Crazy Busy Week!

This week is really crazy & busy! My domestic helper went back for her home leave for two weeks. So I'm now a Part-Time maid! But somehow, I cannot stay away from baking. Just had to find time to do some baking or some other stuff. So here it is.

New Venture I: Coconut Ice Cream.
I wanted to make mango ice cream, but I spilled my mango puree!!:'( So I ended up with Coconut Ice Cream.

Creamy mix before freezing.

Smooth as silk. Looks really like ice-cream.

Texture is really ice-cream! Yummy. Rich & thick.

Recipe extracted from Yochana's Cake Delight, Coconut Gelato.

Repeat Venture II: Breads

Same old breads.

New Venture III: 100% Almond Cupcakes (Gluten free)

I topped it with almonds nibs instead of frosting as in the original recipe.

Recipe extracted from Cedele.

Pandan Kaya Bread Loaf

I wanted to try a different bread on Sunday. So decided on Alex Goh's Pandan Kaya Bread Loaf. This were the various steps I took.

After mixing the ingredients and kneading it, I left it to proof. This is the size before proofing.

This is the size after a trip to & fro the airport. About 3 hours.

This was further proofing after the shaping.

Brushed it with egg, then topped with dessicated coconut & crumbs.

Baking in the oven.

Fresh from the oven, the whole Pandan Kaya Bread Loaf.

Close up look of the browned top with coconuts & crumbs.

Cross section of the bread.

Close up cross section of the bread.

Recipe extracted from Alex Goh's "World of Breads", page 44.

Celebrations Saturday!

Celebrating my "new" brother-in-law's birthday on Saturday. He requested for "normal" cheesecake. So I made this New York Cheesecake for him

Water bake in the oven to prevent the cheesecake from cracking.

Decorated it with grapes & blueberry.

Close up shot of the "flower" made up of grapes & blueberry.

Recipe extracted from Allrecipes, Chantal's New York Cheesecake.

My sister ordered mini cupcakes for her event "Marriage for life" on Sunday. This is what I have done for her.

Baking chocolate mini-cupcakes.

Adding colours to the white chocolates for decoration.

Completed mini chocolate cupcakes with frostings!

Golden Orange Cake

Wanted to do a simple cake for a friend. It took me a while to decide on which recipe to use. I finally decide to use the basic Sour Cream Cake from "The Cake Bible", and add some orange to it.

Cooling the cake after baking.

The cake is a bit moist. A little underbaked. Would be better if I baked it slightly longer.

Cross section of the orange cake. Tastes pretty good as the orange zest was pretty strong.

Recipe extracted from "The Cake Bible", page 35. I added 20g of orange juice & zest.

Cheese Bread Loaf

I thought it will be good to use the same recipe of the Chocolate Swirl Bread for Cheese. So I tried it out. I'm very happy with the results. The cheese bread was soft even after two days.

The bread rose quite a fair bit when it was baking in the oven.

Fresh from the oven. The colour looks so good!

Slice them after it cooled down.

Cross section of the slices of bread.

Close up look. Yummy!

Recipe extracted from the Chocolate Swirl Bread. Replace the chocolate sheet with cheese. Then roll it up the swiss roll method.

Busy Baking on Saturday

Baking I: Tuna Puff Pastry

Had some puff pastry leftover in the freezer, so I made tuna puff pastry to finish it up.

The puff pastry "puffed" up in the oven. From "skinny" to "puffed".

Brushed it with egg before baking to make the pastry brown and shiny.

Cross section of the tuna puff pastry. Realised I put too little tuna. :p At least the layers can still be seen.

Baking II: Chocolate Swirl Bread Loaf

The chocolate loaf fresh from oven.

Cross section of the chocolate swirl slice. Nice chocolate patterns.

Baking III: Bacon & Mushroom Quiches
Baking for a group of 12 hungry people.

Mini quiche for the children.

Baking a few pans at a time.

Added tomato to make it more colourful.

Enjoy the food! :)

Green Tea Red Bean Bread

I have always like green tea, in whatever combinations. I finally found a recipe, simple for me to try. This is from Happy Home Baking blog. Baked this on Friday night.

The first round of proofing was done by poking a finger into the dough.

The red bean paste was placed in the centre of the dough.

Rolled it out and flattened it. Then rolled it like swiss roll.

Cut them out individually.

Put it into a cake pan, leaving it space to proof.

After proofing for about 45minutes, it covered the whole of the pan.

Baking the breads in the oven.

Fresh from the oven. Smells good, but it's a little tough. I think I didn't proof long enough. But it taste real good! Enough green tea taste!

Recipe is extracted from Happy Home Baking blog, Matcha Red Bean Loaf. Her step by step guide is very good. Do check it out!