Busy holiday weekend

Last weekend was another of those long weekend that simply stretches!
I personally love them but at the same time it does put a dent on daily activities like paying bills, yep I still do it the old fashion way, take a number and patiently wait my turn at the post office.
And of course the normally congested road, the infamous KL traffic is even more so.
I wonder why, after all the traffic reports on the radio say that the highways are equally congested, some several kilometers long. A few years back when ever there is a public holiday or eve of such an event its practically smooth sailing in the capital.
But now it a queue here, a traffic jam there and I'm not just talking about cars. Unfortunately the population of our dear city has grown so much, mostly with foreigners. Oh well, that's another story and I don't think this is where I ought to venture.
Back to my precious cakes!
I have NOT been updating my blog! Good grief does anyone even care? LOL
I planned on adding several more recipes for my own use of course but just haven't gotten around to it.
My other project of transferring old recipes from my battered book to a brand new one pun hasn't taken off either and all the while I keep finding and trying out new recipes and simply jotting them down in another book or pieces of paper!

Yes I did start with the weekend, and I have a fabulous one. I admit it was rather hectic and stressful but I enjoyed baking and made some money too! Now who can say no to that?
We didn't go anywhere but stayed close to home, went shopping at KWC and watched some wuxia films on TV.
Alhamdullilah for the rezeki God has bestowed onto me.

Thank you very much to dear friends who ordered and still enjoyed my baking. I sincerely hoped they had a good weekend holiday as well.

Afni, ordered a moist chocolate cake, a Victoria sandwich cake and cream puffs.
She requested that both cakes were baked in squared tins.

As decoration and a different twist from the norm, I crushed Cadbury Crunchie and sprinkling it on top of the chocolate cake's melted chocolate top. I froze the chocolate bar and smashed it with my rolling pin.

A dusting of icing sugar was enough for the Victoria Sandwich Cake but I piped a few lines of butter cream across the cake and stuck some fresh strawberries.
The cream puff well, remain as they were! The creamy custard filling justified everything else.



In addition to that there was also orders for birthday cakes!
Thanks to Suzila who wanted a marble cake with butter cream icing for her dad.

Another friend also celebrated his birthday that week, Happy Birthday Koko, many happy returns for the day! I hope he enjoyed the butter cake with chocolate cream icing.

If interested, recipes for each can be found in the blog.

Happy Baking.

Yums!

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Congratulations to Suzila and Ben on their engagement last Sunday!
I wished I had the time to add more decorations and pipe their names on the cake.

Yums!

Chocolate Fridge Squares

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Blondies

Devil's Food Cake

Doraemon!

Birthday Cake

A friend asked if I could bake a birthday cake for her son's first birthday... cute! First birthdays are important even if the birthday person isn't quite aware of what exactly is happening or who are all those people...!!

The mum wanted it to be Doraemon as that is his favourite cartoon character.
So off I went looking high and low of the said cat's edible icing sheet, but sadly after visiting 4 shops, Doraemon was no where in sight!
Eventually we settled for figurines of the blue cat made of sugar and some plastic toys.

For this cake I baked a Victoria Sandwich, chocolate and vanilla with butter cream topping.
As she didn't want a lot of cream, I covered the sides lightly with some butter cream before propping up bars of Kitkat that look like fences. For a festive touch I added some colourful lollipops.

Applying the fences a.k.a kitkat takes a lot of patience and a bit of icing.
Patience, so that the bars don't break as you are unwrapping them.
Icing, works like glue to stick to the cake. When done, gently press the bars to the cake and put it in the fridge to set. Same goes for the cats, a bit of icing at the bottom of eat figurines, helps them stick better.
I piped some rosette at the edge between the cake and kitkat bars, to close some gaps.
If you like, tie a colourful ribbon around the chocolate bars with a big bow right at the front.

Here is the end product, I left the front part empty for the candles.

Victoria Sandwich
source: my mum's recipe book

4 oz self raising flour (I used Blue Key)
1 tsp baking powder
3 oz castor sugar
2 medium size eggs
4 oz butter
* I doubled the recipe for this birthday cake.

Method:
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add in eggs one at a time, beat well.
Fold in flour in batches and mix well until batter is smooth.
**
Line and grease 2 baking tins.
Bake for about 25-30 min at 180 C.

Take cakes out of tins and cool on racks.
When cakes are still warm, spread jam on the surface of one cake (pick the bottom part of the cake, as it is easier to spread the jam) before topping it with the other cake.

** If you are doing the chocolate part, put aside half of the batter and add 1 Tbsp of cocoa. Mix well until all the batter is evenly mix, just use a wooden spoon or spatula. Pour batter into tin and bake.

For the butter cream
125g butter
70g shortening
80g icing sugar (please sift first)
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp condensed milk

In a bowl beat butter and shortening until light and fluffy,
then add the vanilla. Beat again.
Gradually add the icing sugar and continue beating until all the
sugar is finished. Lastly add in the condensed milk.
Mix well and it is ready to be used.

For colour, just add a few drops of your favorite colour. 

Happy Baking!

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Baked this lovely all time favorite of the family and masses, Victoria Sandwich Cake.
I barely popped it out of the tins, it was still warm and Mum wanted to know if she could have a piece!
Not yet, said I as it has to cool slightly before I spread the jam and topped the other half over it!
As requested, I made the second half of chocolate.
Simply really, just add 1 Tbsp of cocoa powder with just enough water to form a paste.
Then add that to half of the batter.
Stir well to ensure all the 'white' turns chocolate.

If you want to try this lovely recipe for tea or just to eat cake, go here

Happy Baking!

Victoria Sandwich Cake

My sister wanted a cake for ... Christmas. We don't celebrate it but like all Malaysian and all the festivals in our dear country (1 Malaysia), in a way we all do.
I have never done a Christmas cake before, but there is a first time for everything, so here goes.

After deciding which cake she wanted we went on our way to buy decorations for the cake since the ingredients all memang dah ada kat rumah. Bought a ready man 'snowman' made of sugar at Bakewell.
I thought of building a Christmas tree using skittles but to my dismay when it was time to decorate the cake I bought the large ones instead. Which was way too big for my small cake.
So then we decided to just draw the outline of the cake with green icing, and use Nestle Crunch Wafer as the tree trunk. Mum suggested we used the colored sugar balls as ornaments for the tree! Thanks a lot Ma! We were already at our wits end at how else to decorate the cake.
The skittles, in the end we just ate it as it is! LOL

The cake is the Victoria Sandwich cake, I just doubled it. But for the bottom layer I added a Tbsp of cocoa powder, just for contrast instead of the cake being all white. I used Tesco Bramble Jelly for the filling, it tastes a bit tart but perfect for the cake. A dusting of icing sugar was the base of the cake before I piped icing.

Victoria Sandwich Cake

Not quite sure why it is called so, but dah nama dia!

This cake is easy to make and delicious. Good for teas, when you have unexpected guests ...

Sandwiched in between the two cakes is usually jam - strawberry jamlah! But you can sapu any jam you want, mixed berries is good too.

Victoria Sandwich Cake

I tripled the recipe to fit two 8 in cake tins.

Victoria Sandwich Cake
source: my mum's ancient cook book

4 oz self raising flour (I used Blue Key)
1 tsp baking powder
3 oz castor sugar
2 medium size eggs
4 oz butter

Method:
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add in eggs one at a time, beat well.
Fold in flour in batches and mix well until batter is smooth.
Line and grease 2 baking tins.
Bake for about 25-30 min at 180 C.

Take cakes out of tins and cool on racks.
When cakes are still warm, spread jam on the surface of one cake (pick the bottom part of the cake, as it is easier to spread the jam) before topping it with the other cake.
If you like dust some icing sugar on the top.

Happy Baking.