colorful things must eat!

so i promised phillie like 2 months ago i will make this beautiful cake for her for her an toety for their birthday party, this saturday pass. theme, rainbow, and the recipe for this cake magically appeared on the martha stewart website around the same time. looked somewhat difficult to make in the video, but hey! i'm up for challenges.

the word "challenge" is an understatement. the easy part was the baking part. like always, i nearly pulled out my hair doing the frosting. thank god for sandra. decided it will be less stressful for me to bake this cake with a industrial kitchenaid. i have to give myself a pat on the back for that. think if i used my hand held mixer, i will still be making the cake now.

6 colors later, while waiting for the cake to cool, i started on the filling and crumb coat. singapore is so humid the frosting sank after the butter went in. so we starred at the kitchenaid beat the frosting for like 30 minutes before it reached a okay consistency. we braved it and threw it into the fridge for like an hour.

while waiting for the cake to hold together, i started on the frosting, again it started to sink after the butter was added, then the clever me had an idea. i took ice, threw them into a ziplock, held it til my hands under the metal mixing bowl, lost feeling for awhile and viola!!!! the frosting not only rose but to an amazing consistency! yay! you would think.... errr.... no! we took the crumb coated cake out and it started to reject the frosting!

but with sandra and my perseverance, with her knowledge of frosting and my "sure can" attitude we finally finished making the cake at 1130 midnight with phillie waiting downstairs for like an hour. moral of the story, we still got the cake made! yay!!!!

phillie added some pretty colorful stars on them and we have a rainbow birthday cake, inside and out!

Fourty three years and counting...

Inspired by KK's Nutella Cake, I decided to bake Nutella Cupcakes for Mom & Dad's wedding anniversary. They didn't rise as much as I would have liked, but still a pretty yummy cake!

Happy Anniversary to the 2 most important people in my life!

Pretty New Things!

Had a shoot at "Bake It Yourself" yesterday and I went slightly mad with some purchases. Sprinkles, colored cupcake paper, vanilla extract... I had to hold back and put some of the stuff back on the shelves.

After all that, you don't expect me to come home and NOT make some cupcakes to decorate right? So here they are! Pretty & happy colors on simple vanilla cupcakes.

Hi!

If you were sent here by thisishowweeat (thank you SL), Hi! Welcome to TSK!

Do have a look around, and if there is anything we can help you with, feel free to holler! Thank you for visiting!

Much love,

KK + FG

Our second big order...with our branding!

This order was fun, extremely tiring but totally fulfilling. This was a Teachers' Day order of 120 cupcakes, individually packed, all piped with 10 different colors to match the 10 different coloured ribbons. I basically started tying the ribbons into pretty "dragonfly" bows 2 days before (thank you mummy for helping me with most of the ribbon tying), and printed the gift tags 3 days before.The most exciting part, however, was the printing of "The Strange Kitchen" stickers and we were ready to rock!

After tossing and turning in bed from "cupcake" nightmares, I got out of bed at 630am for some yoga to relax my mind and start on the baking. Vanilla Vanilla from Billy's Cupcakes was first on the list, my favourite! Next was my other favourite, Devil's Food cupcake. The cakes took 4 hours, which is pretty good cause I was actually quite relaxed mixing whilst watching The Emmy's. When it comes to frosting, you guys have to realize that I am still very ole skool and I do all my mixing by hand. So by the time I got to my fourth batch of frosting and piping, I really couldn't feel my hands. My fingers started to cramp and they started to look a little like claws.

That was minor compared to the packing though. Note to self, get help next time.... It was not untill the 30th cupcake that my mum came home to help. It was quite fun after awhile, she placed the cupcake onto the base after the doily, and I covered them with the appropriate color and packed them nicely into the cardboard boxes. It was a great system!

So, 12 hours and 120 cupcakes later, I sat down and smiled to myself with joy, and delivered them to IJ Toa Payoh. Another happy customer! With each order, I learn a little more; like, ask for help when needed, and invest in a proper mixer.

Phillie is on a baking hiatus. Bad Phillie.

Italian Yumminess!

My 'mission' for the weekend past was to find a carbonara recipe that used a more traditional approach, which is prepared using eggs and cheese, instead of cream only. So i thought to myself, why not do a whole Italian themed dinner?

It started out with a salad of spinach, sliced tomatoes and sliced buffalo mozzarella, topped with a sprinkle of chopped basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing. All done in like 8 minutes. Easy to prepare and delicious!!!

The carbonara was next; I couldn't find pancetta as recommended by the recipe, so with my friend Selina's advice, I bought streaky bacon which I cut to squares, as a substitute. While waiting for the spaghetti to cook, I fried the bacon in some olive oil, and I went on to prepare the sauce. All it took was an egg, quarter a cup of percorino and parmesan cheese mixed together with a generous amount of freshly ground pepper and voilà – the sauce was ready! I drained the cooked pasta, threw it into the pan with the fried bacon, and then stirred the sauce into the pasta - I had to do it quickly so that the egg didn't scramble. I then finished it off with some more pepper and a sprinkle of cheese, and it was finally done!! Super yummy!!!! I should have thrown some of the water used to boil the pasta into it as it was a little dry, but no regrets about that- it was still very good!

For dessert, we had Tiramisu that we bought from Spinelli's (it didn't have any taste of coffee. Yucks! I really need to learn how to make tiramisu on my own) and a super yummy chocolate truffle cake from Cedele...mmmmm:)

Was that the end? Nope – it went on to breakfast the next day and i went english! A proper english breakfast consisting of 3 different types of sausages, the leftover bacon from yesterday, tomatoes and scrambled eggs, finished off with a cup of coffee. Mmmm...another great meal to end a great weekend!