The Perfect Pound Workshop by PALATABLE

Traditionally pound cake refers to a type of cake made with a pound of each of four ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. However, the quantity of the ingredients are often changed to suit the sweetness that is desired. Hence, any cake made with a 1:1:1:1 ratio of flour, butter, eggs, and sugar can also be called a pound cake.

Now you can learn how to make that perfect pound cake that goes well with a cup of coffee or that Earl Grey Tea.

Course Details:
Course fee: $75 per person
Date: 29 November 2009, Sunday
Duration: 2½ hours, 1300-1530hrs
Venue: Trainer’s residence @ Hougang Street 11
Class size: 4-6 persons

Course Programme:
Hands-on baking a pound cake.

What you’ll acquire:
1. Your hands-on knowledge of preparing the ingredients, creaming and baking.
2. Two pound cakes to bring home.
3. Recipes and bonus recipes.

Light refreshment will be served during the workshop.

Registration and Payment:
Register with Jane at thepalatable(a)gmail(dot)com by 23 Novmeber 2009. Payment is made via internet transfers to POSB Savings account 017261398. Confirmation will be given once payment is received.

Enquiries:
For further enquiries, please contact Jane @ 9824-4954.

Fulfilling Saturdays

Saturdays have always been fulfilling for me. If I don't have appointments or other engagements, I like to spend the morning till noon baking, or finding some recipes to bake. Since I had an order for Strawberry Shortcake, I was up early frosting the cake. I like strawberry shortcakes, they are light and soft. The lightness and mild sweetness of chantilly cream blends rather well with the (sometimes) sour strawberries.


It took me about two hours to get the cake frosted. I still have lots of time on hand. Without hesitating, I took out the bread book by Alex Goh and decided on the easiest recipe - Scones. However, I think it wasn't so well done, I had it too flat? Maybe because I wanted to have more quantity, thus, I compromise with the thickness?


Having baked that scones, I proceeded with baking double chocolate cookies. Heehee... I wanted to give some free samples to the lady who ordered my strawberry shortcake. And so, I did just that!


That was a fulfilling Saturday - a cake, scone & cookies!

Chocolate Mousse

I invited my colleagues over to my place for dinner last night. So my domestic helper prepared a sumptuous dinner for us, including three cup chicken, fried bittergourd eggs, mixed vegetables, lotus root soup and oriental salad prepared by me. They enjoyed the dinner very much. I also prepared chocolate mousse for them, they loved it very much and complimented that it tasted just like those in restaurants! :) I was really happy. Before I could even try a cup, my three children finished the other three cups! No more chance.


Recipe for Chocolate Mousse, extracted from Daily Delicious.

Ingredients:
120g Ghiradeli Milk Chocolate
40g Ghiradeli 72% Dark Chocolate
40g Sugar
145g Eggs
170g Whipping Cream
2 tsp Dark rum
A dash of salt

Method:
1. Put the chocolates in a heatproof bowl. Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to boil. Remove from heat and place the bowl over the pan. Stir occasionally until the chocolate has melted. Add rum and stir to mix thoroughly.
2. Using electric beaters, beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until the mixture is thick, pale and increased in volume.
3. Add the melted chocolate into the egg mixture, and use the electric beaters to mix thoroughly.
4. Beat the whipped cream till slightly thicken.
5. Gently fold in the whipped cream to the chocolate mixture.
6. Spoon into five dessert glasses and refrigerate till firm, at least 4 hours.
7. Serve with whipped cream and some toasted almond nibs.

Baked a pound cake for another friend again! Hahaha...how boring can I get?!?!

2nd Food Bloggers/Bakers' Potluck Party

Missed our first food bloggers' party? Here's your chance to know the many wonderful bakers cum bloggers in Singapore!

Due to popular demand, and an excuse to taste wonderful homemade/homebake food (without paying), here's our 2nd Food Bloggers/Bakers Potluck Party!


when? 27 nov 2009, friday (hari raya haji holiday)

what time? 12noon - 2pm

where? kitchen capers (kc) @ kallang bahru

how?
* Register with your name, contact number, what you'll be baking/cooking/bringing and your blog url (if any) to Jane at aloyallyanders(a)gmail(dot)com.
* An email will be sent once your registration is confirmed.
* Bring food for sharing. Food can be homemade (preferred) or storebought or ready-made

who?
* Anyone who bakes or cooks; or
* Food Blogger; or
* Blogger.

why?
* Savour the most delectable homecook/homebake foods.
* Networking amongst all food bloggers, bakers, and bloggers.
* Meet the who's who in real person.

Since it's a month away from Christmas, you may bake some X'mas goodies to give away to your blogger friends. Not mandatory, no obligation, just some simple gesture if you would like to.

Special thanks to Gina again for hosting us!

Disclaimer: This party is held in Singapore only.

Buttermilk Pancakes

It was another Sunday at home with my children. For about a month now, we didn't go to my parents' in-law house for lunch. The kids were home, and we had to prepare lunch. Last minute I didn't want my dosmetic helper to cook "proper" lunch. So I decided to make pancakes instead. I remembered I saw some pancake recipe in some blog. But being last minute, I couldn't find one with buttermilk recipe. In the end, I got one from Joy of Baking instead.

Hmm...why insist on buttermilk? That was because I had a tub of Paul's plain yogurt in the fridge and I wanted to use it up quickly. I read from The Sunday Times quite a while back that food consultant Chris Tan said that buttermilk can be substituted with half plain unsweeten yogurt and half milk. So I tried it out. The pancake turned out to be soft and moist. I spread it with my homemade chocolate banana jam and cut bananas. It was so tasty, and most importantly, I felt rather healthy!


I also baked Rei's Chocolate Pound Cake the day before so as to serve my participants for the Roses Decoration workshop.



Recipe for Buttermilk Pancakes, extracted from Joy of Baking.
(Makes about 5 4-inch pancakes)

Ingredients
140g Plain flour
1 tsp Baking powder
¼ tsp Baking soda
¼ tsp Salt
28g Fine sugar
1 large egg, lightly beaten
240ml Buttermilk (120ml Plain yogurt + 120ml Whole milk, mixed well)
40g Unsalted butter, melted

Extra butter

Method:
1.In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
2.In a separate bowl whisk together the egg, buttermilk, and melted butter.
3.Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, all at once, and whisk until just combined.
4.The batter should have some small lumps. Do not over mix the batter or the pancakes will be tough.
5.Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Add the butter to the heated pan.
6.Scoop about 3 tablespoon of pancake batter onto the pan, and spread it lightly.
7.When the bottoms of the pancakes are brown and bubbles start to appear on the top surfaces of the pancakes turn over. Cook until lightly browned.
8.Repeat with remaining batter, adding butter between batches.
9.Serve immediately with maple syrup, cut fruits (especially banana) or your favorite jam. Or simply squeeze Hershey's chocolate syrup and enjoy!

Roses Decoration Workshops

One way to contantly sharpen your skills is to conduct a workshops so that you ensure that you don't forget the techniques. That was what I did lately. So far, I've had two Roses Decoration Workshops conducted at the comfort of my place. I had the youngest participant at 18, and a more senior lady who is a retiree. How nice it was to know them.


What the participants learned during the three hours workshop was to pipe roses using royal icing. According to the participants, that was the most challenging as skills and precision is required to get a pretty rose. Next up was moulding the roses with fondant. By adding colours to the fondant, you'll get coloured roses. If you have theme cake, then coloured roses can fit well in the decoration. It was rather easy for them to pick up the moulding of the roses. The participants were really good (in both sessions)!

Being someone who loves to entertain, I made some snacks for my participants to go with Rose tea. I thought they might like to have a short break in between to 'digest' what they had learn.


Finally, it was moulding chocolate roses. We made the moulding chocolates from scratch. Not sure if there are ready made ones, but it was easy to start from basic ingredients. The participants got a "taste" of how the moulding chocolate was like after mixing. Lots of kneading were required before the moulding chocolate was ready. It was...quite a challenge. Nonetheless, all the participants had equipped themselves with the know-how and the skills of moulding roses. I'm very happy when I see them leaving my place, happy with what they have learnt, and what they brought back. Most importantly, I am happy that I am able to impart my skills to them.

Cakes...cakes...cakes!!

About a month ago, my colleague told me she will order a cake for his boy's birthday from me. She had told me initially that her boy likes Thomas The Tank Engine Train. Then I immediately thought of baking a cake covered with fondant and moulding Thomas. As I've not done this kind of moulding before, I asked You Fei of Loving Baking about her experience in her fondant birthday cake. She was really very kind and helpful. Not only did she shared with me her experience, she pointed me to a site which has a step-by-step guide on how to mould Thomas the Tank Engine Train. I was quite diligent...I went through the steps, studied it carefully.

Then three weeks ago, my colleague told me, his son wants a Little Einstein birthday cake. I almost fainted. Gosh! Now I'll have to search for Little Einstein images. From our conversation, I reckoned she wanted a simple cake with frostings and not those fondant kind. I remembered that Rei had posted up quite a number of cakes on whipped cream frostings. So I dropped her an email to check with her about the details etc. She was really very nice too! She was really patient to explain to me the details, how and what. And her responses were very fast too. I was really appreciative of her kind advice even though she sells her cakes, she was so willing to share what she does! So I've gotten an idea how I should decorate the cake.

One of my workshop buddy gave me a recipe for good chiffon sponge cake which I tried too. I was gearing up, preparing for my first big cake order. However, beginning of this week, my colleague told me that her in-laws wanted a simple cake for their small celebration on Thursday. I (so daringly) propose to bake one for her. We settled on a simple Orange Cinnamon cake with buttercream frosting on the 8" cake. I suggested the Orange Cinnamon cake because my blogger friend, Adel, sent me a recipe for it as she & I were just great fans of this combination. She knew that I had previously attended a workshop which provided this recipe and that I cannot sent her this recipe, she formulated one herself. She was really kind enough to share this recipe with me! Heehee... So my cakes were made with so many help from so many blogger friends!! This blogging has really brought me more benefits than disadvantages!

So on Thursday, I delivered a smaller cake to my colleague. And I started preparation for the bigger cake to be collected on Saturday.


Finally, the cake was done. I was really satisfied with the final cake design. My colleague came to collect the cake on Saturday morning.




Then I proceed to bake another cake!! My sister ordered a birthday cake for her friend the following day. I suggested a chocolate fudge cake. As I've tried this cake before, I was confident of the richness of this cake. It's really a keeper. I did some simple frostings to make it more presentable. I hope the group likes it.


For the success of my bakes this week, I must really thank You Fei, Rei, Adel and DH for sharing their experiences and recipes so readily! ;)

How much can you achieve in a day?

How much can you achieve in a day, assuming you don't have to do housework? I wonder what do employers do when their maids are taking their day off on a Sunday. It was my helper's day off today. She was really kind to help me to settle the children's basic needs (like preparing breakfast and bathing them) before going out. That left me enough time to do my Yam Cake in the morning. I had some frozen yams from PH previously and thought I might as well use it for my yam cake. I didn't really follow the recipe exactly, and so, I think the yam cake didn't turned out that well. Fortunately, it's is edible!



While the yam cake was steaming, I spent time with my twins to do some fondant moulding. Quizzine has very kindly did a step-by-step guide for Grace and myself on moulding bumble bees. So I thought I might as well do it with my children. As the more we mould, we ventured into moulding other stuff - fruits and pizza. Finally, here was what we did.




After lunch, we went to Kitchen Capers to buy some stuff. Gina was there, preparing for her demo class at KC. Then we came back for my children to rest as my daughter was not feeling well. While they were on their "independant" mode, I had the chance to do some bakings. No prize on guessing what I baked! It was pound cakes again. This time, I decided to add chopped almonds to the pound.



After baking, I prepare ingredients for dinner. When my helper is not around, I'd prefer to cook very simple dish - fried noodles. It's good and it's easy. My hubby and myself are great fans of noodles!


When I was taking my dinner, then I realised how tired my feet was! It just feel so good to be seated and resting!!