Chocolat Surprise

A rich Secret Recipe-alike Ganache covering a cake with luxurious chocolate cream and chocolate sponge cake. Within it hides fresh seasonal mango cubes. What's there not to like? This was baked for Adrian as a secret surprise birthday gift which I delivered to his office in church. 

This recipe takes about 3 hours in all to put together and I'd rate it a 3 out of 5 in terms of difficulty. 

Rainbow Cake II

This weekend marks the end of my first week in school. Its been great so far being back to where I feel I belong: being a teacher. It has been challenging in terms of time management as I struggle to sleep early and wake up at 5am to get ready for school. Being a night owl (with a family of owls who don't sleep early), I struggle to sleep early. Anything before 12 midnight is not the norm in my household! But no such late nights for me any more as it would mean very few hours of sleep every night! Adjusting is indeed tough.

Nevertheless, I'm thankful that God has granted me with a great working environment that is coincidentally that fav boy's primary school that he used to attend! God has indeed a great sense of humour! 

In any case, I baked a cake for Rui En's first birthday party which was held at Downtown East Resort. This place sure brings back loads of memories. It's like the place for 'birthdays and celebrations', Singapore style. The favourite boy and I attended the party and the place sure brings back loads of memories. Anyway, this is the second rendition of the Rainbow Cake with a different recipe from the first one. 

I made a Hello Kitty cake with this 10" square rainbow cake as a base with a 7" carved Hello Kitty cake on top. This tutorial & recipe will be for the rainbow cake layer below (: I did a total of 7 layers for this cake..

This cake will take about 2 - 3 hours to bake depending on your speed and I'd rate it a difficulty level 4 out of 5. 

Blueberry Red Velvet Cupcakes

A twist to the regular Red Velvet Cupcakes, here are some Blueberry Red Velvets that I did in the form of a cupcake bouquet for my MIL-to-be for Mother's Day. A pretty twist to the regular classic that's fun to present to any one that you love. 

This recipe will take you about 1h 15 minutes to 1 h 30 minutes to prepare and I'm rating it a 2 out of 5 for difficulty level. If you're doing it into a bouquet like the one I have in this picture, it should take you about 1 hour 30 minutes with a difficulty level of 4 out of 5. 

This tutorial will show you how to assemble the cupcake bouquet.

Without cupcake bouquet assembly:

With cupcake bouquet assembly:

Banana Chantilly Chocolat

This cake is an extended version of the Chantilly Chocolat cake with addition of bananas. I used the basketweave technique for this recipe. Video tutorial for this to follow soon! (:

Rilakuma Swiss Roll [Peach] (Cartoon/Printed Swiss Roll)

Cartoon/Printed Swiss Rolls are just so adorable and pretty much irresistible! Here's the Rilakuma Gwen, Sharron and I baked together at Gwen's place. This recipe was taken from the Miss Junko Book of Swiss Rolls. This Rilakuma Swiss Roll (Peach) was baked for lil' Joy whose birthday was approaching and sure enough, she loved it! It's one of those moments that makes baking for loved ones all worthwhile. 

I love this recipe for swiss roll as it's so soft and tastes really good. 

I'd rank this recipe as a difficulty level 3 out of 5 and it takes about an hour (excluding chilling) to prepare.

Mango Petals (Petal Cake Tutorial)

So it was my sister's birthday earlier this month as I asked her if she wanted a cake. She said yes only a day before the celebrations so I thought of this cake design that I've been dying to try for ages. I took up the personal challenge to work out a rainbow schemed Mango Petals cake for her. This petal cake idea has been trending in many online websites/pages and I'm sure glad I gave it a shot! It's a pretty simple method but it requires a fair bit of patience. 

I took about 3 hours in all to complete it and I'd rate it a difficulty level 4 out of 5 for it. (:

This tutorial also consist of a Time with Cynthia video tutorial whereby I show you how the petals can be achieved.

Mango Temptation

I was working on the Chantilly Chocolat when I decided to experiment with something new. Inspired from many of the cookbooks I have, I decided to do a mousse-type cake combined with a soft fluffy sponge and a tangy mango topping. So with some experimentation, I present to you my Mango Temptation! 

This cake is so much fun to bake and of course, being the mango addict I am, how am I to pass up on a lovely cake like this? 

This takes about 2 hours to bake and assemble, excluding time for the mango topping to set towards the end. I'd rate it a difficulty level 3 out of 5. 

Chantilly Chocolat

This Chantilly Chocolat was baked for a friend of a friend's birthday. Am really glad that the cake was well received. This cake combines the best of a soft fluffy sponge cake, chocolate ganache and Chantily Cream.

This cake takes bout 2 hours in all to bake and assemble and I'd rate it at a difficulty of 3 out of 5.

This is how the cake is when it's cut. Beautiful isn't it? Click on to find out how you can bake this cake. 

No Machine Whisk Earl Grey Chiffon Cake

So instead of the usual Fluffy Pandan Chiffon Cake that I usually bake, I decided to try an Earl Grey Chiffon Cake. Being lazy to bring out the machine whisk, I decided to use this tool that I've had for some time that I to bake this No Machine Whisk Earl Grey Chiffon Cake. 

Yes, you got me right. NO MACHINE WHISK. This recipe and method uses a special tool. Click on to read more! 

This recipe is relatively manageable and I'd rate it a 3 out of 5 for difficulty and it should take about 1 h 15 mins in all to prepare and bake. 

Rainbow Pushpops

Pushpops. These totally remind me of pushup ice-cream from my younger days. These have been the hype of late and since I was baking some Red Velvet ones, I baked these Rainbow Pushpops since they were on my list too. These are really fun to bake and assemble simply cos' colours are just my thing. Colours just make everything, well, almost everything so much better.

In addition, this cake tastes really good. It's a Vanilla bean butter cake which allows colour to 'catch on' pretty well. This took me about 2 hours in all to complete and I'd rate it a 3 out of 5 for difficulty. 

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Red Velvet Cupcakes. Where should I begin? This cupcake has been so highly requested by many. So here's a tutorial for a really simple Red Velvet Cupcake that doesn't require much effort. You don't even need an electronic mixer for this! This recipe is totally manageable without it. A sturdy spatula is all you need. I adapted this recipe from one that Karen Yee shared.  

This recipe will take you about 1h 15 minutes to 1 h 30 minutes to prepare and I'm rating it a 2 out of 5 for difficulty level.

Red Velvet Pushpops

I've always been very fascinated by these pushpops I've seen in many websites online and I've been dying to try them out for myself. Since I was baking some Red Velvet Cupcakes and had some of these containers, I decided to give it a try. These pushpop containers remind me of these push up ice creams I used to have as a kid! 

Indeed, these ice creams were awesome even though they were messy. I doubt they're being sold anymore now though. Maybe I should do a ice-cream pushpop tutorial too! In any case, this tutorial will show you how to assemble the awesomest Red Velvet Pushpops.

This recipe will take about 1.5 to 2 hours in all to bake and assemble and I rate it a 3/5 for difficulty level. (: 

Strawberry Roll 草莓卷

I was having this huge urge to bake but I had no eggs at home as I've used up my entire supply this week! I was brainstorming for all sorts of stuff that didn't quite need eggs. Just then, I received a text from dearest Sharron! She asked if I could help her bake a Swiss Roll for her girls.. and so I thought, why not? She delivered the eggs to me and I started baking the cake. 

This cake is similar to the Ribbon Swiss Roll I did but just slightly thinner. This cake is so fluffy and soft that it's kinda unimaginable that it was baked without any of those cake stabalisers/improvers that I dread and will not use. So this cake is relatively simple to bake and it takes slightly less than an hour in all to bake. 

Ribbon Nutella Mango Swiss Roll

So after a long wait, I've finally picked up my Miss Junko Swiss Roll Book 2 to work on another Swiss Roll.  I term it the Ribbon Nutella Mango Swiss Roll. My previous attempt a real long time ago with the Pikachu design was kinda spongy for the design part. I wanted the entire cake to be as soft as possible. Of course, I wanted it to look really pretty. So I was bored enough from the warm weather (it's been insane of late here nowadays!) and since I had the evening free (rare moments), I decided to bake this very ribbon design that I've been eyeing. I choose Nutella and fresh mango cubes as they were just about the only stuff I have on hand right now. 

This is the Pikachu one I did probably a year or two ago. I should recreate it and make it real soft like what I did to the Ribbon Nutella Mango Swiss Roll. 

This Swiss Roll recipe is indeed really soft, softer than I had imagined. Of course, measures have to be taken to let it be that soft and to maintain its level of moisture. I've had experiences baking soft Swiss Rolls like those for the Yule Logs I did last Christmas, but truth be told, this recipe is even softer and it is a keeper for me. 

I termed this recipe as a difficulty level 4 as precision is required. Exact portions are required for each step to work so if you're afraid of a lil' precision and hard work for such a pretty swiss roll, I'd suggest you look else where. But trust me, the product is worth the hard work (: This recipe also requires your full attention as meringue is being used. Please do not work on the recipe halfway and attend to other matters, the meringue will deflate and turn watery with time. Then, the recipe will not be successful. 

No Bake Blueberry Cheesecake

The No Bake Blueberry Cheesecake been highly requested but I've not baked/prepared any prior to this. The only drawback and of course, the biggest drawback here is that I'm lactose intolerant and cream cheese will send me running for the loo when consumed. However, the fav boy is such a fan of cheese and since my hands were itching to bake and that Philadelphia was on promotion in NTUC, I decided to try this out. 

NTUC is having a promotion for these cream cheese blocks. I believe that I paid $9.95 for both blocks and an adorable hand whisk and measuring spoon was thrown in as a freebie! What a deal, isn't it? So being itchy-handded, I started prepping this last night as I wanted to be sure that the cheesecake layer sets right.

So if you've guessed it right last night via the Facebook posts I posted, you're smart XD

These No Bake Blueberry Cheesecake are really simple to make but they require time to set. I made them in 3 variety of flavours: Original, Blueberry and Strawberry. I also made them in 3 variety of sizes. Shooters, Jars and Cups (:

These are the mini shooters which are just so adorable!