Financier or Friand??

I was surfing the Internet looking for ways to use up the leftover egg whites and chanced upon this recipe.  Some called it Financier while others called it Friand. 
The pineapple rolls I baked for Chinese New Year left me with lots of egg white.  I have been keeping them in the in the freezer till now.  I was told that egg whites can be safely freeze up to 3 months.  As the end of 3rd month is fast approaching, I thought I better find ways to use them.  That's when I came across these two petite cake recipes that called for the use of only egg white. 

Both the recipes are quite similar although both bearing different names.  One is called Financier and the other is Friand.  This is what I found when I do a search on Wikipedia.

A financier is a small French cake, often mistaken for a pastry. The financier is a light teacake, similar to sponge cake, and usually contains almond flour, crushed or ground almonds, or almond flavoring. The basis of the cake itself is beurre noisette (brown butter), egg whites, powdered sugar and flour. Financiers are often baked in shaped molds. The name "financier" is said to derive from the traditional rectangular mold, which resembles a bar of gold. Another theory says that the cake became popular in the financial district of Paris surrounding La Bourse du Commerce (the former name of the Paris stock exchange).


Financiers are often served topped with whipped cream, berries, or other fruit, and served accompanied by ice cream or other frozen confections. Financier pans are traditionally rectangular; however, other shapes are not uncommon. Financiers are somewhat similar to madeleines.

The friand pastry, which has become popular in Australia and New Zealand appears to have been based on the French financier; however, Australian and New Zealand friands typically have additional flavorings such as coconut, chocolate, fruit, and nuts. Australian / New Zealand friands are also baked in oval shapes.


Since both seems to be quite similar I decided to use the following recipe.

Blueberry Friand

Ingredients
90g egg white (3 egg whites)
90g ground almond
30g plain flour
1/2 cup icing sugar
90g butter, melted
some blueberry filing for topping


1.  Sift together flour, ground almond and icing sugar. 
2.  Lightly whisk egg white until frothy.
3.  Stir in melted butter.
4.  Fold in sifted flour, ground almond and icing sugar.
5.  Fill mini cupcake tin half full with batter then top with 1/2 tsp of blueberry filing.
5.  Baked in oven preheated to 180C for 15 to 20 minutes.
6.  Cool completely before dusting with icing sugar.

In conclusion, the name of this little cake is immaterial when the taste speaks volume of itself.......

Raisin Cupcakes

What is the next most appealing snack for tea time besides scones?  It has to be butter cakes.  For me, tea is incomplete untill or unless scones or cupcakes is served.  The aroma of coffee mingled with butter in the air is what makes tea time so appealing.  I often wonder why it is still referred to as Tea Time when in most instances coffee's presence is more prominent in comparison to tea.

To make good scones and butter cake, you need good quality butter.  But sad to say that the butter that I relied upon all these years for tasty scones and butter cakes have failed miserably.  The butter I am talking about is Anchor Butter. 

The recent batch of Anchor Butter that I bought is of such inferior quality.  Instead of thawing at room temperature, it literally melts down.  No, I am not joking.  It MELTs so badly that when I cream the butter and sugar together, the mixture liquidate instead of turning into a glorious fluffy mixture. It appears that the butter has more oil than milk solids.  I am not being bias, there are some members of the Malaysian Cake Decorators Club who also faced the same problem.

So, it was time for me to move on and switch to another brand of butter.  The switch was a sad moment as I have been an ardent fan of Anchor Butter since it was introduced in Malaysia way back in the 1980s.  It was known as Fern Butter then and it only cost RM1.79 per block of 250 grams. 

Whatever the change may be, life goes on.  Except, what am I supposed to do with the 30 odd remaining blocks of Anchor Butter sitting in my fridge....(sigh).

Raisin Cupcakes

Ingredients

250g good quality butter

170g castor sugar

4 eggs

1 tsp vanilla essence

250g self raising flour, sifted

80g raisins

1.  Cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence till smooth and fluffy.

2.  Beat in eggs, one at a time until well mixed.

3.  Fold in flour and raisins.

4.  Using an ice-cream scoop, scoop batter into papercups.

5.  Drop a few more raisin on top of the batter.

6.  Bake at 170C for between 15 and 20 minutes.

Christmas Cupcakes

Christmas falls on the first day of the last week of the year.  With one last week to go before the year comes to an end, it is a good time to reflect on our personnal accomplishments, shortcomings and plan for coming year.  For those of us who work hard through out the year, this is the time to take things easier and recharge to gear up for the coming year.

Since I was on leave for a couple of days, I decided to take on an order for cupcakes by a friend.  What could be better than being paid for doing the things one enjoys. 

The theme is Christmas.  Christmas isn't Christmas without christmas tree, snow man, santa claus.....and..... these cupcakes.

World of Pokemon

School is finally over for the year. The last few days of school saw many parents with kids attending pre-school busy preparing goodies and stuff for their children to share with their school friends.

Same goes for my friend, Marianne whose son was attending final year of pre-school. By the way for those of you who are like me attending 1 year of pre-school was already a bonus, children these days attend up to 3 years of pre-school. It is either the parents are too busy to coach them at home or they are afraid that their children might lose out with the high standard demanded by parents themselves.

Marianne wanted some cupcakes for her son to share with his friends in school before the final term comes to an end. She requested for Pokemon. What are Pokemons?

Since Sydney, my daughter wasn't a great fan of Pokemon during her growing up years I had very little knowledge on what these little monsters are and what they look like. This is what I found from the Internet.

"Pokemon are fictional creatures in another universe that are captured (using a Pokeball of some sort) and raised by humans to battle and protect them. Each Pokemon has a different ability and type (Dark, Electric, Psychic,Water, etc.) and there are over 400 species (Raichu, Jirachi, Charizard, Mew, etc.). Some people use Pokemon to battle while others care for them as pets. A person who uses Pokemon to battle is often referred to as a Pokemon trainer, as Pokemon are creatures which can also grow (in levels), evolve (change form to become stronger) and develop in skills (which transfers to their types of attack).
Many things have come from the creation of Pokemon - including a trading card game, an anime television series and many video games. These have all been very successful and have made Pokemon popular all over the world.
The original idea for the Pokemon game came from a young man (Satoshi Tajiri) who wanted to invent a game that involved trading insects - as was his hobby. "

With these details and the websites provided by Marianne, I made these Pokemon cupcakes for her son.

This is the only pokemon I know; Pikachu.

Cupcakes Ready To Go

Been a while since I last made cupcakes. Fortunately we have writing materials such as pen and paper or even computer to help record what memory may fail to remember.

Christmas Cupcakes

Although Christmas is just a few days away, we still have not make any preparation for Christmas. Least of all bake any cookies or cake. There are a few reasons to this.

One of the reason is, I won't be taking leave from work from Christmas till New Year like how I used to do in the past. There are just too much work to complete in preparation of the new challenges that comes with new year. The second reason is; my parents, siblings and their immediate family will not spending Christmas with us. My brother's family is in Ireland and sister's mother-in-law just passed away recently. Therefore her family will not be coming to KL to spend Christmas with us. The third reason which is the main reason is, we are reorganising our house by putting in more cabinets for storage space. But up till now the installers have yet to complete the job. My house is in a mess with stuff all over the place. I am skeptical that the installing of the cabinets can complete by Christmas. Hence, this year we shall let the Christmas tree take a rest.

Having said that, I did bake some Christmas cupcakes for a friend for her get together. Amongst all the designs, she like the Santa Claus best.

As for me, I like the Snow Man. I guess it is because I have never seen a real Snow Man before and often wonder what it feels like to build one in the cold winter.

As for Christmas Tree, Christmas Garland, Christmas Stocking and Candy Cane, they are available in KL.

This is what they look like when put together.

Little Cuties

Make these cupcakes for a friend's son sometime ago. But did not get to post them till now. I was having problem locating the pictures. With me clicking and clicking away with my camera, I often find it challenging to organise those pictures that I have taken. I recently bought an external hard disk and hopefully with this hard disk I'll be more organised.

His mom told me that he like very FIERCE fish. So I try to create something fierce for him.

Besides the fierce fish, I also created something more children friendly creatures such as bear and bumble bee.

Cupcakes for Marianne's Birthday

It is amazing how time flies. It seems like not too long ago that I made Beach Theme cupcakes for my dear friend, Marianne's birthday. And....this is the time of the year again. This time round I decided to make a Garden Theme cupcakes for her.

In the past, when I tried making fondant figurines and objects, they never turn out the way I want them to be. They usually are soft and limply even after leaving them out to dry for a couple of days. This time round I decided to add more gum paste to the fondant and I must say that it gave better result. At least the figurines and object were able to dry out completely even in our humid weather.

To add a little sparkles to the cut out hearts and butterflies, I painted them with edible silver powder mixed with Vodka.

Sexy Cupcakes

Having worked in the same company for the past 17 years, I have many friends. Though some of these friends have moved on to new ventures, we still keep in touch. We will occasionally meet up for dinner and catch up on old times.

We met up again on Saturday for a dinner at a Japanese Restaurant. Prior to our meeting one of them asked whether can I make some kinky, sexy or naughty design cupcakes for her hubby's birthday. She will then pick up from me when we meet for dinner. I told her I have been wanting to try out such design cupcakes but have not had a chance.

So with great enthusiasm I made these cupcakes for her.

Lemon Poppy Seeds Cupcakes

I have been defeated!!! The flu bug, soar throat and cough won't leave me alone. I must be such a comfortable host....(aarrr). Though generally I am a hospitable person but my hospitality only extend to the human kind.

First, it was the running nose, then soar throat and followed by cough. Even though I have recovered from the earlier 2 but the cough just refuse to get any better. I have been coughing for almost 3 weeks now. This has not only affected my sleep but also completely drained me of my energy.

I was not prepared to bake any stuff until I am fully recovered. But the lemon sitting in my fridge has been crying out to me..........please, please eat ME! I realised that if I do not use it any sooner, in no time it join the rest of perishables in the garbage bin. In order not to waste any food, with or without energy I decided to bake some Lemon Poppy Seed Cupcakes.

By adding Poppy seeds they gave the cupcakes extra texture. With each bite it feel like I am eating caviar..……..oh, my imagination must have gone wild (not my fault this must be the flu bug)

To make the cupcakes more appealing, I decided to decorate them with some flowers made from royal icing.

As for the recipe of the cupcakes......

Ingredients
250g butter
200g castor sugar
4 eggs
250g self raising flour
1 1/2 tbsp poppy seed
rind and juice from 1 lemon

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.
2. Add in eggs; one at a time and mix well.
3. Stir in lemon rind.
4. Fold in flour alternate with lemon juice, ending with flour.
5. Bake for 15 – 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 170C.

Web-by Cupcakes

I often wonder why we are only given 24 hours a day. Why not 36 hours or better still 48 hours. Not sure about others but 24 hours a day is really not enough for me. With my full time job I hardly have time to do the things that I love.

If only I have 48 hours a day, I would love to try out all the cake recipes that I have from the numerous recipe books I have collected over the years. I would love to spend more time decorating my cakes with elaborate themes and designs. I would love to blog my challenges and success more frequently. I would love to spend some time catching up with my favourite Korean series. I would love to read those books that I bought but still left unread on the shelves........this list can go on and on. But at this present moment all I can do is only to dream about it as I do not have 48 hours a day or neither can I afford to quit my job.......*sigh*

However, over the weekend while attending church camp I learnt that this is an age old problem. Even God who loves His creations did it over 6 days instead of within seconds or minutes. May be God also faced the same problem as me *grin*

Coming back to the cupcakes above. These are cupcakes for my friend's son who celebrated his birthday last week. Due to time constraint, these were baked and decorated on Thursday after work. Despite the rush I am glad that my friend is pleased with them.

Banana Cupcakes

These are the Banana Cupcakes that I made for our home fellowship meeting tonight. When I first started baking I have many failed attempt at making banana cakes. Either they turn out extremely dense or extremely dry.

When I chanced upon this cupcake recipe from the Crazy about Cupcakes book, I was a little skeptical as this recipe has milk in it. I always thought that mash banana by itself is already moist enough, why the milk then.

Honestly, I did not have much faith in this recipe. But surprisingly these cupcakes turn out not only moist but also fluffy and nice.

Here is the recipe that I have adapted for sharing:-

Ingredients

225g butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 large eggs

2 large bananas, mashed (approx. 1 cup)

1 3/4 cup plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla essence

1. Sift all the dry ingredients and set aside.

2. In a separate bowl, cream butter, sugar and vanilla essence till light and fluffy.

3. Add in eggs, one at a time and mix well after each addition.

4. Stir in mashed bananas.

5. Fold in the dry ingredients alternate with milk ending with the dry ingredients.

6. Fill paper cups to 3/4 full and bake in oven preheated to 180C for 15 to 20 minutes.

Fancy Cupcakes

When I first completed my Wilton Course, I was so charged up that I bought most of the required tools. I anticipated then that I will be baking and decorating lots of cakes. How wrong was I. I guess I was kidding myself thinking that I have all the time in this world to bake and decorate cakes. In reality, I do not have that much time to indulge in my interest. In order not to forget what I've learnt, on and off I'll bake some cupcakes to practise my decorating skill.

Recently I bake some cupcakes for decorating after a long break. Initially, I was a little clumsy with the piping. However, after a few disastrous attempts I am glad that I am still able to create some decent looking cupcakes. Here are picture of some of the more presentable ones.

Blueberry Muffin

Muffins are little treats that I usually whipped up when I am hard pressed for time or when I have to feed a zillion people. Simply because these little morsels are not only easy but also fast to make. Furthermore the taste can be varied by adding all sort of fruits and nuts.

To make muffin is as easy as 1, 2, 3. No kidding. All you need to do is (1) put all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl (2) mix all the wet ingredients in a jug (3) stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Opps.....may be not 1, 2, 3 but also (4) fill up muffin pan and bake for 15 - 20 mins.

Here are some blueberry muffins that I baked for a quick Sunday breakfast. The muffins were topped with blueberry pie filling. Below are the muffins ready to be baked.

Dry Ingredients
120g castor sugar
275g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder

Wet Ingredients
2 eggs, lightly beaten
250ml milk
125g butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla essence