Lemon Cheesecake

Scale of difficulty ★★★ (ok, not really difficult but with the multiple layers it is quite time consuming)
Yummy-ness ★★★★


I was quite busy on Sunday so my lovely sister has decided to bake the lemon cheesecake for me, so this week's guest baker is my baby sister, Miss HP!


The sponge cake was relatively easy to make, have to fluff up the eggs and add the tiny bit of flour into the batter, of course the end result is a great sponge cake.

Majorly fluffed up egg white and yolks

Then it was the cheesecake layer, not too difficult either, creamcheese, sourcream and egg yolk. Just thinking, is it even possible to make a bad cheesecake? I don't think I've ever had a problem with that at all....

*drools*

 Unlike some cheesecake recipes, this one only wants the cheesecake batter to be 'jiggly' when it comes out of the oven.

Then lemon curd!!! Little Miss HP loves lemon curd, maybe that's why she has decided that she wants to bake this one? I was informed that the curd was not too hard to make but it was lacking a bit in colour, so my sister decided to put in some yellow colouring. I have no idea why it wasn't too yellow because last time we made lemon curd it was bright yellow!

Anyways, without further adieu, here is the end result. Sorry we didn't take piccies of a cut out slice :( let me assure you, it was beautiful to look at :)

How did it taste?

Usually for a baked cheesecake, you would expect it to be a dense and sturdy cake. This cake however, was wonderfully creamy, it was so unexpected so it was a really pleasant surprise when we cut open the cheesecake and find a perfectly creamy cream cheese layer. It is great that this cheesecake have a spongecake bottom layer rather than a normal graham cracker layer, because I think a biscuit layer will interrupt the oh so soft and creamy texture of this cake.

If I were to be picky I will have to say that this was a bit too sour for my taste, but my mum, my dad, my sister and my colleagues at work all loved it! Mark at work even told me to make sure I tell my sister she makes a great cheesecake!

:) This is a great cake, especially if your sister makes it for you!! Thanks HP!

Two Fat Cats Whoopie Pie

Scale of difficulty ★★★ 
Yummy-ness ★★★

I haven't baked anything from Rose's book for a few weeks after a few baking disasters :( This week's recipe is something that's been on my 'to-bake' list for a while so I've decided to pick up my oven mitts again and start baking!

The 'pie' part of the recipe is quite easy really, doesn't involve any special technique, just whisk together the wet ingredients, add dry ingredients and buttermilk and scoop onto baking tray. I didn't have buttermilk at home and turned to google (when in doubt, google, lol). Google says if you wanna make buttermilk you can add 1 tb lemon/ vinegar into milk and it will magically transforms into buttermilk! So I added 0.5 tablespoon of lemon juice into mine.

            Does this pic kinda remind you of dog er....hm.... *something unmentionable on a food blog*

                                                   A lot bigger when they come out!!!!!!!!

After mixing in all the ingredients, I realised the batter was a bit too runny and if I put it on the baking sheet it would most definitely turn into a chocolate puddle, so I decided to add in a bit of flour (30g perhaps?). My other problem is I don't have a press release ice cream scoop and in hindsight it would probably be easier if we piped the batter rather than scooped it from the ice cream scoop. I don't know how many ounces my ice cream scoop is but our 'pies' ended up being MASSIVE!!! I didn't expect it to spread and rise that much! They ended up being bigger than my hand!! The 'pies' on their own are moist, slightly tangy but intensely chocolatey, and very very soft, I could just eat them on their own :) However I was very intrigued by the marshmallow cream and resisted the urge to eat all of them :)


I've never made buttercream before... besides that time when my sister made buttercream for home economics and it turned out like butter vomit..... ew............ I was a bit hesitant when I add the butter into the meringue, everything became runny. So I panicked and put it in the fridge and whipped it for a good few minutes....

                                                          Meringue and whipped butter

                                                                  Finished buttercream :)

You've probably noticed that my buttercream has a beige colour, its because I used golden syrup rather than corn syrup (didn't have any!). The end result is a buttercream that is smooth and oh-so-silky with a toffee- like flavour.

How did it taste?
The pie and the buttercream are both excellent,  however when you put two elements together it just became too much for me. The pie was incredibly rich (not to mention bloody massive!) and I skipped lunch after eating half of it. I brought most of them into the office but I don't think anyone is a big fan of it. I think I'll make the buttercream again, probably with a sponge cake and I'll probably make the pie again but in a cupcake form.

Chocolate Apricot Roll

Scale of difficulty ★★★ There are quite a few steps involved but none too challenging
Yummy-ness ★★ I think I just lack the skills in making a nice sponge :(

This cake has so many components that it's not funny it is like an ultra complicated swiss roll! Firstly you have the biscuit layer (bis-KWEE if you decided to be French), layered with lekvar (apricot jam-like layer), smeared with chocolate ganache and topped with a chocolate glaze. What? You've never heard of half of these things? Well... neither have I until this cake! lol

Anyways, here is my bis-kwee, all rolled up in its baking paper, or parchment paper as the yankies would call it. I was expecting this to be nice and fluffy because the batter involves egg white beaten to a soft peak stage folded into a fluffed up egg batter with minimal flour. However I ended up with a pancake like biscuit :( Maybe because I halved the recipe? I have no idea what happened *sobs*

Then... Lekvar!! Wikipedia says lekvar is a jam or fruit butter... After my super painful orange marmalade making experience, I decided to go with apricot jam because you can never go wrong with putting jam on a cake right? My lovely sister decided to throw in some chopped dried apricot pieces as well to go with the apricot theme. Then it was time to make the glorious chocolate ganache. Last time I made ganache I heated it too much and it separated, resulting in a crappy looking cake :( This time it turned out alright, my sister loved it and decided to put some in a tub and use a teaspoon and eat it like truffles :) and she's still skinny!! How is that fair?? Before I go on about how unfair life is, lets go back to the cake of the week.....

Here is my nearly finished chocolate apricot roll.

and ROLL!!!! ta- da!!!

Ok I'll admit I'm a slacker and didn't bother with the chocolate glaze, instead I just drizzled some leftover chocolate ganache on the roll (see the cookies in the background? I'll blog that next week).

How did it taste?
My mum told me I make great cookies but totally suck at making cakes and this is a fine example for her statement :( Yes.. .my own mother said it.... But to be honest it was not too bad, it tastes like a big pancake with chocolate syrup and apricot bits. The addition of apricot bits makes this roll soooo much better :) However no on in my family seems to be interested in eating this :( so I guess I'm gonna have to finish it all...... another sad week in my baking diary :(

True orange genoise.... Kinda

This week's cake for the heavenly cake place blog is the true orange genoise cake.... which consists of a genoise cake brushed with orange syrup, with orange curd between the two layers and frosted with a chocolate ganache.... sadly I only managed to do the orange curd part.... because it took me 2 hours to just do the orange curd!!! After completing the orange curd I was just too tired to bake a cake and make ganache... oh, and I ran out of real butter and thought.... there is no way that I could do 'clarified butter' (for the genoise) without actual butter!!  So... I did the unthinkable and whipped out the trusty cake mix, and sandwiched it between the White Wings Madeira cake. I have to say, while the curd is nice it was definitely not worth the 2 horus I put into squeezing and straining 5 oranges, reducing it to just 100 g and then mix in butter, sugar and yolks, do a second round of straining......

I think I put in too much orange zest so the marmalade was a bit too bitter... :(

Just rating the orange curd part....


Scale of difficulty ★★★☆ (too time consuming!!!)
Yummy-ness ★★★☆       (nice, but not OMG this is awesome!!)

Pineapple Up-side down cake

Well.... Since I bake heaps and have a bit of time on my hand, I'm joining the heavenly cake place blog and be a heavenly cake baker! Woooohoooo! Anyways, this week's cake is the pineapple up-side down cake and boy I can tell you, it was absolutely delicious :)

Scale of difficulty ★★☆ (2.5 stars, the caramel was a tad tricky but the batter was quite easy)

Yummy-ness ★★★★☆ (First day) ☆ (Second day)

This cake is composed of two parts, caramel with pineapples and cherries on top of a butter cake base.

The actual recipe called for a fresh pineapple but I really can't be stuffed decoring pineapples, so I cheated a little and used unsweetened pineapples in a can :P I started off with draining my canned pineapples and cherries :)



Then it was time to make caramel! This was my second time making caramel... ever. The first time didn't go too well because I used margarine rather than real butter and sadly it separated. It still tasted good but looked a bit like er..... vomit. Anyways, I learnt my lesson and went and bought real butter. I have no idea what turbinado sugar is so I used half brown sugar (cause I love the sugar cane flavour of brown sugar) and half caster sugar.



It didn't take long for the sugar and butter mixture to caramelize, and it was absolutely beautiful! It hardened in no time though so it was a bit hard to spread the caramel out evenly...





With the pineapples and cherries on top of the caramel :) Looking gorgeous!




Yea as you can see I used normal cake pans rather than cupcake pans because a pineapple ring is bigger than a cupcake mould! I made two cause one is for today and one is for tomorrow, for my aunt's birthday dinner (in case you're wondering, I multiplied the recipe by 1.5).



mmmmm..... the batter smelled so nice! Very yoghurty :) A bit surprised at how little it makes tho... I was hoping that it will rise a lot but it didn't happen, so I ended up with two tiny cakes.

My helper for the day, Mr. JJ was quite impressed with how insanely detailed Rose's cookbook is.


THIS is the definition of golden brown! Purty :)



Finished products = YUM

How did it taste?
It was great! The cake was moist and light (how is that even possible??) and I loooove how buttery it was (probably because I haven't used real butter in ages). The caramel flavour was not as strong as I have hoped but it was still evident, I ♥ caramel :)

My dad reckoned it was a bit too moist for him, but mum thought it was absolutely delicious. My sister loved it so much that she even asked for seconds! and that's coming from a girl who normally doesn't like pineapples, she even offered to eat the round one as well lol. I liked it and I think JJ did as well. The 5 of us demolished the rectangular one in no time :)

Edited to add--
On the second day the caramel has mysteriously melted overnight and now the cake looks gross :( I might just have to eat it myself rather than give it to my aunt :(

Second edit--
We just ate the round one and ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.............. the caramel has melted and the cake is all gooey :( disgusting!!!! I know it is summer here but is caramel meant to melt like that?? I'm extremely disappointed that this great cake turned into mushy goo on the second day :(