Hi everyone! This is Ayang. Belated Happy New Year to all of you! How's your New Year celebration lately? I hope everybody had a great time celebrating the New Year with family, loved ones, and friends as well. This will be our first post here in this community, and it's been a while since our last post. With that, we will be giving you a sweet treat. What I mean by "sweet treat" is this post because we'll be sharing our first posting for this year, 2024.
First of all, I would like to give warm thanks to those who welcomed us here last time. We love to share more about us with you, and we also love to know more about you. And as I mentioned in my "introduce yourself" in our last post, I do love baking, especially cakes. Ever since I was in 7th grade, I was enticed to make breads, pastries, and cakes. I am so interested that I could watch my friend making cupcakes and designing cakes all day and even offer her a hand, up until now. I decided to start practicing cake-making, and I'm glad that I have been making cakes for 3 years. For this blog, I will be showing you some of my highlights from my cake milestones and how I made improvements throughout them.
1. NCT'S CHENLE AND SHOTARO'S BIRTHDAY MINICAKES
I started baking cake way back on November 24, 2020. That time, I decided to do a little experimentation with making just minicakes. Besides, it was good timing since two of the members of NCT (a K-Pop boy group that my little sister's stanning at) were celebrating their birthdays. Chenle is my little sister's bias, while Shotaro is my bias.
So, I planned on making minicakes out of chiffon cake with boiled icing. What I said earlier—that this first minicake was just an experiment—is true because, first of all, we don't have an oven here in our house to use for baking the cake (which is the main reason why I couldn't start practicing baking sooner). The first try went very smoothly; we decorated it with some DIY toppers made with printed bond paper and toothpicks. And to my surprise, the result is so stunningly cute! The cake base I made was pretty airy and fluffy, as was the boiled icing I made. It was sweet but not overpowering, and it went well with the chiffon cake. And I think that was a sweet headstart.
2. CHOCOLATE CAKE FOR WORLD FATHERS' DAY 2021
The next cake that I made was for my Papa when we celebrated Fathers' Day in 2021. But before I proceed, I just want to tell a little background story.
Way back on Fathers' Day 2020, I surprised him by making the famous 3-ingredient Oreo cake that consists of basically Oreo, Baking Powder, and Egg. The cake went almost to failure because the chocolate ganache I made wasn't thick enough and it sipped right through the cake base. So I just designed it with mini marshmallows. Despite the close-call appearance failure, I am still happy that the overall taste was good, and most importantly, Papa liked it.
So going back, I wanted to redeem that cake by making another one, but this time from scratch. I made a chocolate moist cake with whipped cream frosting (since Papa is not fond of desserts that are overly sweet). The cake base is dense and moist, with a rich chocolate flavor because I added half a cup of cocoa powder. Since it was my first time doing cake frosting, you can clearly see how not smooth and bumpy the cake frosting was. However, it's a great learning experience for me to earn that.
3. CHOCOLATE AND COFFEE MINICAKES FOR WORLD TEACHERS' DAY 2021
This cake batch is one of the most memorable in my cake-making career. I I made nine minicakes for our professors during World Teachers' Day 2021, including our college dean. This is a remarkable one because some of the professors weren't fond of chocolate cake, and one of those wasn't fond of sweets at all. This cake batch really put me up to the test to reconsider those things. And we don't want to waste our efforts for nothing just because they don't really like the gift that they receive from us.
So, I plotted a game plan for that. One-thirds of the nine minicakes would be chocolate moist cake, and the remaining two-thirds would be coffee sponge cake. Since not all professors were sweet-toothed, I had to control the sugar by cutting it into half-measures. This really challenged me, to the point that I did a lot of research on which sugar I should use to achieve the not-overpowering sweetness of it and, at the same time, balance the richness of the main flavor of the cake. With the help of my classmate, Nath, this took us 10 hours to make (note that I still don't have any oven yet; I only use indirect baking through the pan), including the crumbing, frosting, and designing the cake. Thankfully, we were so flattered that we did it, and it really put a smile on our faces as we were told that everyone loved the cake, especially our college dean.
4. OPLAN NOVEMBER BIRTHDAY TRI-CELEBRATION
After a big batch of minicakes I made for professors, I received a cake request from Nath. They were planning on making a surprise gift for Lander, one of her best friends. They asked for a 4-inch strawberry sponge minicake, and because he likes pink, the color theme should be pink. They provided all the ingredients I needed for making it, including the labor fee.
However, in my recipe, a batch of mix can make 3 4-inch minicakes. If I could make just one minicake and the rest would be leftovers, it'd be a waste of materials. And no one in our house could also eat the leftovers. So Nath changed her decision and requested to make the three minicakes instead, because aside from Lander, there are two November birthday celebrants that will be joining in the party: Jam and, you guessed it right, yours truly! So why not have a November birthday triple celebration?
Photo from: Lander, via Facebook
The whole process of baking went well, but we struggled with putting the minicake inside the 21-layer explosion box. We had to be cautious and careful when bringing the explosion box so that it wouldn't stumble on the box sides. This was also a next-level challenge for us, as we had to travel from Taguig to Bacoor, Cavite. Without service, just commute. Despite all those struggles, we made it to Lander's house. And surprisingly, the cake is still in good condition. Lander found the minicake very cute, and it tasted so good that he finished it so fast. Overall, it was a great experience in my baking career and also to meet and socialize with new people.
5. STRAWBERRY CHIFFON CAKE FOR MY PAPA'S 55th BIRTHDAY
This cake is my most memorable cake-making milestone so far. This one was made with the help of my little sister. We planned on making a birthday cake for our papa to celebrate his 55th birthday. As I mentioned earlier, Papa is not into sweets, which is very contradictory to what I love to do right now. However, I am doing the best I can for him to make him cake that could suit his taste preferences and for me to use all of my resources that I have. Speaking of that, I made strawberry jam from scratch beforehand (my brother went to Baguio and bought some strawberries as his pasalubong), and we'd come up with the idea of making strawberry chiffon cake and simply whipping cream frosting, because we all knew that strawberries and cream are a great flavor combination. We just decorated it with strawberry slices around the edges of the cake top, some strawberry jam at the center of the cake, and piped whipped cream on the border of it. We've finished it off by putting heart-shaped strawberry slices in the middle of strawberry jam. The visuals were too cute to eat! Papa loved it so much that he ate three slices of it that day!
6. KUYA MELVIN'S BIRTHDAY WITH CHOCOLATE GANACHE CAKE
Mama requested that I make a cake for my cousin, Kuya Melvin. This time, I was thinking of making something that I had never made or failed to do since I started baking. And I remembered the ganache frosting I made two years ago that went very wrong. So I made up my mind to make a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache. I was very afraid of failing again in making this, but I have to do it so that I will gain knowledge on how to make it properly. Ganache is basically shiny and silky; you can mirror yourself in it, or a light can reflect on you. I looked up 3-5 recipes for chocolate ganache just to formulate and modify my very own recipe for it. I was happy I made it right away, on my first trial of making ganache! And as I was decorating it, it really turned out really fancy and luscious!
7. TIRAMISU CAKE FOR GIO'S 19th BIRTHDAY
Another cake that I made for our cousin is this tiramisu cake. The reason why I came up to this one because he was torn on deciding which cake flavor would he chose for his birthday cake, if it is chocolate or the coffee one (he already tasted both of it since I gave all of my scraps to him and he liked those). So why not both? Besides, coffee and chocolate are a great combination for desserts, especially for cake. This one is one of my favorite so far because I already seen my improvement in frosting and piping skills. It is much more smooth and relaxed, unlike before. I dusted the center section with cocoa powder and also added some edible silver beads for more elegant appeal. I'm very satisfied with the outcome I made with this one! The smell of cake is very energizing that the whole room smelled like I am in a coffee shop!
Baking is my dream, comfort, and love language. Looking at these milestones, all I can say is that I'm very happy and proud that I made all of them, regardless of the failures I encountered in making them. For those who are interested in a particular thing, especially baking, this is your sign to take a step! Don't be afraid to make mistakes, because failures are always there to help you do better. And lastly, practice is the key to improving more of your skills. Given the fact that it would take time, with patience and determination, you'll get there to the betterment that you wanted. Happy baking!
Note: All pictures are mine unless otherwise stated.
Grabe nag crave nanaman ako sa Tiramisu cake hahaha. 😂
I also bake as well pero pang bakery levels pa lang hahaha. Wala pa sa kalingkingan ng Goldilocks. 😂
How I wish na matikman niyo rin yun esp coffee lover din kayo, magugustuhan niyo talaga yun! ^_^