Classic Whoopie Pie

Do you remember the last time I made a red velvet cake? There were few times, red velvet whoopie pie recipe came up on the first of the search result page when I googled for the red velvet cake recipes. Then I wondered, what is a whoopie pie? It looks like a macaron or a yo-yo, but edible kind of yo-yo.

Wikipedia describes Whoopie Pie as two round mound-shaped pieces of cake with a sweet, creamy filling or frosting sandwiched between them. Pennsylvania, Maine and New Hampshire claim to be the birth place of the Whoopie Pie.

According to food historians, Amish women would bake these and put them in farmers' lunch boxes. When farmers would find the treats in their lunch, they would shout "Whoopie!" (hence the name). It is also thought that the original Whoopie Pies may have been made from cake batter leftovers.

Whoopie Pie is alternatively called a black moon, gob, black-and-white, bob or Big Fat Oreo ("BFO"). I think I prefer black moon, it sounds cool doesn't it?

Since this was my first time making the Black Moons, I chose the classic Whoopie Pie with marshmallow fluff filling. We don't have marshmallow fluff in the place that I live in at the moment, but I am lucky because I  just bought Marshmallow Fluff when I travelled to Sydney last month. I thought it will comes in handy. And it's true! :D

I was a bit hesitant to be honest, because I have never seen it with my own eyes before. Never tasted it before. So I didn't know what to expect out of these cakes. But I put aside my worries and did my best to follow the recipe to the T.

And Voila!

I think I did ok. The Black Moons were dense, moist and delicious! I am definitely going to make these again.

Red Velvet Cake with Fondant Rose

I decided to make red velvet cake with mascarpone cream cheese frosting for my dad's birthday. I really love red velvet cakes/cupcakes!

For the decoration I decided to make a gradient looking cake like the one I made for the vanilla bean cake (I don't know why but I fell in love with the idea of gradient cakes!) topped with fondant roses and leaves. I chose the colours: red and white for the icing.

I never make, touch or taste a fondant, ever in my life. But I decided to make my very own (and first ever!) fondant roses and leaves. I have been looking for the techniques over people's blogs and videos on Youtube.  And I found this and this as great tutorials (clean and easy to follow) and my inspiration as well. I did a bit differently than what they did, I found that my way of doing the roses is easier for me.

~ boyfriend was helping me to decorate ^^ ~

~ waiting for the fondant roses and leaves to dry up ~

~ the view from the top ~

Vanilla Bean Cake with Teal and Peach Swirl

After making an ombre cake, I was sort of obsessing with gradient colours on cakes, I think they look very appealing and pretty.

For this week I was making a vanilla bean cake with the actual vanilla bean (not the paste) and this was actually the first time I saw the bean! Never seen one before and I didn't even know that the Supermarket at the city that I live in sells them.

So I followed her tutorial for the pastel swirl look, I used teal and peach colours as they are the perfect match for one another. As a novice, I found it so hard to ice side of the cake, it was always so messy and never smooth! Nevertheless, I think I was doing quite ok with the icing this time and really love the colours!

The cake tastes so delicious and very tasty, I love it! I followed the exact recipe, only changed the icing to butter-cream icing.

I was pretty happy with the overall look, but I hope I can do better next time <3

Mini Pink Ombre Cake

I used to love the red velvet cake from this little Italian restaurant in Senopati, Jakarta (Indonesia), however it was so hard to get them. I came by at their restaurant in the morning, afternoon, evening, and the waiter always said they’re sold out (I don’t know whether they’re really sold out or just didn’t make them). It seems that there is more chance in meeting Hollywood celebrities than getting their cake. Since then, I was thinking why don't I make my own cake?!

I was browsing through the Internet to find the delicious cake recipes and discovered that there are so many (and many and many more!) blogs about baking! I was blown away by their creativity in arranging and decorating the cakes, and also their generosity for sharing the tutorials & their recipes with all of us.

I stumbled across this post and I was inspired to make an ombre cake and last weekend I finally made my own mini pink ombre vanilla cake – I love pink! This was my second attempt in baking my own cake. Since I am still new to baking there are lots of things that I still need to learn. For example, I have to fully ensure that I follow the recipe letter by letter otherwise it just won’t work! I learned this in a hard way, my first pink cake didn’t rise enough and the texture was more like a pancake rather than a cake.

For the second attempt, I made sure that the ingredients being called in the recipe were measured as precisely as possible, the oven temperature was correct and ensured that I properly follow the tutorial for the icing decoration. And… Voila!

It was delicious and not too sweet – just what I like. The icing decoration was simple yet stunningly beautiful (although still nothing compare to the original tutor).