A colourful time

Chanced upon this class conducted by Sugar Inc and had decided to give it a go.  I was to decide between Ombre or Rainbow cake, tough decision because both are equally attractive, but I finally rest my decision on Ombre.   

 Done batter for the cake, sponge cake base.

 I had chosen rose pink as the colour theme

 The five layers of cake sponge in different shades of pink

 

Base coat for the stacked cake.  I did not carry on with the cream coat since I was doing a full flower ombre.  The cream was turning soft  and wasn't holding the shape well.  Besides, I had to rush for Mother's day dinner with the in-laws, thus completing the cake quickly would be more favourable.

The completed look of my cake, which displayed clearly the running of the cream.  I had forgotten to take a proper shot of the done up cake in my haste to leave.  This was captured in the box on the way home.  Regrettably, it slided off and smeared against the side of the box.  

Simply tempting!

This is the product from the hands-on class at Shermay's conducted by Chef Jocelyn.

A wonderful feeling to step into a clean and well-organized work place where most ingredients needed were pre-arranged within reach. As usual, Chef Jocelyn's notes in the recipe pack was so meticulous that all I needed was to concentrate on the demo.

We made our own cake batter after Jocelyn's demo and while the cakes were baking, she continued with the illustration on layering and frosting.

Theses were nicely done up.

I didn't do any fancy design on my fudge cake. I simply piped the borders after frosting, after all, chocolate fudge cake is enticing on its own.

Nostalgia

I have been looking forward to this class since May. These are rather traditional recipes and I think being a Peranakan, Chef Christopher will be a good facilitator of his culture.

A double layered kueh which consists of a kaya custard topping and a glutinous rice layer. An important key is the firmness of the rice texture.

The stars of the day - Nyonya Kaya and the Gula Melaka Caramel Kaya. After the chef's continuous stirring, we had a little kaya tea party. Shermay bought the traditional white breads and served the attendees with slices of butter and the freshly made kaya.

Middle Eastern Desserts

This was a class by Chef Christopher Tan last Saturday which I was invited to attend. These are different from the desserts which I'm acquainted with and I'm very grateful for the opportunity given.

Ma'amoul is a type of cookie which is widely baked by the Arab communities. Its filling could be either dates or nuts; or a combination of both. These cookies are molded in traditional shapes, much like our Ang Ku Kueh or Mooncake. The molds are wooden. Usually, oval-shaped mold is for pistachio filling and the round, dome-shaped is for walnut filling. The cookies in the photo above were baked with the round-shaped mold owned by Chef Christopher. Since these molds are not available for sale in Singapore, he suggested using the Kueh Tu-tu mold as a substitute. Looking at the imprints on the cookies, I'll go for the original molds if I could!

Semolina Helwa is a pudding made with the finer textured semolina flour. During the course of demonstration, the baking studio was permeated with the aromatic frying of the flour-milk mixture. This dessert appeared mashy and gooey but in contrast, it tasted good. It has a grainier texture than the mashed potatoes, infused with the malt taste of horlick and a little crunch from the ground pistachio sprinkled.

The dates are deliciously stuffed with pistachio paste and when e

aten, they are sweet and nutty. As the pistachio filling is chilled, the dates are simply refreshing.

A traditional Egyptian dessert which tasted like bread and butter pudding. Very rich, extremely crunchy with the dates and nuts and sinful because whipped cream was spread over the top of breads before baking.

Meeting Keiko

She is a popular teacher, well liked by many. It's great to meet her again and looking forward to her class in December.

Each person received a serving of a slice of cake and two packs of cookies at the tea party. In spite of that, I felt it would be perfect to have a second taking given that it's a tea party. Since the timing was set from 4 till 8 pm and anyone could just drop in or leave anytime in between, there was nothing much for those who did not have questions for her after getting her autograph. My only regret was that I didn't have the chance to get some answers to my queries after getting her autograph. Just as she had completed explaining her new recipes, Nicholas told me he had walked Nataniel home themselves without waiting for me. My heart almost jumped out of my mouth! Needless to say, I left soon after hearing that. Fortunately, they reached home safely.

It was SOEZ

I had a hands on lesson yesterday at a new cooking school - SOEZ (So Easy) in Great World City. It was a class on American Cheese Cake and scheduled for two hours. I was rather sceptical about the timing in the beginning and hesitated on signing up. How could a Cheese cake be done, hands on, within this period of time? I had wondered to myself.

The lesson was conducted by Ms June Lim, a pastry chef whom had previously worked in Raffles Hotel and Ah Teng's Bakery. There were supposed to be nine participants but two were absent. We were each given a Kenwood HM300 handheld mixer, a stainless mixing bowl, a rubber spatula, a piece of wet paper cloth, a prepared tin on an oven tray, the crushed and mixed biscuit-butter base in a cling-wraped bowl and the ingredients needed. They were all neatly set up for us.

After distributing the A5 sized nicely printed recipe card, she demonstrated the steps to us whilst explaining. It was uncomplicated, easily comprehensible and swiftly executed. All over in a matter of around 15 minutes and sent to the oven. Everyone did as what was done and completed before an hour was up. The rest of the time was spent waiting for the cake to be done. During the time while we were waiting, we were served each a slice of the pre-baked cheese cake.

The cake was out in about 35 to 40 minutes and everyone collected their own cake and left. There were still at least 25 minutes left in that 2 hours slot. It was really SOEZ, too easy for the price I had paid and I felt that more could be offered and shared.

Generally, this cake is nice. It was a light cheese cake as described by the instructor. Nothing out of the extraordinary, just a simple, plain cheese cake.

A different kind of bread

Attended a lesson on muffins and scones by Audrey Tan, the author of the book "Lust", at Shermay's yesterday. In fact, I was torn between going to her class and Valarie's. I have not attended any of her class before so I have no idea how her bakes would turned out. Well, I figured that Valarie may repeat her class so I went ahead to sign up for Chef Audrey's. Shermay mentioned that the class yesterday was the first she gave as a demo class, the one before was a hands-on donut class.

Chef Audrey Tan brought along three of her crew, the pastry chef who did most of the demonstration was Bridget. She seemed very experienced and precise in her forte. Along with her is a tall, Malay guy named 'Dayad'. There was no name tag was seen on him so I presumed that's how his name was spelt. He showed us how to do the crumble using the 'rubbing-in' method. Another young lady, Candy, helped with demonstrating to the class the technique of peeling and slicing the apple into cubes in a much faster and easy way.


First recipe demonstrated was this Apple Cinnamon Muffin.

Second recipe in the pack, a very lemony and versatile muffin.

A variation of the Lemon Crumble Muffin.

The last muffin recipe which I think mum would like.

The class resumed after a five- minute break with the making of scones. This is the reason of my attendance.

I like them, especially the Mixed Grain Scones. Chef Audrey made it the American Style, as she said it, more flat and bigger in diameter.

On the whole, I think the bakes taste good. Even after a day, the muffins remained soft and non oily. The tastes of the muffins still as they were and the buttery taste of scones was very super.

Chiffon cakes - bake it better

I like to bake chiffon cakes a lot. Besides the light texture, the straight forward method of making chiffon cakes suit me well. That was why I signed up for this class by Chef Christopher Tan, I want to find out the correct way of doing a chiffon well.

This is normally known to us as Japanese Cotton Cheesecake. So I was rather surprised to see this cake included as a Chiffon Cheesecake. I was expecting something light and bouncy. This was served to the class and each of us got a generous slice. It is rather tasty except that I found the cake began sticking to the throat when more of it was swallowed.


The Dark Chocolate rum chiffon cake was the next bake. During the unmolding, the cake slipped out and later cave in slightly on the top. Chef Christopher said that if the mold is new and hardly use, then that would happened. The remedy is to use a brush and scrub the surface area in contact.

The taste of rum is much enhanced in the dark chocolate and they really compliment each other well.

The last recipe is the best. What makes this recipe unique is the combination of mandarin and orange, even the zest as well. Due to this, the fragrance of the chiffon is very intense.

The crux of this class lies in the beating of the egg whites. Chef Christopher used manual beating for all the chiffon cakes which he baked. The texture of the beatened egg whites was also different from the texture taught by other instructors. I suppose this texture is what the Japanese recipe books mentioned - moist peak stage. Chef Christopher really took pain to explain and demostrate to the class the different stage of egg whites. I had really gained much in this class.

Oven Lesson 3

The final lesson started at 2.30pm after a lunch break with some of us continuing from the morning.




This recipe was done with Valhorna white chocolate buttons and raspberry puree sandwiched between a white sponge. I remembered someone asked the instructor why it was known as a white sponge. Apart from this, I remembered someone also posed a question on the the percentage of the white chocolate which to me is rather queer. I always thought that there's only one kind of white chocolate??? Then there were few people who found the cake 'too rich' in taste, which was quite bizarre to me too. Shouldn't white chocolate be rich in taste to be creamy and titillating? I found this cake very yummy and will be great for birthday.



This was a recipe that upset a number of people on the quantity and utility of ovalatte and they really didn't hide that. I think it would be appropriate to adjust or exclude that to our own discretion but I'm amazed that there are people who don't keep their opinion to themselves. While I agree that I would try to minimise on the use ovalatte, I probably would have use another sponge recipe. Back to this cake, I don't remember eating chempedak before and such, the taste of the fruit was quite over-powering. I was telling a new-found friend, Wendy, that it should taste good with durian.



The last cake was the reason why I signed up , the Bamboo Charcoal powder which I had requested CC to purchase from Taiwan, was used in this particular recipe. I was hoping to buy the powder in bigger quantity so as to try out on making breads.


Not a disappointment at all, in fact, having the sesame cream in between taste heavenly.


I'm very happy to have attended the lessons as I get to know Wendy, a blogger whose site I usually read.

Oven Lesson 2

The second lesson was on Saturday, 11 am.

I like this Cheesecake pretty much, because of the Gula Melaka taste I think. It is really different from the masses and more local in flavour.

Looked at how awesome the cake was showcased. Nataniel love this.

This is the last recipe in the class and seemed to be the simplest in steps.

Due to the number of people in this class, which was more than twenty, it became more complex in human relations management. There seemed to be some tension during lesson and the instructor seemed more affected by few challenging factors which was non-present in his first lesson. Somehow, I have had the feeling that he was trying to control his emotion and that stressed him up. Otherwise, his creativity in the presentation would not end here.