Saturday, March 26, 2011

Rachel's baby shower cake





So I made this cake for Rachel's baby shower. To be honest, I was quite pleased with it, even though making it was one of the most frustrating processes ever. Cake decoration is never easy and a small kitchen does not help! Either which way, I completely blame the gum paste. It was way too moist and soft and it was just too difficult to manipulate it in the way I wanted to. So while the Copha (copha cabana... that song ALWAYS pops into my head everytime I say Copha. And YES, I know the song is COPA Cabana!) helped alot, I think I got over-excited and used too much of it. My new resolution? Plans my cakes way way way ahead.... colour the gumpaste ahead of time and where possible, make the figurines ahead of time too.

Suppose a baby mouse would have to do!!

For this cake I originally envisioned some baby shoes and a baby giraffe - but then I forgot to print the template for the baby shoes and Luke had gone to bed (the printer is in Luke's room) and then I didn't have any brown food colouring or the materials to make modelling chocolate, so I couldn't make the giraffe either. I didn't know the gender of the baby which makes it a little most difficult to make the cake, but hey, I'm always up for the challenge!



I flipped through the Cake Characters book that Yvonne gave me for my birthday last year, and found a few things I could use. I had made the baby blankie before for Luke's 30th, but because the gum paste was so soft and sticky, it took me an hour to get it right. An HOUR! For the baby blankie, which was the EASIEST thing to make!

Anyway, it all worked out well. For the cake, I made a Chocolate Dump-It Cake with a jammy filling and chocolate frosting. I got the recipe from Honor, who is an absolute baking whiz. She made this cake for a birthday morning tea at work and it was to DIE for!! My cake didn't turn out quite like hers, but I think the taste was almost there. Rachel told me that they all enjoyed it and that she wanted the recipe. The recipe below:

CHOCOLATE DUMP-IT CAKE

Ingredients for the cake

2 cups of sugar
113g of unsweetened chocolate
113g of unsalted butter
1 cup of water
2 cups of plain flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup whole milk (I used low fat though as that was what I had at home)
1 tsp cider vinegar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Method

Pre heat the oven to 190 degrees celcius.
Mix the sugar chocolate, butter and water in the saucepan, place over medium heat and stir occasionally until all of the ingredients are melted and blended.
Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly.
Sift the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl stir together milk and vinegar.
Once the chocolate mixture has cooled abit, whisk in the milk mixture and eggs.
Add the dry ingredients - DO NOT OVERMIX.
Pop into the oven for 30-35 mins.

For the frosting, mix 1.5 cups of chocolate chips (melt them) with 1.5 cups of sour cream.

And because I didn't have brown food colouring or modelling chocolate, I decided to make a white teddy bear

Even though it took me forever to make the little figurines, I was pretty pleased with the cake. For once, laying the fondant wasn't a drama, the only downside of that was that I poked a hole in the fondant when I was cutting the sides, which I was pretty annoyed about. But hey, it was 4 in the morning and I was tired! :)

Cutting the letters was hard!!! I think I'm going to get some little alphabet cutters. And for the future, I'm not going to use the black on these colours - it was way too dark.


Hope you liked the cake Rachel!!!

Dry fried french beans...

Ok, so one of my weird things is that I don't order vegetables when I eat out. It's not one of those OCD things, but I just don't believe in paying that much for vegetables. If I am going to pay for something, it better be something that I don't know how to cook, and it should be meat. If it comes with vegetables, I will still eat it, but It's not weird weird, per se. It's just a belief!

The one exception to that rule were these delicious french beans at one of my favourite restaurants, Written on Tea. At my friend Lakshmi's birthday dinner, I tried this dish, and I was hooked. I wanted to order it the next time I was there, but the person I was with had no interest in ordering the dish. A skeptic. Like me, before I was given the opportunity to have these delicious little things!!

So anyway, I decided to try out this recipe I found on Google:

Ingredients

  • 200g green beans
  • 150g minced pork
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 mini thumb sized ginger
  • 2 dried chili (well, really depending on how spicy you want it); and
  • 1 teaspoon of chili flakes (as above - depends on how spicy you want it).
Sauce
  • Dark soy sauce
  • Regular (light) soy sauce
  • Sugar
  • Sesame seed oil


This wasn't enough, btw - I added more beans after
Method

  • Fry the beans in oil until they become wrinkly (about 2 mins) - as for me, I left it in there for a tad longer than I needed to, so the beans might have been overcooked. They still tasted good though!
  • Dry the beans on some paper towels.
  • Leave a tablespoon of oil in the wok and add the chili, the garlic and the ginger.
  • Add the pork and fry until all the pork is cooked through.
  • Add the beans and sauce ingredients and cook for about a minute.



And enjoy!!!


I think the taste was almost there. I daresay that the Written on Tea version was better but hey, for a first go, it was not bad at all. And for a fraction of the price, I would do it again for sure! :)

Cameron...

I'm back!!!

Yes, I have been away, but only because I have been crazy busy at work  and by the time I get home, I collapse on the couch and am dead to the world by 9pm. But yes, I'm back with a new partner in crime:

That's right. Luke and I have invested in a digital SLR. And word on the street is that this is the best entry level camera there is on the market. So we researched on ebay. The price was right, and the purchase was made!! Welcome little camera. I think I will name you Cameron. Cameron the Camera. (yes, I am very creative).

Cameron's stats are as follows:

TypeDigital single-lens reflex camera
SensorCMOS APS-C 22.2 x 14.8 mm (1.6x conversion factor)
Maximum resolution10.1 effective megapixels, 3,888 x 2,592
LensCanon EF lens mount, Canon EF-S lens mount
FlashE-TTL II automatic built-in pop-up, 13m ISO 100 guide number, 27mm (equivalent in 135 format) lens focal length coverage; compatible with Canon EX Series Speedlite external hotshoe-mount flashes
Shutterfocal-plane
Shutter speed range1/4000 to 30 s and Bulb, 1/200 s X-sync
Exposure meteringFull aperture TTL, 35-zone SPC
Exposure modesFull Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports, Night Portrait, No Flash, Program AE , Shutter-priority, Aperture-priority, Manual, Auto Depth-of-field
Metering modesEvaluative, Partial (approx. 10% at center of viewfinder), Center-weighted average
Focus areas7 AF points
Focus modesAI Focus, One-Shot, Predictive AI Servo, Live Mode in Live View; Quick Mode in Live View
Continuous shooting3 fps for 514 JPEG frames or 1.5 fps for 5 RAW frames
ViewfinderEye-level pentamirror SLR, 95% coverage, 0.81x magnification
ASA/ISO rangeISO 100 to 1600
Flash bracketingYes
Custom WBAuto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash, Manual, user-set
WB bracketing± 3 stops in 1-stop increments;
Rear LCD monitor2.5 in color TFT LCD, 230,000 pixels
StorageSecure Digital Card
Secure Digital High Capacity
BatteryLP-E5 Battery Pack
Dimensions126.1 x 97.5 x 61.9 mm
Weight450 g (body only)
Optional battery packsBG-E5


TypeDigital single-lens reflex camera
SensorCMOS APS-C 22.2 x 14.8 mm (1.6x conversion factor)
Maximum resolution10.1 effective megapixels, 3,888 x 2,592
LensCanon EF lens mount, Canon EF-S lens mount
FlashE-TTL II automatic built-in pop-up, 13m ISO 100 guide number, 27mm (equivalent in 135 format) lens focal length coverage; compatible with Canon EX Series Speedlite external hotshoe-mount flashes
Shutterfocal-plane
Shutter speed range1/4000 to 30 s and Bulb, 1/200 s X-sync
Exposure meteringFull aperture TTL, 35-zone SPC
Exposure modesFull Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports, Night Portrait, No Flash, Program AE , Shutter-priority, Aperture-priority, Manual, Auto Depth-of-field
Metering modesEvaluative, Partial (approx. 10% at center of viewfinder), Center-weighted average
Focus areas7 AF points
Focus modesAI Focus, One-Shot, Predictive AI Servo, Live Mode in Live View; Quick Mode in Live View
Continuous shooting3 fps for 514 JPEG frames or 1.5 fps for 5 RAW frames
ViewfinderEye-level pentamirror SLR, 95% coverage, 0.81x magnification
ASA/ISO rangeISO 100 to 1600
Flash bracketingYes
Custom WBAuto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten Light, White Fluorescent Light, Flash, Manual, user-set
WB bracketing± 3 stops in 1-stop increments;
Rear LCD monitor2.5 in color TFT LCD, 230,000 pixels
StorageSecure Digital Card
Secure Digital High Capacity
BatteryLP-E5 Battery Pack
Dimensions126.1 x 97.5 x 61.9 mm
Weight450 g (body only)
Optional battery packsBG-E5

So is this the new thing that I've decided to dabble in? Yes, photography. And in particular, food photography. What can I say - I am greedy by nature. :)

So Cameron arrived on Friday and I have been busy snap snap snapping photos. I have added some to my Flickr photostream (and I have opened a Flickr account).

By the way, as I am writing this, I have got one eye on the television, and it is the opening round of the AFL Season. Adelaide plays Hawthorn. I should say now that I hate Hawthorn with a passion, and Adelaide is currently losing - so this is bringing terrible memories to Round 1 last year when Jill, Luz and I were in Melbourne watching my team get absolutely throttled.

So where was I? Well, long story short, I am back and will be updating more often and hopefully with better photos.

xx