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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Pizza

My brother and I made pizza. I bought a baking stone and we decided to try it out.

My brother made 2 of the pizza dough and I made the third one.

This was the first one. We put all topping on it. We also learned that if you put tomato paste, you need to cover it with toppings or else the sides will burn.


Baking for the Royal Wedding

I don't have a lot of opportunity to bake a layered cake since its hard to eat such a cake by oneself, so I made it while I had enough people to eat it. I made a Layered Banana Cake. It was from the Wooden Spoon for Dessert Recipe Book.

While baking the cake, I was reading the paper and saw a scone recipe. Because of the Royal wedding, there have been lots of recipes for British food, including scones. So I decided to make the scones, in honour of the Royal Wedding while working on my cake.





Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Cupcake Relay

I took a cupcake class. Not that I needed it but the recipes sounded interesting. I guess I could have gone to recipe books but I also thought I'd see some cupcake decorating.


The class was taught by Chef Clarence Ma.

It was a two day class. On the first day we made:
Limoncello with Limoncello icing, chai latte with chai frosting and tangerine cranberry.

Day 2 we made Banana Rum Foster and Chocolate Guanduia Pyramids with Chocolate Ganche. We also made lemon curd and vanilla buttercream frosting.

The recipes were easy to make though quite rich as it required butter and shortening. One thing that I discovered was the shortening is more stable than butter. As well it's cheaper. However the shortening we usually buy (Crisco) has hydrogenated fat which is bad for your health. Instead he used shortening that's for vegan so no problem with hydrogenated fat. Good to know. Wonder if will work for pie and puff pastries (that's my next plan of attack).

Monday, April 11, 2011

Bread, bread and bread

Yesterday I baked three types of bread. No new recipes, just the same ones by special request by my mom Actually the request was only for my sourdough but I decide to make extra to give away.



The rolls and the two loaves in front are sourdough. The big loaf on top left is called American sandwich bread and the two loaves on top right is rustic Italian loaf.

My mom really like the sourdough bread which is quite unusual because she usually dislikes the tartness of sourdough. Even when we were in San Francisco, eating San Francisco sourdough she didn't really enjoy it much. She enjoyed the crab and clam chowder but made no comment on the bread.

Of course mom's are suppose to encourage and praise their kids but when it comes to food, my family tells it as it is. It is a good quality cos then you aren't deluding yourself thinking the food is good when in fact it is mediocre.

So my mom will tell me if it's soso which is good so I continue with only the best!!

The Breads:
For the rustic Italian and sourdough, I had to prepare it the night before. I had to make a sponge.






Here is my three doughs rising simultaneously.



Here is a pic where some dough are still rising the first time and others formed into loaves or rolls, rising a second time.



I made sourdough rolls for myself so I could freeze and take out the rolls as I need.

I got a real good workout kneading all this bread. It's kinda addictive that I want to bake more but my freezer does not have space!!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Sura Restaurant

On Friday I was in the mood for Korean so decided to go to Sura Restaurant. I went there when it first opened and wasn't impressed. However it's been a while and I thought maybe it would have improved because now it is quite busy. Its popular with Koreans and non-Koreans.


Thursday, April 7, 2011

Close to failing

I was soo failing to keep my New Year's resolution. For those who only recently follow me, my New Year Resolution was to not buy anymore recipe books until I tried all the recipe in one book.

I walked into Chapters cos I was close to one and was bored. I went to the baking section. I looked through cupcake books, decorating books and bread books. Then I saw a book called the World of Cakes. It has cakes from North America, South America, France, Britain, Sweden, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam.

It was very interesting but amazingly, I controlled myself.

Aren't you proud??


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Red Velvet Cupcake

I finally made Red Velvet cupcake. I kept seeing red velvet cakes and cupcake on food network and found it very appealing. I love the red colour and have been dying to try it. I never saw it sold in bakeries here so no chance to try it. I finally had the chance during the Christmas holiday in Las Vegas. It was good so I decided to make red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.