Snorlax Chiffon Cake with Ultraball

Look what I caught!! ;) Hehe...

This is a cute 3D Snorlax made from blue pea flowers vanilla chiffon cake that I just made for my dear friend's son's birthday! I used almost 100 dried flowers for this cake and only a pinch of charcoal powder for the shade. The Snorlax body is baked in a doll cake tin, the head from a glass bowl (Iwaki, 11 mm), 2 ears from paper cones, and the arms from swissrolls (with some carving). I baked a vanilla chiffon sheet cake to cut out the white patch for the face and tummy, which was glued on using melted marshmallows. Just to share some pictures of the process. The right is the cake I used for the body and the left is the cake I used for the head and ears.

Can you guess how I did the spikes? Yes, by baking the vanilla chiffon in more paper cones. Quite tedious hehe. The feet was from 2 more bowls.

The Ultraball was made similar to my Pokeball, but replacing the raspberry jello with charcoal powder, and baking an additional yellow sheet cake for the 'H'.

Made with lots of love, thankful the cake was very well-received!

With lots of love,
Susanne

 Newest labour of love! 

Coming to you in mid-Sept!

For those who have pre-ordered, you can collect from 9 Sept to 10 Sept, and those who opted for delivery will have theirs sent on 9 Sept! Hope you enjoy these loving creations!

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Soccerball Macarons (no refrigeration required)

Here are my soccerball macarons along with the request for soccerball cookies :)

As refrigeration was an issue for storage and these macs have to be displayed outdoors in hot and humid Singapore, I chose fillings that can withstand higher temperatures - dark chocolate, white chocolate and peanut butter!

Simple white round shells were baked for the base so I will not go into details for making the shell. You may refer to this post for making white shells (just use regular icing sugar unless you want rose scented shells). Just use a Wilton #12 round tip  (about 6mm hole) to pipe circles. Use a template under the baking sheet for more regular circles.

Freshly baked shells!

In order to make many soccerballs with the right patterns, you need to use a template. I made one out of clear plastic cut out from a plastic file.

Wash the template and dry it before using it on the macaron shells.

Place the template over the shell and use an edible black marker to trace out the pentagons. Carefully lift off the template so as not to smudge the ink that is still wet on the shell.

Fill in the lines connecting all the corners of the pentagons to form hexagons.

This was how many I had to make!

You may fill in the pentagons with black marker, leaving your final product icing-free. But I find that icing the shells with black royal icing looks better. I coloured the icing with charcoal powder. Use a very fine tip (Wilton 1s) to pipe on the patterns.

Let the icing air-dry completely before filling them. For the peanut butter filling, simply fill a ziplock/piping bag with some of it, snip a corner off and pipe onto the shells. For the chocolate, choose any of your favourite chocolate bar for eating (I used Meiji), chop it up finely and melt over a double boiler or in a microwave oven. If you are using the microwave oven, heat the chocolate at bursts of 10 seconds at medium high power, stirring in between bursts of heating until you get a smooth paste. If the chocolate is runny, let it sit on the counter for a while until it firms up to piping consistency (slightly runnier than peanut butter) before transferring into a piping bag.

You may refrigerate assembled macarons for 15 minutes to let the chocolate firm up if you want to speed things up.

Filling up some shells

This is one of the easier fancy macarons to make since you only have round shells to pipe. Give it a try if you are planning for some soccer themed party :). These were very well received!


With love,
Phay Shing

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Soccer Ball Brown Sugar Cookies

I have a request for bakes after a soccer match that can withstand outdoor display in hot and humid Singapore for some time. The best candidate is of course brown sugar cookies! These cookies are yummy and are baked using a cookie recipe that is adapted from gingerbread houses, which do very well staying out in the open for a long time.

I made these soccerball cookies along with some soccerball macarons! Macarons with "heat-resistant" fillings of course :p.

A corner of the soccer field with soccer ball as centerpiece display

Brown sugar cookie and royal icing recipe can be found here. I used charcoal to colour black.

I rolled the cookie dough to 6mm thick. The cookie cutouts are about 6.5cm in diameter using a round cookie cutter.

Here's how I iced the soccerball design on the cookies. It's best to let the cookies rest for a day after baking before icing them.

I made a soccerball template using clear plastic cut out from a file. Cut out the pentagons with a sharp knife. Use black edible marker to trace and fill the soccer design.

Ice the cookies with black royal icing using a Wilton #2 tip. Start by tracing the outlines drawn above. Let the outlines dry before filling.

Fill the pentagons with black icing. Next, fill the hexagons with white icing.

Dry the cookies in the oven for about half an hour to an hour with the fan on but heat turned on only for a few seconds at the lowest setting. You may dry them in aircon room overnight too. Store the cookies in airtight container. They can keep for a month.

Make the centerpiece by baking a large round cookie. Make the corner flag by icing a red triangle with a lollipop/ cakepop stick at the side on a baking sheet. Make sure the icing covers the entire stick that is in contact with the icing. Dry overnight or in the oven for a couple of hours with the fan on. Do not attempt to remove from the baking sheet until you are very sure it is dry. Gently peel the baking sheet off to avoid breaking the flag.

Use a sharp object like a needle or toothpick to carefully make a hole in the cookie where the corner flag is supposed to go. Carefully insert the flag. Ice the corner marking with white icing. Let the white icing dry before adding the grass.

Add icing sugar to the royal icing prepared earlier for icing the balls to create a very stiff icing. Colour it green and use a Wilton #223 tip to pipe the grass on. I didn't have the tip when I piped so I used a #2 round tip. You can imagine my hand cramped by the time I was done with that patch of grass! Use this very stiff icing to secure the soccerball to the base cookie. If you prefer a firmer attachment, you may insert a short length of toothpick like I did.

Let the whole assembly dry overnight before storing in airtight container.

These cookies were very well received as usual :). Do give this easy cookie recipe a try. So far all the reviews have been good!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Rainbow Polka dot 'One' Chiffon Cake

This is a rainbow polka dot 'One' chiffon cake for my friend's baby turning 1 year old!! Her baby loves balls hence she chose the polka dots. I'm getting excited myself as Feb draws near. It's been a joy to watch baby Charissa and her friends grow :).

With love,
Susanne

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Liverpool Football Vanilla-Pandan Chiffon Cake

This is a Liverpool FC-themed chiffon cake for my friend's hubby who is a Liverpool fan! The colour theme is hence green and red like the club logo and decorated with a football on a green field with a Liverpool red scarf :).

I wasn't confident with painting balls so I decided to cut hexagons and pentagons from layer vanilla chiffon cakes (black and white) and paste it on a ball vanilla chiffon cake after studying how the footballs looked (using melted marshmallows). The scarf was also cut from a swissroll-type layer chiffon cake, with tapering at the ends. 

The green base is pandan chiffon cake similar to Olaf pandan chiffon cake (scroll to the bottom). I tried Bake King pandan paste this time (in addition to fresh pandan juice) and found the green colour a lot brighter than the Redman brand.

Thank God my friend shared her nieces and nephew all loved the cake!

Happy blessed birthday to Roy!

With love,

Susanne

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Milk and Honey Vanilla Soccer Ball Chiffon Cupcakes

My younger kid's busmate would like some soccer ball cupcakes for his birthday so I made these mini soccer balls!

Soccerballs resting on a pandan flavoured chiffon turf!

I adapted the recipe from the soccer ball cupcakes I made a few months ago but with honey added for extra flavour and moisture.

Susanne lent me her set of silicone cakepop moulds and I had the honor of being the first one to use it :p. As chiffon cakes cling to the sides of the ungreased container they are baked in, I didn't dare to try baking spherical balls of chiffon cupcakes as it would be really challenging to unmould the cakes from the mould. I decided to bake them as hemispheres instead. You may use glass or metal moulds with round bottoms to make these too.

Dissolve some cocoa powder and charcoal powder in cool boiled water to make black paint. Make the soccer ball designs on the cakes using the carrot stamper, a toothpick and fine brush. Store the painted balls in air tight container to let the paint dry. I didn't have huge flat containers so I left the balls on a tray placed in jumbo ziplock bag.

Aren't they cute? The baking part is easy but to print many soccer balls is quite a lot of work and requires much patience. I had to make 28 balls but there was enough batter for 40.

All packed and ready to party!

With love,
Phay Shing

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Soccer Ball Vanilla Chiffon Cupcake

Now that World Cup is ongoing, I thought it would be fitting to turn plain vanilla chiffon cupcakes made from my previous bake's leftover batter into cute little soccer balls!

You may use any of our vanilla chiffon recipes for this but for your convenience, I shall type it out here. I baked these in glass bowls with round bottoms that are about 8.5cm in diameter and 6.5cm in height.

Ingredients (makes 6-8 soccer ball cupcakes):

2 egg yolks (65g eggs)

10g caster sugar

26g canola oil

46g fresh milk

1/8 tsp salt

3/4 tsp vanilla extract

48g cake flour

3 egg whites

1/5 tsp cream of tartar

24g caster sugar

Charcoal powder*

Milk powder

Hot water

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.

2. Whisk egg yolks and sugar until pale and foamy. Add in oil and whisk until well combined. Add in milk, salt and vanilla extract. Gradually whisk in flour until no trace of flour is seen.

3. In a grease-free metal bowl, beat egg whites until foamy with electric mixer. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar and beat until stiff peaks form and the bowl can be overturned without the meringue falling out.

4. Fold meringue into egg yolk batter in three additions gently but quickly. Tap the bowl on table to release any air bubbles. Fill the glass bowls until they are about 2/3 full.

5. Bake for 15 minutes followed by 150 degrees Celsius for 10-15 minutes. Invert the bowls on cooling rack. If the peak of the cake is above rim of bowl, wait for it to shrink a bit before overturning it to cool.

6. Unmould the cakes by hand when cooled.

7. Prepare black milk powder paint by mixing some charcoal powder with milk powder in a small bowl. Gradually add hot water until desired consistency is reached. Cut a small pentagon from a slice of carrot and use a small brush to apply some paint on it. Stamp the carrot stamper on the middle of the cake to make the first imprint. Add more black paint onto cake if the imprint is faint. Draw black lines extending outwards from each corner of pentagon. Use the carrot stamper to make a ring of imprints at the end of each line. Continue painting lines until you get a soccer ball pattern covering the whole cake. Let the paint dry in an air tight container before placing in cupcake liners and serving.

My kids had fun eating these "balls" now that they have finished the black glutinous rice cake I made yesterday :).

With love,
Phay Shing

*If you can't get hold of charcoal powder easily, you can still make the soccer ball print using cocoa powder dissolved in a bit of water until you get the right consistency for painting.

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