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.

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.