Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake

Remember my few posts back regarding the pecan that I reserved for my Hummingbird Cake?

Well, one evening I was hungry. And craving. For cakes. Hungry and craving doesn't goes along that well, because you simply lost some brain cells to control your rationality.

It was raining. And that made me even more hungrier. So I took out some butter and 30 minutes later I already whipping up some batter for a cake. To my surprised it only took less than 45 minutes from preparation to cleaning. While waiting for the butter, I chopped the pecans, measured everything and once the butter has warm a bit to room temperature, I just mix everything, in ease.

This cake definitely became one of my favourite coffee cake. Remember this? This cake was even better! The cake was super soft and to my surprise even with the odd combination of chocolate chips and cinnamon, it does tasted that goooooooooood!

Eat it when it is till warm. You will fell in love with it instantly. But mom told me the nuts were a bit sweet but I thought it was still ok because I reduce the sugar by 1/2 cup.

Cinnamon Pecan Coffee Cake

Adapted from Atendercrumb

For the cake:

3 cups flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup milk

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

For the cinnamon chocolate chips filling:

1 cup light brown sugar

3 tbsp flour

3 tbsp cinnamon powder

1 1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 cup chocolate chips

3/4 cup melted butter

1. Heat oven to 170 degrees celcius.
2. In a medium bowl, stir the light brown sugar, flour and cinnamon powder with a fork. Toss pecans and chocolate chips in another bowl and add in to the flour mixture. Set aside.
3. Sift together flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Stir the milk with vanilla essence in a small jug. Beat together butter and sugar in another large bowl on a high speed until white and fluffy. Add in the eggs, one at a time until incorporated about 2 minutes.
4. Add 1/3 of the flour to the butter mixture and fold it using a spatula. Add 1/3 of milk and repeat until finish.
5. Spread half of the batter onto your prepared pan. Sprinkle the cinnamon mixture then pour the melted butter (well, more of sprinkling it!) and spread the rest of the batter. Top it off with the cinnamon mixture again and melted butter.
6. Bake 45 to 50 minutes.

Boston Cream Pie Part II

So where did all the promises go?

Ngiahahahaha.

Okay straight to the point. The recipe that I got for my Boston Crem Pie was from here. Cheating much?

:p

Boston Cream Pie

Boston Cream Pie?

Yes I finally made a boston cream pie! After tired of eating nutty cakes, and also I'd been craving for a chocolate glaze cake for weeks!

There's nothing much to rave about boston cream pie, but I just couldn't stop thinking of the over-delicious from scratch custard filling! Nyum!

It is a two layer sponge cake filled with pastry cream and covered with chocolate glaze that surprisingly, very milky? It didn't have the bitter choc taste, but maybe it was just me.

I know, I know, it is one of my ugliest cake, but look can be deceiving :p Will update more on the recipe as I *yawn* am sleepy from the hip hop class just now. Ahah.

Congo Bars

Now, who has never heard any of Congo Bars? I think I have baked it before. Ah yes.

Mom saw this one bag full with pecans which I was saving it for my hummingbird cake.

"Bake for me one, any, full with nuts like what you did before"

I ransacked my box of bakery supplies and found a packet of walnuts. Ah yes! And I baked her an Indonesian Butter Walnut Cake, and it was slightly over baked. And dry. But nevertheless, Mom was the only enjoying it. I wonder why until now.

Still not feeling happy (and since I always ran out of my banana), I ransacked again my baking box and found different types of chocolate chips and M&M's mini. And there, an hour later, I get my Congo bars, with colours this time.

But one thing for sure, if I were to bake it again, maybe I should try a different recipe this time. I mean, there were so many recipes on the net, and each with different ingredients and instructions.

But Mom still loves the walnut cake, and I wonder why...

Congo Bars

Adapted from Bakerella

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2/3 cup butter, softened

2 cups brown sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup chocolate chip

1 cup twin chocolate chip (optional)

1 tube M&M's mini (optional)

1 cup chopped pecans

1. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
2. Beat butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add in egg one at a time and vanilla essence. Add in the flour mixture gradually and continue beating at a medium speed until flour disappears.
3. Now, using a wooden spoon or a spatula add in all the chocolate chips, nuts and M&M's and mix until it is well combined.
4. Spread it into your pans and bake at 160 degrees for 30 minutes. (Mine was bake at 25 minutes!)

What's this?

Last Eid al-Adha, mom and I were scared that we couldn't serve anything for the guests as we've decided not to cook anything. So that night I baked what supposed to be a chocolate meringue cookies.

And look what happened....

Cracking macarons?

But I couldn't stop eating it!

There goes my diet program *sigh*

Lost & Found!

After weeks of not having my 'borrowed' camera, look what I found in my SD card!

I think it was for Raya kot? I remembered I brought the cupcakes bare without frosting then I frosted it in KL with the help from my bf as the big-buffy-strong-biceps-mixer. Hahaha.

Both ordered by Munirah.

And this one was from my bestfriend, Nana. Need to practice more on wording! Ughhh.

Lovely Hearts

A gift for my ex-choreographer when I was in matriculation college, Kak Wani. Well, actually it was more for her daughter hahaha!

Red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.

I am back!

I am sitting on my bean bag, at the usual corner at where I put my laptop, in my room here in JB. Ahh yes finally I am back in JB! Actually, it was two weeks ago. Mom frantically called me everyday, updating on our cats who were badly sick from a virus. All of our cats got infected and died eventually. But when Mom called and tell me Krystal (the second cat) who just delivered her babies died, I just couldn't stay still. I cried so bad when finally I texted Mom;

"I wanna go home.... So bad! Boleh?"

"Yes I know you're worried. Go and book you flight ticket"

And I was relieved!

It was two 10 days before Eid al-Adha and I already on plane flying back home.

To see one by one died including the babies was really heart wrenching! I barely had time for myself. We had to sanitized their home, fed them medications (twice a day), fed sick cats who lost appetite, fed the babies when the Mom(s) died, countless trip to different vet clinic and prayers (a lot!) along the way.

Phew.

And lost few kg which I think I will gain back in a few days. Oh no!

And, the last kitten died yesterday :(

I didn't realized I was exhausted until I spent a good 6 hours sleep that morning.

Ok. Move on.

Simple cakes I baked (again) for last Raya. OMG I am so backdated! Huhu. Sorry guys!

Chocolate Banana Cake

And American Chocolate Cake. Been trying to baked one since ever. Copied the recipe a year ago only managed to baked it last Raya :p

Wait, I still have some recipes to try! Hopefully manage to try all during my not-so-holiday!

American Chocolate Cake

Adapted from Kak Ummi

2 cups flour*

3/4 cups sugar*

2 tsp baking powder*

2tsp baking soda*

2 eggs

2 cups sugar

1 cup milk

1 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp nescafe added to 1 cup of hot water

1. Sift together all * ingredients.
2. Mix all ingredients except the sifted flour, milk and water in a large bowl using a wooden spoon. Beat well until incorporated.
3. Add in the sifted flour, milk and water and continue beating.
4. Pour into your pan and bake at 170 degrees for 45 minutes.

1 can condensed milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup corn oil

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1. Mix all together in a deep saucepan and heat on low heat until it thicken. Continue stirring with a whisker for 10 minutes.
2. Turn off the heat and let it cool before spreading.

ps: Just so you know, this post was in my draft since 4th November!

Hydrangea inspired.

Engagement cake inspired by Hydrangea ;) Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese filling and buttercream topping. Thanks Haliza!

Good news!!

I might be around in November!

So you can place your order, InsyaAllah :)

Will let you guys know soon teehee!

Pavlova

Just like Kek Alunan Kasih and macarons, pavlova has also become one of the most seeking desserts. I was skeptical at first, I mean, what's there to eat other than the high content of sugar in it?

Even my mom couldn't stop telling me, "All you eat is white eggs and sugar!".

But it didn't stop me.

I'd never had the guts to bake macarons, so I tried pavlova instead.

The first time I tried pavlova was from Alexis. It was tall! It almost toppled over and crush all the berries on top of it. And I loved it.

Then people kept telling me Serai had a better pavlova. My friend tried it and it was too sweet! Darn.

Then I stopped searching high and low for the best pavlova.

I don't know why I stop, but I did anyway.

I always scared making something using eggs white so after few months, I finally made a pavlova last raya for some friends who were coming over. And let me tell you, it was the best pavlova! It wasn't that sweet as Alexis (and Serai as what my friend told me), but I just love love love it!

Even my mom kept on filling up her plate with it. I think she had more than any of us at home!

I think there's nothing much different between different recipes of pavlovas. I used the most basic one, well, mostly said that for every egg white, you should use around 50g if sugar.

Pavlova

4 egg whites

1 cup superfine or castor sugar

2 tbsp corn flour

2 tsp vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 150 degrees celcius.
2. Make sure you used a clean mixing bowl, free from grease or water, whisk the egg whites until stiff peak form. Gradually add the sugar until it become stiff and glossy.
3. Add in the corn flour and vinegar and continue whisking until it is just combine.
4. Line a baking tray with a baking paper. Trace you desirable size of pavlova (I used 6" here and got two) and spread the egg whites mixture on it.
5. Reduce the oven to 120 degree celcius and bake for 1 1/2 hour. Turn off you oven and let it cool in it.
6. Serve whipped cream and berries when it has cool completely.

As for me, I just left the pavlova in the oven until serving time!

Cakes & Cupcakes

Some from pre-Raya and Raya orders.

4" Red Velvet Cake from Farah. She lived next to our neighbourhood in JB so it was nice knowing someone from hometown :) Well Farah, I know you're supposed to giving birth this month. Hopefully everything went well :)

Mini Ladybirds.

Mini Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese frosting from one of my student, Tiara.

My schoolmate, Haliza ordered a Red Velvet Cake with cream cheese frosting, also as a pre-tester for her engagement cake (which I did! Will upload a bit later).

And a repeat order by Syima, a carrot cake with cream cheese frosting :)

My mom couldn't stand still seeing this cake. She kept bugging me to put something on the centre as it looked too simple for her. But I do love a simple cake :( I won anyway hahahaha!

And lastly, for Shikin. She wanted a red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. I love this design so much! Had fun playing with the nozzle and love how the petals turns out.

Thank you guys!

Bread Pudding

One day, I realized that I baked too many bread pudding in a couple of months. One, because we always had bread leftovers by the end of the day. I was wondering what happened to us. We used to love bread, but in the end, there was only me and my bread.

I was itching so bad to bake my students. And I was itching very very bad to finish the stale bread.

So there, banana bread pudding.

I used Dole's banana for this one, which had a strong fragrance and taste compared to other types of banana.

There's nothing special about this pudding, at least for me. But some of my students loved it so, try it then you know. Hehe.

Banana Bread Pudding

2 cups milk

4 medium eggs

1 cup sugar

1 tbsp vanilla essence

1 loaf a day old bread, shredded

2 bananas, sliced

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees celcius and grease your baking dish.
2. Mix eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla essence until incorporated. Stir in the bread and let it soak for 5 minutes.
3. Pour into your baking dish, toss the banana slices and bake for an hour.

But my suggestion is, toss the banana into the mixture together with the bread.

And this is bread and butter pudding. Recipe you can google kot? Hahahaha. Nothing special also. I still prefer Paula Deen's bread pudding!

Actually, I have one more bread pudding but I couldn't find the picture (or maybe I forgot to snap cis).

RV

My bestfriend, Nana ordered a Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and fresh strawberries for her boyfriend's birthday. Alhamdullillah, eventhough I left all my baking utensils in JB (because I am based in JB now) and brought only the basic thing to KL, the crowd loved it! So much!

Haha the wording was a bit weird actually. I was in a hurry, I only had few minutes and forgot to buy the plastic cone (ok lupa apa tah nama dia) so huhuhu sorry Nana! Even nama boyfriend termanja disitu yea hahaha.

Rainbow Cake

This entire week has been so hectic for me.

I stayed up late, every night, slept just before sahur time and woke up a few hours later and start baking, again. It was tiring but I love it.

And I almost thought I'd abandoned this blog so much :p Erghh sorry!

When I was working back then, I had always brought leftover cakes or cupcakes to the office. Or I would try new recipe and brought it in for them to taste. So when I just about the leave then working place, I knew that I had to bring cakes not just for the colleagues, but for the students as well.

I had nothing in mind except for a rainbow cake.

This cake totally blew me away. I had a thing with anything vibrant and colourful. I love bubur cha cha so much because its colourful. I painted my feature wall in my room with fuschia, had a colourful rug from IKEA just to go with it and also my blanket. And pillow. And bedsheet.

So I really thought this cake would also blew them away, literally of course.

Making it was of course, totally stressful and took a lot of time! First, because I worked during the days. Second, it uses 5 egg whites and you know that I'm scared of egg whites in any recipes. Third, I slept early most of the days :p

This cakes took me three days to finished ensemble it. Since I wanted a bigger cake (two 7x14 inch), each recipe yielded 2 layers of cakes. And since it was a rainbow cake, I need 6 colours in total so I had to bake 6 times! I scraped off the batter from my mixing bowl, washed, dried it and used it again for the next batter. I baked twice a day to get those 6 layers. I wrapped the layers in a cling wrap and stored it in the fridge to prevent moisture loss.

A total of 6 layers including the frosting was heavy (and not that easy to handle)! I think

I had sore muscles on the biceps after that.

But nothing beats the amusement in their eyes when they sliced it. The decoration on the other hand was pretty much in a rush since I was so sleepy and had to fetch mum from the airport. Plus it was big and heavy and I was out of my cream cheese frosting. Used almost 2kg cream cheese for the cakes! Yikes!

The first time I made a rainbow cake was during my birthday last year. I don't know what went wrong because I followed the recipe to the T and yet what I get was a soon-to-get-diabetes-cake! It was too sweet nobody ate it.

This time, I made sure the recipe was perfect. And yes, it was!

You can simply use any white cake recipe you have, but I used this;

White Cake

Adapted from Whisk-Kid

1 cup butter

2 cup sugar

5 egg whites

2 tsp vanilla essence

3 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup milk

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius.
2. Sieve together all the dry ingredients and set aside.
3. Cream the butter and sugar until white and fluffy. Add in the egg whites gradually and continue mixing at low speed. Add in vanilla essence.
4. Mix in the flour mixture and the milk alternately in two parts. Tint the batter according to your preference and divide equally into two 7x14 inch pan. Bake at 15 minutes each.
5. Remove from the oven, let them cool on the rack for 10 minutes before flip it over and let it cool completely.

ps: I used cream cheese frosting for the cake.

Cupcakes, a massive one!

Just some orders a couple of months ago ;)

My neighbour in Nilai ordered a set of Red Velvet Cupcakes with buttercream frosting since they were heading to Kedah for her sister's nikah. She wanted something in purple for the hantaran.

Purple Garden

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

Pak Lah, 80 L size cupcakes with individual boxes, Oreo Cupcakes and Buttercream frosting for his wedding reception as a VIPs door gift.

Triple Roses

Oreo Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting

Zalikha ordered one set of Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache and Chocolate Buttercream Frosting for her boyfriend's birthday. She came all the way from KL to Nilai. Thanks Zal!

It was actually a design from another blogger, tak ingat mana hihi. Zalikha asked for that design.

From Mun, my ex-student for her niece/nephew's birthday. She ordered two sets of mini cupcakes, Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting and Vanilla Cupcakes with Buttercream Frosting.

Pretty Daisies

Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Dollop M&M's

Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Nutella Chocolate Bread Pudding

Browsing through my baking pictures folder (yes I do have a folder for all my baking activities), I just realized that I have tons of photos to update. I mean although I don't have that much time nowadays to blog, it didn't stop me from baking something just to stop the craving.

Like this bread pudding.

I was alone. My brother was away to somewhere I don't remember. I had this full stack of plain bread and two jars of Nuttella. Accidentally bought the second jar when I thought the first was empty.

And so I started layering each layer of the breads with nuttella.

30 minutes later, I get a simple yet delectable on the go dessert. Oh so Nigella Lawson! Hehe.

Nutella Chocolate Bread Pudding

Adapted from Ovenhaven

8 slices of day old bread

1 egg

1 cup chocolate milk

2 tsp sugar

Nutella

1. Prehat oven to 170 degrees celcius. Spread Nutella over the breads, rolled it over and cut it into four rolls. Place it on the casserole dish.
2. In a bowl, whisk egg, chocolate milk and sugar. Pour the mixture into the rolls and leave aside for a few minutes.
3. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes. Best serve warm.

ps: I doubled the amount of bread because I don't like a soggy bread pudding ;)