On 8th September 2012 Celcom Axiata Berhad, the first and foremost mobile telecommunications provider, hosted an exclusive cupcake baking class for bloggers and media representatives for the Celcom Cupcake Challenge, an exciting online contest in conjuction with Malaysia's 55th Anniversary of independence and the upcoming Malaysia Day celebrations on 16th September.
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The Invited Bloggers and Media People
So there I was on a Saturday morning.in a baking class hosted by Lu Soo Chee, resident cake artist in The Cooking House and a member of ICES (International Cake Exploration Societe) and the British Sugar-craft guild,who has more than 10 years of baking and cake-decorating experience and has worked with professionals around the world.
So here it goes;
A quick guide on HOW TO BAKE CUPCAKES AND NOT CRAPCAKES.
What you need / Preparation :
For the Cupcakes / Base
110g Plain Flour
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
125g Butter
100g Sugar
2 Eggs
1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence
2 tbsp Milk
For the Frosting
95g Salted butter
260g Icing sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tbsp Milk
Steps :
These instructions were carefully written on paper before being xerox'ed to us and I've taken the liberty of highlighting it in green in hopes that anyone will not make the mistake of assumptions that I have great knowledge on pastry baking. Take note : I DO NOT
1) Sieve the flour with the baking powder
Not sure how this is done because when we were handed the ingredients, the flour and baking powder was already mixed together.
2) Cream the butter and sugar until white and fluffy :
Explanation :
First and foremost. Add butter on the mixing pot. I hope my explanations are detailed enough
Then add in sugar on the butter and start scraping it against each other to start the creaming process, this is the part where you start chanting spells of fires in hope that the butter will melt and meld with the sugar. (We weren't taught the proper chants during class so if you were hoping to learn some here, look somewhere else, I suspect that these were only taught to the womenfolk in class in whispers while the guys weren't looking)
^ If you aren't well verse in witchcraftery, you're gonna have a bad time beating hard cold butter into it's creamy state.
But if you were to do a little better this is what it is suppose to be like during the creaming process
The Sugar and Butter perfectly melding together.
The completed creaming process. Which was helped by a female blogger which shall not be named to protect her anonymity as I do not wish that she be burned and staked.
3) Beat in eggs and fold in flour carefully. Do not overmix
I like the 'helpful' note at the end, the tip is as helpful as asking a man to not overdrink during his first pub outing. And said man will not learn what overdrinking is until he wakes up at 8 am next to a dude who calls himself Stella and has to sit on soft pillows for the next 2 weeks.
Beating the eggs. So far the easiest steps I've encountered.
What it looks like after the eggs and buttered cream are beaten thoroughly.
Add in the FLOUR, Milk and Vanilla Essence for further mixing. There's so much mixing involved, I daresay even Dj Earthworm doesn't mix that much in one session.
The final state after mixing all the ingredients in. The end of the line.
4) Fill paper cups with mix until 2/3 full.
AHA, Finally, something I'm good at. Filling stuff. Packing dough into circular cups. Easy
5) Insert into oven and bake at 180 C (160 with Fan) for about 13 minutes.
After 13 minutes in the oven :
This was when I thought everything was done. But nope. There's still the frosting for decoration.
Part B
1)Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl
Got another chance to start beating the butter. But it went better this round as we learnt the Betty Crocker way of holding the mixing pot and spatula :
2)Add sifted icing sugar,milk and beat until combined
and then we continued beating after adding in the icing sugar and milk.
And more beating.
As we administered more and more beatings the butter/sugar hybrid was starting a resistance army thus their form turned into a hard mold which made beating that much harder.
I was having none of these nonsense and thus called in for reinforcement to help beat the hell out of the mix.
The final form after all the beatings. Which has to be non-stick to the touch and can be molded into different forms like play dough.
3)Add more powdered sugar as needed to get piping consistency. Add a drop of coloring if desired
Seperate completed dough into 3 different molds for coloring purposes. (If you see 2 at the picture above you're drunk or high as a bat)
We were given toothpicks with coloring
Put each dough into a seperate container and put in color mixes.
Mix until all the colors are thoroughly spread.
Like so :
Final step : Decorate cake with creativity / The Outcome
Didn't manage to snap any photos at this point during the decorating process due to coloring all over hands and face so we'll just skip to the outcome.
Ladies and Gentlemen, are you ready to witness the spectacular that which is the creation by Ryan & Benjamin? The next step of evolution, where men would no longer need to rely on the women to take care of the house and cook fancy meals while they were gone, the next step is here
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I present to you, our Malaysia Themed cupcake creation!
Okay so man will stick back to the proper evolutionary path and hunt for food in the wild then. And leave the meal preparation to the other half.
How we wanted it to be / Expectation :
Reality :
But hey, at the end of the day, man learned something new. And had loads of fun beating off the dough and hurting his hand in the process.And getting envious at the women who made the best looking cupcake that day :
About The Celcom Cupcake Challenge
This simple online contest challenges Malaysians to submit photos of their cupcake designs with the theme of the Merdeka / Malaysia Day. This contest is open to all Malaysian everywhere in the spirit of 1Malaysia
Participants for the Celcom Cupcake Challenge need only to design a cupcake with their own creative interpretation of national pride and upload the photo to www.facebook.com/cupcakeschallenge to be in the running to win prizes worth more than RM100,000. From now until the final submission date of 23rd September 2012, 55 participations with the most "Likes" on their entries will be chosen to go on to the grand finale on 29th September 2012
At the grand finale, the 55 finalists are to replicate their cupcake designs witnessed by the public and a panel of celebrity judges, who will choose the top three cupcakes designs based on creativity, uniqueness and closest match to submitted photos.
The top three winners will walk away with a brand new Samsung Galaxy SIII Smartphone worth RM2199 each and RM10,000 RM5,000 and RM2000 in cash for the first, second and third place. The rest of the 52 finalists will receive a LG Prada mobile phone as consolations. The public is also urged to look out for free Celcom cupcake giveaways this Malaysia Day at selected Malls
So what are you waiting for? Start baking NAO.
So what are you waiting for? Start baking NAO.
2 comments:
you survived the challenge! not bad eh?
Yes survived the challenge by not laughing at my own creation
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