Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Cupcakes At The Cooking House

After the last enjoyable Salacious Salads Soiree at the Cooking House, I was open to the idea of revisiting the place, so when BabeKL highlighted the cupcake course, I unhesitatingly raised my hand with the enthusiasm of a kid who needs to be excused for a loo break, in a classroom.

Initially, the chap who lives in Food Heaven was not keen to go, as the class did not cover the actual baking of cupcakes, only the decorating. BabeKL somehow, using her charm and persuasive powers, managed to wrangle the "how to bake cupcakes" into the syllabus as well, which actually, WAS just as well, or the class proper would have taken all of 20 minutes.

Anyway, it pays to be more attentive when reading brochures. I completely did not see that the medium of decoration was FONDANT. And worst of all, I saw these which sent shudders up my spine.


Anyway, the instructress, Soo Chee from The Cake Shop was exhorting the use of fondant, and its many wonders, and how the latest trend in Europe were miniature 6" diameter wedding cakes used as a crown atop a mountain of fondant wrapped cupcakes. Quite honestly though, fondant to me is one step away from being inedible, so I can't really say I am terribly excited by the major breakthrough this medium is going through, and its sudden popularity. Basically, it is a very versatile medium, I guess, and its easy to play around with, and can be moulded to all kinds of shapes.


Apart from Roses Jackson, Ryan (the salad chef) and Me, the rest were all thorns, looking intently at the demo as if it were neuro surgery. At one point, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.


I've always suspected you COULD use the mixer for fondant. But in those days, when I first attempted HL's wedding cake, I didn't have a proper mixer, and my fingers and palms were nearly paralysed from all that kneading.


This is of course the famous Salad Chef.

These were the freshly baked vanilla cupcakes. Can't really say I cared to much for the texture, they felt a bit rubbery, bordering on hard. Tastewise, well, you can't really go wrong with butter, eggs, sugar and flour....


Once she had demonstrated how to make fondant, (she did make it seem a lot more effortless than it actually is), we were left to our own devices to decorate our cupcakes the way we deemed fit.


St Jackson from Food Heaven....

By this time, I was getting a little fidgety, coz I had to host a dinner for 16 that night, and hadn't done any preparation yet, so I quickly tried to get mine done as soon as possible. Note my dual toned rainbow hippo, who had just done a poo.

My two purple love ducks having a swim in lake gardens.


This was BabeKL's creation, ....I thought HB stood for HUS BAND, but actually it's Happy Birthday.

The macabre snake, complete with bloodied fangs and blood drops, were the brainchild of the Salad Chef , Ryan.


And no prizes for guessing who this belongs to.

Overall, I'd say it would have been a very good class for those with first time exposure to Fondant. For me personally, since I am not a flowery, decoraty kind of person, the knowledged garnered here can be shelved right up there with my notes from the Chemical Warfare course that I took in 1990.

9 comments:

Babe_KL said...

Dear Rose,

I did not charmed them into having the baking session in, must be the rest of the thorns. BTW, the cupcake texture can't do for me as well, very densed, rubbery and have a very artificial taste.

Hopefully they will have the modelling class on next so that you can use up your magic ingredient :p

Love,
One of the Thorns

Big Boys Oven said...

OMG! they are so lovely and yet so effortless!

"Joe" who is constantly craving said...

y ur poo tat kinda colour 1..and when will u hav another dinner ler haha..

daphne said...

oh!! so this was what jackson was talking about! Playing with fondant reminds me of playdoh... only that it is edible this time round!

boo_licious said...

I love that multi coloured hippo taking his poo break - definitely something which will get kids talking abt it. Imagine if u served that in the party and all the kids insist on taking a poo break too! Chaos...

I shld have warned u it was fondant as I also hate fondant deco since it's something I hate to eat. The most I'll do is marzipan. Oh, there's one I learnt which is edible - chocolate putty! Very yum since it's all pure choc.

wmw said...

The hippo that took a dump is just so cute that it'll be the best seller should you ever market it. Wah, hosting dinner for 16 pax and still can go for baking classes! Terror...

Sze said...

very small slivers of poo for a hippo... speaking of hippos - do you know the kids book hippos go berserk? a must-have.

fatboybakes said...

sze- no, dont have. you give me la. well, i didnt want to finish up her teeny portions of royal icing with bigger hippo poo...but i think in scale, okaylah, quite big what.

wmw - really? you think they'd sell? hmmm [scratching chin, thinking of ways to make money]

boolicious - can imagine some prude parents reaction. reminds me of this limerick:
there was a old lady from moor
who's morals were exceedingly pure
she fainted away
at a friend's house one day
at the sight of a canary's manure.

chocolate putty? yummmm. recipe please, pretty please.

daphne- yup, so can you imagine eating the fondant after that. you really don't know where its been.

nipples, i didnt have the time to make my own poo color la. in any case, what color IS hippoo?

precious, no lah, as i said, with fondant, ugh, you never know where its been.

BBO, you are too kind. i think they look awful la.

dear thorn, yalor, we prob can make better cuppie cakes hor.

teckiee said...

LOL ROTF at the hippo! Yeahh I would buy the hippo like WMW. Too many cute cupcake out there, but this one is different.. nottie and cute LOL!