Pandan Chiffon Cake

Dad decided to come over to my place one day to make some Pandan Cakes. I guess that's our way to bond, we love to bake stuff! :) The problem was that he was a professional baker, well, he used to own a bakery, self taught, so his style of baking is more, free style. Me, being the anal one, likes everything to be perfect. So it was... challenging. Haha...

So anyway, I got this recipe from someone else, but it was altered, so I'll just called it mine. :)

PART A:
3 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
60g oil
70g coconut milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon pandan juice
1/2 teaspoon pandan essence
100g cake flour

PART B:
5 egg whites
50g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar

Yields 4 small cakes

1. Preheat oven 180C.
2. Mix everything in PART A together, except for the cake flour. Sift flour into batter until combine.
3. Whisk everything in PART B until stiff and glossy.
4. Add 1/3 of the whisked egg whites into the pandan batter to get a light green batter. Gently fold rest of the egg whites into the pandan batter.
5. Pour the batter into the cake tins. Give the tins a few sharp bangs on the table to release the trapped air bubbles.
6. Place the tins into the oven at the lowest rack for about 45 minutes , or until the crust is golden brown.
7. When the baking is done, overturn the tins and let it cool.
8. To remove the cake, use a sharp knife and with one movement, separate the sides of the cake from the tins.

Little Carrot Bears

I saw this recipe on the show, James Martin Digs Deep. The chef, James Martin, started out his own garden and makes a carrot cake using the carrots he grew himself. How amazing! Anyway, I was never a carrot cake fan, but the recipe was so simple, and I thought that a carrot cake would be a delicious yet healthy snack for Jolie! Besides, I recently bought a teddy bear mould and this would be perfect for it! Yeah!

Super cute right.... Yeah, the features of the bear wasn't very clear, but it was obvious enough that it's a bear. And Jolie loved it, so does her classmates!

So we need:

2 large sized carrots, sliced (those big fat ones sold in the market)
1 orange, juice only
63 ml corn oil
187 g caster sugar
2 eggs, separated
175 g plain flour
7 g baking powder

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180C
2. Place the carrots in a pan, just cover with water and add the orange juice and drop the orange skin into the pan as well. Bring to the boil and cook until tender. Drain and discard the orange peel, but do not cool.
3. Put the carrots, corn oil, sugar and egg yolks in to blender or food processor and blend to a purée. Leave to cool.
4. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and set aside.
5. Place the carrot purée in a mixing bowl and gently fold in the flour and baking powder and mix well together. Gently fold in the egg whites. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden and cooked. Remove from the oven and leave to cool on a wire rack.

The original recipe was double the amount and uses a cake pan, but I was using a mini mould, so I halfed the quantity and baked only until it's golden brown, which was about 10-15mins. It tasted great, but I think I over worked the cake mixture, making the texture more like a "kueh" then a fluffly cake, so remember not to mix it too much!

But everybody loved it so much, (including me) that would definitely make it again. But the mould was really difficult to work with, so next time I'll probably grease it with butter. Enjoy!

National Day Cake 2011

Happy National Day! My daughter, Jolie, was having a little celebratory party in her playgroup, so I thought I make a National Day cake!



Nothing new, I just used back the recipe from her birthday. But instead of chocolate buttercream, I made vanilla buttercream by opting out the cocoa powder and added 1 tablespoon of vanilla extract. I wanted to make a flag design, so I needed a white background.



I have this design in my head, but I didn't realise how difficult it was to make the stars and crescent moon until I actually started doing it. The stars were very small, so it was really hard to make the pointed ends of the stars. So I used a little buttercream to make an outline of the stars and crescent moon 1st before filling up the top of the flag with piping jelly mixed with a few drops of red food colouring.

It's not pretty, give me a break, it's my 1st time ever...

I tell you, I have a new found respect for bakers and their piping skills. Phew! I'm not a fan of food colouring, so if I wanted a really red background, either I have to put LOTS of colouring into the white cream (eww...) or just 2-3 drops into the piping jelly. I bought this piping jelly - neutral, from phoon huat. It's clear, so you have put any colour you want in it. It has a slight sourish flavour to it, but other than that, it's pretty alright.



If you look closer, I also bought little pink heart shaped sprinkles and added it to the sides. They looked so sweet! My cake is literally full of 'love'! Haha... *^,^*



I made a little mistake. I put the buttercream into the fridge after I made them (I don't know why) instead of using them immediately, so it turned a little stiff and I had a hard time spreading them onto the cake. I must have pressed the cake a little too much and it squished the cake a little. Also, I think I was a little heavy handed on the cream, so I felt that it may have turned off some of my "customers" at the party. But overall, I was very happy watching others enjoy my humble creation. All the hard work paid off. Promise that next year it would be even better!

Wanna read about the party? Click here!

内在美 Chocolate Mud Cupcakes

I made this for a friend's birthday. Kind of lazy to bake a cake, so I thought it would be better to bring chocolate cupcakes instead. This recipe was adapted from Baking Library. The original wasn't supposed to look so... ugly. I think either my oven was too hot or the cups were filled too full.

Anyway, it was the flavour that matters, thus the name, 内在美, which means "inner beauty". Haha... It's either that or my second choice, which was PMS chocolate mud cupcakes, because they were the perfect for dark and gloomy days when you have PMS...



Anyways, here are the ingredients:
30g cocoa powder
120ml boiling hot water
110g dark chocolate, melted and cooled (I used 63%)
110g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
165g brown sugar
100g ground almond
80g egg yolks (thats about 4-5 eggs, depending on size)
120g egg whites

1. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners and preheat the oven at 175 degrees C.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the hot water and the cocoa powder. Stir well to remove the lumps and ensure cocoa is well dissolved. Next, add in melted chocolate, melted butter, brown sugar and ground almonds. Stir to obtain an evenly mixed mixture.
3. Beat in egg yolks on medium low speed, one at a time, ensuring each egg yolk is well combined before adding the next.
4. In a separate clean metal bowl, beat egg whites on low speed until it turns foamy. Gradually increase the speed to medium high when the volume increases. Continue to beat the egg whites until they form medium-firm peaks. This is when the beaters are lifted from the egg whites, snowy egg white peaks are formed and they are slightly wobbly when the bowl is shaken.
5. Fold one third of beaten egg whites gently into egg-yolk batter to lighten. Incorporate the remaining egg whites and fold gently to obtain a smooth, watery-foamy batter. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl to ensure even mixing.
6. Spoon batter into cupcake liners until they are nearly filled. The batter will not rise much. Bake cupcakes at 175 degrees C for about 30 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cupcakes will sink noticeably in the middle when cooled.

Since they were for a birthday, I made it more pretty by dusting some icing sugar on top.



Then I piled it up and made it a cupcake tower!



My friends loved it! It was awesome, and it was clean and easy to eat. Happy Birthday PL!

Mandarin Orange Chiffon Cake

My daughter loves Pandan Chiffon Cakes, but since the Chinese New Year was coming to a close, I was inspired to find a way to get rid of some of my Mandarin Oranges. I found this recipe on My Kitchen Snippets, and it turned out beautifully!. As usual, I halved the ingredients and made a smaller version of the actual recipe. Below are the ingredients for the full sized 10" pan.

(A)
1 3/4cup Self Rising Flour
1/8 tsp of salt

(B)
6 egg yolks
1/2 cup of sugar
3/4 cup Mandarin orange juice
zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup of vegetable oil

(C)
3/4 cup of sugar
6 egg white
1 tsp of cream of tartar

1. Pre-heat oven to 160°C. Sieve all the (A) ingredients in a mixing bowl until well combined.
2. Mix ingredient (B) until well blended and then add in ingredient (A) and mix until smooth. Set it aside.
3. Under ingredient (C), beat the egg whites till they are fluffy. Add in the sugar and cream of tartar high speed until stiff peaks are formed. It should not fall out when you turn the mixing bowl over. Fold 1/3 of the egg whites into the egg yolks mixture and continue to do so until egg whites is finish. Remember to fold in gently until well mixed.
4. Pour batter into ungreased 10" tube pan (about 3/4 full) and bake for an hour or used a bamboo skewer to test the cake. Just insert the skewer into the center of the cake and it should comes out clean.
5. Invert cake and let it cool complete in the pan. When it is cooled, loosen the edge of the pan and remove cake.

Like I said, I halved the ingredients so for my smaller version, so I used a 5" tube pan and baked for only 40mins. The end result is a slightly moist cake. If you like it more dry, bake longer. I think my cake pan was too full, so I ended up with a mushroom-like chiffon cake. Nothing wrong, just that it makes it more difficult to remove from the pan.



There was even leftover cake batter, so I poured the rest into muffin cases and baked for only 20 mins.



Turns out quite nice actually! Little chiffon cakes, no need to cut, great for tea breaks, perfect for little hands. :)

Miss CoCo's Chocolate Buttercream Birthday Cake

I got this fabulous chocolate buttercream sponge cake from Baking Library and it was GREAT! Definitely a must-try for anyone who loves a good chocolate cake with rich chocolate frosting and yet, not too sweet or heavy.



As it was my very 1st attempt in making an actual birthday cake, and it was for my darling baby girl's birthday party, I wanted to give the recipe a try 1st. So I made one earlier half the size.

I even tried doing some simple piping with the extra buttercream. Haha...


I noticed that if it's too small, the sponge cake have trouble holding up at the sides while cooling. But I just wanted to try out the taste, and it was definitely a PASS for me!

So this is the full size portion...

Chocolate Sponge Cake :
70g egg yolks, room temperature
50g caster sugar
4 tbs vegetable oil
4 tbs water
80g cake flour
15g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
145g egg whites, room temperature
50g caster sugar

Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream: (about 840g)
195g egg whites
220g caster sugar
385g unsalted butter, softened but still cold
100g cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)

Making the Chocolate Sponge Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 160 degrees C.
2. Whisk sifted flour, sifted cocoa powder and sifted baking powder in a large bowl to combine.
3. Place egg yolks, 50g caster sugar, oil and water in a large bowl. Mix well with a wire whisk untill the mixture is evenly mixed. Add the flour mixture in and whisk to obtain a smooth and thick chocolatey batter.
4. Next, whisk egg whites on low speed. Increase speed slowly to medium-high and beat untill egg whites are at soft peaks. Add 50g of sugar gradually and beat untill egg whites are just stiff and still moist. This is when the beaters are lifted, the egg whites will form peaks that are upright and not drooping slightly. Egg whites will resemble whipped cream.The entire bowl of whites will not drop out when the bowl is overturned. Do not beat until the egg whites are dry and clumpy.
5. Fold one third of beaten egg whites into egg yolk batter gently to lighten and combine. Fold in the rest of the beaten whites to combine. Final batter should be foamy and uniform in colour with no streaks of egg white present.
6. Pour batter into 2 greased and lined 8 x 3 inch round pans and bake at 160 degrees C for 25 -35 minutes. Test doneness using a skewer or toothpick. The highest part of the cake should rise up to 4/5 or nearly the full height of the tin. When the cake is done, the inserted skewer will come out clean.
7. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for a short while. Cake will shrink from edges on cooling. (happens everything, it is normal) When the cake is no longer shrinking, unmould from pan, remove parchment/baking paper and turn the cake out to cool.

Preparing the Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream:

1. Place 195 egg whites and 220g granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl. Sit the heatproof bowl on a saucepan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water. This is known as a double boiler. Bring the water in the saucepan to a slight simmer. Use a balloon whisk and stir the egg whites and sugar constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch (test by inserting your finger).
2. Remove the heatproof bowl and beat the warm egg white mixture on medium high speed to obtain stiff peaks using an electric beater. (It takes a longer time when sugar is added.) At stiff peaks, the beaten egg whites will not budge when bowl is overturned. When the beaters are lifted from the beaten egg whites, the surface of the egg whites should form stiff upright peaks (not drooping peaks). The beaten egg whites should be cool to the touch (room temperature), not warm like when it was removed from the saucepan.
3. Beat in 385g butter into the beaten egg whites in 3 batches, ensuring each batch is incorporated before adding the next. The egg whites will deflate furiously when butter is added. Continue beating until the mixture is creamy and fluffy (Initially when the butter is added, the mixture may become watery. As more butter is added, the buttercream thickens up).
4. Lastly, sift in 100g cocoa powder and continue beating to obtain a smooth chocolate buttercream.

Assembly:

• I just sandwich some buttercream between the 2 sponge cakes and frost the whole cake with buttercream.
• My hubby suggested adding some nuts to the cake, so I added some crushed hazelnuts to the side. The nuts really complement the chocolate very well!
• I wanted to add some colour to the cake, so I topped it with some sweet Korean strawberries.
• I wanted it to be more kiddy, so the train candle holder I found at Phoon Huat was perfect. :)

I was so busy bringing out the cake that I forgot to take a good photo of my greatest creation! Too bad, I just too 2 pictures hastily and did some cropping from the group photos. :P





So happy and proud... :))

CoCo's Butter Cake

My baking mood was on, so I dug out an old cookbook and made a butter cake!

Baby was napping, so I didn't even use the electric mixer! Arms ended up all sore and tired, but biting into the warm buttery cake during teatime was worth all the effort!

The stupid recipe book indicated only 25 minutes of baking, but it ended up with raw batter in the middle! Argh! So here I indicated a longer baking time.

300g butter
300g icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
5 eggs (I only had 4 - still ok :D)
280g flour

1. Glaze oil and line baking tin with baking paper. Preheat oven at 180 degree Celsius.

2. Sieve flour and baking powder.

3. Beat half of the icing sugar and butter till light and fluffy.

4. Separate egg yolk and white. Beat egg white and other half of icing sugar till fluffy then add in egg yolks. Continue beating until creamy.

5. Using hand, blend butter mixture and egg mixture evenly, add in flour and mix well. Pour mixture into baking tin and bake for about 45 minutes.

6. Cool cake in pan for 5 mins before inverting it onto a wire mesh to be further cooled.

Serve with a cup of hot tea or coffee! YUMZ~!

Double Chocolate Layer Cake

This is my very first attempt in making a layer cake! I got the recipe from Nigella.com. The original serves 8-10 persons, using a 20cm cake tin. I cut all the ingredients by half and used a 12cm cake tin, so the cake is much smaller.

I made the cake yesterday evening, but I couldn't eat it as it would spoil my dinner! Agony! So I only got to try it a few minutes ago and I must say...

SO GOOD...

VERY chocolately, so it's perfect for those chocolate craving moments! I only spread a very thin layer of frosting so as not to make it too sweet, and I was right. The chocolate sweetness is just nice. Perfect with a hot cup of unsweetened earl grey tea!

Original Recipe - Serves 8-10

110g plain chocolate, broken into squares
200g self-raising flour
30g cocoa powder
a pinch of salt
175g unsalted butter, softened
60g light muscovado sugar
110g caster sugar
4 large eggs
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon baking powder

Chocolate Fudge Cream:
200g plain chocolate, broken into pieces
175ml double cream
225g icing sugar

Preheat the oven to 180oC. Grease and base-line two 20cm cake tins. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over barely simmering water, and cool until tepid. Sift the flour with the cocoa and salt.

Beat the melted chocolate, flour mixture and all remaining cake ingredients together until smooth.

Divide the mixture between the two cake tins and smooth down lightly. Bake for 30 minutes until firm. Test with a skewer. Let them cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out and finish cooling on a wire rack.

While the cake is baking, make the chocolate fudge cream. Melt the chocolate in a bowl. Put it back over the heat, and gradually beat in the cream. Once it is all in, take off the heat. Sift the icing sugar and beat into the chocolate and cream mixture, to get a smooth, fudgy blend.

Sandwich the two cakes together with one-third of the chocolate fudge cream. Spread the rest over the top and sides, roughing it up here and there with a fork.

Serve!

CoCo's Banana Cakelettes

I have some really ripe bananas left over, so I dug up my recipie book and decided to make a banana cake! As I was preparing, I was suddenly inspired to add a twist to it. Instead of the usual cake tin, I opted for my muffin tins instead. So I'll have ready-to-eat little cakes!



Ingredients
150g of really ripe bananas
2 teaspoons of lime juice (or calamasi juice - same)
150g butter
150g caster sugar
150g self-raising flour
3 eggs
1/4 teaspoon of baking soda

1. Butter the muffin tins and preheat the oven to 170 degrees celcius
2. Mash bananas with a fork and mix in the lime juice
3. Beat the butter and sugar till it's light and fluffy
4. Add the eggs into the mixture a little at a time, mixing well between additions
5. Fold in half the flour and baking soda without over-mixing or beating the mixture
6. Fold in the banana mixture
7. Fold in the rest of the flour
8. Spoon the mixture into the buttered tins - fill it up to 3/4 full only
9. Bake it for 30 minutes or until the cakes is well risen and golden brown


(test: poke a knife into the middle of the cake - if the knife comes out clean, the cake is ready)

10. Let the cakes cool in the tin for about 10minutes before running a knife around the edges and placing the cakes onto a wire tray to cool.



NOTE: The cakettles turned out to be quite sweet! Although I have no problems with that, given that I've got such sweet tooth... You may want to reduce the amount of sugar to 100-125g if you don't like your cakes too sweet!