Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Last time I baked a cake with this recipe (the one decorated into Rilukkuma teddy bears in Japanese hot springs bath) it became a big hit. Also I myself wanna eat more :D So I baked it again but this time in form of cupcakes.

The cake texture was incredibly soft. Both the sponge and the frosting smelled and tasted fantastic. Thinking that peanut butter should taste good when pairing with chocolate, I melted some and drizzled it on top -- they did make the cupcakes taste better! I could never stop at just one piece each time I started nibbling those yummy cuppies :)

The recipe is from Martha Stewart. I must say I really love it and will definitely bake them again.

Lemon Meringue Pie

 

Lemon meringue pie has always been my hubby's favourite. So I decided to make one for his birthday this year.

For the recipes, I picked the pie crust from "The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook." Simply because it seems simple and down to earth for me. Lemon curd + meringue from Emilie S.'s "Grandma's Lemon Meringue Pie" on AllRecipes.com. I guessed the 4.5 star rate with 1,138 reviews might be a taste guarantee in some way. Lol. Well, I rarely bake pie. It could help add a bit confidence ;)

I was quite happy with the result, both its look and its taste.

Ruffle Cake

I love the elegance this cake brings to a dessert table.

The ruffle, especially in pastel shades of colour, gives this cake a very lady-like look. Though it seems somehow complicated (in my opinion), it's not that difficult to make. All you need is a piping bag and a great willing to do the labour work. Also, bear in mind that the decoration calls for more buttercream. In my case, it took approximately 3 times more than usual.

As it was my first ruffle cake, the piping wasn't so neat especially at the ending part on top of the cake. So I just cover it with a buttercream rose ;) But it helps make the whole cake look a bit sweeter, doesn't it? Hehehehehe.

An idea for your upcoming Valentine's?

Rilukkuma (リラックマ) Peanut Butter Cake

This is my second time making Rilukkuma-themed cake. The first one can be found in this post

The sugar model cake toppers were made 2 days in advance to ensure adequate time for it to dry. Cocktail sticks were inserted in each bear to serve as the bears' "spines." The eyes and mouths were diluted gel paste coloring, drawn with drawing brush. (Yes, I was very nervous when doing it.)

The cake itself is 2 lbs. peanut butter cake, Martha's recipe.

The 'spilt water' is made from blue fondant. I decided to leave the side of the cake naked because the color of the peanut butter buttercream itself, plus the vertical stoke by spatula, could resemble wooden bathtub. It turn out to be my lucky choice because I just realized after the cake is frosted that the cake was so soft, a bit too soft, and high ratio of peanut butter in the frosting made it melt too easily. It would be difficult to hold a shape for fondant covering.

Anyhow, everyone was so excited with the cuteness of the characters. More importantly, the cake itself was very delicious too! It was a true crowd pleasure. Thanks again to Martha's recipe -- always reliable.

To see my first Rilukkuma cake, please go to this post.

Updated on May 2012:

The cupcake version of this peanut butter cake are shown in this post. You can also click on the link on that page for the recipe. 

iPhone / iPad Devils

October is the birth month of two of my very close family members: my father and my husband's big brother. The challenge is that their birthdays are very close to each other, say 2 days. Thus, if I set up 2 separated cake projects, there wouldn't be adequate time to bake & decorate both cakes properly. So let's combine them into one then!

I {HEART} decorating cakes. So, for birthday cakes, I always try as much as possible to customize them according to the birthday persons.

Good that these two persons, in spite of all their differences, clearly have one thing in common: IT savvy. The picture of amazing, cute little iPhone cupcakes I've come across years ago then popped up in my head. At that time I could even barely bake. Now as I'm learning cake decoration, I'll give it a shot.

As usual, I started out making sugar plates. You might notice that there're many plates than needed. Because it takes time to dry sugar plates, spares needed to be prepared at the first place. You don't want to end up having 11 usable plates for 12 cupcakes 2 hours before the delivery. Once they were completely dry and harden, I decorated each one with sugarpaste and royal icing.

How colorful they are!

For the cake, I baked Nutella devil's food cupcakes. Such a safe choice. Nutella and chocolate are hard to fail :)

I decided to serve it in the cupcake pan to mimic the iPad / iPhone actual case. In fact, that's because I didn't have time to make a proper background. Anyhow, it turned out perfect to me. Easier for the delivery also. Great!

Somehow, when serving, these cakes were apparently not practical for holding candles, or I'd have to put it through the sugar plates! No way. I wouldn't do it definitely. So I placed the candles on the sides instead. Wasn't it nice?

Though it took me so many hours to make that my palms hurt, it does worth it. Everyone were so excited with the decoration and enjoyed the cake, including my 2 year-old nephew :)

For the recipe, please see this post.

Strawberry Marble Cupcakes

I like marble swirls, especially of those marble cakes, and been wondering whether it'd look nice through cupcake paper cups too. So I baked some.

Is there a spy among us? Lol :D

I picked the recipe from Martha Stewart in the book "Martha Stewart's Cupcake". In the original recipe it is suggested to serve these cupcakes 'naked' with a lightly springkle of icing sugar. But I'd like to utilize leftover strawberries. So I made extra strawberry buttercream to give those cuppies a little 'icing on the cake' ;)

Nutella Devils

Who can resist the aroma of the hazelnut and chocolate paste called Nutella? Even only the name can provoke our test buds :)___ ....And what if Nutella becomes devil's food cupcakes? A double dose of pleasure, I think.

These cupcakes are a combination of Martha Stewart and Hummingbird Bakery creations. The base cake is Martha's devil's food cupcakes. But I adjusted the amount of sour cream to see how it would affect the finished goods. For the frosting, I took the recipe from "The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook." But I reduced the amount of icing sugar to control the overall taste not to be too sweet.

Nemo for Nephew

Last year I made a teddy bear cake for my dear nephew for his first birthday. It's been a year. Time does fly. Now he seems to love all kind of fish. I then decided to make him something in under-the-sea theme. But this week, I didn't have enough time to do both cake baking and figurines sculpturing for decoration. So I did only the sugar models to top a store bought ice cream cake.

I picked the famous cartoon fish to be the theme: Nemo & Dori. The reason is that I also wanted to focus on number '2' since that's the age of the birthday boy. The two cartoon characters always appears as a couple buddies.

Making the sugar paste. Preparing working space. Then (loooong hours of) kneading and sculpturing....

And here we go...

 

Tiramisu Charlotte #2

This is my second time for tiramisu charlotte. I made the first time at my mother's birthday. It turned out that my grandmother who usually doesn't have cakes loved it.

The most important thing needed to be concerned when making tiramisu is to use ONLY the FINEST quality (of every) ingredients, as far as your budget allows. Tiramisu is uncooked dessert. Every ingredient contributes to taste and texture of the dessert just as they are.

Tiramisu charlotte at grandma's 70-something birthday party.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes

Its name is 'pie' but actually it is cake. I love Boston cream pie for two reasons: chocolate and pastry cream. Well, that's two out of its three elements already :D The cake is a combination of 3 things: plain vanilla cake + pastry cream filling + chocolate topping.

As many other cupcakes, Boston Cream Pie is originally made as layer cakes. In this version, they are baked into little cuppies.

A twist in cupcake version: instead of spreading the cream between cake layers, core cupcakes and fill in the pastry cream. I followed the the recipe from Une Deux Senses, except the cream filling because it's hard for me to find instant French vanilla pudding mix. I used this universal pastry cream recipe from Raymond Blanc instead. Turn out that it tasted fabulous together!! As other sweets with pastry cream, these cupcakes are best to be served chilled. I'll definitely make it again :)

Sugar Cookies

There are moments when we browse through online shopping websites that those dazzling goods widen your eyes and make your heart racing. Then your head starts to imagine yourself equipped with them and how good your life with those goods could be.

Lately I'd seen a set of cookie cutters despite the fact that I'd never made sugar cookies nor planned to do soon. But then those cutters seems too cute to pass. I finally got one :P

They had been sitting in my cupboard for several weeks until an occasion pop up. One of my cousins's got a scholarship at Harvard. I was so pround of him. Also, his birthday was coming up. Here come an opportunity for me.

After chilling overnight, the cookie dough was cut up into pieces.

When out from the oven. Ehhhh... looks like they're overbaked, losing their edges and letter print. Need to cover it up!

So I decided to paint over them, ignoring all the letter press.

Some sources for sugar cookies recipes:
~ Ideal Sugar Cookies by Martha Stewart
~ Sugar Cookies from Gourmet Magazine via Epicurious
~ Basic Sugar Cookie by SweetSugarBelle
And a complilation of recipes on
~ Delish.com

Tiramisu Charlotte

I've always wished to make my mom a tiramisu cake. It's her #1 favorite dessert of all time. We seriously fell in love with this luscious dessert in our first trip to Italy when I was young. I think we even finished almost all of our meals (except breakfasts) with it!

During years of baking practice, Tiramisu has always been my reliable hero. Since it's kinda no-bake dessert, there's no nail-biting moment during the 'oven' stage. In any occasion I brought them; they always proved to be real crowdpleaser :) Thanks to my best friend (the one mentioned in this post) for inventing the recipe and publishing it in her recipe book. She had tested and tried it soooooooooo many ways and many times until finding the perfect one. 

Mostly, tiramisu is served in transparent mold/cups or as a pile. Anyhow, this time it is meant to be a gift to a neat person like my mother. Beside being possible to be delivered without losing it shape, it should be presentable as a centerpiece rather than in its usual shapeless appearance. So I end up with a charlotte.

And this time, as before, everyone loved it! Yehhh :) 

Plus, my grandma, who is not fond of any western desserts & sweets at all especially those creamy, told me she loved it a lot. (She loves coffee.) I'll made it again for her birthday, next 3 months.

Happy Birthday Mama :)