Perfect vanilla cupcakes

I made these cupcakes last Monday for Faiz to bring to school, to celebrate his birthday with his friends. Recipe taken from here. The cupcakes does rise beautifully every time, just like what mentioned in the original blog entry:

I doubled-up the cupcakes recipe and managed to bake 7 x 24 mini cupcakes.

I also follow the frosting suggestion and made the vanilla cream cheese frosting. However, I found the frosting to be too sweet to my liking.

Here were the cupcakes made for Faiz to bring to his school. I originally wanted to frost the cupcakes and draw some design on top of them, but changed my plan as it was too sweet, and had made swirls instead:

I tied ribbons to the gift to be given to his classmates. Hope they love the oil pastel.

As we had a lot of extra cupcakes, I frosted some for my husband and me to bring to office, and Amirul had requested for the un-frosted ones to bring to school.

Sewing pattern review - double-sided sun hat

I made double-sided sun hat for my daughter. Pattern from the below book - making children's clothes written by Emma Hardy. Bought the book from Kinokuniya KLCC a few months back.

I find the pattern and sewing instructions to be easy to follow. The pattern pieces are printed double sided, as such, will need to first trace the pattern pieces needed before cutting the fabrics.

Made the outer part using a black flowery fabric, and the inner part using a pink fabric. I personally love the end result. I also enjoy seeing her wearing the sun hat.

Review - kelas kek hantaran at My Sugar Class

I attended another class last weekend and this time it was a cake decorating class. I love love love this class and am happy to report that I can now make beautiful buttercream roses :-) 

with my lovely classmates

Although this was the second class that I've attended this year, this was in fact the first class that I've registered. I've waited for more than one month to attend this class.

The class was fully hands-on. Each students get to decorate their own cake.

At the beginning of the class, we each received a 7" sponge cake to decorate. We then started to ice the cake, then we proceeded to make lovely roses.

I've always admired Rani's roses as they looked pretty amazing, can't believe my luck to be able to learn it from her firsthand.

I also make new friends along the way. I had lovely time getting to know my desk partner, Roza.

Here are some of the pictures taken:

the first few roses that I've made during the class

my cake - lovely buttercream roses

our cakes, mine being the nearest to the camera

roses, up close

Will need to practice more after this (that reminds me of the class that I've attended last month, belum sempat nak praktis lagi).. 

*Note: Although the roses looks lovely, I don't actually like the buttercream used for the topping and also the roses. Will have to look for a different recipe maybe to make these lovely roses.

And since birthday Faiz dah dekat, we had Faiz's birthday pre-celebration. Suka sangat dia dapat tiup lilin..

Abang singing birthday song for Faiz, Faiz yang malu malu gitew..

Faiz tiup lilin, Nuha buat muka pelik kat situ..

Pavlova

I made pavlova the other day for lunch's dessert based from the recipe found from the Joy of Baking's website. I substituted the vinegar with lemon juice since I only have apple cider vinegar at home but not white vinegar. Besides, lemon have this sweet-sour smell that I love. Original recipe can be found here.

Delicious!

Below is the recipe that I used:

Ingredients for pavlova:

4 large egg whites

200 g of caster sugar (processed using food processor until very fine)

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

1 teaspoon of lemon juice

1/2 tablespoon of corn flour

1. Preheat oven to 130 degree Celsius.
2. Beat the egg whites until they hold soft peak.
3. Add sugar, a little at a time until they hold stiff and shiny peaks.
4. Add in vanilla essence.
5. Add in the lemon juice and corn flour and gently fold in using a rubber spatula.
6. Spread the meringue on a baking paper (about 6 to 7 inches in diameter) and bake for 60 minutes.
7. Turn the oven off, leave the over door slightly ajar and let the meringue to cool.

Meringue spread on a baking paper

Ingredients for topping:

250 g of whipping cream

20 g of icing sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Fresh fruits - strawberry, blueberry and kiwi

1. Just before serving, whip the cream until soft peaks form. 
2. Add in the sugar and vanilla essence. 
3. Place the freshly whipped cream on top of the meringue and arrange the fruits randomly.
4. Serve immediately.

Sliced pavlova

I love this dessert, hubby and the kids loves this too. The sourness of the fruits makes this dessert tasted even better, and fresher too. Just a note to myself - to place more fruits in future pavlovas, I initially thought that I've used more than enough, but no, the more fruits on top of the pavlova, the better.

Review kelas talam part 3 Chef Asma

Kelas ni merupakan kelas masakan pertama yang saya pernah join.. betul.. but of course not counting those classes that I attended whilst in Form 2, waktu belajar kemahiran hidup dulu. I attended the above class last weekend. The class was conducted from 10.30 am till 6.45 pm, and was attended by 15 students. 

All in all, we learnt to make 14 types of kuih. Suka sangat, especially bila dapat belajar buat serimuka serta berjenis-jenis talam dan bingka. Kelas ni bukan full hands on, but separa hands on. Dalam erti kata lain, kita tak buat dari mula sampai habis.. Tapi dapat buat sikit-sikit sana dan sini. Contohnya, setiap orang akan dapat timbang bahan bahan, sediakan bahan bahan sebelum masak, masak bahan untuk satu atau dua jenis kuih etc. 

Ramai yang hadir kelas ni sama ada memang berniaga, baru nak mula berniaga, guru masakan yang mengajar orang lain masak, dan tak kurang juga yang macam saya, saja saja tambah ilmu pengetahuan. Resepi talam memang banyak ada kat internet, tapi tak tau kenapa saya tak pernah nak try. So, end up masuk kelas ni untuk dapat basic buat talam. 

Overall, saya seronok sebab dapat belajar buat kuih kuih ni. Semua kuih kuih tu sedap sedap.. Dapat bawa balik dua potong kuih setiap jenis, sedap, by sunday afternoon, semua kuih kuih yang saya simpan dalam fridge tu dah habis dimakan. Next time boleh buat lagi...kena banyak practise supaya tak lupa apa yang dah dipelajari.. 

Ni antara gambar kuih muih yang kitorang belajar hari tu:

Am looking forward to my next class :)

Recipe - oreo cheese cupcakes

Had always wanted to give a baked cheese cake a try. I've done chilled cheese cake before but not the baked version.

Found this recipe online for oreo cheese cupcakes (original recipe from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes), but I had made several changes to the amount of ingredients since I only had 250g of cream cheese.

This is a very simple recipe, yet it yields cupcakes with great flavor.

Ingredients:

Oreo cookies

250 g of cream cheese

1/4 cup of caster sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 large egg

1/4 cup of sour cream

a pinch of salt

Preheat over to 140 degree celcius.

Line muffin tins with paper liner and place one whole oreo cookie at the bottom of each paper cup.

With a mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth and add in sugar, followed by vanilla and sour cream. Beat until well combined.

Add in about 2-3 crushed oreo cookies into the batter.

Scoop the batter and fill in the paper cups until almost full. 

Bake for about 22 minutes until the mixture is almost set. 

Transfer to wire racks to cool and refrigerate for at least 4 hours.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee... mmmmm yum!!

* the above yields about 15 cupcakes.