Oh and in the category I shall from here on call 'random food moments', I did a funny with my eggs XD
xoxo Jennifer
Monday, 21 June 2010
Happy Father's Day!
I made my daddy a chocolate mud cake for father's day!
Oh and in the category I shall from here on call 'random food moments', I did a funny with my eggs XD
xoxo Jennifer
Oh and in the category I shall from here on call 'random food moments', I did a funny with my eggs XD
xoxo Jennifer
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Roxy has yummy books!
While watching Brazil vs North Korea it was decided we were to make cupcakes using a recipe from one of my friend Roxy's new books on cakes and cupcakes. We joined forces and made awesome chocolate cupcakes with mint flavoured cream cheese icing. Oh Snap!
Ok so now you've been able to drool over the pictures, just a note: This recipe used equal amounts of flour and cocoa powder (which I thought was unusual), and said to use quite a bit of real (melted) chocolate as well. The idea was nice, but the cupcakes (though the flavour was awesome) were a little crumbly and not moist like I expexted. Anybody any ideas why/how this happens and you can improve such a recipe? Also, how do you stiffen cream cheese icing? Adding more powder sugar didn't help (maybe it was this particular recipe, my other cream cheese icing isn't this liquid...).
That's it for now!
xoxo Jennifer
Ok so now you've been able to drool over the pictures, just a note: This recipe used equal amounts of flour and cocoa powder (which I thought was unusual), and said to use quite a bit of real (melted) chocolate as well. The idea was nice, but the cupcakes (though the flavour was awesome) were a little crumbly and not moist like I expexted. Anybody any ideas why/how this happens and you can improve such a recipe? Also, how do you stiffen cream cheese icing? Adding more powder sugar didn't help (maybe it was this particular recipe, my other cream cheese icing isn't this liquid...).
That's it for now!
xoxo Jennifer
Monday, 14 June 2010
sugar art
Here it is, the first step-by-step blog post!
For two friends' birthday I decided to make a cake using techniques I picked up at the Sugar Art Show last month. The cake itself was a deliciously moist carrot cake, the recipe was a combination of a recipe found in the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and my own mummy's recipe. If you want the recipe, let me know, I'd be more than happy to share (or make you one ;) ).
Anyway, though the cake was scrumptious, it was still relatively simple, because I wanted to focus on the decoration. As carrot cake isn't carrot cake with cream cheese icing, I did not use fondant icing this time. Instead, I decorated the cake with my very own sugar art! At the Sugar art show I picked all the essentials to make my own "christmas roses". Here is my working table:
What I needed: Mexican paste (the sugar paste), Crisco, brushes, colouring powder/glitter (all edible), shape cutters, water, small containers for shaping (ie. egg cups etc), non-stick surface (I used a pastry mat I have, rub some Crisco on it before rolling out the paste).
Time to get to work. The paste was fairly easy to roll out and using the "christmas rose" shapes I cut out the main flower and let it dry/harden in an egg-cup - this gave the flower a nice shape.
Then on to the stamen: cutting out 2 brush like strips, I stuck a little ball of green paste (coloured with some coloured powder) on a toothpick and wrapped the strips around this. With a brush I then separated the stamen a little, with a brush and water I made the tips a little wet and then brushed mimosa coloured powder on them, to create the inside of the flower.
Next I coloured the flower petals. Again with a wet brush and brushed just lightly the edges of the petals, and using pink sparkly powder I brushed the colour inwards, creating a dark rim and just a light colouring inwards. Pretty flower!!
Even though the flowers had hardened, it was fairly easy to stick the stamen and the petals together (after learning the hard way that they are fairly fragile T_T). As the paste is basically sugar, despite hardening you can easily create a sticky spot with some water. This is what I did in the center of the flower, added a bit of un-hardened paste, made that wet as well, and stuck the stamen in the center, and let the whole lot dry/harden again. And then, tadaaa, the end result!!!
Using various other cookie cutters and fondant cutters I made and coloured some more (less complicated) flowers. My friend (and biggest fan? hehe) Roxy also came to play/help: her signature on the cake, a glitter octopus ^_^ And yes, this is alllll edible, though maybe not appetizing XD
And so having assembled flowers, leaves and other decoration, I started decorating the cake using a simple design I made earlier:
And the happy recipients :)
xoxo Jennifer
For two friends' birthday I decided to make a cake using techniques I picked up at the Sugar Art Show last month. The cake itself was a deliciously moist carrot cake, the recipe was a combination of a recipe found in the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook and my own mummy's recipe. If you want the recipe, let me know, I'd be more than happy to share (or make you one ;) ).
Anyway, though the cake was scrumptious, it was still relatively simple, because I wanted to focus on the decoration. As carrot cake isn't carrot cake with cream cheese icing, I did not use fondant icing this time. Instead, I decorated the cake with my very own sugar art! At the Sugar art show I picked all the essentials to make my own "christmas roses". Here is my working table:
What I needed: Mexican paste (the sugar paste), Crisco, brushes, colouring powder/glitter (all edible), shape cutters, water, small containers for shaping (ie. egg cups etc), non-stick surface (I used a pastry mat I have, rub some Crisco on it before rolling out the paste).
Time to get to work. The paste was fairly easy to roll out and using the "christmas rose" shapes I cut out the main flower and let it dry/harden in an egg-cup - this gave the flower a nice shape.
Then on to the stamen: cutting out 2 brush like strips, I stuck a little ball of green paste (coloured with some coloured powder) on a toothpick and wrapped the strips around this. With a brush I then separated the stamen a little, with a brush and water I made the tips a little wet and then brushed mimosa coloured powder on them, to create the inside of the flower.
Next I coloured the flower petals. Again with a wet brush and brushed just lightly the edges of the petals, and using pink sparkly powder I brushed the colour inwards, creating a dark rim and just a light colouring inwards. Pretty flower!!
Even though the flowers had hardened, it was fairly easy to stick the stamen and the petals together (after learning the hard way that they are fairly fragile T_T). As the paste is basically sugar, despite hardening you can easily create a sticky spot with some water. This is what I did in the center of the flower, added a bit of un-hardened paste, made that wet as well, and stuck the stamen in the center, and let the whole lot dry/harden again. And then, tadaaa, the end result!!!
Using various other cookie cutters and fondant cutters I made and coloured some more (less complicated) flowers. My friend (and biggest fan? hehe) Roxy also came to play/help: her signature on the cake, a glitter octopus ^_^ And yes, this is alllll edible, though maybe not appetizing XD
And so having assembled flowers, leaves and other decoration, I started decorating the cake using a simple design I made earlier:
And the happy recipients :)
xoxo Jennifer
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