Winnie The Pooh & Square Alphabet Block Icing Cookies

I always want to make icing cookies with cute cartoon or pretty drawing,
but after last time I tried on making it I gave up as I thought it could be really hard!
I always following my favourite blog and feeling so envy that people can make such
a pretty batch of icing cookies with neat and even royal icing piping.
So I give it a try again this time, with evenly rolled and slimmer cookies in thickness.
I never use my winnie the pooh cutter, so I will be making winnie the pooh cookies
with yellow icing.

I also use another square cutter to make square one.

After I chill the dough in fridge, I roll it out and start cutting it with my cookie cutter.

Rolling and cutting~~~~~~~

 Ready to be baked :)

Ready to be baked :)

The royal icing in yellow colour,its important to get the
right consistency for both outline and flooding.
 Hopefully disaster is not gonna happen like last time.

Hmm, I am pretty happy with the shape of the cookies,
there's a lot so I don't think I am gonna ice all of them.
Nice flat surface with even thickness, not like last time its too thick
and very tough to pipe on the cookies with icing.

I pipe the yellow outline first and let them to dry before the
icing flooding in the middle area.
Now I know which nozzle I should use for outline piping,
and also the consistency of icing for outline.
You don's thick icing that and very runny icing which could
be very hard to pipe on the cookies and results in messy outline.
I also did pipe the outline a little bit more inside so that flooding icing
wont drips everywhere.
Hmm yea maybe a little bit more runny icing for outline and gonna
do the outline piping on the edge of the cookies as best as I could next time,
so that I can minimise the imperfection!

I think I will be using bigger cookie cutter for my next attempt,
and will only do half of the recipe, its too many of them~~~~~~~

Now flooding the icing, I am so happy that the icing didnt flood out from the
outline, its sit securely in the borders!
Its perfectly smooth like what I have seen in the book hehehehehe
At least now I got the idea and tricks how to do it better next time!
The piping of eyes, nose and mouth is very hard especially on a 
famous cartoon character, need to get them on the right ratio
or else they will look very weird :p
I think next time I will only do character with dotty eyes or nose,
no more cartoon cookies with complex face features hahahahahahaha

And well I better focus on the same pattern cookies next time, working on 2 different shape
and colour cookies is very exhausted and time consuming!
And I saw people will pipe another layer of outline around the edge or line,
which I think it might looks good especially for those same colour cookies like my winnie the pooh.
I am very sure extra outline piping after the flooding gonna give it a better shape
and 2D visual effect, but well not this time I am really tired.
 I will do it for my next batch of icing cookies I promise hehehehehehehehehehe!

Mini Tomato Pizza

I am clearing my fridge today, gonna use all of the leftover ingredients.
So I make this little pizza, with tomato and cheese:)

A very simple and easy to make dish with low calories and lots of yummmm
You don't even have to worry about making the pizza base by yourself,
just get the tortillas wrap in the store, big or small up to you!
Juicy tomato with a melting cheese and crunchy cucumber,
layers of eating texture in this little pizza!
Can act as main course or entry, everything its up to you :)

Simple recipe:
tortillas wrap
mozzarella cheese
tomato slice
cucumber
tomato paste
fresh chopped parsley/ dried parsley flake

You can actually replace or adjust the ingredients according to
your preference or favourite ^^ Just like different topping
for your own pizza!
Everything is about creativity, DIY and freestyle!

I am cutting the cucumber into small little cubes :)
Cut the wrap into smaller size (optional) as well for later use.

Over a baking tray, spread a thin layer of tomato paste on the wraps.

Then put a slice of tomato :)
I sprinkle some salt and pepper on the tomato
for a better nice.

Lastly, put on some mozzarella cheese.
Bake this at 175 degree celcius for around 5-8 minutes.
Once its out from the oven, garnish with some cucumber cubes
and parsley flake.

Enjoy!

Garlic & Thyme Herb Prawns

Owh, tonight's diner!
I got this recipe from DONNA HAY magazine.
Very easy and simple to make this :)
When come to prawn, I always wanted to try something different and new.

A squeeze of lemon juice ^^

For 25 pieces of prawns :
In a baking tray, put some olive and around 3 tsp of minced garlic.
Roast it in the oven at 180 degree celcius for few minutes.
Remember to cover the tray with aluminium foil or else
it will sparks the oil everywhere.
Or you can also simply fry the garlic on a pan for few minutes.

Then mix the garlic and oil with around 90g of butter + 2 tsp of dried chilli+
+salt and pepper+ pinch of sugar+ thyme herbs.
The actual recipe actually using tarragon herbs, but I couldn't
find it in safeway so I replace its with thyme herbs instead
which gives out citrus flavoue :)

Then on the same pan, dont wipe off any excess oil.
Place the prawn on the tray, brush over the sauce evenly.
I also put on extra salt & pepper as well as the thyme leaves.

Bake in for 5-8 minutes or until its cooked properly :)
Serve them while its still hot!

Chocolate Marble Chiffon Cake

Recently I got lots of ideas and there's lots of recipes that I would love to try!
Xanders' friends is coming over to our place today to help him in job seeking,
I am thinking of treating them something to go with coffee, and of course I prefer something different
which is other than coffee flavour.
As I mentioned before, I always want to explore more types of chiffon cake with different flavour
so that people that are looking for simple cake for party or catering have more options and choices :)
So I have a look at my favourite blogs, and I found a
very seducing chiffon cake recipe -  Chocolate Marble Chiffon
This is something very light and simple, and yet can satisfy their appetite to go with the coffee.
Moreover, the marble effect of the cake makes it look very presentable!

So here I present the chocolate marble chiffon cake.
The cross section of the cake shows a very nice marble effect :)
Very soft and fluffy texture with adequate flavour of chocolate,
yummy but no burden to our tummy xD

And I always dusted my chiffon cake with some icing sugar, slice them prior to serving
so that everyone can get a slice ^^
I think I have achieved a very nice marble effect on my cake, just look at the cross section ^^

You can see the spongy texture of the cake, soft and moist centre.
My guest all like it, I guess guys love lighter dessert :)
And its not too sweet which makes you ask for more hahahaha

Wake up early this morning, have got my ingredients ready and give it a go!
Egg white mixture and egg yolk mixture (in plain and chocolate).

Mixing of meringues can be very tricky, I found that
the meringue has to be just nice peak form to be folded into the
mixture.
And of course, this step is very important and needs a lot
of patience.

                                    

                                  The meringue in peak form.

I fold the meringue into the thicker egg yolk mixtures in 2 batches,
didn't really divide it accurately but I think this will be fine :)
2 bowls of ready batter, its time to pour them into the mold!

I pour the plain and chocolate batter into the mold
alternately in few batches - to create the marble effect.
I also swirl the the batter with a skewer/butter knife
in order have them mix thoroughly so that it
will create an obvious marble effect :)
I also tap the mould a bit so that hollow space will be fully filled,
you know the batter might have different density and especially you pour in
the better alternately in few batches.
You might get hollow space/holes on your cake if you don't tap it.

Out from oven, the cake shrink quite much which is out of my expectation.
But still it stay fluffy and soft.
I think I over mix the batter, which causes the greater shrinkage
after its put of the oven, arrgghhh should read the note before I start making this cake :p
I am also thinking that maybe my mould is bigger for this recipe????? Could it be?
Gonna pay more attention on this for my next chiffon cake :)

I unmould it and have it displayed on a nice plate:)
I really love the shape of my mould, it gives my cake a nice pattern.
Even the cake slightly shorter in volume, but I think it still looks great!
There is few tiny holes on the surface, but not really obvious.
One thing is that the other side my cake shrink more, resulting a wrinkle surface.
I have no idea why but probably because I lower the oven temperature just now
which causes not constant temperature around the oven and irregular shrinkage.

Icing sugar showering hehehehehehehehehehe

Quickly snap on my cake before they are all gone hahahahaha

Piped Ganache Rose

Okay, I know I gotta learn how to pipe roses using either cream or butter cream.
For future orders, I really don't want to mould the roses petal by petal,
so I guess by piping them is more convenient & easy & less time consuming ^^
So I watched a lot of videos in youtube, and finally start my first
piped roses by using chocolate ganache.
First attempt, it looks good for me, what do you think??? 

Now I am getting used to it and I found the tricks!

Third one, much much better in looking isnt?
Anyways, gonna do this on my cupcakes and cakes in the future,
hope I can pipe it better and better after more practises :)
Gambateh~~~~~