Birthday cake (Yellow cake with chocolate buttercream and chocolate ganache)

For my cousin's birthday, I was inspired to make a cake with some decorations. This yellow cake recipe came into my inbox and I could not think of any better timing. I instantly made up my mind. The cake is just what I needed to cater for my cake decoration idea. My cousin loves nature, plants and animals, but to make it easy, I decided to go for a 'tree ring' for a close to nature feel. 

I used the same recipe for the cake. However I used a chocolate buttercream to fill and cover the cake. I made a chocolate ganache to frost the surrounding. I also made some pattern so it will look like a section of a tree trunk. To top it off, I made some 'mushrooms' using free forms macarons and a thicker ganache to make the stems. The cake turned out just the way I wanted. I originally planned to make some royal icing flower decorations, but then I did not want to lose the 'forest' feeling. Sometimes less is more. 

I was also extremely pleased with my macarons which I filled with more chocolate ganache- honestly the best I ate. I'm pretty sure it has to do with the freshness. After one night in the fridge to allow the flavour to mature and moisture to soften the cookie, it is the best time to eat it. 

The cake itself was quite nice. I think it went well with the chocolate. I am looking forward to make some bunny macarons for Easter. 

 

Birthday celebration for my brother

We celebrated my brother's birthday about 2 weeks ago. I originally planned to make a genoise (sponge cake filled with cream) but thought it might not turned really well. So, I decided to go for a more simple cake, and made 2 swiss rolls, thereby having two flavours instead of one. I picked on a matcha green tea flavoured cake (with strawberries) and a black forest one (with glace cherries). I wanted to try and do the roll decor cakes (having prints on the cake itself, but it didn't turned out quite right, so I piped some more whipped cream to cover the patches). The cakes were nice and fluffy. The decorations were not too bad after all. I think it was a success. 

For the dinner celebration, we had herbal chicken soup (with white fungus and mushroom), cabbage steamed balls, barbeque pork, bagels with smoked trout and parsley cream cheese. It was indeed a feast.

  

Matcha (Green Tea) Chiffon Cake with Matcha Cream and Red Bean Filling

It seems that my titles are getting longer and longer recently. Oh well, I think that's what happen when you are creating desserts. For my brother's birthday, I have been keen on making a green tea flavoured cake with red bean. I was inspired by my own birthday cake from Breadtop (you can see the photo from this post). Also, instead of making a pandan chiffon cake, which I have already made for no special reason at all, I wanted to try something special and different. I decided to go for another amazing flavour combo- matcha green tea and red bean. These two are definitely the most random combination, but goes so well together.

Firstly I baked a matcha chiffon cake and let it cooled. I used this recipe, cutting the amount of sugar in half in so doing. I cut the cake in half. Then, I whipped up some matcha cream (thickened cream, matcha powder and sugar), which I spread across the bottom half. I spooned some red bean filling and then closed the cake. After that, I covered the whole cake in some more matcha cream. Once done, I placed the cake in the fridge to firm up. Finally I decorated the cake with some cream, more red bean and pocky.

Unfortunately I did not get a good photo of the inside of the cake, but I was pretty happy with the result. I could taste the green tea flavour and it matched perfectly with the red bean and matcha cream. The sweetness from the red bean complemented the not overly sweet cake. I think I did well, even though I need to improve my piping skills.

Birthday

Alright I have officially grown up by 1 year. My birthday was on Monday and it was public holiday (ironically for Queen's birthday) over here in Perth.
I spend half the day in a camp ( I spent the weekend at a camp- PACE Camp 'Run to Jesus') and the remaining relaxing - to recover from my tiredness -and preparing a last minute birthday cake.

So you guess that this post is actually about my birthday cake. Correct! Instead of buying a cake (which will be yummy, but rich in butter, sugar and flour), I decided to go for a raw version of a 'cheesecake'. This cake is absolutely delicious and I cannot believe it takes less than 30 minutes to put up (no baking), and it looks so amazing.

I forgot to mention, the cake is a cranberry 'cheesecake'. The recipe I used is adapted from here.

I made some changes because I did not have all the ingredients from the original recipe on hand, but I did not alter great things. I switched the almond meal for LSA meal, and the coconut meat for raw sesame seeds. Anyway I was extremely impressed by the result - both by the look and taste.

I really love how the photos turned out - so bright and colourful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back...and my 'made-up' bday cake

Alright, I know I have a lot of posting to catch up with. I don't even know where to start *sigh* Life simply keeps on getting busier and busier. Sometimes I wish time would stop and in that instant you would not think of anything. Just stop thinking. What has happened while I was gone: my birthday. I'm officially 21. I can't believe I'm nine years to being 30. Oh well since I'm talking of birthday I will post the picture of my 'made-up' birthday cake or rather a more-or-less improvised one. I could not choose which cake to have and well why not take one slice of each, definitely much better than a whole cake with only one flavour/taste. Now, each mouthful tasted wonderful. These cakes were so delicious, just like a cake is meant to taste in my mind, spongy, sweet, soft, melting in the mouth and you can't get enough! It was by far the most instant genius idea-says me :p :) This just confirm the fact that as we grow older we become smarter and wiser :p Cheers!

 

Busy day in the kitchen

Yesterday was my brother's birthday. I cooked lot and was so tired after. Did I mentioned that working too much is not good for your health. You should try to rest. Wait, I just questioned myself about brekkie as well. Yeah so because I had to go work early in the day and wake up quite late, and wanted to cook my lunch and this sago dessert. Man I didn't know that sago took that lot of a time to cook. After that I didn't have time to eat my ravishing breakkie and had to make it with milk and weetbix...and I realised that indeed I felt hungry and tired the whole day.

 So I cooked this sago dessert (like I mentioned in an early post, I like doing things on impulse- it works best). It's actually a sort of coconut sago pudding/jelly.

I also cooked my lunch to bring at work. Simple dish: egg omelet with carrots. Try add some thyme leaves, really help to enhance the flavour.

After work I cooked fried noodles for my brother's birthday. A quite easy dish, but quite lengthy in terms of preparation time.

Finally I made a cake, late at night, a hot milk cake. It was my  first time baking a cake, so I wanted to try an easy one. Anyway, the result was quite catastrophic, I don't know what turn bad in the process because the cake was quite compact and thick. It looked decent though:

That bring us to the end of this post. Hope it gives you some idea of what to cook at home.