Grant's Birthday

I've been seriously behind on my posting... but at least now the numbers have been updated, look! I've doubled my second goal already... and argh! there's only 10 days to go >>>

Okay, back to this post...
13 September 2010

After tasting the mocha cupcakes I made, Grant came over to my desk and asked if I could make a mocha cake for his upcoming birthday. I immediately marked it on my baking calender. On the night of baking, I procrastinated a bit and didn't start in the kitchen until quite late. Having already made the mocha cupcakes before I thought making it into a big cake shouldn't be a problem, except it was, kind of.... the cake crowned and cracked a bit on top, but was nothing some coffee buttercream couldn't fix. I did a simple design with thin layers of melted dark chocolate "plates" and some cocoa dusting, the texture of the cake was moist as it had a lot of almond meal in the batter.

I used to be against buttercreams (some say and thinks it's fake cream), it's the  fat content of butter that turns me off a little, but I have since discovered how butter is made (if you beat fresh cream long enough it turns into butter!!!!) so it's essentially all the same thing, so now I think buttercream can taste pretty nice... especially in the opera cake and this cake :) The coffee aroma was really strong, the birthday boy said he can't resist the smell.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANT!

Meanwhile, Sathiya also ordered a random cake to treat the office... okay, maybe it wasn't random, the excuse was to celebrate the approval of his wive's visa to Australia!!!!! I said I wasn't going to take on anymore cake orders due to exhaustion/lack of sleep... unless it was something easy for work. He pretty much let me decide what to make and I baked it with Grant's cake to feed the hungry crowd.

I made my favourite mixed berry yoghurt cake with lemon cream cheese.. it looks darker than it actually is in the photo. Great response for the cakes.

Thanks Sathiya for supporting the campaign :)

My favourite family

the humble hazelnut torte with chocolate shavings

Remember Elise the Superstar? The girl I met once at a friend's wedding. Through this campaign, I've also met her extended family and I really wanted to make a special mention about her family coz they're cool and have not only been extremely supportive but also understanding of my status in regards to personal health, monitoring my blog closely (I felt they actually cared *tears of joy*)...

the Jamieson family

Anyway, Elise's visiting mother ordered a Hazelnut Torte for their family dinner. I have never made one before, so I did some research and a practice run a week before to test it out. The difference between a cake and a torte is that a torte is made from more nut to flour ratio-wise as compared to a cake :) great to know as I wasn't sure if a torte was suppose to be thin or tall - I guess it doesn't matter! I food processed the roasted hazelnuts myself which was interesting leaving some nuts in shape for texture.

cake taking centre stage

When I met Elise's mum and sister on the cake pickup day, it was quite weird to be honest as I waited at the corner of the street as they approached me, total strangers, like a drug deal. We exchanged hand-shakes and it was like meeting a fan, Leanne looked real excited and said how wonderful her family thinks of my campaign blah blah blah. I handed over the cake in a box and I told her how great I thought her family was :))))))

look she even took a cross section for me!

She not only donated US$50 for the cake on my campaign page, she also handed me $30 for baking ingredients on the day..... I guess wonderful people raise wonderful kids, I realised where Elise had gotten her generosity from.

And here's an email Leanne wrote me which I don't think I got a chance to reply yet (oops!) but this post has been long due...

Hello Amy

It was lovely to meet you on Friday. Thank you for your patience with us, we didn't park in the most convenient place.

The cake was lovely and enjoyed by everyone. We had it with a dollop of Creme Friache - very nice. There are some photos floating around somewhere which I'm sure you will see some time. The cake looked lovely as the table centrepiece and tasted great too. It finished off a night of great company, great food and good wine.

Congratulations on the whole project. You can feel really proud of your charity work. We are all so pleased to have been a small part of it. Well done.

Cheers

Leanne

THANK YOU Leanne, it was a pleasure for me to bake for your family despite my complaints about not getting enough sleep etc... I get really energised when I feel people actually care about the cause, so I was excited to bake this cake although Elise repeatedly asked whether I could handle the load :))) I had fun and learnt something about tortes!

I'd also like to say thanks to Amanda - Elise's aunty here again as I didn't take photos of the carrot banana cake that I baked for her daughter's birthday... She sent me a photo of the half eaten cake but I'm not very tech savvy and have no idea how to download the photo from my mobile...

The Boss's Birthday

10 September 2010

the boss's autograph

It was Bruce's birthday on Friday. He had commissioned me to cater for the occasion in support of my campaign a month ago but forgot about it and asked me again last week... busy man that one... so I had to remind him that he had already done that and actually wrote it down on a piece of paper with his autograph, luckily I took a photo for evidence.

the line up

Anyway, I had to ensure to cater enough for the whole office which stressed me out a little, unsurprisingly I didn't get much sleep. Originally I planned to bake the opera cake as the "main" cake, except I think I'm a bit over the opera cake having made it twice already... I did a tiramisu cake instead and a couple of cakes I've made previously and had confident they wouldn't fail at 1am in the morning, that would of been a stressful nightmare...

tiramisu cake

So lined up in the board room ready for Friday staff morning tea was the caramel cashew topped brownie cake, everyone's favourite carrot cake with lemon cream cheese (which disappeared real fast), cheesecake with strawberry and mango passionfruit sauce and the pink strawberry lamingtons. I've never made lamingtons from scratch before, but since coming across it on the internet I've been itching to make it and finally got the opportunity to :)))

It was a big turn out at morning tea, we haven't had so many people show up (come down from level 3) for a while now. Good to know, people love their cake!

Unfortunately, Bruce was late for his own birthday being stuck at a meeting, no photos of the birthday boy... He arrived after half of his cakes were gone...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOSS!

strawberry lamingtons made at 1 in the morning..

heidi nomnom nom nom

a line-up!

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Okay, here it is Sushma, recipe for the brownie cake FINALLY.... sorry for the two month delay...
Recipe adapted from Dorie Greenspan's - Baking
unfortunately the photo is a bit yellow due to the lighting...

gooey caramel ... dangerous!

for the cake
1 cup Plain flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
115g unsalted butter
300g bittersweet chocolate coarsely chopped
3 large eggs
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

for the topping
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2/3 cup thickened cream
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup salted peanuts (or any nuts you like)

preparation
preheat oven 180degrees
butter 8 inch round springform mould (I just used a silicon mould butter and lined)

• whisk flour, baking soda and salt together.
• heat in small saucepan chocolate and butter until just melted, remove from heat
• in a large bowl whisk eggs and sugars together until well blended. whisk in corn syrup, followed by the vanilla.
• whisk in the melted butter and chocolate, still working with the whisk gently stir in dry ingredients mixing only until incorporated. you will have a thick, smooth, shiny batter. pour the batter into the pan and jiggle the pan a bit to even out the batter.
• bake the cake for 40-45minutes until skewer inserted in the centre comes out almost clean (okay to have some moist crumbs clinging to the skewer)
• transfer pan to a rack and cool cake for 15 minutes, then run a blunt knife between the cake and the pan and remove it, cool cake to room temperature.
• to make the topping: put the sugar, water and corn syrup in a medium heavy bottomed saucepan, stir just to combine the ingredients and then put the pan over med-high heat. heat without stirring until the caramel turns deep amber colour, 5 to 10 minutes. Don't be timid about the colour, if it's too pale it won't have much taste. lower the heat a bit the caramel will bubble and spatter, add the cream and butter. when the spatters "calms down" a bit, stir to dissolve any lumps. Stir in the nuts and pour the caramel and nuts onto the cake before serving. You've probably got more caramel than you need, but you want to get all the nuts on the cake. spoon the nuts out of the hot caramel and onto the cake. spoon enough caramel to cover all the nuts.

I see the end of the tunnel...

First of all sorry to my loyal fans of this campaign/blog... I've been caught up, you know going out on the weekends, catching up on a few movies, sleeping a little more than usual, and still clearing cake orders... but haven't had the energy to update this blog yet, there are a few posts lined up... be patient :)

Anyway, I just wanted to quickly announce and remind everyone.. coz I haven't been very organised (nor had the actual time to do this), some may be confused about the "cost of attendance" since changes have been made in response to the unresponsiveness ... about the PICNIC that's coming up this SATURDAY!

I'm really not too fussed about it anymore, it came a bit too quickly, stressing over not having time to bake/cook/make water bombs is just too stressing, so it's going to be a casual day out, a picnic coz I like them and water bombs coz they can be cool. Invite anyone you wish, but I'd like to know numbers to cater for. Donations are now optional, but it's still a charity event, I would be pissed off if everyone takes advantage of the free food. But if you have nothing better to do on the day I hope to see you there, I just want everyone to have some fun, some cake, some sun, chuck a few water bombs around or at each other or at annie, eat some more cake and help spread the word about the global water crisis, if you can, it'll make you feel fuzzy.

There'll be an anonymous donation jar for anyone who wishes to donate on the day.
Let me know before Friday, whenever, actually I don't care.

That's all from me, for now.
Be fuzzy.

x. amy

Goal # 2 - a piece of cake!

Just a quick one..... I think I've already reached my second goal! (not deducting ingredient expenditure ofcourse). I haven't been monitoring closely everyday like I was with my first goal... but I knew when I started Goal #2 that it would be reached without too much trouble with the cake orders I had lined up. But most of the donations this time came from baking outside of my office.

Just adding the numbers up quickly but there's too many coins to count, I'll have to do a proper count over the weekend... but today was a massive muffin day which made a big difference :)
I'll write more detailed posts and post up pretty photos about the support outside of work when I get some sleep first!

Update - The amount raised is now up to date! (the exchange rate seems better after the election!) I've indeed reached my 2nd goal.. a few advance cake order payments for upcoming cakes, but still, good achievement... and powering on!!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR BEING APART OF THIS JOURNEY!

Meanwhile, I think spitting out my muffin in front of me (a little too dramatic maybe?) and making the comments you made is mega rude. YOU probably wouldn't be reading this, but I still need an outlet so I'm going to write it anyway. If you want to eat muffin break muffins or ultra sugary muffins with thick frosting, go buy it elsewhere. I am not customizing my muffin to suit your taste buds, it may be a truthful criticism I'm happy to accept but rudeness is not tolerated. Some people don't seem to remember the reason why I'm sacrificing sleep, time and giving up my birthday and probably a nice holiday as well. I'm not baking for myself nor for people who are just taking advantage of the whole charity campaign and the honesty system! It's really not worth my effort donating all ingredients and barely recovering the costs to go towards building wells - I might as well donate directly as some have mentioned. So why am I still baking? I'm baking for the people I like and who actually genuinely support my campaign. Seriously, if you don't like what I bake, if you can't afford the price I set for my cakes ($2.70!!!) it's pretty easy just DON'T EAT IT!. Go downstairs and pay $4 for something you'd like. Don't say you'll eat it coz you're hungry when you've already cringed and said how awful or "not to standards" it tastes. I'm not sure who's doing who a favour here, the cake eater or the baker?! I never intended to make cakes inedible and spit-out quality, but if you really want a refund go take it out of the box that's cool. I really think those ingredients I have invested for that particular muffin was wasted on you, something that was intended for the mud drinking kids.


I wish I could swear here..... but I guess I need to keep this family rated lol.... but no, I was not happy today with one particular rude person. That is all. I don't stay angry for too long, I'm over it. It's all part of the experience :)

It's not easy to please everyone's palette with the same batch of muffins!

Update - I've become a caaaaaalmer person today hence the massive crossing out of last night's rant. It's difficult to like some people, but I'm getting more out of this whole experience than I had anticipated, which is great :) It is just one person out of the many positive responses I get, I'm not going to stress over the details.