Finally 100,000 hits and a Dulce De Leche Cake to clelebrate

100 000 hits.. took me almost two and half years to get this. Sometimes I do feel embarassed. There are so many newer blogs than mine that have long ago achieved this, and some few month old blogs are already half of where I am.

I admit,
1. I had been lazy, not updating my blog as often as I should, making my bank of drafts getting bigger and bigger by the day. Facebook's Restaurant City took up much of my 2009.
2. I've been very passive. Haven't been reading much blogs, only the handful, and when I do read blogs , I rarely comment. Guess it's a two way thing. People won't know I exist unless I tell them that I do. Well, not that I'm insincere with what I say about their food, I am very sincere, just that if it's good, tell them. Now, I no longer keep the "Good job, Well done, Thumbs up" in my heart, but I will really tell them through comments.

Since I changed my blog's interface(after Surprise Egg), it definately changed my reader's perspectives to stay on. I got a lot lot more hits than before. Maybe due to the bigger pictures (errr... lots of blogs have much smaller pics and they get lots f hits), or maybe due to the pinkish theme now.. makes things seems sweeter :)
But the real fact is that, I've got a lot more linkups to blogs than few months back, and now my 2/3 of my traffic comes from referring sites, compared to 2009 where 60% came from direct traffic.

Statistics based on Mac1-Mac31 2010 and Nov29-Dec-28 2009
Daily visitors on average : 92-256 (now), 30-80 (2009)
Returning visitors per month: 2863 (now), 1098 (2009)

See the difference?? It's just a matter of 3 months and I'm very surprised and at the same time very happy.
Here, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank

(in no special order)

Happy Home Baking
Nasi Lemak Lover
Blessed Homemaker
Excuse Me, Are U a Nurse
Happy Flour
Cherry Potato
HomeKreation
Testedandtasted
Full-timed Housefly
RachelHei
Simply Annes -she's the first food blogger to link me to her blog :)
ChVoon
Sze-Min
Sakura-love baking
Sweetaeration
My Kitchen Snippets
Mylivemylife
bake4fun
wombatmama -Not a public blog
sugabakes-inc
ibakewhoeats
kymkymthelittlebear
jesbakewithlove ----Not a public blog too.  To both private blogs, I know both of you have been following my blog for quite long, I would love to pay your blog a visit, unfortunately I can't access your blog.
findingquietwaters
ladybird8738
ttxy
chengyeelee
cookingmemos
charlotte0107

And not forgetting my dear followers (I won't repeat your name if you have my blogs listed above)
1. Sarah Naveen
2. Leeling Lai
3. Pete
4. Dante
5. Jonathan Ho
6. Doria Robert Kawen
7. Foong Mun Yeong
8. Bear with Me
9. Kavitha
10. Charissa Ho
11. Joanne
12. Shy Kitchen
13. Tony
14. Sing Yin@ Sherene
15. Jo Chiak
16. Maxivelasco
17. My Coach Bags
18. Mia
19. Oilai
20. Tan Wei Hong (Derek)
21. Roy Erol
22. Ellis
23. Michael C.. my husband :)
24. Luke
25. Jenn
26. Khim
27. Heide
28. Greenapple4sale
29. Goofy
30. S L Wong
31. 鬼首
32. Melody
33. WC Chuen
34. Kristy of My Little Space
35. Chuah Zong Yuan
36. Sam Sam
37. Jeffery Chin
38. Haslina Abd. Majid
39. Lisa Rodney
40. Whee Teck
41. ctzm
42. Grace Yip
43. Janei Chong
44. Daniel
45. JC
46. Totoro
47. Sherli Wong
48. Cheryl Lee
49. Emi
50. Esthermation
51. Cheryl Lim
52. Shirley Goh or Kokken69
53. Tracie Moo of Bitter Sweet Flavours
54. Angie of Angie's Recipes


And  also to my anonymous readers. Thank you, thank you.
Did I miss anyone??? Sorry, but I would like to thank you too.

I can't make it to 100 000 without all your support. I might have left out some others, I just derived this information from my google analytics for March 2010.

Thank you everyone!!!!

And with this, Mike asked me to make a cake to celebrate 100 000 hits.

Dulce de Leche... oh what????? Do say the leceh (Do say about the troublesome, leceh is troublesome in Malay)... hahahaha.. nola..joking.
I'll write another post regarding this DDL.

I wanted to do a special cake, not anything fruit related, something exotic(Oh yes from South America, how exotic that is!!!), something not usually seen in our local baking scene. I bumped into the cake while searching for something to do with my almost expiring can of milk goo from Singapore.

Initially I wanted to do a wavy look frosting on this cake, the mound it with chocolate shavings. But do u know how hard it is to make pretty uneveness???? Making it ulgy and uneven is easy peasy, but not pretty and wavy. In the end, I gave up and chuck the cake into the freezer for 10 minutes and did a comb effect on it. My first time using a comb on the surface.... love it. Will use it again.

Recipe from this blog. I reduced the portion size and cut down on the sweetness. You should go there and see ALLLLLL her stuff. Mouthwatering indeed, and they make me want to make them all. Will I be hitting 80kg soon??? I hope not :)

Sponge Cake

6 eggs

170gm brown sugar

170gm cake flour

45gm butter, melted

1 tsp vanilla

1/3 tsp cinnamon powder (Mike hates cinnamon, so I just put some... original recipe called for 1tsp)

1. Preheat oven at 180C. Prepare an 8 or 9 inch baking pan. Line the bottom.

2. Beat egss and sugar over hot water until light and pale, for 12 minutes (hand mixer, stand mixer will take less)

3. Sift cake flour and cinnamon powder. Fold into (1) in 3 additions.

4. Mix vanilla with butter. Take a few tablespoons of batter and put into butter mixture. Stir to combine, no need to be gentle.

5. Pour (3) into main batter and fold.

6. Pour into prepared pan and once the pan goes into the oven, close the door and adjust temperature to 160C. Bake for 35 minutes or until done.
7. Remove from oven and let it cool down totally.
8. Remove from pan and slice cake into 3 layers and chill (wrapped) until time of use.


Dulce De Leche Cream
350ml whipping cream, cold
140gm dulce de leche (about ½ cup), cold
2/3tsp gelatin
1 Tbsp water

1. Double boil gelatin and water until melted. Or u can use microwave. Leave to cool.
2. Freeze mixing bowl and beaters for 5 minutes.
3. Put dulce de leche into mixing bowl and put in a bit of cream. On low speed, mix to combine, adding more gradually. When all the whipping cream has been added in, turn to high speed and beat until soft peaks.
4. Turn to low speed. Add in gelatin mixture slowly while beating, and beat until stiff.
5. Use immediately to frost cake.
Please keep everything cold while you do the cream, freeze bowl and beaters before you start, and if the day is too hot, keep the bowl (used to whip the cream) in a basin of ice water to keep the temperature low. This applies to all cream made with dairy whipping cream in our tropical room temp. It should take no longer than 5 minutes to prepare this whip this cream.

Syrup:
30gm brown sugar
70ml hot water
Dissolve brown sugar in hot water. Leave to cool down.

Assembly:
1. Slice cake into 3 layers.
2. Place 1 layer onto cake board/plate. Brush on syrup. Spread with 2/3 cup of DDL cream. Brush the topping layer of cake with syrup and place the surface with syrup onto cream. Repeat with another layer.
3. Top with final piece of cake. Brush with syrup. Spread DDL cream all over cake. I used a serrated comb to create the effects on my cake. Top with shaved dark chocolate in the center.

This cake is heavenly!!! The DDL cream was so so good. It has a whiff of coconuttiness(like coconut candy) in it, but it doesn't contain any, could be due to the caramelised milk. If I were to make this again, I'll put in some baking powder to the sponge, so that I can have slightly more fluffy cake. This one is fine.. but I'd like to be be fluffier. One regret tho, I used regular dark eating chocolate for the shavings. If I used Lindt 90% dark on it.... Wooohooo!!! Super Yummy!!!

Oh yeah, and I didn't put in enough DDL cream for the fillings, cos I was worried it won't be enough for the covering. And now I have an extra 2/3 cup of DDL cream in my fridge. Any regrets about that, yeah....... :(

My wish for today:

May I have more and more thousands .. not Ringgit or Dollars, but hits and visitors please :)

*this cake was made few days in advance to anticipate my 100 000 hits.

8/4/10- Neighbour Maria told me that she kept on thinking about this cake after she has eaten this. She commented that the cream was incredible. She thought so much about it that she ordered a DDL Cake for this friday.
So, blogger friends, to try out DDL.