Football design birthday cake

It is my son, Ryan's 10th birthday. He's into soccer now and I promised to bake him a football design cake. Here it is! The design looks not too bad for a first time attempt at decorating a cake using buttercream. I baked him a vanilla-flavoured sponge cake with strawberry fresh cream filling. It is then topped up with buttercream piped into a football design. Personally, I think a chocolate sponge cake will taste much better than vanilla. But Ryan wanted a different flavour.

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Awfully Chocolate Cake

Baked this yummy-licious chocolate cake for little Alaina's birthday as requested by Celia. Have been trying to bake something close to Awfully Chocolate chocolate fudge cake. I must say I am happy with my cake this time. The cake comprises a layer of thick chocolate fudge sandwiched between two layers of soft and moist chocolate sponge cake. Top it up with Varlhona chocolate ganache and it's simply delicious. Decorated it simply with rainbow sprinkles and strawberries and it looks beautiful. Hope little Alaina will love it.

Chocolate Strawberry Cake

It is my niece, Adele's 8th birthday today. I baked a chocolate strawberry cake as requested by my sister. It consists of 2 layers of chocolate sponge cake sandwiched with chocolate mousse and sliced strawberries. It is then topped off with a layer of chocoate ganache decorated with strawberries and raspberries. Hope Adele will love it. Happy Birthday!

Here's a slice of the cake.

Durian Puffs & Chocolate Eclairs

Doris has so kindly requested me to bake durian puffs and chocolate eclairs for her grand nephew's 6-yr old birthday. Thank you Doris. It was quite a huge job for a real first order. It took me 3/4 of a day to complete everything. Although it was tiring, it was very satisfying.
Making the durian puffs was easy. Just need to remove the durian flesh and mix it with whipping cream. The making of the chocolate eclairs was much more tedious. First, I have to make the chocolate pastry cream (from Pierre Herme's recipe), followed by the chocolate sauce and chocolate glaze. But the result was fantastic. The chocolate cream and glaze were simply divine. Well worth the effort. But I need to work on glazing the puff better.

Chendol Agar-agar

Have been wanting to make this for a long time but was too lazy to do it as it takes a long time to cook the red beans. Since I have coconut milk and chendol in the fridge and they have to be used before they expire, I finally get to make it. I got this recipe from the Sunday Lifestyle and it was pretty easy to make. I'm happy with the taste. It's not too sweet with enough coconut and gula-melaka fragrance. I used a 7" by 7" cake tin for half the recipe. Will use a smaller tin next time for the same amount of recipe in order to have a taller agar-agar.

Blueberry Muffins

I baked some blueberry muffins for my son, Ryan to bring to school to eat during his recess time break. This boy is so passionate about football now that he would rather play than queue for his food during recess time. Now, he has no excuse for not eating. Have his muffin first and off to football! Baked some extras too for my three lovely golf friends (Janet Ting, Janet Sim and Christine) to enjoy during our game. Weather was fantastic and we had a good time.
This recipe was taken from Rose Levy Beranbaum Bread Bible. I reduced the amount of sugar by 10% and it's perfect.