RSPCA Cupcake Day – Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcake

Hello Readers 🙂 I’m really excited to tell you that I’ve been asked to be one of RSPCA’s Online Ambassadors for their Cupcake Day this year ~ I’ve always wanted to participate in Cupcake Day, but it makes it even more meaningful now that I have a dog and his name is conveniently Cupcake! It’s pretty simple I was basically I was asked to make a cupcake and share there recipe to help them promote their event.

For those who aren’t familiar with Cupcake Day you can read more about it here, but to give you an overview, on the 18th of August you can get together with some family, friends or colleagues and organise your own Cupcake Day event. Make some cupcake sell them for how much you would like to, and donate the money paid for the Cupcakes.

Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcake

I’ve made a couple of cupcakes and looking forward to sharing them with you guys ~ The first one is this Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcake. I was going through all my books, blogs, websites looking for a cupcake recipe I wanted try. Eventually, I decided to ask my pregnant sister to see if she had any cravings and she said ‘marshmallows!’ So that’s when I made these Chocolate Cupcakes with Marshmallow frosting.

Chocolate Marshmallow Cupcake

These cupcakes are relatively easy to make, the only tricky part would be the marshmallow frosting which requires a sugar thermometer but if you follow Not Quite Nigella’s recipe like I did, it shouldn’t be too hard 😉

Before I give you a recipe, there’s a little surprise in the cupcakes, I not only decided to make marshmallow frosting, I decided to put a marshmallow inside the cupcakes too! It gave it a little more texture and flavour. My sister lives in Hong Kong so

 

Make sure you put the marshmallow in while the cupcake is still warm so it will melt slightly! Mr Bao, some friends and colleagues have done the taste test and they give me the thumbs up. I hope you’ve convinced you to make these cupcakes and perhaps have your own little Cupcake Day even on the 18th of August with some friends and family to raise some money to help those animal in need ~

Recipe – Chocolate Cupcake with Marshmallow frosting from Hummingbird Bakery and Not Quite Nigella 

Yields – 10 Cupcakes 

Cupcake
100g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
140g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
A pinch of salt
40g unsalted butter, at room temperature
120ml whole milk
1/4tsp vanilla extra/paste

Marshmallow frosting – From Not Quite Nigella 
1 cup caster sugar
1 cup cold water
4 egg whites (about 120g)
A pinch of cream of tartar

Method
Cupcakes 
1) Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F).
2) Put te flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and butter into an electric mixer with the paddle attachment (or use a handheld electric whisk) and beat on slow speed until it reaches a sandy consistency and everything is combined.
3) Gradually pour in half of the milk (120ml) and beat until the milk is just incorporated.
4) Whisk the egg, vanilla extract and remaining milk (120ml) together in a separate jug for a few seconds, then pour into the flour mixture and continue beating until just incorporated (scrape any unmixed ingredients from the side of the bowl with a spatula). Continue mixing for a couple of minutes until the mixture is smooth. Be careful do not over mix.
5) Spoon mixture into cupcake until it is about 1/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes, test by using toothpick if it is clear it is cooked.
6) Once cooked remove from oven and let them sit for 5 minutes, then carefully using a spoon scoop a little whole in the cupcake and place a marshmallow inside, and cover with remaining cake to make it smooth for piping.

Marshmallow Icing

1) Place egg whites and cream of tartar into bowl of an electric mixture with the whisk attachment.
2) Place sugar and water into small saucepan without string and make a syrup, cooking until 114C/238F use a sugar thermometer to check precise temperature.
3) When sugar syrup nearly reaches temperature, whisk the eggs on the highest setting until you get soft peaks. Once sugar syrup reaches 114C, with the whisk still on, slowly add to egg whites and continue whisking until thick and stiff.

When cupcakes are cool, you can now pipe the marshmallow icing on top 🙂

Happy Baking everyone!

 

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Handshaken Lamington Milkshake – Lady Bower

I recently heard from someone that everyday 5 new cafes open in Melbourne. It’s quite an alarming figure, but I definitely believe this to be true. There are seriously so many cafes it’s practically impossible to keep up, even if you treated it as a full time job, you would need to go to at least 3 to 5 cafes a day to go through them all! The cafes don’t only open up in Melbourne CBD, there are also those cute hipster cafes in further out suburbs. Lady Bower is definitely one of these hidden cafes, Mr Bao had to be somewhere in Reservoir and asked me to go with him.

It was an early Sunday morning, I wasn’t going to just go to Reservoir with him and wait…so I did some research and found Lady Bower a café. I realised Byran (Fat Boo) had blogged about it before and enjoyed the dishes. Our car pulled up in front of the café at around 9:30am and I was surprised to see such a large venue, which spans over 2 to 3 stores.

Cake display

Walking towards the café, the waitress eagerly opens the door for us, I was immediately attracted to the glass cabinet where they display their cakes. You could tell instantly that they were homemade which is great!

Mocha $4

My mocha was a good temperature but tasted more like a hot chocolate than a mocha and would have been better if it had more coffee to balance it out.

Latte $3.5

Mr Bao got a latte with the house blend from 5 Senses and described it as quite buttery with low acidity and floral notes. He ordered another one after the meal and asked for a strong latte but found that one too be to strong and sour.

Breakfast of Champions $18

Mr Bao found the menu to be more ‘vegetarian-friendly’ so he immediately said he’s getting the Breakfast of Champions which was Lady Bower’s version of the big breakfast. It has the usual bacon, beans, mushrooms but then what surprised me were the meatballs! I didn’t think we were going to have meatballs for breakfast again anytime soon 😛 The meatballs were delish! Homemade, full of flavour and wonderfully light. The thick cut bacon was also Mr Bao’s favourite, I think it’s a trend because many cafes are now serving their bacon super thick ~ Unfortunately, the poached eggs were a little overcooked and the yolk wasn’t rushing out as I expected.

I chose the smashed avocado with a dollop of sour cream and chilli oil on the side topped with a poached egg. Once again my poached egg wasn’t as runny as I would have liked, but nothing beats the silky and buttery goodness of the smashed avocado and the sour cream just made it even more indulgent ~ Mr Bao did like the chilli oil and found it too spicy but I loved it, and think it’s a great idea and definitely taking this idea home with me 🙂

Smashed avocado with sour cream, chilli oil and poached eggs $13.5

I thought I had misread the specials menu when I saw a handshaken lamington milkshake. I asked the waitress and she said ‘yup it’s a lamington flavoured milkshake’, I couldn’t resist and immediately ordered it. It surprised me when she came over with a large glass jar, but then it made sense to me because it’s handshaken they must have shook it in the jar ~ Very clever! They did a great job getting the lamington flavour spot on! It had the chocolate base, with a slight tanginess from what I assume to be strawberry jam and also desiccated coconut YUM! Highly recommend you trying this!

Handshaken Lamington milkshake $4.5

To finish up Mr Bao and I shared the pear and chocolate ganache cupcake, the cake itself was deliciously moist and light, while the chocolate ganache was sweet and rich. Only complain would be the amount of ganache and the tiny piece of pear, with a thicker layer of ganache it would have been perfect 🙂

Pear and chocolate ganache cupcake $3.5

We were definitely impressed with this little cafe in Reservoir and even though its out of our way, I definitely recommend it for locals in the area and I’m coming back just for the lamington milkshake!

At Last – The Hummingbird Bakery

Hello Everyone 🙂 I’m BACK! Sorry for the short hiatus! I have just got back from my trip to London and Paris with my sisters and on the night that I got back, my Dad had a really serious fall in the kitchen and fractured not one, not two but five bones in his rib cage 😦 It happened last at night and was so sudden, we immediately rushed him tot he hospital and I have never seen anyone in so much pain 😥 But thankfully, after 2 days in the hospital Dad is out and even though still in a lot of pain, he’s home and resting. Really hope Dad will recover soon! Sighhh….it’s times like these, when I hate that I’m working overseas and not being able to spend more time with my family. Would also like to say Thank You to everyone who left a comment and message through Twitter, I really appreciate them 😀

Anyhow, do you have a cookbook where you just got back to again and again? 🙂

The Hummingbird Bakery cookbook is definitely one of my favorites! I use their cupcake recipes all the time and their Red Velvet cupcake recipe has made me quite ‘popular’ amongst my friends hahaha where Mary has even asked me to bake her a whole dozen hehe 🙂

For that reason, when I found out that we were going to London, I made both Win Win and Anonymous Sister promise that we ll make a trip to ‘The Hummingbird Bakery’. We got up bright and early and took a taxi to the Soho store, near Chinatown.

As soon as I arrived, I honestly could not wipe the massive grin on my face! I had been dreaming, hoping and praying that I ll get the chance to try the ‘REAL’ red velvet from the Hummingbird Bakery 😀 finally I have arrived!

Even though it was quite early in the morning, they had a variety of cupcakes, cakes and brownies for customers to choose from 🙂

Red Velvet Cupcake £3.15GBP dine-in ($4.72AUD)

I immediately ordered a red velvet cupcake to try! It was just as pretty as they are in the books, with that distinct swirl on top with red cupcake crumbs scattered over the top ~ lol sorry but I couldn’t help but be the biggest tourist and take a photo of me and the cupcake :p

Now to the taste test! *Drumroll’s* I carefully remove the white case and take a huge bite. I was waiting for the excitement! But was quite honestly very disappointed… The cream cheese frosting was just as creamy, sweet and fluffy as the ones I make using their recipe. However, the cupcake itself was very dry and crumbly, not at all moist or spongey as I expected.

It’s very disappointing because I have used their recipe so many times and it never fails >_< I m trying to convince myself that it’s because I set my expectations too high and maybe that’s why? Dearest Readers has anyone of you tried The Hummingbird Bakery cupcake and find it to be too dry?

Carrot Cupcake £2.75GBP dine-in ($4.12AUD)

I wasn’t discouraged and decided to try another cupcake, the carrot cupcake. Thankfully this did not disappoint me, in contrast it was moist and fluffy. You could also see the little bits of carrot inside the cupcake 😉 I think the cream cheese frosting was the same as the one used for the red velvet cupcake. Sweet and smooth perfect march with the cupcake. Even though Win Win thought it was a little too sweet for her 😛

Brownie Cheesecake £4.25GBP take-away ($6.40AUD)

I couldn’t leave without trying one more thing! I wanted to try everything hahaha. Eventually decided on the cheesecake brownie as it seemed very popular with only two pieces left. I m not really sure why they called it a cheesecake brownie as it was very much a baked cheesecake with chocolate cake or cookies crumbles through it. I would decried it more as a Oreo cheesecake 🙂 super rich and creamy! Hmmmm I can’t say I don’t like it… But I think I like cheesecakes that are firmer in texture and stronger cream cheese flavour.

Mocha £2.95GBP ($4.43AUD)

Ending with my favorite mocha 🙂 I had been warned by Yasmeen (Wandering Spice) not to drink coffee in Paris so decided to risk it and try it here in London. I was impressed with this mocha, quite thick in texture and rich in flavour both coffee and chocolate ~ yum!

Overall, my experience at The Hummingbird  Bakery has created mixed feelings. Maybe because I had really high expectations, I was disappointed by the dryness of the cupcake. I ve tried the recipe many times at home and it has never failed… Always produces moist and fluffy cupcakes >_< I think it’s quite sad when cupcakeries open too many stores and they are not able to keep the quality of their cupcakes. Especially when they have such a good recipe! However, I m not dishearten and will continue using their recipes and hopefully the next time I get to try The Hummingbird Bakery it will be better 😀

Hummingbird Bakery
155 Wardour St
Soho, London
UK W1F 8
PH: (020) 7584 0055

Ribbons and Bows Cake – Review + Giveaway *Winner Announced*

OMG! There’s only 18 days until Christmas…Are you ready for Christmas? I am hyperventilating…I’m not sure if I’ll get everything done for our first ever Christmas in Melbourne 🙂 Usually I spend it in Hong Kong with my family… but this year, Mr Bao and I are spending it here and also hosting out first ever Xmas party eek!

Source: Google

I am totally stressing out, never made Christmas puddings, cakes or fruit mince tarts, that’s why when Ribbons and Bows asked if I would like to try some of their cakes and Christmas baked good. I immediately said ‘Yes Please’ 🙂

Ribbons and Bows Cakes is a local cake store that have been in the industry for nearly 15 years, however, they generally do wholesale and some of their clients include Qantas and David Jones ~ Recently, they have opened up an online retail store where customers can order and have their cakes delivered to them. YAY! Perfect for lazy and time-poor people like me 😛

They were very generous and gave me two boxes to sample, one box was filled with their popular cakes with a mix of cheesecake, vanilla slice, cupcake and whoopie pie. While the other box was filled with Christmas cakes, puddings and fruit mince tarts ~

I know that’s a LOT of cake but hahaha don’t worry, I tasted everything but also shared with my neighbour and friend Julz 🙂 Now let me take you through the cakes one by one ~

Lemon Meringue Cupcake

Starting with the Lemon Meringue Cupcake, it was a lemon scented cupcake with a meringue topping and lightly blown torch. Mr Bao and I both liked the meringue as it was smooth not too sweet (for him), but we found the cake to be a little dense and dry.

Strawberry Whoopie Pie

Whoopie pies are so American 🙂 Even though more cafes now make or stock them, they still haven’t become mainstream yet ~ keyword yet, I have a feeling these will become the new cupcakes 😛 I loved how the owner Ricky described these as ‘handheld’ cupcakes, which makes sense! Because it’s like a cupcake you can hold, and instead of the icing on top of the cupcake its in between two cake layers.

Handheld cupcake

We liked the buttercream strawberry filing which was very nice and did not have that artificial aftertaste.  However, found the cake layers to be slightly dry and we prefer cupcakes with a lighter and fluffier texture.

Flourless Carrot Cake

I have realised so many of my friends are Celiac and can’t have wheat based cakes 😦 that’s why many stores now offer gluten-free options such as this Flourless carrot cake. I really liked the moist texture and the lemon cream cheese frosting which went well with the glaced apricot and walnut. I just wished there was a little more cream cheese~

Toblerone cheesecke

The Toblerone Cheesecake was DELICIOUS! One of our favourite cakes, it was soft, moist and smooth but still had a strong chocolatey taste ~ I could have had the whole cake to myself, but had to share… Only little improvement I would make is to actually to a little piece of Toblerone on top of the cheesecake instead of the chocolate almond praline piece, just so people will know it’s a Toblerone cheesecake 🙂

Flourless Chocolate cake

Another gluten-free cake, Flourless Chocolate cake, another one of my favourite, it had rich chocolate flavours with some coffee notes. This would be perfect with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream or iced coffee ~

Vanilla Slice

Ricky told me the Vanilla Slice was one of their best sellers, I can see why very delicious, it’s not like a French mille feuille instead of multiple layers of puff pastry it only had two puff pastry pieces sandwiched with thick thick vanilla custard that was so wobbly, smooth, silky melt in the mouth texture.

Fruit Mince Tart and Christmas Cake

Now to the Christmas goodies 🙂 I’m not usually a fan of Christmas cakes, not sure why…because I don’t mind mixed fruit but I think it’s because most Christmas cakes I’ve had have a very strong rum  taste. That’s why I was really surprised I really enjoyed this Christmas cake with the sweet icing, it was super moist, wasn’t too sweet and definitely not rum filled 🙂 I’m not sure that they used any alcohol or if they wanted to make it alcohol-free for the little people (kiddies).

The fruit mince tart was also very nice, with a light crispy tart case, with delicious fruit mince and according to Mr Bao that wasn’t tooth aching sweet, whatever they weren’t sweet at all 😛 I think these would be perfect for any Christmas party, I’m actually tempted to order some myself ~

Christmas pudding

Christmas is definitely a season for puddings but its such a winter dish and unfortunately, we’re in the Southern hemisphere and it’s SUMMER here lol so it might be a bit weird for us to eat warm and comforting puddings for Christmas. But I really liked this steamed Christmas pudding which needs to be warmed before eaten, it had everything a good pudding should have and it would have been perfect paired with some custard or ice-cream.

Now it’s your turn to try some Ribbon and Bows cakes 😀 Ricky has very generously offered to give one lucky reader an 8inch cake of their choice!!!

To enter this giveaway:
– Leave a comment and tell me if what cake you would like to try? 🙂
– For more entries please ‘Like’ me on Facebook and Follow me on Twitter ~ If you’ve already done that please let me now! Thank you!
– Giveaway ends on the 14th of December
– You may reenter daily, one entry a day
– Winner will be chosen by random.org and announced on this blog and notified via email
– Please ensure you enter a valid email address
– Open only to Melbourne residents (Sorry!)

Good luck everyone 😀

WINNER ANNOUNCED

Congratulations Ross you are the winner for this giveaway 🙂

I used Random.org to generate a random number and counted the comments (not mine) and Ross is number 17 😀 YAY!

Thanks everyone for entering and leaving a comment 🙂

This is a sponsored post, Daisy@Nevertoosweet sampled the cakes for free, however, review and opinions are honest and based on personal taste and preferences. 

Sunday Bliss – Sweet Crumble

I just realised I have been posting more and more recipes on my blog and the recipe page is slowly growing in size  ~ but I think it’s time to do a review and not any review ~  a review of a newish bakery I found in Malvern – Sweet Crumble.

Sweet Crumble opened up in March this year and since finding out about it, I have been meaning to visit…but never got around to it~  so finally on Sunday, Mr Bao and I had brunch at home then slowly made our way there. I was really interested to find out from an Instagrammer  that some of their cupcakes were kosher dairy free so good for those who are dairy intolerant or vegan 🙂

We were so lucky that we found parking right across Sweet Crumble on the usually busy Glenferrie road. I immediately smiled seeing the sign ‘Sweet Crumble’ it reminds me so much of Magnolia Bakery in NYC ~Then when I walked it, I was totally grinning from ear to ear, because I knew it was going to be a blissful afternoon  ~ it’s so pretty inside, with vintage chairs, tables and all the glass jars filled with cookies and lollies.

Then we were confronted by this huge cabinet full of cupcakes, macarons, cookies, biscotti, cakes and more. I had to stand in front of it for a good minute absorbing everything that was in front of me before I could decide hahaha Mr Bao didn’t care what we ordered, he just wanted a Chai Latte Iced Frappe and that was it ~ gosh I love eating out with this guy hahaha he lets me choose everything 😛

Red velvet cupcake dairy free $3.5AUD

Even though there were lots of different cupcakes, I immediately knew I wanted to try the red velvet cupcake ~ just like my mocha, I always get that at cupcake bakeries to me it’s like the benchmark if their red velvets are good, the other cupcakes are usually good too hehe. The had the normal sized cupcake or the smaller size but not exactly mini which was a dollar cheaper, it may shock you but I actually chose the smaller cupcake 😛 so then I could order more desserts and try other things hehe ~ Unfortunately, though neither of us liked the red velvet cupcake here at Sweet Crumble, the cake itself was a little dry and too dense. But the most disappointing would have to be the frosting, because this is a dairy free red velvet, it wasn’t the traditional cream cheesecheese frosting, instead it was a sweet yet slightly rubbery icing, I think they must have used vegetable shortening to imitate the butter cream texture.

Macarons $2.5AUD each (Left coconut, right espresso)

Next up was the macarons ~ they had quite a few flavours, if I could I would order them all hehe 😛 but we had a dinner date that night, so we had to control. I wanted something out of the ordinary so I chose the coconut and Mr Bao needed a coffee-fix and ordered the espresso flavour. Starting with the coconut macaron it had a nice shell but was slightly crunchy but it tasted lovely, with a strong hit of coconut yummmmm. Then Mr Bao’s espresso flavoured macaron was just as good with a genuine coffee flavour and not that artificial flavouring.

Passion fruit cheesecake with salted caramel $6.5 AUD

You didn’t think I’d be done right hahaha so I went back and ordered a passion fruit cheesecake with salted caramel base, Mr Bao loved this cheesecake, saying it was smooth and velvety. I really liked it to, but did think the passion fruit was a little too sour and tangy compared to the cheesecake ~ but still very delicious!

Chai Latte Frappe $6AUD

Mr Bao was really intrigued by the flavour hehe ~ he really liked it describing it as refreshing with a light chai flaovur and very milky, I had a sip and thought it was quite nice too but the flavours weren’t very strong and think it would’ve been better if there was less milk hehe

Toffee Caramel Frappe $6AUD

I’ve always liked caramel but lately, I can’t get enough of it hehe ~ just like Mr Bao’s Chai Latte, flavours were subtle and tasted very much like plain milk with hints of caramel ~ it was definitely refreshing especially after eating some desserts, but being a sugar freak hehe I think it needed to be sweeter hehe

Peppermint Tea $3.5AUD

I think Mr Bao had too much dessert ~ and needed to order a peppermint tea to refresh his palate hahaha 😛 the tea bags are actually from Henry London, which I have heard of, however, haven’t had the chance to try their teas. It was refreshing with a strong peppermint flavour, but think we are use to and prefer T2’s tea instead.

Sweet Crumble also sells and stocks a range of goodies ~ such as their homemade honeycomb, biscotti, cookies and also mini Bonne Maman jam jars ~ they are sooooooooooo SUPER cute I couldn’t help but get them hehe ~ the honeycomb is so delicious! Crunchy, sweet and just yum 😀

Mr Bao and I sure had a blissful afternoon here at Sweet Crumble ~ There were some hit and misses, but as a whole it’s a definitely a great place to have afternoon tea with friends or grab desserts. A great addition to the dessert scene in Melbourne hehe hope you all have a blissful weekend too 🙂