Bread Making Class Lesson 3

I attended my third lesson for Bread Making Class last Sunday and made the above breads:

• Swedish Limpa Bread - Made of rye flour, molasses
• Calzones - Bread with a ham, spinach, cheese filling
• Pizza - Hawaiian Pizza
• Focaccia - Pieces of olives mixed into the bread dough

My personal favourite was the pizza and Calzones. May attempt to make the pizza for dinner this coming weekend.

Chocolate Vanilla Cream Cake

Over last weekend, I made 2 cakes, one cheesecake for my dad and one chocolate, vanilla cream cake with a cartoon of the birthday girl's choice for my sister-in-law. I would grade myself 50/100 for the 2nd attempt for cake decoration. I will need more practice to make the chocolate outline look smoother. I have tried may brands of whipping cream and this brand Vivo is the best for its stability and taste recommended by Judy our cake deco instructor.

It took me 2 hours to cream the cake (including the baking time for the sponge cake) and the cake was cut up and eaten within 15mins. In the frenzy to cut and eat the cake, I forgot to take a picture of the internal which a vanilla sponge sandwiched between 2 chocolate sponge.

Boston Cheesecake

I baked this cheesecake for my dad's 80th birthday upon his request months back for a cheesecake for his birthday. This cheesecake is different from the standard cheescake as it has sponge cake at the base instead of a biscuit crust. I made some white heart shape chocolates for decocation.

"Wishing DAD good health for many more years ahead!!"

Break Making Lesson 2

These are the bread that I have made in Bread Making Class Lesson 2. The Spinach Bread with Tuna Filling was one of my favourite. The sandwich loaf and the pork floss bun was very nice as well. Each group had to knead the bread dough for the pork floss bun, sandwich loaf as well as the dough for the doughnuts. While the dough for the other 2 types of bread was made by Judy the instructor with the giant commerical bread making machine.

We were taught how to pleate the raisin buns with 2 strings of dough which was quite difficult as well as to make a knot with 1 string of dough. At the end of each lesson, we usually go home with a large container full of buns and with our whole body smelling of bread. (A walking bun??!!!)

Cake Deco Lesson 1 and 2

Had Cake Deco class last Friday and Monday evening. First leasson we were taught various patterns that we can make from a star nozzle. At the end of the lesson, most of us were exhausted as it was as if we were learning how to write.

On the second lesson, we had to bake a 10" cake to bring to class to learn how to do a proper creaming of a cake followed by decoration and cartoon design. The designs given were not many and I had to settle with the above as my cake was a 9" cake and the other nicer designs were kind of big. Anyhow, it was good experience and it is amazing how the chefs could cream the cakes so easily.

Strawberry Jelly Hearts Cheesecake

Made this after hearing my secondary pal talk about this. Got a recipe from

http://auntyyochana.blogspot.com/2006/12/heart-jelly_25.html

and gave it a try. Turn out a success. The cheesecake is light, and the combination of the jelly, crust and cheese give this a unique flavour.

I made it in a round container and since it was quite firm, i decided to cut it into a square but was not that nicely cut though. I may try to make this in a 7" squre ring this Sat. Thumbs up for this!

Mango Chiffon Cake

This was the Mango Chiffon Cake that I did for Mother's day. Hmm.. didn't turn out very well though edible. The cream wasn't very well whipped could be due to the fact that it was not chilled enough. Anyway, a better cake next round. :)

Creative Culinaire Cooking and Baking School

I finally managed to find a colleague to enroll in Creative Culinaire Cooking and Baking School for the Basic Bread Making Course. This hands on class consist of 4 lessons on Sunday from 1pm to 6pm. We made a few different type of breads for lesson 1 namely Pandan Anpan Bread, Sausage Roll, Italian Ham Bun. 2 different types of bread making techniques were taught and Judy goes into details to explain certain ingredients used in bread making such as the difference between the types of flour, how yeast works, etc. I am looking forward to Lesson 2 this coming sunday.

Japanese Ramen

Bought a box of ramen from the Nartia Airport before returning to Singapore. Consist of 4 servings for about 1000Yen. It comes with 4 packs of noodles and 4 packs of sauce. The eggs served in Japan in the ramen is hard boiled with the yolk still soft. After doing some investigations through some books and internet, I managed to find the technique of making the eggs. A rough guide on how long the egg needs to be cooked depend on how cooked you want the yolk to be.

Water should be brought to a boil before gently submerging the egg into the boiling water. Start timing only when the egg is submerged into the boiling water.

(For Medium size eggs)

Soft boiled 3mins

Hard Boiled with Soft Yolk 5-6mins

Hard Boiled with Hard Yolk 10 mins

Italian Egg Yolk Cookies

Thought that this cookie was unique as it uses hard boiled egg yolks as one of the ingredients in making the cookie dough.

Lychee Almond Chiffon Cake

You may have noticed a series of recent bakes all related to chiffon cakes. Chiffon cakes are light and easy on the stomach as compared to butter base cakes and they are more well received by family members. That is one of the reason why I have been baking chiffon for the past couple of weeks. The other reason is because almost all the cakes in Kelvin Chai's Chiffon Cake Recipe Book looks so tempting. I could almost hear myself screaming 'So many cakes, so little time!!'

Green Tea And Chestnut Chiffon Cake

I finally made this with the ingredients I bought some weeks back. The recipe asked for honey chestnuts but I was not able to get those but manage to get some chestnuts from the Xiang Wei Ba Kwa Store. The green tea taste was too strong for my liking.