Been and gone

Christmas has been and gone! And now all I have left to show for it is a few extra kilograms around my waist and wonderful food memories.

This year, Brendyn and I spent Christmas down south with his family where my sister-in-law (who is a self acclaimed Perth based food critic and blogger, The Fat Cow, check out her blog when you get the chance) dished up an amazing breakfast and my mother-in-law cooked a mouth watering turducken (turkey stuffed inside a duck stuffed inside a chicken). Four words: yum to the yumma.

We then celebrated Christmas with my side of the family a few days later. Every year my uncle's employer gives all their employees a turkey amongst other goodies and every year he kindly contributes it to our Christmas meal. Although I am not the only 'cook' in the family, I seem to have inherited the role of cooking the traditional Christmas meal for my family. I guess since we are all Asian (my family that is) our preference is Asian cuisine and this is reflected in our style of cooking. As I married a whitey, westerner, caucasian or whatever you like to call him, I seem to be best suited to cook a traditional "white" Christmas meal. Although my sister, Gina, also married a fellow whitey, her cooking abilities are some what limited. However, she is a fantastic cleaner though - sorry for selling you out Gina!

So my traditional "white" Christmas menu consisted of the following:
Entree - Bacon and cheese potato skins
Main - 4.5kg turkey with apricot and pistachio stuffing
         - Roasted pork belly and veal
         - Grilled mango chicken and couscous
         - Capsicum and cashew pasta salad
         - Simple humble garden salad
Dessert- I decided to take a risk and only make cupcakes as a plan B, if my risky plan A was a complete disaster. Plan A was a 6 tier zesty strawberries and cream almond sponge cake. I worked from a Gourmet Traveller recipe that I varied a great deal. The almond sponge cake was almost like a macroon inspired cake using the likes of almond mill, sugar and egg whites. The strawberries were soaked in lemon and lime juice for a few hours to create a zesty tang. And finally the cream was a combination of lemon, lime, cream cheese, sugar and whipped cream! It was delicious - although I do think the 6 tiers was a little excessive. I think I will vary this recipe into a cupcake recipe in the near future. So watch this space.

A few weeks ago Gina made bonbon Christmas crackers with Zac and Mini. Zac and Mini wrote their very own jokes. My favorite joke of the evening was Mini's joke and it went a little something like this:

Question - What do get when you cross a cup and a cake?

When the family heard this we all sighed and said the obvious "cupcake" but Mini sheepishly smiled and said no.

Answer - An Aunty Tina Cupcake.

When the answer was read out Mini just smiled with glee. A smile that nearly brought me to tears!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ...

cupcake toppers in every store!

I just adore Christmas and everything it stands for - not just because I am a Christian but because I love the quality time spent with family over the Christmas period. Nothing beats over eating, getting your belly rubbed because you over ate and spending some quality time with family while eating left overs of course! I also appreciate the opportunity to show off my cupcaking skills! Because let's face it, I look for any excuse to make cupcakes.

This year is no different. Check out my Christmas topper collection for this year:

My favourite it the rudolph! Not only does he have a red nose, but it is a glittery red nose at that! On the scale of 1 to 10 for cutest, it definitely scores a 8.2 in my books!

I put these toppers to good use and made Zac's pre-primary class cupcakes for their end of year Christmas party. Check it out:

When I asked Zac what the boys in his class said about Aunty Tina's cupcakes, he said "Nothing because they were too busy enjoying your delicious cupcakes!" What a smart little boy ... he definitely knows all the right things to say.

Letting go

Zac and Mini Mousey love to bake. To foster their interest, I try to have them over to my place every so often to bake either cupcakes or cookies. Baking with the kids has forcefully taught me to “let go” of my perfectionist ways and let the kids do what they will in the baking process. This includes adding all the ingredients into the mixer, spooning the mixture (which always prove to be a messy affair) and pipping on the icing (equally as messy affair, if not more).

A few weeks ago, I not only had the pleasure of having the two kids over to bake, but Zac brought along a little helper, ‘Pocket Bear’. Pocket Bear is a little blue bear from Zac’s school that each student takes turns to take home for the weekend. The students are asked to take photographs of the activities they do with Pocket Bear and share it with the class the following Monday when they return to school. So I was lucky enough to not only have my two gorgeous monkeys to help, but Pocket Bear to assist in the baking process as well.

To make Pocket Bear feel welcomed, I woke up extra early that morning to make personalised Pocket Bear cupcake toppers!

When Zac saw the Pocket Bear toppers, he informed me that my toppers were missing a critical element – Pocket Bear’s frowning mouth! :( So we sat down together and using my edible marker we drew on a frowning mouth on all the toppers.

So I may not have been entirely honest when I said earlier that baking with the kids has taught to be “let go”. I do let go in certain respects and not so much in others. An example of me letting go was allowing Zac to spoon in the shifted flour during the beating process. To contrast this, an example of me not letting go as such is when Zac asked if he could pipe the icing on the cupcakes that will be photographed and I said no because I wanted the photos to be perfect! I know, I am a horrible, horrible, horrible aunty!! For what it is worth, I feel terrible about it now. Yes, I am a control freak perfectionist who deprives their nephew of his fundamental right to pipe icing. For what it is worth, I did let him pipe the icing on the remaining cupcakes. See, I am not all bad and besides it was for the greater good.  The greater good being me and my pride! Nevertheless, look at how great the photo turned out (I may or may not have used a little Photoshop to enhance the photograph)!

Putting the cupcakes in Rock N’ Roll

I love it when people request themed cupcakes as it gives me the opportunity to make cupcakes that I wouldn’t usually make. For instance, this weekend I had a cupcake order for a 29th birthday. The birthday boy’s (or man I should say) lovely mum placed an order of 30 cupcakes. She told me that he liked guitars, so naturally I had to make guitar themed cupcakes! I also made cupcakes spelling out ‘Happy 29th Birthday Neil’.

Like always I miss calculated how many guitar toppers I actually needed and ended up with 10 spare! And to think, maths was actually my strongest subject growing up. I even went to Math Camps and everything in High School!

Last week before taking Zachy to school, he noticed some fondant toppers drying on my kitchen table – flower and cat toppers more specifically. He said to me, ‘Aunty Tina why don’t you combine the two toppers. Place the flower on the cat, that way the cat will look like a girl cat. She will look so cute!’ And that is exactly what I did. So when I saw the left over guitar toppers, I thought ‘What would Zachy do?!’ So I thought, why not make some boy penguins and make them play the guitar. And so, I did.

And that is how I put the cupcakes in Rock N’ Roll!

Go fish!

I went shopping with Zachy over the weekend at Spotlight. When we passed the baking aisle, he saw a packet of fish sprinkles (well actually, the fish were a little bigger than sprinkle size but too small to be topper size). Anyway, despite the fish sprinkles/toppers (to be confirm) unusual size, Zach loved them and wanted me to buy them to make fish cupcakes. After looking at the fish sprinkles/toppers price, I decided not to purchase the sprinkles/toppers but instead make my own. I promise Zach that I would make him fishing cupcakes and the next day, I did.

My first idea was to make a fondant person hold a fishing rod and have a fish hang on the end of the rod. Although the idea was good in theory, it looked a little dodgy! If you are not over the age of 18, please scroll down and do not look at the photo below.

Wanting to keep my blog fairly G rated or at least PG rated, I decided to make a censored batch. So instead, I scrapped the idea of a fondant person and instead only made little rods with a fish hanging on the end. I then stuck those fishing rods in the cupcake directly.

They were so simple to make and Zach was quite impressed with my fishing efforts. So all in all, a fairly successful baking adventure.

Babies, baking and buttons!

I had two of my babies, Zachy and Mini Mousey Amelia, come over today for some baking fun and buttons! We made cupcakes (surprise, surprise) and by the end of the day, we not only had two dozen cupcakes but buttons all over the living room! The babies found my button collection and thought it would be fun to play with the buttons while the cupcakes were baking in the oven! Although, it was fun to play with the buttons, it was not so fun cleaning them up.

Mini Mousey has taken quite a liking to baking and has come over to bake on a number of occasions. I am still trying to learn to let go and let her do things herself. But being the control freak that I am, I always feel the need to guide her through each step. By guide I mean do everything and have her hold my hand. Today, I actually let go and let her do things herself. And Mini did a great job! Although, she is still learning to pipe icing perfectly, she is most certainly getting there. She won’t be needing her Aunty Tina soon enough. After all, she is only 3! I guess there is still plenty of baking years of training a head.

We made raspberry cupcakes and they were YUM! All cupcakes were topped with a fondant topper and sprinkles. The babies decorated the cupcakes all by themselves.

The more silicon the better!

I know people say less is more, but when it's comes to silicon, more is better! The more silicon bouncing around, the better I say.

I was first introduced to the wonders of silicon by my sister in law and follow blogger, Adelyn (Baroque Moments). She and Zachary gave me some star silicon bake moulds for my 22nd birthday. Although, they are very cool, I haven't used them too often due to the fact that you can't put a cupcake patty in them. However, I did put them to good use last year to bake little star cupcakes for the Starlight Charity Bake Off I mentioned a few blog post ago.

My next silicon purchase was silicon cupcake/muffin moulds and tray. The pretty coloured individual ones are really handy for mini quiches and custard tarts (Yes, believe it or not, I do bake things beyond cupcakes. I don't like to admit it. But I do!). The silicon cupcake tray is amazing. The way cupcake patties sit within the tray is just perfect. The cupcakes come out all tall and perfectly round - simply perfection. I would definitely recommend everyone to purchase a silicon cupcake tray or two! I have four and considering to purchase an additional two. What can I say, I love silicon!

Last year, I went to visit two very dear friends of mine who both lived in Canberra at the time, Koko butter and Ms wee! Koko and I share the same passion for cupcakes and decided to go out in search for cupcakes one afternoon. Little did we know, it end up being a small little road trip to Cherry Seed. By the time we got there, there was only top deck cupcakes left (chocolate base with white chocolate icing and topped off with a top deck chocolate of course). From memory, the cupcake was moist and quite tasty. Given we ate the cupcake at the end of the day, the cupcake had loss a bit of its bounce, i.e. fluffiness, but still nevertheless quite delicious.

The best thing about the little road trip was the stores within the complex that the cupcake store was located. There was this little gift store that had just the most adorable things, including baking utensils, such as silicon chocolate moulds. I ended up buying a baby and dinosaur chocolate moulds to make cupcake toppers.

NOTE: You will read about the rose moulds shortly.

And I will tell you what, they make pretty darn cute toppers. I used the dinosaur moulds for a batch of Zachary's kindy class' fundraising last year. It was devastating, the teachers ended up selling my cupcakes for one dollar each! I swear the ingredients cost me more to make then the money raised from them. I should I have donated the twenty five bucks and kept my three hours of additional sleep! Ah well, hindsight is a beautiful thing.

To top it all off, last year for my birthday my friend and fellow baker, Jodie, gave me rose silicon chocolate mould. And in return, on her birthday I made her a set of white chocolate mud cupcakes using the rose moulds. They turned out pretty cute.

Well this turned out to be quite a long post. I am nacked (nacked, not naked), peace out.

Ahoy there me hearties!

I always seem to make really cute girlie cupcakes. Not sure whether it is because of the nature of cupcakes itself being cute or because I like cute things? Ah well, food for thought (or more specifically, cupcake for thought).

Poor Zachy! Every time I make cupcakes for a family gathering, he is always stuck with a girlie looking cupcake. I have tried to make cupcakes more boy friendly in the past by putting little dinosaur sprinkles on the cupcake, but it still somehow looks a little girlie.

This past weekend, I was determined to make Zach a good old fashion masculine cupcake (if there is such a thing). I decided to put to use the pirate cupcake wrappers my mother-in-law brought me a couple months ago. The wrappers were black with orange and white skulls on it. Not pretty or cute at all! Very serious stuff.

While my vanilla cupcakes were baking away nicely in the oven, I decided to make a pirate cupcake topper for my all time masculine boyish cupcake for Zach. Early this year, Zach’s pre-primary class learnt about the sea and pirates. They even had a dress up day at school were all the boys dressed up in pirate outfits. Of course, my sister-in-law went above and beyond her call of duty and made an amazing pirate costume for Zach. To see a photo of it, please go visit her blog: http://baroquemoments.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-to-make-pirate-costume-and.html. She is truly amazing!

Anyway, more importantly back to ME, whoops, I mean cupcakes! An hour later, the cupcakes were cooked, cooled and ready for icing. I used my flavour of the month, 2D Wilton nozzle, and piped the vanilla butter cream icing onto the cupcakes into little swirl peaks. Then topped the cupcake off with the pirate topper! As you can see from the photo below, the topper was still a little wet as I had not given it enough time to dry before snapping the camera.

Later that evening, I had to bake another batch of cupcakes for my staff members as I was holding a briefing the next day. Half way through spooning the mixture into the cupcake patties, I realised that I had to make some semi-masculine cupcakes for my male staff members. I wasn’t sure whether they would be comfortable eating dainty, cute bunny cupcakes! So I had to think on my feet and improvise. I still had some pirate cupcake wrappers left, so I decided to use them.

While the cupcakes were baking away, I wasn’t sure how I was going to decorate the male orientated cupcakes as all I had was bunnies! Then it hit me. BAM! Out of no where. I could make masculine bunny pirate cupcakes! So, I took out my edible ink pen and drew eye patches on some of the bunnies.

There you have it! Masculine bunny pirate cupcakes. Aren’t they cute? Oh deary me, I mean aren’t they totally bad ass?!  

Whoever said that looks does not matter is lying!

I was mortified to wake up on Friday morning to find an article trashing cupcakes had been published on newsobserver.com. Debbie Moose, the author of the article, said that the primary reason people choose to eat cupcakes is because they are ‘cute’. She titled the article “Keep your cupcakes; cute doesn’t cut it”. She makes a good argument. Had I read the article a month or so ago, I might have agreed with her. The reason why I got into cupcakes was because they are so darn cute.

When I first started baking, I openly admitted that my primary focus was cupcake decorating. However, recently I realised that in order to make the perfect cupcake, the cupcake itself had to be absolutely delicious! I now pride myself on not only making aesthetically pleasing cupcakes, but tasty ones too!

Moose did make some good arguments with respect to cupcakes. She stated that “Cupcakes have a shorter shelf life than full-size cakes. They go stale and dry-tasting faster, because they have more exposed surface area”. Although this is true, I believe a good cupcake baker always makes her or his cupcakes no more than 12 hours before the cupcake occasion. Otherwise, the cupcakes will lose their moistness, and let’s be honest, that is not fun for anyone.

Moose also argued that the icing to cupcake ratio was out of control. Personally, I think that is just outrageous! I am shocked that anyone would or could even say that. I am speechless. I have nothing further to say with respect to this matter.

So does looks matter? Absolutely! Let's face it, you notice what a cupcake looks like first, before you sink your teeth into it! But having said that, taste is equally as important. The cupcake must be moist and fluffy but not too sweet. Similarly, the icing must be light and smooth but again not too sweet and most definitely not taste like mock cream! And then, everything needs to be put together nicely. Attention to detail is important, from choosing the right cupcake wrapper to piping (or for those of you who are speaders, spreading) on the icing. And like any good cupcake, topped off with an unquie topper!

One of the best cupcake books I own is ‘Hello, Cupcake!’. My mother-in-law brought it for me as a Christmas gift last year. The book is all about the wonders of cupcake decorating. The cupcake decorations in this book are amazing, I would even go as far as to say mind blowing.

I have only made one cupcake design from this book thus far – insect themed cupcakes. I made these cupcakes for Zachy’s primary class for his birthday this year. Given that he is in an all boy class, they were an absolute hit! The boys loved them. Do you think the boys would have loved them if they were ugly? Of course not!

Call me superficial, but looks does matter! First comes looks, then comes taste. Harsh, but fair ...

Brrr, it's cold!

As I am fairly new to the world of blogging, I am not yet familiar with the blogging etiquette. How often should you post? Is posting more than once a day too much? Is posting once a week too little? How long should each post be? This is an insight into the hard hitting questions that I deal with on a daily basis. So, I have set myself a blogging goal, I have decided to blog at least once a week and no more than once a day. Please make sure I stick to it and if I don't, pull me up on it!

I woke up this morning feeling terribly cold which caused me to reminisce about one of my baking adventures that I embarked on last year. Zachary’s kindy class had a ‘’cold’’ themed party in early June to celebrate the arrival of the winter season. Parents (and aunties!) were asked to bring a plate of food to share that was “cold” themed inspired. Not surprisingly, I jumped at the opportunity to make cupcake but was a little stuck on the theme.

Whilst at work on the morning of the day I was due to bake the cupcakes, I glanced over to my lolly jar and noticed little banana lollies (my favourite) and an idea came to mind – banana split decorated cupcakes. Banana splits are not only cold, but super fun! But how was I to do this? I thought the best way to construct such a cupcake was to split a banana lolly in half, use multi-coloured Kool fruits as the ice cream scoops and drizzle melted chocolate as the chocolate sauce.

When it came time to executing the cupcake, it was a lot more difficult than expected. The Kool fruits were too big for the banana split lollies. I looked in my pantry and luckily, I had raspberry and vanilla marshmallows (another lolly favourite of mine). I tore a marshmallow into thirds and started to play with it and rolled the marshmallow into little ball (not to worry, my hands were cleaned). Given the sticky nature of marshmallows, it formed a ball and sat between the two banana splits perfectly. It actually looked like ice cream scoops too! But don't take my word for it, you be the judge of that:

The kids loved the look of the cupcakes! The look on the kids' faces, especially Zachary's, made it all worth it.

Boys will always be boys ...

My baking adventures officially began last year, when my little nephew Zachary turned four.  He asked me to make dinosaurs cupcakes for his kindy class. I made these little vanilla cupcakes with dinosaur short bread cookies on top and dinosaur sprinkles. I was so proud of my efforts! I honestly thought I was the bees knees being able to produce cupcakes of such a high standard. 



I now look back my first baking efforts and I can’t help but giggle. Let's just say, I can see now how much I have learnt this year.

Zachary’s parents decided to host his birthday party this weekend past. Still being obsessed with dinosaurs, he had a dinosaur themed party. But, not just any dinosaur party, a Zachyosaurous themed party - Zachary wears red spectacles and his mum managed to find an image online of a dinosaur wearing red spectacles, which we subsequently named Zachyosaurous!

Given all the work his mum and dad put into organising the party, I felt the pressure to step up to the plate and bake something extraordinary. I made twelve raspberry cupcakes topped off with Zachyosaurous edible fondant toppers and a butter cake with a giant fondant Zachyosaurous sitting on top. Originally I had planned to make a three dimensional Zachyosaurous cake, i.e. carve the dinosaur out of butter cake and decorate it with fondant, but sadly ran out of time.

In my usual style of leaving everything to the last minute, I only started to bake and make the cupcake toppers the day before the party after work of course! Needless to say, I stayed up for most of the night to make sure everything would be finished on time. The only thing that was keeping me sane at 4AM, with fondant and flour in my hair and colouring smeared down my pants, was the thought that Zachary would eventually grow out of novelty cakes. But then it hit me, I still bake novelty cakes for my adult husband!

Anyone who knows Brendyn knows that he loves Batman to the extent that he thinks he is Batman. Being the supportive wife that I am, for his 25^th birthday last year I made him Batman cupcakes.

Wanting to make my husband the best cake possible (and being a good wifey), I researched various Batman themed cakes over the past year for Brendyn's  26^th birthday.  I came across a Batmobile cake and knew that I had to make it!

I guess boys will always be boys ...