Hannah's 2 Minnie Mouse Birthday Cakes - Cheesecake Trio #1

 

I made 2 cakes for my dear niece to be cut n day 1 and day 2 of Chinese New Year.
She requested for a Minnie Mouse cake and gosh, a Minnie Mouse cake? She must have caught the bug on her trip to Disneyland last Nov. I turned down her request as I can't figure out how to do that just before CNY. As you all know, fridges are stuffed so so full during this period that keeping a cake with cream in a stuffed full fridge is CRAZILY difficult.

But I felt so bad letting her down. Really felt so so bad. So I googled for Minnie Mouse cake and then I got the idea of instead of making Minnie's face, I could just use her trademark, polka dot ribbons as my deco theme. And use chocolate cut outs to make the Minnies. The cut outs have no facial features, but with those ears and ribbons, no one couldn't recognise it's not Minnie. And further more, she has told me before she loved my Strawberry Mirror Cake and would want to have it again this time, and I also turned her down because I don't want to make repeating cakes for the same person. Well, this request was 2 months before the Minnie request. So, I made up my mind to make 2 cakes for her. One oreo cheesecake to be cut at my mom's and the strawberry mirror cake to be cut at my sis in law's parent's house, since they've never had this cake before. A pink cake is perfect for Minnie. Both are gelatin set cakes, as I didn't want to do frosting and worry about getting them smudged when I shove them into the stuffed fridge. Cake rings are there for a purpose. : p

I went around town scouting for suitable ribbons. It was only at an old shop that I could get it. Those popular fast moving art and gift shops carry only the latest designs and these polka dot stuff are infact, quite old. I've been seeing them around since my school days!!! I finally found one that is suitable.

For the Strawberry Mirror Cake, instead of having the mirror on top, I set the mirror on 2 separate pans.
When they were set, I half froze them. Then I made the bavarian cream filling and sandwiched the mirror layer between the bavarian cream. So altogether there was 3 layers of cake and 2 layers of mirror sandwiched with bavarian cream. Haha, if you have no idea, this is the layout from bottom to top:
Cake, Cream, Mirror, Cream, Cake, Cream, Mirror, Cream , Cake, Cream.
I planned to do white polka dots for the cake, Minnie's trademark, but then I was too tired to do that step. A choc cut out is good enough, Haha

I can't get a picture of the interior as the I didn't see the cake being cut. But the reviews I got was that it was fabulous! Yeah with almost 1kg of strawberries in that cake, how can it not be fabulous! Haha. But the actual fact is that, it's not a common cake. The relatives on my SIL's side have never eaten such a cake, and some of them requested for the recipe.

Ok, now about the Oreo Cheesecake. Well, don't know why I came up with the idea of using Oreos and stacked them to make the cake. But then, initally, I wanted to do a dome with Minnie's ears and ribbons on top. Which was why this cake was so short. But in the end, I ran out of cream. I didn't want to do an empty dome, was worried it'll soften and collapse during the 1 hour journey from KK to Kampar, so, no cream, no filling, no dome, no Minnie ears and ribbon. In the end, I made cut outs and hand sewed the ribbons. I didn't have proper Minnie cookie cutters and had to make do with my bear cookie cutter. The ears where smaller than Minnie's but no one realised it until I told them, it's actually a bear's cut out, not Minnie's. It was totally acceptable for those who saw the cake. Hahaha!! That means, the ribbons did a very good job in portraying Minnie.

I concocted my own formula for this cheesecake, threw in whatever I fancy and used lots of oreos for some stacking effect. I could only do 3 layers as that was all the batter that I have. If I used a smaller cake ring, then I could do more layers.

Oreo Stacked Chilled Cheesecake

Recipe Source : Wendyywy

250gm cream cheese, softened
100gm sweetened condensed milk, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
300gm whipping cream, cold
1 Tbsp + 1tsp gelatin
50gm water
3 tubes of Oreo (more or less)

1. Separate oreo cookies. Discarding all the cream except for 25 pieces of halves.
2. Finely mill the 25 pieces of cookie halves with cream.
3. Press the milled cookie crumbs into a cake ring on a cake board /springform pan. Keep chilled.
4. Put water into a heat proof bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the water. Let the gelatin sit for 2 minutes. It will bloom. Then melt the gelatin either in the microwave (30 secs on high) or over another bowl of boiling water. (method seen here). Let it cool down.
5. Beat cream cheese until smooth and put in condensed milk and vanilla and beat again. Beat in gelatin solution until just combined.
6. In another clean bowl, beat cold whipping cream until soft peaks.
7. Fold the half the cream into the cream cheese mixture using a large whisk. Repeat with balance of cream.
8. Put in slightly more than half cup of cheese mixture into prepared pan. Spread it out. Arrange oreo halves (no cream) all over the cheese.
9. Repeat step 8 twice. You’ll have 3 layers of cookies.
10. Gently pour all the remaining cream cheese over the cookies and level the “cake”
11. Put into fridge to chill for at least 5 hours before unmoulding.

The Minnies were all ripped off by the kids.

Chocolate Enigma Cake

It’s Mike’s Birthday (last month) and every year, it’s going to be chocolate. When I saw this cake on Hearty Bakes, I totally loved how dark it looked and it seemed I can smell the chocolate from the screen, very very delicious looking. I’m not really an all chocolate girl, but I do eat chocolate once in a blue moon. But my hubby lurves this dark looking confectionary that I’m just so so with. Any chocolate cake, he’ll say, hmm,.. now this is what I call cake. Hahahaha!! So, how can I not make him chocolate cakes for his birthdays ??

I also had a can of black pitted cherries and I might as well use that to fill the cake, since the cake is rather short Well, I baked the cake in a 9 inch pan rather than a recommended 7 inch..
But when I opened the can of cherries, the colour is totally not what I expected. So, I’ve learnt my lesson not to buy Red Man’s canned cherries. The syrup didn’t even cover the fruits! In the end, I threw in some cubed strawberries into the filling. Might be weird to have an adult looking cake with some bits of strawberries in it, but, it’s nice to have some fresh fruits in it.

And I also copycatted Hearty Bakes in the way I decorated this cake. Just hop to this post  of hers and you can see how much I copied from her. Her cakes all look so well made.

Bitter Choc Chiffon
Adapted from Hearty Bakes

Ingredients:

(A) 100g Bittersweet chocolate (chopped)
10gm butter

(B) 5 egg yolks
20g sugar

(C) 40ml water

(D) 60g Cake flour
10g black cocoa powder (it looks like charcoal powder)
1/2tsp baking powder

(E) 5 egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
40g sugar


Choc Ganache:
100g Whipping cream
100g Dark Chocolate

Frosting:
400gm dairy whipping cream
3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp gelatin
1 Tbsp water
1 cup chopped strawberries



Method:

Cake
1. Sieve Cake flour with cocoa powder and baking powder. Set aside
2. Preheat oven to 170deg C
3. Double boil to melt (A). Stir till smooth
4. In another bowl, whisk (B) till pale in colour
5. Add in melted choc (A) mixture, add (C) stir till combine
6. Add in (D), fold till mixture well-mixed.
7. In another bowl, whisk whites(E) till frothy, add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks and add sugar. Whisk till stiff peaks
8. Fold gently 1/3 whites with chocolate mixture
9. Fold the balance of whites
10. Pour batter into 7" cake pan (I used 9 inch springform pan)
11. Baking time around 40mins
12. Insert skewer to check if cake is done
13. Overturn cake tin to cool cake
14. Unmould cake

Ganache
1. Break chocolate and put into a bowl.
2. Bring cream to a boil, stirring all the time, it's ready when it has small bubble on the side.
3. Pour scalded cream onto chocolate and let it sit for 1 minute.
4. Stir until smooth. Set aside.

Frosting
1. Freeze bowl for at least 15 minutes before use. If using stainless steel bowl, prepare and ice bath for use later.
2. Place water in a heat proof bowl and sprinkle gelatin onto water. Let it sit for 1 minute and melt it in the microwave(high for 30 secs) or over a hot pan of water. Let it cool down.
3. Remove frozen bowl from freezer (place in ice bath if stainless steel bowl) and pour in cold whipping cream.
4. Beat on low speed until it starts to thicken then increase to high. When cream has reached soft peaks, put in sugar and beat until almost stiff. Pour in melted gelatin and beat until stiff.
5. Use immdiately to frost.

To assemble
1. Slice cooled cake into 3 layers
2. Place 3 Tbsp of ganache over the bottom layer and spread evenly. Put 1/2 cup of cream over bottom layer and spread. Sprinkle half the strawberries over.
3. Take another piece of cake and spread 3 Tbsp of ganache and another 1/2 cup of cream. Then put the creamed layer on top of the strawberries on bottom layer.
4. Spread 3 Tbsp of ganache onto the 2nd cake layer (now on top of bottom layer) and then repeat step 2 and 3. Now you will have 3 layers of cake sandwiched with 2 layers of filling.
5. Spread more cream all over cake and freeze the cake for 10 minutes
6. Prepare a piping bag with a 3 mm plain nozzle. Pour in all the remaining ganache.
7. Remove cake from freezer and pipe ganache to cover cake sides and lastly top with Ferrero Rodnoir.
8. Chill for few hours before serving.

Verdict:
Frankly, The cake was wonderful when it was unchilled. Lovely and chocolatey. Soft and moist. But once it was chilled, the cake somehow turned dry. Maybe it was due to the melted chocolate content that made it harder when cold. But when the cake was left overnight, the moisture from the strawberries seeped into the cake, and made it much better. I strongly recommend that some sort of fruits be added into the filling to avoid the dry mouthfeel when the cake is eaten chilled.
Mike said the cake is nice, and the only thing not nice is the Ferrero Rodnoir. He told me to use Rocher next time if I ever want to use Ferreros for his cakes. The Rodnoir somehow turned chewy after being chilled for some hours.

Swedish Meatballs with Pasta

Last Christmas, family friends, The Cha Family, gave us this pack of oh-so-cute bear shaped pasta.
I only managed to cook it lately with swedish meatballs. I used the gravy pack from Ikea and served it with Ikea's meatballs, bear pasta and some blanched brocolli.

Everybody loved it.
Thanks Wai Hoo, Winny, Loius and Lucille

:)

 This is Lydia and Lyanne's portion. They loved it a lot. Lydia don't eat brocolli florets but loves the stems.

Mike and my portion :)

Ginger Braised Chicken, My mom's style

First of all, Happy Mothers' Day to all mothers.

My mom… how to tell u about my mom. Widowed when I was just 11. She raised us, 3 siblings and 1 cousin, fed us well, gave us all we ever needed. No luxuries, but never deprived of anything. We have our computers, our Nikes(no DKNY or GA), piano lessons(but no piano, I practiced at my teacher’s), Honda C70s(3 of us got 3 bikes, no cars), local tertiary education, first car downpayment… all with her working from 6am to 6pm in a coffee stall passed down since my granddad. My great grandfather had another shop somewhere else, but it’s my granddad that operated this one.

My mom is the type where she’ll play with us, roll on the bed with us when we were young. Not all fun at all times, she never spares the cane if we got tooooo funny in the house. But I could count how many times I was severely canned, just 2. And each time, the moment she put down her cane, she’ll quickly grab ointment to put on our skin. Skin deep… truly skin deep. Even at age 63 now, we still can grab her neck by our elbow and play with her. A very fun mother, but dun try to be too funny, ya know what I mean.

She retired and sold off the business since Hannah came by. Took care of her and Joanna and made that her new job. One that she never regretted, although she does receive jests from others that she forsake money to be imprisoned with kids. To her, nothing is more important that to have your granddaughters hug you and kiss you everyday, and miss u like mad when you’re not around.My mom always say,” If you don’t take care of them, they won’t have that special bond with you, something that money cannot buy.”

My mom is a lazy cook. Haha!!! Ask her to cook sweet and sour pork, and she’ll give u a stern no. Cos it makes her fry the meat and cook the sauce later, something that she hates to do. Since her retirement, she watched a lot more TV than she used to, and definitely more cooking shows. She’s improved a lot and got more adventurous with ingredients. Her stews and braises have always been good, and these few years, her soup is getting better and better. Can u imagine that I taught her how to cook when I was 6 or 7??? If u read my “about me” you’ll know that I watch grandaunt cook a lot, and mom never cooked at home that time. For a few weeks, grandaunt wasn’t home, and mom had to cook. She had to ask me, what did grandaunt use for this dish and that…. So I became her “sifu”. I was so bad, telling her ketchup here and ketchup there, because I loved ketchup (hey I was 7!!!). and if she really did cook sweet and sour fish, I’ll be there instructing her to put in more and more ketchup. If you can imagine how bad her cooking was, I tell you, even her blanched veggie tasted yucks( no ketchup ok)!! What if your kids were so frank telling u that your cooking sucks??? Will that stop u from cooking?? My mom didn’t, and she cooked even more(on Sundays). By the time I was 9, she could cook the most wonderful dinners ever (every mother cooks the best!!!!). No more complaints.

This ginger braised chicken is one of my mother’s forte. No ketchup here. No one does it as good as she does, and that includes me, her earlier “sifu”. Never ask her for recipes, she never cook with one and when she does, it always sucks. Freehand is always better with her. But I’ve jotted down what I’ve done today(after referring to my mother to confirm ingredients used) for ur reference.

My mom's Ginger Braised Chicken
1.2kg chicken whole legs (3 pcs)
80gm ginger, julienned (about ¾ cup)
2 Tbsp oil
½ tbsp salt
2 Tbsp oyster sauce
3 Tbsp light soy sauce
1 tsp dark soy sauce
¾ tsp sugar or slightly more if ginger is pretty hot
3 cups water

1. Chop chicken legs into pieces, I chopped them into 8 pieces each.
2. Heat wok until very hot. Put in oil and fry ginger until fragrant.
3. Make sure the wok is well smeared with the ginger oil. Put in chicken and spread it around. Do not toss them immediately. Let it sit in the wok for 30 seconds, then only u start to use ur spatula to flip the chicken pieces. Stir fry chicken in wok until the chicken looks opaque and skin starts to brown slightly.
4. Put in all the seasonings. And continue to stir fry until the seasonings dry up a bit, but be careful not to burn.
5. Put in water and simmer on medium low heat until chicken is tender.

My mother’s advice: Best if cooked in a claypot.
And weeks later, after I did this, she did this, and luckily I was there to capture the process. This is my mummy dearest doing her best dish, not me.

And lastly a picture of my mom with Lyanne.... see their resemblence?? Lyanne is very attached to her, even though they meet nnly once a month. Lyanne even sleeps with my mom :)

And here's another one with all her grandkids

These pics were taken 8 months back, so everybody has grown..

Steamed Pumpkin Buns 南瓜包子

I made my first batch of these using the same recipe from the same food magazine of those not so tender steamed banana cakes. I want to give the author a 2nd chance. Oh-no, I was so wrong. The buns from the original recipe turned out like leather!!!! Nothing like what was in the picture. How I hate these local publications.

And if you see a pumpkin bun recipe calling for
150gm cake flour

1/2 tsp B.P.

30gm egg white
60gm sugar
90gm pumpkin puree
Run away from it!!!!!!

These taste Urrrgghhh!!!

But…… the filling is really good (Lydia ate all the leather buns… err.. all the filling from the leather buns).
Well, part of the recipe works. The filling, they look like salted egg yolks. Look only… but taste absolutely pumpkinny.

Let me try to tweak the recipe of the bun dough.
I did by changing the flour, adding in some DABP, butter , and yeast, took out the egg white And now.. voila, a total change!!!! Absolutely yummy.
My MIL are always believe that some recipe book authors never tell you the whole story… and maybe she’s right this time.

Making pumpkin puree

Steam pumpkins until easily penetrable with a chopstick. Puree until fine.

For the filling
300gm pumpkin puree
30gm sugar
1 tsp cornstarch
Cook until thickens and use 2 teaspoons to form into little balls and place on a lined tray. Chill until time of use.

For the bun (retained the amount of sugar, pumpkin and flour from the ori recipe that you can see above, but tweaked the type of flour, additional yeast, DABP and butter)
60gm sugar
90gm pumpkin puree
1 tsp instant yeast (Mauripan doesn't work well with this recipe)
150gm pau flour
1 tsp double acting baking powder (or just use regular baking powder)
10gm butter

1. Combine sugar, pumpkin puree and yeast.
2. Combine pau flour, D.A. B.P and butter. Mix to form crumbs.
3. Pour (1) into (2) and mix to form a dough.
4. Knead dough until it is smooth and no longer sticky.
5. Let dough proof in a warm place until double in size. Remember to cover it.

Assembly.
1. Punch down dough after it has doubled. Knead it for 2 minutes and divide dough into 12 pieces.
2. Remove pumpkin filling from the fridge.
3. With lightly floured hands, take one piece of dough and flatten it, making it thinner at the sides.
4. Place one piece of filling, round side down onto flattened dough.
5. Wrap and seal bun.
6. Seam side down, make marks that resemble a pumpkin using a dinner knife.
7. Let buns proof (covered) for 45 minutes and steam on high heat for 12 minutes.

And now that they are done, please eat with your eyes

Well, I did this at night when Mike was around to take pics of me wrapping the buns. The next morning, when I tried to take pictures of them in the morning sun, because I was so dissatisfied with the pictures I took that night... this happened

Luckily I did take some pictures before Lyanne snatched the buns from the plate

How can Lyanne resist this bun, right???

New Profile Picture

This will be my be my new profile pic shown in my comments and the comments I leave in ur blogs.

Drawn by my wonderful cousin sister, Charissa Ho.

Thanks alot!!!

My hair sure does look a lot shorter here, hahaha!!!

Hannah's Piano Rainbow Cake

Hannah is my eldest brother's eldest daughter, elder sister of Jojo (Joanna).

A talented singer (she can follow songs just by listening to it once, and she was still in pre-kindergarten years),

A graceful dancer (just look at her perform in her school concert, undeniably the best in her class, she took up ballet at 4, and she could catch up with the 5 n 6 yr olds in her class with just a few lessons),

An Elephant (not her size, but her memory. Never tell her something u don't want her to remember, especially how many kids u plan to have, if not she'll pester u with the question , "When will the next one be coming?")

A sensible and careful girl (she knows what is right or wrong since very young and will warn her little sister when she is trying to be naughty. Never does anything she's not confident of. Never eats 2 candies when her mom tells her to eat one.)

She the type of daughter every mother will be proud of, that's what I can say. I learnt to change diapers, prepare formula thru taking care of her during my holidays when she was a baby. She prepared me for Lydia and Lyanne.

For her birthday this year(2 weeks back), I made her a Piano cake, promised months ago, even before Jojo's birthday last year. Hannah loves butter, so I tried out buttercream. Her fav colour is purple, so a purple piano it'll be. I didn't want a cake with lots of filling but let the flavour of buttercream shine thru. So I made a "rainbow cake". Actually it's an emulsified sponge cake, recipe taken from Rumah Manis as linked from What's for Dessert Today. I never told Lydia that this is a rainbow cake, I only told her it's a piano cake, but once the cake was cut and Lydia saw the inside, she screamed, RAINBOW CAKE. Kids are kids. U never know how smart they can be.





In this video, u can see how excited Lydia was, as if it's her birthday. Hannah only saw the cake just before the birthday song, cos all of us wanted the cake to be a surprise to her. It was difficult for her to land a cut in the cake, of which in the end she reluctantly did.

We didn't finish the cake at the party, but split up the cake for everybody to bring home. I took this piece home and took some pics to show how it looks like inside.

Pink - Strawberry
Brown - Chocolate
Purple - Yam/Taro
Green - Pandan

The combination of flavours were great. The buttercream was so so nice. I never liked buttercream, but now I'm a convert. Actually everybody at the party converted. Homemade buttercreams are nothing like store bought ones. No oily feel at all. Doesn't leave film in the mouth. And it's so so fragrant. It's also rather stable in our definately over 30C weather. I thought pure butter buttercreams(w/o shortenings or margarine) will be runny, but no.. it stayed put, very well. I think it's due to the sticky meringue base. I'll definately do this butter cream again. I didn't even flavour it. Original!!

Swiss buttercream recipe taken from Tartelette

Happy Chinese New Year!!!!

All the uncles aunties out there...

I'm tired of posing already. So, no more photos of us until further notice.

I need my angpow.

I can give u oranges in exchange :)

Want or not??

Pictures taken a week before.

Lyanne's 1 today!

Lyanne is my 2nd daughter, born on this day 1 year ago.
Her birth was God's planning and thinking back... it really touches my heart on how God really takes care of everything for me.

I thank God for this girl, this little sister to Lydia, whose first words are not "papa" or "mama" or "nen nen" or "mum mum", but "No More", with actions some more :)

We did some early celebration. My side of family celebrated it on Christmas Day itself as most of them will be back that day.
I created a Light Carrot Cake for her... I'm not 100% satisfied with the outcome, need to perfect the recipe. Something feels missing, might be the cinnamon. Need to find a spot to put that in.




Read more...

2nd Cake:

Celebration on Mike's side of family was done on 27th Dec, cos everybody went or were in PJ that day.

Bought by pretty Aunt Iris, Golden Nugget by Secret Recipe. A new release, and everybody that ate it found that it is not as tasty as Secret Recipe usually will be.

Getting ready for the big blow..

As usual, Lydia wants to have her cut tooo:)

Lydia, u better let Lyanne share ur cake too next year....

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers,

Happy New Year

and

May U have a great year ahead!!!