Baking Recipe: Cherry Blossom Cake + Prosperity Butter Cookies

Gong Hei Gong Hei everyone! I'm just a few days early, but here's to wishing all of you a prosperous and healthy new year ahead. May all of us have the sweetest moments in life and to continue whipping up delish desserts.

As mentioned in my earlier posts, I was rushing for my cake orders I had. Thank You so much to my customers for supporting me. Infact it was my largest order ever. At first was the Gossip Girls Themed Cuppies, and next was cakes for the upcoming Chinese New Year. Hopefully, I get a couple orders from time to time so that I could experiment. Lol.. {Not sure if that was a good wish that I am wishing for..}

Cherry Blossom Cake

For the cakes, I made a crowd favourite which is the yellow vanilla butter cake adapted from joy of baking.com [recipe] and frosted the entire cake with passion fruit buttercream frosting [recipe] {slurps}. Oh! I could still remember how intoxicating it was. The scent of the passion fruits is sweet yet with a hint of sourness.. lovely! I also made my very first batch of gum paste cherry blossoms flowers. To decorate, I piped the vines and GONG XI FA CAI message with passion fruit buttercream.



CNY Goodie Bag




Mandarin Oranges





Cherry Blossoms




What was suppose to resemble the Chinese word "PROSPER"



Apart from the cakes, I also put what I learnt from the past workshop I attended to good use. I made butter cookies which will melt in your mouth and frosted them with lemony royal icing. Lol.. The smell of butter cookies is just delish. Simple yet sophisticated all at once. Yumm yummmm.... To decorate, I tried my hand on piping cherry blossoms, mandarin oranges, and well did my best to write "Prosper" in Chinese. I think I can do better, but this time it'll have to do. Perhaps with more practise eh? Well, I hope I get better at it soonest possible :).

Okay peeps.. looks like I will be away for a couple of days now. However, do continue to stop by and I promise I will do my level best to post about the upcoming feast that I'll be having for the next couple days.

For dessert and cake order inquiries, please write to chicgorgeousdesserts {at} gmail {dot} com

xx

Baking Recipe: The Gossip Girls Themed Cupcakes

Hi all! Seems like I've been away quite awhile from blogging eh? Well, I apologise as I got a couple more orders to rush for the upcoming Chinese New Year which is exactly next Thursday (03/02/2011). I promise you that once I've got all the photos sorted, I will share them with you. However, there won't be much recipes I could provide you this time am afraid, as they are orders which the customers had a preference of the flavor of the cake.

On a high note, I can suggest or recommend the recipes that I've tried which have not fail me to this day ;p.

Recently, another friend of mine (Lynn) who's planning to throw a farewell party for herself has requested/ordered from me to bake some cupcakes for her. To decorate the cuppies this time, I got to play around with a couple of new designs. I went as far as sketching and planning the colour for the theme, although I had a rough guideline that my friend wanted some red, light pink, or white to be incorporated.


Disclaimer: Photo taken from Hollywoodbuzz. Not for promotional purposes.

Speaking of designs, you must be thinking {Oh! What a theme, and what or how should I decorate the cupcakes?} Well, I googled for ideas, and I was quite surprised that there are a lot of "Gossip Girls Themed Cupcakes" around. However, to be honest, I did mine a little different, and just looked in to other bakers' work for inspiration.





My Gossip Girl Themed Cuppies Sketches

 

The theme was quite a challenge, since I've never watched Gossip Girls before. I believe it's a teenage/adult American TV series which is set on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, NY. Plus what could one person design for such a theme? It could be bags with all the high end brands like Chanel, LV, etc or shoes like Christian Louboutin. For me, I was sure that I don't want bags or shoes, but I like for it to be chic with geometric shapes perhaps and hopefully in tune with the whole NYC lifestyle. {eyes frowning o_0 ..lol).

There are 4 designs all together. One of which is a Chandelier; at least I like to think so it is. All designs that I had in mind were piped using my limoncello lemon butter cream frosting. Right now, I was not even sure if the designs I came up with are do-able. Frankly, it was a test to push my abilities.

When came to the cuppies flavour, I went with vanilla butter cake, and tinted it red. As for the frosting, I made an adult version with Limoncello Liqueur added to my delish Limoncello Lemon Butter cream Frosting [recipe].

As for the cake recipes, I like to suggest using your trusty vanilla cake, butter cake or even your white cake recipe. I have been a strong believe on trusting your own taste as all of us may like a different recipe. I've tried [joyofbaking] cake recipes and they are dense and moist. Not bad at all.

This time round this year, I hope I get more orders so I get to experiment with other designs hopefully according to a specific theme. However, overall I will still bake and cook not because of the orders I get but because I find it therapeutic and such a great way to relax.

For dessert and cake order inquiries, please write to

chicgorgeousdesserts {at} gmail {dot} com

xx

{Wedding Theme} Royal Icing decorated Butter Cookies

The things we do for “I Do”

Doesn't it make you wanna say "I do"

Wedding Cookies as favours seem to be a real big hit nowadays. I couldn't agree more {since they are all so delish and gorgeous}, how much work, intricate details and time taken to decorate each cookie. But you know, it's worth it. The look on a soon to be newly weds face says it all.

I've finally signed up for my very first workshop class. { Yeay!!}. All this while I've always wanted to attend cake and cookie decorating workshops, but didn't have the time to do so. This time, I've decided to not allow time to be the excuse; took a step forward and signed up for it.

The workshop teaches us on how to decorate with royal icing. It was so fun as I've finally learnt some tips on decorating with royal icing. I was like a kid in a candy store. Apart from the class, I met a couple of lovely working mothers. Let's just say they allowed me to be the baby among them. {Lol}

Since Chinese New Year is around the corner, I was planning to bake batches of cookies to distribute them to family members and friends. The tips that I learnt would definitely help me to make beautiful cookies. {Lol} So do stay tune for the recipe in my upcoming posts of my Chinese New Year cookies.

Right now, I would love to share with you some photos. Do check out what we did during the workshop. The cookies below are all decorated by {me..mua}. Taking a lot of deep breaths and holding them in to have steady hands. {phew} I'm so proud of myself for doing a good job.

Bridal Gown

Hearts

My very own "Peacock" theme

Wedding Tiered Cake "A HUGE hit"

So, for you soon to be newly weds, if you're interested in ordering from me, do let me know too. Or give me months in advance notice, so I could design, practise and whip something lovely for you.

Till then peeps! Oh and to all of you who are walking down the aisle, CONGRATULATIONS on your wedding.

For dessert, cookies and cake order inquiries, please write to

chicgorgeousdesserts {at} gmail {dot} com

xx

{Post-Christmas) Maple Butterscotch Pudding with Scotch Whisky

 

Admist of all the celebration, I now manage to find some little time to share with you what has been going on in my kitchen. Perhaps at the same time, I'm taking in some time to reflect on what has happen in the whole year of 2010. Lots has happen, from losing both my paternal and maternal grandma the same year just 2 weeks apart from one another, focusing on myself to be better, spend more time with family, and I did something which I never dreamt of doing. Joining FoodBuzz and now ever more so sure that I like to focus my blog on cooking, baking and some travels when I do get away.  

I know I may be late in posting some of these recipes, however, I really like to share them with you nevertheless. Also, below is the snippet of my Christmas Family Tree for Dec 2010. I have the tendency to change the theme yearly. Lol.. This year is Red and Gold.

Apart from my Celebration Cupcakes, I also made Maple Butterscotch Pudding and added a couple of tablespoon of whiskie {lol}. Am certainly living  the statement "Lets eat, drink and be merry!" Not to worry, this pudding is so simple to make and nothing of it is from express pudding mix. Did not cheat and use butterscotch morsels from Tollhouse too. Not forgetting to mention, this pudding recipe is adapted from another foodie, Lynn from I'll Have What She's Having. Infact, Lynn stopped by my blog and commented on one of my post and that's how I got to know her from there. She has a very delicious and attractive blog. And of course,  I found another foodie friend who inspires me.

Recipe
adapted from Lynn from I'll Have What She's Having

Ingredients:

4 tablespoons butter, salted or unsalted (i used unsalted butter)
3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cornstarch (like me, i ran out of cornstarch. so i substituted with tapioca flour, works the same)
3 cups whole milk 3 egg yolks
2 teaspoons Gelinotte Maple Liqueur (if unavailable use whisky or rum, or omit the alcohol; i opted for my mom's best scotch whisky)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To prepare maple butterscotch:

1. Melt the butter in a medium sized saucepan. Stir in the sugar, maple syrup and salt. Set aside.

2. In a small bowl mix the cornstarch/ tapioca flour with 1/4 cup of the milk until is completely dissolved. Whisk in the egg yolks.

3. Slowly pour the remaining milk into the butter and sugar, whisking constantly. Then add the cornstarch/ tapioca flour mixture.

4. Return the saucepan to the stove. Whisk constantly until the mixture starts to boil. Lower the heat and continue to whisk for one minute. The mixture should be quite thick.

5. Pour into 4 serving bowls and chill for at least four hours.

Note: I found some really cute Christmas theme mini cups to serve my butterscotch pudding. Since they were medium in size, I was able to fill 5 mini-medium sized cups.

Enjoy! 

xx 

Happy New Year 2011

Happy New Year 2011 everyone.. I sincerely like to thank everyone who stopped by my blog once a while and even some who have became a follower of my blog. Without your encouragement, I wouldn't have been able to do what I do best and love; which is cooking and baking.

So here is to all of you "A toast to our beautiful foodie friendship (Elisabeth, Lizzie, Gina, Kimberly, Alicia, Alina, erm.. apologise if I left out a few, but you all know who you are ;p) and may you have a healthy and prosperous year ahead. I can't wait to get back into action and definitely can't wait to see what you all will be whipping up next".

P/S: Do continue to check out my archives too for some gorgeous cupcake recipe. Lol..

Lots of love,
Jo