A gift

Sharon has given me a packet of bitter 60 percent chocolate chips quite some time ago, decided to do chocolate chip chiffon from a recipe book bought from Taiwan.

Feedback from collegues, it nice, for me, I like it.. Thanks Sharon for your chocolate chips..:)

Recipe:-

7 egg yolks

90 gm of oil

100 gm fresh milk

12o gm cake flour

Vanilla paste

7 egg white

90 gm sugar

A bit of cream of tartar

70 gm chocolate chips

Lightly beat egg yolkswith sone vanilla paste. Add in milk and oil and mix well. Add in sieved flour and mix till batter is smooth, leave aside.

Whisk egg whites till frothy, add in 1/3 og sugar and continue to whisk and continue to add sugar in 2 more additions,. Whisk till it's soft peak.

Scoop 1/3 of egg white into egg yolk batter and mix well. The rest of 2/3 egg white batter, fold in till 80 per cent, add in chocolate chips and continue folding.

Bake in a 21cm chiffon tin and bake at 170 deg for about 40 mins.

Missing pandan ..

I have been searching for pandan kaya cake, do not have most of the ingredients, settle for butter cake.

Search internet and decide to use Yochana's recipe and the recipe called for ovalette, I did not use and I use seperate eggs method to do the cake.

Quite like the taste.

Honey sweet potato..

Went NTUC supermarket, saw that they are selling honey sweet potato from indonesia, just have to try and have been keen on baking sweet potato chiffon as well.. at least I am trying to kill 2 birds at one stone and here I am and did it.

When the chiffon is baking, the room was filled with sweet potato fragance and I loved it. I baked using the same chiffon book recipe and the book is really good, it's just too bad is out of publication and on the internet you only can get partial recipe of the book.

My collegue tasted the chiffon and she say it's was fragant and soft and y brother was saying that he was my guinea pig... ha! ha!...

Out of Publication

Have heard of this book and has been searching locally and international, check with bookstores in Taiwan and was out of publication... what a pity... Just have to do with some internet searching and some of the bloggers have been using these books and their chiffons are great.  It a must to try, and  true enough the recipe works, my first try and don't know what I did, it just drop off from the tin, my friend say could be underbake.

With a never die attitude, I did it again and this is what I get. I like the taste and it is full of banana fragrance if you like the fruit and you don't even have to add in banana essence, I just put some vanilla essence juz in case there is some eggy smell.

Recipe extract from GraceKitcheCorner if you want to tryhttp://gracekitchencorner.blogspot.sg/2009/07/banana-chiffon.html

Recipe for 21cm round chiffon pan:

For the egg whites mixture: 180g egg whites / 110g caster sugar / 10g corn flour/ 140g chopped banana (in snall chunk)

For the egg yolks mixture: 70g egg yolks / 30g water / 70g vegetable oil or olive oil / 90g mashed banana / 70g plain flour

How I made it:

1. Mix all the egg yolks mixture except flour. When everything well combined then add in sifted flour (I used electric mixer, its came very handy for this process). Mix everything well combine and no lumps left. The mixture would be very thick and smooth. Gently mix in the chunky banana.
2. Beat the egg whites in a clean large bowl until peak foam. Gradually add in sugar, one tablespoon at a time. Then finally add in corn flour. Make sure the corn flour mix well in the egg mixture (Using an electric mixer would be great!). The egg whites mixture should be peak foam, smooth and shiny.
3. Gently fold in 1/3 of the egg whites mixture into the egg yolks mixture. When everything well combine then gently fold in the 1/2 of the remaining egg whites mixture. Lastly, fold in the remaining egg whites mixture. (Note: This stage took some times and patient and practice. Make sure all the egg whites mixture well combine with the egg yolks mixture without breaking the egg whites. Little egg whites left will cause a big hole in the cake during baking. And, over mixing will cause it hardly rise during the baking.)
4. Pour the well mix mixture into a 21cm chiffon cake tin and bake at a 160-170'C preheated oven for 40 - 50 minutes. After baked, let the baked cake turn upside down for cooling before unmold it.
5. Unmold the cake, keep the cake in the fridge it could last for 5 - 6 days. Best serve in 3 days.

A gadget must have.....

This moment, when I was using this gadget, I loved it beacause first of all the thickness of the layer can be adjusted and it has given me a neat cut on the layers of my sponge cake.

It was a present from my friend, Sharon who has bought from Taobao,  Thanks Sharon.  When I first received it, I was quite skeptical about it, all long, I have been using 2 steel bars to help in slicing the cake.

Coffeeeee............

Recently have been crazy about chiffon, and seeing Baking Wonderland, someone has been trying the recipe from one of the books that I have and seeing how soft is her chiffon cake... I must try.

Never did a marbling chiffon before and I tried this .. coffee chiffon.  After baking, I like it, no doubt it's hnot 100 percent perfect but it was soft and full of nescafe flavour if you like coffee, have a try....

Extract from

Mould - 17 inch

4 eggs yoilks

50 g milk

50 g corn oil

70 g flour

4 egg whites

65 g sugar

2 tbsp nescafe stir with 1 tsp hot water

1. Whisk egg yolks, add oil, stir till mix.
2. Add in milk, stir
3. Add in sieved flour, mix well.
4. Use hand mixer, whisk egg white till foamy, add 1/2 portion of sugar, and as you beat, add in the sugar gradually till finish and beat till firm peak.
5. Take 1/3 of white egg and fold into egg yolk batter.
6. Pour all the egg yolk batter and fold into the remaining 2/3 of beaten egg white.
7. Lighly fold in nescafe mixture and bake at 160 degrees for about 30 mins.





Catching Up

Over Good Friday, I made 2 pandan chiffons, using 2 different recipes, one from IeatIshootIpost's recipe and one from the class that I have attended at workshop conduct by Mdm Tay Tong San.

TheT trainer used a slightly different method and she use hand to mix the batter , I never did before because I , decide to use her method. The result.. good... hubby comment that both cakes are equally good and so far this is the best chiffon that I have made, more light and bouncy, I tell my friend "twong Twong" she said SKII...

Run Out of Snow

Most of my friends are doing Hokkaido cupcakes and I said one day, I will try, just never get to that corner. Last saturday, went Phoon Huat to get some stuff and I get a string of Hokkaido cake cases just in case, I will have it, when I need it.

My niece wanted to go facial, my beautician is so nice and she likes the things that I made, so. I came to a conclusion and ended in this, I follow HeartyBakes's Blog recipe.

I made 18 pieces of Hokkaido Cupcakes and I brought some to my brother's house, some to beautician and hairdresser, gave 1 to my part time helper and 1 share with my husband.

Overall verdict, they loved it. Thanks HeartyBakes.

Recipe extract from the blog

Ingredients:


(A) 4 Yolks
70g Sugar


(B) 2g Salt
drops of Vanilla Essence


(C) 80ml Milk
60ml Corn oil


(D) 135g Flour
4g Baking powder


(E) 6 Whites
50g Sugar


Method:
♥ Preheat oven 180°C
♥ Arrange paper cups on baking tray
♥ Hand whisk (A) till pale in colour.
♥ Add (B)
♥ Follow by (C). Whisk till combined
♥ Sieve in (D). Stir till well-mixed.
♥ Whisk whites till foamy, add sugar. Whisk till medium peak.
♥ Take 1/3 whites fold in with yolk mixture.
♥ follow by folding in the rest of white
♥ scope batter into pre-arranged paper cups about three-quarter filled
♥ baking time est. 20-25mins.


Recipe reference: 不用模型做点心

sugeeeee

A friend has given me a can of sugee flour, and recently has expired, and hearing that they say that the expiry date is a guideline and can be used, not to waste it, I bake sugee cake last night.

This morning, I tried the cake and still surviving, that's means the sugi flour is still okay... :)

They are doing it

I see most of the bloggers are doing Mrs S K Ng's Butter Cake from Table for 2 or more blog, Curious, they baked it, so I also baked one.

i have almost all the ingredients except short of self raising flour by 50gm and I used cake flour to topped up the desired weight. The baked cake texture was soft and my husband who loved butter cake did not like this texture. He told me, he loved those oily ones, and say this one is just like any other normal cakes (he meant sponge cakes texture).

This morning bought a piece for my collegue to try, she loved it and say it's soft and fragant and I think this cake is personal preferences.

Below is the recipe extract from ber blog

Ingredients
230g Salted Butter, room temperature.
200g Eggs (no shell) - About 4 eggs (Grade B).
50g + 150g Castor Sugar
200g Self raising flour, sifted
60ml Fresh Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Method
1. Pre-heat oven at 180C (Conventional).

2. Prepare a 8 x 8 inch square pan. Line the base, grease the sides.

3. Separate egg whites & yolk. Beat egg whites until soft peaks, gradually add 50g sugar and beat until stiff.

4. Cream butter and 150g sugar until pale and fluffy. Add in Vanilla essence, beat for awhile, and followed by egg yolks one at a time.

5. Put in half the flour and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add in milk in 2 additions and mix until well incorporated. Mix in balance flour.

6. Put in half the egg whites in and mix on low speed. Pour the balance egg whits in and FOLD using your spatula.

7. Pour batter into pan and level.

8. Bake for 45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.

Puffing Away

Yesterday, made some cream puffs with the intention of bring over to dinner for my nieces, couldn't chilled he puffs because there's is some problem with my fridge, what a day, I passed it to my neighbour to be eaten.

I even have to take some ice from my neighbour to whip the cream.

This recipe was given by my friend, D, to test it out. Hers is suppose to be crispy, but I didn't let it try in the oven because I have a second batch to bake. I feel that my oven's temperature is not even, when baking for 10 mins, one corner of the tray, the puffs are starting to brown, open the oven and rotate. Saw the puff starting to deflate, there goesw my heart sinking, luckily a few minutes, the puffs started to rise again..yay.... I was happy, not an effort wasted.

I use a long nose nozzle to pipe the custard inside the puff from underneath.

Thanks D for the recipe.

Dragon Eye...

My brother has bought some dried longans from Taiwan and there's a place in taiwan selling longan muffins that is famous among the local people. I have tasted it, when my collegues bought some back for us to try.

Taste still lingers and my hands are itchy to try it out. Surf the website and came across this blog and I bake this today.

It has a fragant smell, when baking and I found my muffin is a bit sweet despite of lessing 10gms of sugar (in true fact, this is what I have..ha!ha!). In fact, I put in more dried longan flesh that might contribute to the sweetness but it's still ok.

Tasted again this morning for breakfast, the combination of brown sugar, walnuts and dried longans are perfect, except that I found the muffins a bit dry, next time, I will twitch the recipe and see..

Recipe from the blog

Longan Walnut Muffins
Ingredients
150g Top flour (I uae cake flour)
2 tsp double-acting baking powder (I use 1 tsp baking powder and half tsp baking soda)
1/2 tsp fine salt
110g dark brown sugar
70g dried longan
3/4 cup hot water
2 eggs
70gm butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup longan water
75g walnuts, roasted and chopped coarsely

Method
1) Hydrate the dried longans in the 3/4 cup of hot water for 20-30 minutes. Strain the hydrated longans and squeeze lightly to remove excess water. Reserve 1/2 cup of the soaking liquid.
2) Sift top flour, salt and baking powder together.
3) Combine cooled longan water, melted butter and vanilla together
3) Whisk eggs and brown sugar till creamy. Add the butter/water mixture and whisk till just combined.
4) Fold in the flour lightly, add 50g of the chopped walnut and the dried longans.
5) Mix well and spoon batter into muffins/cupcake cases, top with the balance chopped walnuts.
6) Bake in a preheated oven at 180 degree C for 30-35 minutes for medium sized muffins and 20-25 minutes for mini muffins. Skewer test for doneness.

Note:
1) The batter is quite runny.
2) Pulverize your brown sugar if necessary to remove any big lumps.

Not to waste

Still have a block of 500 gm butter left that is going to expire this month, not to wasted it, butter cake is one that uses a lot of butter and further more, hubby likes to eat butter cake. Why not? do it and I am doing justice to the butter .. ha! ha! that is a present from a friend.

The previous time, I add to much cocoa to my butter cake and this time round, I put lesser and dare not even stir it too much or not it will become chocolate cake... a mistake, never mind, there's always a lot of time to practice my swirl.

For this butter cake, I use egg seperation method,and I like the texture.

Below is the recipe, actually this recipe has been with me for over 15 years.

250 gm butter
5 eggs
200 gm flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vaniila essence
180 gm sugar
2 tsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp condensed milk

What I did....

Beat the butter with condensed milk, 3/4 portion of sugar and vaniila essence together till light and fluffy.
Add in egg yolk one by one.
Sieve the flour and baking powder together and fold in butter egg yolk mixture.
Whisk egg white with the rest of sugar till firm.
Fold beaten egg white into butter eggyolk flour mixture.
Take 1/3 of the mixture and fold in the cocoa powder.
Bake in 7" sq tin at 170 degrees for 45 mins.

Did It Again

Today, I tried baking again, this time green tea madeleines. The recipe is from youtube, I had problem with the green tea powder which requires cream to mix it but the specified amount of cream required is not enough to make the green tea powder smooth. I use part of it, I and hubby tasted and

Found the green tea is overpowering, next time, I think I use just 5 gm instead of 20 gm.

The rest of ingredients is okay and this time round it requires beating the batter over hot water and there's no need to leave the dough overnight.

I am quite happy enough, to see the dome and the crack as what others did.



Recipe:

Green Tea Paste
20 gm Green Tea Powder
30 gm Heavy Cream

Madeleines Batter
120 gm Eggs (2 large eggs)
100 gm Sugar
30 gm Honey
120 gm Flour
30 gm Almond Powder
1 tsp Baking Powder
120 gm Butter (melted)

Mix the green tea powder and heavy cream in a small bowl
Add the heavy cream little by little.
Beat the eggs together with the sugar and honey in a large metal bowl.
Place the bowl on a double boiler and keep beating until the sugar fully dissolved.
Remove from the heat when the mixture reaches about 39 degrees.
Add the sifted flour, baking powder and almond powder to the egg mixture.
Mux the dry ingredients into the batter (use whisk)
Than add in green tea paste.
Add in the warm melted butter - all at once.
Mix gently until you have a smooth batter.
Grease the madeleine pan with butter, powder with flour, invert the pan on a baking paper to remove the flour.
Fill the molds with batter, 80% full.
Bake for 10 mins in your pre-heated over at 226 degrees. (i use 200)

Wanted To Do This....

I have been wanted to do madelines for quite some time, I just like the look of it. That day, I help my friend to buy silpat mats and I myself went to buy a flexipan medeline mat just to support my urge of making this and this mat is not cheap. Glad that I did that, seeing my husband enjoy the cooked madelines one by one.

I did follow this blogger's exact recipe and I just put the finish beaten dough in the fridge for just an hour, I do not have a dome and crack like hers, maybe next time, I put in longer and see whether is there a difference in results.



A friend has given me 2 blocks of butter from Italy and each weight 500g and the shelf life is very short. expire in March and am was thinking of what to do. Recking my mind, butter cakes or anything cakes to do with butter, think will do another few batch of this, I myself quite like the taste,

Ingredients:
2 eggs
60g castor sugar
20ml maple syrup (can be replaced by honey)
80g cake flour }
3g baking powder}
20g ground almond
100g unsalted butter (melted)
½ tsp lemon zest

Method:
1) Beat eggs and sugar till sugar dissolved (need not beat till fluffy).
2) Add maple syrup, mix well and add lemon zest.
3) Sieve in flour mixture and ground almond, mix till just incorporated.
4) Add in melted butter gradually and mix well. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate for overnight or at least one hour.
5) Grease and flour Madeleine mould, fill with batter till 80% full.
6) Bake in preheated oven at 170C for about 12-15 mins, upper rack

regain confidence

After having the success in baking pandan lapis few weeks ago, I begin to have some confidence back in baking Lapis cake. Since 10 over years back, when I have Ariston oven, I can' even bake a decent lapis.

This is my second Ariston oven, and upon advise of my friends, I play with the temperature and placing the tray on different rack level position and I have found the technique in baking lapis in this present oven. Although it's still not so perfect, but is better than I can't get a decent one.

Bake for My Loves

One of my niece is going to Shanghai for her school work attachment and she is going to be away for 5 months. I gather the rest of my angels to have a dinner with her, and her request to eat pasta, and yesterday night, Eight of us (6 angels + 2 old folks) went to Cujini Restaurant at Club Street, Boy! we loved the food that we ate. Actually this is not a special day, it just an excuse to eat together.



Before, we went to the restaurant, 2 of the angels came to my house to watch 3D movies on my TV. Knowing that they liked to eat brownie, took out Daniel Tay's Dessert book and tried out the recipe, I did try one of the chocoate mousse in the book and I liked it. Found that the portion is too big, I halved the recipe and baked in a 8" x 11" x 1.5" baking tin.

Below is the recipe extract from the book

CHOCOLATE BROWNIE (JUST DESSERT BY DANIEL TAY)

325 g Plain (All Purpose) Flour
5 g Baking Powder
150 g Cocoa Powder
225 g Cream Cheese
860 g Sugar
½ tsp Vanilla Essence
10 g Salt
450 g Unsalted Butter
400 g Eggs
300 g Walnuts (chopped)
Butter for greasing

Preaheat oven to 180 degrees.
Sift flour, baking powder and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and leave aside.
Place cream cheese, butter, sugar, salt & vanilla essence in another mixing bowl and whisked until well blended.
Fold in eggs into cream cheese mixture, then gradually fold in flour mixture, Add in walnuts and mixed well.
Lightly grease a 28 cm (11”) square baking tin with butter.
Level batter into tin and bake for 20 mins.
Unmould brownie and leave aside to cool. Slice before servings.

Remeber Good Old Cakes

At last, my hubby got his wish, butter cakes, for a long time, he has been waiting and hoping that I will bake this for him.

Just feel like baking and wanna made some simple cakes and I surf the net and came across this website and was tempted to bake marble butter cake. I follow the recipe and the cake was good, he tasted and he liked it and ate a huge chunk. I have noticed that most guys they loved butter cake more than other cakes

Below is the recipe from the website cut and paste. Have a try

Marble Cake
makes 1 tall 8 inch square cake – mine is 3 inches high- do not attempt to make this in an 8 inch round pan – you were warned.

330g (about 3 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened

240g granulated sugar (less 10 gms)

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

300g cake flour

6 large eggs

2 tbsp milk (I use condensed molk)

1 tbsp cocoa powder

2 tbsp hot water

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius or 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a medium bowl, dissolve cocoa powder with hot water. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, on medium speed, cream butter and half of the sugar till pale and fluffy. Using a large rubber spatula, scrape bottom and sides of bowl, add rest of sugar and vanilla and beat until fully incorporated and all sugar has dissolved.

On low speed, add eggs one at a time, making sure mixture is smooth before adding the next one. After all the eggs have been incorporated, increase speed to medium and beat for 10 seconds.

Remove bowl from mixer, sift flour, baking powder and salt into bowl, and fold by hand with a large rubber spatula until almost fully incorporated. Add milk and fold until just smooth.

Add half of batter to lined cake pan, gently smoothing to the sides. Add half of remaining batter to cocoa bowl and mix gently. Add dollops of chocolate batter to pan, alternating with remaining white batter. Swirl gently in pan to create marbling effect.

Bake for 80-90 minutes, checking at the 70 minute mark with a toothpick or skewer, which, when inserted, should come out clean.

Cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing cake. Cool completely on rack.

Xmas

First a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone and may the spirit oif christmas brings you adundance of Joy, Peace and love and the most imnportant is in the pink of good health.



Last few days ago, I have baked 4 loaves of fruitcake, given one to my mom, neighbour, cousin and I leave one for myself. This time round, the fruitcake, I have used Grand Marnier liquor to soak and dab a layer of liquor after baking.
The 3 fruitcakes given away, I only dab it's once, only for my fruitcake, I have dabbed it twice and I have tasted, I found that it's too strong a liquor taste, but this time round, I liked the look of the fruitcake than my previous one, most probably it's the amount of fruits that is put inside.



Yesterday, I bake a chiffon lemon roll and assemble into a logcake to be given to my cousin. I always appreciate my oousin and his wife for showing so much love and concern my parents, it just my small thought to show my appreciation to them. It may be not in my best of art and this is my first time making logcake and glad that using the fork to scrap the lines and actually hide alot of flaws.. hee! hee! Hope they like it.

Lemon ...vitamin C

Try out this recipe, lemon rollcake, intend to do this as a Christmas Logcake for my sister-in-law where she invited us to her house.

I feel that some sourness will be quite refreshing after all the food we ate.

I rolled with some cream cheese filling where I put some lemon zest and lemon juice, I tasted the roll and I quite like it, my husband was saying too sour, asked me next time put in some salt to ease the sourness, my "adviser" leh....