Business???

For some time now, I've been trying to figure out some ways to earn some extra cash since I'm still not able to work. It's been hard with all these expensive medications that does nothing to you but making you feel even worse about yourself. There has been improvements when we talk about my seizures but when it comes to the medication, you get tons of migraine headaches, muscle cramps, tiredness, nausea, loss of taste, dizziness, paranoia and so on. You can't really get everything when it comes to modern medicine. I don't really know why but those are the side effects I've been having. Oh I forgot to mention about the over eating which makes you really, really fat! I'm really huge now, I went from 240 lbs to 265 lbs in a year. I'm afraid it will continue to go on. Now I'm trying to change my sleeping habit so I can incorporate some exercise time in my daily schedule. . .

Since I wanted to change my sleeping habit, I needed some inspiration. The only thing I can think of is baking. YUP! baking, I'm pretty sure I have mentioned it before that I really loved baking. Even made a silly post before this about the stand mixer.

Baking is really expensive for me right now since my parents have a lot to pay with all my medical bills. Then I realized, just "What If?!", what if I run my own business of pastries. I post an ad online or tell my friends about it, then bake some cupcakes or cakes whenever they wanted to order. Just that sort of business. You don't lose anything if it won't click due to the fact that I will just make them cakes when I get some orders.

BUT! there are problems with this kind of idea, I don't really have the right market for it, like I don't really know anyone who would be interested in buying them. Since I've been sick, I haven't talked to people lately, I've been in complete and total solitude. By that I mean, lacking of any "Social interactions" with strangers, in short, making friends.

Aside from that, I don't really know how to really run a small business. Yes I have a few insights and a few knowledge about it but unlike others, I'm not quite proficient in the business industry.

I don't know why but every time and I mean "EVERY TIME" I think about doing something worth it (aside from practicing photography and improving my writing skills), making a small business is the only thing that comes into mind.

Also, even if I'm proficient with the whole business administration, I don't have a large amount of pastry recipes in my reservoir. I have only done a few and if I'm gonna enter the world of pastry business, I really need to think of new ways to reinvent the realm of cupcakery.

I think I need to spend a lot of time on this, I really wanted to make a risk, maybe ask some few friends on who wants to accompany me with this journey. Hopefully, I can do this,

For now, I'll just stick to practicing more. I need to perfect everything. After all, practice makes perfect, right?! *wink*

Cheers!

Stand mixer. . .

Since I haven't slept last night, I was in my bed staring at the ceiling thinking of the future me owning a pastry shop, the one I have been dreaming of. Then it struck me, how can I open one when I only have 6 recipes on hand. That got me thinking more and more, .

I then went online to look for recipes. . There are thousands out there that are mouthwatering. .

Whenever I try to think of something new to add for my recipes, most of them require the use of electric mixers and the stand mixers are the most efficient ones. Some are a bit pricey but those are just the ones with designs. 

My whole life ( in this case, my entire culinary life ), I have been dreaming of owning a stand mixer, a Kitchenaid stand mixer to be exact. . 

These things make mixing the ingredients more efficient. I'm not saying that mixing it manually is a no fun thing to do, it is and you get a free workout at the same time but if you're gonna  be making a lot of dishes that needs a lot of mixing, doing it manually will just be wasting time. 

I plan on making some money someday to buy my own stand mixer. I know once I have one, there will be countless dishes I will be making later on.

I can imagine myself whipping creams and egg whites at their very peaks without any sweat at all and in just minutes. How amazing is that right? If only. . 

Well, maybe soon, . For now I must try and stick to the manual mode and practice the easy ones. Besides, people made lovely desserts before using only their hands. 

cheers!

Squid for dinner

For tonight's dinner, we're having Grilled squid and sauteed squid since my father bought a fresh batch this afternoon. . Both are delicious! even ate a lot tonight.

Nothing better than freshly bought squid. I was not the one who made it but it's just really simple. You just clean the squid ( just slit the center, cook it whole ). Mix soy sauce ( just a small amount of soy sauce ), black pepper and some kalamansi and marinate it for a few minutes. . It doesn't take quite long to marinate. Then grill it on coal or on stove top, just until it's cooked properly. That's for the grilled one.

Here's a picture of the grilled squid:

Now for the sauteed squid, you just slice some onions, a bit of garlic, peppers (optional, but I prefer to have it in mine since it adds more flavor to it), salt and pepper. Slice the squid into bits and pieces not too small nor too large. . Bite size! Saute the onions, garlic and peppers, then a few minutes add the squid. For some reason, the squid will release some dark liquid, just leave it like that. It adds taste to it and you can even add a bit of water if you want and you can also reduce it for richer taste. . . 

That's how I love my fresh squid done! 

Cheers!

Month of March

It's been days since I haven't made anything. I've been struggling a lot with this extreme heat. As a huge guy, heat is one of my worse nightmare. I've never been a fan of it. I love the sun but the extreme heat that radiates from it is just too much nowadays. 

I have a cough that I'm so pissed about, been eating ice cream. That's all I can do to relieve myself from the heat due to the poor air-conditioning system in our house. The air-conditioner has been here a long time, so it has been expected. 

Been wanting to go to the beach now but I just can't go alone, I have no one to take there with me. My parents are busy, my Mom has been having physical troubles and my Dad is still busy with work. I want to go alone but that's just it, I have this social anxiety lately that every time I try to think about going somewhere alone, I get all nervous and stuff. 

My friends are busy with their lives and to be honest, some of them just don't want to be in the sun. LOL. I don't get why some people are afraid to get a darker skin. Well, I'm afraid too sometimes but I prefer getting  dark than to suffer headaches and stuff. 

If only there's a place where the sun can't penetrate. Well if there is such a place, I would totally go there. Also where there are lots of ice cream. I can only imagine it, since there's no place like that on earth. whew! 

It's summer and the only thing that made me felt the summer fever is the heat. . Nothing more, nothing less. 

I just hope this won't last a few month. Maybe next week, the clouds would be as forgiving as they were before. . LOL. .

So, that's the reason I've never been really in the mood for making stuff right now. Maybe tomorrow when the sudden change of temperature and weather would alter my mood and maybe I can make something. I can only hope.

For now, I need to find a sweet escape. . Cheers! 

Oh one more thing, how about I share this pictures I've taken few days before. :D I have been interested in photography for a long time, thought maybe I'd give it a go, so here's few practice shots, this is my first time. . . So again, Cheers! Hope you all have a pleasant summer or whatever season some of you guys are at. 

Spiny orb-weaver spider

Dead Bonsai

Random white flower I saw at our backyard. .

Practicing how to do the depth of field thing. . .

Search for the right frosting. .

As what the title says, I've been scouting the net for the right recipe of a frosting. I'm completely out of ideas for it, the only thing I know is the basic traditional buttercream frosting which I have mostly used. The thing is, I can't really get the right taste for it.

It says that the "American buttercream frosting" is really sweet. That's just it. The problem is, I sometimes get greasy and a wet frosting if I don't add the required amount of icing sugar.

I like the sweetness but it's just too much that it overpowers the flavor of the cupcake itself. I've been to lots of websites explaining them and came across this site called " Cupcake Cavern ". I love this blog and been reading it for the past few days.

The publisher even says that the buttercream frosting is one of her faves, I'm guessing, maybe there's something wrong with what I have done. I only use whisk when making it. Strenuous as it may seem but it's the only thing I can do for I have no electric mixer. Oh we have the handheld one but I'm afraid of using it, I always lose control and I haven't used that one before. The only mixer I've used before was the electric table top mixer. So to satisfy my hunger for making cupcakes, I just do it manually, ignoring the stressful whisking, it is a good work out for my left hand also.

I'm still not sure about what I've been doing wrong for now but soon, I will do my best to figure it out and present to you guys the best frosting there is. If ever I can do it. HAHA.

I don't feel good using the meringue or the boiled egg white ones, I haven't done it on cupcakes, so I'll just stick to what I do for now. I've tried making meringues before using only a whisk and I must say, it's a pretty tiring task too but totally worth it in the end.

So while I'm on the search, why don't you guys check out the blog above, highlighted in red and named Cupcake Cavern. I assure you guys, you will love it as much as I love it too.

That's it for now, Cheers!

Lemon cupcakes with Cinnamon buttercream frosting

Yesterday I decided to make some cupcakes for me to bring to my friend's house. Also something I can add to my recipes page.

I've been craving for something lemony ever since and wondered about making lemon squares, since I don't have any recipes for it, I just made those cute little cupcakes and I also enjoy making them as well.

I googled for some recipes and found only a few. This one recipe I saw was so easy to make but I don't have some of the ingredients and some of them were expensive too. Desperate for some baking action, I decided to make some tweaking to it. So this time it's a bit experimental.

I made two batches, the first one was a wreck. It overflowed so I panicked! I didn't know what to do at that time, I said to myself, now I'm gonna be late. That's the reason I made another batch, I realized the oven was too hot, instead of 180 degrees I had it on 220 degrees. It was the stupidest thing I've done. I've made cupcakes before and turned out great, well I made it months ago. LOL.

So in the second one I changed the temperature to 180 degrees. Thanks to common sense, my cupcakes came out great. I tasted one without the frosting and I loved the taste, you can taste the lemon in it but due to the vanilla, it tasted like banana bread with lemon in it. Overall it's ok. I need to adjust the frosting though, too sweet and it somehow lessens the lemon flavor to it. .

That was it, I got late for my friend's get together party and had a good batch of cupcakes, they said it was okay. Guess I need to do some more tweaking to it, maybe in time It'll be good or maybe great. So, cheers! :D

Yield: 24 cupcakes

Lemon cupcakes with cinnamon buttercream frosting

• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• zest of 2 lemons

Frosting:

1 cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioner sugar, Sifted
2 tbsp vanilla
2 tsp cinnamon

Procedure:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. By dry ingredients, I mean the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Preheat the oven 180 degrees Celsius.

2. In a different bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Make sure it's mixed well, no lumps. Add the eggs, one at a time and the vanilla. Mix well.

3. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture. Mix well and make sure there's no lumps. At this stage, once there's no lumps you can add the lemon juice and the zest. You might notice that it will start to curdle a bit, don't worry, just keep mixing it but just don't over mix it.

4. Pour the batter in the prepared muffin cups evenly. I suggest pouring it half of the cups so it won't overflow during cooking. Once this is done, pop it in the oven for 25 minutes. Make sure to check it once in a while.

5. Put it in a cooling rack once it's done cooking. Be sure it's cooled down so the frosting won't melt when applied.

6. You can pipe the frosting now however you want. Just be creative with this. .

Frosting:

1. Cream the butter then whisk in the confectioners sugar. Add the vanilla and the cinnamon. Whisk it until it everything is fully incorporated and when you lift the whisk, it starts to form stiff peaks.

2. Once done, place it in a piping bag and pipe it or you can store it in an airtight container and place it in the refrigerator for future use.

Tartlet shells

This post is dedicated to what I did last February 15. I made little chicken tartlets, it's like the basic chicken pot pie but instead I made it into little tarts. Though this one is just dedicated on the recipe for making the Tart shells. Just used the basic recipe and molded them into small cupcake tins. 

Now for the Recipe, it's just 2 cups flour and 125 g butter (not melted) and a pinch of salt. Just that. 

Cut the butter into small cubes ( really small ones if you're gonna do this by hand, you can also cut them a bit bigger if you're gonna use a food processor ), for this one, I did it by hand. 

Once the butter is cut into small pieces, you can now start mixing it in the flour. Just use your hands (clean hands) to crumple the ingredients together. At this stage it may start to look like bread crumbs and that's exactly what we're gonna need. 

After all the butter has turned to pea sized and no sign of dry flour, add 3 tbs of water at a time and start kneading it gently until it becomes soft and smooth. This will look like a really soft bread dough. 

Once it's smooth, take it out of the bowl and place it in a plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes. This makes the gluten in the flour to rest if not, the pastry will shrink during cooking.

Above is a picture of the dough wrapped in a plastic wrap ready for refrigerating. . . 

Once done, you can start rolling the dough. Firstly, you need to dust the work area with flour so the dough won't stick to the surface and flour the rolling pin also, same concept. Roll it and rotating the dough 90 degrees each time. Make sure it's even though. You can stop rolling when the pastry is about a quarter of an inch thick.

After rolling you can now use a cookie cutter or anything the same size as the mold to cut the sheets of pastry. Don't forget to dip the cutter in flour. Just a precaution, you never know when the dough strikes and starts sticking and eventually destroys the whole thing. 

Here it is, it's fitted in the tin and make sure to poke small holes in the center, just use a fork for this. This is now ready to get refrigerated for about 10 minutes. Same concept as the last. 

After refrigerating, add some wax paper, you can just cut small papers that fits in the shells and add some weights to it, in this I used Mung beans. This is what's available at that time. 

Oh before I forget, when refrigerating the pastry make sure to preheat the oven as well to 180 degrees Celsius. 

Bake it for at least 10 minutes, after that remove the weights and bake it for another 5 minutes to brown it a bit. This can make the shells crisp. Voila! your tartlet shells are good and ready. You can do anything you want with these little fellas, any savoury appetizers can be made with these. It cost less and is easy to make.

Try them on some of your little gatherings with friends and family, be creative with what you want with these. Just remember, it doesn't have to be expensive to have decent appetizers for your gatherings, all you need to have is your imagination. Like what the late Albert Einstein has said, " Imagination is more important than knowledge". So just let your creative side flow and have fun with it. 

Cheers!

Yields up to 24 tartlet shells. 12 when using cupcake tins like what I used. 

Ingredients:

• 2 cups All purpose flour
• 125 g butter
• 3 tbs water
• pinch of salt

Oh if any of you out there has any opinions whatsoever about this post, feel free to comment below. <3