i bought these rose shaped silicone molds and was so eager to use them so i made these cranberry rose teacakes. i was never a fan of silicone molds since they give baked goods a weird sheen. luckily these did not! i added dried rose petals, nielsen massey's rosewater extract, rose syrup, vanilla bean paste and a touch of pink food coloring. paired them with my favorite TWG's bain de roses tea and they were so good!


this is essentially a pound cake, and also my first time use a pound cake recipe to make them into other shapes. apart from some weird air bubbles at the bottom (or top, after turning over), they turned out really well. you could also use your favorite pound cake or sponge cake recipe.


rose shaped silicone mold, pretty versatile and very essential for afternoon tea! can also be used for puddings, jellies, even non edibles like soaps and candles.

i used the same recipe for the tri colored pound cake two entries back and did some tweaks. makes exactly 6 teacakes.

ingredients :

100g butter, softened
60g sugar
2 eggs
100g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp each of rosewater extract, rose syrup, vanilla bean paste
5 dried rose buds, ground
handful of dried cranberries or craisins, chopped
pink or red food coloring

method :

1. preheat oven to 170C.
2. in a bowl cream together butter and sugar until pale.
3. add in eggs one at a time and whisk until combined. add in rosewater, rose syrup, vanilla and food coloring.
4. sift together cake flour & baking powder and add into the above.
5. fold in dried roses and cranberries and mix well.
6. pipe or spoon batter into the rose shaped mold. i find that piping is less messy, you could also use an ice cream scoop.
7. bake for 18-20 mins until cooked. let cool.

not sure if anyone still reads my blog but i took an (almost) 2 year hiatus and i've settled into my new home, finally! so i've decided to come back to blogging at least for now and will be sharing recipes once again. so if any of my followers are still here, a big HELLO to you all!


as always spring is my favorite season at least when it comes to sweets making, so i've decided to start my series of hinamatsuri/girls day/hanami spring sweets with a tri colored pound cake! this turned out beautifully with a split down the center top. i used raspberry powder for the pink layer and it has a nice tangy taste to it not unlike yogurt. the 3 colors from bottom symbolize grass, snow followed by flowers, very apt for spring.


i've stopped using my DSLR & pc for awhile now. they're still in storage so im now using my phone solely to blog. hopefully my photos still look fine. the web version for blogger is not exactly user friendly but this will have to do, for now.

recipe is from cookpad

(makes 1 loaf)

ingredients :

100g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp matcha powder
1 tsp strawberry powder (i used raspberry powder)
100g butter, softened
80g caster sugar (i reduced to 60g)
2 eggs, room temp

method :

1. preheat oven to 170C.
2. sift together cake flour & baking powder.
3. whisk together butter and sugar until pale, then add in eggs one at a time. whisk until combined.
4. fold in flour mixture.
5. separate mixture into 3 equal portions then add in matcha powder & strawberry powder into the 2 portions respectively..
6. put batter into piping bags and pipe the matcha batter in the bottom of the loaf tin followed by the original then the strawberry batter.
7. smooth mixture with a spatula with the two ends taller than the center, like a concave shape. this is to ensure that the cake rises evenly with a crack exactly in the center. that way you dont have to draw a line down the middle like some recipes do.
8. bake for 40-50 mins, remove cake from tin and leave to cool.

and bonus pics! a preview of my kitchen :


my kitchen is relatively small this time round, but i do have dedicated prep areas for baking (two, to be exact) which is great. they're not in the pic because i didnt take pics of them yet.


sink area. totally digging the black granite sink and champagne gold faucet.


i also have two built in ovens now since i make lots of macarons. have got a couple of orders since i moved in and the ovens really made a helluva difference! makes me life so much easier.

christmas is just around the corner. whats more apt than a christmas wreath cake? before making this, i did my research looking at pictures of christmas wreaths, not the kind with fake decorations like baubles but those made with real flowers so i came up with this. i adorned my wreath cake with twine, red roses, raspberries, holly berries, pine cones and noble fir (or something along that line). i feel that among all the flower cakes i've made, this one is the most true to life because of the colors.


my favorite part would have to be the raspberries. they're so lifelike i'm surprised myself!


for the cake itself, i made a four layer red and white genoise sponge cake. i need to talk about this cake because i learned a new method in torting/cutting it into layers and it was pretty easy. maybe not new, but for me, it is. previously i tried methods like using the wilton layer tool (the kind that looks like a hanger), placing two wooden board strips by each side of the cake, or even the cake cutting "thingies" where you clip at both ends of the knife, i even tried using a dental floss! but i find that using a ruler to mark around the cake and then cutting along the markings with a very large and heavy knife does the trick. i bought a huge serrated cake knife and its very heavy so the knife does not slant when you slice with it.


i had fun making this cake and its really simple to put together, unlike one adorned with flowers. for the genoise sponge, i used the recipe from here. its a pretty good recipe though it didn't rise much for me. i did do the hot water bath thing and whisked the batter til ribbon stage so i have no idea! i only managed to obtain 2 slices so i would suggest making the 18cm one and doubling the quantity if you intend to do a 4 layer cake like mine.

over the past few days i learned to pipe a ton of new flowers. it was really fun so i'm here to spam some pictures! i actually had plan to make a round cake but i thought cupcakes would be more interesting since i've never tried making flower cupcake before. they all turned out very romantic shabby chic, it reminds me of an english rose garden! the pic above shows ranunculus buds and english/david austin rose.


to be honest i have no idea what this flower is but the koreans do it, ALOT. it might be another type of ranunculus or ribbon rose. i also did baby's breath as a filler, for the first time. previously i did larger buds but i think the smaller ones are way prettier.


my favorite - open rose, hydrangea and apple blossom.


pink and white (actually very light minty green but it doesn't really show) hydrangeas. i love hydrangeas and these have become my favorite flower to pipe now.


full shot of all the cupcakes


packed in a kraft cupcake box. i think some of the flowers were too huge to use on a cupcake. thats because i originally made them to be placed on a cake. definitely needs some scaling down.


i'm not really adventurous when it comes to the color combination, choosing to be in the safe zone still, such as using pink, white and green shades. i did experiment with different tone so i think the flowers look more life-like now. i've seen the dark red, blue and turquoise flower cake on instagram and they look amazing. can't wait to try experimenting with more flowers!

a new japanese grocer/live seafood place called "emporium shokuhin" opened in town and i was there a couple of days ago. basically its a high end japanese supermarket with a huge live seafood section that houses crustaceans like the alaskan king crab (it was humongous and probably costs $400 each), blue abalone, brown crab etc. theres also a very cool aged beef facility, plus restaurants/bakery littered along the perimeter of the place. friends who've been there said it was "nothing much" and that there "wasn't much to buy". on the contrary, i bought lots of stuff like octopus leg for takoyaki, king crab legs, mentaiko, hokkaido milk, beni shoga, yuzu yokan, ume plum somen and even macarons. i also bought these fresh yuzus. i find it less expensive compared to isetan's which is $9.90 a pop. these go for 2 at $7.80 which i think is pretty reasonably priced.


the first time i made yuzu chiffon i did it with a friend at her place so i didn't take a photo of the fruit. its a japanese citrus that is yellow skinned and very perfumy. the smell is like a cross between a pomelo and tangerine but the taste is extremely sour, like lemon. there is also a ridiculous number of seeds. i counted like 20-25 seeds in one small yuzu. i like that the recipe uses both the zest and juice and also utilizes the korean yuzu marmalade called citron tea. the marmalade i used is more expensive (gold grade) as there aren't any seeds or membrane in it, plus the peel is finely sliced. appreciate that there are no seeds, but not the thinly sliced peel as i prefer mine with more of a bite.


since i was meeting a friend, i made two cakes and one of it was for her. i used two different chiffon tins and mine (the taller slimmer one) turned out horribly. the sides were charred and due to the height/thinness of the cake, it was hard to slice and it kinda threatened to collapse. i have no idea why since the tortoise shell chiffon i made before actually turned out quite nicely. maybe that cake was drier and this is more moist. luckily the one i made for my friend turned out pretty ok as you can see from the first pic.


for my friend. happy she enjoyed it! the recipe is taken from junko's chiffon cake book. since its from a book, i won't be posting it, as usual.

i was supposed to make this entremet together with my friend A but due to conflicting schedules we were never able to make it. as you can probably tell, i hardly make entremets these days. everything seemed like a "been there, done that" for me. i mean, do i wanna make YET another berry entremet? nope. matcha, chocolate, hazelnut, pistachio? meh. right now, if i ever make one, i want to work with flavor combinations i've not tried before. this one is a good example. i have had pretty good results working with caramel (bergamote and hidemi sugino's bresilienne) so pear caramel seemed like a good flavor combination.


layers from bottom are hazelnut almond joconde sponge, caramel mousse, pear mousse, caramel liquid soaked pear compote. this one was really good, very light despite it has so much egg yolk in it. i always have tons of egg yolks left after macaron orders so this recipe is good for getting rid the leftovers.


this entremet is good because it doesn't require any seasonal ingredients. it uses canned pears so you can make it anytime. it also contains pear liqueur which i believe most of us will not have, so for the imbibage i just used the syrup from the can. this is also the 3rd recipe from chef koji yamamoto of patisserie planetes. i've tried making the fraise exotique and vanille rouge and they were awesome! recipe from cake chef.

just to showcase some of the things i did for the past two weeks.


a feeble attempt to go black - bamboo charcoal macarons with black sesame ganache. i don't think its black enough so back to the drawing board!


rainbow roll cake. amidst all that striped roll cakes i did, this one is my fav!


an order from my best girlfriend, E, for her mom in law's birthday.

the haze has been really bad these few weeks, sometimes even dipping into hazardous levels. friends in singapore/malaysia/indonesia who're affected by it, please take care!

animal print on desserts seem to be the rage these days (tokyo banana, anyone?) and i love incorporating these prints into my cakes as well! do you remember me making cow patterned cookies and leopard print roll cake awhile ago? even though these were basically just chocolate/vanilla marbled desserts in general, it adds a new dimension to the end product. as for this chiffon cake, it was inspired by the tortoise shell patterned coat found on cats.


i was doing my usual rounds on youtube watching cooking with dog and this particular video by "cook kafemaru" appeared on my recommended list. i clicked on it and was sold! this channel is owned by a japanese lady and she makes the most amazing stuff! there are so many interesting japanese recipes you don't need to own a japanese cookbook, ever. theres this fishbowl jelly with swimming goldfish which looks awesome. there are also several bento making videos where she made and brought them to her husband at work. really sweet! you guys should check her videos out if you haven't already.

as for this chiffon cake, its made using two different types of cocoa powder, the normal kind as well as the black cocoa powder. things like oreo are made using this dutch processed cocoa and yes, its absolutely black. i got it from iherb and it has a really nice flavor. the cake itself is wonderful. its soft and moist with a hint of cocoa and it kinda tasted lighter than the usual chiffon cakes i've made. i would definitely make it again.


this photo is taken using my phone and i think it portrays a more accurate color (the irony). somehow i cannot seem to get the correct tone on my DSLR and this one comes much closer to the original cake. you can see how dark the black cocoa is. you can also substitute black cocoa with charcoal powder or black sesame would do just fine as well.

this is the video where the recipe is from. in here, the lady does the 3 colors separately by mixing one egg yolk at a time, then add water, oil, etc. i think its too troublesome to have to repeat the process 3 times so i did it altogether by mixing the ingredients for the 3 yolks and then separated the batter into 3 portions. easy peasy. except that mine turned out rather messy because i was using a new chiffon tin which is narrower and taller (the kind that japanese use) and i've been on the lookout for the longest time. had problem putting the batter in so i would probably use piping bags next time.

probably the last time i'm using my loaf tins before packing them away into storage. we're getting ready to move pretty soon and i think it will be an exciting journey. but before that, some good ol' pound cake to start the day with. did you know that the name for pound cake originally meant a cake made using a pound each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour? i have no idea how much it would make but 1 pound of sugar (450g) is just crazy. this is probably why i like japanese recipes so much. their recipes are much lighter without sacrificing the taste and texture.


this recipe uses not much butter and sugar in comparison but uses quite a bit of ground almonds. the addition of kuromame (black beans) which i got in a tiny can from isetan also gave it a nice texture. taste wise was quite good. the cake was tender, crumbly and not too sweet though i think it could use more matcha. 2 tsps for a cake? definitely not enough.

recipe from here. personally i really like this website. did i mention the japanese hotcakes i made using this website's recipe were really awesome? tasted like morinaga's mix totally.

rainbow desserts are literally everywhere. you would think maybe they'll stop at a layered cake or something but i've now seen concoctions of every kind, from slushies to rainbow heart in a crepe cake to jello shots and meringues. all in psychedelic rainbow colors. i gotta say they look very fancy and pretty but is it weird i only like them in pastel shades? how could anyone even stomach that much red or blue coloring is beyond me. i saw this particular style of rainbow cheesecake circulating its rounds on instagram and thought "hey, that is nice, i could make it!" so i found a recipe for a plain japanese rare cheesecake and turned it into rainbow one.


this is really fun to make! i've seen a few styles of rainbow cheesecakes like swirled or layered but i find this bullseye effect to be the prettiest. tastewise its very delicious too. for the uninitiated, rare is like non-baked or chilled in japanese so this is basically a chilled cheesecake. it uses yogurt so its very light on the palate. i also like the fact that the crust uses a combination of marie and digestive biscuits so it tasted significantly better compared to crusts that only use 1 type of biscuit. i heard speculoos are really nice as well, so i'm going to try experimenting with lotus biscuits next time.


did i also mention i LOVE japanese product websites like meiji, morinaga and nestle? they have really nice recipes and this one is taken from japan's philedelphia cream cheese website called happy-philly. fell in love with their recipes on first glance, they're all so beautiful! you can find the recipe for this rare cheesecake here. if you're making a rainbow version, just separate the batter into 6 or 7 equal portions, color and pour them directly into the center of the crust after each color. i should have done 1 more color after the yellow though.

i bought a bunch of stuff from rakuten like monaka (wafer) shells, wax papers, mousse rings, financier tins and sakura leaf powder. these are stuff i would never be able to find locally. i was very excited to use the financier tins because i have the silicon version and didn't like it one bit. cakes baked using silicon molds always give me this weird glossy surface which i find very annoying. gloss on a mirror glaze - yes, but on a freshly baked cake - no! anyway i love financiers but i don't like the long chilling time for the batter. having to wait 12-24 hours is not my thing so when i came across this recipe from cotta that didn't require any chilling i was like, hell yea! i wanted to see if there's any difference to chilling the batter vs. baking immediately. do you think it would make a difference?


honestly, i don't think so. the financiers tasted virtually no difference when baked immediately so i don't think chilling was necessary. in fact, i don't even know what it does. probably to "relax" the batter but for what? i know madeleines develop their distinct humps when the batter is chilled thoroughly but i probably wouldn't chill my financier batter (very much) from now on. these turned out very very good btw. i loved them!! probably the best financier i've ever made. the recipe uses sakura powder which i believe it should be pickled sakura powder but since i didn't have it, i used sakura leaf powder instead. it made the batter slightly darker and with a greenish tinge but flavor wise, really awesome. it tasted like a cross between cinnamon and ume plum. sweet, yet a tad salty.


financier tins and sakura leaf powder, from rakuten. i really like the tins because they're really lightweight. there are 2 kinds of powders in this range, the sakura flower powder, which is pink and supposed to be used in this recipe, as well as the leaf powder. the flower one was sold out unfortunately but i would use the leaf powder again because it imparts a really nice aroma.


i made 6 of these and i only ate 1 because hubby brought 5 to work! i wasn't expecting him to like this since he thinks sakura is such a weird flavor but i was surprised he LOVED these. recipe wise, i couldn't find it in the translation on when the ground almonds were supposed to be added, but i could be wrong since i can't read japanese at all. so i referred to dorie greenspan's financier recipe and it says the almonds were supposed to be cooked together with the sugar and egg whites so i did just that. this is a keeper million times over and i would make them again.

recipe from here.

i wasn't actually going to blog about another buttercream flower cake so soon but these two weeks, i did nothing but practice piping flowers until wee hours in the morning and i had like 3 trays of flowers in the freezer so i was thinking, heck, i'll just assemble them. after that i can just reuse the buttercream to make other flowers. koreans mainly make theirs in 3 forms - bouquet, wreath or crescent so since i made the bouquet one already, i decided to tackle the wreath one. its pretty nervous wrecking since i have not made anything remote similar. good chance to practice the placement, i think.

buttercream flower cakes are the rage these days. apparently its very popular with the koreans and they seemed to have "revived" this trend of making old school buttercream cakes into something more modern and beautiful. i decided to jump on the bandwagon and hereby present to you my first ever buttercream flower cake made for my 15th wedding anniversary! prior to this, i have no experience piping flowers, as in, petal by petal. my piping tip repertoire is pathetic and i probably own like what, 5 piping tips at most. i have a couple of plain tips which i use for macarons and eclairs, 1 saint honore tip and a 2D flower tip for rose swirls in cupcakes. oh right, and a bismarck tip! so this time, i made a trip to the baking supplies shop and bought 10 tips for making various flowers and leaves, plus a flower nail and lifter.

has it been 3 months already? my apologies for the lack of posts, guys, and happy new year! i've had a few concerned emails asking if i was ok, and whether i still intend to blog. yes, and yes! its just that there were lots of stuff to keep me occupy during the year end - my birthday, christmas, hubby's birthday and new year celebrations so i forgot about my blog momentarily.

anyway i made baumkuchen (read : bum-ku-hen)! this is a cake of german origin but apparently very popular in japan. i knew about it when i first started buying japanese cookbooks. recipes for baumkuchen are everywhere on those books! soon after i chanced upon juchheim, a japanese shop selling baumkuchen at takashimaya but i didnt buy it cuz it was rather expensive. i did try the one from MUJI though, it was good albeit a little too oily for my liking.

probably one of the rare occasions i'm baking. i find myself cooking more often nowadays and i make it an effort to cook everyday. i really enjoy experimenting with the different cuisines. baking, not so much. the thought of having to stuff myself with all these sugar-laden treats every single day like in the past just don't appeal to me anymore. i try and not use white refined sugar so much and if i do bake, i try and limit the amount of sugar to 50g or less per attempt. which is to say i find american style desserts like brownies that uses 1 cup sugar or frosting that uses 4 cups powdered sugar very, very shocking. not that i'll actually attempt making those. or even the traditional japanese red bean paste. just saying.

anyway i'm following cotta and cuoca on facebook. both are japanese baking supplies/packaging stores that also have plenty of recipes on their sites. their facebook pages are updated everyday and i always look forward to seeing new recipes and pics! cotta posted this recipe recently and i knew i had to make this soon. it just sounded really good and its been a while since i made madeleines.

recently, i've been making chiffon-based cakes really often. i don't just make the actual chiffon per se, i realized they're actually pretty good made into roll cake, sheet cake base for entremets/verrines or even into cupcakes. they yield much better results (soft even upon refrigeration) and simpler to make compared to a dry hard genoise. genoise requires warming the eggs and sugar to body temp and then whisked until ribbon stage which i think is too much work.

the first half of 2014 went by in a blur. i felt that i haven't been baking much but looking back, i actually made tons of stuff. some of them were uploaded on flickr and forgotten but most of the time, i didn't bother using my DSLR so i just took some shots with my phone and uploaded them on instagram. here are some of the stuff i made + orders i took as well.


i had a couple of orders for japanese-inspired macarons. this is my first year making sakura ones and according to my customers, they were pretty well received. i guess the saltiness of the sakura flowers and leaves offset the sweetness of the macarons. i also experimented with jasmine flavored macarons. jasmine tea is dirt cheap so i had no qualms in dumping a whole lot of leaves in the cream. yay to pronounced jasmine flavor!

i hope its not too early to start on some springtime sweets! ukishima translates as "floating island" which is one of the simpler wagashis to make. its a steamed cake made of anko (or shiro-an, in this case) and is usually done in two or three layers. basically it symbolizes the arrival of spring, with its soil layer in brown, followed by a white layer which represents snow, then green (sprouts) and pink (flowers). i made only two layers since i really like the combination of matcha and sakura.

you know how much i love junko's roll cake and among so many roll cake recipes i've tried, hers is still the best in terms of taste, texture and flexibility in rolling. like a good basic macaron batter, all you need is just one to experiment with other endless flavor possibilities. i'm not usually a fan of instant coffee from grocery stores since most are too acidic for my liking but i went to isetan last weekend and chanced upon this UCC one from japan which is really really good. its not acidic at all and is pretty strong and full-bodied so i decided to add it into my favorite recipe to make a coffee roll cake. also jazzed it up a little by adding cocoa powder to part of the batter to make the dots. turned out fab!