Hazelnut Crepe Cake

I'm working on a huge project that I am incredibly excited about, and I can't wait to share it with the world! In the meantime, here's a hazelnut crepe cake I made recently inspired by an amazing one I had overseas. I'm quite happy with the taste and texture but I will definitely be improving on it. Next week, a chocolate version!

Ice Cream Sugar Cookies

Hello! I've been so crazy busy. Between work, baking, hobbies and catching up on my favourite TV shows (yes, watching TV is high on my list of priorities), I can hardly breathe sometimes. Which explains why I made these cookies weeks ago but only got to posting them now. Sometimes the words just don't flow.

Sugar cookie recipes are easy. You bake the cookies, make the royal icing, and decorate them. The only limit is your creativity. My problem with sugar cookies has always been the sweetness. There's no way to reduce royal icing's sweetness so I tried reducing the sugar in the cookies but they still turn out so teeth-achingly sweet I end up not eating them at all.

I used the same sugar cookie and royal icing recipe as my duckling cookies but reduced the sugar to 350g. For the mint chocolate chip ice cream, I used cocoa nibs as chips, love how they turned out looking just like the real thing!

Red Wine Chocolate Cake with Dark Chocolate Glaze

What do you do when you have 12 bottles of opened wine? Besides drinking all of them I mean.

Oh, wait. Are you one of those people who can drink an entire bottle of wine by yourself? Then we should definitely be friends. I'll trade you - wine for food.

One of the perks of my job is the access to free wine. That, along with drinking on the job and the occasional free meal. Once in a while we get a bunch of samples for tasting but we don't usually finish them. They get stuck in the fridge and are eventually forgotten. Googling red wine recipes gave me a few ideas but this stood out the most to me.

Red wine? Check.
Chocolate cake? Check.
More chocolate? Just hand me a slice already!

Towering Hazelnut Praline Cake + Cupcakes

These days (everyday) I'm dreaming of Sydney and imagining how wonderful the weather must be now. I'm reminiscing about Taipei and it's endless rainy winter days and their amazing hot pot buffet with free flow ice cream.

It's getting way too hot here. I'm talking hot like spending 5 minutes outdoors and the back of your hands are perspiring, showering 5 times a day, all you want to do is stay home hot.

Staying at home means that I lay in bed reading on my kindle, or sit in front of my computer watching hours and hours of CSI and Supernatural. At some point, I get my lazy ass off my very comfortable bed/ chair, put on my imaginary apron and bake something.

You know how sometimes you spend so much time making all the components of a cake and by the time you are done baking, you don't even feel like doing a proper frosting job? I mean, the cake is going to taste the same even if you just cut it into chunks and slather the frosting on top, right? Right, but we can at least do it in an artful way that is worthy of a picture. That was how this naked cake came about, it looks great (if I do say so myself), and it tastes great, no thanks to the heat.

My Favourite Shepherd's Pie

Have you ever had one of those days where everything you made turned out bad? Well, I had one of those - FOR THE WHOLE WEEK! Even recipes that I've tried and done many times failed horribly. It was not pleasant. After 3 tries that went south, I was hungry, tired, angry and ready to throw in the towel.

On days like this, what I crave is a piping hot meal that is so good it makes me forget my unhappiness. Enter the Shepherd's Pie - one of my all time favourite comfort foods. Shovelling spoonfuls of it into my mouth makes me forget all about my baking failures. You know what's the best part? You can make this in advance, refrigerate it and eat it over a few days if nobody else in the family devours it ;p

Just so you know, Shepherd's Pie is made with lamb, and cottage pie is made with beef. While the recipe calls for lamb, I frequently use pork or chicken in my pies. As opposed to baking, cooking doesn't call for very specific measurements in terms of ingredients, so feel free to adjust the ingredients to your liking!

Blood Orange Lemonade

Blood oranges - scary name, amazing fruit. Its crimson, blood coloured flesh comes from anthocyanins, a family of antioxidant pigments common to many flowers and fruit but uncommon in citrus fruits. In addition to the usual citrus flavour, they have a distinct, sweet flavour, with raspberry tones. Seriously, they are delicious. Imagine my joy when I found them at my local supermarket.

The weather here is very unpredictable. It could be sweltering one moment and pouring the next, but most of the time is uncomfortably hot and humid. Days like these, i would kill for a glass of cold water, tea, juice, anything! That feeling of the cold liquid rushing down your throat - indescribable. 

The Best Chocolate Mudcake (Pam's Chocolate Mudcake)

Let me introduce you to my new favourite chocolate cake. It has a very rich flavour, is extremely moist - almost like a chocolate fudge cake and also dense enough to carve. Not to mention that it is extremely easy to make. Mudcakes are ideal for beginners as slight errors in measurements or over-mixing will not affect the results. They also have a long shelf life and they taste even better with age. The only trouble you would have is having to wait so long to eat it! 

I made mine with dark chocolate ganache and found it a little too rich, but super delicious nonetheless. Next time round, I'll definitely try it with a raspberry or salted caramel filling to balance the taste a little.

Whole Orange Bundt Cake with Chocolate Ganache Glaze

As a child, I never enjoyed eating fruits. I didn't dislike them or anything, I just didn't feel very strongly about them. As an adult, I eat fruits out of necessity, to strengthen my immune system and for better skin. When I started baking and reading food blogs regularly, I discovered how wonderful fruits really were, how they can be incorporated into recipes and how they intensify flavours.

It was a whole new world for me. Grocery shopping is now incomplete without stopping by the produce section. Like a kid in a candy store, I would race to the fruits section and start picking up the fruits and smelling them. Oranges smell sweet and fruity, lemons have a strong citrusy scent and apples smell so fresh and clean, like the air after a bout of heavy rain.

Graduation Cupcakes

I've finally graduated!! As a baking nerd, I've made the obvious choice of translating that euphoria into cupcakes instead of flooding into parties and clubs to let that 3 years worth of hair down. Hence, I present to you straight from the convocation, the Graduation Cupcakes.  

The graduation caps (motar board) toppers were made from modeling chocolate and fondant. I initially wanted to use chocolate squares and Reese peanut butter cups but I thought using modeling chocolate would allow me to create a more realistic look. The thing is, I had never made modeling chocolate and it turned out rather disastrous. I used a ratio of about 200g of dark chocolate to 60g of light corn syrup but it turned out really watery and took about 3 nights to stiffen up.

Six-Layer Dark Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Buttercream

I made this cake a couple of times previously, and twice over the weekend - one with strawberry SMBC and today, with chocolate SMBC. I did not get to taste the strawberry version but the chocolate was seriously delicious. I love that the dark chocolate in the frosting came out so rich and it did not taste buttery at all.

This is a super easy one bowl chocolate cake that is nearly impossible to screw up, unless you add too much salt like I once did. If you're not as forgetful as me you'll be fine. There's no risk of over-beating, under-mixing, etc. Swiss Meringue Buttercream used to be a complete mystery to me, but it is really easy to make and holds up great once you learn how to. Sweetapolita has a wonderful guide with step-by-step pitcures, be sure to check it out if you're new to making SMBC!

My SMBC usually whips up pretty well despite this hot and humid weather, but with the addition of the chocolate today, it was unusually soft. In my haste to complete the cake, I must have added the still-warm chocolate into the SMBC. So, please do not make the same mistake as me. If you did, however, do that, don't worry, it's not the end. Simply chuck the entire bowl into the refrigerator for about 20-30 minutes, and mix it again using your paddle attachment (or hand mixer) till it comes back to its satiny texture.

Bird, Chick or Duckling? (Sugar Cookies and Royal Icing Recipe)

It seems like I've been away from my blog for a long time. I made these last week and had intended to blog about them but time kept getting away from me. It was also raining at weird hours so I couldn't take pictures of them, excuses excuses. Anyway, I bought this cute little cookie cutter some time ago and I thought it would be great for making chicks, but there weren't any space for legs. Then, it occurred to me that they could actually be ducklings or birds. Well, no matter what they are, they still look cute, so I made them in 3 different colours, completed with crazy eyes.

Ladurée Macarons

Hello! I've been meaning to blog but i've been kind of busy recently. I made some meringue nests over the weekend, but they didn't turn out great so no pictures there, lol. While i'm deciding what to do with the 6-layer torted cake that's sitting in the freezer, i'm going to share some pictures of these amazing Ladurée macarons my wonderful friend brought back for me from Paris.

Tiramisu Charlotte

Update: This post was featured on Huffington Post Taste, 4 April 2013 along with many beautiful charlottes! I'm so honoured, thank you!

A month back, Susan asked me to help her with her boyfriend's birthday cake. The thing is, he's not much of a cake person (or a anything sweet person). When she told me that he likes tiramisu, I started looking for recipes that will hold up in a cake.

Most recipes i found online for Tiramisu cakes use sponge cake layers instead of lady fingers but i really wanted to have lady fingers in the cake, plus I wanted a simpler recipe for Susan to follow. Then i remembered this wonderful recipe from Chef Dennis that i used last year when i made tiramisu in cups.

Chocolate Chip Muffins

I've had this massive craving for chocolate chip muffins for weeks, and finally got down to making these. These are the most awesome chocolate chip muffins i've ever tasted - fluffy, moist and simply delicious.