Rachel Allen's Lemon Cupcakes

Tada! Very on recently hor, baking and baking.

I have been watching Rachel Allen's and Nigella's show. So the recent episode has Rachel teaching her students lemon cupcakes and I have lemon at home, so .....

I involved my girl in my baking recently, but after the works, while baking, I have to carry on washing and preparing meals so my girl is still neglected.

She helped me to sift in the flour and read the readings on the weighing machine.

My kids had a bite right after the cupcake cool off and they say yummy. Let's see what they say tomorrow.

The steps for this cupcake are simple and since I have them all done in a mixer, the time taken is not too long. However, I do not have a oven thermometer now, so I set the temperature according to the table on the oven manual. The cupcakes took much more longer to bake to a brownish top. Almost 10 minutes into the 20 minute baking time, the cupcakes still not risen. It is almost 20 minutes before I see the cupcakes rise and I think my batch took almost an hour to get the brownish top. The brownish top of individual cupcakes are also not even in colour and I see specks of brown (I assume they are sugar) too. Perhaps I should soften the butter longer, or to cream the butter and sugar longer? The sugar just doesn't melt into the butter. Can creaming melt the sugar into the butter anyway? Any experts out there want to answer the question?

As usual, I did not do the frosting (but an improvement, I measured out the butter for the frosting) today, not sure if I will do it tmr. I do not know how to store the cupcakes if there are frosting.

Here is how mine look and as for the recipe, I can't provide one because I copy as I watch the show. I tried googled and a few links came out. So maybe you can google and follow anyone of them?

Non fancy lemon cupcakes.

Perhaps I will update the taste after I taste them.

I am still baking - Honey Cornflakes

Wonder if you would consider me cheating if I tell you I am still baking but they are honey cornflakes.

I have four packets of cornflakes sitting in my cupboard for a long long time. I got them when I had Mcdonald's breakfast in Mcdonalds Malaysia. I had always wanted to try honey cornflakes but it make no sense to buy a packet just to try for once, so I reserved those for the purpose. It is not until I see Aimei's post on her attempt on the honey cornflakes that spurs me to try it. Thanks Aimei.

So on this weekend evening where I did not cook, and not heading anywhere with the kids, I quickly set to try this out. I promptly use my phone to keep her page in sight, measure out the ingredients and start working. (Oh, actually I also read the comments in the post that she took the recipe from.)

I added about half a teaspoon more of honey since I am worried the flakes may not stick. I also purposely scooped the sweet sticky mixture sticking on the base of the saucepan into the cases for the same reason. Then, I send the little cuppies into oven. I am suppose to bake for about 5 minutes, but I did not see any changes to the flakes so I thought, perhaps a little while more and soon, I see changes. There are bubbling liquid filling in the cases. I started to panic and switch the oven off. I still see the flakes half submerged in the bubbling liquid when I took it out. However, after it cooled down, I did not see it anymore. I happily think that I have successfully done it.

So when I tried on one after it cooled down..... I find that they stick very well and am so happy until I find them sticking to the paper cases as well. I have to play tug of war with the flakes because there is a layer of thick sticky yellowish honey like substance underneath the flakes.

See that? Not sure if that is alright, but I certainly do not see such "remains" in those that are sold during the Hari Raya or was it Haji?

Anyway, the kids love the honey cornflakes. They bring them to school for snacks. Don't you find them sweet looking, esp with the colourful sprinkles.

Here are some other stuffs that I am busy with (thus cannot find time to bake) ..

Making snacks/simple "bento" for kids

recess bentos

snacks (must remember not to use orange - 2nd pic, in agar agars)

Doing crafts with and for kids

The routine cooking

ok ... end of sharing ... and hope to shorten my to do list in baking (not forgetting beading too). :-)

Beading challenge #3

This is done 2 days before it is due. It is suppose to be for Mothers' Day. My girl is tired and I asked to nap. In that 1.5 hour, I tried and tested various ways I wanted to hook up the pearl and the shell. I finally decided (or forced to decide, since with my poor skills and knowledge, this is the only possible way) that this is the way.

I can only say this thing looks simple to make, but it requires alot of my effort. Furthermore the eye pin I used are not of high quality and they broke easily. If someone is interested in this design (fat hope), I will go buy the highest quality eye pin I can get hold of and remake one more. Hahahaha.

Since it is for Mothers' Day, I chose pearl. I had another design at first, it is still a WIP in my working tray ... then this idea came along and I decide to try it since it is easier than the previous.

Here it is.

So what would you think after you see it? Tell you frankly, to me it looks pretty awful. I think I should not use the half pearl that are drilled (the hole of the pearl I mean) this way. It should look better if the head of the eye pin is hidden at the bottom. Now it looks like a pair of eyes staring at you? Or to be more apt to the Mothers' Day theme, they look like a pair of motherly breast? :-)

Anyway, I am not too happy with this pair of earring. One of my friend encourages me, and says that the first one is usually not so nice. Anyway I did put in my "better" (maybe not best lor) for this project. Now awaiting the next challenge which I asked my friend to think about.

By the way, to have nice finish products, the raw materials should be nice first, agree? Imagine this earring only comprises of a shell piece and pearl piece, and if both the raw material is not right, the combination will not be right, isn't it? *sigh* still trying to find excuse and can't come to terms that I produced such work. I hope the next one will be better.

Double Chocolate Cupcakes (take 2)

No volcanoes this time. I half the recipe and it yields 16 cups, of which 3 are slightly taller cups (brown ones at the far end).

I also reduced the sugar. Hubby says this time is not as tasty as the first, but my kids still love it the same. I know the sugar and oil ratio affects the bake, but not sure by how much. Perhaps the sugar has changed something so hubby says not as tasty.

I noticed something weird this time. The chocolate chips seemed burnt. Look at the picture below, did you see a rim of black around the melted chocolate of the chip?

Can any expert visiting my blog enlighten me?

Double Chocolate Cupcakes

Finally, I baked again. I baked 30 over very tasty cupcake last wednesday. They are called Ddouble Chocolate Cupcakes, but I feel that it should be called triple chocolate cupcakes, since it has chocolate chips, chocolate milk and melted chocolate.

Tasty they are, no doubt, but they don't look nice at all because I have them filled up too high, thou it is stated 3/4 full on the recipe, but I think my 3/4 is too much, thus all of them erupted like volcanoes. I have the ONLY near perfect one here.

I like this recipe because it doesn't add baking powder or soda (so called "artificial" ingredients), but of course, the self raising flour would have raising agent inside. I do not like this recipe because it uses alot of butter. Anyway the cupcake is so tasty and soft and fluffy right after bake that my girl ate 3 in a row. I ate quite a few myself *grin*. So in 3 days, all the cakes are gone.

However, this cake is a bit sweet (feedback from mother and brother). I replaced a certain portion of caster sugar with brown sugar since the teacher from the workshop says brown sugar gives better fragrance but brown sugar is sweeter, so I reduced the sugar by 50g and it is still sweet.

So here's the recipe. You got to try to believe it. Hehe.

Double Chocolate Cupcakes

80gm melted chocolate

180gm plain flour

230gm butter (salted)

350gm caster sugar

4 eggs

200gm chocolate milk

1 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional)

100gm chocolate chips

Procedures :-

1. Cream butter and sugar until creamy. Add in melted chocolate and continue to cream.
2. Add in vanilla essence and continue to cream until well mixed. Add in eggs, one at a time and cream until well combined.
3. Mixed in sifted flour alternating with milk until all ingredients are evenly mixed Lastly, fold in chocolate chips into batter.
4. Scoop the batter into baking cups until 3/4 full and bake at 190 degree Celsius for +/- 20 minutes.

Now go bake and enjoy the cupcakes. :-)

Beading challenge #2

What has Earth Day got to do with my hobbies?

After the flower theme, I suggested to my friend about having Earth Day as the theme. She accepted. However, after 3 weeks, I still has nothing to show on the day of the deadline. I can name 101 excuses, but the most valid one is "my son is sick". He has fever for 3 weeks, on and off thou. But I did not slack. I think of ideas frequently. The day after the deadline, I finally got my hubby to tend the kids and try out my ideas. I spent almost half a day.

I started with wanting a mix of beads, chained inside a circle. The circle will be "earth", with brown chips as land, blue teardrop as water and green bicones as trees ... but I find that the beads just don't match. So I give up. Anyway kiddish idea isn't it?

Then I zoom down to only using blue teardrops as water for the design, since earth is 70% water. I quickly try ways to put the "water" together, in chain, in wire, but none is satisfactory .. and the headpins always break upon bending. Wasted alot of time here.

At last, for the sake of submission, and also a proper closure to this challenge, plus rushing time (to go kiddo's music lesson) I ... ended up ..... there .. silly piece of work .. "love the earth", blue heart and a brownish round ring (You should be able to guess why blue and brown, right?).

I think I am really not creative, and I really dislike this work. Not nice! Look at my friend's, gorgeous!

Now got to brainstorm for #3.

Flower Pendant

Finally .. I can finally post, this time for my beading work.

Last week, I am thinking about motivating myself to touch my beads. Finally, I proposed to my friend who learnt beading recently, to challenge each other to make something weekly. She agreed to the proposal and we decided that we should do something with flowers since 清明節 is round the corner. Ha ha ha.

I usually do not do bead weaving, because it takes up alot of time if the pattern is complicated. This time round, I did bead weaving, because I came across this pair of earring. They look so pretty and they look like flower. I decided to copy this item (I am not creative, remember?). However, there are no instructions, or rather, no FREE instructions. So I spent 2 hrs yesterday afternoon trying to figure out how to thread the flower, draw up the pattern and tried to weave it. I tried 3 times (not nice result) but then I need to cook dinner, so I stopped.

The challenge is due today (Friday), and finally after half hour of weaving I got the flower done up.

I find it too big to be earring, so I am going to make it into a pendant. This is my result, but its only the motif because the jumprings I have are too small to be used to connect this pendant to the necklace. Perhaps I will make one myself.

How does it compare to the original? :-)

See my friend's end product here.

Before I decided on the above, my original plan is to do a pair of earring with a bead that has flower on it. I wanted to make use of a wiring techinque found in a library book that I am currently holding. However, the print on the bead doesn't seem like a flower, so even though I went ahead to try out the wiring technique, but I did not submit it for the "challenge". Here are parts of the earrings, one with wiring done over the bead, one without.

Which is nicer? Blue with silver or golden brown one ?

Look at the loop at the top of the bead, it is totally handmaded by me.

Ok, I am tired. It is 4.30 am now. Let's wait till the next challenge.