My brother's Wedding cake

Today I will not be posting new recipes, instead I will post pix of my brother's wedding cake...(^.^). My brother who works in Singapore decided to have a sunset wedding with his wife at his hometown, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah and his wife ( my sis-in-law) requested for me & my USA brother's help to bake their wedding cake. BTW, my USA brother is my youngest brother and not the groom...:-))

I left all the planning to my brother as he has more experience and I just assisted him in the baking. He and my sis-in-law decided on a 3 tier 'satelite' wedding cake design and my sis-in-law requested for green tea flavour. Well, my USA brother flew in on 31st Aug 2011 and the next day we started buying all ingredients to prepare for the wedding cake. Wow! I have never bought so much cake ingredient especially the icing sugar. All in all I bought 30kgs to make the buttercream icing and also the fondant (but we didnt use up all of the sugar).

I baked the butter cake using my favourite recipe. I had to bake 14 pcs of cake to make seven 6" cake , 2 pcs of 8" cake and 3 pcs of 12" cake. I also made lots and lots of fondant. My brother in the mean time, prepared all the fillings which is Lemon Buttercream, Red Bean paste & Green Tea Buttercream.

Oh yes, we were also supposed to make Lollipop Macarons to serve to the guests as pre-dinner snacks. I told my brother that I havent have any success on making macarons and left the job to him...:-)) Initially, he had failures due to the high humidity in our place and after some trouble shooting we managed to get some nice ones & some bad ones.

Here are some of the pix of the wedding cakes...

The butter cake all covered with fondant.

My sis-in-law (the bride) wanted a contemporary design on the cake. Initially, we were supposed to use a stencil but it didnt work out as the icing got smeared so my brother had to use 'free hand' to pipe the design..(I would not have been able to do it...:-)

Tadah!! The completed wedding cake assembled at the wedding dinner reception. (Cakes & fondant made by me, fillings & decoration by my US brother)

My Spore brother & sis-in-law scout around Spore & Johore for a wedding topper but couldnt find one that they like so my USA brother offered to buy for them from USA and they chosed this one..

The 7 pcs of 6" cake which is the bottom 'satelite' tier is sandwiched with lemon buttercream. As there were 7 tables, each table had a whole cake served to them.

The 8" and 12" cake are sandwiched with Red Bean paste and Green Tea buttercream. We divide the 12 " cake amongst family members and the 8" cake was kept frozen for the bride & groom's 1st year anniversary. (The cake is still in my freezer as they couldnt bring it back to Spore (excess luggage) and furthermore they plan to celebrate their 1st anniversary in KK, Sabah. (I have to ensure no 2 legged rat eat them up...:-))

And last but not the least, the Lollipop macaron made by my brother packed nicley for the guests.

Lotus Seed Paste & Cheddar Cheese Mini Mooncake

I made some mini mooncakes instead of the big ones as I find the mini ones can retain its shape. When I made the bigger baked mooncake it became slanted and has 'elephant' feet. I think I need to trouble shoot some more before attempting again next year...:-((

I got this interesting recipe from the 'Yum Yum' magazine vol # 68. In this issue, they have many types of baked mooncake traditional and alsoteochew style. I picked this one since its the easiest...(^.^)

Skin:
175g Mooncake syrup / Golden syrup/Sugar syrup
1 tsp Alkaline Water
50g Peanut Oil (I used corn oil)
200-220g Low Protein Flour (I used superfine flour)

Filling:
250g Cheddar Cheese, cut into 25 cubes
350g Lotus seed paste, divided into 25 portions (14g each)

* You can actually reduce or add the portions of the cheddar cheese and lotus paste according to the weight of your mould.

Method:

1. Skin: Combine all ingredients & mix well. Cover with a piece of damp towel and rest for 30 mins. Divide the dough into 25 portions about 17g each.
2. Filling: Wrap 1 cube of cheddar cheese into 1 portion of lotus seed paste and form into a ball.
3. Flatten the skin dough, wrap filling and form into a ball. Sprinkle dough with a little flour and press into mooncake mould. Knock out the mooncake and place onto a baking tray. Brush off the excess flour.
4. Brush the surface with a little water and bake in preheatwed oven of 200 degree C for 8 mins. Remove and leave to cool for 15 mins. Glaze with beaten egg and bake for another 10 mins or until golden brown. Remove and leave to cool before serving.

 I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011), hosted by Happy Home Baking

Snow Skin Mooncake

Its the time of the year for mooncake baking & making. This year, instead of buying boxes of mooncake to give to friends and relatives, I gave them homemade mooncake..(^.^) and I'm so happy to get words of encouragement from hubby, relatives & friends. And also, the theme for this month's Aspiring Baker is 'Mid-Autumn Treats'.

For the snow skin mooncake, I made 4 types of flavour by adding emulco & coloring. I cant say I made the paste 100% as I used store bought ones and there were so many varieties of mooncake paste & fillings like peppermint, blueberry, charcoal, white coffee,etc.

Ingredients for Skin

100g Kao Fen
95g Icing Sugar
30g Shortening
120ml Cold water
Emulco/ Flavour/Paste
Coloring

1) Sift Kao Fen & icing sugar together.
2) Rub in shortening.
3) Add flavour & colour to cold water & pour into flour mixture.
4) Combine into dough and let rest for 30 mins.
5) Divide dough and wrap filling.


* I used Green Tea paste with Green Tea Lotus filling
              Pink colouring with Dragon Fruit Paste
              Yam Paste with Tausa filling
              Durian Flavour & yellow colour with Durian Paste.

            


I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #11: Mid-Autumn Treats (September 2011), hosted by Happy Home Baking