Stardust Factory

Cakes galore!

Yo, peeps!

We're finally done with two fantabulous, delectable cakes for Eid 2011 and thought we'd share them with you ;)
Btw...the guests loved 'em!

Jelly bean vanilla cloud cake!

Chocolate fudge cake made with Hershey's chocolate!

Click here to see more photos of our cakes in high definition!

We all hear about trans fat being bad, but you rarely hear about what it is or why it is bad. I thought about writing it up here, but, frankly, that seemed like a lot of work, and besides, I am not the expert by any stretch.

It might be a bit much if you don’t have much of a chemistry background, so I’ll try to add my own little explanation: some fat is straight and hard, and some is bent and soft (and we call it oil). Hard fat is bad. This is saturated fat. But we like it because it is good for processed food (including the processing we do at home like baking cookies).

Saturated fat (like butter) is more expensive than oil. So they take the oil, the bent fat, and straighten it out to make it hard. The bends are caused by some double bonds of carbons. Bonds can be bent (called cis) or straight (trans). In nature, they almost always are cis. But with some processing, we can either add some hydrogen to make them saturated fats, or convert the cis double bonds to trans bonds. Both of these changes straighten out the oil, making is harder fat.

This is partially hydrogenated oil, or trans fat. It is shaped like saturated fat, and so it behaves more like saturated fat for food processing, both when we make the food and when our body digests and uses the food. There’s the problem.

Our body sort of thinks that the partially hydrogenated fat is saturated fat because it is straight like saturated fat, but since it isn’t quite saturated fat, it really confuses our bodies in ways we don’t fully understand yet. One thing we for sure knows is that it screwed up our balance of different cholesterols. Saturated fat and trans fat both raises “bad cholesterol,” and trans fat has the bonus effect of also lowering “good cholesterol.” The relationship between fat and cholesterol is another given that we should probably understand more, but I’ll save that for a future post. (I bet you probably didn’t know, or forgot, that cholesterol is a steroid, and that steroids are hormones, and that hormones are lipids, i.e. fats. It’s more complex than that, but they are all related.)

Trans fats are so bad that, unlike regular saturated fats, there is no recommended maximum. Just don’t eat it, or as little of it as possible. That’s why the US now requires that food labels include trans fat in addition to saturated fat and total fat. So look for 0 grams trans fat on the labels and you are set, right? Not quite. There is a catch. The USDA allows manufacturers to round to the nearest 500mg, or half gram. As long as a food has less than a half gram of trans fat per serving, they can put a big zero on that line, even if there is partially hydrogenated oil listed in the ingredients list.

What it comes down to is: look for partially hydrogenated oil in the ingredients list. If it is there, there is trans fat, regardless of what the nutritional information says. And you’ll be surprised how much food has this ingredient once you start looking for it. If you are like me, you’ll find yourself buying fewer and fewer processed foods.

By: http://foodfight.wordpress.com/2006/09/10/why-trans-fat-is-bad/

Our Cakes In A Cup

Dear Lovely All,

Our strawberry and chocolate cakes as well as our cookies and brownies have been major hits but it seems as if our wee little sweetness in cups are being forgotten! It's time for a quick walk down cupcake lane as to why these little delights should not be overlooked. Check out our cupcakes!

For more pictures, click here!

Sandwich cookies!

These playful yet delightful treats will surely tickle your tastebuds! We feasted on a few of them during iftar and we didn't want to give them away anymore!

Click here to see more pictures of our goodies!

The Famous Kit Kat Cake!

We have finally made the extraordinary Kit Kat Cake! It was time consuming... but looking at the result, it was totally worth it!

Doesn't it look like a chocolate jail? I'd deliberately get myself into trouble if it really existed.

A pool of Nips and M&Ms! Who wouldn't want to drown in it?

Click here to see more photos!

Posted by Ju :)

Drum rolls Not forgetting the To-Die-For Ice Cream Cone Cupcake!!!

Don't you just feel like this is the perfect spawn of the cake and the cone?
By the way, we couldn't help popping the M&Ms into our mouth, "accidentally" every now and then!

Click here for more photos!

Our heavenly strawberry bliss creation :)

Needless to say everyone enjoyed it once they sunk their sweet tooth into a slice of this beauty!
(Couldnt resist putting pictures of our baby cousins too since they look equally edible dont you think? :)