Cranberry Buttermilk Square Cakes

This cake was an accident invention created by me. Instead of using fresh milk, I swap it with fresh buttermilk which I had on hand. To my surprise, the texture of cake turned out to be soft and tender. 

In this recipe I used fresh cranberries rather than the traditional more commonly used dried cranberries. Most people craved for a rich butter cake with less sugar, the subtle sour taste of fresh cranberries is a perfect pairing with a rich butter cake.

Just with a serving of a slice of this cake, a simple afternoon indulgence is completed with a simmering cup of tea or coffee.

With a slice of cranberry cake on hand and soaking myself in a warm, tender breeze of a sunny afternoon, I enjoyed every moment of this lovely autumn weather. 

To order Click here

My first time baking a birthday cake

Hi, welcome to my blog :)

It's my first time baking a birthday cake for a friend celebrating her birthday, and so I have been thinking for a while what I should prepare as a surprise for her. 

She likes to eat cake that uses fresh ingredients and tastes not too sweet. And also prefers after eating the cake, she will not have the kind of guilty feeling for getting a tummy back on track.
It is kind of a challenge for me to bake a cake with such a contrasting combination.
Maybe a moist chocolate cake with lesser sugar and creamy chocolate frosting will accomplish my mission?
Oh well, let's have a try and see how it goes.
I adopt a recipe which is suppose to make 1 layer of 8 inches round cake to bake a 2 layers of 6 inches round cakes. Since there are 5 of us sharing a cake in a restaurant after dinner, a smaller cake is a lot easier to transport around and to divide for eating.
Ingredients used including sifted cake flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, meringue powder, salt, unsalted butter, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract, water and evaporated milk. This is a recipe I used many time for baking a moist chocolate cake and it hasn't failed me so far.
Everything has gone smooth up until I have poured the batter into the cake tins. The cake batter is not evenly divided and spread! I ended up with 2 uneven sizes of cakes.
After 2 straight hours of repeating icing done on the cake, the upper layer cake keeps sliding downwards. This is absolutely not what I expect to achieve after so much icing work has been done!
However, despite my hard struggle to 'rescue' the bad situation, it doesn't improve much. And so I used a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake to stick both layers steadily.
Here's the end result: 2 layers of 6 inches chocolate cake where the surface is not level...

In spite of the ugly looking, the cake tastes good, as I initially hoped so.
And I am glad that my friend like it!

Yummy yet devilish~Whipped Cream Pound Cake

Whipped Cream + Cake=Devil?!

This is what I had in mind the first time I noticed whipped cream is being used to bake a cake. I believe most people knows what whipped cream is made of and thus how massive amount of calorie and fats it carries. So if using whipped cream as a main ingredient in making a cake, can one imagine how long he/she needs to exercise to shed off the fats?
Having said so, my taste bud has already battled win over my conscience. I am already on my way to try out the recipe baking my own pound cake.
I like to use cake flour, or some other people may called it as low gluten flour, if baking a cake. My pound cake consists of cake flour, unsalted butter, salt, granulated sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and whipped cream. I used fresh dessert whipped cream which could be bought readily from supermarket.
Initially, I was expecting something resembles a milky smell when the cake is done. To my surprise, my kitchen and hallway were surrounded with sweet vanilla scent after an hour of baking.
The cake taste very moist and burst with fragrant vanilla smell. Even after finished eating, I could still smell the vanilla flavor from the container of which used to store the cake.
Believe me, it is a very delicious cake worth gaining extra pounds of weight!

To order : Click here

A happy housewife who loves and is deeply addicted to cooking and baking in my small little kitchen. I love to invent and create my very own recipes of desserts. 
Come experience with me my journey of baking and share my happiness, joy and laughters!

Cranberry Butter Cookies

My first recipe:-
CRANBERRY BUTTER COOKIES

Ever wondered how to bake your own version of a crunchy, creamy and butter-rich flavored cookies at home?

I love cranberry cookies from the moment of my first bite. I love the soft cookies from Mrs. Fields and the fragrant butter smell from May's cookies made me addicted especially to cranberry butter cookies. So I decided to try incorporating both versions and make my own.

After few searches through bakery books, I decided to adopt ingredients such as low-gluten flour, unsalted butter, caster sugar,egg and some dried cranberries to bake my cookies.

Sometimes I can bake nice, crunchy butter cookies, other times, either the cookies are too soft or too hard to eat. I first suspected it was the oven temperature that causes the cookies' textures problem. 

When normal conventional oven calls for 15 minutes to bake, my fan based oven will need at least an additional of 15 minutes ie.30 minutes to bake. But even after adjusting the oven temperature, most of the time, I still ended up with hard cookies on hand.

So what has gone wrong?

This time I decided to increase the quantity of unsalted butter used in the recipe. 

As at now, I am still in the midst of trial and error experimenting the exact quantity of butter to be used in order to achieve the best result.

Having said so, after trying few brands of unsalted butter, I highly recommend to use the famous French 'President' brand. The creamy texture of the butter makes it easier to mix and combine with sugar to create a light and fluffy effect.

Any suggestion welcome!