Nutella Vanilla Butter Cake

I know I said I was gonna share some savoury treats with you in my next posting. BUT not today, cos today I was so inspired to try this cake after reading Dana's blog. And I just have to share this with you today as I'm still rather chuffed by how they turned out and TASTED.

I used a recipe for a 9" x 5" loaf cake for 8 mini loaf ones instead. We added less sugar, spooned more of the sinful Nutella and sprinkled tops with chopped hazelnuts to be more decadent. We are those kind of bakers who like to go the whole nine yards. Why scrimp on goodness? We just went a little mental over them. Nutella would be very proud of us. LOL.

As I write about this, there a only 3 loaf cakes left as our lovely friend, Carolyn, Kristian and myself have been tea-ing for almost 3 hours. Lovely company, good laughs, scrumptious cakes. Bliss. It's these moments in life you remember and treasure always.

Say cheeeese : ))

Whoops, I have done it again. Have been slacking in the blog posting department. Is not that we have not made anything new to share but the photo shots were not turning out to my liking and we were swamped towards end of last month with Ramadhan and celebration cake orders. I shall upgrade to a better camera soon AND learn the tricks of food photography, I SHALL, I SHALL, I SHALL. Any pros out there willing to give me some tips on turning our fab food into beautiful fab food, please share with me and favor shall be returned with, you guessed it, Bakerellaz baked goods ; )

A double layer mascarpone cheesecake with dark chocolate crumb sides and mini meringue topping. Available for order. RM80/kg.

I made these cheesecake cups for my mum's birthday. A change from the usual birthday cake and lighter in calories too I might add ; ) Two flavors - one was black cherry lemon cheesecake topped with black cherries and the other was praline cheesecake topped with hazelnut praline. Both had biscuit base. I boxed them in a gift box tied with a satin gold ribbon (sorry didn't take pic). These are also great for kids parties or picnics/barbeques. Available for order. RM55/doz.

There's more.....so check back tomorrow. Some savouries this time and coming up, some chic cookies. Tres chic.

Black Gold

It's a strange coincidence that many precious commodities that have flourished and been consumed over civilisations are black in color. Think petroleum, coffee, most minerals and not forgetting the seemingly scarce truffles. Here's another 'black gold', according to us anyways : )

We made these robust and rustic dark chocolate truffles the size of walnuts. They had creamy ganache center of imported chocolate with morsels of prune, apricot, strawberry or date in its epicenter. These were served along with mini cheesecakes and profiteroles for a dinner party at Kristian's last week. Guests relished them one after another with glasses of late harvest Riesling (an excellent accompaniment) and cups of coffee.

The 1st week of August and we are beat

Last week was largely taken up with an anniversary party that we were catering. This is an anniversary cake done over the weekend. The bottom tier is made up of 3 layers of alternating butter almond cake and baked cheesecake. The top tier has 5 layers of the same cakes. Each layer has a lemon curd spread. It is covered in fondant icing with yellow fondant ribbon and marzipan red roses. Marzipan as an icing decoration stays maleable and softer than fondant ones AND definitely much tastier due to the rich almond flavor. I love the contrast of the red roses on white fondant (above) don't you?

We made a mini cheesecake for ourselves to taste before we made the actual size for the required cake. It wasn't hard to imagine the combined flavors of the tangy creamy cheescake, butter cake and lemon curd.

We have made croquembouche or profiteroles several times BUT never managed to take any deserving pictures of them yet! The most recent ones made this past weekend disappeared too quickly before I had a chance of taking some shots...oh well. But try and imagine the above with spools of chocolate ganache arranged in a a pyramid structure with tiny lilac wild flowers and white orchids stuck in between each piece.

The making of mini pavlovas. Again, the finished product disappeared too quickly before they can be photographed. ( I think we need a food photographer friend to help out in this department ) Anyways, they were sensational looking and tasting. In fact, Kristian and I feasted on about 3 pavs each last night with dollops of whipped cream and strawberries while watching 'The Hangover' movie.

On a roll

We've been on a roll all week. Am rather proud of ourselves as we've surpassed our own expectations of making more than 2 new recipes a week (pats Kristian's back). Needless to say there has been A LOT of testy moments coupled with lotsa making up and of course lotsa taste testing. Am fortunate a friend offered to buy some of our 'experiments' and the extras from our orders so I have put together for him a care package of sorts containing loaf cakes, cookies, brownies, and fudge. How lucky he is!!

The above is 3 variations on the date & nut cookie mentioned previously in the blog but had no picture posted. Which do you think is the prettier shape? I have to admit I'm not a fan of dates so naturally these cookies don't really do it for me but Kristian loves them. He polished off the whole lot within 2 days!

These are available for orders, RM25/box (around 400g)
You can specify for roll or pillow shapes.



Okay we had some problems making our fudge. We cooked them without a thermometer as advised, opting to eyeball the hot mixture over the stove for the right color and consistency. It looked fine on the top but little did we realise the bottom was browning too much as the fudge continues to cook after it has been taken off the heat. This lil mishap took moments to rectify and the fudge turned out and tasted excellent ; ) We made them in toffee and chocolate flavors, both with almond bits in them. We are definitely making more of these and in other variations.

Festive Hampers II

This hamper was assembled today. I apologize if you can't clearly see the contents. It has 2 loaf cakes - prune butter and lemon poppy seed, walnut brownies in our Bakerellaz box, heart shape cranberry shortbread and chocolate chilli cookies in the teacups. The wicker basket is well crafted and very sturdy. It is in limited stock so if you like this, please get in touch with us asap. Is valued at RM150.

Now back to the kitchen to prepare for tomorrow's catering.

Brownies Baby : )

OMG, I have just discovered that my Olympus digital camera has a super macro feature!! What a difference my photos look now!! Amazing. Super super psyched.

Let me share our brownie love with you. Is like marrying a bar of chocolate with chocolate cake. The offspring of this marriage would be a brownie. Dense, soft but not too soft, more creamy than cakey, we can't have enough of them.

Brownies shown are:

a)Walnut brownies - RM30/box (abt 480g)

b)Walnut brownies with white chocolate drizzle - RM30/box (abt 480g)

Not shown but also available is black cherry brownies which are deeeeevine - RM33/box (abt 480g) Will post picture of this very soon as well.