Decorating Course... Part 3!

Ok, this is going to be a super short post, since most of what we were doing was practicing, and kinda messy! Few pictures, not much to talk about! Anyway, here goes -

I had my 3rd session of the course a few days ago, wherein we were first taught a how to make a swirl/zebra cake, with various colors and flavors of batter! No pics, but I'm making the same cake tomorrow, so I'll show it to you in next week's course's post!

This session was very piping intensive, with us learning various flowers such as daisies, drop flowers, poinsettias etc, and leaves!



Those are my attempts at the daisy, and and the blossom. The picture is of the first attempt, so none look too good. I did learn how to do it by the end of it though.



My poinsettia!! Had never actually seen this flower before, so I looked it up, and was ecstatic to find that mine looked pretty similar. I love the look of the flower!!



Rose - Made on a toothpick instead of a rose nail. Very different method from the other class! I liked this much better, and plan to improve on it by using techniques shown in numerous YT videos!

What I'm really excited about is the next session, which is day after tomorrow! All of us have to make our own cakes, marzipan, fondant, any flowers and leaves we want to use, and decorate and pipe in class! I've spent most of today doing the cake, and flowers! But I simply cant seem to get to the right consistency. Its always either too thin, or too thick! I'm going to go get a refresher tomorrow, with the instructors, and will have my cake ready by day after. Expect lotss of pictures!! I'm mainly using roses and leaves, all other details will be revealed in the next post. [Yeah, I'm trying to create some suspense. Didn't it work?] Lol. I'm super excited, really hope the cake will look good!

Sorry about the short post, but as I already said, there wasn't much to talk about. We spent most of the time in learning/practicing the flowers, till we got them right!! And plus, it was My Birthday [yes, that does need to be capitalised :P] , so I was a little pre-occupied :$ :)


Read more on this course - Part 1, Part 2, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

Taste and Create... Apple Cheddar Loaf!

I can't believe I forgot about this until Carol [thank you, by the way] reminded me on my previous blog post!! After that, I'd been so busy with college, I'm only barely making the deadline [as always, hooray for the time difference]

I'd signed up for Taste & Create, figuring I needed a few challenges coming my way! With T&C, you can never predict who you're going to be paired with, so its interesting in that it takes me out of the chocolate rut! And how!

I went to Carol's blog, No Reason Needed, that's not a food blog per se, but great nonetheless! So ofcourse, I was a little worried! While I could have gone with the safe bet - cookies [there are many recipes for cookies on her blog], I chose to stick with my new mantra of experimenting, and the Apple Cheddar Loaf seemed perfect!

I was apprehensive at first, but after reading her post about how everyone loved it, and after her re-assuring me that it tasted great over a few e-mails, I finally set out to bake the loaf today morning!

While I can't say it was the best thing I've ever eaten, it was certainly different! Not exactly for my tastes [I'm one the in-your-face sweets kind]. But Mom sure loved it! One loaf is almost over, in about 3 hours, and I'm going to add a simple icing sugar glaze on top of the second one tomorrow, so that I'll be able to enjoy it. And for all those of you concerned about the aspect of cheese, you can barely taste it! It just adds a delicious texture! All the spices add an amazingly deep layer. I'm sure this recipe is workable! Next time, I'd up the apple content, and add more sugar! Should be perfectt!!





For the recipe, head on over to Carol's blog, or look below for the recipe as I made it -

Apple Cheddar Loaf
Adapted from No Reason Needed

1/2 cup [113 g] soft butter
3/4 cup [180 g] sugar - I'd use 1 entire cup
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
3/4 cup [120 g] all purpose flour
1 cup [170 g] whole-wheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 c. peeled, cored, and chopped tart apple
3/4 cup [about 140 g] shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
1/2 cup chopped walnuts/pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Grease and flour a 9" x 5" loaf pan. - I used two mini loaf tins.
3. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
4. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until light.
5. Beat in milk.
   
6. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg together.
7. Fold into creamed mixture.
8. Fold in cheese, apple, and nuts.
9. Pour into prepared pans. [batter will be thick]
   

Bake for 1 hour (I took 55 mins).





The cheese, apple, nutmeg, cinnamon all really work well in this recipe, in a way I never thought possible! I'm going to make this again, soon! I loved taking part in this event, and have learnt that baking, as well as blogging about it, is not something I can do at the last possible minute. Bring on next month!!

Update : Nutella makes everythingg better!!! Lol, I now LOVE the loaf :P

Decorating Course... Part 2

This post is long overdue, but I've been really busy making and decorating nearly 100 sugar cookies! I know it may not sound as much to you, but this was the first time I'd ever tried decorating, and in hindsight, I probably should have started off with fewer cookies to do! I took wayyy too long. I didn't even come online these 3 days! But it was fun, and that's what's important :) I can't wait to make some more, armed with complete knowledge of my mistakes, and what not to do, and hopefully take much less time!


Anyway, last week's class dealt with making fondant and marzipan, and covering a cake with it. Imprinting work on fondant was also touched upon. Here's the detailed account -



The first thing we did was make fondant, since it needed to be refrigerated, for an hour minimum, but usually about a day. One of the instructors was making it, and I it was fun watching him get doused in powdered sugar because of the fan. The weather over here is soo bad right now, we couldn't get by without the fan for even a few minutes! Anyway, he kneaded in all the sugar, and then refrigerated it. After about an hour, he kneaded the hell out of that fondant, then added my favorite color [PINK :D], and then rolled it out for the cake.




During the one hour wait, we made marzipan. The usual way to make it, apparently, since I don't know anything about that, is to cook the almonds, and get the oil out of it. But he only showed us a way to make easy uncooked marzipan, that took like 5 minutes! And it tastes good. I've never had much of a taste for marzipan, usually throw it away, so I was surprised that I kind of liked this.

He then proceeded to cover the cake we made last week [that had been doused with rum over the week] with marzipan, and this was the first time I'd ever seen such a thing happen, LIVE! Not as hard as I thought. Pretty easy, infact!

I know there's a huge crater in the middle of the cake, he told us what to do to prevent it, and how to cover it up when that does happen, but didn't want to complicate things by showing us, for the moment!



After that, he covered the cake with the kneaded fondant. I was glad to see that there were cracks all over, it doesn't start out being perfect! After a lot of rubbing, smoothing etc, using corn flour, and fondant smoothers, he achieved the perfect smooth fondant, as you can see below -



After a lot of watching, we were taught really basic crimper and insertion work.



And ofcourse, I went overboard with it! LOL, those imprinters, or stamps as I call them, were fun, and bought out the child in me! We also did insertion ribbons, which you can see in the bottom-left corner. Yeah! That! Living proof of my amazing photography skills!





There comes the piping! I had already done this in the other class, but it was taught very well here! I'm now sure that I can replicate all of those designs perfectly!



That was basically a combination of the shell, and the ruffles. But I loved the look, though it took me a while to get it right. You can't see the details well because of the mixed icing, and my awesome photography, but you can be sure I'll be doing a lot more of this design! :)



Since I had already done most of them, I got them right on the first try, like above, and was soo happy! Their instructions really helped! Next class is in 2 days, which is also my birthday :D :D
For the first time ever, I will be in school/college/class/work on my birthday, have always missed them before! That's how much I love this class!


P.S - I'm having some HTML problems on the comments, as you all can see. Anyone know how to fix it? Please send me a mail, if you do. Thanks :)


Read more on this course - Part 1, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

Yellow Cake with Cherry Sauce

I, as I'm sure everyone else, am always on the look-out for the perfect recipe, that can become my go-to i.e. one I can bake without having to worry about it! CakeCentral, an awesome site for everything cake, recently had the amazing idea to start a bake-off to find the perfect recipe, tackling a new kind of cake each month. This month was Yellow Cake and I made an awesome cake recipe for it. While I can't say that this is the ultimate, I won't ever try any other recipe again cake, it was pretty good. The best yellow cake I've had yet.


Not So Lemon Lemon Cake
From Magnolia Bakery


[I halved the recipe and got 2 8" cakes]

1 cup[2 sticks/225 g] butter, softened
2 cups[450 g] sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups self-raising flour *
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 tsp grated lemon zest

*Alternatively, you could use all purpose flour. Just take one cup A.P flour, minus 2 teaspoons. Add 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp salt
Though the cake requires lemon, the taste doesn't really come through after baking, so making it an ideal basic cake recipe. The lemon just adds a deeper, indistinguishable level, that I quite love!

Instructions -

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Prepare 3 x 9in round 2in deep pans (line with parchment)
3. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy (about 3 mins).
4. Add eggs one at a time combining well after each addition.
5. Mix the milk, lemon juice, and lemon zest together.
6. Add flour alternately with the milk and lemon juice in three parts mixing well after each addition.
7. Divide the batter equally between the 3 pans and bake for 25 mins [Mine took 30] until a cake tester comes out clean when inserted in the centre and the cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool in pans for 10 mins and then turn out onto racks to cool completely.
8. Fill and frost as desired. Serves 12-16 wedges.

I know I should have used the cake for practicing my decorating, but no one at home wanted more cake! So I left the cake as it was, and made a cherry sauce to go with it, but allowing each person to customize as they wished. And it was perfect for testing purposes, there would be no filling/icing to mask the flavor of the cake. I didn't really follow any recipe for the cherry sauce, but here it is anyway -

Cherry Non-Jubilee

About 35 pitted cherries [I didn't have a pitter, so I used a fork to squeeze the pits out, after they became soft]
About 100 ml water, or just enough to cover the cherries
1 tbsp sugar

Instructions -
Boil the cherries, water and sugar in a saucepan over medium heat.
Cover the saucepan, and simmer until cherries become soft, and water thickens into a sauce [This has a very large window, so simply stop boiling when the sauce reaches desired consistency]
This is when you will use the fork to remove the pits, if using non-pitted cherries.


The sauce goes very well with the cake, and everyone literally engulfed it. As you can see below, being the mango lover I am, I also tried with the reduced mango puree as before, but it didn't go as well as the cherry sauce did.

Decorating Course.... Part 1

I know I know, I just did a post on a decorating course. But as I mentioned in the earlier post, this new course is a much more professional course, and after just one session, I'm in love with it. I learnt quite a lot, and was even excited enough to come home and practice what I'd learnt the next day :D

I learnt how to bake a rich fruit cake, and the basics of how to pipe with Royal Icing. Below is a detailed account of the session, do read on :

The guys who I'm learning from, and all the other students and Catholics. For some reason, I don't know if this is something that happens only here in India, but they lovvve the rich fruit cake. Every occasion warrants a few of those cakes. So ofcourse, they taught us that, and I can now bake one perfectly, even though it's not something I'm used to.




They then taught us how to make Royal Icing, with real egg whites. Moving onto the piping, the part I was really looking forward to. :D
The first session only involved the basics, such as dots, lines, drop strings, cornelli etc. In the picture above, is the first line I ever made, and I was quite pleased that I did so well in my first attempt. However, I had major problems getting it to work later [not pictured :P]



That's me trying to do the cornelli and trellis work. For piping, they gave us each a few decorating tips, and a reallly painful syringe type icing gun that people used manyyy years ago. They said they prefer using that, but after just one hour of using that, I gave up, as you can see above. I was just getting the basic method done, promising to practice at home. I still have a sore thumb - from all the pressing on the gun - today, 2 days later!



That's why, when practicing at home, I used the usual disposable plastic decorating bag. Worked like a charm :)



I haven't got about to buying a turntable yet, so this is the setup I created. Funny, but it works :P




Doing the drop strings - I haven't perfected it yet, but it's surprisingly easy. I didn't bother with marking and measuring, I just made them as I felt like :P



WARNING : Do not try to re-use a tip that has dried up royal icing in it!!!
I wanted to switch back to tip #1 for completing the trellis work on the outer circle, but in the 20 minutes or so that I was using tip #3, the left over RI in the tip dried up. The bag burst all over me, when I thought just squeezing harder would push it all out, and I could use it :P [Yeah, I don't think too practiacally]





That's the extent of my patience, and sitting in one place do something of the sort. After the bag burst, I was just too frustrated to continue. I justified with saying that I learnt how to do lines, I could always do the rest some other time [As you probably understood by now, I'm super lazy]

Though ofcourse, you can clearly see in the picture, I haven't really learnt how to do the trellis work. I don't like the tip #3 at alll!!! :(

I should improve soon enough, and atleast be able to make straight lines. HOPEFULLY!!

I WILL CONQUER OVER YOU, ROYAL ICING!!!!



More on this course - Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11

MY FIRST AWARD :D

As the title clearly suggests, I received my first award recently!! I'm extra happy because I received it exactly one month after I got this blog started up :) What could be a better kind of acceptance, into the blogosphere :)

Jacque from Daisy Lane Cakes was the one who was gracious enough to offer this to me. Thanks soo much :D

As the rules of awards go, I'm passing this on to some of my favorite bloggers :

Natalie from Snooky Doodle Cakes
Risa from Baked Perfection
Jaime from Good Eats n Sweet Treats

The rules :

1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate at least 10 blogs which show great Attitude and/or Gratitude!
3. Be sure to link to your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to this post and to the person from whom you received your award.


I also attended the first session of a decorating class I joined, one much more professional than the previous one, thankfully :) What I learnt, and my practice is coming up on the next post.

Again, a huge THANK YOU to Jacque

That's how happy you've made me :D :D

My Entry Into The Longest Running Debate Ever!

Chocolate chip cookies.... Yum! Finding the best recipe has always been a huge debate, with a number of people entering/creating bake-offs, trying a number of recipes and methods [refrigerating, using melted butter etc]. The entrance of NYTimes in this debate has taken things wayy over the top, with the use of cake flour and whatnot! With this post, I guess I too have entered into this debate. Anyway, here's a recipe that is simple, like the Toll House ones, with no unusual ingredients, and always turns out.

I've always loved chocolate chip cookies. And though I've been baking for quite a while, I never got around to making cookies. I used to gorge on the store-bought ones, and though they tasted great, there was always something missing. That feeling of satisfaction and pride in eating and loving something you've made by yourself. But for some reason, I was always intimidated.
So I finally decided to take up the challenge, a little while ago, and started scouring the net for recipes. I can't even begin to describe how many different recipes I tried. After countless hours, I decided to try out Jen at Bake or Break's chocolate chip cookies. I love the site, it's got some great recipes.

These cookies turned out great :-) They were crunchy, but just so, and chewy, just how I like them. I used the tiny chocolate chips that are the only option here in India, but even with that, they were yummy.
A huge plus is that they are astonishingly easy to make even for a first-time cookie baker like me. I've made them a few times since then, and have always got consistent results. It's my favorite recipe yet. What is yours? I'd love to try out new recipes, and plunge head first into this world-wide debate :P



You can head on over to Jen's blog above for the recipe, or look below -

My Favourite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Bake or Break
Makes about 40 cookies, I got 35

• 1 cup [2 sticks/225 g] butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 & 1/2 cups uncooked regular oats [ I used quick -cooking]
• 1 & 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 ounces milk chocolate candy bar, coarsely chopped
• 1 cup chopped pecans [I've used chopped almonds, cashews etc. successfully]
  

Preheat oven to 375° F [180° C].

Beat butter at medium speed in a heavy-duty mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugars and beat well. Add eggs and vanilla, beating well.

In a separate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture and beat well.

Process oats in a food processor until finely ground. Add to butter mixture and beat well. Stir in chocolates and pecans.

Drop cookies by tablespoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool slightly on baking sheets. Then, remove to wire racks to cool completely.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.