AlyCakes

Fresh Fruit tart on a Earl Grey Tea crust

alycakes — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 02:23:11 +0000

It’s been a while – I’ve been exploring my other hobbies of knitting, sewing, card making, jewelery making, cooking and running. But of course, I always return to my love for baking. I recently had a dinner party with my cousins and offered to bring dessert! I decided to use my new pan and a new recipe (that I modified a bit)

So what do we have here…. Earl grey tea pastry shell, filled with vanilla bean pastry cream, topped with fresh white peaches and plums – it was delicious and I will definitely make it again. It’s surprisingly easy to make but takes a long time to wait for things to chill.

Cupcakes, Tiramisu, Cake and Crack Pie – Oh My!

alycakes — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 00:55:03 +0000

Cupcakes with a glossy frosting!! Very pretty the night of, a melty mess the day after. Oh well, at least I got a shot of it early

Tiramisu anyone? Going… going… gone.

Strawberry Shortcake (made with fresh strawberries, marscapone cheese cream and sponge cake)

Momofuku’s Crack Pie (as featured in the LA Times. This pie didn’t make it past 48 hours. YUM.

Happy OT Month

alycakes — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 23:24:11 +0000

I don’t think I mentioned this earlier, but as much as I’d love to be a baker full time, I am actually an Occupational Therapist by day (baker by night). October is Occupational Therapy month so my coworker and I decided to bring in treats for our unit. Tada, mini cupcakes!

From Left to Right: Chocolate with butter cream flowers in yellow and pink, carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting, carrot cake (again), chocolate cake with peppermint butter cream

French Almond Macarons

alycakes — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:21:54 +0000

One of my biggest baking fans, A, asked if I could make macarons as her wedding favours. This was after she ate a macaron from a batch that I brought to work… which was the first batch I ever made. Thankfully, I found a really great (and forgiving and easy) recipe through Tartelette…. 400 macarons later, and I feel a bit more confident in make these delicious and pretty treats. Voila, lemon and vanilla macarons.

Resting before baking…

Blue vanilla ones…

Assembly..

Good to go!

Pecan Pie with Cream Cheese Crust

alycakes — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 17:14:09 +0000

I used the recipe by Martha Stewart’s November 2009 issue . It was pretty easy to make although I had some difficulty with getting the crust to hold together (I ended up adding a bit more water). I also cut down the sugar and upped the amount of pecans. It tastes really good!

I had left over crust so I made mini pecan tarts and scooped out some of the filling from the bigger pie before baking. I’m glad I did, otherwise this pie would have exploded! But how can an explosion of Pecan-goodness be a bad thing?

Cupcakes for United Way

alycakes — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 02:29:54 +0000

My dad asked me to bake cupcakes for him to sell at his work’s bake sale, where all proceeds would go to the United Way. Apparently the female coworkers loved them, and the male coworkers felt too uncomfortable to eat them.. they said they were too girly

welcome cake :)

alycakes — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:15:53 +0000

A welcome cake for the new physiatrist on site!

Two layered, fudgey chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting.

Strawberry Cupcakes

alycakes — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 19:10:41 +0000

Two dozen strawberry cupcakes with vanilla frosting ! I used both fresh strawberries and strawberry preserve. I think this one is a keeper.

Strawberry Cupcake Recipe

modified recipe from http://yummycakesbylynn.com/?p=204

Makes 12 cupcakes

2 tbsp strawberry jam or preserves
¼ cup finely chopped fresh strawberries
1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
1 ¼ tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
3/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup of unsalted butter, room temperature
3 egg whites, room temperature
1/2 tsp vanilla pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Position a rack in the middle of the oven
In a small bowl, stir together jam and chopped fresh strawberries.
In a second bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
Using mixer beat sugar and butter until light and fluffy, 2-3 mins. Add egg whites, ensuring that each egg white is incorporated before adding the next. (it might not come together if ingredients aren’t at room temperature. This happened to me so I just sit the bowl in some warm water to quickly temper the ingredients.. you really shouldn’t do this though, better to be patient and let things come to room temperature on their own!). Add vanilla (and food colouring if you want it to be more pink) and beat until combined. Add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with milk in two additions, and ending with dry ingredients, beating on low speed until just combined; scrape sides of bowl as needed. Fold in strawberry mixture until just combined. Don’t over mix or else the cupcakes might get tough!
Fill cupcake liners in your cupcake pans ¾ full. Bake about 23 minutes, until centers bounce back when touched or when toothpick inserted in center comes out clean or when edges brown a bit. Let the cupcakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes or the paper will fall away from the sides of your cupcakes. Transfer the cupcakes to the wire rack and let cool completely, about one hour before frosting.

Vanilla Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting

alycakes — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 02:22:30 +0000

First time using this recipe by Martha Stewart. I found the ‘fine crumb’ created by the cake flour a bit too fine for me, it was really crumbly and sort of fell apart when I cut the slices. Otherwise, it was moist, flavourful and tastey.

Blackberry, Lemon and Green Tea French Macarons

alycakes — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 02:20:20 +0000

I made macarons for the very first time the other week. After doing a lot of research on how to make the perfect macaron (and believe me, there are many websites out there describing the art of making macarons), I decided to try the recipe by Not So Humble Pie. I had some trouble with the shells being very brittle and under baked… so I will have to adjust the baking time accordingly next time. I added a few teaspoons of matcha powder, lemon zest and food colouring to each of the batters to make the flavours. The filling was buttercream and flavoured with either matcha powder, blackberry puree or lemon curd (from Trader Joes!) Anyways, here are some pictures.

Unfortunately, macarons make my mouth scratch so I wasn’t sure if they tasted any good as I didn’t try any. However, my coworkers really liked them… this was what was left after 15 minutes: