Plain cheesecake in gingerbread crust, topped with whipped cream and candied orange zest.
Used my favourite cheesecake recipe from Japan. Cheesecake part is very light and fluffy. Fresh orange segments (a.k.a. supreme) are hidden inside...
Doesn't it look like a huge rolled sushi?
Used a small packet of spice blend for cookies that came with a cookie cutter. Didn't use the cookie cutter this time, though.
à la Linzer Cookies with orange marmalade instead of traditional black currant preserve...
White icing "curly brackets" on brown (cocoa) icing top. The brown icing was thinned down with water a little too much - so much that it's absorbed into brownie and lost its smoothness and shininess as shown in this photo.
= Regular Sugar Cookies + Cinnamon
Stars and "Cinnamon Buns"
Scrap (leftover) dough & new 'cinnamon-free' dough, rolled together to make the mini cinnamon bun cookies.
Meet Cinnamon Sugar Cookie People.
For the pre-holiday last day at school, I made 16 of these phyllo triangles with Japanese-style pork curry inside... Unfortunately, however, they never made it. They were waiting for me to come home in the freezer. Oh well.
I made doughnuts at school today. A whole bunch of them. Like, 72 at least. These guys were tossed in cinnamon sugar.
These were dipped in chocolate fudge icing first, and then got sprinkled with lovely nonpareils, shredded coconuts & almond slices.
I cooked three-course meal for my friends, UW & MT. Here's a photo of "salmon en croute" avec "ratatouille" :) I didn't make my own puff pastry dough... Shame on me! *LOL*
Here's today's main feature: soufflé orange... sans grand marnier. It was supposed to be "au", not "sans" but we had a surprise guest who can't have any alcohol, so I made a small change to the recipe. The souffles puffed up quite nicely, which made me very happy - and relieved. (Huge thanks to GP for being my guinea pig the other day!)
We made some fancy braided breads at school. Braiding bread dough strands is fun but quite hard and confusing...
Thanks Lydia for taking these photos for me!
This week for me at school was all about puff pastry. I made turnovers, strudels, sausage rolls, etc... and cheese straws.
Lots of grated cheddar cheese between puff layers. Parmesan cheese/paprika mixture made these cheese straws look kinda like Christmas candy canes :)
Made an apple pie at home. (Didn't I make enough pies at school last week?)
It turned out okay, I guess. Should've used cornstarch or something to make the filling more "filling-y"...
Made some mini apple-cinnamon pie chips (?) using scrap dough.
I was making typical shortbread fingers (something like these) but we got the special orders for Halloween...
They were bony and wrinkly before being baked but now they have kinda healthy, smooth, younger-looking (green) skin.
Prepared three apple pies today. They will be baked and sold at our in-school bakery tomorrow :)
Here's a picture of a pre-bake pie. As a long-time Mac user, I had to make this signature decoration!
Here are the pumpkin pies that I made at school. They went on sale at our in-school bakery today!
The very first pie(s) I made from start (pie dough) to finish (decoration). For the first time in my life - not just at school.
Enjoyed every step of the way but I gotta say I reeeeally loved the finishing/decorating part :)
updated on October 12: A picture of 46 mini pumpkin tarts. Thanks Nikki for sharing your picture!
Initials of my friend UW's baby girl... Wilton's color flow icing (full strength) with a hint of green. Great practice.
Used my fave chiffon cake recipe. Found this frosting recipe on the freebie 2005 calendar from Kraft Canada.
updated on October 5: A couple of much better looking pictures of the cupcakes at the baby shower, by courtesy of my friend MT. Thanks, Ms. M!
Chocolate cake with banana-rum puree, covered with chocolate ganache. I love the recipe for this chocolate cake. It's an old, old magazine clipping.
My digital camera is broken :( so I had to use my camera phone this time. I gotta have my camera fixed, or gotta get a new one.
Very chocolate-y Pac-Man :)
I love my chiffon cake pans from Daiso (C$2 each!) but they are so small (approx. 4 inches diameter) that a regular stick-a-bottleneck-up method doesn't work. One chopstick, one Wilton #5 piping tip and a cork trivet are used here instead.
It tilts... The cake part is almost touching the cork trivet.
This one somewhat balances well...
They kinda look like two spinning tops...
And here comes the rescue!
This is the one-of-a-kind, custom-made Chiffon Cake Cooling Stand by my friend GP. G stands for "genius" and P stands for "pretty" as in "not just a pretty face" ;)
Look how beautifully-built this is.
The cooling stand is in action!
It's cooling two Honey & Lemon chiffon cakes at a time!
Tried this recipe by Chef James Martin for the first time. Never mind all the hand-drawn hearts around his picture. Couldn't help it...
Right out of the oven. The centre of the cake has not sunk yet. Smells awesome.
The centre has sunk quite a bit.
Served with the candied fennel (from the same recipe) and a dollop of whipped cream.
