KookyCulinary

It’s been a long time since I last baked. For the last couple of months, I have been very busy playing “travel agent” for my family (See my other blog for details if you are interested) and being a chauffeur for my little girl. Who knew that a 3 year old could have so many activities! Ever so often, I would look longingly at my very long to-bake list but alas, my tired body keeps saying no. So the long list goes back into my recipe folder.

Then last week I finally had a chance to cross one recipe of my to-bake list. It was Lil’ C’s last day of preschool and I had promised to bring a dessert to the year-end picnic. I decided to make something that I have been wanting to bake for a long time - the Chocolate Cheesecake.

What does the cheese layer remind you of? Doesn’t it look like a seahorse? Haha… It was not intentional but somehow the cheesecake layer sank and formed this cute shape. I guess I didn’t do a good job layering the cake. Even so, the cake turned out really nice. I like the cake slightly chilled just because of the cheesecake layer. The recipe can be found here.

All packed up and ready for the picnic. I decided to serve this cake bite-sized just because it is much easier to eat and less messy at a picnic.

Ok, I promise this is the last of my Chinese New Year bakes. How can it be Chinese New Year without pineapple tarts, right?

I actually made the fillings a week ago but have never gotten around the make the tarts. Actually I also could not decide which recipe to try since there are so many different recipes out on the internet! Then on Saturday, I went to a Chinese New Year potluck with my bible study group. There I met a new friend A who generously shared her easy recipe for the pineapple tart. A, thanks for a great and easy recipe. It’s delicious!! Hope you’ll be coming back here for vacation again soon.

I gave some of my Chinese New Year goodies to Lil’ C’s chinese school teachers. I thought it would be nice to include some cupcakes for them too, just for fun

So I made these vanilla cupcakes and decorated them with some marshmallow fondant. It was harder than I thought because the decos have to be very small & I have fat fingers!!! It was hard trying to make everything delicate. I think the princess doll cake was easier because it was bigger.

I wasn’t planning to bake any Chinese New Year cookies this year but after drooling at this talented mommy’s yummy Chinese New Year bakes, I couldn’t resist the temptation anymore. So I ended up baking this super easy and one of my favorite cookie, the Chinese Peanut Cookie.

Recipe:
500 gm roasted peanuts - finely ground
500 gm flour
250 gm icing sugar
3 cups oil (approximately)

Method:
1. Mix peanuts, flour and sugar together till well-mixed.
2. Drizzle in oil and mix till you can form a ball with the dough. Do not add in all the oil at one time. Just add enough for the dough to be formed.
3. Either use a mini cookie scoop or shape by hand into little balls.
4. Apply eggwash before baking at 325 for 20 minutes or till golden brown.

We had another unexpected snowfall at the beginning of the week. Since we live on the hills, we were stuck at home. The roads were too slippery to drive anywhere.
Anyway, I made these mini vanilla cupcakes with cream cheese icing to entertain the little one. The recipe for the vanilla cupcakes can be found here.

Edited to add:
This is what I used for the cream cheese icing.

8 oz cream cheese
1/4 cup butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Just cream the cream cheese and butter together till smooth. Add sugar & vanilla. Beat till light and fluffy. Leave in the fridge for about an hour before using. Usually cream cheese icing is softer than buttercream because I don’t add as much sugar. So it may necessary to put your icing back into the fridge if you find it too soft or you can just add more sugar.

I have been spending way too much time at Starbucks lately. Usually I will just get a latte but occasionally I will be tempted by their cakes & cookies and that’s what happen last week. The Cranberry Bliss Bar at the counter was just calling my name!! Ever had that happen to you before??

Anyway, the cranberry bliss bar is a seasonal menu item and it’s only available during the Christmas season. It was very good. So I ended up searching the internet for a copycat recipe. Turned out there are so many recipes out there. I finally decided to use this recipe.

They turned out pretty close to the ones at Starbucks. I omit the drizzled icing because it was sweet enough already. Next time I will have to use a larger pan because the bars came out thicker than expected. But it was really good and definitely looks very pretty.  :)

I can’t believe Christmas is just a few days away!! Here’s wishing all of you and your family a very

MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!  

I’ve received many queries on how I did the princess cake. So here’s the details on how it’s done.

For the cake, I actually bought the Wilton Wonder Mold Kit . As shown in the photo, it comes with a tall cake mold and a doll’s upper body. You don’t have to buy this mold in order to bake the cake. The reason I got it was because I had a coupon and got it for only $10.

If you don’t have a mold, you can just bake 2-3 round cakes, stack it up & then cut the cake to the shape of a skirt. The final cake shape should look like this.

As for the doll, just get a regular barbie doll and break off the bottom half and you can just push it into the cake top. 

For the cake filling, I used this recipe from Do What I Like to make the vanilla chiffon cake and the white chocolate strawberry mousse except that I just used the mousse for the inside layers.

For the outer layer, I used buttercream since it’s easier to pipe. I used the Wilton’s buttercream recipe except that I didn’t used all the icing sugar. I probably used about 3 cups. Then start piping whatever design you like. I used mostly the open star tip (Wilton #17) and round decorating tip (Wilton #3). There’s a lot of great design ideas on the internet.

For the roses, flowers & letters, I used sugar paste. Unfortunately I don’t have permission from the recipe owner to share the recipe here. Email me if you are interested. Alternatively, you can also use marshmallow fondant which I will share later. I used marshmallow fondant for my Elmo cake. They work just as well. You can also use sprinkles which are just as nice.

Hope this explanation helps those who want to try to bake this cake. Have fun!!

The party’s over and my little one is now 3 years old. She is growing up too fast! *sniff sniff* Anyway, back to the party, I know you all are waiting to see the cake, right? hehe…

TADA……. What do you think?

Front View:

Back View:

I almost forgot to take a photo of the inside of the cake till it was half gone. The cake is vanilla chiffon cake with white chocolate strawberry mousse. I used mousse which is a little sour from the strawberries instead of buttercream inside because buttercream would have made the cake too sweet.

Like my roses? :) I made this out of sugar paste. I was trying to figure out where to put the candles. So I made these roses to hold the candles.

Everything on the cake is edible except the bow on the doll’s head and the doll body, of course. I tried to make a tiara but my fat fingers would not allow me to make something so small!! But luckily I found Lil’ C’s ponytail holder to be a perfect fit. The doll’s dress top, roses, flowers, and the letters were all made of  sugar paste. Surprisingly the kids loved the alphabets. They were fighting over which alphabets they wanted to eat!!!

Overall, I was very happy the way the cake turned out and most importantly, Lil’ C loved it.

Wow, I guess the cake was too easy to guess huh? Yep, I will be trying to make a princess cake. My little girl is into her “I’m a princess” stage now, so I decided to indulge her and make a princess cake. Hopefully it will turn out nice.

Many people have asked whether I have taken a baking/decorating class before and the answer is no! I am hoping someday I will but so far I have never taken any classes. Everything I’ve done is all self-learned. My daughter’s cakes are my experiment grounds. So far, I have decorated less than 5 cakes. In fact, The Pooh cake was my 1st ever attempt at cake decorating (well, not counting the practice piece I did 2 days before doing the Pooh cake).  Then for Elmo cake, it was my 1st attempt at fondant.  I will blog more about this later.

For this princess cake, I am trying out sugar paste craft. This is the result of my attempt! What do you think?

I use cookie cutters to cut the flower and just roll a little ball on top of it to make the center.  It was a fun first try. The hardest part was the trying to get the sugar into a pliable dough. The kneading really took a lot of strength! But once it’s a dough, it’s just like playdoh. It can be made into any shapes imaginable!! Will try to see if I can make something else other than a flower. FYI, I almost failed art class in high school!!! hahaha……

Sorry for the lack of update lately. The last few weeks has been a little crazy and so will the next few weeks. I haven’t been cooking much lately. We have been eating out so much that I think I should start doing restaurant food review!! Even if we eat at home, it’s usually sandwiches or one dish meals. I still have some old photos that I need to post but haven’t been able to find the time to edit them. Soon, I hope!!

Anyway, one of the thing that has been keeping me busy is that my little one will be turning 3 this weekend! So I have been doing a little experiment in the kitchen, testing out her birthday cake.

For her 1st birthday, I made a Pooh cake

For her 2nd birthday, I made an Elmo cake

Guess what she’s having this year? This is a sneak preview.

This is not the actual cake. I’m still experimenting with the cake. Not too happy with the way this cake turned out. Maybe it’s because I’m not used to using the mold. Will have to try out another recipe tomorrow. So any guesses as to what cake this will be???? :P