Gingerbread House ☃☃❄

December is my favourite month of the year! I have got lots of Christmas baking ideas I would love to make, gingerbread house is first on the list :-D I changed last year's ginerbread house recipe a little bit by using black treacle, I really like the subtle caramel flavour from the black treacle, it goes so well with the spices in the cookies.

I only managed to bake all the pieces for the gingerbread house, but didnt have enough time to build it before Kristina's Christmas Party, Kristina is now going to take this home to her family : ) one of her friends suggested maybe i could have just brought the pieces to the party, so everyone can build together, i will prob try next year :-P

Gingerbread House

For the Gingerbread House

250g unsalted butter
180g dark muscovado sugar
7 tbsp black Treacle
580g plain flour
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp mixed spice

For the Decoration

1 bag of marshmallow (or selection sweets of your choice)
1 tube of 125g jelly diamonds (or selection sweets of your choice)
4 candle canes (or selection sweets of your choice)

2 egg whites
480g icing sugar
A Gingerbread House template (A4 size below)

Methods

1. Preheat oven to 180C.
2. Melt the butter, sugar and treacle in a pan.
3. Mix the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ground ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and mixed spice into a large bowl.
4. Stir in the melted butter mixture to make a soft and smooth dough. If the dough is bit dry, add a tiny splash of water for the dough to come together,
5. Prepare and cut out the template of two side walls, a front and back wall and two roof panels.
6. Put a sheet of baking paper on your work surface and roll about one quarter of the dough to 0.8cm thick.
7. Cut out one of the sections according to the template, then slide the gingerbread onto a baking tray lined with baking sheet.
8. Repeat with remaining dough, re-rolling the trimmings, until you have two side walls, a front and back wall and two roof panels.
9. Any leftover dough can be cut into Christmas trees/gingerbread man/stars.
10. Bake all the sections for 10 mins, turn and bake the other side for 5 mins until firm and just a little darker at the edges.
11. Leave to cool for a few mins to firm up, then trim around the templates again to give clean, sharp edges. Leave to cool completely.

12. Put the egg whites in a large bowl, sift in the icing sugar, then stir to make a thick, smooth icing. Spoon into a piping bag with a medium nozzle.
13. Pipe the decorations on the house before it is assembled.
14. Pipe the windows, roof tiles, doors or any design of your choice over the outside of the house. Stick the sweets onto the walls and door of the house with some icing.

15. Leave them to dry completely.
16. To assemble, pipe a thick line of icing along the wall edges, one by one, to join the walls together.
14. Use a small mug/bowl/box to support the walls from the inside, then allow to dry completely.
15. Once dry, remove the supports and fix the roof panels on. The angle is steep so you may need to hold these on firmly for a few mins until the icing starts to dry. Dry completely, ideally overnight.
16. Dust the roof with icing sugar and edible glitter for a snowy effect.
17. Your gingerbread house will be edible for about a week but will last a lot longer.

Despicable Me 2 Minion Cake

I have got into this Minion Fever since I first made the Minion Cake for Kayden, I was so looking forward to the release of Despicable Me 2 DVD after I watched the first one, and I want to make all cakes and cupcakes with Minions! I was very happy when I get to make this Minion Cake for Aryan & Maryam's birthday the weekend before :-D

The cake was in alternate chocolate and banoffee layers with chocolate buttercream and ganache, it was so fun to make : )

Next Minion cake I would like to make would be Minion Cupcakes like the one Minion Dave made in the movie! :-O

Homemade Teddy Bear Chocolate Marshmallows ( 'ェ' )

I have seen comments about how homemade marshmallows taste so much better than store-bought one, I totally agree after I made some myself, the homemade ones are so much softer, more fluffy, more airy and less sweet! These yummy springy pillow-soft marshmallows are very easy to make, the longer you whisk the mixture the more fluffy the marshmallows are, a stand mixer really helps : )

Chocolate Marshmallows

Ingredients

Marshmallow Dusting

2 tbsp confectioners sugar
2 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Gelatin Mixture

24g powered gelatin
90ml water
2 tbsp vanilla bean extract
2 tbsp chocolate extract

Sugar Syrup

310g sugar
90ml water
150ml light corn syrup (you can find this from American grocery)
1/4 tsp salt

Cocoa paste

30g cocoa powder
60ml hot water

Utensils

8 inches square tin
cookie cutters
candy thermometer

Method

1. Grease and line the tin with baking parchment, lightly dust with marshmallow dusting.

2. Fit a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Put the water and extract in the mixing bowl, sprinkle the powdered gelatin over the liquid to soften.
3. Put the water, sugar, salt and light corn syrup in a heavy saucepan, bring to a boil with the lid on and without stirring. Remove the lid When the sugar syrup starts to boil, continue to cook without stirring until it reaches 115C.

4. Attached the splash guard to the mixing bowl, Carefully pour 1/4 of the hot sugar syrup into the gelatin mixture, whisk at low speed for half a min until the gelatin are dissolved. Pause and pour in the remaining hot sugar syrup, whisk the mixture at medium speed for a min, then bring to high speed and whisk for 10 mins until the marshmallow is stiff and fluffy.

5. In a small bowl, dissolve the cocoa powder with hot water. Stir in 4 tablespoon of the marshmallow mixture and mix until incorporated.
6. Add the cocoa mixture back into the marshmallow, slightly fold them together to create a marble effect.
7. Pour the cocoa marshmallow mixture into the prepared tin, smooth the top with a knife.

8. Allow the mixture to sit uncovered at room temp for 12 hours. Do not refrigerate the marshmallows.
9. Turn the marshmallow out onto a dusted cutting board, peel off paper and dust with more marshmallow dusting.

10. Dip cookie cutters with some marshmallow dusting and cut marshmallow out into desired shape.

11. Store marshmallows in an airtight container at cool room temperature for up to 2 week. Enjoy!

❄ ❅ Christmassy Bauble Cakes ❃ ❋

Stir-up Sunday is the last Sunday before Advent, which is the traditional start of the Christmas season, and falls on 24 Nov (today) this year. The name came from the collect for the day from the Book of Common Prayer which begins: "Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord ..." and traditionally this is the day for the whole family to involve in mixing up all ingredients to make a Christmas cake/pudding ♡ 

I believe decorating Christmas cakes like these baubles will steal the show at the festive table ☃ these designs were inspired by Makis Cake.

Bauble Cakes

I am using madeira cake as demonstration, you can use any other cake recipe.

Ingredients

Madeira cake
(makes 6 baubles)

250g butter, at room temperature

250g caster sugar

4 eggs, beaten

2 tbsp vanilla bean extract

5 tbsp milk

350g self-raising flour

60g raspberry jam (or any jam or ganache of your choice)

Buttercream

250g butter

500g icing sugar

2 tbsp vanilla bean extract

Decoration 

1kg fondant

assorted food colour gel

royal icing

edible lustre dust

edible glitter

Utensils

2 x Silicone Half Sphere Mould, each sphere is 7cm diameter (you can find this in amazon or ebay)

Method

To make the cake: 

1. Preheat oven to 170C. Lightly grease the half sphere mould.

2. Cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually add in the eggs and milk.

3. Sift the flour into the mixture, beat until the mixture is well incorporated.

4. Spoon the mixture into the mould. Bake in the oven for 25 mins until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

5. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely. Gently turn them out from the mould to avoid them from sticking, put them back into the mould and chill in the fridge for 30 mins.

6. Remove from the fridge. Carefully core out the centre of each cake and fill some jam inside. Set aside.

To make the buttercream: 

7. Beat butter until fluffy, gradually beat in icing sugar and vanilla extract.

To decorate:

8. Sandwich the cake sphere with some buttercream, chill in the fridge for 30 mins until set and two sphere are stick together.

9. Ice the whole cake balls with a layer of buttercream, chill in the fridge for 1 hour or preferably overnight until set.

10. On a clean surface, lightly dust some corn flour/icing sugar, colour a portion of fondant with a tiny little bit of colour gel. Knead the fondant until the colour become consistent. Roll out the fondant and cut a disc out that is a bit larger than the cake diameter, cover the cake with fondant. Repeat with other colour and cover the rest of cake with fondant.

11. Leave the iced cake to dry for a few hours.

12. Brush some lustre dust onto the cake balls. Decorate and pipe with some royal icing.

Blue High Heel Shoe with Bow and Jewel Cake

This is another shoe cake ordered by Gurveen for the birthday of her two friends, Navya and Ishita last weekend : ) how sweet it is! similar technique in making the shoe like I did for Christian Louboutin Shoe Box Cake a few weeks ago, all edible :-D. This time no fondant was used to cover the cake, it is pure vanilla buttercream outside,  rich chocolate cake and chocolate ganahe buttercream inside ❤

The birthday girl likes blue so we designed this blue high heel shoe with big bow and glitter jewel/brooch for her : )

The gold buttercream piping really fits the theme and elegantly shows off the shoe : )

Pumpkin Chiffon Cheesecake

It is the pumpkin time of the year to go trick or treat!!! Have a Happy Halloween everyone :-D

Pumpkin Chiffon Cheesecake

Ingredients 

4 egg yolks
50g pumpkin puree
50g cream cheese
1 tbsp milk
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp mixed spice
50g plain flour

4 egg whites
70g sugar
50g pumpkin seeds

Utensils

5 inches round angel/chiffon/bundt baking tube tin

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170C degree.
2. Beat egg yolks, pumpkin puree, cream cheese, milk, vegetable oil until combined.
3. Sift in mixed spice and plain flour until well incorporated.
4. In a seperate clean bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy, then gradually add in the sugar and whisk until very stiff.
5. Add a big scoop of egg white mixture into the pumpkin mixture and mix well, gently fold in the remaining egg white mixture into the pumpkin mixture without deflating the mixture.
6. Mix in the pumpkin seeds.
7. Carefully pour into the mixture into the tin, smooth the top and bake for about 20-25 mins.
8. Remove the tin from the oven and invert the tin. Leave to cool and gently run a knife around the sides to remove from the baking tin.

Christian Louboutin Pigalle Shoe Box Cake! ❤

No fashionista can dispute her shoe collection is complete without a pair of Louboutins. Chic shoe-lover Fatinah is a big fan of Christian Louboutin's signature sky high red-soled heels, Namit wanted to surprise her with this Louboutin shoe cake for her birthday.

The shoe was made of fondant and shoe box was a belgium chocolate cake with chocolate ganache buttercream. I was asked a lot of times where I got the shoe from, I actually did make it myself :) lol

I tried to sculpt and replicate this Louboutin pump cake topper as closely as possible by tracing, measuring all the curves/angles and making templates from my real shoe, otherwise it would just look like a normal pump.

and the shoe box definitely needed a bar code label to finish :)

Iced Parisian Poodle Dog and Eiffel Tower Sugar Cookies

One of the fun things to do on a rainy day is bake cookies and make the kitchen full of freshly baked cookie smell! To me the more fun part is to decorate cookies with icing :-D

I have been collecting various kind of cookie cutters, Poodle Dog and Eiffel Tower make a very pretty Parisian theme. I wanted to play more with royal icing, I thought piping the Eiffel Towers was difficult, but it is actually quite easy especially with a very small writing nozzle (I used Wilton size #1 writing nozzle).

Iced Parisian Poodle Dog and Eiffel Tower Sugar Cookies

Make about 12 large cookies, depends on how large your cookie cutters are.

Ingredients

125g butter, softened
125g sugar
1 pinch of salt
1 tbsp lime zest (or lemon/orange zest or vanilla bean paste)
1 egg
250g flour, plus extra for dusting

Equipments

Cookie cutters of your choice, I used Poodle Dog and Eiffel Tower Cookie Cutters
Writing Nozzles Wilton size #1 and #2

Methods

1. Cream butter, sugar, salt and zest together until pale and fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined.
2. Sift the flour in and mix until just combined.
3. Cover the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes or until firm.
4. After chilling, roll the dough into 5mm thick on a lightly floured surface.
5. Use cookies cutters to cut the dough into your desired shapes, place them on a parchment lined baking sheet, chill them for 30min or until firm, this will prevent the cookies from spreading.
6. Preheat the oven to 180C. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes. Cool the cookies with the baking tray on a wire rack.

Royal Icing

Ingredients

450g icing sugar
30g egg white/meringue powder
1 tsp cream of tartar
vanilla or lemon extract
150ml warm water
a few drop of food colouring of your choice

Methods

1. Put icing sugar, egg white powder and cream of tartar in a large grease-free mixing bowl, beat with a hand-held electric mixer until well blended.
2. Add in water and extract gradually, beat on high speed until icing is very thick and glossy, about 5 minutes.
3. The soft-peak icing can be thickened with more icing sugar to pipe the outlines, and the runny icing can be loosened with a few drop of water to flood and fill the outlined shapes.
4. Keep icing covered in damped towel at all times when it is not being used.
5. Divide into a few bowls for different colour, add food coloring and mix well with a teaspoon.
6. Use a piping bag fitted with size #2 nozzle to pipe the soft-peak icing around edges of cookies and make designs.
7. Flood (fill) the cookies with the runny icing, allow the icing to dry completely before adding the next layer.

(Optional) Add some sparkling sugar on the fur of the poodle dogs :)

8. For the Eiffel Tower, thicken the icing by mixing in some icing sugar until a bit sifter, use a piping bag fitted with size #1 writing nozzle to pipe the Eiffel Tower designs.

Love Birds Strawberry and Chocolate Mousse Engagement Cake

Two of my best friends Azzy and Omar got engaged was definitely the greatest news of the month! How wonderful it is to see how they first met, became close friends, started dating, were in a long-distance relationship because of work, now happily got engaged and going to start the next chapter of their lives together. We are all so ecstatic or them taking this exciting step together!

I have been making cakes for Azzy's birthdays, we always do and celebrate lots of things together : ) this time the cake was made for their engagement party! Azzy likes strawberries and Omar likes chocolate, this Strawberry and Chocolate Mousse Cake seemed to best match (like the couple themselves) for this special occasion ❤

As fondant would be too heavy and not suitable for a mousse cake with fresh fruits, I used tempered white chocolate for the sides, so I could put more strawberries around as decoration (strawberries and white chocolate go so well together). The party was also to welcome Omar home, this love birds design were made to surprise the couple : )

Wishing both of you all the best with the lead-up to the wedding and for the future. 

I think I havent put Azzy's birthday cake here yet, I guess her 2013 birthday wish has come true now? ;-)

Lots of love xoxoxoxo

Despicable Me Minion Cake

This Minion Cake was made for Elizabeth's son Kayden's 5th birthday, he is a big fan of the Minons, I also think the Minions from Despicable Me are definitely the cutest and funniest cartoon characters Universal Studios has created!

This is a carrot cake with orange buttercream, the number 5 was for Kayden's 5th birthday, it was so fun to make such a cute Minion cake :-D

Happy Birthday to Kayden again, hope he had a great Minion Birthday : )

If you havent watch this, this Minion's banana video is one of the best!

Sweet Taro Chiffon Marble Cake

Not sure if I have seen any Taro in the supermarkets/markets in London, it is quite common in SE Asia, we use it for dessert and savoury dishes, I have tried many yummy cakes made from taro in Japan and I certainly miss them! I managed to find some taro powder from a cake ingredients supplier back home, I used it to make a simple chiffon marble cake which bring out the lovely flavour and purple colour perfectly. This taro cake is really soft and yummy, the fragrant of taro is very similar to vanilla, if you like taro bubble tea, you will like this too : )

I think Taro powder can also be found from some Asian groceries store.

Taro Chiffon Marble Cake

Ingredients

4 egg whites

100g sugar

120g unsalted butter (at room temperature)

80g sugar

4 egg yolks

2 tbsp milk

20g plain flour

50g taro powder (can substitute with cocoa/green tea powder or lemon/orange zest)

100g plain flour

2 tbsp sesame

Utensils

A 23 x 13-cm loaf tin, greased and lined with baking paper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C. In a mixing bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy, then gradually add in 100g sugar and whisk until stiff. Set Aside

2. In a seperate bowl, cream butter and sugar together until the colour turns pale, Stir in egg yolks and milk, mix well.

3. Divide the butter mixture into 2 portions and put them into 2 bowls.

4. Add 1/4 of egg white mixture to one portion, sieve in 10g plain flour and half of the taro powder, mix until well combined. Repeat with another 1/4 egg white mixture, 10g plain flour and the remaining taro powder, mix well until incorporated. Set aside.

5. For the other bowl of butter mixture, add 1/4 of egg white mixture and sieve in 50g plain flour, mix well. Repeat with the remaining 1/4 egg white mixture and 50g plain flour.

6. Gently pour in half of the taro and then the plain mixture into the prepared tin, alternating the flavours to give a marble effect.

7. Sprinkle the sesame on the top of the mixture, bake for 45mins until the skewer come out clean. Enjoy : )