Baking a Butter Cake

After all the cookies baking, it's time to bake a simple butter cake. I browsed through the recipe files and thought I like one called - Ultimate Butter Cake. This was extracted from Crummb's blog. This blog is owned by Pau Lin, one of the food journalist for The Straits Times. I came to know her by chance, that we were in the same Cake Decorating course last year. However, I didn't have the chance to know her better. It will be good to have gone through the course with her. She was truly a talented lady with passion for baking and decorating. During the practice classes, she was very quick to pick up the techniques for decorating.

She didn't manage to complete the course because she found out that she was expecting! The shuttling between work and course was too hectic for her, so she decided to postpone her course to concentrate on her pregnancy. It was a good decision made! I believe the greatest mother will sacrifice to have a healthy baby! I'm very happy that she has delivered a healthy baby girl now!

Anyway, back to my butter cake. The recipe called for unbleached flour, but I used Pilsbury stoned mill whole wheat flour since I got it from Mustafa some weeks back. I didn't really know how to use the whole wheat flour, except to replace them with plain flour. Using this whole meal flour made the butter cake more browny instead of nice bright butter yellow colour! Nevertheless, the cake turned out to be soft, a bit crumbly and fragrant! Baking it in a bundt pan made it looked prettier!

Also updating my lunch with my spouse at Triple Three. Last December, I brought my son for a treat. I told my spouse about it and he wanted to try the buffet. So I brought him there. This time, I took more desserts than the previous time. The best part of the buffet was the ice-cream counter. I was pleasantly surprised to find the "exotic-ness" of the ice-creams: orange sorbet, pistachio, sesame, saffron pistachio, strawberry and vanilla. I've never try saffron before, so this saffron pistachio caught my eye when I saw it! It was a nice combination for an ice-cream. I really like it! Anyone tried any other exotic combination of ice-cream before? Maybe can share with me?

Raisin Scones

I got out of bed on Sunday early morning, remembering that we didn't buy breakfast for the kids on Saturday. Flipping through my stacks of unfiled recipes, I was looking for scones. I remembered seeing some easy scones quite sometime back. Finally I found the recipe to bake-Raisin Scones from Fenying.

Recipe for Raisin Scones

Makes 8 2-inch round scones with 1-inch height

Ingredients:

A

250g Self Raising flour

30g Sugar

B

65g Cold hard butter, cubed
C
70g Raisins
D
135g Whole milk
Zest of an orange (original use lemon, I use orange)
* Fresh Milk for brushing top, Sugar for sprinkle

Method:


1) Sieve self raising flour into a bowl, add sugar and mix well.
2) Add cold butter pieces, rub into flour mixture to resembles breadcrumbs.
3) Mix well with raisin.
4) Dig a well in the centre of above mixture, pour in D and mix to form a soft dough.
5) Remove and place on a floured table, roll dough out.
6) Cut into rounds with a 2" cutter and arrange them on a baking tray.
7) Brush the top with milk and sprinkle with some sugar.
8) Bake in pre-heated 200ºC oven for 15 – 18 mins till light brown.
9) Remove and served warm with fruit jam/honey or beaten fresh cream.

Early Reunion

Reunion dinner always come earlier for my family with my parents. This year, it's one Saturday before the CNY eve. Long long time ago, we would have gone back to my mum's house for steamboat dinner. However, since their grandchildren have grown up, there was just not enough tables to accomodate all of us. Therefore, we have started venturing out to restaurants, having to book two tables:10 + 5. These are the usual restaurants that we visit- Beng Hiang or Prima Revolving. This year, we headed to Tung Lok at The Arena. Dad always pick up the tab. ;)

We ordered some dishes and their Peng Cai (盆菜). It came with a very nice claypot. There were just more than enough to feed all of us. In fact, we couldn't finish the Peng Cai and mum has to bring back the leftovers!

I also baked a cake to celebrate my sister's birthday. For my family, we've always have the habit to celebrate one another's birthday. We used to buy cakes, until lately when I started baking, it's becoming an unspoken rule that I will bake a cake for them.

I offered to bake a Chocolate Fudge cake for her as I like this cake very much. The cake is soft and moist, and the fudge is chocky and creamy. I did some frostings on the cake. Can you make out what it was on top of the cake after my steaming? Queer isn't it?

Unfortunately, when we were at the restaurant, my son accidentally dropped the cake container! And the cake was in a total mess!! :"(  However, my family members were very kind. They said that this was a new creation - Earthquake cake! That's how family members can be, always comforting! My birthday sister didn't even mind a bit! She was happily cutting and eating the cake. They liked the cake very much. I was glad the "earthquake" didn't change their perspective of the taste of the cake!  Happy birthday to my dear sister, Irene!

Singapore Airshow 2010

I went to the Singapore Airshow 2010 with my colleagues today. The aerial display was a disappointment this year compared to the 2008 show. Anyway, my purpose was to go there to collect some souvenirs. Well, managed to collect quite a lot, so I was rather happy, despite the hot weather!

Here's a short preview, in case anyone of you will be going there during the weekend!

Some of the participants' flags...

Butterfly garden at Changi Airport Booth

Display of aircraft models at Changi Airport booth

Cockpit of one of the luxury jetter

A model Apache, and a real RSAF Apache

A model Chinook and a real RSAF Chinook

Exhaust from RSAF F16

The bullet compartment of an Apache

RSAF Aerial display for Apache & Fighting Falcon

Butter Cookies

I couldn't help but to bake this butter cookies which I saw from Sonia's blog. The ingredients are so simple, and so are the steps. After baking one batch, I just felt in love with the ease of baking, and the melt-in-the-texture. So I baked it again, hoping to give some away. Quinn also has a recipe on Butter Cookies. I believe it is equally good too!

Do try out Sonia's butter cookies. It's as good as it claims!

First batch:

Second batch:

2-Tier Birthday Cake

Since I've attained my Cert in Wedding Cake in August, I've not actually made a two-tier cake...until last week. Some two weeks back, I received an email for a request to make a cake shaped like a LV bag with its monogram prints. As I've no experience in making this cake, I rejected the request. I didn't want to disappoint the requestor nor myself since I've not made it before. It won't serve me any good too!

Somehow, the discussion evolved, and the requestor asked for a 2-tier cake with lots of buttons. Well, at least that sounds really reasonable, and I truly believed I can achieve it. So I bought materials, chatted with Gina on how many fondant is required. And finally, the day came when I started baking and decorating the cake.

Actually, I'm so glad that I started this blogging. Through blogging, I've came to know a lot of friends, either baking friends or blogging friends. They have helped me in one way or another. Whatever way they have helped, I'm truly grateful and appreciative of their time, efforts and attention. My friend, Adeline, shared with me previously that she used Rei's Mocha pound cake recipe to make her son's birthday cake some months back. I immediately thought of that and tried baking the cake. It was truly good, especially the coffee powder I used was very fragrant and strong!

The requestor also sent me a few pictures of how he wanted his birthday cake. I was able to visualise what he wanted. He also specify "Gucci colour of green & red". I tried my best to mix the colour closest to what I understand of Gucci colour (as I don't own any Gucci products). Finally, the cake was completed, and delivered on time. I was very glad to have taken up his request, and to put my learning skills to good use. Mostly importantly, he loved the cake! Here's wishing the birthday boy, a Happy 21st Birthday!