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.