Mocha Chiffon Cake

Another mocha chiffon cake for last Wednesday for a couple.

Just like any other mocha chiffon cakes that I made, it is sprinkled with cocoa powder on top.

Pandan Egg White Cake

As you can imagine, I have an abundance amount of egg whites after making the wedding cake last week. So, one way of using it is making an egg white cake. It is healthier than regular cake and it tastes good too for sure.

This is a pandan egg white cake. I still have some buttercream left and a chunk of cheese left from the wedding cake, so I just made what I usually make with these ingredients. I make this so often, but somehow I've never get bored of them.

Now, I still have about two liters of egg whites left. I have a feeling that there will be more variation of egg white cakes coming ;)

First Wedding Cake

My friend asked me last December if I would do her a favor and make her wedding cake. I couldn't believe it at first. I felt some mixed feelings between excited, scared, and confused. I've always wanted to challenge myself and what is a better way to do it than making a wedding cake!

So, ever since that day, I did a lot of research, and I meant A LOT!!! I read hundreds of discussion forums, asked some wedding cake makers, looking at thousands of wedding cake pictures, etc. After some ups and downs and after at least a hundred changed designs and cake flavors, we (the bride and I) settled on a design and flavor.

To make the very long story short, the wedding was on last Saturday, June 21 2008. The theme color is peach and pink. The cake itself is a four-tiered cake, with 5 layers of cakes and 4 layers of fillings inside each tier. The cakes were all sponge cakes, baked fresh from scratch. Each layer was baked in separate pan because the cake was so soft and fragile that it can't be baked in one high pan and cut it into different layers. So, if you do the math, you'll know how many times or how many cakes I had to make. Not to mention that I forgot to incorporate the flour in one batch of batter, causing the cakes and 15 egg yolks go to waste. There are still a lot of stories behind the making of this cake, but it's just too much details.

It wasn't perfect, of course. There are still a lot of room for improvement, but hey, this is my first one. There are some people who had second, even third :). The color of the roses is not actually what I wanted, but that's the best we can get at the store that day. Everybody said it was really nice and the taste is very good too (hopefully they weren't saying that just to be nice to me:( ).

Now, I feel like a heavy weight has been lifted up from my shoulder. Don't get me wrong though, I enjoyed every part of it. Although this cake caused me a lot of mental pain and stress :P, I just can't wait to make another one!

Fondant Birthday Cake

My friend called me on Saturday night if I could and would make a birthday cake for two friends in her bible study group for Monday. I just couldn't say no although I had the whole day planned already for Sunday. Since I need to bring the cake to work, and before work, I have a class, the cake needs to be something that doesn't need refrigeration. I will leave the cake in the car for 2 hrs. under the sun. It wouldn't be pretty if I make some mousse cake and it all melted.

So, since all her bible study group loves the Indonesian classic cheesecake that I make many times before, I decided to go with this one again, and of course she didn't mind.

Instead of the usual 3 layers of yellow vanilla sponge cake, I use one pandan sponge cake for the middle layer, so when cut, you can see the pretty green and yellow cake color.
But this time, I don't want to decorate it the same way as the other ones before. I decided using fondant to cover the whole cake. I didn't have much time to decorate this cake at all. I started decorating it on Monday morning before I went to school and work.

So here's what I came up with. I wanted to cover the bottom border with fondant pearls but I just didn't have time. I don't have a larger satin ribbon, so I had to go with the small one :(. The piping is not so nice either (it was piped in such a hurry). It's not smooth at all.

The end result looks more like a bridal shower cake rather than a birthday cake. I think it's because the ivory color and the flowers. I need to practice more with fondant to get a very smooth surface.

Mocha Chiffon Cake with Cheese Topping

This is the other snack to accompany the pudding last time. I made this kind of chiffon once for church's snack, and this lady liked it a lot, so she asked me to make this. She couldn't decide which one she wants more at first, whether she wants this cake or pandan chiffon cake. This is the first time someone prefer something else rather than the pandan flavor.

I dusted the cake with a mixture of cocoa powder and powdered sugar for additional flavor.

Strawberry Shortcake

I made this 6-in strawberry shortcake for my co-worker at work. He's often bringing me fruits and veggies, such as strawberries, cherries, peaches, corns, asparagus. He lives in Brentwood, where most of the farms are.

He told me once that he likes strawberry cream cake so much. Just a plain white cake, with lots of whipped cream and strawberries (he's very American). So, I decided to make him one to say thank you using the super sweet strawberries I bought at farmers' market.

This is the same as the strawberry shortcake I made, but I brushed the cake with Grand Marnier to moisten the cake a little although the cake itself is soft and moist already. I used Cointreau before, but this time, I'm using Grand Marnier to flavor the cream. Both are French orange liqueurs.

Again, I was in a rush when making this cake. I started decorating it I think about 45 mins before going to work. It seems like a long time for such a small cake, but combine with other things I did, it wasn't much time at all. You can see clearly that the whipped cream is not smooth, but he told me that he liked it so much. So, that's enough for me.

Pudding with Creme Anglaise

This pudding is for one of the member of our church. She was going to go out of town for a weekend gathering and she wanted to bring something. So, she asked me if I could help her with it and she decided to bring a pudding a a chiffon cake.

It is a chocolate and vanilla pudding with fruits inside. I only had strawberries and cherries on hand at that time, so that's what I used for the middle part of the pudding. The chocolate layer was made using both bittersweet chocolate as well as cocoa powder, making it very chocolaty. Egg yolk was added to both layers of pudding for a smoother texture.

Accompanied the pudding is an espresso and rum creme anglaise. I said it so many times before that I love this combo so much. And I hope she will like it as much as I do.

As much as I wanted to decorate the pudding, making it look nice, I can't. She asked me if I could just leave the pudding in its mold because she will be driving for 1.5hrs, thus making it easier for her to transport.

These pictures are not the best one in the world. I was in a complete chaos trying to finish everything else, but it's better than nothing :).