A Triple Celebration

For a last-minute double-birthday celebration over the Chinese New Year festival,Wei whipped up a classic chocolate cake with dark chocolate ganache glaze. Thank goodness, the ingredients for chocolate cake are almost a staple in the pantry. But due to the lack of time, the usual decoration was lacking. 

Not to worry, her resourceful friends grabbed a bunch of crunchy cashew nuts, a Chinese new year goodie, and started to lay them around the cake. Creative eh?! Tasted good too! The savoury nuts added a crunch and enhanced the taste of the chocolate with a bit of saltiness. 

Sounds like we found a new cake flavour! :)

What we made:

• Chocolate whole cake
• Decorated with crunchy cashew nuts and frosted with dark chocolate ganache

Dark Chocolate Brownies

Dark, dense and delicious...

Teeth sinking into luscious, fudgey chocolately goodness...

Can you tell that we have a slight weakness for brownies? :)

Sel made this latest batch of brownies for her New Year's Eve countdown gathering with her friends; it was a hit, especially since she made it with intensely dark chocolate, tonnes of chocolate chips and a handful of toffee bits. She also topped it with chocolate buttercream - although unfortunately the icing turned out to be a tad too sweet!

Happy New Year, everyone! We hope that you'll have a sweet, wonderful and amazing year ahead!

What we made:

• Dark Chocolate Brownies 
• Decorated with Chocolate Buttercream

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

This year Wei decided to personalise her christmas gifts. Dug out a recipe for pepparkakor biscuits that she "koped" from IKEA last year and made her friends some colourful rice-sprinkled spiced biscuits. Created a mix of other flavours by adding some candy cane mint and chocolate chip too.

See recipe after the break.

Note from Wei: Frankly I found the spices too strong so it was good to mix it up with some chocolate. Or cut the spice, up to you!

Daph & Nick : Sweet '60s Wedding Party

Photos taken by Eng Hong @ www.39eastimages.com

Sel went way back with Daphne, when they attended the same tuition agency in JB in their secondary school days.

We were delighted when Daphne extended an invitation to attend her wedding, as well as provide cakes for the occasion! And boy, a themed-wedding party! Sounds fun! :)

The theme was set to a 1960s theme with a very sweet pastel colour palette. The bride generously allowed us to propose the design and after diving into a very exciting 60s--lots of patterns and colours--we decided to go with Mod circles. See more photos after the break, shared by friends and photographers at the wedding.

Featured: Simply Her, April 2011

Sel was a writer for the local women's mag, Simply Her, for over a year, and part of her job scope was to feature recipes from local and foreign bakers. For this issue, she featured celebrity chef Rachel Allen's recipe for red velvet cake (and apparently it was a thrill to meet her as well!)... but since the chef had to rush home for back-to-back press conferences, Sel made the cake for the photoshoot!

The cake itself was luscious and moist, with a hint of cocoa, and complemented the sweetness of the frosting well. Sel went for a denser cake, which was still soft, but meant that anyone who tried the cake (those lucky colleagues!) were full after just a small slice. The perfect choice for afternoon tea after the shoot.

What we made:

• Red Velvet Cake
• Decorated with home-made white frosting

Superman, Two Ways

For two consecutive years, our friend asked us to make a superman cake for her partner's birthday cake.

We tried two different ways - both seem to work well and taste good too! :)

Which one do you think is better? 

Birthday Cupcakes

Running out of ideas what to gift a friend on his/her birthday? Why not send a box of cupcakes? That seems like a good idea to some of our friends. We made their day with some beautiful and yummilicious cupcakes! Check them out in the photos below:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

Our colleague's daughter had colourful polka dotted chocolate cuties for her 12th birthday party while Stephanie had hers with her name written on them (it was a surprise delivery!).

Another friend was treated to a dark chocolate cupcakes, our signature now, and vanilla cupcakes with italian meringue buttercream. That buttercream was quite major work but it was soooooo good.

What we made:

• Dark Chocolate Cupcakes, decorated with Dark Chocolate Ganache and colourful Sprinkles
• Dark Chocolate Cupcakes, decorated with Piped Buttercream Lettering 
• Dark Chocolate Cupcakes, decorated with Italian Meringue Buttercream 
• Vanilla Cupcakes, decorated with Italian Meringue Buttercream