Cheese Cake - unbaked method

Ingredients: (Make four cheese cake)
(1)
500g cream cheese
150g sugar

(2)
400g fresh milk
9 egg yolk

(3)
45g gelatin
100g water

(4)
lemon juice from 1 lemon
500g whipped cream

2 sponge cake (can replace with any kind of biscuit. Usually Graham cracker and Oreo. I used Munchy's Marie)

Method:
1. Place cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment (you can use a hand mixer as well). Mix on low to break down the cream cheese for 30 seconds, and increase to medium speed for another 1 minute.


2. Mix gelatin with water in a bowl. Put the bowl in double pan. Stir to dissolve or until solution is clear, and allow to cool. Do not bring gelatin mixtures to a full boil or you risk losing its thickening properties.

3. Stir egg yolk with milk. Use double pan to warm the egg mixture until luke warm only. Be careful not to curdle the egg. Turn off the heat.

4. Stir in dissolved gelatin over eggs. Keep stirring until well-mixed.

 5. Beat in beaten cream cheese until smooth.

6. Add lemon juice in batter.

7. Sift mixture.

8. Whip double cream until peak form.

9. Spoon whipped cream into cream cheese batter. Use hand whisk to incorporate the batter.

8. Pour over sponge cake.

 9. Refrigerate for at least 6 hours to set or overnight for best result.

(I am confused here. Did the teacher place the sponge cake on top of the batter so that when he turned upside down, the cake will become the base of the cheese cake? What I could remember was, he sank the pan in the hot water and quickly lifted it up because by doing so, the side would have melted enabling the cake to come out of the pan. Do not leave in hot water for too long. Else too much cream would melt. )

When you are confident with the basic method, you can make some variation. Teacher chopped up some strawberry, along with strawberry puree, to mix with a portion of the batter. He laid 1 layer of basic batter, next layer he laid the portion with strawberry, and the top layer is the basic batter again.

Butter Cake - Creaming Method

There are three methods used in making butter cakes and the goal of each method is to incorporate the maximum amount of air into the batter (produces the volume and texture of the cake), to restrict the development of gluten in the flour (provides tenderness, texture and volume), and to have a uniform batter.

Ingredients:

1800g butter (or 1000g margarine and 800g butter) at room temperature

1200g castor sugar

1800g flour

milk powder

36 eggs

Note: butter, flour and eggs are of the same weight, while sugar is 70% of the weight

Method:

1. To begin, place the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl and start beating these two ingredients on low speed. 

Note: The creaming of the butter and sugar produces air bubbles in the fat created by the rubbing of the sugar crystals against the fat.  These holes will get larger and multiply as you continue beating. Starting on low speed and then gradually increasing the speed allows the air bubbles to form and strengthen. Starting at too high a speed could damage or break the fragile air bubbles which will cause the finished cake to be heavy with a compact texture. The goal is to have maximum aeration, that is, lots of air bubbles in the fat.  A well aerated batter means a cake with good volume and a soft crumb. Beating time can range anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes so be sure to follow your recipe. 

Butter and sugar have different jobs in cake making. Butter provides flavor, tenderizes the batter and provides volume.  Sugar, on the other hand, helps to tenderize the batter (slows down the gluten development in the flour) but also sweetens the batter, moistens the batter which helps keep the cake fresh, and helps with browning.

2. At the point where the butter and sugar mixture is light and fluffy, room temperature eggs are added. 

Note: (The use of cold eggs will reduce the volume of your finished cake.) You may have noticed that there may be curdling of the batter at this stage. This is caused by the addition of more liquid (eggs) than the batter can handle at one time.  Once the flour has been added it will smooth out the batter so don't worry. One solution is to add the eggs to the batter more slowly as opposed to one egg at a time as most recipes state. Lightly beating each egg first and then slowly adding the egg down the side of the bowl as the mixer is running will help. If you see curdling, stop adding the egg and beat the batter a little to smooth it out before continuing the addition of more egg.

Eggs play a major role in cake making. Not only do they add needed aeration to the batter, they also provide structure to the cake, help to bind the ingredients together, keep the cake moist, add flavor, and tenderness. 

3. Once the eggs have been combined and you have a smooth batter, flavorings, such as extracts are added.  The flour is then sifted with a leavening agent (baking powder/baking soda) and salt. This is done not only to aerate the flour and remove any lumps, but to evenly distribute the leavening agent and salt throughout the flour. If the leavening agent is not evenly distributed throughout the cake batter, holes in the baked cake can occur. Baking powder's role is to enlarge the bubbles created in the fat during the creaming of the fat and sugar.  

4. The flour mixture and room temperature liquid (milk, water, etc.) are added alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture to ensure a smooth and light batter. It is very important not to overmix the batter at this point. Over mixing will develop too much gluten in the flour and the result will be a tough cake. Mix only to incorporate the ingredients. The first addition of flour will be fully coated with the fat and does not form gluten, so it is a good idea to add the largest amount of flour in the first addition. When you add the liquid any uncoated flour will combine with the liquid and form gluten. Continue adding the flour and liquid alternately, making sure you mix on low speed just until blended. This will enable enough gluten to develop to provide structure but not enough to make a heavy and compact cake. 

Sponge Cake

The success of making sponge cake largely depends on the amount of air whisked into the mixture. There is no fixed time for beating the sponge cake mix and eggs. It depends on the type of cake mixer used. If using small cake mixer, it is better to use cold eggs and cold water from the fridge for easy rising.

You can also make swiss roll using the same recipe.
 

Oven: Preheat oven for 15 minutes before baking. 170/175 bake for 30 min

Ingredients:
1 kg sponge mix
1 kg eggs (about 20)
250ml water
250ml oil

Method:
1. Beat eggs lightly.

2. Put sponge cake mix flour into the beaten eggs.

3. Use low speed to mix into smooth batter.

4. Increase to high speed and beat batter until white and creamy.

5. Add water and continue to beat until light and fluffy.

6. To Test, use mixture to drip into a "O" shape and it can keep the shape for 10 seconds.

7. Use a plastic spatula and mix in the melted butter in ONE DIRECTION until well-combined.

DONT over-mix the mixture . If mixture starts to break up and turns watery, it means air bubbles have broken up and the cake texture will be coarse and hard.

8. Pour the mixture into a lined and greased baking tin, bake in a pre-heated oven at 180degC for 30 to35 minutes or until cooked and golden brown.

8. Remove and leave to cool.

Donut

Ingredients:
1 kg flour
11g yeast
340ml water
60ml full cream milk
2 eggs
180g margarine
160g sugar
10g salt
14g baking powder
nutmeg (optional)

Method:
1. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and freshly ground nutmeg.
 
2. In the bowl of your electric mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer), beat the eggs and sugar until thick and a pale yellow (about five minutes). Beat in the vanilla extract.  

3. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture (in three additions), with the milk and melted butter (in two additions), beginning and ending with the flour. (The batter will be quite soft.) 

4. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature about 30 minutes (or until batter is firm enough to roll).

5. Then place the dough on a floured surface, and with a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough to a thickness of about 1/4 inch (.5 cm). Cut the dough into rounds, using a lightly floured doughnut cutter or cookie cutter (will need a smaller cookie cutter to cut out the center "hole"). 

6. Place the doughnuts on a lightly floured baking sheet, lined with parchment or wax paper. Gather up the scraps, roll, and cut out remaining doughnuts. If you like, you can keep the donut holes to fry separately. Let the doughnuts sit at room temperature while you heat the oil.

7. Fry each side until golden brown, about 60 seconds per side. The doughnut holes will only take about 30 seconds per side. Carefully remove the doughnuts from the hot fat with the end of a wooden spoon, tongs, slotted spoon, bamboo chopstick, or Chinese skimmer. 

8. Place on a baking sheet lined with clean paper towels. Let the oil return to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) before adding more doughnuts. After the doughnuts have cooled about a minutes or two, you can roll them in granulated white sugar. Or let cool completely and then dust with powdered sugar or dip in the chocolate glaze.

Flaky Pastry

Ingredients:

oil dough
400g plain flour
200g shortening

water dough
600g plain flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
120g margarine
240g cold water

Method:
Prepare both type of pastry first. After that, we use water dough to wrap oil dough.

oil dough
1. Cut shortening into flour using a knife, then use your fingertips to rub the shortening into flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.

2. Gently knead into a dough.

water dough

1. Place the flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Use your fingertips to rub the margarine into the flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.
   
   
2. Add the cold water and use a round-bladed knife to stir until a dough forms. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface and gently knead until just smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest. 
3. Use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out the dough to a rectangle. Use a rolling pin to roll oil dough to make smaller rectangle. 
4. Place the oil dough in the centre of the water dough. Fold the end closest to you over the oil dough, then fold the opposite end over the top (the oil dough should now be enclosed in the dough).
5. Turn dough 90° clockwise and gently press edges together. Use a lightly floured rolling pin to gently tap to flatten oil dough. Roll out dough to a rectangle and repeat folding process as before. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.
6. Remove dough from the fridge and repeat rolling and folding process 2 more times. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest. Repeat rolling and folding process a further 2 times and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest. (Dough should have been folded and rolled 6 times altogether.)

Baked Cheese Cake

I love cheese cake. But cheese cake is full of cream cheese. And cream cheese contains at least 33% milk fat. 100g of cream cheese has 1,431 kJ (342 kcal).

I have eaten a lot of cakes, bread and buns in this 11 days of baking class. I'd better watch my diet.

A quick search brings me to http://www.8700.com.au/kj-explained/your-ideal-figure/ to check the KJ my body needs to maintain my weight.

It comes out to be 7800 KJ.

This measurement contain 13730KJ. It is 1.575kilo. We made 4 cake out of this.  Each cake is 3432KJ. Cutting into 6 slices, each slice contains 572KJ. It is 14% of the KJ intake for the day.

Ingredients:
250g cream cheese  (3577KJ)
125g butter (3890KJ)
100g castor sugar (1616KJ)

20g corn flour (1243KJ for both)
80g flour

10 egg yolk
10 egg white
150g castor sugar (2425KJ)
350ml milk (979KJ)
1 lemon

Temperature:
 170/180C

Method:
1. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, 100g sugar and butter until fluffy.
奶油奶酪一定要打至细腻无颗粒状；2、打好的奶酪放入冰箱冷藏；

2. Add eggs, 3 at a time, mixing well after each addition.

3. Make sure sugar has dissolved.

4. Sift flour and cornflour together twice. Add into the mixture.

5. Warm milk. Make sure bottom does not scald.

6. Pour cream cheese mixture into milk. Stir quickly so that it doesn't scald at the bottom. Once mixture starts to thicken, remove from heat. Keep stirring until temperature has come down.

7. Stir in lemon juice into the mixture.

8. Beat egg white and castor sugar. Do not overbeat.

9. Add in egg white to mixture. Do not beat. Mix well.
将之前拌好的奶酪蛋黄糊倒入蛋白中 ，用橡皮刮刀翻起，切拌均匀（切忌画圈）。然后倒入模具中（模具四壁涂抹黄油），轻敲一下。烤盘中放水（水浴法），放入预热200度的烤箱烤15分钟，然后降到180度烤15分钟。再降到150度烤30分钟。室温或冷藏定型后取出。

3、水浴法烤制，期间要缓慢降温烤制，这样才能烤得表面金黄，四周底部不上色

10. Pour onto sponge cake.

11. Steam baked.



10. Steam baked cheese cake.

Chicken Pie

Ingredient: 185c/185c

500g plain flour
300g cold butter
2 tbp sugar
pinch salt
2 egg yolk
4 tbsp cold water or milk powder
30min to rest

Method:
1. Beat everything together except flour

2. Add in flour

You can also use hand to make this..

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:
(A)
8 egg yolk
100 ml water
100 oil
200 cake mix
Baking soda

(B)
100g plain flour (replace 4 teaspoon with cocoa powder)
pinch salt

(C)
8 egg white
100g sugar
cream of tartar

Method: 170C
1. Whisk (A). Leave some water to add in soda.

2. Add (B) and continue to whisk. Add in the remaining water with soda. Whisk until smooth.

3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar (if using) until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in the remaining 3/4 cup (150 grams) of sugar and beat until almost stiff peaks form. With a large rubber spatula or wire whisk, gently fold the egg whites (in three additions) into the batter just until blended (being careful not to deflate the batter). 

Baked Cheese Cake

Ingredients:

250g cream cheese
125g butter
100g sugar

20g corn flour
80g flour
10 egg yolk

10 egg white
150g sugar
350g milk

1 lemon juice

Method: 170c/180c
1. In bowl of your electric mixer, place the cream cheese, sugar and butter. Beat on medium speed until smooth, scraping down the bowl as needed. Make sure sugar has all been dissolved.

2. Add the egg yolk one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. 

3. Add in corn flour and flour (already sift twice) and beat well.

4. Warm milk in a pan. Keep stirring so that the milk does not scald at the bottom.

5. Pour cream cheese mixture into the milk. Stir fast so that it doesn't burn at the bottom. Once mixture starts to thicken, remove from fire, and keep stirring until temperature has come down.

6. Stir  in lemon juice into the mixture.

7. Beat egg white and sugar until it peaks.

8. Add in egg white to mixture. Mix well with scraper. Do not beat.

9. Steam baked cheese cake for 1 hour.  
  the whipping cream, lemon zest, vanilla extract and beat until incorporated. Remove the crust from the refrigerator and pour in the filling. Place the cheesecake pan on a larger baking pan and place in the oven.

Read more: http://www.joyofbaking.com/Cheesecake.html#ixzz2RO4ge12n

Chocolate Mousse Cake

Ingredients:
300 g Cooking Chocolate

250ml full cream milk
5g gelatine
2 egg yolk

100 g sugar (if chocolate is sweet, no need to add sugar)
300 g whipping cream
vanilla

1 sponge cake

Method:
1. Melt cooking chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water. Leave just until melted, stirring occasionally, then remove from the heat, and leave to cool.

2. Stir milk, gelatine and egg yolk in a heatproof bowl and set over a saucepan of simmering water. Keep stirring to prevent the milk from scalding until the gelatine has dissolved and fully incorporatPlace cream in bowl of a stand mixer and whisk with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form.ed. Remove from heat, and leave to cool.

3.  Place whipping cream in bowl of a stand mixer and whisk with the whisk attachment until soft peaks form.

4. Pour about one-third of the milk mixture into the chocolate and whisk quickly to combine.

5. Pour in another third of the milk and whisk to combine.

6. Pour in the remaining milk and whisk to combine. The mixture should be very smooth and shiny.

7. Fold in the whipped cream into the mixture with a flexible spatula.

8.  To assemble the cake, first use a bread knife to carefully slice the cake in half horizontally. Place the bottom half of one of the cakes, cut side up, on a plate or cake stand. Spread over some of the mousse in a layer about 1 cm thick, then sandwich with the other half of the cake.

9. Spread over more of the mousse, Cover the top and sides of the assembled cake with the remaining mousse, smoothing it over with a palette knife. 

10. Leave to chill. Mousse will keep for up to 2 days.

Fruit bread

Ingredients:

1400g HP flour
20g yeast
2 tsp salt
200g sugar
2 eggs
70g milk
800g water
400g sultana
140g butter

Method:

1. Use speed 1 to mix flour, yeast, salt and little water.

2. Use speed 2 to add in more water.

3. Pic, add butter, speed 1 again

4. add in dried sultana in dough.

5. take out, shape and rest for 10 min.

6. pic

Sweet Bun

Ingredients
2 kg HP flour
160g sugar
20g salt
4 eggs
30g yeast
500-600 water
160g margarine

Method:
1. Mix flour, sugar, salt, yeast using gear 1.

2. Add in lightly beaten eggs.

3. Add in water.

4. Add in bread sponge.

Sandwich Bread

Ingredients:
2000g High Protein flour
120g sugar
30g salt
30g yeast
120g shortening fat
60% water

1. Mix sugar, salt and yeast into flour.

2. Use hook, gear 1 to mix. Add in water gradually.

3. Add in bread sponge. (half of yesterday)

4. Add some more water if too dry.

5. Use gear 2 for 8 to 10min.

6. Add in shortening.

7. When ready, cover with plastic for 20 min to rest.

8. Bake at 190c for an hour.

Bread Sponge

Ingredients
2000g high protein flour
pinch of salt
1200 water (more if too hard)
20g yeast

Method:
1. Blend together all the ingredients for about 8 min.

2. Allow it to ferment for 3 hours at room temperature before use.

3. If you do not want to use the dough right away, leave it to ferment for 1 or 2 hours, then chill it overnight.

French Almond Tart

Ingredient:
125g ground almond
125g plain flour
250g castor sugar
5 eggs
1 tbsp milk powder (or milk)
125g butter (room temperature)
125g margarine

Method:
1. Lightly beat eggs

2. Mix ground almond, flour and milk powder together.

3. Cream fats and sugar until sugar has dissolved and mixture becomes light and fluffy using medium speed.

4. Add in beaten eggs in several portion. Do not add in too much eggs too quickly to prevent curdling. Curdling is the result of having more liquid than the fat-coated cells have a capacity to retain.

5. Before last batch of egg, put in some dry ingredient to prevent from curdling using speed 2. Or you can also alternate dry ingredients with eggs.

6. Spoon or pipe into tarts. Sprinkle almond flakes on top.

Note: you can boil one tbsp of apricot jam with one tbsp of water, and coat to baked tarts for shiny topping.

Egg Tarts and French Almond Tarts

We make the simple crust, not the layer crust.

Ingredients:

Short Crust Pastry
400g flour
100g butter
100g margarine
100g sugar
50g egg (1egg)
pinch of salt

Egg Custard
eggs and water same quantity
5 eggs (50g each)
250g water
120g sugar
milk powder

Method:

Short crust pastry
1. Preheat oven to 180c - 185c.

2. Butter and margarine must be at room temperature because they need to be incorporated into the flour as quickly as possible. If it is too cold, you will have to rub it in for twice as long; the fat will become oily with the warmth of your hands and the pastry will be difficult to roll out.

3. Sift the flour and a pinch of salt, holding the sieve high above the bowl, so that as much air as possible is incorporated.

4.  Cut the butter and margarine into small lumps and add to the flour. Using a knife, cut the butter and margarine into the flour. Go on doing this until it looks fairly evenly blended, then begin to rub the fat into the flour using only your fingertips and being as light and gentle as possible.

5. As you lightly rub the fat into the flour, lift it up high and let it fall back down into the bowl, which again means that air is being incorporated all the time, and air is what makes pastry light. Speed is also what's needed here.  If the fat becomes oily because the rubbing-in takes longer and everything is too warm, what happens is it coats more flour grains than it should. This means the flour is unable to absorb enough water and the pastry will crumble and be difficult to roll out.

6. Add in eggs slowly.

7.  Then, with a knife, start bringing the dough together, cutting and turning to make it start to cling together. Then discard the knife and bring it all together with your fingertips. All the bits of flour and fat should be incorporated and the pastry should leave the bowl completely clean.

Egg custard
1. Light beat eggs and water and sugar and milk powder together.

2. When sugar has dissolved, sift egg through strainer.

3. spoon the egg custard into the tarts.

Orange Chiffon Cake

The basic ingredient is chiffon cake, but with one orange peel and squeeze one orange. The orange juice will mix with water to form the water quantity. When the batter is ready, throw in some chocolate rice to add some colour. The finishing is garnished with butter cream we made.

Swiss Roll

The recipe for swiss roll is almost similar to chiffon cake, only without baking powder, so that the cake is softer to roll. The method is the same. Instead of using cake tin, use baking tray.

Chiffon Cake

Mr.Chin doesn't provide us with written instruction. He only writes down the ingredients.

He said he wants us to pay attention so as to follow. However I wonder how the novice is going to follow. We have two boys who are asked by their mothers to come to learn. One only has education up to PMR, one doesn't understand English and one doesn't speak Chinese. Mr.Chin speaks Mandarin most of the time, with broken English mixing in between. I feel that Mr.Chin is supposed to provide us with complete recipe as we are paying so much for the baking class. RM1320 for 75 contact hours in 12 days. On average, one day is RM110. Mr.Chin is also very particular about throwing away plastic bags, paper, and he even bothers to scrap back small traces of buttercream sticking on the piping paper. I personally feel that it is a waste of time when he does that.

Anyway, this is the Chiffon Cake which I learned from him. I tried Chiffon Cake before but they didn't turn out right. Now, I know where my mistakes are. By the way, Mr.Chin didn't give us the instructions, and I don't know how to write full instructions, I sort of borrow instructions from here and there similar to what I learned.

Ingredients:
Flour batter
8 egg yolk
100 g water
100 g vegetable oil (Do not use Eagle oil as it has added flavour. Minyak Saji and olive oil is okay)
200 g cake mix ( can be replaced with 100g sugar and 100g flour and baking powder)
100 g plain flour
a pinch of salt

Meringue
8 egg white
100g sugar
cream of tartar

Flavour
vanilla, brandy, cinnamon

Method:
1. Pre-heat oven to 170°C and position a wire rack at the lower rack. Prepare a clean chiffon cake tin, do not grease.

2. In a mixing bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the corn oil  and sugar to form an emulsion. Sift the flour and baking powder into the egg yolk mixture. Add in vanilla, cinnamon and brandy. Whisk well into a smooth batter, there should be no lumps. Set aside. 

3. Get a separate mixing bowl. Make sure it is WITHOUT ANY OIL STAIN. Clean it properly, or else your egg whites will not rise. On high speed of a mixer, whisk together the egg whites and cream of tartar. Start adding the sugar once the egg whites begin to foam, gradually in 3 additions. Beat till the meringue is smooth and glossy, with stiff peaks, but curls at the end. If the peak is too stiff, the cake will come out dry.

4. Immediately stir in approximately 1/3 of the meringue into the flour batter. With a flexible rubber or silicon spatula, fold in the meringue gently and mix well. Once a roughly homogenous mixture is achieved, add the rest of the meringue and repeat the gentle, light-handed folding process till the cake batter is well combined. Scoop from the bottom of the bowl to ensure no meringue or flour batter is left unmixed. Do not beat or overwork the batter as this will knock out the air you've put into the meringue.

5. Pour the cake mixture into the cake tin. Gently bang the tin on the table top to release air bubbles. This is to remove any large air bubbles possibly trapped while pouring in the cake batter.


6. Bake at 170°C for about 30 min. The cake tester should come out clean. Don't fret if the top of your cake cracks a little, this is normal.

7. Remove the cake from the oven and immediately overturn it to cool completely, up to 2 hours. Even the best chiffon cake pan won't keep your cake fluffy if you handle it roughly after baking. While the cake is warm, its structure is still malleable, and it can fall. Always cool chiffon cakes upside down by supporting round set at the corners. Don't move the cake much before it cools completely.

8. Release the cake by running a sharp, thin knife along the sides of the cake tin and subsequently the bottom of the tube. The cake is meant to be served upside down as it is heavier on the top.

9. Cake keeps well chilled in an airtight container or cling wrapped up to five day.

Note: I use 90g of sugar for batter and 90g for egg white. The sweetness is fine.

1st Day at Baking Class

My first day of baking class was much anticipated! I wish to improve my baking skill! At least to know how to bake the basic cakes and buns correctly.

There are altogether 12 of us in the class. 10 of them are about my children's age! Learning with those who are 30 years younger than me :-) !  Luckily there is another auntie in the class! That make me feel less awkward!

Our teacher is Mr.Chin, 30 years of work experience in the bakery industry. He carries with him with lots of expertise. He is willing (and eager) to teach as we go along. Though he doesn't seem to be well prepared with the class, and doesn't seem to plan properly of what he is going to cover, he comes with a mind to pass his knowledge to equip us!

The pastry room has a big oven, a big mixer and a marble countertop table. But it is not equipped with baking tray, baking tin, bowls, spatula, and so on and so forth. Mr.Chin has to borrow from his friends all these things. They were quite dirtily stained. We spent an hour cleaning all these stuff. Then, we started our first lesson --- how to make buttercream.

Mr.Chin said in the previous 16 years, he partnered with 2 other friends in Sabah Bakery. He was in charged of wedding cake decoration. I think that was why he feels that knowing how to do piping is very important in cake making. Decoration brings up the appearance of the cake, and it practically brings up the value of the cake! He said we have to do piping in every lesson as and when we have time.

Opp...Mr.Chin said he forgot to buy icing sugar for the buttercream. Since he is an experienced senior, he substituted icing sugar with sugar syrup.

Ingredients for Butter Cream
1 kg sugar
1 kg water
500 g unsalted butter (he used Anchor)
1 kg cream well (creamlite)

Method:
1. Dissolve sugar in water using medium fire.  Once dissolved, leave the water syrup to room temperature.
2. Pour the water syrup in the mixer. Add in butter. Beat.
3. Add in creamlite. Beat well on medium speed until light and fluffy. Remember to scrape sides and bottom of bowl.

Baking Class

I bought 2 white T-shirts at Metro Jaya to wear to the baking class starting next Wednesday. The dress code in the 3 weeks class is white T-shirts with collar, long trousers or jeans and toes wrapped shoes. I shopped at Suria Sabah this afternoon to look for a pair of comfortable flat shoes but I don't find any suitable pair with toes wrapped. Perhaps I should repair my old pair of shoes. The strings at the side came off a little bit. I think a needle and strings will fix up the loosen part.

I am looking forward to the baking class. I have tried many times to better myself in cake and bread making but sometimes they don't turn out right. I realize now that some recipes in the web and even published recipe books have mistakes in them. It's a waste of time and money and efforts and really put me off at times. I remembered many years ago when I was still a teenager, I gave my dog my "failed" recipe outcome. The dog loved my cake !!!

I strongly believe these three weeks class will get me a good start to make cake, bread and pastries. These two years have been quite relaxing. I am not much in pressure to bring in income now. Suppose it is a good time to enjoy what I love doing now.