Kinder Egg Surprise Birthday Cake

 This is my kids new #1 favourite cake. My kids ironically do not like to eat cakes, but they love chocolate. It started with my son requesting for "chocolate cake" . I know they do not love cakes, especially the icing part it will be just a waste. Anyway, I was looking around online and I found some people use M & M's in the cake, that gave me an idea of making this cake.

I saw the Eggs on sale at Costco, a box of 24 for about $20... and so I decided to pick a box up and make it. This is the best invention I've ever made by far. I used marshmallow fondant and make the box shape, as the box of eggs came with the plastic container I just kept it as it is. I used popsicle sticks to hold it up.

My daughter requested for a shopkins, princess and rainbow colour chocolate cake, so I put them together and came up with this cake. I just made a lid to cover the top. I was happy to be able to make the shopkins with the Shopkins Poppit set. It's actually a mould that comes with clay like thing but they are not very great... in fact it works better with fondant or even playdoh.

And here's the dessert table for my daughter's birthday. I'm glad it's all over I was so tired after the party preparing all these stuff.. At least I know she was the happiest girl ever to have that special customized cake that nobody else will ever have...it's all worth it.

Lego Cake

 I was very honoured to make this special cake for a girl, who tried one of my cupcakes I made for my son's birthday. This is a special moment for me, as I never charge for my cakes before and she insisted to pay for it, of course I did not charge her much. It was just enough to cover the cost, and my newly bought lego moulds I got from Lego.com

 This is how it looked like before I gave the girls a makeover, and I think we will agree a makeover is very important. You can find the mould to make the lego minifigure on Lego Shop or amazon but I bought it at the Lego online because they had free shipping over $50 and it was only 2-3 days shipping, it was here in just 2 days. They also had a very good sale for the Pirate Chess Set that I wanted to get for my son's birthday, he had so much fun with it.

She requested for a marble cake, it took 3 layers to make it high enough, it's just okay recipe for me, as I prefer the soft spongy type and this is more like the pound cake, but it's sturdy enough to have the fondant on top, and not collapsing. I've got the recipe from pinterest, Sally's Baking Addition it has lots of good review so I decided to try it but I think I'll try a different recipe next time, this is an easy recipe to follow and I did not have much time to make the cake , so I picked the easy recipe.

The little blue and yellow bricks are from Bulk Barn, I'm so happy that they have those candies, they looked good on the cake, I did buy the Lego Ice Cube Bricks mould but it's more like a lego duplo size. I used the chocolate frosting and fondant that I made from marshmallow. You can find the marshmallow fondant recipe on Allrecipes.

I promised to contribute more but I had a bad fall 2 weeks ago and was recovering from it. Have a Happy New Year, hope everything will get better in the coming year.

I AM BACK!

       I've always told my friends, I'm going to write my blog again once my kids are back in school. Yes my kids are back in school ( for 4 months now) but I have been so busy (with I don't know what) that took me so long to write again. I promised to post all my recipes, and my new inventions, my failed projects, and share my tips ( I learned thru failure so nobody else repeats my same mistakes) to make better food for the world.

   I'm going to start with the new found love that I recently found from Lindt's magazine. As a chocolate lover, I was in heaven eating this cookie (especially when it was a little warm, the chocolate was just melting in my mouth), and it's a hubby approved cookie. He doesn't like eating too much sweets, and this is not sweet at all...

  I was looking for the best chocolate for baking on all the websites and happy to conclude that Lindt was the best, and I agree. Luckily for me we do have an outlet here, they sell a bag of 2.5kg baking chocolate for about $45, with no tax. A bar of 100g chocolate cost $2.50 plus tax so it's a pretty good price, considering I bake a lot, and I only use best ingredients I can find, if possible.

 

 So I tried this recipe from the magazine, that you can also find from this Lindt's special season's website. I'm so glad that the sales girl told me about the free book that I can take home, she must know that I really like baking, and chocolate because my basket was overflowing and was getting so heavy, I wished they had a cart. Please note that you need 3 bars of excellence chocolate bars for one recipes, I made a mistake buying just 2 bars, one orange and one mint, hubby likes the mint and I like the orange, so I used the rest of the baking chocolate for the other remaining cookies.

Just be careful when you break it, I tried cutting it but it wasn't a good idea, breaking it apart is easier. Notice how the squares stays in shape better than the baking chocolate? I will go with the square and not baking chocolate, it's more expensive (about 30 cents a piece of squares) but oh it's so worth the money. The cookie is just a plain shortbread, not very sweet, just prefect for me, with a cup of coffee or tea. I think I will have to make another batch soon, as it will be gone before Christmas at this rate.

I hope my family, friends, and the kids' teachers will like it ( if they have a chance to taste it). This will make an impressive gift, it's easy enough to make for beginners, and the best you can get for a chocolate shortbread cookie, whoever who made this recipe is a genius. I give it a 5 star.

Time to try out recipe #9 from the magazine.
 

Dark Chocolate Cake

Tiffany blue colour Chocolate Cake for Amee's Birthday

 I made this cake for my friend's birthday. The bf threw her a surprise birthday party, I was away, and came back just in time, to be able to make this cake for her. I wanted to use up my cocoa powder so I decided to look for a chocolate cake recipe that is not so sweet and I found the 'one' on AllRecipe's website.

Made an extra one for Canada Day, was sooooo goood with ice cream and strawberries.

I read the reviews and made changes to the recipes as follow;

Ingredients 

Original recipe makes 3 - 9 inch round pans

  

2 cups boiling water
1 cup cocoa powder
2 3/4 all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 eggs, white and yolk separated
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 3 - 9 inch round cake pans. In medium bowl, pour boiling water over cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Let mixture cool. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside.
2. In a large bowl, cream butter and 1 cup of sugar together until light and fluffy, add in egg yolk. Stir in vanilla. I beat the egg whites with 1 cup of sugar until stiffened. Add the flour mixture alternately with the cocoa mixture and fold in egg whites. Spread batter evenly between the 3 prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool.

Lava Cake

I made these for hubby's birthday. My friend was crazy about Lava Cake, and she showed me how to do it. I must say, it's pretty good.

I got the recipe from Comfy in the kichen's website.

The only tips that I would like to share is, spread generous amount of butter on the rameskin ( I used my cups) and then add lots of sugar. Make sure that the mixture is whipped smoothly and use good chocolate for best result.  I made half of the recipe, it is just perfect for the 4 of us.... 2 bigger ones and 2 smaller ones for the 2 kids, or good for 3 cups

Here's the recipe.

Ingredients

• 2 4 oz Ghirardellli Semi-Sweet Chocolate baking bars
• 2 sticks of butter
• 5 eggs
• ¾ cup sugar
• ⅓ cup flour

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Butter 8 ramekins or a muffin tin
3. In a microwave safe dish melt butter and chocolate together for 1 min, stir and microwave again for an additional 20 seconds, stir until smooth.
4. Add flour with a whisk to the melted chocolate mixture.
5. In a separate bowl beat eggs and sugar until well whipped and yellow.
6. Combine the chocolate mixture into the egg mixture.
7. Pour into ramekins and place them on a baking sheet.
8. Place in oven for 15 mins.
9. Sides will be done and center will be molten.
10. Enjoy!!!

Happy Halloween

Halloween Cupcakes

I spent whole afternoon making these cupcakes. There's a potluck at the school and I thought the kids will enjoy this. I forgot to pick Noah from school because I was too busy making these.

Halloween Cookies

I made these cookies until 11pm at night. It was fun, I bought this 101 Wilton cookie cutters and I really love them. I am all tired now, and hope that tomorrow will be a good day, with no rain so the kids can enjoy their Halloween day.

Wontons

Deep Fried Wontons

I made these for the street party 2 weeks ago, and again yesterday. This is one of my signature dish. They never get tired of eating it, and I never get tired of the compliments that I receive. It is unbelievable easy to make. Everybody always ask me how to make, but I wonder, if anyone really make them?

Here's what you need.

1. A packet of wonton wrappers. You can easily find them in groceries store. I prefer the thin square wrappers, compared to the round ones.
2. A pound (more or less) of ground pork (or chicken if you don't eat pork)
3. 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
4. A tables spoon of sesame oil
5. A teaspoon of soy sauce
6. Chopped shrimps (optional)
7. Chopped green onion (optional)

Mix everything in a bowl. Scoop out a teaspoon of filling on the wrapper and wrap them up. Seal it with water. Deep dry them in high heat until golden brown. Serve with sweet chili sauce, or any of your favourite sauce.

Step by Step How to Make Springrolls

 My kids love spring rolls, well who doesn't? It costs so much to buy spring rolls every time, so I normally make a lot and freezes them. They freeze well, and you can take one out whenever and deep fry them.

It's good with plum sauce, sweet spicy sauce, or even ketchup.

 These are my basic ingredients. Shrimps, carrots and jicama. I chopped the shrimps, and fry them on the pan. Peel the carrots and jicama, and put it in the food processor to shred it, as in picture below, and then cook the carrots and jicama together. I add some water, soy sauce, oyster sauce and salt and pepper to taste.

 This is how much you get after you shred the vegetables. I cook the veges until they are soft, and then drain the water out. 

 This is how I wrapped my egg rolls. Put some water at the edges to seal them, and press on it gently to make sure it's sealed. Try not to leave air in the eggrolls. I put the shrimps on top of the filling, so each pieces will have equal amount of shrimp, and the shrimp will not be overcooked when it's cooked separately. It actually brings more of the shrimp flavour this way.

 My little helper, I don't know if I can do it without her help. Very helpful, in everything. For spring rolls, I wrapped them like an envelope.

 I usually freezes a few trays of egg rolls and spring rolls for later use.

 Deep fry the spring rolls and egg rolls when the oil is really hot, otherwise it will be oily. 

Spring rolls are all ready to be served. My kids can easily finish this up. 

For my Wilton Course 3 Final Project

Today, I attended the last class for course 3. This is what I made. My best friend's birthday this weekend but I can't give it to her, I wish I can. I hope she is having a great time there with her hubby. I will have to make her another cake some other time.

I used the flowers I had from my class. I made different colours on the mums....getting lighter on the outside petals. I was really fun to make flowers, but I think they should have some designs for boys too. Flowers are more for girls, weddings, anniversaries... but what about boys? They should include it in the lessons.

I am really glad that I went back and now I got to make this beautiful glad. I am really happy I did. Now I know how to make a fondant covered cake, and the proper way to make it. I'm looking forward for the next class, the people in my class are very friendly, I am so looking forward to it.

Zebra Theme Cupcakes

 My neighbour's grand daughter requested zebra cake for her birthday last month and this is what I made for her birthday last month. I googled for zebra cake and I found this recipe from AZ Cookbook website. It has good instructions on how to bake the cake, and the result was great. The cake was perfect, and wasn't too sweet. It's almost like marble cake, I just didn't know simple method like this can make a cake so special.

 Before, and after my tiny cupcakes went into the oven. I decided to make tiny cupcakes instead because usually kids just want the icing part. Why waste the cake right?

 This is how the inside of the cake look like. Amazingly, it looks like zebra stripes! 

 My fondant getting dried. Her colour theme was black, white and pink... so I made this flowers for the decoration on the cupcakes, simple and plain.

 My hardworker helping to make the flowers.

Oh no, he got caught on the camera... and got caught eating them too... no wonder my flowers are missing....

My Wilton Cake Decorating Course 3 Experience

 Yes, I am back at my cake decorating classes. I decided that I need to finish my courses, I felt like I am half way in between. Noah is back to school, and I made up my mind that I will have to do it, otherwise it will never be completed, and I am glad I did. For the first class, we made loop for the bows, and bases for the flowers. It came in handy because I managed to make a cake for my friend's son last minute. Another friend promised to make the cake but she got sick, last minute, and so I had 2.5 hours to make this cake for him. Well he had no choice but to take this decoration piece, as I was given last minute notice, to make a cake from scratch.

 I made another cake, for my neighbour a couple days later. I wanted to practice my bow. I think I am doing better, don't you think? I just need more practices. You'll never believe how easy this is, and the result is amazing.

I made calla lily, roses and carnations for my class #2. It was my good friend, Jessica and my neighbour's daughter's birthday, so I get to use these flowers. My friend love chocolate, and cake, so I thought she might like this, but it wasn't that good a cake, I didn't have time to do it better. Will have to do better next time! (next year?)

For the 3rd lesson, we learned how to make daisies and mums. I got to use it for the street party at my place last weekend. The kids love cupcakes, as usual...and the favourite part is of course the icing, and fondant. I am glad that I got to apply all my new skills so quickly. It does come in handy. My final cake class for course 3 will be in a couple days, and this time, there's nobody's birthday coming up. I guess I will have to give it away to some lucky fella.

My best friend was asking me for recipes, she just got a new oven. I was looking for the recipe in my blog I couldn't find it, I thought I did posted it. Well, here is the simplest, healthiest, yet tastiest muffin's recipe. I make this for hubby and Noah every other week. It freezes so well, you just need to put it in the microwave before eating them. And the best thing is, you do not need a mixer to blend everything, I just use a fork to mash the bananas and a large spoon to fold the flour after.

Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

Good healthy heart recipe

½ cup	Becel margarine
1 tsp.	Vanilla
¾ cup	White sugar
2	Eggs
1 cup	Flour
1 cup	Bran
2 or 3	Ripe bananas mashed (I use 3)
1 cup	Chocolate chips
1 tsp.	Baking soda
½ tsp.	Cinnamon
	Cream together the first 3 ingredients.  Add eggs, then blend in the next 5 ingredients.  Bake at 350ºF for 20-25 minutes.  Makes 12 large muffins (or 24 small muffins for kids, bake for 15-20 mins).  Freezes well. Optional ingredients- walnut pieces.

Cupcakes~

 My friend's daughter loves making cakes, and cookies so I decided to try this out when she came over for a visit. I've always wanted to make this panda cupcakes, and it's surprisingly easy to make, even a 6 year old can make one.

 Firstly I baked some cupcakes, using the Mike Harris chocolate cake recipe. Then I used buttercream icing and just decorate it with chocolate chip.

I saw this piggy style cupcake and decided to try it out as well. Cute isn't it?

Here's some cupcakes for my friend's son Avi, Happy Birthday. He asked for Star Wars but  I was too busy that weekend, so I got lazy. Just made my own print out stencil and sprinkled icing sugar

Egg Rolls

Noah really likes spring rolls, but the spring roll wrappers was all sold out so I tried egg rolls instead. It's actually so easy to make these, and it's amazing how great it was. I was going to keep some for my neighbour to taste but it was gone so quickly, there was none left to share.

1.Firstly, I used 1 lbs ground pork and 10-20 chopped shrimps.

Cooked them together in a pan on medium until it's cooked.

 Add some soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper to taste.

2.Prepare the vegetables, sliced the chinese cabbge thinly, carrots and washed the bean sprout. Blanch them in boiling water for about 1-2 minutes. I cooked the shiitake mushrooms, and sliced them thin, then combine everything together in a big bowl (as in the picture above)

Try to drain the water out. Leave it to cool before wrapping them.

There are different methods to wrap but I found this easier. Just put the filling in the middle and then fold like wrapping a present. I put them on a cookie sheet, and freeze some in the freezer, it keeps very well. 

Fry it in a pan on high heat until golden brown. The filling is cooked, so I won't have to worry about it not being cooked. Never use olive oil, a lot of people do not know that olive oil become toxic when it's on high heat. Just use vegetable oill, or canola.

The egg roll is now ready, serve it with plum sauce or your favourite sauce... Homemade egg rolls are so much better than any other ones that I've had before. It's fresh and tasty, and you can adjust the taste to your own preference. My next project will be spring rolls, because Noah really loves them. It's similar, just a different type of wrapper. 

My Pups love puppies~

 Kiana and Noah love doggies so much, one of Kiana's first words is doggy.

 Noah copying the little doggy

Playing with the puppy

Noah's serious look.

My kids just love pets, they are so happy whenever there's any doggies, or kitties around. Well, it's easier just to visit a friend who has pets, rather than having one, for now anyway. I think we might get one, when they bug us too much for one next time. 

Cakes

 I know, I am long overdue. We have been too busy with spring cleaning , and with a nicer weather like that, who can blame me for not having time to be in the house to blog? My kids just wanted to be out every day, all the time! I tried making this cupcake, from kitchenaid recipe book but it wasn't successful, it doesn't look anything like the picture. It's suppose to be cream cheese top with chocolate bottom, and nice swirls.

Here's something that I like, it's a recipe for marble cake, but I added raisin and put them in the cups, the kids loves anything in a cup, and it's easier to store.

 I still need to practice making this chiffon cake. I made it twice, getting better at it. I love chiffon cakes, but not my hubby. Here's a good recipe for this cake. I omitted the extract, and just added a tablespoon of grind lemon or orange peel instead. I think I have to beat the whites a lot longer to get it smoother. Will post the result of my experiment next time.

Tried to make this jelly swissroll but ended in garbage, I don't like it at all. Will have to look for a better recipe for it. Will post only when I find good recipes. I've recently bought a box of recipe books, so I am very eager to try them out. Been baking almost everyday! Noah really loves baking, he's actually pretty good at it!