Learning to bake #1

I've always enjoyed baking because I've a really sweet tooth! I love cakes, brownies, cupcakes, muffins....everything sweet! But I've never been a good baker, sometimes the bakes fail and turn out to be totally inedible, sometimes the bakes turn out to be really tasty! 

Some weeks ago, I chanced about a bakery website which also conducts baking lesson! And they were conducting classes for Earl Grey Lavender cake, and these 2 flavours are my favourites! So I decided to ask a good friend along to learn baking with me. The class that we joined cost $118, which was pretty expensive in my opinion, but we get to bring home our self-made 6" cake. 

Here we were, at Bakers' Brew Studio for our lesson and I immediately went to "chope" the pink kitchenaid! It has always been a dream to own a kitchenaid because it makes baking so much easier and that kitchenaid was in my favourite colour!

Us getting busy making the batter for our  sponge cake layers. 

Tadaaahhh, our 6 layers are done, and it smelt heavenly!

This was my final product.

I have never bake a cake on my own before, and I realised, it is not an easy job. Making the sponger layers were easy but it was the spreading of the frosting that was ccrazily difficult. It was so difficult to spread the frosting to ensure that all parts were covered up, no holes present and to smooth-en the frosting on the cake.

I gave up a few times doing it and requested help from the instructor. Heh heh, that's why my cake looks pretty decent. 

Now, I can't wait for my next class on 12/9 for Salted Caramel Chocolate cake! Yummy!

Baking journey - Earl Grey Tea Cupcakes

So, over the past 1 week when I took a weeks leave from work to recover from my facial laser ( I hope to blog about that soon), I had ample of time on my hand as I wasn't able to leave the house to protect my skin from the harsh  sun rays & scaring people with my highly "disfigured" face. 

I decided to indulge myself in my hobby, which is baking. I baked 3 times that week, a chocolate loaf, fruit tarts and finally the Earl Grey tea cupcake. I was very satisfied with my chocolate loaf and I loved loved my earl grey tea cupcake! It was such a success except that the frosting was way too sweet. I guess I should modify the reciepe the next time I baked it again.

Please do not judge my piping skills as this was my first time doing it! Ugly piping skills but delicious cupcake! 

So here goes the recipe. I used the recipe from Nilssons Ambrosia's baking blog.

Ingredients

3 Earl Grey teabags (Tip: According to a friend of mine, it is super important to use a good quality earl grey tea bag like TWG. She recommended Dilmah as well so I used Dilmah & it was pretty good) 

3tbsp just-boiled water

80g (3oz) unsalted butter, softened

280g (10 oz) caster sugar

240g (8 ½ oz) plain flour

1tbsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

200ml (7fl oz) whole milk

2 large eggs

For the frosting:

50ml (1 ¾ fl oz) whole milk

500g (1lb 2oz) icing sugar

160g (5 ½ oz) unsalted butter, softened

(Please modify the amount of ingredients for the frosting yourself because it was way too sweet! 500g of sugar is like diabetes inducing!) 

Method for the cupcake :

Place the teabags in a bowl and add the just-boiled water, then leave to brew for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 190°C and line a muffin tin with muffin cases.

Use a hand-held electric whisk or freestanding electric mixer with paddle attachment to mix the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt on a low speed until the texture of fine breadcrumbs.

Pour the milk into a jug, add the eggs and whisk by hand. Add the brewed tea, squeezing every last drop from the teabags into the milk mixture, then set the teabags aside for the frosting.

Pour three-quarters of the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and mix on a low speed to combine. Then mix on a medium speed until smooth and thick. Scrape the sides of the bowl, add the remaining milk mixture and beat until all the ingredients have come together and the batter is smooth.

Divide the batter between the paper cases, filling each two-thirds full. If there is batter left over, spoon it into more cases in a separate tin. Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until risen and springy to the touch, then leave to cool slightly in the tin before transferring to a wire rack to cool fully.

Method for the frosting: 

While the cupcakes are cooking, place the used teabags in a small bowl with the milk for the frosting and leave to infuse for 30 minutes. Remove the teabags and give them a good squeeze to extract maximum flavour.

Using the electric whisk or freestanding mixer with paddle attachment, whisk the icing sugar with the butter on a low speed until no large lumps of butter remain and the mixture is still powdery. Pour in the tea-infused milk while mixing slowly, then increase the speed to high and whisk until soft and fluffy.

Alright, that's all for baking a cupcake! Pretty simple and easy to follow recipe! 

Hope yours will be a success too! :) 

Failed attempt #1

Was craving for brownies and I had been wanting to bake it for the longest time. Managed to get some time off work last week and that made it a good day to put my baking skills to use. I was researching for the easiest, fool-proof recipe and I managed to found one! What made the recipe more 'credible' was that it came from a blogger who had baked frequently. This particular blogger blogged about the recipe and she repeatedly emphasized that the brownie turned out to be really nice. I was full of hopes that my brownie will turned out to be like hers.

Ingredients 

An 8" circle baking tin for baking the brownies in

Non-stick cooking spray
♥ -- 2 eggs
♥ -- 1/2 cup butter (melted, salted. if you do not have salted butter, use 1/2 teaspoon salt)
♥ -- 3/4 cup white sugar
♥ -- 3/4 cup self-raising flour
♥ -- 1/2 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
♥ -- 1/2 tablespoon vanilla extract
♥ -- 3 tablespoons chocolate milk (or only 2 tablespoons if you like it fudgey!)
♥ -- 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips

Steps 

Step 1: Preheat your oven to 180 degrees C. Spray your non-stick cooking spray over your 8" baking tin, or if you don't have cooking spray, grease it lightly with butter.
Step 2: Combine the vanilla extract, sugar, and butter in a big bowl. Mix well
Step 3: Add the eggs in, one by one while mixing thoroughly.
Step 4: Carefully combine the cocoa powder and flour to your previous mixture. This will thicken up the batter a lot, so don't freak out if it's really dry, we'll be adding milk in a bit
Step 5: Pour in 3 tablespoons of chocolate milk and lightly stir in the chocolate chips. It will take a minute or two of constant slow stirring for your batter to absorb the chocolate milk in, but once it does.
Step 6: Pour the batter evenly into your greased baking pan and set the timer for 40-50 minutes, or until you insert a toothpick / chopstick and it comes out clean.

credits to: shiberty

See, it looks pretty idiot-proof right? I followed the recipe step for step but I have no idea why my brownie turned out to be more like a cake, a very dry cake for that matter. :(

I'm guessing it was the flour or the amount of time I baked it in the oven. From my past baking experiences, I had just used normal flour instead of self-raising flour. Was wondering if it was the flour that made it taste more like a cake and not the fudgey fudgey kinds.

Of course, I will continue to try baking brownies again and not be deterred by this one failed attempt!
Fighting Fighting!