Happy Birthday Dad!

 

Golf Course Cupcakes for my Dad :) 

Happy Birthday!

May your years ahead sparkle with joy and merry

x,

Ardna

Beware of....

Weird Robotic Alienated SPIDERS!!!!

..................



they don't look like spiders, do they? oh well, at least i hope they are weird enough for halloween treats! we don't celebrate halloween here, but its the perfect excuse for horrible-looking baked goods! ;)
nevertheless, i'm SOO HAPPY I nailed this! it's actually Bakerella's Famous Cake Pop, and i stick Scoox Sour Candy to make it look like spiders and sprinkles for the eyes and the mouth. i finally got her cookbook last month, and i'm thrilled. it is so full with great ideas and detailed explanations.

Love,Love it! i'm planning to make micky mouse and cupcake pop soon. wish me luck!

and oh, Happy Halloween!!

Birthday Girl

Well, it turned out I didn't have to bake myself a cake for my birthday after all. I didn't know when i blurted out that I want to spend my birthday at Universal Studios Singapore ( really, I meant that as a joke!) that my mom would take that seriously! wow!

and so last weekend my family had a weekend getaway to Singapore. I am a proud Indonesian, but truthfully, I left half of my heart in Singapore. I spent my childhood back and forth to Singapore because of routine check my grandpa need to have at hospital there. it's a wonderful country with fresh air, great food and they have like, the biggest Kinokuniya ever. ha.

I spent that saturday ( my bday) going to East Coast Park and stumbled into people wakeboarding. It looked so fun and hard at the same time. noted to myself that i'm gonna learn that next year.

then we ate singapore world famous dish, the chilly crab. it's basicly big huge srilankan crab stir fry with lots of chilly, eggs, and hot sauce. It's the kinda food that burned your tounge but sweet at the same time, which you dreadfully cannot not have more.

then we went to the universal studio, like my mom promised me, and I shop like crazy! we visited universal studio befoe so we kinda knew all the ride there and girls will always be girls, somehow those rides did not look so interesting anymore. I bought countless of chocolate and candies, also mugs! i fell in love with the puss in boots and gingerbread cookies mugs :)

Well, I had a fun birthday and one heck of a weekend (and a very very heavy luggage). holiday's over, going to post some baking stuff soon :)

Goody Reads

You guys might know this already : I'm a geek. As I stated before in last posts, I  love books like pigs love shit. I love the smell of books store, the texture of paperback books on my hand, the cute beautiful covers, the sound of flipped pages. I love being on the bookstores. I can spend ages in them, window shopping, admiring books covers and peeking at books summary. You give me million dollars and I would be the happiest girl in the world to spend them all on books.

Sometimes my mother growls at me and said " why don't you shop for shoes and clothes instead of books all the time?" Oops. Sorry mom. 

Well, when i visit Becoming Lola, i was totally drown to her book club, The Breakfast Club and join Goodreads in a heartbeat.

I've always wanted to have my own huge library and Goodreads is the online version of my dreams. I stack books, the one I read, i wish to read, I'm currently reading, I hate. I review them, give them some stars, and join bookclubs, discuss books and make some new friends!

and when i say books, cookbooks included. I stack my cookbooks collections, I have already give them stars and I'm currently writing reviews for each one of them. You can see my cookbooks collection on the right side of this web, or below :

Ardna's Cookbook ;)




More of Deardna's books »

I'm DYING to buy the next edition of Hello, Cupcake! , the What's New, Cupcake?. So what do you think? are you a geek too? what's your next-must have cookbook, the one you've been sooo excited to buy?

Nigella Lawson's ChocoPots

I can't believe it's October already. I'm gonna be 19.... in 13 days. :s Somehow i still feel like 16. I've decided since the beginning of September that i wanted to celebrate my birthday with my own cake. since I'm well, me, who needs like 3-4 times bake a messed up cake and leave the kitchen looking like it's been hit by a truck, i need a lot of practice.

And guess what, today is the first episode of the-messed-up-cake which ends in a emotional break down-kitchen wise. In a second i knew that i need chocolate. like, STAT!

and I'm back in the kitchen. My-look-alike-hit-by-truck-kitchen. Let's just skip that part. I've always been a huge fan of Nigella Lawson and i just simply, adore her. Her recipes are easy, quick, and you just can't go wrong. All you need is her ChocoPots to warm up your day.

 Oh, take a look at how it cracks, the crispy outside, gooey chocolatey, mmmm....

PS:  Sorry bout the pictures! It was raining cats and dogs so I couldn't get the picture with natural light.

Nigela Lawson's ChocoPots

• Butter for ramekins
• 3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup superfine sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips

Place baking sheet in an oven preheated to 400°. Butter four 2/3-cup ramekins and set aside.

Using a microwave oven or double boiler, melt together the semisweet chocolate and the butter. Set aside to cool.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, sugar and flour. Add cooled chocolate mixture, and mix until blended. Fold in chocolate chips.

Divide mixture evenly among ramekins and place on baking sheet. Bake until tops are shiny and cracked and chocolate beneath is hot and gooey, about 20 minutes. Place each ramekin on a small plate with a teaspoon and serve, reminding children that ramekins and chocolate are hot.

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

I've been craving for Chocolate Thumbprint cookies since last Eid ul Fitr, when my mom went crazy and bought almost all cookies from Harvest, our local bakery. Chocolate Thumbprint is my favorite, thou Harvest's called them White Button. why, they are as cute as a button indeed! it was really easy and fun to make, despite the part where you bake the cookies for 10 minutes, dipped ur thumb to the half cooked so freaking hot cookie dough, then put it back in the oven.

My red sore thumb is all worth it when I bite into these cute botton cookies, feel the vanilla cookies crumble into rough sand and blend gently with the silken dark chocolate. Oh, Heaven!

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
makes 4 1/2 dozen

1 cup plus 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chopped
2 tsp corns syrup ( i used honey instead-it works too)

preheat the oven to 350 F. line two baking sheets with parchment paper. 


In the bowl of an electric mixed fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together 1 cup butter, the confectioners' sugar, salt and vanilla on medium speed until smooth about 2 minutes, beat in flour, beginning on low speed and increasing to medium until combined

Form balls using 2 teaspoons of dough for each, place balls 1 inch apart on prepared baking sheets. 

Bake 10 minutes, remove from the oven, and press thumb into cookies to make deep, wide indentations, rotate the pan, and return to the oven; bake until light brown on the edges, 7 to 9 minutes more. ( if the indentations begin to lose definition, remove cookies from oven and press again.) 

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. 

Combine the chocolate, the remaining 6 tablespoons butter and the corn syrup in a small heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water; stir occasionally until melted and smooth. 

Allow to cool a bit until slightly thickened. fill thumbprint with the chocolate mixture, and set aside to firm up. cookies can be stored in a single layers in airtight containers at room temperature up to 3 days.

How-To-Create-Buttermilk

Man. It's so hard to find buttermilk here in Jakarta. I'm saying that with regret because there are a lot of great recipes out there that required buttermilk and i just had to skip them because I had no idea where to get one.

But then i found this :

Thank you so much Kay from Kayotic Kitchen! She stated in her blog how to make buttermilk. Geez, I never knew that we could make buttermilk. Kay also blogs about how to make your own butter! Butter!! I am amazed.

I do think her blogs are one of those great blog out there that are worth to see. She mostly cook than baked, but her recipes are easy, yummy and not to mention she is also an amazing food photographer!   :)

Magnolia Famous Banana Pudding

When my best-friend went to NY and screamed to me how yummy magnolia banana pudding is, (She said it's even better than the cupcake) i just can't wait to make them! I'm not a big fan of banana, but my parents are. Dad can eat 3 bananas after dinner and mom usually chew on that fruit with anything she can find on the fridge, nutella, cheese, peanut butter, chocolate, anything!

Lucky me, I happen to have magnolia bakery cookbook in handy. what I like about everything in magnolia cookbook that it is so well describe. honestly, it's.so.easy. i usually need to do trial-and-error-and-messed-up-the-kitchen like 2 - 3 times before i can get any recipe right. but with magnolia bakery? snap-snap delicious!

I am lucky to have my cousin-in-law ( what do u call someone who is married to ur cousin?) to take pictures of my pudding. these pictures below are his. hope you enjoy it as much as i do!

PS : I personally think that this pudding is too sweet. next time I'm gonna reduce the amount of the condensed milk

PSS: I just realized that i baked 2 times in a row using magnolia cookbook. hmm. Got to do more variety!

Magnolia Famous Banana Pudding
taken from More From Magnolia by Allysa Torey

one 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cup ice cold water
one 3.4 ounce package instant vanilla pudding mix
3 cups heavy cream
one 12-once wafers(the book said to use Nabisco Nilla Wafers but I can't find it in Jakarta so i substitute them with Loackers)
4 cups sliced ripe bananas

In a small bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat together the sweetened condensed milk and water until well combined, about 1 minute. Add the pudding mix and beat well, about 2 minutes more. Cover and refrigate for 3-4 hours or overnight, before continuing. it is very important to allow the proper amount of time for the pudding mixture to set.


in a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, whip the heavy cream until stiff peak form. gently fold the pudding mixture into the whipped cream until well blended and no streaks of pudding remain.


to assamble the dessert, select a large, wide bowl (preferably glass) with a 4-5 quart capacity. arrange one third of the wafer to cover the bottom of the bowl, overlapping if necessary, then one-third of the bananas and one-third of the pudding. repeat the layering twice more, garnishing with additional wafers or wafer crumbs on the top layers of the pudding. cover tightly with plastic wrap and allow to chill in the refrigerator for 4 hours-or up to 8 hours, but no longer!- before serving.

Ied ul-Fitr!

Hi guys, first of all i just want to say happy Ied ul-Fitr, Minal Aidzin wal Faidzin :)
I did bake some sweet stuff this week, but i guess I want to put this special day on highlight.

At this day we who celebrate Ied ul Fitr all gather with our families and asked for each of forgiveness for our mistakes in this year. and eat. obviously. every Ied ul Fitr I eat a lot. like, a lot. I just keep on eating and talking to my family.

I'm telling you there were a lot of great food there! it's full of coconut gravy and sambal, all things that make you love indonesian food. my Uncle were like, " Why do you take pics of the food and not us?" Oopps. Sorry Unca!

first thing i ate was Somay. it's lot like chinese shu mai, but we eat it with our special peanut sauce.
it's so good i ate 3 bowl of them. blurp.

Next is the super-ied-ul-Fitr food, the most famous of all, Ketupat!!
ketupat is actually steam rice shaped into the shape of diamond. (wajik, tupat) indonesian reader, please correct me if i make a mistake explaning our glorious food.

Ketupat are best eaten fesh and it's best companion is Opor Ayam.

oh, glory. oh lord. i cannot feel my hips. realy. i think it's gone. opor ayam is chicken (ayam = chicken) bathed in coconut gravy. all the best indonesian foods somehow have sambals and coconut gravy in them ;)

this is gulai ayam, my mom made this. i'm so proouudd! my mom rarely cook, or well, maybe the right term is never cook. so when she does, i'm just proud. Gulai ayam is our version of Curry.

This is sambal goreng ati. oh i don't know how to explain it in english. let's just say it's veeery good.

I... forgot what this dish called. oh, sorry! oh wait. it's pumpkin curry. wait... what?

this one is Semur. semur is chicken, tofu, and potato bathed in sweet soy sauce broth. it's well known as javanese traditional dish. 

This is Duck in green chili sauce. OH MY, the HEAT. my lips, throat and tounge wee basicly burning. i had to chuck 3 glass of cold water to calm myself down. but sooo worth it! 

 

this is the rice. if you don't feel like eating ketupat, you can always eat rice, my aunt wrapped them in banana leaves to make it pretty. 

oh i'm so full! aren't you?

 Hope you enjoy the pictures! 

love, Ardna and Ardna's Grandpa

Strawberry Icebox Pie

Oh, there are days when i just can't think of what to write. which confuse me, because i talk a lot. like, a lot. i can spend like 5 hours straight talking. no kidding. why can't i write? i guess talking and writing is a totally different things.

it helps to look back at the title. Right. Strawberry Icebox Pie!

When I first read the recipes, the word 'icebox' confused me. what the heck is that supposed to mean? icebox? but then i realized after further reading that this recipe requires a lot of freezing and refrigerati-ing ( is that even a word?)

And it requires no flour! YAY! i'm allergic, you see. To dust. And small particles of flour flying around my nose when i bake equals to dust. When my immune systems are down, shifting flour can send me to a series of nonstop coughing and sneezing. Ppfftt.

The crust is made of wafer crumb and melted butter. i used loacker wafer because i love the milky flavor. i whack the wafer out with the back of a wooden spoon. i love wackhing. it felt gooood. 

The filling was made out of strawberry-like-preserved. i totally love them. it's so easy and u only need like 15 minutes max to make them. And it also smells amazing. my fingers smell like strawberries all day long :D

 

I love the idea of making the bite-size of this icebox pie, so i made them! i used mini muffin pan and mini muffin liners, and i need to emphasize this that u kinda need the muffin liners or the crust won't stick to the pan. took me half and hour racking my brain to figured that out.
  

Strawberry Icebox Pie

from At Home with Magnolia by Alyssa Torey

makes one 9-inch pie

  

crust :

1/2 cup unsalted butter,melted

2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs

filling :

5 cups fresh strawberries, sliced in halves

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

1 tsp vanilla extract

to make the crust : in a medium-size bowl, combine the butter and vanilla wafer crumbs. press firmly into a lighted buttered 9-inch pie dish. cover tightly with plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 1 hour. 

to make the filling : mash 2 cups of the strawberries and place in a medium-size saucepan. add the sugar and cornstarch, and stir constantly over medium heat, until the mixture is the consistency of fruit preserves 10 - 15 minutes. 

reduce the heat to low, and continue cooking for 2 more minutes until the mixture thickens slightly. remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla. transfer to glass measuring cup and allow to cool to room temperature about 15 minutes. stir in the remaining berries and spread the filling evenly in the prepared crust. cover with plastic wrap and chill the pie in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours and up to 8 hours

FINALLY!

after years of hoping and begging to my mom, finally she let me get a DSLR camera!! i'm so happy! i've been wanting one for a while and i've always wanted to learn more about food photography. i really adore other bloggers who are able to capture their beauty of food in a breathtaking way. so simple yet so sophisticated.

after hours of browsing and research on the Net, i finally settle on Canon 500D. i considered 550D too, but i can't imagine what a pain it's gonna be waiting for an 18 megapixel picture to upload. yuck. so yeah, 500D it is. take a look at my baby!

i used to think that DSLR camera is bulky and heavy, but my baby is really light! though i still think it's not that easy to use. for sure not as easy as point-and-shoot-camera, (duh) but i'm learning, i'm learning!  after stucking my nose on the manual for what it seems like days and racking my brain out,I finally figured out what shutter is, aparture, exposure, iso and stuff. in theory. i still need a lot ( and when i say a lot i mean a loooooottt) of practice.

here are my first food picture taken with Canon 500D. hope you like them! it's mini cupcake, my friend's favorite and my mom's! 

Mini vanilla cupcake with fluffy Cream Cheese

mini Vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream

mom's fave! mini vanilla cupcake with tidbits of cheese and chocolate

for more of my roller-coster journey of food photography do check my flickr account! (on the right side of this blog) comments and suggestions are much appreciated! i still need to learn and practice so much :)

Singapore Goodies

liat apa yang gue temukan pas kemarin ke Singapore waktu liburan!

LUCU BANGET kan? gue benar-benar menganga waktu lihat ini di lantai bawah bag foodcourtnya Takashimaya. dan guys, ini gula, loh. Edible, loh. bisa buat digrogotin dan diemut buat lo semua yang doyan abis sama gula, atau dijadiin pajangan kue. detailnya! dan semua dibuat dari tangan, karema semua piecenya berbeda.

ini juga. dinosaurus pinknya dibuat sebagian dari gula dan hard jelly.

trus lihat hasil rampokan gue dari pojokan toko coklat dilantai bawahnya Paragon. Nama tokonya Chocolat Factory. dan ini bukan toko coklat biasa. coklat-coklatnya sudah di packaging sedemikian rupa untuk hadiah. lucu-lucunya ga ketulungan. this one crack me up. the most honest chocolate! ga kepikiran kan hitungan kalori akan berdamai?
ada juga yang chocolate dengan size coffee beans dengan berbagai rasa untuk dikemil. kalau waktu itu gue sedang fit ( asma lagi nyerang waktu itu) gue akan beli lebih banyak lagi.
dan ini yang paling gue suka. mereka menyelipkan pembatas buku, Be Happy dikantong plastiknya.

setuju bangeett... Eat chocolate, Be Happy!

Butterfly cupcakes

hey there! cupcake ini sebenarnya dibuat beberapa minggu yang lalu, tapi karena holiday trip jadi belom ke post. kenalan sama Butterfly Cupcake teman-teman!

Chocolate cupcake with white chocolate ganache topped with strawberry-chocolate butterly or lemon-chocolate butterfly.

3D butterfly chocolatenya dibuat dari melted chocolate yg dibentuk sesuai pola, idenya dari buku ini nih :
Hello Cupcake. buat cupcake lovers yang doyan bikin dan decorate cupcakenya sendiri buku ini is A MUST HAVE. let me repeat, MUST HAVE!!!

isinya super lucu dan imut, kreatif dan gampang. suer deh gampang. ga pake ribet dan ga pake lama. tapi yang musti diingat adalah karena ini buku bukan terbitan indonesia, ada beberapa bahan-bahan yang tidak tersedia disini. jadi kita harus fleksibel dan menggantinya dengan apa yang ada.

untuk Butterflynya, yang dibuku ditulis candy wafer ( yg gue ga tau sama sekali itu apaan) gue pake chocolate collata yang warna-warni. warnanya lebih merata dan konsistensinya lebih enak daripada white chocolate dimelted dan dikasih pewarna.

gue sedikit kesulitan waktu bikin white chocolate ganache. Dalam kepala gue, melted chocolate + cream jadi ganache kan? tp dengan takaran yang sama gue buat untuk dark chocolate ganache, white chocolate ganache konsistensinya runny banget, ga bisa kebentuk walaupun udah gue simpen dikulkas semalaman.
teori yang muncul di kepala gue adalah kadar lemak dan susu di white chocolate yg lebih banyak bikin dia jauh lebih runny consistensy daripada dark chocolate ganache. entah benar apa enggak, gimana pendapat teman-teman? ada yang tahu? :)

aniwe, gue tadinya mau bikin cupcake bouqet kayak punya-nya Mba Mae tapi bubar kabeh ketika ada dua kecelakaan terjadi.

1. white chocolate ganachenya keenceran seperti yang telah disebut diatas. form bunga yang dimaksud tidak berbentuk dan malah meluber kesamping T.T

2. CUPCAKE GUE KEJATOHAN CICAK. CICAK!!! CICAAAAKKKK!!!!!!!! sumpah mati demi apaan tau gue benci banget sama makhluk itu. ketika setengah cupcakenya sedang dipersiapkan untuk dihias, mendadak makhluk biadap itu memutuskan untuk jatoh dari lampu dan nimpa cupcake yg sudah ada diatas vas. makhluk biadap itupun berputar-putar disana dan berjalan-jalan diatas LIMA CUPCAKE.

jangan tanya reaksi gue kayak apa. gue loncat, jerit dan ngibrit ke ujung ruangan. nyokap dan ujang yang akhirnya menangani dan mengusir makhluk itu sementara gue histeris dan menyumpah serapah.  cupcakenya? masuk tong sampah.

akhirnya dengan sisa cupcake yang masih bersih, gue bikn butterfly cupcake sebagai pelipur lara.
begitulah ceritanya.

saya mengutuk cicak itu dan semua teman-temannya. SHOO! SHOOOO!! *histeris*