Geoff and Tiff's Wedding!

So after three days of baking and decorating I finally made 180 cupcakes! (Yes I know the original aim was 200, but I may have eaten, one or two . . . or several :P)

It was actually really tiring, but also really fun and thanks so much to Michelle who helped me bake, and Amanda and Ally who helped to decorate! By the end, I was so tired, that some of them turned out really quite dodgy, but ah well :P I'm still learning, which is what counts! While I was baking them all, I was thinking though, if this was what it was like for professional cake decorators. Do they have to stand all day and make hundreds and hundreds of cupcakes? Or cakes? And I realised how tricky it was trying to make a perfectly square cake, which is still didn't really manage, but oh well.

Visual Arts. Sigh. The bane of my existence. Yes, the HSC LIVES ON. Speaking of which, does anyone know when nominations for Art Express come out? I'm rooting for you Janette!

And also! It's official! I'm headed to Europe to meet up with my sister mid-december :) I timed it well, so I can miss out on all the hoo-haa when ATARs come out hopefully :P If all goes to plan, I'll be leaving Sydney on December 15th arriving in London on 16th, travelling around Paris, Spain, Italy before going to HongKong and flying back to China to visit relatives and then getting back to Australia in FEB 17th! 2 months, hurrah!

Korean Pancake!

After much frustration, hair tearing, and general wailing about formatting and deleted posts, I've finally learnt to upload pictures first, BEFORE writing anything.

Ah. All is right with the world.

Anyhow, my Aunt and Uncle came to Australia on Wednesday to hopefully collect their visas. They're staying at our house at the moment, which has actually turned out to be quite interesting ;) (I often emerge from my room and notice that suddenly parts of the house seem a lot cleaner xD) Everyone knows that studies in China are krazeh, and in a country with that many people, getting into university is one step closer to job security and a happy lifestyle. They have university final exams that go for a whole three days that basically determines the rest of their lives. So you can imagine, everyone gets pretty stressed out.

Once they heard that I was doing my HSC, they shoo'd me away from doing anything. It was basically, 'Go study! Go study! GOOOOO study!' Which was kinda nice at first, cause they'd bring me fruit and water and do all the chores. But then, I realised I didn't want to study, and so I was basically confined to my room. Damn.

But teehee, I snuck out into the Kitchen at 11pm and stealthily prepared ingredients to make . . . (dun dun dun) KOREAN SEAFOOD PANCAKE!

Korean Seafood Pancake

Ingredients:

Korean Package Flour Mix (The yellow thing in the picture it tells you how much water to add on the back, but in Korean :P )

250g Pancake Mix

420 ml Water

Seafood: 2 prawns and 2 octopi (clearly, I didn't have a lot of supplies)

Your Choice of Vegetables:

Shallots/Spring Onions

Carrots

Capisicum

1. Mix the flour and water until combined.

2. Stir the other ingredients in.

3. Add oil into a griddle/pan and fry each side on medium heat for a minute or so

4. Serve with YUPPIE mayonnaise, and Okonomiyaki sauce (optional, but makes it ohsoyummy)

:) Can you spot the sideways smiley? (still doesn't know how to rotate pictures D: sigh.)

TADA!!! Pancake :)

5 days and 24 cupcakes!

4 DAYS TO GO! And still not studying properly. (And Back on blog and baking, even after a super long hiatus) It's like the amount I get done is inversely proportional to the square root of the amount of time to exams (teehee, see if you can figure that one out! and apologies in advance for nerdiness.)

Yesterday was the first day I stayed home for the whole day in a long time. I think, during these holidays I've managed to go to every library in a 10mile radius. Carlo, Penno, Castle Hill, Parra, Epping, Eastwood, West Ryde, Hornsby ... and even Dundas (which really, is just one large room). So today also gave me the perfect opportunity to make cupcakes for Richard's 18th birthday! Spent three days doing this, baking the cupcakes, ganaching the cupcakes and then decorating them :)

Check it:

I know pink and yellow are a bit girly, but I thought it was a suitable match for his *ahem* bright shirts. And really, how can you make cupcakes manly anyway? It was also a good excuse for me to test run making cupcakes for Tiff and Geoff's Wedding :) (200 cupcakes in 2 days baby :P It's gonna happen)

Yes. A wedding. They weren't going to have a cake, so I offered to make them one. I was fully ready to make a three tier and gorgeous cake, but realised that making three huge cakes and fondanting them without any prior experience AND during my HSC was just asking for trouble, so instead I settled for wedding cupcakes. And forgoing the opportunity to make wedding cupcakes in order to study for HSC ? Nonsense :P What HSC? What is this HSC of which you speak?

Also, the picture quality is pretty shoddy, because I took them with my mobile phone, since Jen still has the camera in Europe. (sigh). However I'm really excited because I might be going to join her in January! EUROPE! Can you imagine? Think of all those lovely pastriesss :P Maybe I can run away to pastry school and not come back.

Anyhoo, though it's too late for me, STUDY HARD EVERYONE!

AZA AZA FIGHTING! (:P Just rewatched full house - great for procrastination)

P.S. Cupcake designs were also shamelessly ripped off from my idol Su Yin, (http://www.cookingismypassion.blogspot.com/) who incidentally, after finishing a bachelor degree in Sydney, went to America and did a pastry course before returning to her home in Malaysia and starting up her own designer cake business. Neat, huh?

Mmm... shoes?

Mm. I love cake. And I love shoes. Have you seen those pretty babies at Peeptoe? I popped by Castle towers today, and man are they just the most beautiful things I've seen! Too bad they're $250 each :(
But normally, cake and shoes don't mix. I mean, how many times have you dropped that gorgoeous cream sponge cake on your shoe? (Actually, I don't think I've ever done that . . . yet)
Anyhoo, I present to you cake in a shoe
This was my first foray into fondant, and I have to say, it was really fun! fondant = playdough for aspiring chefs. It was a late birthday present cake for a friend who loves her converse, and I was pretty pleased with the result. I wanted to make the converse shoe box, but I ran out of fondant




(The cake was a rich chocolate cake covered in ganache)

dinner

I made dinner today for the first time in a looong time and probably the last time too, (darntrials). Massaman curry, Chicken Stirfry, Stuffed bitter melon and Stirfried vegetables, mmm yumm. TOok the whole day though, it always takes me forever to cook ;P I'll never make it to masterchef at this rate.

There goes the neighbourhood . . .

Ah, look who's finally hopped on the bandwagon. It feel so bizzare blogging your thoughts and feelings, especially in full sentences! But I wanted to share my journey through cooking, love and christianity and have a little corner in cyberspace where I can store recipes. Mm, I made these mini cheesecakes a while back, but I found photos and wanted to share these cute pictures with you!

Mini Marbled Cheesecakes

Crust:

200g of your favourite biscuits (I use timtams!)

1/4 cup dessicated coconut

50g chopped macadamia nuts

50g melted butter (more if you use drier biscuits)

Filling:

500g or 2 blocks of cream cheese, softened

1 x 400g condensed milk

3 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp vanilla essence

100 g white chocolate, melted

100g dark chocolate, melted

This was inspired by Lori's recipes http://dessertcomesfirst.com/archives/424 which is really great, but I find that coconut and nuts in the crust just make this cheesecake heavenly!

Method.

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees celcius, and line cupcake tins with foil cupcake patties.

For the crust, break up the biscuits into large chunks or smaller chunks depending on what kind of crust you like. Add the coconut, chopped nuts and mix in the melted butter. Press the base into the patty cases and pop it in the fridge to firm it up a little.

In the meantime, beat the cream cheese until fluffy. Add the condensed milk gradually until well mixed. Add eggs one a time, and the 1 tsp of vanilla. Separate the batter into two halves, and beat the white chocolate and dark chocolate into one each. Carefully dollop separate batters into each patty case, mixing them, marbling them (by running a knife and swirling it to make patterns) or use toothpicks to create cute pictures!

Before baking, gently tap the pan to get rid of air bubbles in the batter. place the pan in a waterbath (a tray filled with water) to prevent overheating and cracking in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Makes about 18-24.

PS. The cheesecakes actually shrivelled up in the oven and air bubbles came up when the water in the waterbath ran out, so make sure it doesn't dry out!

Hehe, me, my sister and her friend had a lot of fun with these! Enjoy!

And does anyone know how to rotate pictures?