Top Layer Chocolate Cake!

This is the chocolate layer cake recipe from 'The Primrose Bakery'. The exact recipe is twice the height of this cake as it is meant to be a layer cake but I halved the recipe just to make one layer. I was very glad I halved the recipe when I saw the size of this finished cake. The buttercream icing has melted chocolate in it which makes it quite yummy and not so sweet.

This is Chocolate cake candidate No. 2 for my friend's little girl birthday. I chose to decorate this with sugar yellow and purple stars but of course you can decorate it with anything you like. I saw a fabulous princess cake topper in Lakeland which would look great as well.

Will update on taste tomorrow!

Update - The cake has been well-received and the buttercream icing raved about. Interestingly, the Husband is the only person who thought last week's cake was better as the icing is not chocolaty enough! This cake has been rated 4.25 out of 5!

Carrot Cupcakes!

These are seriously yummy carrot cupcakes without icing! This recipe is from 'The Primrose Bakery' book given to me for Christmas. Although I have only tried 2 recipes, I think it is a really good book with gorgeous pictures of the finished products and all kinds of icing suggestions to make the cupcakes even yummy!

The glisten on the cupcakes is definitely not grease but the moistness of the cupcakes from carrots and raisins. The hardest bit is grating 225g of carrots which took quite some time as well as spooning the runny mixture into the cupcake tins without dripping everywhere! I wonder if I can find an automatic grater at some point. The recipe stated I would get 15 cupcakes but I ended up with only 10, which I was not too disappointed with as they are big muffin-size ones!

I chose not to make the icing as the Husband has kindly requested for me to reduce his calorific intake. :) The Husband had one for dessert at lunch today and pronounced it 'quite good'.

Another hit with the office! Everyone loved them!

Update: I baked another 14 carrot cupcakes for a friend's birthday cake just enough to form her first name initial. I topped them with orange cream cheese icing and they went really well together. I managed to convince my dinner guests to take 2 each home with them so that I would not get fat eating the reminder all by myself!

A Day at Cookery School!

Despite my ability to bake, I have to confess I have no idea how to cook. My new year resolution is to find out if I can cook and if I actually enjoy it. Hence, the decision to sign up for a one day course at the Edinburgh School of Food & Wine, unsurprisingly named Panic Free Entertainment. To make sure I knew what I was signing up for, I emailed the School to find out if it was appropriate for a complete beginner which they assured me it was for.

I have to confess I was really apprehensive on the day itself and I turned up to a class of 11. The menu for the day was chicken casserole with puff pastry to start, pork tenderloin 'espana' for the main and orange cinnamon creme brulee for pudding. The idea behind this menu is all the dishes can be made in advance and just reheated on the day of entertaining.

The day started with a demonstration of how to make the creme brulee and then we were paired up to do it ourselves. I think making the pudding was the easiest dish out of 3 with the boiling of cream, milk, cinnamon and orange zest and then add in egg yolks, sugar & vanilla extract. The final mixture was then baked for 20 mins. Fortunately, I didn't need to light the blowtorch myself but I did caramelise the creme brulee.

Next, we had the demonstration for the chicken casserole. The puff pastry was ready-made so just had to cut and bake. The chicken casserole turned out very yummy with chicken, bacon, mushrooms, shallot and carrots with cream. It is easily scalable to main course portions and I think it can be accompanied with rice if I cannot be bothered with the puff pastry. To reheat, just add more cream.

The main course was the most fiddly. We started with dauphinoise potatoes which were not that tasty probably due to the fact that I forgot to add salt and pepper to season. :) I think I will stick to buying them from the supermarket. We then started with braising the red cabbage, which boiled happily away on the stove for 40 mins.

As the cabbage was braising, we started work on the chorizo which was fried with peas and shallots. The tenderloin was butterfly-cut and stuffed with the chorizo mixture before getting wrapped up in parma ham and then cooked in the oven.

Lessons learnt
1) Remember to season - salt and pepper really makes all the difference.
2) Ingredients are substitutable - tarragon can be changed for basil/thyme & grain mustard can be changed for horseradish.
3) It is very much easier when you have all the ingredients weighed and measured before you start cooking. One of my biggest fears is having to search for ingredients in a supermarket and not being able to find them!
4) The best thing about these dishes were that you can leave them longer than timed in the oven and they will still survive the experience.

The only regret is that I forgot to take pictures of the dishes to show off! Maybe the idea is to reproduce the dishes at home and then I can take the pictures for show.

Now....maybe I should start thinking about a Thai Cookery class....

White Chocolate Cherry Brownies!

I bought 800g of glace cherries during the sale and so decided I need to bake something with them as they do take up lots of space in the cupboard! I found this white chocolate and cherry brownie recipe online which lookd tasty enough. It is made up of melted white chocolate, butter, sugar and flour and the glace cherries were folded in as the last stage. Will let you know how it taste in due course!

This has turned out really yummy and the Husband had 2 pieces for dessert last night!

Easy Chocolate Cake aka Disaster Cake!

A friend asked me to bake a chocolate cake for his little girl's birthday party at the end of March, so I have decided to spend the next few weeks trying out different types of chocolate cake until I find one suitable. Unsurprisingly, googling chocolate cake resulted in lots of different recipes but one thing I find interesting is most of them are for chocolate fudge cake i.e. a chocolate sponge with fudge icing. I will definitely make a chocolate fudge cake in due course but for the first sample, I tried this easy chocolate cake made out of buttermilk and chocolate icing. I was disappointed when the cake sank while cooling which can a sign of underbaking, the tin was too small or the cake was cooled too quickly. The Husband tasted the first slice without icing and said it was bland. As you can see, I have filled in the sunken centre with more chocolate icing. Will have another taste when the cake has settled but in the meantime, I don't think I'll make it again.

The cake has been rated 3.5 out of 5.

Update: This cake has turned out to be a surprise hit with my father-in-law stating that it was very good. The Husband also agreed the icing made a huge difference and asked why he was given the first piece without! :) Lesson learnt - there is always a reason why icing is included in recipes and usually, it is to make the cake taste better!

Red Velvet Cupcakes!

What is red velvet cake? According to Wikipedia, "a red velvet cake is a sweet, moist, rich cake that is a dark red, bright red or red brown colour. It is usually prepared as a layer cake somewhere between vanilla & chocolate in favour, topped with a creamy white icing." It is believed to have originated from South America. Its recent popularity is attributed to its role in the 1989 film "Steel Magnolias" where a red velvet cake appeared as a wedding cake in the shape of a armadillo with grey icing.

I wanted to bake something red this weekend as it is Valentine's Day so I found this red velvet cupcakes recipe, which turned out to be quite a challenge. This was the first time apple vinegar and cake flour were called for in my baking. Since apple vinegar is not readily available in the supermarkets, the Husband rose to the challenge and found me a bottle from a healthstore after much googling. As cake flour is also not easily available, I made a substitute from plain flour and cornflour (known as cornstarch in the US). I do not know if sourcing for these ingredients would have actually been easier in London but it does show the variety of ingredients one can get easily in the States.

These cupcakes turned out a beautiful red-brown colour and were iced with a mascarpone cheese icing. As described, these cupcakes are really sweet and the icing made them really creamy. The Husband was not keen as he found the icing too creamy.

This session also taught me 2 lessons - 1) Do not bake cupcakes on 2 different shelves in the oven at the same time, they will not rise enough and you can end up with dents on top. 2) An American recipe usually calls for too much icing, so halving the required amount of icing will be wise. You can always make more!

Just Flowers!

My Valentine's Day present from the Husband! He can be really sweet and romantic when he wants to be! :) And his rationale for not getting me a card is because he can say Happy Valentine's Day in person!

Lemon & Chocolate Chip Heart Cookies!

Happy Valentine's Day! Since I don't get to celebrate Chinese New Year in Edinburgh, I have decided just to make a huge deal of Valentine's Day instead, which is also the first day of the Year of the Tiger! My husband is also a Tiger, so here's hoping he will have a brilliant year!

So the treat for Monday will be these delicious lemon hearts with lemon icing and chocolate chip hearts. They are both made from the same shortbread dough and I just divided the dough into 2 - adding lemon zest to one and chocolate chips to the other portion. I used to find cutout cookies a hassle but I think maybe I just need to be in the right mood to be patient and a really good cookie cutter! Making 2 different types of cookies also make it less monotonous when you have to cutout 24 cookies.

The husband is a huge fan of these shortbread cookies and has managed to eat 4 in a row when I was not looking. Will see how quickly they go in the office on Monday!

Blueberry Lemon Loaf!

An old favourite! This is the third time I have baked this fruity loaf and each time it turns out perfect. As blueberries are on sale recently, I really enjoy baking with them as they are really yummy. The icing with fresh lemon juice helps to enhance the lemony flavour. The last time I baked this was for a new year's day lunch with the family and Husband's 3-year old nephew ate 2 slices all by himself! We were very impressed with his appetite. Anyway, this loaf vanished in a day at the office!

Cinnamon Chocolate Bread with Sugar Crust!

This week's treat! The gray skies make me long for something warm and comforting, so I found a chocolatey recipe which was surprisingly delicious although it was quite a bit of work. The bread is made of buttermilk so it turned out really light. The sugar crust was made separately out of sugar, cocoa powder, cinnamon and cloves. Husband said he thought the cinnamon taste was really strong but other tasters said it was fine - wonder if I just gave him a slice that was too cinnamonney. Anyway, this took 2 days to finish.

Seed, Oat & Fruit Bar aka Granola Bar!

Might be a reflection of the dark and depressing weather in Edinburgh today as this turned out to be quite a disaster. The whole baked product basically fell apart when I started slicing it up. Out of 20 bars I should have got, I ended up with only 14 bars. They were also not as tasty as I expected despite the high fruit and nut contents. The husband kindly asked me to put all the fallen bits into a bowl and he ate them just like granola, which is why I gave them another name in the title! I suspect if I just broke the bars into pieces and passed them off as homemade granola, I would not feel as bad about the lack of shape! And here's a picture of my homemade granola!