Saturday, 17 May 2014

Food Recipes #1( Red Velvet, No Bake Smores, Vanilla cake)

RED VELVET CAKE
I mean with all the raging comments on " Red velvet is good, tasty" we were sure darn curious on how it tastes.
We did tried a few and each places differ, so we tried making our own red velvet and see how it tasted! Different as well! So if you have the time and a little money to spare, why not try baking this cake which has been trending for quite some time! 
So these are the ingredients. instructions. :)
Ingredients:
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon of baking soda
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon of salt
  • 2 Tablespoons unsweetened, cocoa powder
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 3 teaspoon of vanilla extract
  • 1-2 oz. red food coloring
  • 1 teaspoon of white distilled vinegar
  • ½ cup of prepared plain hot coffee (Optional)

Instructions:

  1. 1:Preheat oven to about 180 Degrees.
  2. 2.In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt. Set aside and then in a large bowl, combine the sugar and vegetable oil.
  3. 3.Mix in the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla and red food coloring until combined.
  4. 4.Stir in the coffee and white vinegar.
  5. 5.Combine the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients a little at time, mixing after each addition, just until combined.
  6. 6. Grease the flour for about two rounds.
  7. 7.Pour the batter evenly into the pan.
  8. 8.Bake in the middle rack for 40 minutes(Max would be an hour else it would start to get burnt), or until a toothpick comes out clean. Do not over bake as cake will continue to cook as it cools.
  9. 9.Let cool on a cooling rack.

  10. Frost the cake with cream cheese frosting when the cakes have cooled completely, or for this case we used nutella cause, nutella. LOL






End results were there! But we got a little confused with the taste and only to find out that
what makes the red velvet so delicious was the cake's taste with cheese/Chocolate!
So we would suggest putting some cream/cheese/chocolate for this cake else it would taste
rather bland but, still a nice treat once in awhile to make for afternoon tea time and such!
For those who would want to use Cream Cheese as their topping, the recipe is below! :)

Cream Cheese Recipe
8oz Cream Cheese

1/4 cupbutterormargarine, softened
1 teaspoon of vanilla (we used 2)
1 lb. powdered sugar (about 4 cups), sifted




Mix it all in a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until it gets creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then slowly stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use. :)









                                                  










                                   NO BAKE SMORES

So we came across with someone saying" I would love to make smores and all" but so far none of our friends made one. And then recently we seen people talking about No bake Smores and seriously? It looked frigging delicious, its no bake, I mean cmon, no one still tried to make any of them :(
So, cheers for being hungry and cravings for chocolate and marshmallows
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups of Digestive cracker crumbs
1 tablespoon of powdered sugar
3/4 cup heavy/whipping cream
8 ounces of chocolate or more. :P

1. First start by layering the pan with butter.
2. crush your cookies into cookie crumbs, make sure that they are literally small crumbs.
After that, mix in the butter and sugar. After around 5 mins you would get this dough kind of texture.
3.Place crumbs in the pan and flatten it out.
4. In this case, we melted a cadbury chocolate bar and then mix it with the heavy whipping cream.
(Basically any sort of chocolate would do)
5. Yes, no bake at all but we placed it in the oven so that the marshmallows would melt a little.
6. Do note that you have the choice to put in the marshmallows and then warm it up OR you can place the marshmallows later and then burn the marshmallow with a flame or something.

Once done, you place this cuties in the fridge and then let them cool for maybe an hour.
After that,
Ta-da! 
End results were perfect, sweet and tasty. Perfect to make for friends and family.
or just when you are craving for something sweet and chewy....feeling fat.







Plain Vanilla/Chocolate Cake
The mother of all cakes! Once you have mastered the skill of making this cake, we reckon that you could basically go on and improvise with your own recipes. Well the reason why we chose to make this cake is simple,because it's simple. (pun intended)
What we mean is that, it is easy to make and the possibilities to alter the recipe is endless! So lets get starting shall we!
 
INGREDIENTS:

2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cup of milk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2-1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:
1. Heat up the oven to about 180 Degrees


 2. beat the sugar and eggs together until it is slightly thick, do this for about 1 minute.
3. Add flour, milk, oil, baking powder, and vanilla and beat for another minute, just until the batter is smooth and creamy. 
4.Pour batter into the prepared baking pan(s).


 5. Leave it in the oven for approximately an hour and poke it with a toothpick to see whether it is baked or not.



The results was......
It was a lil crispy on the outside yet soft and spongy on the inside.
For the taste itself we would say that it is a little sweet, but not overly sweet.
This would be perfect if it was paired with tea or coffee as it brings out the vanilla taste in this cake!
Cheers for trying! :)
We hope you would have fun trying out these recipes cause we know we did. :D

Sunday, 16 March 2014

Lovely Halal Home Bakery, @PrettyBake.

Hello there, !
First and foremost,

XOXO

to our lovely readers who kept in touch/updated with our blog despite
us being semi-hiatus. We appreciate your support here and hope you will continue doing so.

Sadly, in today's post, it wouldn't be about cafés. It will be a shout out/review for a lovely and skilled baker in Singapore. We apologize to our fellow readers who are looking forward to another café review. However, we assure you that this will not be a disappointing post and we hope you finish reading it! In addition, we will be bringing another café review in no time so stay updated to http://searchingpancake-s.blogspot.com We will continue to bring joy to your tummy with good and affordable food! Alright, let's get back to business!
-

Introducing to you, *Drum Roll*


PrettyBake is a lovely independent Halal home bakery which is situated at Choa Chu Kang Area. This home bakery is run by a lovely lady and her team who has brilliant baking skills. PrettyBake caters to sweet treat such as Blossoms, Cupcakes, Cakes Tarts, Brownies etc. You name it! She provides awesome services which you have to try it to find out. I am sure you will not be disappointed.

In addition, PrettyBakes provides packages for candy corners. With that, it will allow them to be part of your occasion as well as allowing them to decorate a candy corner which will satisfy your hungry guests.

We have personally ordered cakes from her for our friends' birthday. We did not regret a bit and we are sure you wouldn't as well!




This is an 8 inch Kit-Kat Rainbow Cake baked by PrettyBake for ZuoQuan (Friend of ours)!


 



Below is a graphic on the price range for the Kit-Kat Cake:
For more information, please refer to the URL stated at the end of the post 
(pssshhhhh! She caters to customize orders as well. hehe!)





This is our personal favourite, Nutella Blossoms! For readers who favour Nutella more than anything. this is definitely perfect for you.
In the photo above, I ordered a mixture of designs. (Cookie Monster, Minions and Lady Bug)
The sweet Nutella filling inside of the blossom will make you fall in love with it.

Price ranges from 50 pieces, SGD20 to SGD23


Because Cakes are too mainstream, we ordered a brownie platter for our lovely friend, Amarlina!
Guess what? It wasn't a wrong choice to do that.

This sweet brownie is covered with chocolate accompanied with nuts inside.
 For our dear readers who wants to order a brownie platter but is allergic to nuts, do try to request for it to be bake without nuts.

Price ranges from a 36 bite-size pre-cut, SGD28.
 




" Sharing is Caring " ; Which is why we decided to post this up because it is so delicious and we hope our fellow readers from Singapore will give it a try as well. 



HANDY DANDY SECTION! 

For Instagram Users, do follow @PrettyBake!
Website: http://www.prettybakes.wix.com/prettybake
Email: PrettyBake@live.com.sg
Contact Number: +65 8254 4658
Collection Area: Choa Chu Kang Cresent. 
Leading time to place an order is:
1.  3 days in advance for normal orders
2.  5 days in advance for Macarons
3.  1 Month notice for Candy Corners 
Orders will only be confirmed after deposit is made within 2 days.
Deposit will not be refund if order is cancelled 5 days before collection date. 
          Do remember to be nice! ^_^





With ,
Shimin. :] 

Saturday, 1 March 2014

Plain Vanilla @ Tiong Bahru

Bonjour! It has been long since we last updated our site so here is a mini update on not a café, but a bakery! Introducing to you… Plain Vanilla Bakery! Dum dum dum!


Okay let us start off with the fact that this little bakery is placed in an area with so many many many café’s around Such as Poteato and Forty hands, so why not stop by this bakery as well along your café hopping list? J

Alright this bakery has 2 branches here in Singapore. One in Tiong Bahru and the other at Holland (which is a café hopping haven as well), for this post it would be the Tiong Bahru branch!(10 mins walk from Tiong Bahru MRT) J




Other than their really nice exterior they have pretty nice drinks as well, the usual café latte and Mocha but if you’re a fan of cafe Mocha the chocolate taste in this one isn’t that strong so maybe you could ask them to pump in more chocolate syrup for you ;D
And since it is a bakery…. That’s right! Pastries and some… food I guess. LOL
You should definitely come early for their cupcakes(They run out pretty fast L) which is heavenly though some are mixed
with rum so I might suggest those who are not in favour with this ingredient you should ask
the workers questions before getting it J





Basically this place has a really nice ambience and the workers there are pretty nice too just that they have a really small space for people to consume their food there but nevertheless a tasty treat
from here will definitely brighten up your day!

Oh, before I forgot they also do Take outs as well, they will wrap it in a cardboard box(Its hard, no worries of it getting crumpled) which is super durable! Cheerios for the sunny(And freaking hot) weekends!






Holland Village - Tues-Sat 12pm-8pm 
 Sun 12pm- 6pm. 
Closed Mondays.


 Tiong Bahru - Tues-Fri 11am to 8pm
, Sat 9am to 8pm 
and Sun 9am to 6pm. Closed Mondays.

Shoutout to Butterscotch Cafe!

Firstly we would like to thank the cafe for placing our review on their Facebook page. We were humbled to see one of our posts on facebook so thank you for your kind effort!
It has been long since our last visit to Butterscotch and it seems that not only their business/popularity has grown but their menu as well!

Not only we would like to shout out a big thank you but we would also like to wish you a blessed life and may your business flourish! Huat ah/ Go jeh don't scared
Cheerios!

Saturday, 8 February 2014

Loysel's Toy @ 66 Kampong Bugis

Happy weekends people and a very good day to you all. We apologize for our semi hiatus due to examinations and work but we’re back for another lovely café post!
We have took the poll into considerations and we have decided to do some shout out for independent bakers selling their own cakes and such, Reviews on some art festival or theatrical show and maybe find some places of interest to chill and have a picnic, stay tuned for these updates and reviews. Finally, we fervently thank you all for your support in our blog!


So here we go! Loysel’s toy!
Preferably, alight at Lavender Station and walk for a rough 10 mintues to this cafe! :)

We have been to this café for quite a couple of times and the ambience here is simply spectacular!
Though I have to admit that the distance is rather a hassle but nevertheless it would be worth the travel.
They have a very tiny interior but there are loads of tables and chairs surrounding this café so I can ensure you that there are plenty of seats around for you to choose from. Basically on a normal weekday the café would not be as crowded as compared to a weekend but the seats outside isn’t that bad, despite it always being sunny its really windy here as well!

What I may suggest that you might want to come early in the morning like around 10am or so for their breakfast menu! It’s really worth every penny! Also I would like to mention that they have different menus on weekends and weekdays, personally I find the weekend menu much tastier. xD

Pancakes with Gula Melaka & Butter-  $6


Strawberry rhubarb cake ! Costs around $3.50( Can't recall)

Some nutella cake which costs around $4 (Can't recall)

Soy milk Mocha - $6(-$1 if you want to use regular milk )

Other than pancakes and pastries they do sell american breakfast like bacons with sausages and 
eggs on the side. Salads,sandwiches so on and so forth are available here too for a decent price!



(Oh yes there are bike rentals here in collaboration with Life cycle)
$7/hr
$12/2hrs
$22/4hrs

Greeted by a nice ambience


There are seats available as well at the side of the cafe!

Also the seats behind

(A closer inspection)


Personally its a nice place, with great coffee and definitely great people as well!
This place is definitely family friendly and we really don't mind coming back for more.
It has been the umpteenth time we visit the place but despite the friendly service and striking convos with the
customers, I rarely see the staff smile. Haha yes! Cheerios mate! Maybe we always come on a busy 
day, maybe that's why they all see so glum. Nonetheless a great cafe indeed! :)

HERE ARE SOME DETAILS YA!



(Price range $8-$15)