Gingerbread treats

Yes. This year I made over 80 gingerbread cookies with each and everyone of them having a unique design.  It was a tough test of creativity but I really enjoyed the process although I spent more then 12 hours decorating them.. not to mention the baking time and preparation.

Yet, I was so glad that not only did the cookie taste well, the decoration were very impressive too. Everyone who got my cookie was delighted and amazed by the decoration, which gave me a lot of encouragement.

Thanks to all those who supported me and those who enjoyed the cookies. :)

The recipe is simple, same as my last post, I bought a gingerbread mix from City'super HK, (although I forgot the brand.. it was definitely not "gingerhaus" manufactured in USA - which tasted rather bad) and made the royal icing myself from the recipe here.

I got many themes for the cookies, and here it is:-

House theme

Christmas Charms theme

Christmas Tree theme

Christmas charms with santa!

Christmas tree with santa!

Gingerbread man 

Gingerbread men theme

Sheep theme

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #14 Creative Christmas Bakes (December 2011) hosted by Hankerie.

I must try it again next year :)

Christmas Nativity Story

This year I decided to make a nativity story with gingerbread cookies.  Thanks to a friend who gifted me a set of nativity story cookie cutters on my baptism, I was able to use some imagination and complete the nativity story. It was indeed a test of decorating skills because the cookies were small and not easy to decorate at all, especially the facial expressions.

To save time, I used a gingerbread mix bought from City'super HK which required adding around 30g of water and 30 g of butter, and I made approximately 80 cookies. It tasted really good and I was quite satisfied with the outcome. I made the royal icing using the recipe from here. I liked the icing's consistency, but beware that if you use liquid food colouring, the royal icing cannot last for another day as it will turn more fluid and not good for drawing anymore.

Christmas is my favourite time of the year, because of all beautiful decorations, christmas trees, exchanging gifts and most important of all, it's the birth of Jesus.  I am so glad everyone enjoyed the cookies and I was able to spread message of "Love, Peace and Joy" in Christmas!

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #14: Creative Christmas Bakes (December 2011) hosted by Hankerie.
Merry Christmas to everyone! 

Cupcake mania @ Double Chocolate Cupcake with buttercream icing

Here it is! I made another double chocolate cupcake with buttercream icing and chocolates for a friend's party and they were fantastic!  Loved the English plates that my friend provided, they made the cupcakes even more appetizing!

I followed the recipe of chocolate cupcake from Shirley @ 原味生活  but used my own buttercream icing recipe which is done by mixing 188g of butter with around 150g of icing sugar (to be adjusted to your own sweetness) and some food colouring (if desired).

Cupcakes are definitely an all time favourite!

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011)hosted by Min of Min' Blog. :)

Farewell - Lemon Cupcakes with cream cheese icing

Last Friday was my last day in my department and so, I was thinking of making farewell cakes instead of buying cakes.  I didn't actually realize it was indeed so tiring and difficult to make 80 portions of cakes until I started working on it two nights before my last day.  I had a total of around 7 hours to work on the cakes and in the end, I made it! :)

Out of all kinds of cakes I made, I received great comments on the Lemon Cupcake with cream cheese frosting.  Because of the shortage of time, I used a 250g pack of original flavour cake mix (adding 4 eggs and 30 g of water) and DIY the recipe a bit, by adding the zest of one whole lemon and 1tsp of lemon juice.  The cream cheese frosting was made by mixing 225g of cream cheese together with 55g of butter, adding then 200g of icing sugar and mixing finally with 2.5ml of vanilla essence.  The aroma of lemon filled my nose after the cupcake was baked and my colleagues loved it!

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog.

A business idea?

I was quite pleased with my first crafts of cake pops. Although the decorations were not perfect and there were many flaws due to the bad handling of chocolate and coating... my friends were still very amazed when they saw the cake pops.

        

I came up with the idea of making them when I was thinking what to bake for my colleague's birthday party.  Having known that other friends are going to buy cakes for them, I decided that I shouldn't bake any thing extra as there would be too much cake for everyone! Instead, I came up with the idea of making birthday pops.  I loved them!! Although I was a bit lazy and due to time constraint, I made the cake inside with cake mix, I still spent a lot of time shaping the cake and decorating the cake.

My efforts paid off as my colleagues were very very impressed and they loved it.  I was so blessed and happy that I could bring joy to them. Thank you God, for giving me a pair of hands that could bake and decorate.

And I do realize that in Hong Kong, cake pops are not that popular.  But this is such a cute and pretty sweet for parties!! Maybe I could specialize in that.. if I would ever open a shop in the future...!

Inspried by Bakerella.

Fruit Pastry Cake

Recently I was very attracted to making a fruit pastry cake, as it seemed sooo appetizing and delicious.

Finally, during the first week of October, I made it! It smelled sooo fruity and good when it was in the oven. And I was quite satisfied with the outcome and outlook of the cake. Everyone loved it and one of my colleagues even said she wouldn't mind eating tens of it. I felt so blessed I have the gift to make good cakes and share the enjoyable moments with my friends and family.

Yes. This cake is so addictive that I am going to make it again, again and again!

It actually reminded me of Maxim's pineapple cake.  But my colleague said they were way better than Maxim's cakes. :P and on second attempt, I made it with cake flour and brown sugar. It still tasted fantastic! Wow!

The only thing I was dissatisfied was that I shouldn't have added the raisins and cranberries on top. Cuz after baking, they went really hard and wasn't quite delicious anymore!

Little fruity cakes!

With peach and kiwi

Fruit Pastry cake in fisheye!

In my present boxes hehe

Cinnamon rolls

I have been reading a lot of baking blogs lately, especially excited about seeing the round ups of Aspiring Bakers #11 Mid-Autumn Treats for September, hosted by Happy Home Baker.  There were so many nicely decorated and baked/ iced festive treats and I was also happy to see my own submission in the blog.  This is indeed a very fun and meaningful activity for those who loves to bake.

In fact, in the past two weeks I have been baking sometime too. But I was too busy to update what I have baked.  Anyway, most of the times they were just easy stuff like cookies and muffins.  I have long awaited for this Chung Yeung Festival (which we get a day off from work) to bake something that is pretty time consuming.  And, I decided to do what I did with Marianne, my flatmate back in Copenhagen when I was off to exchange studies, Cinnamon Rolls, recipe following that of Happy Home Baker.  I read some reviews and thought it was quite easy to make.  But things didn't turn out exactly what I have hoped for, haha. The dough was much more moist than I thought it would be and I had a really hard time rolling it out and shaping the roll. I sprinkled a lot of flour already, and I really want to know what was the problem.  Also, I was stupid enough to buy cinnamon stick, thinking that it would be so easy to extract cinnamon afresh.. but I had a super tiring time scraping the cinnamon stick to the grater (which was the only thing I had to extract cinnamon)... then mom told me to use the electric mixer.. so we chopped the cinnamon sticks into little pieces and put it in the mixer.  Just when I thought it was successful, because I saw the sticks turned into power-like products, then I realized that I have broken the mixer because the plastic stub under the mixer was too hot and it kind of melt and broke...:(

Anyway, I was able to extract fresh cinnamon.. and the cinnamon rolls that I made were very small and cute. My sister ate two and she said it was really good.  I hope so.. but the bread became hard after a few hours.  I decided to put it into the freezer, and I think we could still eat it whenever we want by reheating it in the oven again.  It was a nice try though, I had great fun making the rolls :) And I really missed the times in Copenhagen when me and Marianne made like 4 dozens of cinnamon rolls in one go!!

I had a really hard time rolling out this dough.. it was very sticky :(

but the cinnamon were sooo fresh!! I added some raisins too

Just before baking. In fact, they are very small rolls only! hhehe. Less than the size of my palm.

And here is the completed cinnamon rolls :) Not too bad!

Crazy me and marianne 

And these were the cinnamon rolls I made with Marianne back in Copenhagen!

And now I am so looking forward to the weekend! I am going to try a fruit pound cake, hopefully!