black forest cake

After so long procrastinating, I finally made black forest cake because it reminds me of the good old 90s (remember when black forest cake was THE cake?) Didn't follow any specific recipe, just used the trusted rich chocolate cake recipe and added some cream and cherries to it. I didn't use kirsch for consumption reasons so I substituted it with the heavy syrup from canned cherries mixed with a bit of mixed berry jam (the only jam we had in the house).

It wasn't as moist as I had hoped it would be but it was because my oven's timer's busted so it couldn't 'kriiiingg' to let me know of the time and I was busy watching Quarantine on telly (REC is so so much better, btw). Still, licin in a day. The benefit of boys outnumbering us ladies in this house, semua pun disapunya.

another one bites the dust

Oh yes, we made another cake for another dear friend! :D

101 cupcakes...

Living around cupcakes

Hi all, i'm back after what seem like ages.
For the past month, being unemployed has allowed me to dive into the baking business for abit. Thankfully there are people out there who actually trusts me to fulfill their cupcake orders. :)
I had a couple orders for red velvet cake, chocolate brownie and tarts as well but cupcakes being the most.

So here are some of the photos I would like to share.



















Voila!

Most of the cupcakes that I did were either vanilla or chocolate flavored cake with buttercream frosting. Although there were a few orders of red velvet cupcake with cream cheese frosting and also a coffee cupcake with coffee flavored buttercream frosting.

I really enjoyed the short amount of time that I had to experience the life of having a cake business, even tho it was a very small one I would say. Sadly, I have to stop for now because I'm starting a new job tomorrow.

However, I strongly believe I'll be back in business in no time.

Till then keep in touch and stay tuned! :P

Much Love,
Lovanilla

dotty dot dotness

I'd like to take this opportunity to wish a massive ultra congratulations to our resident virginredvelvette who tied the knot with the love of her life last Friday. On behalf of the ringless virginredvelvettes (lol), I wish you and your husband all the happiness in the world and please please make cute babies so we can bake cute cakes for them and they'll love us more because we'll be their cool aunts. haha

I also would like to dedicate the following sonnet penned by the sexy work of words by Pablo Neruda:

Sonnet LXIX

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence: without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
gust of a rosebush, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

Lovanilla and I had the privilege of baking the wedding cake. It was hard work and we went through one hellova rollercoaster (emotionally, mentally, and physically) but we made it through and we're very proud of it. Especially because it was made with love (chewah!).

I think we'll probably provide a more in depth post on the cake-making procedure soon. Personally for me, it was one of the most exciting things I've done in a while. I love the adrenaline rush, the tension, the sense of accomplishment and the pressure against time... fuhhhhh just thinking about it makes me want to relive it.

For now, I'll just leave you with a teeny image of the cake :)

Cake, cake and more cake

Greetings...

Here's more update from school... :P

Today i will introduce you to some pretty cakes with layers comprising of three or more elements. Feel free to ask me for recipes as it is too much for me to write all of it here. Enjoy!


Three chocolate bavarian cream cake
Starts with a ladyfinger sponge cake at the bottom and then layered with dark chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate bavarian cream. Finish with cocoa glaze.



Fraisier
Combination of genoise sponge cake in two layers and mousseline cream. The sides and middle were filled with whole strawberries to give a nice effect before and after cutting. Finish with fondant.



Opera
The classic cake of all time. Comprising of layers of jaconde sponge, coffee buttercream, dark chocolate ganache and finish with dark chocolate glaze. I learned that a true Opera has seven layers and it should be in this order. Jaconde-buttercream-jaconde-ganache-jaconde-buttercream-glaze.



Jamaica
Why jamaica? I don't know, maybe because of a tropical feel this cake has. Consisting of a chocolate jaconde sponge as base, walls and separator between the two mousses. Inside of the cake is filled with coconut mousse with bits of poached pineapple and rum. Topped with mango and passion fruit mousse and jelly glaze.



Royal chocolate cake
This cake calls for a thicker and moist sponge which we just call chocolate biscuit. :P Over the first biscuit goes a rocher layer. It's simply made out of milk chocolate incorporated with almond praline and feuilletine. Basically it tastes similar to those ferraro rocher chocolates only mooshed. Obviously a royal chocolate cake has to have chocolate mousse and also glazed with chocolate.



Pleasure
This cake is supposedly created by Lenôtre. I would say it's a simple and elegant cake with good taste. You couldn't go wrong with it. It's a sandwich of jaconde sponge with a vanilla supreme and chocolate mousse. The top of the cake is brushed with a little egg yolk and sugar and then caramelized with a blowtorch.



Chestnut mousse cake
The name says it all. The whole cake is chestnut mousse, layered inside with hazelnut dacquoise and bits of candied chestnuts. After the cake has set, unmould and cover the outside with chestnut cream making a thorny effect by using a spatula. The dome shape is just an option to show that cakes are versatile and the same recipe could be adjusted to fit just any sort of shape mould.



Raspberry and passion fruit cream cake
Here we increase the elements by using two types of 'biscuit'. The wall is made out of jaconde sponge and the base and separator layer are coconut dacquoise. The filling inside is passion fruit cream and followed by a light raspberry mousse on top. Finish with raspberry jelly glaze.



Apricot almond milk cake
Similar to the previous cake above, this cake uses two different types of 'biscuit'. For the walls, pine nut ladyfinger sponge and for the layers inside, pine nut apricot dacquoise. Dried apricot cut into small cubes and grounded pine nuts were used to incorporate into the dacquoise batter. Creamy apricot filling for inside and topped with an almond milk pannacotta mousse. The same mousse is used to pipe decoration around the sides on top of the cake.



Blackcurrant vanilla cake
I call this a ribena jelly cake...hehe because the blackcurrant tastes similar to ribena and the filling for this cake is a jelly layer instead of the normal cream or mousse. Only ladyfinger sponge is used here for both walls and layers. Followed by the blackcurrant jelly and topped with vanilla supreme mousse. We decorated the tops by piping a design or image using leftover mousse and then filling the gaps with more jelly.



Caramel hazelnut mousse cake
Lastly, a caramelie cake..hehe. Very simple and straight forward. Using ladyfinger sponge same as before with a hazelnut chantilly cream as filling which is basically whipped cream with icing sugar sprinkled with toasted hazelnuts. A caramel mousse of course that goes on top covering the cake with piping around the border edge (any design) to create like a shallow 'pool' in the middle. Fill the 'pool' with caramel glaze.

Wow, that's alot of cakes!

I realize my post this time around is kinda boring. Just straight forward information. I guess it has to do with the fact that i'm feeling kind of blue today but felt the need to blog. Now isn't that weird? Haahhahaa...well i'll be back with more posts soon. I feel my vibe on blogging is coming back...3 posts so far in less than a month. That's progress!

Till then, see ya and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all those celebrating in a couple days time. Maaf Zahir + Batin to all readers and of course my babes here at virginredvelvet.

Salam xx

Sawadeekaa...

*mula-mula tu terkejut biler bukak blogger tengok semua dalam thai.mampos mcm mane nak baca ni...hahaha

Sawadeeka, sa bai di mai ka to everyone. Greetings from Bangkok. It's been 2 weeks now and i'm adjusting well. Missing nasi lemak already!!! I don't know how i'm going to survive without it. On the other hand everything else is great here.

My latest updates on food or should i say DESSERTS!!! sorry nothing Thai inspired today but i promise in my future posts.

First up, i came acroos this ice cream parlour called Cream & Fudge and fell in love with it. I'll have to add it to my lists of Haagen Daz & Swensens. It literally took me about 15 minutes standing there deciding on which flavour and concoction i wanted. I fianlly settles on this...feast your eyeballs...


oooohhh aaahhhhhh i want more!!!

Here, the rival for Dunkin Donuts is Mister Donut...ahahha (kelakar tak kay?) anyways i had already took out my camera to snap away but they wouldn't let me. Boo :( I can't say they taste better but their products sure do look interesting and mostly cute. They have mini donut lollipops, bunny shaped, donuts on sticks and more.


Sorry as i only have a photo of the packaging. Was awwed with the smiley face i totally forgot about the actual donut. Hahahaha.


Mini donuts i bought at the market...not bad and inexpensive as well.


Random fact...i love the coconut ice blended here....very refreshing.

One of the specialties here are these...


It's balls of deep fried rice noodles with a meat filling. Could be chicken but most of the time it would be pork and this particular one happens to be the latter. So boo hoo to me...it looks yummy ha? I forgot what's it called...(thinks for 10 minutes) damnit still can't remember...

Finally we go to school...will show you a few of what i've made since i arrived.


Shortbread cookies... very rich and nice (mcm butter cookies yg dlm tin biru tu)


Fruit Cake


Almond sponge cake with almond fondant flower and leaf


Tarte aux Pomme....apple tart..my favourite....pomme tart :)


Mini Fruit Tarts...these are like to die for...i just love em. Filled with pastry cream and topped with any fruits to your liking....*drools*


Same fruit tart but bigger version with more mixed fruits...i still have half of it in my fridge. Mmmm *winks* (kay, ummi, nanie...want some?)


Lunettes...a softer version of the shortbread cookies with strawberry filling.

That's all for now...will go jalan-jalan around Bangkok and hope to write a more thai inspired post. :)

My week @ Perlis

Well, 2 weeks has past in a flash. Reason for disappearing is 1st week = was in Perlis for a girlfriend's wedding. 2nd week = no internet connection...booooo, but i'm back now with loads of posts to come.

I'll start of this post with happenings at Perlis. It's gonna be a long a** story so i'm just gonna give a very short version and random photos and then you can just figure them out...heheheee

Reached Perlis by 4th July night straight to the bride's house to get some henna art on our hands. Next morning attended the Akad + Lunch and later that night some girl time for the bride's Malam Berinai.

The following day was our jalan2 day around Perlis...we indulged in laksa + ais kacang which was superb and only cost RM3 for both!! We also went to the snake farm, mandi sungai while eating local fruits such as mangosteens, durians, rambutans and bananas. OMG we were in fruit heaven...everything was so much cheaper than compared to the ones in KL. Later in the night we went for seafood which was nothing to shout about.

Next day was the big event...Bersanding + Lunch. Good food and loads of em'. Lastly, at night a thank you dinner event from the newlyweds to family and friends which was themed arabian night and of course catered by none other than Sahara Tent all the way from KL. Btw, I happen to love sahara tent so yay!!!

There were many stalls with all types of local food being prepared on the other half side of her house such as roti canai, burger, laksa, ice-cream, ais kacang and loads more. So we had to grab an ice-cream each before leaving as you can see.

Lastly...arabian night. I was disappointed with the food from Sahara Tent. I don't know what went wrong but it just wasn't good, not like what i had always eaten in KL. 1st picture is the Assorted Arabic Entree consisting of Hummus, Fatosh, Tabullah and Falafel. 2nd picture would be the main course which i had expected to be mutton (it's like helloooo arab food = mutton = :D ) but nooooooo it turned out to be Sahara Roasted Chicken and Greek Style Baked Fish served with Briyani Rice. The portion was big but it didn't taste that good. I couldn't take pics of the others which was Moroccon Vege Soup and desserts Um Ali Milk Custard and Baklava because of poor lighting. :(

Well basically that rounds up my trip there...will be posting on the food @ Hilton for her wedding in KL which happened a week after. Till then...bye...