The Sugar Bar

The day starts with baking – Lemon Blueberry Cake
And breakfast was a yummy bowl of prawn mee & a treat from the pops - hainanese curry puff.

The loaf cake was up to standards. Nothing beats a good lemon cake that’s just bout moist enough. The blueberries chase away any bitterness from my overdosing of lemon zest and in my eyes, make it O! so pretty when i slice it up.
Having it hot straight from the oven beats it for me. The lemon glaze over the crust was perfect, with some of the sugar crystals solidifying again to give it a diamond-like gleam.

Mom was impressed.

In the afternoon, we headed off to Marriot Hotel for high tea. Gosh. Am i stuffed!
Think it was about round 4 or 5 that I decided I honestly had to move on to the dessert table before I pass out and hence, be forced to forego the really good stuff.
Now I was very nice about my dessert plate and didn’t fill it too much. I just wasn’t confident of my stuffin’ abilities anymore. It was getting to the point where the food was up to my neck going down my neck, so imagine — where would it go when you have gastronomical scarcity problem? YOU WILL BE SICK!
To avoid such an unladylike and unsightly mess, the plate was only 80% filled — check out the negative (white) spaces above. In clockwise order: chocolate mousse, strawberry tart, watermelon (trying to seem a little health-conscious), banana crumble (oooh this was sexy) and the ultimate coffee cake (fuckin’ good)
i was very impressed with the coffee cake. it was unbelievable. it was rich and espresso-ey. the cream wasn’t too overpowering and did a good job of toning down the hit of the coffee. the cake was moist enough but held up well and was so light and fluffy. i was terribly tempted to grab some more. but the only problem was that my tummy was beginning to show and not out of pregnancy from my ricesack of a top. Despite being prepared, I just am not made for buffets!!! One day, I want someone to erase any idea of ‘buffet’ from the face of this earth! It’s just not right. It’s too much of a temptation and epicurean for a person like me. LOL.

Well, today was a feasting day for me. I shall not regret it! Maybe tmr though. when I get up in the morning: instead of feeling refreshed and beautiful, I’ll feel bloated and spotty.

Someone love me despite this?

A couple of weeks back, I made a Chocolate Blueberry Loaf Cake for my Marshall group of fellow scholars but was unable to attend the dinner gathering & bring along my sweet goody. The cake turned out really great. I was afraid it might taste a little strange cos of the wet blueberries which I’ve always associated with trifles, muffins and really..not tea loaf cakes. (for the recipe & pictures, you can scroll down to the end of this entry) Ever since, I’ve been feeling terribly guilty and thus, today’s special which will be served to you guys tmr! I was feeling very kiddyish and played around with blue, green and pink! Finally…a time to stop being so stressed abt everything going on around me so I can just be quirky and whimsical. I had the best time of my life in the kitchen today, whipping and beating and fiddling around with hundreds & thousands. After all that effort, I do hope my marshall pals love em……..yikes.

The recipe for these cupcakes were the very basic vanilla cupcakes I’ve always used. The next time round I’m gonna try another recipe I found in this month’s Donna Hay magazine under cupcake coutoure section, which uses rose water and some other interesting stuff. I’ve always wondered how exciting cupcakes can be because it pretty much uses the same kind of ingredients but every time I check out Cupcake Bakeshop’s webbie, I can only say she proves me wrong ALL THE TIME. She uses ingredients like pistachio cream, tea, etc. It’s really amazing how she gets so creative with something so beautifully simple & satisfying like cupcakes. I’m inspired to experiment as well..but of course, my laziness is such a deeply-set flaw in me that it hinders any progress I wish to make. HEH. In time to come, I suppose. For now, let me just enjoy rainbow coloured, silly looking cupcakes for all its worth..:)

I was a little surprised with my buttercream today. I’ve been using the usual Magnolia’s buttercream recipe for all cupcakes that I make and this time round I believe I probably threw in too much butter. It got a little difficult to beat, and it kept making disgusting slapping sounds. I remedied this problem with a lot more milk than usual, so my buttercream this time round was very glossy, sometimes bordering on an oily look. The colouring solved that too as it made it slightly less obvious. If it was van, think she wouldn’t mind the butter at all….Butter Republic! It’s sooo her.

* Baking Tip of the Day : Should you run out of self-rising flour (like I did today), there are 2 ways to substitute it.

1) 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 1/2tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine salt –> this gives you 1 cup self-rising

2) 2 cup cake flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine salt –> this gives you 2 cup self-rising

I went with the first method cos that’s the substitute I’ve been using all this while. Am pretty unsure how my cupcakes would turn out if I used cake flour in addition to the plain flour in the rest of the recipe. Suppose it’ll be of a fluffier texture? If any one knows how cake flour can change the texture, do drop me a comment.

Chocolate Blueberry Loaf Cake (adapted from Lisa Yockelson’s Choc Chip-Banana Tea Cake)

Ingredients

2 cups flour

2 tsp cocoa ( I used Cadbury’s this time round)

1/2 tso baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup semi sweet choc chips, miniature sized

8 tbs unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 punnet washed, dried fat fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 180dCelsius.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda and salt.

Cream the butter for 3 min. Add granulated sugar in two additions, beating for 2 min after each portion. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in the vanilla extract. Scrape down bowl, then add the sifted mixture in two additions, beating on low. Stir in the chocolate chips and fold in the blueberries. Spoon into prepared loaf pan, mounding slightly in the centre.

Bake for 1hr. Cool loaf in pan for 10min then remove it from pan. Cool completely. Be patient after this, let cake mellow for 2-3hrs before cutting into slices for serving. You can wrap in clingwrap if keeping overnight, this locks in the flavours very well. **bake & serve within 2 days**

I’m too much of a chocolate fan to leave it out of something like blueberry muffins. Hence, this recipe which you’ll see produces beautiful muffins that have fat blueberries bleedin into the muffins and taste great with these dark chocolate chips.
My tummy has recently been calling out for blueberries and the markets have of late also been bringing in some punnets of fat blueberries so i simply couldn’t resist.

Honestly, I think i’m a person with pretty traditional taste buds so if you start to realise that most of the stuff i make on this blog tend to be the really simple classic stuff, don’t hold it against me. I’m a lazy baker and a traditional one who seldom veers away from the good ol’ stuff. And yea..i’m only eighteen so i’m still experimenting and discovering
Anyway, these muffins were really great. They came out big and firm with a nice crusty bite. The insides were real solid in that each bite didn’t feel like it was 60% air. I never like muffins that are too light or fluffy because then I feel it doesn’t pack a punch. I like my muffins big, generous and full of flavour. So this recipe was a big hit with myself, and my sisters. My dog was quite blown away too, though she didn’t eat the chocolate bits cause she can’t. The cinnamon i added into the batter didn’t come out strong enough but i guess it’s alright cause I still wanted the blueberries and the dark chocolate to be the stars of the show.

So here’s the recipe. I trust that it’s a no-fail one and it really uses simple ingredients. You can’t go wrong with this.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 white sugar (don’t be too generous with this)
a pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup canola oil
1 large egg
cinnamon sugar (you can prepare this yourself with your own measurements. I used storebought cinnamon sugar)
1/3 cup full-cream milk
a punnet blueberries
dark chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 200dCelsius. Grease your muffin cups. I used medium sized ones but for real giants, use the texas muffin cups!!
Combine your flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Make a well in the centre.
Place the oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg (already whipped) and enough milk to fill the cup to the brim. Pour into the well and mix with flour mixture. Do not overmix or the batter will become overly stiff.
Fold in the blueberries. Add a few shakes of cinnamon sugar (approx 1 tsp) and as much dark chocolate as you like. The more the merrier i’d say but not too much that you can’t taste the blueberries any more.
Fill the muffin cups all the way, do not be afraid that the muffins would end up too heavy and rise in an ugly fashion. These turned out just fine like perfect volcanoes.