Christmas Cupcakes

These were made weeks ago, but I was just too lazy to post them :-P They were made at different times, for different people - friends, neighbours, teachers and colleagues. They were mostly vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting.

For Music Teachers

For Neighbours

For Hubby's Colleagues

For School Teachers

Lemon Cupcakes with Lemon Cream Cheese Frosting For Friends

Wishing Everyone a Merry (Belated) Christmas

&

A Happy New Year!!

Time for joy, and time for cheer

Christmas eve had never been so stressful. Had gone to work for half day, then did some mega last-minute shopping (had to buy ingredients for fried rice I had to cook for church for boxing day), then chopped up branches and dropped them at the tip; then baked 2 chocolate mudcakes and 30 chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting for Christmas eve and Christmas day dinners.

But I consider busy at Christmas time good- makes it more festive and less lonely.

Happy Christmas!



Christmas Chocolate Mudcake


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Christmas Baking....

Here are some photos of previous week's baking. Didn't take everything I baked as they looked somewhat the same anyway....

A box of Christmas Cupcakes...

Christmas Gifts...

Pink & Purple Birthday Cupcakes

Ladies Luncheon Cupcakes
(colours a bit "jeng")

Cupcakes for Charity Bake Sale

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

Raspberry Cupcakes with White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

This is, again, from my Primrose Bakery book. The frosting is made by mixing melted white chocolate pieces with vanilla buttercream frosting. I only made this when I had some buttercream leftover as the recipe only requires four tablespoons of it. My kids loved it! Maybe because they love raspberries :-)

Basic Butter Cake

It is now the school holidays and the beginning of endless whines of "I'm bored! Can I play the computer, watch TV, play Wii, play with your phone, etc, etc?" We'll be staying put here for the holidays until Christmas week when we'll head back to my parents' for a few days. How do you entertain a seven-year-old for six weeks? .....I really don't know. Will probably find some holiday camp for him. SOON!

In the meantime, Mummy ie. moi, just has to get her butt off her chair and not be so lazy and find some activities for everyone to do together. We've been to the library a couple of times and borrowed tonnes of books. And yesterday, we baked a butter cake. My hubby loves this butter cake with chocolate chips. Unfortunately, I didn't have any chocolate chips when I thought I did, so we just made it plain. I measured out all the ingredients and my son put them in the mixer and mixed it. The cake turned out really well. Maybe next time, I'll let him do all the measuring. Or is that too ambitious?

Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes

These are from Rachel Lane's Wild About Cupcakes. All her chocolate cakes are quite dense and crumbly and this one is no different. I really like the chopped hazelnuts in the cake and the frosting (just melted dark chocolate and Nutella) was nice, not too sweet.

Breads....

Did not intend to bake so many types of breads...

Wanted to bake a brioche in my Bread Maker - which had not seen the light of day for FOUR years. But a technical problem resulted in my having to knead the dough by hand.

Not accepting the fact that my Bread Maker had decided to die on me, I attempted to use it a second time... a simple loaf this time round. Shucks! The mixing just won't happen. Again, I had to mix and knead by hand. So this is the result...

Clockwise from Top:
Bacon & Onion Rolls from the Brioche Dough, Simple White Loaf & Mini-Brioche

Also baked a yummilicious (but costly) chocolate cake....

Happy Diwali.....

Okay. Okay. A little belated. But I only received the order on Friday....so by the time I pop out to the shops to get the ingredients, and bake...it was Sunday already.

HAPPY DIWALI

As usual, I baked some extra for my boys' snack at school.... Look at the cool Cupcake Holders that I had bought from my recent trip to Melbourne. Great, huh?

Cool Cupcake Holders

Back in action!

My oven is finally working, after more than 3 months living at my new place.

If anyone remembered my baking resolution, it was to try a new recipe in honor of my sisters' birthdays.

I DID attempt a new cupcake recipe for Sister #4, but it was so disastrous it was too shameful to post photos of it.

But I (and my cupcakes) have been redeemed!

Green Tea cupcakes

They turned out really well. They have a chocolate base with a hint of green tea, and the green tea in the icing was conspicuous.

Happy Belated (x10) Birthday, Sister #4, M!!

Happy Halloween!

I know this is quite badly done. I didn't have the mood to do the decorations like I did last year. But just to make something to commemorate this day, I just cut out some orange fondant I had left over and used edible black markers to draw on them. And that's one sad-looking Jack O'Lantern! Hehe, anyways.....

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Orange Cupcakes with Orange Blossom Buttercream Frosting

These are from the Primrose Bakery book. The cakes were nice, with only a subtle hint of orange. The frosting was nice too but waaaaayy too sweet! The recipe uses 115g of butter and FIVE HUNDRED grams of icing sugar. And no, I did not follow the recipe. I only used 230g of icing sugar and you can tell because the frosting was so so soft and 'runny'. But even then, it was so SO sweet. I really can't imagine how it would taste like if I had followed the recipe!

Buttermilk Raspberry Muffins

I had quite a lot of buttermilk left from the scones, so I used them to make these. They are from my new book, 1001 Cupcakes, Cookies & Other Tempting Treats by Susanna Tee, which was given to me by lovely Sister No.3.

They were quite nice and the texture was good too. I gave some to a friend who absolutely loved them! :-)

Buttermilk Scones

These scones are Nigella's recipe. You can find it in 'How to be a Domestic Goddess' and 'Kitchen'. They were really yummy. I went out and bought clotted cream, which cost a bomb (slight exaggeration there!) but oh, so worth it! I love scones with clotted cream! But if not available, I'll make do with whipped cream :-P

Purple and Orange BIRTHDAY Cupcakes

My girlfriend ordered 50 cupcakes for a party yesterday. When she first told me that she wanted PURPLE and ORANGE cupcakes, I asked "is it for Halloween??"
Nope.
It's for her daughter's 13th Birthday.

I was a little apprehensive with the PURPLE and ORANGE colour combo... but I think the colour combination turned out quite alright. What do you think??


As 49 cupcakes fit NICELY in a square box (the 50th would be the ODD one out!), I refunded her the money for 1 cupcake. HeeHee :-)

By the way, these are MINIs... half chocolate and the other half vanilla cupcakes - all frosted with vanilla buttercream and then decorated with fondant butterflies and flowers.

Ben10 Alien Force Birthday Cake

It was my older son's birthday last week. Since he is a Ben10 fan, of course his cake has to be that theme. We had a party for him and there were twenty kids altogether. So I made cupcakes with the edible icing images which my sister bought. I also made a chocolate cake. The green bit, supposedly the 'Omnitrix' is made of fondant but the figurines were all toy ones.

Lazy, Lazy, Lazy!

Well, as the title of this post suggests, I have been really lazy! Lazy in baking and when I do bake, lazy in taking pictures. And when I do take pictures, lazy in posting them (eg. the previous post). Sigh, how can I chastise my older son for being lazy (in doing his homework or practising his musical instruments or whatever) when his Mummy is the biggest lazybones there is?!? Sigh...sigh...sigh....

I have just received my new cookbook in the post. Well, not 'just received' as it has been more than two weeks. I think. Anyway, that's not important. The cookbook is Nigella's new book, Kitchen. I think she's very funny. And very 'real', if you know what I mean. So far, I have tried a few recipes from the book and all of them 'sweets'.

I tried making the chocolate banana muffins and the brownies. Sorry, no pictures. I can't quite remember whether I forgot or I just couldn't be bothered. The muffins were only so-so. The brownies were better, though I've never been a brownie fan. But I really liked the chocolate pieces in them.

I think I will try chocolate brownie bowls next. They look so delicious. And cute!

Coffee Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream Frosting

I actually made these more than a week ago. But I've just been too lazy in posting them. They are from my 'Primrose Bakery' book and they are good! I have to say, I really do like the recipes in this book. The ones I've tried anyway, of course.

These are dedicated to Sister No.1 who celebrated her birthday a week ago Saturday.

Happy Belated Birthday, Sis! I'm sure you had a blast celebrating in Melbourne!

Cupcakes for Teachers' Day

Teachers' Day was almost two weeks ago, on 1st Sept. A few days after that, I went away on holiday. Hence, the delay in posting this. I made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting for my older son's teachers. I packed them individually. There were only five of them and I already found it such a hassle to put them in the small cupcake box and to tie the ribbons round them. I don't know how Sister No.1 did FIFTY of them by herself.


For my younger son's teachers, I made carrot cupcakes with orange cream cheese frosting. I kept them simple this time, without fondant or wordings. I included a picture of the cake box here, stuck with stickers that I got from the local supermarket :-)

Lebaran Cupakes 2

As mentioned in my previous post, the same friend ordered another 2 boxes of Lebaran Cupcakes plus 25 minis for last Friday. These are chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with vanilla buttercream frosting. I kept the design for these Lebaran Cupcakes the same as the previous batch (Lazy to do something different. Lazy is the keyword here. My son chided me for not checking my Cupcake email for potential orders. He said I could have had tonnes of orders but but but..... Hee Hee...)

Anyway, here's the two boxes..taken with my little Point-n-Shoot. Close-up of one box

25 minis

Lebaran Cupcakes...

As you know, Idul Fitri is literally round-the-corner and many folks are frantically searching for last minute Lebaran gifts and packages...and my dear 'ole friend W is no different. She wasn't sure if she should get me to bake as my spine was still acting-up the last time I met up with her. I assured her I was better... She had ordered 3 boxes of a dozen each..... the flavours were a mix of lemon cupcakes with lemon buttercream, vanilla and chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream - all picked up yesterday.

A box of Lebaran Cupcakes

3 boxes all packed and tied with Ribbons...

She wants another 2 dozen + 1 batch of minis for Friday.... will post that later.

Carrot Cupcakes with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

This recipe is from The Primrose Bakery book. There's orange rind in the carrot cupcakes and in the cream cheese frosting. The cupcake is light and soft and not too sweet. In the book, it says one batch of frosting is enough to frost 15-20 regular cupcakes. I ended up baking three times, over three days, just to finish off the frosting. I think I used it to frost about 30 cupcakes. I'm sure if I piled on the frosting, instead of flat-frosting, I wouldn't have so much left. But I think too much frosting would be......well, too much. Don't get me wrong, it was very very yummy. I think the orange goes very well with the carrot. But too much frosting would just overkill the taste.

Anyway, I will definitely make this again as it was so yummy. My older one loves carrot cake. One time we went to a popular cafe here in Singapore and I ordered a carrot cake. I asked my son if this cake was nicer or Mummy's was nicer. He said Mummy's. I said to him, "Are you saying it because it's true, or you just want to make me happy?" He said, "It's true. Your carrot cake is sooo much nicer. I think you should open a cake shop. And call it 'The Famous Sisters' Cake Shop'. " Awww, bless him!

Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

These buttermilk cupcakes are from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book. I made them when my older son had a playdate and I think the kids really enjoyed them. But to be honest, I don't think I will make them again. Personally, I still prefer the fluffier vanilla cupcake recipe that we have. I know that some people prefer their cakes to be denser but not me. But to each his own :-)

Froggy Cupcakes

I made these for a friend's birthday last week. No, it wasn't for a child. A quite old man, in fact. Our nickname for him is Frog (for reasons that I shall not divulge here) and hence the froggy cupcakes :P

Star Wars Birthday Cake

It was my hubby's birthday last week and of course, I baked him a chocolate cake. 'Of course' because he loves chocolate cakes. He's a fan of Star Wars, so instead of the usual simple cake that he always has, I put two Star Wars figurines on it. And voila, we have a Star Wars birthday cake! :-P

We all know that I'm as lazy as can be, so there definitely was not gonna be any fiddling with fondant and moulding and all that. Just get two toy figurines and there you have it! I was actually gonna write 'May the force be with you' but that would be a bit too much, don't you think? :-D

Birthday cake

A colleague had wanted to bake for her daughter's birthday but had no time in the end so she ordered a chocolate cake from me. This is not the usual chocolate cake that I make as she specially requested it to be the cupcake recipe that I usually used. As she was gonna feed 30 people, I had to buy a new cake tin to make this and estimation was not very good as it turned out to be a little "shorter" than I anticipated. Nevertheless, they all loved it!

Cookies and Cream Cheesecake Cupcakes

I have finally tried these cookies and cream cheesecakes from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book. I mentioned a while ago that I've been wanting to try this recipe but somehow just didn't get to it. Well, I finally did! They were very very easy to make. But I wonder if Martha Stewart expect the people who try her recipes to feed an army. Okay, exaggeration. Not an army but maybe two football teams. Most recipes make two dozen to over thirty cupcakes! For this recipe, it makes 30, so I halved it.

They were yummy and the people who tried them all liked it very much. But personally, I prefer the other Oreo cheesecake, the one that I always make :P

Chocolate and Banana Cupcakes

Yes, I know it has been a looooooooooooooong time since my last post. The month of June was the school holidays here in Singapore and we've been away. So haven't had the chance to bake anything. And after we returned from our holidays, I was just so lazy. And I missed three birthdays in June - my mum, sister no.4 and our sweetie-pie niece, S.

Finally baked something a few days ago. They were chocolate and banana cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting. They were actually banana cupcakes with chocolate pieces in them. I got the recipe from 'Cupcakes from the Primrose Bakery' but I didn't use their recipe for the frosting as it requires melting the chocolate. And I didn't have time for that as I made them in the morning. But the cakes were soft and light and very yummy!

It just so happened that my parents were here in Singapore and they brought a couple back to KL. And sister no. 4 had one. So these are dedicated to them for their birthdays ;P

Happy Belated Birthday, Mum, Sister No.4 and Sweetie-Pie S!

Buttermilk Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Donno why my picture quality is so bad. Anyway, had made dinner last night so this was dessert. Saw the recipe on the Donna Hay's 50th Anniversary Issue and got really excited about it coz it looked so beautiful! In the picture, it was actually four layers of cakes but I didn't have two small round tins so I just made do with one big one. Heh....somehow the taste reminded me of the chinese "kai tan goh"(literal translation is still cake but somehow you have to say it in cantonese to understand what I am referring to). = P

Cupcake Treats

Tomorrow will be the LAST DAY of school for both my boys....and then it's 7 weeks of looooooooooooooooong lazy Summer holidays.... So what does a good mommy do?
Whip up some mini cupcakes for both the boys to share with their classmates....

One of the Boxes of Cupcakes.....

(Other box is exactly the same)

Yes. yes. I know that I should have arranged them properly and not crookedly. Been a bit disorganised and clumsy today. Got frosting on the sides of the box and on myself too!

And whilst I was at it, I made extra for tomorrow's luncheon at my friend's house. She has invited over a few friends for a get-together before the long break.

Cupcakes for Ladies Luncheon

HAVE A GOOD SUMMER HOLIDAYS, EVERYONE!

Banana Loaf

Don't know if you all know.....my H does not eat cupcakes. Somehow, he thinks cupcakes are for ladies...and eating a cupcake is UNCOOL for a man...making one unmanly!

Anyway, he has been bugging me to make him a banana cake since I don't know when. I supposed it is high time I baked him something...especially I didn't do so for his birthday. *gulp*
Bad WIFE!

Here is the Banana Loaf that I made last weekend. H absolutely loved it...and kept repeating YUMMYYYYYYYY to my younger son, S2 till he was shouting "Dad! STOP IT!"...

Summer 2010

Yup. I know. I know. I haven't had a post for ages.... That's because I haven't baked for ages. Have not been feeling well, and then was out-of-town etc...

Anyway, had an order for 26 cupcakes from a friend's friend. Odd number, I know... She wanted 2 boxes of 6's, a box of 4's and then 10 cupcakes with the words SUMMER 2010, with a letter per cupcake. Thought that it wouldn't look too good if they were scattered about. So decided to do this instead....