Holiday Catch-up

"Remember when you used to have a blog? That was cool." A none-too-subtle nudge from a friend.

Admittedly, it has been a while. Due to various factors (work, vacation, work, holidays), I haven't made time to bake. So I did have some catching up to do. I owed November and December desserts. To get all caught up, I came up with the idea to bake four different kinds of cookies to fill four tins...one to November, one to December, and the last two designated for elsewhere. Of course, after formulating this grand plan, I could not find the recipes I had not-quite-so-meticulously-kept and had to rely on what I could find on t3h Internets. From the bottom left, going clockwise, we have ANZAC biscuits (I'd been calling them "New Zealand Biscuits" all my life because that was the name on the recipe. Turns out, there's quite an interesting story that goes with these cookies), cornflake cookies (my mom's recipe is a bit easier to work with but these produced ok results), black & white sugar cookies (I didn't get them quite checkered) and hazelnut shortbread (I rolled out and cut into Christmas tree shapes; recipe here). I did eventually find the recipe I'd copied from my aunt's cookbook for the ANZAC biscuits, but not till after I'd baked the batch. A difference in technique produced the rock-like lumps I made, instead of the thin crunchiness of my childhood. I'll definitely have to make these again. I'm still looking for the cornflake cookie recipe.

For this year's Christmas dessert, I decided to revisit the Bûche de Noël (a.k.a. the Yule Log). I made one some years back but it broke while I was rolling it, and after trimming the ends and sticking them on in what I thought was a branch-like configuration, I ended up with something more akin to a big, chocolate X. I was not going to repeat the "Christmas X".

This time around, I made sure to glue one of the trimmings on top of the log (instead of both trimmings flat on the cake board on either side of the main log). I also got a chocolate snow person to help ensure there would be no mistaking this for anything other than a yule log. The genoise broked again as I was rolling it, and the runny-until-you-chill-it raspberry filling didn't really help the log hold its shape. So this year, it's a Christmas plank. I'll get it right eventually. It's my New Year's resolution to bake several Swiss rolls throughout this year to get the hang of rolling.

I received a 12" cast iron skillet for Christmas. I have been coveting one for quite some time now. Granted, I did ask for it. But I'd forgotten I'd asked for it, so it was quite a nice surprise (^_^)

Definitely Chocolate

There was no mistaking that what I had made was chocolate cake when I pulled the cake pans out of the oven. This was darker and more chocolate-y then anything I've ever made*.

The frosting didn't turn out quite as I had hoped. As usually happens, I'm impatient with waiting for ganache to cool and usually end up trying to use it when it's still too liquidy or else sticking it in the fridge and it ends up being too set. This time was the latter. I was hoping that whipping it would help but it didn't. The raggedy edges of the cake were caused by the frosting ripping the cake up. I didn't end up with enough to pipe a border to hide the edges either. I tried to cover it up with the chocolate glaze but the damage was too severe.

Then I discovered I didn't have any white chocolate. I was going to do the writing in white chocolate to make it really stand out. In the end, I melted a square of semi-sweet, and ended up with a pretty nice "tone-on-tone" effect, as a friend described it. I didn't make a very good paper cone either, hence the sloppy "writing" and the use of a flower to fill the empty space from my bad lettering placement.

Taste-wise though, this cake could not be faulted. I was a little concerned at first at the amount of liquid in the recipe. But the end result was a deeply chocolate, truffle-y cake without dense or fudge-y. I believe the coffee was what really enhanced the chocolate flavour. I brewed eight shots of espresso, as I don't have a coffee maker and instant just didn't seem like it was going to cut it.

Recipe for the cake is here. I didn't use the frosting recipe but made a basic ganache with just chopped chocolate and heavy whipping cream. The glaze was chocolate and a little butter.

(Ed's note: I have a bad memory, so this isn't saying much)

The 13th Dessert

The final dessert of last year's charity auction...pumpkin honey cake.

This cake looks better in person. I've got to find a better background for my pictures, or at least clean the counter off before taking a picture. But I am quite happy with how this cake turned out, especially as I hope it'll help cheer a friend up a little too.

I made this cake a number of years back and remember it turned out overly dense and dry. Since then, quite a few more positive reviews were written for it on the recipe site and I thought I'd try it again. I'm glad I did. The cake turned out light and airy with a fine crumb and a delicious spicy pumpkiny flavour. I'm not really one for cinnamon in sweet things, but it works in this cake. Because there's ground allspice in the icing as well as the pumpkin that went in, I wasn't too concerned about the cake crumbs showing up in the frosting since it already had little specks in it.

I'm glad for the trimmings and leftover icing.

Because of the way this cake is made, I was left with quite a bit of trimming and thought I'd attempt my first petit four. I made quite a mess, so there aren't any pictures. I guess there's a reason why petit fours are always glazed...trying to frost a tiny cake is a (pardon my French) bitch.

The recipe for this cake: Pumpkin Honey Cake

Class 4: Final Cake

For the final Course 1 lesson, we made roses. I'd had a rather long week and ended up rushing to class with a broken cake barely frosted in time (there's a slopy side on the right bottom corner). In my haste, I'd manage to forget my box of piping tips. Luckily, another student in class was able to loan me a petal and leaf tip or I'd have been very screwed.

My roses turned out looking more like carnations, the petals kept ripping on the top. Probably due to my not-entirely-correct icing consistency. My hand was cramping by the end of this class, I could barely squeeze anymore to get the shell border on. It's amazing how versatile the petal tip is; I used it to make the ribbon and sweet peas as well (may not be visible in this picture). It's hard to guess what a piping tip can do just by looking at it. I'm surprised at how a few icing roses make a cake suddenly look "bakery".

(The message has been obscured due to potential work-related sensitivity (*^_^*) Mebbe I should've thought of that before I piped it. It's nothing dirty though, so don't feel bad about not being able to make it out.)

Best Laddoos in the World!

These are laddoos, an Indian sweet. These are, in fact, my most favouritest Indian sweet ever! More specifically, my friend, M's, laddoos are my most favouritest Indian sweets in the world. They're tender and crumbly and melt in your mouth. If you're familiar with those tiny Chinese peanut cookies, these are similar but different. Scented with cardamom, it's a combination of flour, ghee, sugar and almonds. And before you think "nah, these can't possibly be the best laddoos in the world" or "I know the best laddoos in the world and they aren't found in Seattle", I can produce no less than four witnesses who will testify to these being the best laddoos in the world (I only have four witnesses because I can't bear to share any more laddoos than that).

While I don't presume to dabble in the works of the master, I have included M's recipe below for those would dare to try.

Ingredients:

3 cups - whole wheat flour
1 - cup Ghee
½ cup - Rawa\semolina\sooji
1 1/8 - cup sugar
½ - cup chopped almonds
6-8 – cardamom pods (the seeds inside powdered)

Heat the ghee in a big pan. Add whole wheat flour and sooji and roast on medium heat until brown(approximately 30 – 40 mins) . Add the chopped almonds and cardamom and roast for 5 mins. Take it off the stove and let it cool for 10 mins( don’t let it cool too much, you won’t be able to make the balls). Add sugar, mix well and make the balls.

I realize I didn't take a particularly good picture. Laddoos are really not that ginourmous. They're sort of fishball in size.

Banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting

I made these for a friend with non-egg-eating family. When I was looking for a no-egg recipe, all I came up with were vegan ones. I'd decided I'd go with a vegan recipe, but to replace all the soy products with dairy but I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that mebbe that wasn't the best idea. I finally did another search and found that you can substitute an egg in baking with a myriad of ingredients, like apple sauce, banana and various mixtures containing corn starch, potato starch, arrowroot starch or flax seed powder. As I had an unopened bottle of apple suace in my pantry from my broken-jaw days, I decided to go the apple sauce route. I went with a conventional banana cake recipe but replaced the eggs with apple sauce and upped the baking soda by a little bit. I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the eggs, but the cupcakes came out a little pale (I didn't take any good pictures of naked cupcakes so you'll have to take my word for it). I don't usually save any for myself but since this was my first time baking without eggs, I did put one aside for my breakfast this morning.

The cake was a little denser than I'd have liked, and not quite banana-y enough due to the fact that I bought the bananas too late to allow them to over-ripen fully. Still, it had a pleasing banana flavour, and the density did not cross into glue-y-ness. I'm looking forward to experimenting more with eggless baking. The chocolate frosting went very well with it. I was afraid it would be too chocolatey when I first tried it but the cupcake helped cut down on that.

I played with the frosting some but I have some serious cupcake picture-studying to do. Making cupcakes look cute...I'm apparently less than a neophyte at it. I'm a total n00b.

Class 3: Clown cake

For this week's class, we all brought already frosted cakes. After hearing about what some people did with their cakes from other classes, I decided to give it a go and frost the top a different colour from the sides. Since this cake was going to work again, and I didn't want them to get too bored with it, I added cocoa powder to make chocolate frosting after leaving enough aside for the top. It didn't turn out half bad. We learnt shell borders in class, and I used one to hide the seam between the white and chocolate frosting.

The clowns themselves took a bit of doing. I had to scrape off and try again a couple of times. I kept making the bodies too skinny so they kept falling over. The heads are plastic, so the frosting has got to be able to support that weight.

Those are Dark M&M's glued to the side.

Update (9/24/2007): Apparently the heads were quite popular. All three of them were taken along with the cake.

Hot Knife Through Butter

Or a hot offset spatula through buttercream. I used to try and smooth and smooth and smooth and smooth but to no avail. Then I learnt a neat trick while at cake decorating class. One of the students had come with a beautifully frosted cake, and her tip was to dip the spatula in hot water before smoothing the buttercream. The buttercream melts a little under the hot knife, and results in a beautifully smooth surface. This is the smoothest I've ever gotten it to get and I guess I could have made it smoother if I'd futzed with it more. But then The Laziness is strong with this one. I was so thrilled by how successful I was with the hot spatula trick that I didn't even think to comb the sides once I was done. Hence the plain sides. And I put what I learnt in class into practice...tadaa! Piped stars \(^_^)/

Here's a picture of the cake with a portion cutaway. I usually just fill this cake with buttercream (gussied up with a bit of liquor), but I thought I'd fancy it up a bit and try a jammy filling. I was looking for something seedless and ended up with red currant jelly (coz it was on sale...The Cheapness is also strong with this one). The currant jelly was a might bit too tart though. I will have to continue my quest for seedless raspberry jam.

I received some feedback that it would be nice if clicking on the pictures resulted in bigger pictures. Truth be told, I'd been shrinking my pictures coz they're not very good ones. They're Monets ("From far away, it's OK, but up close, it's a big old mess." - Cher) . But I'll try to accommodate and hopefully not scare any potential readers away.

More old stuff: Carrot cake

This squiggly mass was my attempt at candying orange peel. It turned out pretty well, although I later found I couldn't curl it into tight springs, which when you think about sugar and stuff, makes sense. I'd used a channel zester to make as long a strip as I could for that purpose. D'oh!

I found several different recipes for candying citrus peel, but they were in the end mostly the same. I'm guessing you can skip steps 2 & 3 if you managed to get your peel without any pith on it.

Candying Citrus Peel
1. Strip peel from fruit using a vegetable peeler (or channel zester)
2. Blanch in 3 changes of cold water (put peel in cold water, bring to a boil, rinse and repeat)
3. Scrape off white pith with a small spoon
4. Bring a simple syrup to a boil (equal parts sugar & water)
5. Put peel into boiling syrup and cook until peel is translucent (I think it took me about 20 minutes)
6. Fish peel out of syrup and roll in sugar (or not)
7. Set peel onto a piece of waxed paper to dry

I used the peel to decorate a carrot cake for a friend's birthday. This was before I learnt that that liquid food colouring that come in those cute little dropper bottles can wreak havoc on the consistency of my frosting. The cream cheese frosting used here turned out thin to begin with, the colouring didn't help, and even after refrigerating, it didn't set up. I'm guessing that was the intention of the recipe: Orange Pineapple Carrot Cake

Old stuff: Raspberry tart

Going through my SD card, I found some pictures of stuff I hadn't intended to post here, but the pictures didn't turn out half bad, so there they are. Or at least one them...raspberry tart. 'Nuff said, I think (^_^)

Class 2: Rainbow Cake

For those familiar with the Wilton cake decorating classes, this cake is instantly recognizable. You can google "Wilton Course 1 Rainbow cake" and find a bazillion examples on the net. This was done in pastels because I got tired of dipping toothpicks into gel paste colouring to get darker colours. The Laziness is strong with this one. I think all my cakes will look that way.

Piping those fill-in stars took some doing, but not as much as I thought it would. It'll prolly be awhile before I get them all even and the same size and blah-blah-blah. The butter flavouring that went into the frosting did smell good though.

Origin Story

This is my third attempt at a blog. My last two attempts fell quickly by the wayside because a) I'm lazy, and b) even I don't find myself all that interesting. No, this blog will be something a majority of us are interested in...desserts!

I've been baking for friends and family, but I've decided to take this a little more seriously. I've (finally) enrolled myself in cake decorating classes and have decided to go semi-amateur and bake on demand. Obviously, "tastes good, looks terrible" can no longer be my working motto. Hopefully my photogaphy and Photoshop® skills will also improve along the way.

To the right, you see the inspiration for this site's name. I baked this lemon curd cheesecake a total of four times, each time turning up more cracked than the last. A friend suggested I open a shop called "Terrible Pies", he'd certainly patronize it. Thus "Little Bug's Horrible Pies" was born (I thought "horrible pies" had a slightly better ring to it and left me with the initials "HP" to perhaps capitalize a tiny bit on a current literary phenomenon).

A Dedication

To my friends

Whose belief in me have been heartier than my belief in myself

Whose palates have been as forgiving as their eyes

Whose enthusiasm have been as unwavering as an...unwaverable...thing

This blog, and the sweet things that will fill it, are for you.