Ferrero Rocher Cupcake with chocolate Ganache.

Today we celebrated Marcus's belated birthday and I decided to share some of my baking love with my 'german' friends. It was nice to sit around and bitch about things in general.

I had in mind what I wanted to bake. But wanted to make it a little more fancy. Since there is a box of Ferrero Rocher lying around, I decided to use a simple vanilla cupcake. Which I got from the Martha steward's Billy's Vanilla cupcake recipe. Before putting the cupcakes into the oven, I place a Ferrero Rocher into each cupcake mixture. Much to my surprise the Chocolate did not melt in the heat and the form remained even after the heat!

I also found a really neat recipe for chocolate ganache and tried it out too.

Looks like a donut top down.

Piped the Chocolate Ganache round the chocolate.

Here is the Chocolate Ganache recipe.

Really easy to make!

Marshmallow Cake

As usual I am still searching for something light and not too sweet to bake. Today is Mother Tan's birthday and I decided to make Marshmallow cake. Well I wanted to make something with marshmallow but have yet to figure out what exactly I could bake/make with it. So I was doing my usual google and allrecipe sites doing research on funky stuff to bake. So I found a recipe called Marshmallow cheese cake. Well I could not really believe imagine how it will taste because there were marshmallows instead of sugar. Perfect! Something not too sweet and light and it was suppose to be inspired by japanese cheese cake. ( which is rather difficult to bake, because I am still a noob, so I think this is a good substitute.) And its NO BAKE! Wunderbar!

Initially when I first placed it in the fridge, it looked a little too fluffy and watery and I was not sure if it will set. So I decided to leave it overnight till its really firm before eating it. And the result was fantastic. Finally I made something the whole family likes! The texture is actually more pudding like, very soft. My dad says it taste like egg tarts. Its not too sweet and pretty light too. Great for breakfast and tea!

Its my mum's 48th birthday. But as you can see from the pictures below, we could not decide how many candles to place because we only had 12. So we were just randomly placing candles on the cake. I can't remember what the final number of candles were on the cake.

After settling on the number of candles and singing birthday song. Mother Tan blew the candles. In my face -_-

Yea we were too lazy to get plates and were still feeling full from dinner so we just ask from the mould.

Here is the original recipe (from all recipes):

• Serves 8
• 
  
• 1/2 (10.5 ounce) package marshmallows
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 egg yolk
• 1/2 lemon, juiced
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 small pack of digestive chocolate biscuits

1. In a saucepan on low heat, combine marshmallows and milk. Cook until marshmallows are melted, and mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Stir in egg yolk. Fold in 1/3 of the melted marshmallow mixture, then quickly fold in remaining marshmallow until no streaks remain. Stir in lemon juice.
3. In a large bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture until no streaks remain. Spread into biscuit crust. Refrigerate for 3 hours.

Chocolate fudge cookie dough

While doing research on something to bake, I found out that cookie dough could be eaten without being baked. And according to wiki its good comfort food, especially for women! Since I was going to meet corrine, yesterday, I decided to make this for her. I made some changes to the recipe because I really dont like chocolate chips. I think they are over priced just because of their shape. So I used M&Ms and Hersheys kisses as a substitute.

Hersheys kisses look like the figures for a board game. The lines are there because I had to plan where to place the hersheys kisses such that three colours are in one cube.

All sliced and ready to go.

Adapted from here.

Serves 24

• 1/3 cup margarine, melted
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 1 pinch salt
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 pack of M&M min
• 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 (16 ounce) package confectioners' sugar
• 1 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Line a 9x9 inch baking dish with aluminum foil, and set aside.
2. To make the cookie dough pieces, mix the melted margarine, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the flour to make a dough, and knead in 1 pack of M&Ms minis. Form the dough into a disk about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick, place it on a sheet of plastic wrap, and then shape the disk into a square with your hands.
3. Place the square piece of dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes, until cold and stiff, and then slice it into 1/2 inch square pieces. Refrigerate the dough pieces while you make the cream cheese fudge.
4. Mix together the cream cheese and confectioners' sugar in a bowl until smooth, and stir in the melted chocolate chips and vanilla extract.
5. Lightly fold in the cookie dough pieces, and spread the candy out into the prepared dish. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, or until firm, and remove the candy from the foil-lined dish. Cut into squares, and serve.