Sunday, April 4. 2010
Bought a few chinese baking book translated from japanese ....... and made this cake
Its a very fragrant cake as the sesame paste and grinded sesame seeds were great .....
Monday, February 1. 2010
Over the weekend, we travel over 1hour by car to nearby town in yonghe to pluck strawberry!!
Its organic btw .... with over 2.5kg of strawberry bought at RMB$8/kg ... its a steal.
Here's what i had made:
1. strawberry jam
2. Strawberry chiffon cake
3. Strawberry frozen yogurt
The recipe cames from kelvin chai's chiffon cake is done
The recipe for strawberry frozen yogurt came from "Perfect Scoop"
Sunday, January 24. 2010
Having been thinking of making wholemeal cakes but was not able to get any recipe till ... i saw my Yum Yum magazine.
The freshness of fruits here really makes this cake wonderful, the smell of orange peel was intoxicating man!!
Btw this cake is not dry ... in fact its very moist!
Ingredient
(A)
150g butter
60g brown sugar
3 eggs
100g honey
(B)
150g wholemeal flour
150g plain flour
50g oatmeal
11/2tsp baking powder
100ml fresh squeezed orange juice
grated zest of 1 orange
80g raisin
Method:
1. Cream butter brown sugar and honey till creamy. Add in eggs one at a time and beat well afer each addition
2. Add in B the remaining ingredietns and stir well. Pour batter in a lined 5x9' baking tin
3. Baked in preheated oven at 170 deg for 35-40 min until cooked. Remove and cool on wire rack
4. serve cake with plain yogurt
Thursday, December 24. 2009
This is a backdated post As usual, not fast enough to update my blog
Made this based on Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking from my house to yours
Have not much time to read and made cakes from this book since i had so many to see form blogs.
Since i am not accessible to facebook or blogspot over here, reading books is the next best option.
This cake was meant for 8' square but i ended up with a much bigger pan, so the crispy top seems to be very bare
Taste wise, its a very nice and light cake. I used arm power to make this cake without machine ... so texture seems much more finer
Will copy the recipe shortly
Wednesday, September 9. 2009
Since its school holidays, my dear friend and me planned a cupcake decorating session.
We learnt the most basic using italian meringue buttercream and sprinkles .....
The children used their own creativity to create their cupcake of choice ....
It was a fun session!!
Knowing i am without help my dear friends all rolled up their sleeves to help me clean up.
Thank You so much
Here's what the kids had done:
Saturday, September 5. 2009
My dear brother has been missing my pandan cake
Yes its been a long time since i last made as i refuse to go through the instant method .......
I will take the time to grind the pandan leave to get its natural colour and buy freshly juiced coconut milk
Here's what i made using recipe form Baking mum but i modified the recipe to suit my cake pan:
PANDAN CHIFFON CAKE (recipe taken from Prima's website)
150 g PrimaFlour Top Flour
11/2 tsp Baking Powder
11/2 tbsp Pandan Juice
150 ml Coconut Milk
6 Egg Yolks
75 ml Corn Oil (***)
¼ tsp Green Colouring (i omit that)
6 Egg Whites
3/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
150 g Castor Sugar
Pinch of Salt
Instructions
Preheat oven to 170°.
Extract pandan juice from finely pounded pandan leaves and add to coconut milk.
Add egg yolk, 50 g sugar, oil, colouring and salt to the coconut mixture. Mix well using hand whisk.
(***) I reduced the oil to about 35 gm or ml instead of all the 50 ml.
Sift PrimaFlour Top Flour and baking powder and fold into mixture. Mix until smooth. Set aside.
Beat egg whites and tartar at high speed until formy. Add remaining 50 g sugar and
beat until stiff.
Add 1/3 beaten egg white to the yolk mixture and mix using a hand whisk.
Slowly fold in this mixture to the remaining 2/3 of beaten egg whites.
Pour mixture into an ungreased 23cm chiffon tin and bake for about 50mins.
Turn tin over on a cake rack to cool before loosening cake.
Verdict: I tired to make more pandan juice by blending the coconut milk with pandan leaves. This method is not good as it seems to make the cake tast funny ... oily taste, in fact by 3 hours later the cake was barely eatable!! Also i should have reduced the oil too ... seems to be very wet!!
Wednesday, August 19. 2009
I always love to make cakes with yogurt, somehow it requires no mixers.
Just prepare the wet and dry ingredient and mix them together ... that simple!!
The recipe came from Baking mum
1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour (if you’re skipping the fruit, you can also skip the last tablespoon of flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 extra-large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed (miniature wild blueberries are great for this, and pose the least risk of sinking)
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.
Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 (+) minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
Note: i use my mini loaf pan bake for 45 mins only
Thursday, August 13. 2009
In the M4m forum, many people was raving about this banana cake.
Decided to make some since my banana is getting over ripe
Used my new mini loaf pan to make ... hehe new gadget, takes shorter time to bake
Ingredients:
250g salted butter
1 1/2 cups castor sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 tbsp milk
1 1/2 cups mashed banana (4 large bananas)
2 cups plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp baking powder)
Some Walnuts to sprinkle on top (i forgotten to put in)
Method:
Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. Add in eggs, vanilla essence and milk and mix well.
Add mashed banana into the mixture and mix well. Finally add in sifted flour and mix well.
Pour into a mini loaf pan.
Bake in preheated oven at 160 deg C for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Verdict: It has a pound cake texture but it moist but compare with Aunty Yochana's recipe its more dense.
Tuesday, July 28. 2009
Everytime my Chinese sensei will sigh whenever she hears that I had baked a cake .... "its so heaty"!!
So she suggested for me to steam my cakes ......
While browsing online i came across elinluv blog then to piggy's blog on steam cake using wolfberries
It uses egg white only, so it defiinitely healthy and a good way to reduce wastage whenever i have excess egg white
Ingredients:
115g egg white (about 3 eggs)
85g caster sugar
140g self-raising flour
1g salt
35ml milk
10ml olive oil
80g dry wolfberry
Method:
1?Soak wolfberry in a bowl of water for 3-5 minutes, dish out and then pat dry with paper towel.
2) In a medium bowl, whisk egg white with an electric mixer until foamy. Whip the egg white until stiff peak forms
3) Sift flour and salt over egg white mixture. Using a wide spatula, fold the mixture until just combined.
4) Mix milk, oil and 60g of wolfberry in a bowl, pour over egg white mixture. Fold the mixture until well combined.
5) Sprinkle remaining 20g of wolfberry on the cake. Pour the batter into the baking pan, steam in medium heat for 20 mins.
Monday, July 27. 2009
Caleb's playgroup has a snack party today to make the end of a term.
Made carrot raisin cupcake using Jo's deli recipe ......
Use the fondant from my under the sea cake to make flowers and butterfly ...
Ingredients:
Makes 12
180g all purpose flour (I use whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon powder
180g butter
145g brown sugar
4 eggs
150g carrot, grated
100g raisins, soaked in 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
Grated lemon rind from 1 lemon
Method:
1. Preheat oven to 170 degC.
2. Sift all purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon powder into a mixing bowl. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy on high speed. Reduce speed and beat in eggs one at a time, till well mixed.
4. Add in grated carrot, raisins, lemon rind and dry ingredients. Fold using just a wooden spoon carefully to not overmix the batter.
5. Fill prepared baking cups with mixture. This recipe doesn't raise much so you will need to fill to approx. 85% full if you need the cupcakes to reach the brim for decorating purpose.
6. Bake in preheat oven for 30 minutes until golden brown and skewer inserted into the centre of cupcake comes out clean.
7. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely before decorating.
I used cream cheese icing for the cake ... Yummy
Sunday, July 26. 2009
Using the blueberry yogurt recipe, i ran out of blueberry, added dried cranberries, top with raspberry jam
Its quick, easy and soft!! A quick snack for my neighbour!!
Yummy!!
Monday, July 20. 2009
After 3 lessons of cake decorating where I had learnt the basics of cake decorating.
We are supposed to come up with a design for today's lesson. This theme of under the sea was made by Chloe
Frankly, i only have vague ideas of what I want with no concrete design.
I started making my fondant creatures - corals, fish, crab, candy seashell and starfish over the weekend.
At some point i was so worried that i do have have enough fondant to cover the cake!!
Kneading and rolling 34 oz of fondant into the colour of choice is not easy!!
This cake had the luxury of air con the whole night too ... as humidity is one of its biggest killer (btw i do not sleep in air con ok!!)
This morning when i was decorating it .... i was very glad to have Mong to give me idea on how best to do.
I started with the lower tier to pipe the seaweeds as border.
Next the top tier - making the rock for nemo
Its a cupcake with royal icing - the icing was made to resemble rock
The rest is to put in the sea creature with royal icing ... which was added in randomly
This is my 1st 2 tier fondant cake ..... like many cake decorator said your 1st cake will always have special meaning.
Its so true for me, till now i am still feeling estatic about it!!! For the amount of work and effort, the fruit is definitely sweet
With this cake, I wish to share with you my happiness. Thank you
Special thanks to Mong and all my classmates where we shared resources and help each other
The inside of the cake was made using AUnty Yochana's Butter cake recipe
Friday, July 17. 2009
Decided to take up cake decorating class to complete my cake making journey, before i end up with no car, no maid and no house ....
Have always been fascinated by decorations on cake but was put off by the colouring etc .... This time i took the plunge
Here's what me and classmates did:
Its really hard work ... my hand was shivered from rolling the fondant 3 times .... i "ge kiang" go and make my own fondant, ended up stick to the mat
I learnt so much and corrected many mistakes
When you see the smiles and wow of others, you know its worth the hard work
Tuesday, June 23. 2009
Got interested with this cake after my teacher in GZ mentioned about it.
Search ard for recipe and i landed with the one from Jo Deli,
As one of the step was different from the usual way we mixed a cake, i made a mistake ....
this only resulted in 50% tunnel for the cake
Makes one 8" round cake
210g sugar
240g water
80g butter
6 eggs
160g condensed milk
180g all-purpose flour
2½ tsp baking soda
METHOD:
Caramelize sugar over low heat in a saucepan until it is golden brown. Stir at all times.
Add water to the caramel. Be careful as the hot caramel will splash when water is added. Continue to heat until syrup is homogeneous. Remove from heat.
Melt butter in hot syrup. Let syrup cool down completely.
Preheat oven at 180 degC. In a mixing bowl, lightly beat eggs with a hand whisk. Add condensed milk and mix well.
Sift flour and baking soda into another mixing bowl. Pour (4) into flour and mix well.
Add cooled syrup into batter. Pour batter into a greased 8" x 3"(H) round cake pan. Leave batter aside for 5 minutes to enable baking soda to react prior to baking.
Bake cake with bottom heat only for 1 hour or until skewer inserted to centre of cake comes out clean.
Leave cake in pan for 5-10 minutes before turning it onto a wire rack. Let cool before cutting.
This is another very popular cake in cyber space, its ingredient are simple and easily accessible
The recipe is from Rei from All that matters
Ingredients
160g Butter (good quality butter)
40g Sugar
1/4 Tsp Salt
2 Tsp Vanilla Essence (i use vanilla bean paste)
1 Cup Condensed Milk
240g Cake Flour
2 Tsp Baking Powder
*Sift together
4 Eggs
Method
1) Grease a 8 x 8 inch square pan and preheat oven to 170 deg.C.
2) In a bowl, using an electric whisk, cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add in salt, vanilla essence and condensed milk, whisk till incorporated.
3) Stop to add flour. I roughly used the whisk to mix and dampen the flour before turning back on, whisk using low speed. Scrap down the sides and whisk till the batter is smooth and not lumpy.
4) Add in the eggs, 1 at a time, whisk well. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake at 170 deg.C for 1 hour.
PS: the texture was soft with some crunch form vanilla bean ... which was great!!
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