How to bake: Orange Chiffon Cake

Happy Chinese New Year, guys!

A couple of weeks ago, my classmates asked me to bake a cake for them since I went home that weekend and the rest of them.. did not lmao. I didn't know if I wanted to bake a cake or cookies. I just wanted to bake whichever was easier to carry around campus. But then when I thought it over, cookies are a hassle to make and they take forever (especially since my oven is small and can only fit 1 tray at a time bleghhhh) to bake. But cakes were also a hassle because /frosting/. Do you see my dilemma do you do you do you understand my dilemma do you do you? Life is so hard.

Anyways, I decided on a chiffon cake because 1) It's so easy to make and 2) I don't need to frost it. Life is easy. lolops

Orange chiffon cake:

6 eggs + 1 egg white
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cup icing sugar (take out 1/4 cup for egg whites)
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp grated orange zest
1/2 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
3/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (I used 3 oranges)
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp cream of tartar (optional)

• Separate the egg whites and yolks in two separate bowls. (total= 6 egg yolks, 7 egg whites)
• Place the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and orange zest in a bowl and mix. 
• Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the egg yolks, vanilla essence, oil and orange juice. You can choose to mix with an electric mixer or by hand.
• In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy. Add the cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 1/4 cup of icing sugar until stiff peaks form.
• With a spatula, gently fold in the egg whites (in 3 additions) into the batter. Its okay if there are white swirls because you don't wanna deflate the batter, so do not overfold.
• Pour the batter in an ungreased tube pan and bake at 170 DegreesC for 45-55 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean
• Immediately upon removing the cake from the oven, turn the pan upside down and place it on a bowl or tall flat surface so that it is suspended over the table/counter.
• Let the cake cool completely before removing it from the pan. (1 hour at least)
• Once you've taken the cake out of the pan, lightly dust the cake with icing sugar.
• I used flowers to decorate the cake because I didnt wanna bring the cake to class looking so bare.

Definitely gonna bake more chiffon cakes/sponge cakes in the future. Gotta start somewhere with cakes, right?

Have fun!

Peace out chica

How to Bake: Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Salut!

Red Velvet cupcakes have always been my favourite, personally. To bake and also to eat. One thing about red velvet cupcakes that amuse me is if you bake them too long or whisk the batter too much or if you use the wrong icing recipe it just ruins the whole cake in general. Which is why sometimes when I go to cafes and I see red velvet cakes/cupcakes I feel super super reluctant to try them.

Why not make your own! I've improved my recipe over the past year now and I'm pretty happy with it at the moment.

Red Velvet Cupcakes
50g butter
150g castor sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
125g flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1/2 cup buttermilk
***If you don't have buttermilk, use whole milk and add 1 tsp of vinegar and do this beforehand***
1 tsp red food colouring
1/2 tsp vinegar
1/2 tsp baking soda

• Sift the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder in a separate bowl. Set aside.
• Cream the butter and sugar until well combined and fluffy.
• Add the egg and vanilla essence. Whisk until combined.
• Add the red food colouring into your buttermilk.
• Add the flour into the mixture. Then the milk. Flour. Milk. And end with flour. (nomsayin?)
• add the vinegar and baking soda mixture and whisk. 
• Remember: Don't whisk the mixture too much or else your cupcakes will be dense as heck
• Bake for 15 minutes in a 160 DegreesC preheated oven.

Cream Cheese Frosting

50g butter

1 cup icing sugar

250g cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 tsp milk

• Cream the butter and icing sugar until white and fluffy and well combined. Make sure it is pale because butter as we all know it is yellow so you don't want your frosting to be super yellow
• Add slabs of the cream cheese and whisk until there are no cheese lumps.
• Add the vanilla and milk
• DONE

Don't think too much about baking them. If you follow the steps properly you're sure to succeed. Remember with baking there are no  shortcuts.

Bonne chance!

Peace out bamboozle

How to Bake: Oreo Cupcakes

Mahalo!

So I baked some Oreo Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting and sprinkled oreo bits and some Cadbury drizzles. Well that was a mouth full. (ha ha ha ha ha)

There's much to say about the cupcakes but to just bake them and taste them for yourselves.
WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?!
(God, tasha)

Oreo Cupcakes
100g butter
100g castor sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
195g flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup milk
1 cup crushed Oreos

• Cream the butter and sugar and light and fluffy. Add the eggs gradually and then add the vanilla until well mixed
• Sift the flour and the baking powder in a separate bowl then add it to the mixture gradually. 
• Pour the milk in until the batter and whisk until mixture is silky smooth
• Add the oreos in and fold the mixture.
• Bake for 15 minutes in a 170 DegreesC preheated oven

Vanilla Frosting

100g butter

1 1/2 cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 (or 2) tbsp milk

• Cream the butter and the (sifted) icing sugar together until the frosting is white and fluffy.
• Add the vanilla and milk 
• Then uh frost!

Cadbury Drizzles: Break up a bar of Cadbury's milk chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Put it in the microwave for 40 seconds but take it out every 10 seconds and stir it so that the chocolate doesn 't burn.

***Don't forget to sprinkles crushed oreos on top of your cupcakes before drizzling the chocolate***

Have fun with it!
peace out queen b

How to Bake: Gingerbread Men Cookies

Hey guys! Only two days left till Christmas and I decided why not bake something Christmas related. I've been meaning to bake gingerbread cookies for awhile now but I've never really been one to take the leap. But after watching Zoella's video, I decided why the heck not. It's funny, really. I actually hate ginger. I hate them in anything except ginger beer and gingerbread cookies.

Also, as I was prepping to bake these bad boys, I realised I forgot to buy ground ginger. So I used fresh ones instead. I'll elaborate more on this later on.

I sort of ran out of ideas on how to photograph my little army so.. here I am.. showing you guys my house decor........... moving on. Let's get started shall we?

Gingerbread cookies

75g light brown sugar

2 tbsp golden syrup

1 tbsp black treacle/molasses

1 tbsp water

1 tsp cinnamon powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp bicarbonate soda

95g butter

225g flour

white icing/royal icing

• Add the sugar, syrup, treacle and water in a saucepan over a medium heat. Stir the ingredients until well mixed.
• Then add the cinnamon powder and ground ginger ***If you don't have ground ginger like me, use fresh ginger. the recipe calls for 1 tsp but I used approximately 1 tbsp of very finely grated ginger***
• Add the bicarbonate soda, stir, and add the butter
• Make sure to keep stirring as you don't want the mixture to burn. Remember, whenever you have sugar and fire involved, always keep on stirring. And make sure the mixture doesn't come up to a boil
• Once your butter has melted, turn off the heat and add the sifted flour. Gradually.
• Roll your hot dough into a ball and cover it up in glad wrap and put it in the freezer for 30 minutes (I cheat)
• After that cut them and bake for 7-10 minutes depending on how thick/big your cookies are. Mine were small so I only needed 7 minutes. 
• Bake at 180 DegreesC

Royal Icing

2 egg whites

2 tsp lemon juice

3 cups icing sugar

• Beat your egg whites and lemon juice until combined. 
• Add the sifted icing sugar
• To get the right consistency, when you lift the batter with a spatula, the ribbon of frosting that falls back into the bowl remains on the surface before completely disappearing. 
• If it disappears immediately, add more icing sugar.
• If its too thick, add a little bit of water.

And you're done! Oh man now I'm gonna have to find something else to blog about you guys are probably tired and bored of recipes. Hm. well. if i event have readers. If I do then comment down below what you guys want me to blog about next week!

Merry Christmas to you guys out there who celebrate.

Hasta La Vista, Baby!

(gross) (no) (ayyy lmaoo bye)

How to Bake: Chocolate cupcakes with Marshmallow Creme Peppermint Frosting

I've always always loved Christmas. It was always my favourite holiday to celebrate, besides Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Maybe it'd because it has always brought me fond memories of my late grandmother. All of us, my cousins and I, used to sleepover at my grandma's house every Christmas eve. I remember that one year I woke up in the middle of the night catching my grandma filling in the stockings. It wasn't her fault that I stopped believing in Santa Claus at the age of seven. Haha.

In conjunction with Christmas (that, may I add, is around the corner) (!!!!!), I decided to bake some peppermint cupcakes. well, peppermint frosted cupcakes. It's super simple, really. It was pretty much easy to make.

Well, don't you wanna know how to make them?!

Chocolate cupcakes

225g butter
4 (heaping) tbsp cocoa powder
1 cup boiling water
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda

• Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Meanwhile, boil some water.
• Then throw the cocoa powder into the already melted butter
• Stir the mixture until its a nice, smooth consistency
• Pour in the cup of boiling water. Stir the mixture and let it bubble for 15 seconds. Turn the fire off and set the mixture aside.
• In a separate bowl, add your (sifted) flour and sugar. Stir it together and set aside.
• In another separate bowl, mix together the eggs and buttermilk. (If you don't have buttermilk, use 1/2 cup of whole milk and 2 tablespoons of vinegar). Add the vanilla and baking soda. Whisk wet ingredients.
• Pour the melted chocolate mixture over the flour mixture. (It's still pretty hot)
• Then give it a few stirs until it's halfway mixed. Let the chocolate mixture cool before adding the wet ingredients (Cause /eggs/)
• Once the chocolate batter is cooled, add the wet ingredients!
• Bake for 18 minutes at 180 DegreesC.

Marshmallow Creme Peppermint Frosting

Ok, I cheated here. I used pre-made marshmallow creme. Now, if you live in Malaysia, You can get it at any Cold Storage outlet or any supermarket that imports international stuff.

100g butter

1 cup icing sugar

2 cups marshmallow creme

1 tsp peppermint extract

2 tsp milk

Red food colouring

Peppermints

• Put your peppermints in a zip-lock bag and crush them with a rolling pin.
• Cream the butter and (sifted) icing sugar until pale white and fluffy. Add the marshmallow creme. Whisk until frosting is fluffy.
• Add the peppermint extract and milk. You may add more milk depending on what consistency you want the frosting to be.
• Using a piping bag, paint two lines on each side of the piping bag with the red food colouring to create a red swirl effect.
• Frost and sprinkle your crushed peppermints!

***Chocolate cupcakes recipe adapted to my own liking from The Pioneer Woman ***

Ah now wasn't that easy! I had a good time baking them. I needed to get away and bake. I might  try baking some gingerbreadmen cookies. I might.

Hope you guys are having a swell time prepping for Christmas. I know I am! Hehe.
Maybe this time we can share my can of beans, eh?
Peace out bamboozles.

Wad dat: Care package & Rainbow cupcakes recipe

Don't know what to get a friend for their birthday/christmas? I didn't either. I'm a girl and i find it super difficult to find gifts for guys because they're just so easy going. They'll accept whatever and they never give you hints on what they want. Gosh

My jerk face best friend's birthday was a few days ago and because I was so busy with University and being away from home (aka away from malls and anything civilized), I decided to give him a care package!

A care package normally consists of just food so I decided to jumble up stuff he likes. (Also added a Deathly Hallows bracelet cause why not). Care packages are so simple and it shows just MAYBE how much you know about a person. or not. its fine. That person will accept it whether or not they favourite Skittles. Or my homebaked cupcakes. meh.

Yeah I sorta baked the cupcakes myself. OK, not sorta.

Rainbow Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream

100g butter
100g white granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
195g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup milk
4 different food colouring of your choice

• Cream the butter and sugar until white and fluffy
• Slowly add the eggs (one by one) then later add the vanilla extract
• Sift the cake flour, baking powder and salt. Then gradually add the flour mixture into the already wet mixture
• Gradually add the milk and whisk till all mixed
• Divide cupcake batter into four bowls and add food colouring of your choice

I used turquoise, lime green, cotton candy pink and purple.

• Next add half a teaspoon of different cupcake batter to each cup. (I dont even know how this is making sense to you guys so luckily I took a picture)

• Bake in the oven for 15-25 minutes (170 degreesC)

100g butter

1 1/2 cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp milk

• Basically making the icing/frosting is easy. Whisk together the butter and icing sugar until, I repeat, until, the mixture is white and fluffy. 
• Add the vanilla extract and milk
• You don't wanna add any food colouring because the cakes are already filled with it.
• Enjoy!

That's about it. It's pretty easy. That's my basic recipe for all my cupcakes. Don't think to much about care packages. Just put in whatever you think may put a smile on that person's face. 

****Appreciation blog post for ma lame ass hoe*****

I just wanna wish you a really happy birthday, man. You're always there for me (Even when I don't want you to be. but its ok.) You've taught me alot eventhough you are technically 8 months younger than I am. ha ha. Lobster you never hate you from my cats poop to yours. 

Anyway, just have fun with it. No pressure.

Enjoy!

(PS/ I get off university for  2 weeks starting the 20th of December so I'll continue blogging from then on!)

peace out chicken bamboozles

How to bake: Tiramisu Cake

ha ha that rhymed.
(God Tasha. Get a grip)

Finally. A recipe! Ah, I haven't baked since uh last week haha but I didn't wanna blog about it cause all i baked were oreo cupcakes with cadbury chocolate drizzles on top. Okay, I should have blogged about them. Ah well. Seeing as to how "spontaneous" I was with the whole I-wanna-bake decision I made I couldn't really wait for my cake to chill in the fridge for a day. I could but I couldn't. The worse part about baking: is the cleaning up. okay the second worse part about baking is the waiting. The waiting. I really don't have the patience to wait 12 hours for the cake to chill (Although that will help my frosting process a whole lot easier) (This is why I very seldom bake cakes but rather cupcakes cause they cool in 30 minutes tops)

"Cake is happiness. If you know the way of the cake, you know the way of happiness! If you have cake in front of you, you should not look any further for joy" - C.Joybell.C

I have to say this is my first time baking a tiramisu cake. Or tiramisu anything. And it was fairly easy. I would definitely consider baking it in the (not so near) future. But I think for a first attempt they taste pretty good.

So, Shall we?

Cake layers:

113 grams butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 large egg yolk

2 tsp vanilla extract 

2 cups cake flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup cream

• Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease 2 pans. (This recipe calls for 9-inch pans but you can use whatever size pan you have)
• In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one by one. Mix in the vanilla extract and gradually add in the dry ingredients (Cake flour, baking powder, baking soda & salt; all sifted). Mix in the cream
• Divide the batter equally and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 
• Leave the cakes in the pans for 10 minutes before taking them out. When slightly cool, leave the cakes to cool overnight. (Trust me this step is the most important step)

Espresso extract

2 tbsp instant espresso powder (If you don't have any you can replace the espresso powder with 3 tbsp of coffee powder)

2 tbsp hot water

• In a small bowl, whisk powder and hot water. Set aside

Espresso syrup

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup sugar

1 tbsp of espresso extract (or if you can consume alcohol, add 1 tbsp of Kahula)

• In a small saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil. Add extract/liquor (or both). remove from heat. Set aside.

Filling and frosting

1 cup cold heavy whipping cream

227 grams mascarpone cheese

1/2 cup powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp extract/kahula

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate shavings

Ladyfingers for garnishing

• Get a metal bowl if possible and freeze it beforehand. Whisk in the heavy whipping cream till soft peaks form. Put bowl back in freezer.
• In another bowl, whisk together mascarpone, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and extract/kahula.
• Whisk in 1 tbsp extract
• Fold in the whipped cream gently into the marcarpone mixture

Assembling

• If the top of the cake is crowned, use a long serrated knife to trim off the top of the cake to make them level. place on cake on a separate plate. Using a pastry brush, soak the top and bottom of both cakes with the espresso syrup you made earlier. Set the cakes aside to absorb the espresso syrup.
• Once you're ready to assemble the cake, frost the top of one cake with the mascarpone frosting. Sandwich both cakes together and frost the whole cake entirely. 
• Sprinkle the top of the cake with the semi-sweet chocolate shavings. 
• Add your ladyfingers along the sides of the cake and leave in the fridge to cool
• Your cake should be ready to serve in about half and hour's time. Better yet, leave it overnight (without the ladyfingers as they will become soggy) and serve it the next day.

Enjoy!

Peace out bamboozles.

Tash.

(Recipe adapted from Pastry Affair) (Obviously I tweaked it a little, to my liking and convenience)