My long weekend

There wasn't a public holiday but it was a long weekend for me as I started out my bakes from Friday morning right up to Saturday night.

Started out with a quick errand to the baking store as I need to get more ingredients for Saturday's orders. As soon as I got back, I started with Ifah's request for a 8x5" Brownie, to be cut into minis. She had also requested for Nutella & Fruit Custard Buns.

My most nervous moment was to prepare for Saturday's orders - Ros' 45pcs buns & 3 Brownie for Ayu. Time was very crucial because if I didn't plan it right, I definitely would not be able to complete the goodies by 2pm & 3pm respectively. Because of the anxiety, I couldn't sleep although it was already 12am.

I started as early as 4am to make 4 recipes of the buns dough. Bearing in mind that proofing of the dough itself would take 2hrs per recipe. Aside to that, the Brownie needs to be done. So you can imagine that my kitchen was a carnival on that day = D.

After all the baking frenzy, I was so glad & relieved that I managed to pack Ros' buns, 3 Nutella & 3 Fruit Custard in boxes of 7, in time. Of course due to time constraint, I didn't snap any pictures. 

After the collection, only then I started to deco Ayu's Brownie. Although she'd mentioned she'd pick them up at 3pm, I was secretly glad (sorry Ayu) that she came later. Because I didn't want to be in such a hurry to decorate & pack the goodies. 

My blog should have ended here but just as I was about to breathe, I received a very last minute request for a set of buns. Well, it was somehow due to my own fault. I'd called my aunt up to ask if she could offer some ideas on what I could do with the balance fruit custard filling (I'd purposely make extra recipes in case it wasn't enough for the 21 buns). After talking through, she came up with the idea that maybe I could just make another batch of buns & offer them to her for tasting - _ -.

Although I'm longing for my bed, I didn't want to keep the fruit custard filling overnight. So I continued in the kitchen. It was going to be another 4hrs before I could finally snore. It's a wonder what 4hrs of sleep could do to one. Finally everything was done, Brownie Cups included, and collection of the final goodies was at 9pm. (So altogether I'd been up for almost 19 hours).

I was so tired but was glad to find that I could actually complete these much goodies. I'd better start planning for the event in July and goodies to offer for Eid. I may just need some assistance ; )

Molten Lava Cake

I've always wanted to try this recipe but have no guts to do so. I remembered years back, Mum bought this dessert from Johor (because it's Halal) & packed it back for me to taste. Of course when it finally reached me, it didn't taste as good. This dessert has to be eaten warm, almost immediately.

Since I was feeling a little downcast for a few days, I hope to lift my spirits up a bit by trying to bake the Molten Lava Cake. Come to think of it now, how more depressed I would be if this dessert wasn't successful for my first try.

I experimented with the oven temperature to see what I would get after each try. It was just right at the third attempt.

So I'd better bake this again when mum come to visit, so she doesn't have to specifically go 'overseas' just to eat Molten Lava Cake.

Weekend update

This weekend I made some sweet buns for Ros. She had initially requested for Red Bean buns. But since I've run out of red bean paste, I offered if she'd like to have Fruit Custard instead. She agreed, and I made half a dozen each of Nutella-filled & Fruit Custard buns for her & her family to munch on their road trip.

Despite me complaining about the heat, I was grateful that the heat helped the bread dough to proof rather cooperatively. Just as I came back from the polling station (it was Polling Day on Saturday), the buns had risen & was ready for the oven.

On Sunday (Mother's Day), I made a whole brownie for Ayu, who requested it to be cut in half so she could share it with her mum. She had twitpic-ed me the Brownie she wanted & so here it was. Topped with cocoa & white chocolate chips.

For this past week, I'd been thinking often about the first Brownie I baked. It was a cakey brownie, which had been well-received but some confused it with chocolate cake, probably because of the cakey texture. So over the years I'd slowly switched my cakey brownie to a fudgy type. 

Between the two, I'm not sure which is better. It all boils down to individual tastebud, I'd say. So today, I've indicated in the Brownie album in my Facebook page that cakey brownie will be made available upon request. Otherwise fudgy brownie will be baked as usual.

Hope to get some cakey brownie requests soon, as that was my first successful brownie baked back in 2006.

My daughter's eigth

It was my dear daughter's birthday this week. I've prepared some goodie bags for her classmates, as requested by the birthday girl. However this year would be the last time we're giving away goodie bags, just because she's all grown up now.

Besides the goodie bags, I thought of baking some mini cakes or cupcakes (without too much frosting) for her teachers. It was between Cranberry and Cinnamon Cranberries cake. You might be thinking "What's the difference?" The Cranberry Cake is spiceless & contain just fruit oil to enhance the fruity taste, while Cinnamon Cranberries, as the name suggests, contains cinnamon powder. I decided to go with the latter and drizzle them with cream cheese frosting.

Some of her favourite teachers received individually-packed Cinnamon Craanberries Cupcakes for themselves.

Then later, we had a small celebration of cake-cutting at home. The Strawberry Shortcake image cake was bought from Prima Deli. I just found out that the edible image was mounted on top of a piece of white chocolate (to prevent the image from 'shrinking') but that also made it slightly difficult to cut. It's made of vanilla sponge cake with vanilla cream. A little too creamy for me although I really love the very soft sponge cake.