RAISIN WINE

20/3/2011



My Raisin wine after a month of fermenting is now ready for bottling.







As you can see the raisins have risen to the top of the bottle now and the liquid has turned into pure golden wine.






Erh- these are not aliens. Its the mouldly yeast on top of the raisins! Not to worry, its friendly yeast!

The whole process yields only 2 bottles of golden raisin wine

The aroma of wine is so intoxicating that a wasp came hovering and a butterfly flutter inside the kitchen as well.

Its a lovely navy blue butterfly. Cannot manage to capture its beautiful colours.

VICTORIA SPONGE

19/3/2011





Nowadays there are a lot of strawberries for sale in the market. These are from Korea and it is reasonablly cheap too at RM10.00 per packet. There are very ripe and sweet too.



I bought a packet and used them as filling in the Victoria Sponge.




I like this cake as it is not the ordinary sponge but more a cake version (butter is used here and cream together with sugar). However it came out very soft, light and moist.






The Victoria Sponge is normally just put together with jam (strawberry, raspberry etc) and whipped cream.

I spread the first layer with some strawberry jam and then topped it with whipped fresh cream. Next the strawberries goes on.

Top it with the another layer of the sponge and dust some icing sugar over. I just lightly dusted used less here as I don't want the cake to be too sweet).

FRUIT TARTLETS

I made these Fruits Tartlets for a family gathering on Sunday.

It took me over a period of 3 days to make them.

Day 1- made the pastry dough. It was very soft and pliable. It cannot be used without refridgeration. The recipe said at least 4 hours but I left it overnight in the fridge.

Day 2- took the dough out and to shape them into these tartlets shell to blind bake them.

Before blind baking, to let them rest again in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. I find that the shell does not shrink too much during baking after the rest.

I only had 20 shells so I had to bake one lot at a time. While the tarts shells are baking, I made the pastry cream. I made 2 lots of the pastry cream and again this went into the fridge for the assembly on Sunday.

Early Sunday morning, I had to prepare the fruits for the topping.

Day 3 - assemblying the tartlets at last!

The shells were still crispy overnight.

Even with the 2 lots of pastry cream, its not enough to fill up 60 tarts. The ones on the left were the last lot thats why the tarts are only half-filled.

Maybe, I should get some mini tart shell and then it will be prettier. However these were a refreshing dessert after a heavy meal.

WHITE FOREST CAKE FOR YAN'S BIRTHDAY

7/3/2011



Decided to make a White Forest Cake for my niece's Wei Yan birthday on 7/3/2011.

She is such a sweet, dainty girl, full of charm and manners that I think she deserve this cake.


There is Black Forest Cake and now there is this White Forest Cake - which is made with white chocolate and lychee in addition to the black cherries.

Made the vanilla sponge from scratch though the recipe calls for sponge mix. It came out light and fluffy. Frosting is melted white chocolate added to whipping cream.




I like birthdays and gatherings. It gives me an excuse to bake different cakes and to practice my cake-decorating skills.
Now I have done this type of chocolate deco before but somehow it seems a tad messy here.

The top of the cake is covered with white chocolate shavings. Tried to pipe some red hearts but again its a bit messy- definitely doesn't look like hearts - maybe should be bigger dots, so that its easier to drag the line through.

Here the pretty girl growing up fast. God Bless her always.

The proof here thats the cake is a knockout- haha....