Buttercream Ruffles

Buttercream and I have a love-hate relationship, in that I love that it doesn't taste like fondant (yuck), but I hate that sometimes it's too sweet and clumps up in my decorating tips. But now that I've figured out just how easy Swiss Meringue Buttercream (SMB) can be, I'm never going back to that sugar-heavy concoction of artery clogging mess.

I received an order for a wedding cake that needs to be done and delivered in the coming weeks. The bride wants a ruffle cake, but using buttercream instead of fondant, and she wants it in shades of pink, and though she didn't specify this... I had better damn well make sure that it's tasty! So taking into consideration the humidity of the local climate, I need to pressure test my SMB!

First of, 2 weeks before the order date, I'm working on perfecting my decorating. Buttercream ruffles are easy enough when you have the right frosting consistency, and the right tools, but my shaky hands definitely need some practice before I go on to the big leagues. And sure enough, this practice cake I did for my friend's birthday came out a bit off the mark of what I'm aiming for with the wedding cake. I've made a list of things to improve, such as gaps, angles, closures and joints *facepalm* basically everything.

It's still pretty though, so I thought it's worth sharing. I used the SMB recipe posted below, and this chocolate cake recipe. I filled it with seedless raspberry preserve to counter the chocolate and buttercream, and used a Wilton #104 tip to create the ruffles. Tip: sit down and get on eye level with that sucker, cos it's gonna be a pain to get the angle right when you're standing over it. Also, get a rovolving cake decorating stand (I got mine for so cheap! Woohoo!) cos it's a lifesaver.

Swiss Meringue Buttercream
Enough for a thin crumb coat on a 3 layer-6 inch cake, and to decorate entire cake

• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 3 large egg whites
• 220g butter, room temperature and cut into cubes
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. In a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water with the heat on medium-low, heat the sugar and egg whites, whisking gently to ensure all the sugar is dissolved. I don't use a thermometer, so to test that the egg whites are cooked, just rub some of the mixture out of the bowl between your fingers. The point where all the sugar has dissolved also indicates that the eggs are cooked
2. Transfer the meringue mixture into your large mixing bowl and using the whisk attachment, whisk until the bowl is cool to the touch and the meringue has formed stiff and glossy peaks, roughly 10 minutes (might be more depending on the humidity)
3. Add the butter, one tbsp at a time, while whisking on medium speed. Keep adding until it's all in, then whisk in the vanilla until smooth
4. Use as is, or separate into 4 bowls and colour in increasing shades by adding a drop of colour at each time. Start from the lightest shade to the darkest

Lemony Rainbow Cake

Everyone and their mother is either baking or ordering a Rainbow Cake these days. It's cute, I admit I gasped the first time I saw that picture on Whisk Kid's blog, and then I'm quite sure I was throwing up rainbows when Sweetapolita posted her Rainbow Doodle cake up. My friends Soraya, Pri and I even went around to an obscure bakery in Bangsar to check out their rainbow cake!

It was delicious... but disappointing. It was more of a tie-dye cake than a rainbow cake.

But when my cousin texted me last week to say that her daughter had especially requested for "Auntie Nabiya" to bake her a rainbow cake for her birthday... I jumped at the chance. I may not ever want a rainbow cake for myself, so this was my first opportunity to try out the colours without having to deal with the excess lying around in my fridge because nobody in my household wants to eat that much colouring on a normal day.

Also, how can I say no when she calls me Auntie Nabiya so sweetly? Darn these little girls and boys, they know exactly how to play their cards with me. It doesn't take much, really, I'm a sucker for big eyes and apple cheeks.

So this particular niece of mine, or second cousin once removed, turns eight today! Eight? I can't quite believe how much she, and the other cousins, have grown up so much. I keep thinking that they're all still five or six, and then they turn around and give me this condescending look, followed by an, "I'm *insert some ridiculously high number here* years old, you know?"

I'm getting old. LOL. Let's just get on with the rainbow cake, shall we?

Rainbow Cake

adapted from Whisk Kid's recipe

• 250g butter, room temperature
• 425g caster sugar
• 5 large eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 425g all purpose flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• Food colouring gel: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and butter and line your 9"inch springform baking tins with parchment. Use as many as you have, I only have 2 so had to bake my layers in three batches
2. In a medium bowl sift the flour, baking powder and salt, then set aside
3. In the large bowl of your mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
4. Add the eggs and vanilla and beat until incorporated
5. Then add 1/3 of the flour mixture, beat until just combined, add half of the milk, beat again, and keep doing this until you finish off with the last of the flour
6. Split the batter evenly into six bowls (roughly 1 cup per bowl by my count) and add the colouring until you achieve the shade you want the layers to take on
7. Bake each layer for 15 minutes, or until a skewer poked through comes out clean. Change the parchment paper after every layer if you're reusing the tins
8. Allow to cool in the pan for a few minutes before you run a butter knife around the edge of the cake then pop them onto the cooling tray. Once they've cooled completely, wrap them in cling wrap and pop them in the freezer to firm up before you even them out. I left mine in overnight as I baked the layers around 2 am
9. When ready to assemble, take the layers out of the freezer and allow them to come down to room temp

First slice is the deepest... oh man, you have no idea how relieved I was at this point!

Lemony Swiss Meringue Buttercream

• 7 egg whites
• 325g caster sugar
• 360g butter, softened
• 2 tsp lemon extract

1. Cook the egg whites and sugar over a bain-marie, whisking gently until the sugar is completely dissolved
2. Then transfer the mixture into your completely grease-free mixing bowl and whisk for 5-8 minutes, or until the bowl has cooled to room temperature, and soft peaks have formed in the meringue
3. This hurts, but next you throw in the butter, a tbsp at a time and allow it to mix and curdle into the meringue
4. Keep whisking until all the butter is added, then switch to a paddle attachment, add the lemon extract and beat until smooth

More cousins!

Here's another one of the birthday girl being all cute and camera shy

The cake was a huge hit with the 8-25 year old crowd gathered at my niece's birthday party, and I absolutely LOVE how the layers turned out so clean! I was terrified I'd end up with crumbly, uneven layers. But that moment of truth when you cut into a rainbow cake is definitely a moment you'll never forget.

Happy birthday, Double Love,
x Aunty Nabiya

Happy Birthday, Ellebug!

I thought long and hard about the cake I would bake to celebrate one year of blogging, scratched many designs and flavours, and last night... I finally just did it. Instead of doing fancy buttercream designs like I had intended to, I decided to keep it simple and homey, very much what I like to think I am.

Some may beg to differ, but I'll talk to you lot later.

Anyway, I'd just like to say thank you to everyone who reads this blog, to my family and friends who have supported me, and also helped me move the ever-growing stock of desserts off my refrigerator shelves. I love you all. This past year has been so special for me; I found something I actually really love doing, a great combination of writing and baking, and it's just helped me so much.

I first started baking intensely after my first actual heartbreak, and I started blogging about baking after my second. I never realized until this past year how important it is to just take time for myself, to get to know who I am, to listen to how I feel and think about things; just quality time with myself, you know?

I'm in this place right now where I'm so happy with who I am and enjoying the fact that I've given up pretending to be somebody everyone else thinks I am or should be, and I have Ellebug, or The Happy Hufflepuff (hehe), to thank for it.

So here's to a year of baking, and hopefully, many more to come!

Isn't the Ellebug Cake the cutest thing? ;)

Best Chocolate Cupcakes Ever

I realize that is the most audacious title you might ever see on this blog, but I assure you I wasn't the first to make the claim, nor will I be the last. Trust me on this one, would I ever lie to you?

It being Saturday, and my cousin having celebrated his 25th birthday last night (yay, Happy birthday, Azamlove!), I slept in a little this morning... that is to say, I finally staggered out of my room in a bathrobe around 10 in the morning, croaking for coffee. Only I found my two youngest siblings, Adam and Elle, sitting right outside and the first thing they asked me was, "Are you going to bake today?"

Followed with a very quick, "Can it be something with chocolate?"

So me being the amazing big sister that I am, sat down on the sofa and waved at one of them to bring me a cup of coffee, and at the other to bring my laptop. Summoning Charm, they've learnt to understand what Accio means. lol it's not really that bad, they jump at the chance... sort of like house elves. OKAY, enough with the HP references, I promise (not really). I looked through food gawker (ohmistars, how did I live before that website?) for ultimate chocolate and the first one that popped up was this from Dawn over at First Look, Then Cook blog. She got the recipe of Cook's Illustrated, one that I have no access to, and have no interest in filling up a registration form for...

It looked a lot more complicated (in that it involved more steps than melt, mix, and bake) than I usually like for Saturday "morning" baking, but since I had some time before my afternoon appointment... it was doable.

I barely made it to my appointment in time, and had to wait til I came home to take some pictures in fading light. There are SO many steps to this recipe, but nothing overly difficult, and the end result is so rewarding that you hardly care about the mess you made of the kitchen.

You're probably wondering when I'm going to get on with the recipe now, right? Okay okay, let's go:

Ultimate Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache filling, and Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream. 
Yield: 12 medium sized cupcakes

Ganache Filling:

• 2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar

1. Combine all the ingredients in a small bowl and pop it in the microwave at full power for roughly 20-30 seconds, whisk until it's smooth, then cool in the fridge until ready for use

Chocolate Cupcakes:

• 3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1/3 cup cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup hot coffee
• 3/4 cup bread flour
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon table salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line the cupcake trays
2. Combine the chopped chocolate and cocoa powder in a small bowl, pour the scalding hot, bitter coffee over it and whisk until smooth, then pop the bowl in the fridge until you're ready to use it
3. In a medium bowl, sift the flour, sugar, salt and baking soda (lol I typed sofa first), then set aside
4. In the large mixing bowl of your electric mixer, whisk the vegetable oil, eggs, vinegar, vanilla and the cooled chocolate mixture until smooth
5. Gradually beat in the flour mixture until fully incorporated
6. The batter is quite runny, so you can actually just pour into your cupcake pans if you have steady hands. I used a cupcake filler thingy that I got for Christmas, but still made a mess. Fill the cupcake liners 3/4 of the way up
7. Take out the chocolate ganache and scoop up tsp sized balls, drop a ball onto the top of each cupcake, then bake for 15-20 minutes. When it's done, allow the cupcakes to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before moving them onto a cooling rack

Frosting:

• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large egg whites
• Pinch table salt
• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened and cut into 1-tablespoon pieces
• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Heat a pot of simmering water, and in a heatproof bowl over the water (make sure the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water) whisk the egg whites and sugar until all graininess from the sugar is gone (this also means the eggs are cooked)
2. Transfer the mixture to your grease-free (wipe down with some lemon juice and dry thoroughly before use) mixing bowl, and using the whisk attachment on medium speed, whisk the mixture until soft peaks form. This is the meringue component of the frosting
3. Add the butter one cube at a time, whisking away as it goes, and don't worry if it looks horrible, it'll get better when all the butter is added. You may have to whisk for a while to get a pretty consistency. I usually have to stop the mixer after the butter is all added, scoop the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula and then let it whisk again before it starts resembling something edible
4. When you've achieved the desired consistency, add the chocolate and vanilla, and whisk until smooth and creamy
5. Transfer into a piping bag with a tip of your choice (I like Wilton's 1A or 1M tips for cupcakes), or just cut out a small hole at the end and pipe over your cooled cupcakes
6. Enjoy immediately!

I loved these cupcakes, though truth be told, I only managed to get one bite before it was taken away from me. The moment I snapped the pictures, the cupcakes were taken away and now I have nothing to show for my morning of hard work! This is one of the few times that something I've baked has disappeared so fast, which is an indication of how amazeballs this recipe is. 

If you have a free weekend morning, I recommend you whip up these cupcakes. SMB frosting is so crazy sexy and tastes so beautiful, I'll never be able to go back to regular buttercream. The ganache filling is a lovely surprise too, especially when the cupcakes are still warm and gooey. These are certain to impress your friends and family, so if you do give them a shot, I wish you all the best! 

Much love, Nabs

Ladies Who Lunch: Mama Zee's Birthday

I consider myself lucky that I have an amazing mother. She is strong, smart, beautiful, intuitive, possesses far more talent in her pinky finger than I do in my entire body, and so full of love that she has shared so generously with everyone around us. My mother really is the best.

Most people are blessed with great mothers, but in our very close-knit circle of friends and extended family, we are exceptionally lucky in that we have a wonderful team of mothers. Best friends for most (if not all, actually) of our (the children's) lives, they have raised us as a group, poured their love on us, shared wisdom wrought from their own lives, listened to our boy troubles, endured our rants, and basically have just been there.

Today one of them celebrates a birthday, and in true Team Mama fashion, they organised a long lunch this afternoon (midweek public holiday, yay!), pooled together for an extravagant present (this year, Portmeirion is all the rage among the group), and sat over good food, laughing, sharing stories and taking every opportunity to scandalise Nisa, Kaly, her hapless boyfriend, and myself with innuendo and downright disturbing comments.

Mama Zee, being one of my six mothers, obviously deserves to get a homemade birthday cake! No bakery cake for any of my mamas, no way. I may not be able to afford to buy a Portmeirion teacup (or even a saucer), but this I can definitely do.

After my friend, Amy's hen night karaoke session last night (I know, you're thinking... where is that blog post?), I hauled myself home, washed my face and found that I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was a cake for Mama Zee! I knew there was no way in hell I'd be able to wake up early enough to do it, and I had actually planned on just baking the cake layers ahead of time, then frosting in the morning... but when I finally did crawl back into bed, the clock read 5.30am.

It was well worth it though. I decided to tackle Swiss Meringue Buttercream for the first time (3am decisions, they make sense sometimes) considering The Mothers have always harangued me for my too-sweet buttercream. It was surprisingly easier than anticipated, and wowweee at that silky-smooth texture and lack of sickening sweetness! Can't believe it took me this long to try it, and now that I have, I think I may have to stick with it...

I used my favourite white cake recipe, which I then divided into four bowls (roughly 1 1/2 cups per bowl) and coloured in increasing shades of pink (a teeeeeeeny tiny drop of Wilton Pink colouring gel in the first bowl, one drop in the second, 2 drops in the third, and 3 drops in the fourth). I baked the cakes in 6-inch round pans, all at once for 25-30 minutes, then popped them in the freezer (triple cling-wrapped) for half an hour.

With leftover blackberries from my Upside-down Blackberry Buttermilk cake, I whipped up a Blackberry Coulis for filling the layers. I've got some coulis leftovers now... watch this space to see what I do with it.

Blackberry Coulis

• 250g fresh blackberries
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup water

1. In a saucepan, bring the blackberries, sugar and water to a boil. Simmer until the fruit is mushy then stir in the vanilla
2. Remove from heat, allow it to cool then pour it all into a blender and whizz to a puree
3. Strain the puree through a sieve, then slather your cake layers with the goop

Swiss Meringue Buttercream

• 2 large egg whites
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 180g butter, softened
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Whisk the egg whites and sugar until sugar is completely dissolved in a heatproof bowl over a bain-marie
2. Transfer to your mixing bowl, and with your whisk attachment, whisk the mixture at medium speed for about 4-5 minutes until soft peaks form (hello, meringue!). Add the vanilla.
3. At this point, slowly add butter into the mixture, by tablespoon-fulls. Continue until all the butter is in, and just whip until the point where when you run a spatula through it... it comes up looking beautifully smooth

If you have a stand mixer, I suggest you step away during that last step of the swiss meringue process. It looks terrifying, and you'll be tempted to "fix" it, as it seems as if the mixture is curdling. But don't you worry, darlings, it's meant to be that way. It will improve upon extended whipping. My tiny batch took roughly 5-8 minutes to finally arrive at a consistency I was happy with.

 

And what a beautiful taste the frosting produces! For the first time, my frosting has not overwhelmed the flavours of my cake, and as The Mothers enjoyed the cake quite a bit... I like to think I did it right this time. No complaints of "Nabiya! This is soooo sweet!" or "A moment on the lips..." and you know how it goes.

Anyway, happy birthday, Mama Zee, hope you enjoyed the lunch and love you loads!

xx Nabs