Category / creative

by Eileen 配仪

Smooth Fudges

These are more suited as party food than gifts – they soften easily at room temperature. My second tray, made with 90ml of armagnac and left over chocolate chips (unmeasured), was more delicious. The taste of brandy was more a hint than a hit. I’ve never had brandy. Armagnac is delicious! It’s going into a chocolate cake for Christmas!

3 cups of Nestle chocolate chips
1 can of condensed milk
1/4 cup butter melted
Assorted nuts or dried fruit.

Combine the melted chips and melted butter with condensed milk. The version done with 1/3 cup of brandy is too soft. Would benefit from not using the entire can of milk.

by Eileen 配仪

If only I knew how to make it pretty.

Red Velvet is a very fashionable cake choice at the moment for celebrations. I don’t particularly fancy red velvet but it’s so tasty I make this very often for birthdays. I didn’t realise how tasty it was until I had a red velvet cake at a birthday party. This version is seriously good. It’s so good with ermine cream cheese icing, I’m considering this as a potential business plan.

The difficulty I have is that my cakes look ugly. I don’t mean that the edges are soft, the cakes are not level, they dome – which I expect because it is home made. I mean they look like the icon from michelin tires. I use both aluminum and silicon pans. The silicon is slightly less misshaped but that means I have to slice off about an inch all around. After lopping off the dome, I have about one inch height of usable cake left. The aluminum pan makes cakes that look like the Michelin tire mascot.

The second difficulty is that cakes cannot look nice in the heat. This time-lapse video of various frosting at 32 degrees heat  is rather convincing that ermine frosting holds up for at least 30 mins.

For little boy’s birthday, I am planning to make a red velvet cake with ermine cream cheese frosting. I would need to bake it, freeze, thaw it out, frost and freeze it to get a good firm smoothness for the icing. Tricky business, cake decorating.

by Eileen 配仪

I cook, you eat.

How freeing it is, to cook without caring for the guests’ dietary preferences! On my mind now: chicken in milk or pork sausages, onion and herb focaccia, baked brie starter, olives antipasto.

Oh wait. I have extra olives. Here goes: chicken in milk, onion and herb focaccia, salad (with onion, lots of basil leaves and vinegar) and lemon tart (maybe if I am not feeling lazy).

by Eileen 配仪

More on cake

Even though I don’t like decorations on cakes (I don’t like inedible stuff), this blogger has really beautiful cakes and beautiful photography. If I have money, however, I would ask her to make butter cakes for Chinese New Year.  (There is a doubt. I don’t understand the soft, fluffy texture that she seems so keen on. I like heavy, moist cakes. Softness is meant for beds and bears.) My Chinese New Year tradition is to have tea in the morning. Tea means milk tea, pineapple tarts and butter cake.

  • The only tea I have is the Russian Earl Grey
  • I can’t have pineapple tarts because that is the emperor’s edict
  • I do not have a butter cake.

I don’t mind the Russian Earl Grey substitution. I think I can sub the pineapple tarts for say shortbread. If I really need some sweetness, apricot jam on the cookie could do it. Not perfect but acceptable. The only problem I have is the cake. Sara Lee is denser than most but not buttery. Most bakeries in shopping malls like this fluffiness in butter cakes and a distinct lack of buttery flavour in their cakes. Ugh. The closest substitute I can think of is a fruit cake but that can only be found during Christmas.

p.s: While I think her cakes are beautiful, I love her office more. Isn’t it beautiful?

by Eileen 配仪

No frills cake from cake mixes

Cake decorating has been the rage these two years. Generally I do not like frosting/icing/cream on my cake – it distracts one from the cake. This christmas, with lots of help, I’ve been testing out variations of the chocolate covered cherry cake recipe from cake mix doctor. I made chocolate covered strawberry and a yellow cake with peach pie filling using Betty Crocker’s Super Moist mixes.

As my cakes were gifts, I didn’t get to taste the cakes. I knew enough that cakes are generally improved after a day of rest. It was only after Mr TCM brought home two slices of leftover chocolate cake that I slathered a 2:1 ganache that I realised:
1. the cake is not as delicious as the reviewers made it out to be. Yes, it was moist but pie filling made it sugary sweet – I couldn’t taste chocolate.
2. not very good cakes require things on top as distraction. The cake alone was bleah. With the ganache and it was rich, moist and very chocolately. Rather delicious, I thought.

For the peach pie filling version, I chopped up a canned peaches, mixed it with bought whipped cream as filling and topping. The cake was extremely moist and extremely sugary. It was only saved by the cream and the peaches.

The second recipe I tried was Darn Good Chocolate cake. I used the recipe once last year with Betty Crocker Devil’s Food cake mix but wasn’t impressed by the lack of chocolate in the flavour. This year I used Duncan Hines German Chocolate cake mix and substitute coffee instead of water. I haven’t tasted it but Mr TCM did and he said it is quite good. I am hoping this is The mix to use.