Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

Don't you just love the smell of cinnamon in your cakes?

One sniff, and I'll be in heaven. Seriously, I used to hate cinnamon. What's with cake and spices? 

Now I rummaged through my notes and recipes book for any cakes, with a hint of cinnamon. Even if its just a teaspoon, it could blew me away. But since there's only me and Mom at home, I often ended up feeling guilty of eating too much. If only our 20 cats have 'cakes' in their diet *sigh*.

Now this recipe is worth to try. I am not saying its the best because I think I've eaten an apple cake even better than this but I love cakes with crumbs or streussel topping. Its just added some texture to your cake. And make your own caramel, instead of just dumping it all in the mixing bowl. Heat some brown sugar  with a couple tbsp of water, bring it to boil, let it cool then add in some apples before folding in to your batter.

Caramel Apple Coffee Cake

Adapted from Glorious Treats

For the cake;

1/2 cup butter

1 1/2 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sour cream (I used plain yogurt)

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 cups peeled, cored and chopped apples

For the crumbs topping;

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

4 tbsp butter, melted

*There's caramel drizzle in the original recipe, but I decided not to use it ;)

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees celcius. Grease your pan. I used a brownie pan, 7" x 12".
2. Beat the butter until smooth, add in brown sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy. Then add in eggs, one at a time until incorporated.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.
4. With the mixer on low speed, add 1/2 of the flour mixture and mix well. Add in 1/2 cup of the sour cream (or yogurt) and continue beating until incorporated.  Continue with the rest of the flour and sour cream.
5. Add in vanilla then fold in the apples. Spread it onto your pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Tish Boyle's Rich Marble Pound Cake

This is for my sister in Dubai.

You know,before she move to Dubai, she never had the chance to cook or bake that many as me or Mom would always get our hands first on the pan. Only that after she got married, and live in Jb with Mom, she started to cook most of the time. And now in Dubai, with a husband to feed, she started to get all 'Martha Stewart' everyday!

When she asked me for a good marble cake recipe, I know I did baked one. But wasn't that sure if I posted it up online. Checking back, nope, I didn't.

So this is for you sister albeit you already baked one hehe. Because this is a KEEPER! A really good marble cake ;)

Trish Boyle's Rich Marble Pound Cake
Adapted from: Kak Rima from Bisousatoi

342g cake flour (I used all purpose flour)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
300g castor sugar
20g cocoa ppowder
90ml water
340g unsalted butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
5 large eggs
1/2 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree celcius. Grease your desirable pan and dust it with flour (it can make up to 10" bundt pan. I use 3 loaf pan).
2. Sift together cake flor, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter on medium speed for 2 minutes until creamy. Add in sugar and continue beating for 4 minutes. Add in vanilla essence.
4. Add eggs one at a time, and continue beating until incorporated.
5. Add in the flour mixture alternating with milk in 3 batches, begin and ending with flour mixture.
6. Prepare your cocoa mixture: mix cocoa powder with water in a small bowl. Add 3 cups of the batter to the cocoa mixture and mix well.
7. Spoon 1/3 of the plain batter onto your pan, smooth it over, then add another 1/3 of the chocolate batter and smooth it over. Repeat until finish.
8. Bake for 60 to 75 minutes.

ps: butter & marble cake are always better the next day ;)

Little Favours: Kookies 1

My husband is one of the type of people who had zillionth ideas on business. Me on the other hand was never exposed to business, only that I kept on saying "businesswoman" in my primary school progress book. And I thought businesswoman=news presenter! Bummer.

So he kept on pressuring me doing this and that and all I said was to take it slowly. Instead of going straight to Dessert buffet (wah that's a big hint!), I told him I will start doing favours for weddings or parties.

So..........

introducing Little Favours! A little something for your guest, perfect for birthday party, engagement, wedding, akikah/cukur jambul or any private event! Email me at kookies.order@gmail.com for T&C and more info ;)

Or go to our Facebook for more details ;)

Relocating.

To those who followed us on FB must knew that we moved to Johor Bahru recently. Yes I know I didn't update that much in this blog, merely because in the first place, it was meant for my baking adventures.

And I am still contemplating.

Whatever.

Anyways, do follow us on Facebook!

Salam Ramadhan and Happy Fasting :)

Sorry for the long silence :( Still figuring out on few things..

Good news is we are back in Semenanjung for Hari Raya's orders! Sabah's order is still open though. But since a lot of people requested to have the cookies in Semenanjung, might as well I take some whilst visiting the family.

Please do take note that we'll be taking limited number or jars this time. So, to avoid disappointment (or in another word; kempunan), please make a full payment within two days after booking to confirm your order ;)

1.       Choose between M&M’s (RM28) or Original chocolate chips (RM25) cookies.

2.       Send me a msg/sms/whatsapp/email and let me know how any jars do you want.

3.       You’ll be getting a reply from me together with account number to make a payment.

4.       Let me know once again if you have made a payment.

No delivery, strictly pick it up yourselves (unless you choose to Poslaju it) from;

Me: at Taman Rinting, Masai from 31^st July until 6^th August

Obe: at Menara Celcom, Jln Semarak from 7^th August onwards.

*Each jar: 55-60pcs

*I do send out the cookies via Poslaju, contact me for more info!

*Like us on Facebook for more info, or send me an email at kookies.order@gmail.com!

Ombre cake

I have been wanted to try ombre effect cake, eversince it became phenomenal this year. I did try to baked it for my engagement but I was too lazy to divide the batter to another three different tints. Haha. So this time, when one of my friend asked me to do a cake for her engagement hantaran, I told her I wanted to do ombre cake for her. Send her the picture and she said yes immediately.

But between ombre cake and ombre buttercream, which one is better?

So I made a trial cake;

Ombre cake. I used a vanilla cake recipe for this one, don't remember which one, but the cake was a bit bitter. Maybe from the baking powder?

But luckily my friend asked for a red velvet cake, so I made her Roses cake with ombre effect.

Definitely my favourite. And I used the leftover cream cheese filling for the topping as well.

And she requested for the same design from Purple Garden, but instead of purple, she wanted it to be in choc. So here goes :)

Thanks Fai!

Ultimate Carrot Cake

Before I start, I'd like to clear something up - sometimes (or most of the time) things that you have planned, that you thought would be perfectly goes smoothly, might just crushing you, bit by bit. And you might ended up of having nothing at all.

One day, I was perfectly baking at home for families, then the anticipation grew and so I began baking for others. Until one day I just kept on having meltdowns in the kitchen.

It was fun. But I don't get the fun that I used to get back then.

Or maybe I was stressed out with few other things at the moment, which at times might look the best choice but most of the times made me ponder, 'Did I made a good decision?'.

So yeah, whatever. I am here.

I know I didn't post that much nowadays. But that's explained - I don't bake that much nowadays.

I was feeling mellow one day, my cousin brought this local carrots that was oh-so-sweet, left almost rotten on the rack (all of us forgot to check and keep it in the fridge!) and so I decided to bake, a carrot cake!

But this time, I went for something that was out from my comfortable zone when its come to carrot cake, I searched for a new one, The Ultimate Carrot Cake as what they claimed.

Ultimate Carrot Cake

Adapted from The Essential Baker (via Zoe Bakes)

2 1/4 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground ginger *I omitted

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup canola oil

1/2 cup buttermilk

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 cup crushed pineapple *too lazy to find one but I should next time!

1 pound grated carrots *well, I just grate all the carrots I have and I got about 3 cups?

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup raisins *I don't like raisins

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Or 180 degrees if you use same as mine.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, ground cinnamon, nutmeg and salt in a medium bowl.
3. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, brown sugar and vanilla essence (and pineapple). Add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and continue mixing until fully incorporated. Stir in the carrot, pecans (and raisins).
4. Divide evenly on two greased and floured pans.
5. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Serve with your favourite cream cheese frosting!

Was it good?

I forgot.

Yes I am forgetful like that.

*sigh*

Marbled Nutella Banana Bread

Don't worry. I am perfectly well and healthy :) Other than all the wedding preparations going on (not that much actually) and ongoing life as a student, I am safe and sound. Except that I bake less nowadays since I don't have that many mouth to feed here in Sabah :p

With the occasionally orders from acquaintance, nothing beats the feeling of having a freshly baked cake at home kan?

Since I had some banana left from the chocolate banana cake, I decided to bake this. I saved it in my baking book ages ago, not knowing when I would be able to bake it.

I remember buying banana cake as a energy food for my students everytime during training or competition. Banana = energy. Banana cake = energy. Chocolate = craziness. Seriously, they went extremely hyper with chocolates! And I stop feeding them with choc since then, except for big competition.

And this, banana+nutella? *gulp*

This has become my favourite marbled banana cake so far!

Marbled Nutella Banana Bread

Adapted from Vision Plum

2 1/3 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/4 cup mashed ripe banana (I used 4)

6tbsp unsalted butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tsp vanilla essence

2 large eggs

1/2 cup nutella

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9" loaf pan or 7" cake pan.
2. Sift together all the dry ingredients; flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside.
3. In a large bowl, beat together banana, butter, sugar, brown sugar and vanilla essence on medium speed until creamy about 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time and continue beating for another 2 minutes.
4. Reduce speed to low and add in the flour mixture gradually until well combined. Divide half of the batter and stir in Nutella.
5. Alternate spoonful of nutella batter and the normal batter in your pan until finish. Swirl gently with a knife. Bake for 1 hour.

The thing is, I love banana cake! So much!

ps: Its still me. I'm using my main account. Too lazy to sign out each time I wanna post something here :p

Chocolate Banana Cake

One giveaway, two gifts.

If you do follow our fb, you might know that we are conducting a giveaway until this Sunday.

Do check it out! You might be one of the lucky winners ;)

Facebook!

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Do like us as updates and promo will be updated regularly :)

Kookiesandmore.

Oh, FYI, cookies order is open all year long actually. Perfect for doorgifts (wedding, engagement or birthday party) or just for you snacking in between lunch hours :)

The not so called desserts buffet.

Being a baker myself, I realized one thing, I have become even more fussier than ever when it comes to serving my guests/customers with my products.

I have created a borderline at where my baked goods should have tasted like, hence I prefer quality than quantities.

For my engagement, I do know I wanted a desserts buffet. I know friends and relatives love my baked goods, so I worked my ass off to get one. I started baking two days before, with the cookies. Then the cakes and cupcakes. And on the day itself I made trifle and pavlova.

Alhamdulillah, the desserts gone after 15 minutes of serving! Everyone kept on complaining of it weren't enough. But seriously, if only we had a bigger fridge! Haha.

That evening, before the engagement, I arranged all the cake stands, plates and everything on kitchen table, asked my cosuins and friends to help me to do the deco on the pavlova and trifle and tell them what to serve later. And due to time constraint and since I got sick few days before that, I decided to do a minimal (or more like none at all) decoration for the desserts buffet! Hehe. Whatever, all I want was to serve good desserts for the guests.

Rainbow cake. Decided to do three layers only :p So malas! Haha.

Cookies.

Moist chocolate cupcakes with cream cheese frosting (luckily there were some left from the rainbow cake) and vanilla buttercream.

Trifle.

Pavlova.

Trifle and pavlova finished first. Alhamdulillah everyone loves it and couldn't stop complementing all the desserts! I think I have all the recipes from previous posts ;)

Even one of mom's colleagues said the desserts deserve more than 5 stars! Even better than the hotel's chef! *teary eyes*

I am overwhelmed!

Nephew's Birthday!

He is the apple of our eyes. He is charming. He is cute. He is adorable. He is everything to us. Being the first nephew/grandson, he is definitely our attention now until *cough* we have Kakak Jr. *wink*

The preparation was planned all the way from JB, Dubai, KL, and KK. Although I got mixed up with the time as nobody tell me they had changed the time T_T But I started baking like 2 days before: the massive and huge rainbow cake, cakes, cookies and cupcakes.

We had a simple candy buffet as everyone was busy with some other things. Also had some games for the kids by my sister. We had to canceled some games though as it was heavily rained that evening.

The cookie monster cake, and heavy!

And thanks to my overly creative sister, I had to baked two extra cakes. One for the birthday boy for him to squash and get dirty, another one as a surprise for my mom.

But looking back, I should had put the M&M's before serving and take it out from fridge an hour early because apparently, he is not a big fan of cold things *sigh*

And cupcakes, made 4 dozens of vanilla cupcakes. With simple design though.

It was sure an awesome day, surrounded with kids. Yes yes, I need to practice my skills entertaining those little ones ahah!

So long?

I know it has been a while (and why do I have to say that in each of my post lately? Hahaha). Finally am back in KK, but to no avail, my immune system got low so flu and mild fever are attacking me now.

Was busy with nephew's birthday party which I was the self-appointed baker of the day hah! Then my engagement *blushing* so yes, the boyfriend is no longer the boyfriend! I did some desserts for the engagement, not that much though and people were complaining it weren't enough but what else can I do since I DIYed almost everything for that day?

But Alhamdulillah, God is fair. Got some orders coming in :)

Azanurfaezan, my schoolmate requested for 100 oreo Rosies cupcakes with buttercream, and 3 rainbow cakes.

Kak Syirot, my sister's friend ordered moist choc cupcakes with buttercream for her twin cousins. She didn't request any design :| so this was the best I could come up with. Hopefully she was pleased with this design.

Happy New Year :D

I know I am 8 days late, but ah well...

Some of sample cupcakes I made last month;

And finally taking order for Kota Kinabalu :)

So yes, I do take order now from KK. If you're looking for a halal homemade cakes/ cupcakes/ cookies, email me at kookies.order@gmail.com. I do emphasize on the quality so fret not, you'll be delightful when you get your orders.