thinks I should give up in making chocolate chip cookies, and focus on something I'm good at.

This is how my cookies usually looks like.

But then, when I was shopping and saw that chocolate chips on sale, I was thinking that I wanted to try and make them again. I thought that if I fail again this time, than that's it. Maybe chocolate chip cookies and I weren't meant to be together. This is my last attempt.

So, I headed to bakerella in an attempt to find a chocolate chip cookies recipes. Well, I've tried a few of their recipes, and it always worked.  I thought that maybe their recipe would work too.... and it did! However, instead of mixing the chocolate chips with the dough, I sprinkled them on top of the cookies. I think they looked great! I'm glad that I didn't give up.

What do you think?