party cake making 2: novelty fondant icing

our *simple wedding* is in sept 2009!
in the spirit of a bargain hunter & home cook, i ventured into making my first DIY (fondant) novelty cake / DIY wedding cake...
after 2 days of resting, it was time to get on with the fondant icing - the most tricky part of the making of the party cake...
i couldn't believe my eyes when i saw "fondant" on sale at the local coles! must be for all those ladies out there who bake (fruit cakes)... there was also marzipan as well... i just got 2 packs of fondant - saved me from making it by scratch...
as this was my experimental cake... i just utilised my liquid colouring (didn't bother to get paste ones which would be much dearer)
although it made the fondant more liquid, it was managable... i added some cornflour & quite abit of extra icing sugar to make the fondant less "sticky"...
lovely vibrant colours... but as i was using liquid colouring, the colours were not very saturated, esp red - it was slightly anaemic...
i got the ganache out from the fridge a good 8 hours b4...
i also got the mud cake out 8 hours b4 from the fridge... they both came good into room temp (did sweat abit though)

i didn't have a cake saw, my trusty chef's knife was good enough...
the ganache was hard to spread and smooth to perfection - hence the lumpy surfaces (esp i don't own a st st palette knife... i just bought a cheapo plastic one from a $2 shop)...
on my next trial though, i will make the ganache more "liquid"

fondant rolling - very diff! have to use quite abit of corn flour to prevent it from sticking...
it was v hard to transfer the entire rolled out sheet on to the cake without breaking.... so i ended up rolling it on clingfilm and then flip the clingfilm over the mud cake - it worked!
when i first moulded the fondant to the cake... i didn't take much care pushing the air pockets out... i ended up having to prick alot of bubbles with a needle and smoothing it over... next time i will def take cake smoothing the fondant on...
spinning and moulding
fondant is abit like playdough... can be smoothed by gentle touching... but to achieve a glass smooth surface was impossible for me as i did't have a "smoother" (perspex moulding sheet)
so i used the plastic palette knife with abit of spinning....
then it was the "clay (fondant) figures"
fondant really slumped on me - i guess cos i used liquid colouring.... so the ducks ended up looking down and ducking down their heads abit...
i tried to hide the infections on the fondant with my special "double happiness" (vegetable) stamp....
and it worked!
didn't look as lumpy as b4....


VERDICT:

fondant = hard to manipulate, have to practise more

cake & ganache = not too hard to make, just takes time

taste test = very sweet, very like mud cake... one small slice will be enough for a person... dividing the cake into 50 pieces? small portions will not be a problem then

would i be able to make a DIY wedding cake? in the spirit of ESTY & saving $ - yes, but needs more practise

childhood food memory - corned beef and potatoes

tonight's dindin - corned beef with fried onions in tomato sauce on potatoes & stir-fry veg in oyster sauce
corned beef on potatoes - ah-goo used to cooked that all the time!

party cake making 1: chocolate mud cake & chocolate ganache

our dinner party is coming up in sept... we'll need a cake for the occasion... do we really have to spend several hundred dollars or would it be possible to DIY?
in the spirit of saving a few bucks & spending money on learning than buying, i got a hold of this book...

a really well set out book with easy instructions... lets hope the "making of" would be easy as well... first up - chocolate mud cake (which can keep for 3 weeks in a tight container in the fridge), as opposed to the other cakes (white mud cake, orange almond cae, carrot cake etc - also in the book) which can only last 1 week in the fridge... freezing will increase their lifespan though...
the ingredients were easy to get enough... but now i realise why spending $21 purchasing a tiny tiny mud cake (diameter 10cm) last weekend was justified... the chocolate required for the cake and ganache amounted to 6 packs of 250g!!! That's 1.5 kg of chocolate! if i was to buy valrhona courveture... i would go broke! lucky there was the supermarket brands to experiment with for now...

i also found "ready to roll fondant" in the supermarket! i was about to buy glycerine, gelatine etc to make my own...

first, i melted butter 220g, dark chocolate 220g, coffee granules 25g , water 160mL in a saucepan with low heat & set aside
remembering, " don't burn the chocolate" ... i kept stirring...

then it was time for the dry stuff - plain flour 125g, SR flour 125g, cocoa 50g, bi carb 1/2 tsp - all sifted twice together...

480g of castor sugar was mixed in... the homogenous colour was a good sign for an even mix...

a well was made in the middle to receive...

a mixture of 4 eggs, oil 7 tsp (grapeseed i used), buttermilk 100mL...
the now cooled down chocolate mix was added too...
i didn't mix to vigourously as recommended by the book - too much movement = many air bubbles & gluten development...
a 22cm round springform cake tin was oiled and lined with baking paper... the sides must stick up from the edge by at lease several cms to catch the rising cake...
i tried v hard to knock the cake tin to even the surface out and get rid of bubbles... but was not v successful...
so it went into the 160 celcius oven (initially fan-forced) for 1hr 40min...
while the cake was rising in the oven... it was time to get on with the ganache...
just checking...
the amount of chocolate was frightening! 1.2kg! broken up into pieces... the smaller the better...

600mL of single cream was heated to boiling point and poured over the chocolate pieces...
the heat melting the chocolate gradually... persistence in stirring was essential (my arm / wrist = quite sore now)

same thing as b4 - i didn't stir too hard! bubbles were not invited in the ganache
1hr 40min later the cake came out and passed the skewer test...

it was a tade wrinkly and crunchy on top... i should have stopped the "fan-forced" business at the beginning...

mud cake and ganache are now sitting on the kitchen bench... resting for the night. they could be kept in the fridge too - but must be brought back to room temp b4 the next stage...

*to be continued*

a freezer full of frozen veggie-buns

chicken buns, char siu buns, veggie buns - excellent convenient food, but at $5-6 per pack of 6 at asian supermarket, it could get costly...
then i saw the sale of "big bun flour"...
i made steam bun once b4 using this brand of "big bun flour" - it wasn't bad...
so i bought several packets and began my bun making marathorn...
the veggie insides consisted of - dried mushroom, cloud fungus, goji berries, split mung beans, carrots & cabbage...
stirfrying was tiring...

rolling out the dough was not too bad... there were 2 resting (proofing) stages... i tried to reduce the 1/2 cup sugar per bag of "bun flour" as the first batch turned out to be abit sweet
... got out the bamboo steamer - what a great steaming tool! no drips from condensation back onto the bun pastry
the buns b4 steaming
just after steaming - don't put the buns too close together - they expand and stick together!

yummo veggie steam-bun...
the second batch looked much more professional
i must have made double or triple this amount... they are now resting in the freezer... awaiting to be recalled and be blitzed in the microwave for 2-2.5min and immediately eaten!

long way round

for the last few weeks, watching long way down on SBS has been our programme on wed nights... now sadly it has finished... we have been searching for other things to watch...
then...

this appeared on the shelf at the local lib
we polished it off, 10 episodes plus extra features and all during the wkend!

since the "road to dakar" is on order at the local lib, i borrowed the "long way round - chasing shadows across the world"...
i haven't read many books that i didn't want to put down... this is one of them... so diff from the TV series... it talks about the journey on an emotional level, plus there are more little funhy & introspective bits and pieces...
highly recommended! how wonderful it is to have a buddy to go around the world searching for adventures...

cup cake silicone moulds

the other day i wandered into A-supermart...
and this time they have silicone cup cake moulds, 6 for $2.50 - are you serious?! so i brought 4 packs...
when i got home, i opened all the packaging (how much plastic can they use to house these little moulds! surely they can reduce the packaging and reduce the already rock bottom sale price even further)... the moulds are nice and bright, v thin (expected), come on, at less than 50c a mould...


i repeated a batch of the plum and cinnamon upsidedown cake, but without the plum, without the cinnamon... no upsidedown... instead i scooped a spoonful of batter into each little moulds and added a teasp full of my homemade peach jam (which has acquired a fizzy (fermented) tang since i made it several months ago)


the bitezise cup size was excellent! instead of having hundreds and hundreds of calories each time i eat a piece (or 2) at a time, i would be eating a portion-control little cupcake and feel satisfied...
and it could be conveniently stored into our big bowl!

conclusion - moulds are great and the cup cakes = success! (and the 24 of them (equivalent of 1 cake) lasted a week!)

homemade baklava

baklava with almonds

next time i'll not just use sugar water... i think honey will taste better...