Lifestyle FOOD Bake Challenge

I know I have been gone for a loooong time.  And to come back just to ask for a favour is not the best thing in the world but I'll take my chances for whatever it's worth.

You see, I entered a cake of mine in an online competition just for fun.  It's mostly a popularity contest. However, Australian Bakeoff judges Matt Moran and Maggie Beer will choose their top 3 bakes from the 10 bakes who receive the most votes.  Only the judges' choices will get prizes.

The cake I entered is the birthday cake I made for my first grandson.  Yes, you read that right!  I have a grandson.  His name is Lachlan and he is 15 months old now!  I have not shared this part of my personal life with you although without you knowing, I've actually shared some of the cakes I made for him for his baby showers (here and here) and baptism.  Maybe someday soon, I will tell you more about him and what it's like being a rather young grandma.

On Lachlan's first birthday last August, I made for him a 3D teddy bear cake which I so painstakingly made to look like his favourite teddy bear.  He loves his bear and doesn't go to bed without it!

His daddy (my second son) turned 21 just 5 days before his birthday so we held their party together.

To be honest, carving cakes is not my thing.  Never did it before and so it really took all the powers in me to pull it off.  I was so happy that I did!

Anyway, back to the contest...

Again, the goal here is just to get my entry to the Top 10.  From there, it will be up to the judges.  I have not seen any teddy bear cake entries yet so I sort of have high hopes for my cake to win.  But I do need your help for this to happen. Pretty please?

You don't have to sign up for anything.  All you need to do is go to my entry page and click on the VOTE button.  That's it.  You are allowed to vote once a day.  If you vote for me once,  I will appreciate it very much.  If you will take the time to vote for me everyday till the end of the competition on the 13th of December, then I would love you for it :)  And I would love you even more if you share the link with your friends and ask them to vote as well.  Is that asking too much? Hope not! :)

Thank you very much! I will surely let you know how it goes!



PS.  Just to let you know too, I am working on a second book.  And I am working on new cakes as well.  Being a grandma just takes too much time away from baking and sitting in front of the computer that's why it's taking so long to finish. I love being a grandma though!

Buttercream roses galore!

I used to really dread piping buttercream roses.  Simple reason - I couldn't do it, no matter how hard I tried.  No matter how many YouTube video tutorials I watched.  No matter what kind of buttercream I used.  The easy way out for me had always been to just mould the roses from gumpaste.

After several years of being disappointed at myself, however, I can finally and proudly say that I have conquered the buttercream rose!  So much so, that now, I look forward to every opportunity to make them.

All these roses were made using Swiss meringue buttercream (no shortening) which many even consider too soft for this purpose.  Well let me tell you, it can be done!

I find that freezing the roses before placing them on the cake really makes the process so much easier. What I always do now is make my buttercream first, then pipe my roses (which I set aside in the freezer right after), frost my cake, pipe my borders then arrange the roses last.  Less stress!

One more thing - I'll let you in on my secret?  I don't use the usual rose tip #104 anymore.  The larger tip #124 is so much better.  Don't know why.  Just is, for me.

Now my new goal is to learn how to write properly on the cake!  My writing is almost always off center or crooked, too big or too small. :(  Oh well, one thing at a time!

Have a good week.

My life in the last 1 1/2 months

It seems to me that nowadays,  I always have to start my blog post by apologizing for being away for a long time.  I don't want to do that all the time but guess what?  I just did again!  I wish I had exerted more effort in telling you about the interesting things I have done in the last couple of months...not when I've nearly forgotten about them but when they were still very fresh in my memory.

The school holidays ended just over a week ago and two of my kids are back in school and the two older ones still waiting for theirs to start.  Now that I think about it, no matter how really long it was in reality, the holidays still felt like they just came and went.  My only brother with me here in Australia left for the US in early December with his family while a lot of our friends also spent Christmas elsewhere.  Poor us!  We felt so alone in what's supposed to be the most joyous time of the year.  We invited a Filipino family over for dinner shortly after the 25th to have some company.  It gave me the chance to make some cathedral windows, something I haven't made in such a long, long while.  Now I remember why I love this dessert so much.

It's so beautiful, isn't it?

Not to be entirely left behind, my family did have a short getaway at Phillip Island after New Year.  For those who do not know, Phillip Island is a famous destination here in Victoria.  It is south of Melbourne, about 2 hours drive from our home. 

This is where I was on my birthday!

We spent 3 days and nights there.  The best part of the trip for me was witnessing the penguin parade.  What amazing creatures those penguins are! Too bad, photography wasn't allowed.  Apart from watching the penguins, seeing a kangaroo actually crossing the road was an experience in itself!

Also in January, my eldest son Francis turned 20.  Yes, 20! I could hardly believe it myself.  Last year, at about that time, we had just arrived in the Philippines from Singapore.  We celebrated his 19th birthday with a cake from Estrel's, remember?.  This year, I thought of replicating that cake in a smaller size.

The lengthy holidays also gave me the opportunity to sew.  Yes, you read that right.  I sewed.  With the summer weather becoming extremely hot (especially during the Australian Open), I quickly whipped up three pairs of shorts for me.  I also drafted a pattern for Envirosax-inspired bags and made two.  I used an actual Envirosax bag to make my pattern so they are exactly the same size, shape and make as the original one.  Yey for more shopping bags!

The blue one is made of ripstop nylon while the printed one is actually from an unused shower curtain!

I've been contemplating on making instructions for this but since the pattern is huge, I still have think about how I am going to cut it up to make it printable.  Stay tuned for that (no promises though!).

Let me see...hmmm, what else?  Oh, I also tried baking something new.  I made coffee buns for one. They're delicious but I think I would rather buy them than go through all the hassle of making them myself.  Too many steps!

Another thing I learned to make in recent times was the San Nicolas cookie,  a popular and traditional cookie from the province of Pampanga (where my father is from) in the Philippines.  A friend had sent me a wooden mould and just a day after I received it, I gave it a go.

The cookies looked stunning, with the imprint of the Virgin Mary carrying the baby Jesus, very evident.   However, they didn't appeal to my children that much, with my youngest commenting that it was too plain-tasting.  Couldn't contend with that because it was actually true.

My experience in making the San Nicolas cookie led to me to search for cookie moulds on the internet. This brought me to a most beautiful discovery - the springerle cookie.  The cookie moulds are just to die for!  I wasted no time and ordered a couple (and was sent a free tiny mould too!). Took me a while to try making the cookies but finally found time last week.  I will make the chocolate variation next!

Here are the uncooked cookies being air-dried before baking.  Just look at those details.

Aren't those just the most amazing looking cookies?

How about cronuts (or zonuts, as Adriano Zumbo calls them here)?  Taste Magazine featured Mr. Zumbo's recipe for his zonuts in its maiden issue in September. A little daunting but it wasn't something I was afraid to try.  Sadly, my attempt on making them proved to be a disaster. 

Everything went well in the beginning but I soon found out that making a butter-rich dough was a big no-no in very hot weather!  As the cut cronuts were sitting to rise before frying, the butter within the layers of dough started melting.  I wonder if I should have just let them rise slowly in the fridge?  Because the butter melted, the layers of dough separated upon frying.  I only got a few pieces done that actually resembled cronuts.  Seeing the amount of butter oozing out of each cronut actually turned me off from ever trying this again.

Speaking of Taste Magazine, I entered their Cook the Cover competition in November.  It was for ice cream sandwiches.

Unfortunately, I didn't win :(.  However, when I bought the January issue not long after, I found a really pleasant surprise!

The magazine printed my photo!  There were just 8 entries chosen, 2 of which were the winners.  I was quite elated and felt that I had somehow won too :).  Now I'm inspired to join again!  Maybe I'll even be luckier the second time around.

Last but not the least, let us not forget more cakes!  There were so many but my latest favourite are these two, quite identical, baptismal cakes, one for a baby girl and the other for a baby boy.

The gumpaste babies were made using a First Impressions mould.  I loved using it.  The babies were just so life-like!

Well, this is quite a long post now and hopefully, more than makes up for my away time. I hope that even if I didn't share a recipe or a tutorial here, the many things I shared will be enough to interest you in learning a new skill or in exploring something unfamiliar to you. 

That's about how my life has been in the last 1 1/2 months in a nutshell.  That, plus watching every single episode of The Big Bang Theory!  Till next.  Enjoy the rest of your week.

Speculoos

What is the fuss about this stuff?  I just want to know. 

The supposedly famous cookie butter isn't available in supermarkets here so it wasn't that easy to research.  Surprisingly, I found the dutch spiced cookies.

I am not a big fan of anything spiced but these cookies were alright I guess.  It's not something I would think of buying again though.  No one else was attracted to it in our household.  Perhaps it was the foreign sounding name or the word 'spiced' that scared them off.

I found the bottled cookie butter online, in a Dutch shop.  The original Speculoos cost me $7.65 while the crunchy one, a bit more at $8.65.  Plus I had to pay for shipping.  Pricey compared to similar sized peanut butter or Nutella.  Curiosity can be expensive, don't you think so?

I had an initial taste with a teaspoon.  Yum, I liked it.  But the next day, I tried it on bread and it absolutely didn't work for me.  Cookies in a sandwich doesn't cut it for me. Yeah, peanut butter or Nutella still wins.

Next, I made some Speculoos macarons.  They looked really beautiful and enticing. I figured that if I put this thing on macarons, my kids would devour them.  

I was wrong....my youngest son didn't even bother going anywhere near it when I told him what it was.  The macarons did get eaten eventually.  Slowly.  I had to ask my daughter to bring some to school to give away. 

A friend suggested speculoos ice cream.  That was a great idea as I've been making ice cream constantly this past month or so.  Even though it's winter here. 

This thing was soooooo creamy.  I could not eat more than one scoop at a time.  Usually, a batch of homemade ice cream (about 1.5 liters) lasts no more than 2 days in our house.  This speculoos ice cream has been in the freezer for about a week.  It is nearly finished now.  Just like the macarons, it is going ever so slowly.

So again, what's the fuss about speculoos?  You tell me.

The year that was all about baking (again)

I ended 2012 with a doll cake....

And started 2013 with vanilla macarons.

Nice, yeah? If I had to name one great baking achievement for me last year, it would hands down be conquering the macaron.

I know it's a cliche to say that time went by so fast.  But it is so true.  It really did.  For me, the year didn't go from day to day.  Or week to week......  It went from cake to cake.  My calendar was filled with what cake to bake on this day, what cake to decorate the next.  I hope that didn't sound like I was complaining.

We are going on a holiday overseas in less than 2 weeks so I have been forbidden by my family to make any more cakes till we get back.  I need a break.  I guess we all do.

Actually, I have not been feeling very well since yesterday.  A virus has been going around our family since before Christmas. So yes, a good rest is in order.

2012 was a terribly busy year.  I did not blog as much.  I don't even remember if I shared any new recipes or tutorials.  I think I did make two new patterns early on and that was about it (as far as sewing is concerned).  See? Can't even recall.  Everything seems such a blur.

The new school year commences as soon as we return from our trip.  We will have two graduations in the family this year, one from Year 12 and one from Year 6.  Those are certainly something to look forward to!

Hope you all had a great start to the year.  Will be back soon!

Life lessons

In the car, on our daily travel to school, is when I have the most interesting conversations with my youngest son, Matthew.  Usually, he starts off by relating to me something that had happened in school or with his friends, then I end up talking about my views and  my own experiences when I was younger.  He fondly calls these conversations "life lessons".

Although I sometimes feel Matthew gets annoyed with all my ramblings, I just get on with it just the same. I'm pretty sure he'll remember these times when he's older and then he'll realize how much he had learned from being stuck in the car with me!

Well, today, I have some life lessons for you, too.  These are things that I am certain you already know though.  Let's just put them in another perspective, shall we?

LIFE LESSON #1: There are no such things as accidents.  Everything happens for a reason.

I have baked hundreds and hundreds of macarons in the past few months but have never perfected a single batch. Some would come out great, a lot of them hollow.  Some smooth and shiny, some wrinkled.  I have used a variety of recipes, baking temperatures, and baking time. Bought different brands of almond meal.  Compared silicone mats versus parchment paper.  Pure icing sugar versus one with cornstarch.  Copper bowl versus stainless steel with cream of tartar. The list goes on and on.

On yet another macaron baking session yesterday, confusion had me whip too much eggwhites for my almond/sugar mixture.  Upon realizing it, I tried to rectify the situation as much as I could.  In so doing, I could not follow the recipe to a tee.  You know what?  It yielded my best macarons ever!  Not one cracked shell.  No hollows.  No sticking.  Perfect.

Pistachio macarons with pistachio buttercream.

I made 43 in total!

See, not hollow!

That mistake was meant to happen.  The macarons could have turned out badly and I would have ended up frustrated again.  BUT it didn't. I am so happy that now, I can rest from all the experimentations.  I think I finally have a recipe and method I could rely on.

LIFE LESSON #2:   Cramming, in general, is not good. BUT sometimes, we get the best results under pressure.

I received a request for a golf-themed cake last week but had to turn it down initially because of the short notice and because I was already quite busy with other cakes.  More importantly, I did not know anything about golf or how to go about making golf-related decorations.  

Two days before the cake was needed, I decided to go ahead with it anyway.  I don't know why, but working hard till late at night seems to be my thing. I could never get to sleep until I am satisfied with what I've done.

Golf-themed birthday cake for a 12 year old.

A little bit of imagination (and a lot of Google help!) can go a long way.

The cake is very simple and yet, I love it.  I am very glad I did go through making this as it has turned out to be one of my favourites!

LIFE LESSON #3:  Don't be afraid to try something new and to take risks.  Keep on challenging yourself!

Normally, I would experiment first before doing the real thing but in this particular case, I decided to take the risk and give it a go. 

Giant cucpake bouquet with a dark chocolate cupcake patty pan!

I made my first ever giant cupcake for my brother's recent birthday party.  I've had the jumbo cupcake silicone pan for ages but was too lazy to use it.  When I came upon these series of videos on YouTube, I was encouraged to try it.  It was a success!

No one wanted to cut it or rather, no one knew how!

I finally had to do the job myself!

I loved making the giant cupcake so much, I created a similar one for my husband's birthday just a few days after.  This one had a white chocolate cupcake "liner".

My family is telling me now that I should start offering cakes like these.  Hmmm...something to definitely consider.

Even with the smallest things we do, though unimportant they might seem, we learn something from them, don't we? Feel free to share some of your life lessons too!