Green Tea and Red bean swiss roll

Green tea and red bean. Matcha and Azuki. Is there a better pairing with the bitterness of the green matcha nicely rounded out with the sweetness of the red bean paste? They compliment each other so well that it's kinda like basil and tomatoes, pineapple and coconut, chocolate and...chocolate?? Well, you know what I mean.


Siwss roll, swiss roll, what should I do so you don't crack? Others suggest roll and cool and unroll, then fill and roll again; cool with the cake wrapped then fill and roll.... Tried it all with both success in failures of each method. From my humble opinion (with a couple cracked swiss roll under my belt) I find that I like to trim, fill, and roll as soon as it's done baking. The cake is still pliant and soft. The tip is to work fast. Gather all your stuff ready, no dilly dallying here!

Teachers Appreciation Day cupcakes

Yes, cupcakes again...and this time is to honor the teachers who had worked so hard at the school.

This time I tried the banana cupcakes and yes they are very good if I say so myself. What better to go with banana cake? Chocolate of course!!

There you are, banana cupcakes with chocolate frosting. The decorations are made out of fondant only and I thought stationary theme works well here. Hope they are recognizable.

Continuation of Trisha's cupcake craze....

So what does my daughter request for her birthday treat at school? Cupcakes....what better time for me to test some recipe...

I thought the kids will like chocolate cupcakes and according to the teacher, they did!



And I've been wanting to try the the swiss meringue buttercream and it is indeed at silky and smooth as claimed. Definitely my favorite especially I'm really not a forsting/icing person...

I beat the egg white and sugar over double boiler till 160 C (to kill salmonela and to melt the sugar) and the used my beloved Kitchen aid to whisk the heck out of it

Slowly add in butter. I used 1/2 stick of butter per egg white, not too greasy. Ta da.. the basic swiss meringue buttercream.

I have to add some blueberry jam to it, just because....
Hmmm.. did I mention it's silky and smooth???











Final assemly, just simple swirl and some royal icing flowers that I have left over...the kids didn't mind, so why would I:))

Trisha's Mickey mouse birthday cake

It was Trisha's 4th birthday and she requested a mickey cake a long time ago. So here it is....
Nothing too fancy but the kids seem to like it enough.

Easter Cupcakes

It's Easter! I did some cupcakes for the occasion. On top of the cupcakes, I did some flowers from royal icing. Since spring is in the air, I thought it appropriate for daffodil, petunia, daisy (sorry, these were from gumpaste, ran out of icing), morning glory and of course Easter Lily to appear...

Decided on carrot cake, from a cake mix shamefully. Well, my defense was that the flowers took a lot of time and, and.....
Alas, the Dreamy cream cheese frosting from "Rose's Heavenly cake" was indeed heavenly. Yum.........