Cat's Tongue

It's only I think less than a month ago that I made this cookie, but it was gone so fast. My niece especially, loved it so much that she can munch on it the whole day if nobody's looking :).

I don't have any particular plan today, except doing some errands at home. So, I thought I'll make this since the family has been requesting it for a while now. Not much different from the last time, except that I substituted some amount of flour with powdered milk. This is one of the ingredients that are "must have" in my pantry. I just love this thing so much. I also added more vanilla powder to the batter.

The only thing that makes me raise my eyebrow is the cookies have a little salty taste. And yes, I used imported salted butter (the kind that comes in a can with a strong and wonderful butter smell). Maybe it's because I use different composition and brand from the last time. It doesn't hurt the taste though, it's just something I noticed.

Pandan Chiffon Cakes Parade

There's a time when I don't make chiffon cakes at all for the whole month or two (not sure about two), but there's a time when I make them really often in a week. This week is the later kind of week. I have to make 7 pandan chiffon cakes this week, plus 3 chiffon cakes last Sunday. One of them is for a friend of my friend's mom. The other six are for Church's snack this morning.

It was pretty time consuming as I only have 2 regular size pans. I made two cakes in one batch and each batch has to cooled down completely before I can take the cake out of the pan. It can take 3-4 hours each time. So, do the math. Then today, I found out that my friend has another pan and also my other friend. Grrrrrrrrrr..............I wish I knew that sooner so that I didn't waste a lot of time waiting for the cake to cooled down.

Not much to say about this as I make this so often. I hope that everybody who enjoyed it really liked it.

Cream Puffs

Made this cream puffs last night and filled it this morning for a friend's order to be served for a prayer meeting. It's only about 21 pieces I guess, not that many. I think I baked a little too high in temperature. The color is more brown that what I expected. But other than that, I hope they're all like it The filling is custard that has been flavored with rum.

Rainbow Chilled Cheesecake

Trying out a new recipe last weekend for chilled cheesecake, also to use up the leftover cream cheese that had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of months :). This cheesecake has three layers, which are strawberry, lemon, and blueberry.

I was a little skeptical at first when I read the recipe. It uses jam to flavor each layer, except the lemon, and it doesn't even specify the amount of the jam needed. I wasn't sure that jam alone is enough to flavor the cheesecake and besides, jam is very sweet. I was going to use fruit puree instead, but the thought of puree-ing each fruit and the clean-up afterwards, made me change my mind. Since this is just a first try out, I didn't even bother to get the layer perfectly straight.I should have used piping tips to put each layer, but it was such a hassle. So, I used spoon instead :P. You can tell how lazy I was that day (and busy too with other cakes :D). All I wanted to know is how the texture would be. Is it firm enough yet still smooth and silky, or is it too stiff, is it too soft. I didn't think that going through all the hassle of puree-ing and cleaning up the blender (which I hate) were worth it for a first try out.

I tried the cheesecake yesterday and to my surprise, it actually tastes good. It's a little too sweet for my taste, which I kind of thought it would be. The flavor of each layer is not too pronounced though.
I can't wait to try the second try. It's not gonna be soon though. I'll definitely use fruit puree this time and make the layer straight. Also, since I'm a big fan of raspberry, I'll use raspberry, mango, and blueberry for my next try. Can't wait to see how it'd turn out.

Again, I don't bother decorating it. Saw some leftover cream and pipe it on top, add red cherry and I'm done. It tastes better than how it looks though :). I brought it to my work and everybody seemed to raved about it. They can't wait for me to bring my second experiment :)

Ispahan Cake

Another Ispahan cake I made this weekend for a dear friend's birthday (it's her ultimate favorite cake so far :)) along with pandan chiffon cake. It's only 6" round, only for her and her hubby.

In case you forgot what inside of this cake is, the cake has two layers of soft sponge cake, chopped lychee, raspberries, and rose-flavored mascarpone mousse.

I wanted to try new chocolate decorating, so here it is. Not too bad I think for variation ;). Although working with chocolate has never been my favorite thing to do, this one is surprisingly quick to do.

What's up with the different roses, you wonder? Well, I wanted to put one rose on the edge of the cake. Not wanting to spend $5 on a single rose, only to be thrown away the day after, I found that the rose plant in the garden has a white rose blooming, not too big. I figured I can always trimmed the outer petals to make it smaller. So, I waited until early Sunday morning. When I put it on the cake, the rose looked awkwardly big for such a small cake. So, 3 minutes before I was going to pack everything in the car, I changed my mind. I ran outside in the front backyard to cut one mini rose. I was actually looking for the soft pink one, but none of them were good in shape. So, I just had to make do with the red one. Not sure if I made the right decision to change the rose. I always like white or soft/pale pink roses rather than red roses.

As usual, I didn't have much time (actually, I didn't have time at all) to decorate it further. I thought it could have been better with something else, like a writing or something. The red rose looks a little lonely up there :(. But oh well, I hope they're happy with it.

Pandan Chiffon Cakes

I've been making this cake a couple of times for the past two weeks for friends. This weekend, made two different chiffons, the plain and the cheese version. The plain is for a friend for his breakfast everyday for a week. He's been making it very clear all this time that this is one of his most favorite cakes :)

The cheese version however, was a last-minute request. While I was enjoying my dinner while watching TV on Saturday night, my brother called to see if I had time to make a cheese-covered pandan chiffon cake for another person's birthday cake on Sunday morning! As much as I hate last-minute thing, I just couldn't say no. How can I? Besides, there was nobody at home at that time, so I can just whip up a chiffon cake quickly. 25 minutes later, the cake was already in the oven :). The longest part it cooling it upside down on the neck of a bottle. So, I let it sit overnight and decorate it early in the morning.

As always, this cake is always a crowd-pleaser. How can it not be with all those cheese? I'm just glad to see they devoured the cake really quickly with a face that you can definitely tell that it was yummy :)

Raspberry White Chocolate Cream Cheese Cake

This is a birthday cake for my dearest two friends last night. One of the birthday boy actually requested this cake specifically. I tried to change his mind to pick something different, since I just made it two weeks ago for a wedding thing-y with black raspberry. But what can I say, he persisted :). I guess I should be happy that he likes it that much, huh?

On the black raspberry cake, I put the remaining black raspberry jelly on top of the second layer cake, then the white choc. cream cheese, then a clear glaze. This time, I put the white choc. cream on top of the second layer cake and mix the remaining raspberry jelly with some clear glaze for the red topping. And This time, I trimmed the cake, so that it'll show the nice pattern for the filling. It looks even better when it's cut, but I don't have the picture :(.

There was an accident in the making of this cake. I tried to take the cake out of the box to decorate it, but it was hard to open the side of the box without it touching the sides of the cake. So, I put a little pressure and before I knew it, my hand landed on the side of the cake. I immediately scream (not that loud though), and I couldn't realize what just happened. The cake had already set in the fridge overnight. I tried to fix it, but it's still noticeable, arrgghh..... You can probably tell which part from the picture :(

But I can smile afterwards because the cake was a huge hit at the birthday gathering. A lot of people had seconds last night. There's nothing more rewarding than knowing that people like what you made :)