Novice blogger...

Girl has to confess that she is still a novice blogger...whenever she sees or does something remotely out of the ordinary, her first instinct is not to grab her camera and take a picture of it to be posted on her blog...

That is how half a grilled salmon (marinaded in ginger wine and wasabi and soy sauce), 300gms of lamb chops, a Vietnamese inspired vermicelli salad and half of the chocolate mousse Girl made was consumed before Girl thought to take a single photo of anything that she served at New Year's dinner last night!

However, Girl did manage to regain her wits by the time she served dessert and managed to get a picture of the Nigella-inspired instant chocolate mousse...The making of it was rather easy...marshmallows, butter, water and chocolate melted in a saucepan, cream (and baileys) whipped up and then added to the chocolate mixture. But the eating of it lay rather heavy on our stomachs...the mousse was so very rich! But Girl and other diners somehow managed to choke down the velvety smooth mousse...the sacrifices that one makes!

There is a gouge in the surface of the mousse as a diner was about to dig in to the mousse but was stopped by Girl so she could take this photo...

Nigella...

Girl spent a blissful day poring over the colourful and lusciously illustrated pages of Nigella's latest cookbook. She earmarked two recipes to try...Ginger and Pear Muffin and Instant Chocolate Mousse...

Girl has planned for New Year's Eve dinner tomorrow night to be...salmon with fresh herbs and garlic; vermicelli, tomato and cucumber salad; grilled lamb chops accompanied by fresh greens from the garden and instant chocolate mousse for dessert...a dinner worthy of the true domestic diety herself? Perhaps Girl is getting a little ahead of herself here...

Merry Christmas!

Girl received a set of silicone baking cups from a friend for Christmas...yay!

So, being an energetic individual, Girl made Lemon yoghurt muffins for breakfast *wink*

And Banana yoghurt muffins for afternoon tea...

The Banana yoghurt muffins were just a tweak of the basic yoghurt cake recipe found on Chocolate & Zuchini. Girl substituted two mashed bananas for one pottle of 125mL yoghurt and the muffins turned out great! (If Girl had had walnuts, they would have been chopped up and bunged into the mixture as well) Another great thing about using the bananas was that they made the muffins quite sweet, thereby reducing the amount of sugar needed...

All in all, Girl is pleased with how her experiment turned out...

Best Wishes for the New Year!

새해 북 많이 받으세요!

Cheesecakes...

Remember how someone had asked Girl to make a birthday cake for a friend's birthday party? After having decided on various cakes and then discarded the ideas as being too elaborate (Girl only had about three hours to make the cake) and an undue strain on Girl's almost non-existent baking abilities, Girl finally settled on a cheesecake flavoured with Baileys and topped with chocolate ganache...

On the day of the party, Girl decided to make the cheesecake in small little cupcake papers as they seemed to make the task more manageable...especially after a 600km journey back from another town!


First of all, Girl lined a 12-hole muffin tray with cupcake papers...Girl then bashed up a packet of vanilla super wine biscuits with a rollingpin and added 125gms melted butter. Girl mixed the biscuit crumbs and butter together and pressed the mixture into the bottom of the cupcake papers. The whole tray was put into the fridge to chill for half an hour or so...In the meantime, Girl added gelatine to some hot water and stirred it until it was dissolved. The gelatine mixture was then left to cool while Girl got on with other things..Girl beat cream cheese, lemon juice and icing sugar in a bowl with a hand-mixer. To this, Girl added 60mL of Baileys and 240mL of cream in batches and the mixture was beaten some more until smooth. The gelatine was then added to the mixture and the mixture was then spooned into the cupcake papers and once more replaced into the fridge to chill. When the mixture was reasonably chilled, chocolate ganache was poured over the top of the cheesecakes...Yumminess!

There were so many cheesecake cups that not all were eaten that night and the cakes tasted even better the following day when they had had time to set properly! Loverly! <3

Eureka! Eureka!

Girl feels about the same way that Archimedes must have done when he discovered the way to determine the volume of an object with an irregular shape...


For days now, Girl has been racking her brains to come up with a solution to her cake problem...namely, how to avoid using fondant (which hates refrigeration) to decorate a cake with ganache icing on it (which requires refrigeration, in Girl's estimate, if it is to be kept for a few days).


The answers to all of Girl's problems lay on one website...this one!


The most exciting excerpt from this exemplary webpage...

Ganache is very versatile stuff! You can take the remainder that has fallen onto the baking sheet, form it into a ball, roll it between your palms into a long snake, then roll it flat (or not) and form all kinds of freeform shapes to go on top of the cake. Or you can roll the ball flat (no thinner than 3/8 of an inch, though) and use cookie cutters to cut out shapes like stars, ornaments, etc. You can make a “white chocolate” ganache and pour it into cake pans to cool, then cut into ribbons, rounds, the sky’s the limit! And white chocolate is stunning against dark chocolate. You can, of course, also paint the ganache onto washed and dried mint leaves to make chocolate leaves that can be shaped to stand up from the cake. And you can form those ribbons into individual “loops” to make a full bow for the top of a cake.



Oh, Girl is ecstatic!

Continuation of the cupcake story...

Girl was a bit disappointed tonight when she ate the cupcakes she made yesterday as they were quite dry! *sob* There are several possible reasons for this...a) Girl left the babycakes in the oven for too long...b) refrigerated cake=dry cake...hmm...

The fondant cutouts definitely weren't great today after having spent a day in the fridge...but Girl already knew they wouldn't be...they go all soggy and drippy-looking when left in the fridge...but since Girl had iced the cupcakes with ganache, she wasn't sure if ganache would be alright if left out of the fridge...

When Girl started this whole cake making gaff, her general attitude was *phff* what's so hard about making and decorating cakes? Nothing, if they are eaten straight away...but if the cakes are to be decorated and stored for awhile, Girl finds that keeping them at optimum freshness can be a bit of a juggling act...

Anyway...enough reflection...Girl has had her first "commission" for a friend's birthday...

And since Girl has to make the cakes before she goes away on holiday and has quite a limited amount of time in which to do it, she has to plan the whole mission in rigorous detail...

Girl has settled on a moist chocolate cake, covered with a white ganache icing tinted with just the smallest hint of pink and decorated with butterflies and baby roses. But now, Girl has to figure out if she can make the butterflies and roses with something other than fondant as the cakes have to be stored in a refridgerator for a day or two. At this stage, royal icing is probably the other best option that Girl has.

Coffee & Walnut muffins

Girl racked her brain for a witty title for this post but came up with nothing...after all, what witticisms can one utter about a batch of coffee walnut muffins slathered in chocolate ganache-type icing and bedecked with green fondant butterflies and flowers...?




The Coffee and Walnut muffin recipe was actually meant to be baked as a cake but Girl decided to use cupcake papers...it was a spur of the moment decision with Girl to slather ganache icing on top and from there, it was a short step to rolling out some fondant and making flower and butterfly cutouts to adorn the muffins...Girl found the fondant to be easier to work with today; it seemed to be firmer and held its shape better. Girl found that her cutouts came away far more cleanly today than they did when the fondant was freshly made...

**Note: The fondant was only made last Thursday

I've got my heart set on [CENSORED]...

Girl spent Friday and most of the weekend in bed recovering from one too many late nights and a mild case of the sniffles...

Girl has a strange dislike of sleeping...She hates to go to bed! Sometimes, she has to literally force herself to go to sleep at night (especially if she has to work the next day) or to sleep in when she's feeling exhausted...The reason for this really strange behaviour? Sleeping is boring as hell!

Girl would so much rather be reading cookbooks and getting ideas for cakes and cupcakes or "admiring" the vegetables in her garden and cursing the slugs that ruin her otherwise beautiful cos lettuces or poring over gardening books, trying to glean ideas for her flower garden or trying to think of new ways to use/cook the abundance of plants in her garden or blogging...Girl hates to sleep when there are so many, many interesting things to do!

But sooner or later, it all catches up with Girl and then flash! Girl is left holding the remains of a candle, burnt out at both ends. Good thing for Girl that she has quite a robust constitution and a weekend in bed is usually sufficient to get her back on track...

Girl now feels like a million dollars after her enforced bed-rest..What will Girl's next project be...? Girl has a definite idea in mind but is going to keep it under wraps at present as she wants it to be a surprise for someone close to her (hence the somewhat obscure title of this post)*chuckles*

Hint: It involves this little tyke...

Girl didn't manage to make the two cakes that she wanted to make this weekend but she did make a drink using mint and lavender and lemon juice in her efforts to try and combat the searing summer heat...(a hint as to Girl's whereabouts, perhaps?) *LOL*

Girl put torn up mint leaves in a cup along with some lavender flowers and sugar...Boiling water was poured into the cup and then the whole concoction was poured into some lemon juice...Water and ice was added to the mix and Girl drank it all up through a pink straw...happiness...

Cupcakes...

Behold...cupcakes Girl baked from scratch and decorated with cutouts of homemade marshmallow fondant...

The whole process took a few days...the cupcakes were made one night after work and then stored away to be decorated when cool...the fondant was made yet another night and then stored away in a plastic bag in the fridge...

Girl thinks she finally gets how to make MMF, although hers tends to be a little on the dry side. However, it doesn't seem to be anything that a little Crisco can't fix...

Girl spent a therepeutic evening rolling out fondant with a glass (use glass to roll out fondant...it lessens dramatically the 'stick to the rollingpin' factor!) and cutting out shapes with a combination of cookie cutters...

Girl now needs to figure out how to 'dispose' of 10 sugary sweet cupcakes...

And as for the left-over fondant in the fridge...Girl definitely needs more practice producing flowers and leaves etc...

Drought...

...not in the literal sense...but Girl seems to be undergoing some sort of mental, creative and emotional drought wherein she walks about hazily, trying to conjure up enough willpower to organise herself and her work!


Anyway, enough of Girl's senseless rantings...Girl decided that she would make two cakes during the weekend for her friends and try decorating them with marshmallow icing and fondant cutout shapes...


Girl is still trying to decide on the theme of the cakes...there is a very real danger of ending up in Barbie-land as she still hasn't figured out a way to colour rolled fondant evenly and at the moment, is limited to either white or pink...


Here are the products of Girl's experiments with fondant...and yes, Girl does know they look sh*tty...*LOL Back to the drawing board! Girl is allergic to failure >o<




Girl made another batch of Honey Hazelnut muffins and this time, Girl ensured that she put plenty of sugar into the recipe and voila! Beautiful muffins ensued...

Exhaustion...

Girl is feeling strangely exhausted these few days...this ill-timed fatigue is incredibly frustrating as Girl has things to do and places to be...!! Not to mention cakes to make and cookies to try!


Girl tried to muster up some enthusiasm and make her beloved honey hazelnut muffins this evening but all she got were these little hard discs that could probably have passed as mill-stones...!

Compared to the muffins from the first attempt at this recipe...


The reason for the vast difference in result? Girl isn't quite sure...but this time, she omitted the sugar from the recipe and did not beat the mixture quite as thoroughly. Girl also did not sift the flour and baking powder and swapped the hazelnuts for walnuts. Moral of the story? Never bake when tired...it is merely a waste of ingredients...

Oh...and another thing...read recipe carefully (do not confuse with recipe for another cake) and don't tinker with it too much!

PS: Experienced bakers out there...lets hear from you!! T_T