Random bakes

Matcha Ice cream

Matcha again I guess, haha. The first ice cream I made was vanilla, so original huh? I then made this vegan ice cream afterwards. It was...not to my taste, the recipe called for coconut milk instead of milk which was too over powering for me. The coconut over powered the matcha and the maple syrup was too sweet on top of the coconut milk too. Coconut milk naturally has a sweetness to it as well as milk, but coconut milk is much stronger. My brother's fiance and her family enjoyed the ice cream a lot though compared to me, they polished it within one day of bringing it back to her home, haha. 

Checkered biscuits, 2nd time round. 

They're square shaped this time! Was so over joyed they came out looking more like the photos shown in the recipe book this time round. I made two batches of these cookies from William Curley's recipe.

These were part of the assorted baked goods gifts I made for my family over in Hong Kong. They know I love to bake and I've always wanted to bake something decent for them, so when my mum travelled to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year I did my best to put together a few boxes of baked goods. Unfortunately I didn't take photos of everything that was in the boxes, next time perhaps?

Carrot cake cupcakes, chocolate chip cookies and a chocolate birthday cake

Mmm. This was for a friend's birthday. In the UK, we don't have block cream cheese and so making cream cheese frosting to pipe is always hard. I added gelatin to help stabilize it a bit but should've been more patient and waited for it to set then whip it so it has more body to pipe. Other than that, the taste was lovely. 

Opera slices and Japanese strawberry shortcake cupcakes

I've made opera cakes so many times but I believe this is the first time it's actually appearing on my blog. Opera cake is one of my favourites, chocolate and coffee marry so well together. Its definitely a rich cake. It's very popular among my family and friends too. The buttercream had a few cracks here and there because I popped the cake in the freezer to set up before slicing it which froze the buttercream too much. It should have been kept in the fridge over night instead, ahh. patience, patience. I will be making it again for my cousin's upcoming birthday in September. 

I made these bakes for a friend since he said he hadn't tried my baking in a while. So I made my two favourites. I didn't want to carry a whole big strawberry shortcake to university though so I made them into cupcakes. Results: the cupcakes needed way more cream. Even though I had hollowed out the middle of the cupcakes to fill it with strawberry and cream it wasn't enough. The cream is very light and fluffy and tastes just like ice cream. 

To finish this post off, I will end it with a heart shaped Japanese short cake (there can never be too much). I made this for my dad's birthday. I didn't have a heart shaped pan so I had to do some construction work. Yep, so big haha. The biggest cake board we had just about fit the cake...even so, this cake was finished within 2 days of eating. 

Baked doughnuts

Mmmm. It almost seems like the only time I ever post anything on here its during summer. ha. University has been great this year, I thoroughly enjoyed most of my time of 2nd year. With one one module being my favourite, cell communication. This upcoming academic year there will more nutrition centered modules, looking forward to it a lot but will miss the more science based subjects greatly, even though they gave me a lot of stress it was so much fun learning about the subjects, ahh. Farewell, farewell. 

Matcha baked doughnuts and strawberry cupcakes

I love working with matcha, the vibrant green it gives my bakes are so lovely. My brother's fiance and her family absolutely adores matcha, anything matcha related in London she has probably already tried. Her love for matcha is equivalent to my love for chocolate.

Strawberry cupcakes! Strawberry is another favourite flavour of mine, as I have probably mentioned before. It sort of started off with the mini milk lollies that my mum use to buy for us, they came in three flavours, milk, chocolate and strawberry (ahh could do with one right now). I loved those milk lollies even to this day. The obsession with strawberry flavoured things grew when I tried haagen dazs' strawberry ice cream. I enjoyed the mini nuggets of strawberry the most in the ice cream and would often dig at them as if I found gold digging in the ground. 

The buttercream was a little disappointing, I recall it was a french buttercream that I made and I had used freeze dried strawberry powder to avoid the buttercream from splitting, plus freeze dried strawberry powder is so delish. I remember the buttercream tasting too rich and not light enough but I often found that way with french buttercreams, hmm. Possibly try another buttercream next time. 

Strawberry baked doughnuts

The freshly baked doughnuts just looks so mesmerizing with their browned surface. ^^

This time I made strawberry baked doughnuts (yes there was at least a few months time difference between when I made matcha doughnuts and strawberry doughnuts xD). I added way too much freeze dried strawberry powder which immediately turned the icing into a deep red rather than a blushed pink which was what I had hope for. I experimented with different decorations this time as I had some mini sugar flowers left over and I had always wanted to try made those cute doughnut characters. 

Next time I will be brave and try the traditional fried doughnuts. Hoping to make either creme brulee doughnuts or nutella. Mmm. 

-Listening to BTS' cover of Shinwa's perfect man (and dancing shamelessly) live whilst sipping cold brewed green tea. On a sunny Saturday in my living room.