July 20, 2016

Little Girl's Pink Fondant Birthday Cake Part II

birthday cake, butter cake, buttercream, decorated, double, fanta, Fondant, Little Girl, Pink, recipe, soda pop, tiered, 粉紅色, 翻糖, 蛋糕
By Published: 2016-07-20
You're probably saying, wait a minute, where's the pink?  Well, the pink is on the inside of the cake, where it really counts.  This, dear readers, is the fancy and fabulous pink fondant decorated cake that I made for my little girl's seventh birthday.  

Now I would've made the outside pink too but my little girl was clear on that: no 媽媽, the outside of the cake, the fondant, should be white.  So white it is.  Oh yes and my little girl helped tremendously in the decoration of the cake, she's reminding me to be sure to mention that.  

We have already posted about making your own Homemade Marshmallow Fondant and baking your own moist and tasty Pinky Pink Soda Pop Cake and now finally we get to the really fun and exciting part, the part about decorating a little girl's cake with your own homemade fondant decorations!

July 17, 2016

Little Girl's Pink Fondant Birthday Cake Part I

birthday cake, butter cake, buttercream, decorated, double, fanta, Fondant, Little Girl, Pink, recipe, soda pop, tiered, 粉紅色, 翻糖, 蛋糕
By Published: 2016-07-17
 Now as lots of mamas and papas know, a birthday cake for a little girl or boy is not a straightforward thing to go about.  Every since my little girl was two years old I've been making a cake for her birthday, trying different recipes and flavors for the cake and the cake decorations (see here and here and here).  It's a hard thing to please a little one on their special cake for their special day, bless their little hearts but they can be quite critical!  

This year I decided to make a pink cake to please my girl's love of pinkness.  And I also wanted to try out my recent discovery while binge watching The Great British Bake Off (best baking show ever!) that it is actually rather easy to make Homemade Marshmallow Fondant, a play dough like edible cake decorating dough.  

Throwing all these things together, I managed to make a pretty looking Little Girl's Pink Fondant Birthday Cake, a moist tasty pinky pink cake on the inside and fabulously fancy homemade fondant decorations all over the outside.  I think this is the best BD cake I've made yet and most importantly my little girl absolutely loooved it!

July 9, 2016

Homemade Marshmallow Fondant

Homemade,  Marshmallow, Fondant, recipe, 自製, 棉花糖, 翻糖, 手工, cake, cupcake, decoration
By Published: 2016-07-09
You would never think, looking at it, that this cake decoration is actually pretty easy to make.  It looks so fancy, amiright?  That smooth perfect cake covering.  Fun crazy shapes of whatever you desire.  The imagination of a rainbow of colors.  

Well I never thought about making any kind of cake decoration even remotely fancy like this until I found out one day (while binge watching my most favoritest baking show, The Great British Bake Off) that you can make this amazing rollable and shapable and edible cake decoration/topping quite easily from marshmallow!  That's right, marshmallow.  Who would have guessed?  

From the humble marshmallow comes forth this Homemade Marshmallow Fondant, easy to make, easy to roll, easy to shape, gorgeous to look at, an edible cake and cupcake decoration that you can use to make almost anything you can dream up to dress up that fancy cake or cupcakes you're making for a special occasion!

July 3, 2016

Three Fried Stuffed Treasures 煎釀三寶

bitter melon, Dace paste, stuffed, stuffed eggplant, fried, eggplant, Fish Paste, long chili, recipe, shunde, street snack, Three Fried Stuffed Treasures, three treasures, 尖椒, 煎釀三寶, 苦瓜, 茄子,
By Published: 2016-07-03
If you've ever been in Hong Kong or Macau or Guangdong, you've probably run into these little snacks.  These fish paste stuffed vegetable treats have evolved over the years to become a popular and long standing street side snack, usually skewered to allow you to eat the snack right there in the street.  

I really love these snacks and rather mourn the fact that, nowadays, they are rather hard to find done in the old-fashioned tasty way, meaning pan fried rather than deep fried.  Most street vendors have them precooked and waiting around all day and then just stick it in the hot oil to heat it up after you order.  Um...not too fresh, nor tasty as a matter of fact.  

So we decided to make our own the traditional way, stuffed and pan fried Three Stuffed Treasures 煎釀三寶, a delectable treat that celebrates the original sweet tastiness of the fresh vegetables while a stuffing of fragrant tangerine peel infused fish paste provides just the right contrast of texture and taste.