Wake Up and Smell the Cake

I have three green apples leftover (granny smith? Can't remember) and what better way than to turn them into apple cake! And it was the best fruit-to-cake decision thus far. There was a weird one I tried before, jackfruit cupcake and I have some longans at home and I'm thinking of some longan dish but since longans are more difficult to pit, so I left it as that. Anyway! Apple cake. I was in the kitchen and lazy to google some recipes, so I checked my two cake recipe books and settled for apple cake by Tish Boyle. The original recipe has more spices and maple cream cheese frosting which would be ultra yummy but I skipped that. I didn't follow the batter-making process either, I just added as I go. Apple Cake/Cupcake 150g butter, softened (recipe says 116g but I was lazy to accurately measure) 1 cup brown sugar, compressed 4 tbsp sugar (I added cos I thought the batter wasn't sweet) 6.4 oz flour (I used 6-ish, 7 not very sure)  1 tsp vanilla essence 1 ts

It's raya!! A bit more on that when I have transferred photos from my camera, but for now! Cake! I decided to make lemon bundt cake last Friday while we were also in the midst of sprucing up the house for Hari Raya. I have been itching to make a cake for the longest time, and I have my cake flour and all ready to go. I had lots of cake choices because of my neverending baking ingredients, I could make blueberry cake, or marble cake, or just plain butter cake, or butter almond cake, but in the end I settled for lemon bundt because of my leftover lemons from like ages ago. I was surprised I could still use them! One had been zested and was sitting in my plastic container and somehow the lemon juice was still in there somewhere, and another hasn't been zested so perfect! I dug up my previous bundt recipe , and here's what I used this time round: 3 cups cake flour, sifted 2 cups vanilla sugar (normal sugar would be sufficient) 250g butter, softened 2 tsp baking powder

Raya's coming! And the Raya Grinch is back! Seriously. I can't remember the last time I was sooo looking forward to Hari Raya. I look forward only to food and yummy cakes and kuih which I will eat at one corner sitting quietly by myself hurhur. But this time round I'll have an 11.7kg toddler to handle. I do hope he won't be so cranky. Anyway! Here's what I've been up to lately. Took Friday off so that I could have the four day long holiday dedicated for baking. Thursday was pineapple tarts at my mum's cos there is no way I'm gonna do tarts on my own with a baby to handle. We managed to make two batches for my mum's household and mine. Friday and Saturday was spent on Almond London, for three households. This, I did on my own and I literally spent the entire day on them cos every half an hour or so Junior wants my attention. I managed to get him to sit quietly for a bit, but as expected no one activity lasts more than 10 minutes, so he was off aga

I have bookmarked two recipes for hari raya cookies! Pandan thumbprint cookies and chocolate chip cookies . That is on top of suji, my personal preference, and almond London, Husband's personal preference. If I'm ambitious enough I'll do pineapple tarts, but there's a biggg inertia for that. Haha. Now I have to plan my schedule already! Oops looks like I have to start this weekend?! Maybe I'll start with suji and almond balls for almond London. Those should last longer than the rest, provided the cookie monster (read: me) practises self control. I think I'll make pineapple tarts after puasa ends. HAHA. For our own personal cookie stash ;)

Yup made these again yesterday morning while Husband was asleep and Junior clinging to my leg (yes, clinging -_-), banana chocolate chip muffins. If I make them again, I must remember to make these few changes: use 1 tsp instead of 1 1/2 tsp of bicarbonate soda add more bananas! Or not. Maybe if I reduce the soda the banana taste would be better. This time round I remembered to add the chocolate chips in, and I sprinkled more on top too! HEEHEE. I ran out of milk too, so I used the leftover whipped cream I had. Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins 1 1/2 cups flour 1 1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda 3/4 cup sugar 4 medium bananas, mashed 1/4 cup cream 2 eggs 1/2 cup canola oil pinch of cinnamon Mix all dry ingredients in a big bowl. In a separate bowl, mix mashed bananas, eggs, cream and oil together. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. Lastly, add in chocolate chips. Transfer to muffin cups and bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes. M

Just a quick update! I know I have loads to update and recipes to write here of my hits and misses of birthday celebration, but that will take me quite a while so I'll do a short update on blueberry muffins I made last Saturday morning. I got the recipe from homemadewithlove , and I loved it! Gave a little tweak here and there out of convenience haha, so here's what I used: 2 eggs 1 cup white vanilla sugar 1/2 cup canola oil 2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 tub light sour cream, 250g 1 cup frozen blueberries, don't thaw Zest of 1/2 a lemon Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl, including the zest of lemon. Make a well in the centre of the bowl and add your wet ingredients: sour cream, oil, eggs. Mix well but don't over mix. The batter will be sticky and with low viscosity. Add blueberries last, only mixing into the batter with a couple of turns using a spoon, then spoon the batter in muffin cups. I got 9 big muffins and 3 med

Husband's home YAY!! But he was kinda knocked out from exhaustion and got sick too, and so I did lotsa cleaning over the weekend. Junior is glad to have his daddy back, he's such a happy boy :) My Sundays are back i.e. the usual sneaking-in-a-bake in the morning while Husband is asleep hehe. Made a welcome home cake for Husband! Also an excuse to try my new heritage bundt pan, my one true love in the baking pan world. Just look at it! It is just. Gorgeous . Totally worth the $52 I splurged. If I have a daughter I'll pass it down to her. HAHA. I wanted to make the fool-proof confirm Husband-approved butter cake, but I couldn't resist not making any changes so I decided to mix around a bit, used my pandan essence to make pandan marble cake. I added a bit of green colouring but it was too little, should have added more. The marbling effect isn't obvious. The pandan taste wasn't overpowering, just a hint of pandan. I think it would be better if the pandan batt

I am so so sleepy. Junior woke me up at 4 plus this morning and he didn't want to sleep. He only slept back at 6, which was already too late for me to go back to bed!! Here's some photos from the last few days. This is my mum's cabinet door that Junior dislodged. Don't ask me how. We're still puzzled. If he were an Avenger, I think he's The Incredible Hulk.  We had a wonderful family time weekend, just like how weekends are supposed to be like. We could tell Junior was enjoying his weekend too. This was at John Little Expo. Junior loves to sit at the empty racks cos he can crawl round and be free to move. He didn't want us to carry him away either! And I managed to find work clothes that are cheap (read: $15.90 only!!) and breastfeeding friendly!! The only downside is the dresses are long. Like below the knee long. Reminds me of my very kental days in secondary school where my uniforms were always oversized thanks to dad. Haha. And this foll

Finally I can sit down. It's not always that I have non-stop meetings but kinda like it when I do.   Managed to bake twice last weekend! Still have yet to use my cream cheese frosting but since it's sitting prettily in my ice cream tub in the freezer, I shan't disturb it yet. Anyway I have more pressing food items to clear such as my looooonnnggg overdue bread and overripe bananas. Hence I made bread pudding on Friday morning and banana chocolate chip muffins on Saturday. Before you freak out at the looonnngg overdue (read: 1 month old) bread, let me share a good tip for small households where bread doesn't run out that fast. I'm more of a cereal person. Whenever I buy bread, I keep it in the fridge. Lasts about a month or even more! It won't go dry, if it does, just heat it for 20 seconds in the microwave and it's soft like it was just baked this morning. And if you didn't manage to finish the rest of the loaf, fret not! Bread pudding always works!

Yup that's right. Together with my sister-in-law, we made red velvet cupcakes. The first time I made them was with my FFLs at the Pasir Ris branch. Hurhur. I can't remember which recipe we used cos I wasn't the one choosing it, but I know it was on epicurious. It was quite tedious, the recipe method was kinda lengthy. I remember there's mixing of cocoa powder with water, and then mixing was in batches or something, and we used a whole lot of colouring! Like two bottles! The cupcake wasn't that special, and it had a weird taste from all that colouring. I thought I'm never gonna make red velvets again since there's nothing special about them. Then my SIL wanted to make some cos she and her husband love red velvet. So okay, I went on the search for the perfect red velvet cupcake recipe, and I'm proud to say I am the queen of recipe googling!! Hahahaha. I came across this super moist red velvet cupcakes from The Alchemist, and it was amazing!

*** Edited! See bottom. *** Finally used my 6 sad bananas sitting dejected at the corner in my fridge. I decided to try a recipe I'm not familiar with, cos I have been baking banana cakes before and I totally love my mum's recipe, but it's time to try something different. I tried Dorie Greenspan's banana bundt cake . It has rave reviews, so I gave this a try. Did I love it? Well. Despite claims that it is the best banana cake recipe ever, I still prefer my mum's recipe. That is da bomb!! Ingredients (what I tweaked it to) 250g butter 350g cake flour 250g plain flour 2 cups sugar 2 tsp bicarbonate soda 3 eggs 250ml sour cream 6 medium bananas, mashed 2 tsp vanilla essence Cream butter and sugar together. I was lazy to take out my mixer so I mixed by hand instead. It is tiring mixing that much ingredients!! Add in eggs one at a time, mixing for about a minute before adding in the next egg. Add in vanilla essence and mix. Add in mashed bana

Birthday celebrations are never one day affairs these days. We started off with the Battleship movie which I totally was against watching previously, but because it's the boy's birthday, I reluctantly agreed. And I loved it! The plot was kinda normal bang boosh shoot shoot stuff, but there's humour and I especially like the Jap guy who was made co-captain! His ideas are awesome. Oh! And the part where the navy veterans helped out too! Enjoyed the entire two hours haha! Birthday boy gave me that "see I told you it's good" look when the movie ended. Heh. Fine fine I'll join u in such movies again next time haha. Saturday, I planned for a morning picnic at Botanic Gardens and a visit to the farmers' market for some yummy cupcakes but it rained the entire morning so we had to change plan: lazed around at home for a bit and then off to the market to get ingredients for big feast (birthday boy's request). The rain subsided in the later part of the m

Yup I bought another one. Haha. The one sitting at home (Cake Keeper Cakes by Lauren Chattman) hasn't been used either. I can't help it! Okay okay I'll stop at two only. Two cake books should suffice. I must use the one at home before this one arrives, which is at the end of the month. Plenty of time! Hurhur.

Made these on Friday while Husband went Friday prayers. Well actually I wanted to make Nigella's instant chocolate mousse but lazy me didn't read instructions properly and I mixed ALL ingredients in the pot and happily waited till they melted and mixed and as a result, the mousse didn't set. Bummer. I had all my ingredients ready and my baby sleeping! HAHA. Specially bought marshmallows for this from Phoon Huat, though I think the marshmallows aren't that sweet. Oh wells. Can't be choosy for halal versions ahahhaha. Speaking of which, I love Phoon Huat for their halal logo! Like their vanilla essence is also halal, and these marshmallows too. Awesome! But sadly they're not easily found at NTUC, which means I'll have to stock up only when I go Phoon Huat. I wish there was an outlet near my house. Anyway, after I made the chocolate mousse, I transferred to 5 ramekins and the balance in my mug for me to savour. It was DELICIOUS. So sinful. Would have mad