Orange bundt cake

Have a couple leftover oranges - make orange bundt cake! It's a really simple recipe, similar to the lemon bundt cake made previously. The orange taste is so prominent due to the zest of 3-4 oranges.

The texture of the cake is moist, not dense or oily and when warm, the crust is crispy. YUMM. I even made a not so watered down icing and the result - a really pretty looking cake. The zest of an orange in the icing added a nice touch too. I ended up with too much icing/glaze. Taking into account the amount that drips off the cake.
I used the recipe from sugar&spice by Celeste. I left out the cardamom, cinnamon, lemon and cut down on the baking powder. Below are the changes I made to the Orange Cardamom cake.

Orange bundt cake
makes one 9 to 10 inch bundt cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup fresh orange juice
2/3 cup vegetable oil
zest of 3-4 oranges (basically the zest of oranges squeezed to get juice)
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs (I used 4 medium sized eggs)

Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
10 tsp fresh orange juice (I ended up using about 10 tsp orange juice)
zest of an orange

1. Preheat oven to 180 C. To prepare cake, coat a 9 to 10 inch bundt pan with cooking spray or butter; dust with flour. Set aside.
2. Combine dry ingredients - sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, combine wet ingredients - orange juice, oil, zest, vanilla extract and eggs.
4. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients on low speed until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.
5. Spoon batter into prepared cake pan, spreading evenly.
6. Bake at 180 C for 50-55 minutes or until a skewer inserted in centre comes out clean.
7. Cool in pan for 5 minutes on a wire rack and then remove.
8. To prepare glaze, combine 1 cup of powdered sugar and 6 tsp orange juice in a small bowl, stirring well with a whisk or fork. Add in remaining orange juice a tsp at a time till correct consistency is obtained. Drizzle glaze over warm cake; cool cake completely on wire rack.

Cheese tarts

I'm not sure what exactly to call these. They're cheesecakes made in a tart form so they're either cheesecake tarts or cheese tarts. The best part of these tarts - the crust layer is as thick as the cheese layer. I'm not too fond of a cheesecake where there's way more cheese than crust. The dough for the crust isn't really a dough. It looked more like breadcrumbs. No rolling out was required - just pressing it into the tin. They did puff up a bit in the oven and when they came out, I used a fork to press the puffy bits down. It's all good.

The bf got me some tart tins a while back and they're amazing! All 6 cheese tarts slid right off the tin with hardly any effort required but to be fair, I did butter them quite a fair bit.

I made a mistake whilst making these. I put the fruit (frozen cherries and blueberries) in the tarts before pouring the cheese layer on. Note to self - cheese layer first, then fruits on top. I'll try using mascarpone or a gelatine cheese recipe next time.

Again, I can't remember where I got this recipe from.

Cheese tarts
makes six 4 inch tarts

Crust layer

6 oz butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp white sugar
2 heaped tsp honey
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup wholewheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 170 C. Butter tins.
2. Cream butter and sugars till light and fluffy.
3. Add in flours, salt, cinnamon and honey.
4. Mixture will appear to be crumbly. Press into buttered tins.
5. Place tart tins onto a baking sheet and bake for 18 minutes.

Cheese layer

8 oz cream cheese (room temperature)
2 Tbsp caster sugar
1 egg
zest of an orange
1/2 Tbsp orange juice
1/2 Tbsp flour

1. Using a mixer, mix cheese and sugar till smooth and creamy. Add in all other ingredients.
2. Pour cheese mixture into baked crusts and arrange fruit.
3. Bake in a preheated 170 C oven for 15 minutes.

Sweet potato bundt cake

This cake is delicious! Who would have thought - making a cake out of sweet potato. It has a tiny hint of sweet potato flavour and it goes perfectly with cinnamon. I just made this cake this afternoon and it's really easy to make. A mixer isn't even required.

I had many slices whilst it was still warm and it has a lovely/interesting texture especially when you bite into a walnut. It goes perfectly with vanilla ice cream too. I can't remember where I got this recipe from but it is modified from a couple recipes.

I sliced a medium sized sweet potato (~700g pre-cooked) into chunks and boiled them till soft (i.e. easily pierced by a fork) and mashed it up. Set it aside and leave to cool before using it.

Sweet potato bundt cake
makes one 9 to 10 inch bundt cake

2 cups mashed sweet potato (leave to cool - I used it when it was a bit warm)
1 cup oil
4 eggs

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup chopped raw walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 170 C. Butter and flour the bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, sift the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Mix in both the sugars.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together the sweet potato, eggs and oil.
4. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix till combined.
5. Stir in the walnuts.
6. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 55-60 minutes or until a thin knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
7. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool to room temperature.

THE Wedding cake

Yay! Wedding cake is completed! Congrats to the married couple. From now on - random miscellaneous baking. Looking forward to baking tarts and cheesecakes. I can't believe that the cake/cupcakes actually turned out. Actually, good thing it did turn out.

The fresh roses were poked into the leftover fondant which was rolled into a flat disc and they pretty much lasted through the day. Anyways, I'm going to leave this post as a short one.

*edited*

I just realised that I don't have any clean pictures of the cake because we assembled it at the restaurant! What a bummer.
Due to the lack of space, I started moving the cupcakes etc onto the living room table. The kitchen and living room table were pretty much out of bound areas to everyone else.

Wedding cake v3.0

Wedding cake v3.0!! The cake that has scored the most marks so far (compared to v1.0 and v2.0). Tomorrow is the real thing! THE wedding cake! Plus all the little cupcakes that will sit on the other tiers. Hope everything goes as planned and that nothing goes horribly wrong. Not that there is a detailed plan - just bake the 3 layers, bake the cupcakes and decorate the cake. Frosting the cupcakes shall be left to be done on Friday.

THE wedding cake won't look exactly like the above. It isn't going to have a red strip of paper from a magazine going around the cake and roses which were "borrowed" from the neighbour's garden on the top. I think I've got the ribbon and flowers technically covered.

The cake is pretty much the same as wedding cake v2.0 except that I put orange zest in it and a layer of strawberry jam on both sides of the chocolate layer. The zest and the jam makes the cake so fragrant when you slice it. The jam also adds the specs of red. Aww, it looks so pretty! Anyways, fingers crossed for tomorrows mission - THE wedding cake.

Orange zest cupcakes with vanilla frosting

I used the same recipe as the lemon zest cupcakes. I just substituted the lemon zest with orange zest. These cupcakes would essentially be vanilla cupcakes v4.0. I think I'll be laying off the wedding cake recipe and the vanilla cupcakes for a bit. I've actually been itching to bake a cheesecake or a tart of some sort.

I tried frosting them using another method but easier said than done. Think I'm just going to stick with the standard - well, the above method. Piping starting from the centre and ending on the outside. I definitely envy the people who post videos on the simplicity of piping or frosting a cupcake. They make it look so easy! And from what I've tried, it isn't.

Wedding cake v2.0

Wedding cake v2.0. Same look, different recipe from wedding cake v1.0. I used the same recipe for the chocolate layer as the last time but for the vanilla layer, I tried the standard victoria sponge cake recipe where it's the 1:1:1:1 ratio of flour:butter:sugar:eggs. I think. Actually, I think I did cut down on the sugar. The vanilla layer wasn't as nice compared to the last time. It was really eggy and not as light.

I did make more frosting this time compared to the last time and put much more compared to the last time. Turned out way better and I used 1kg of fondant as opposed to 1/2kg the last time. It made such a difference. I actually had enough fondant this time to cover the cake plus a bit extra to make winnie the pooh & friends cut outs.

I did better than the last time but v3.0 should be coming soon.