Marble Effect

I'm in the mood of baking something chocolaty with the block of dark chocolate that i bought from IKEA, so, the marble cake from Dnnoa Hay Chocolate COoking book caught my attention, and i decided to give it a try.
This cake indeed have a very pretty marble effect, and it's very very delicious and moist!!

Marble Cake

Ingrediant:

• 250g Butter, soften.
• 11/4 cups caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 eggs
• 2 1/4 cups SR flour
• 3/4 cup milk
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder, sifted
• 3 tbsp extra caster sugar
• 1 1/2 tbsp milk

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree celcius. Grease a 22cm bundt tin with melted butter.
2. Place butter, sugar and vanilla in a bowl, and beat until light and creamy.
3. Add tge eggs, one at a time, and beat well.
4. Fold through flour and milk.
5. Divide the mixture in 2, stir cocoa, extra sugar and milk through one of the portion.
6. drop alternate spoonfuls of plain and chocolate cake mixture into the tin, and swirls with a skwer.
7. Bake for 45-50mins, until the cake is cooked.
8. Cool on a wire rack, and when cooled, frost the cake with chocolate glaze.

Chocolate Glaze:

• 150g dark chocolate, chopped
• 1/2 cup cream

Method:

1. Place chocolate and cream in a saucepan over low heat, and stir untul melted and smooth.
2. Allow the mixture to stand for 10 mins to thicken slightly.
3. Pour the glaze over the cooled cake.
   

Little is MORE

Recently, i have the honour of baking a batch of 100 cupcakes for a friend's wedding refreshment.
I'm very excited as i love baking cupcakes, or more precisely, i love decorating these little cakes.
First thing, is to decided what flavour the cupcake base will be, so, between the basic vanilla and chocolate, i decided to do something more special, since it's a spring wedding, i decided to do a summer flavour base cupcake, and frost them with tangy cream cheese frosting.
I actually make about 150 more mini cupcake, and decorated them in 4 diffrent style.


these cupcakes is so easy to bake, anyone should try it, as you only need to dirty 1 bowl, and you do not need to beat the sugar and butter, everything can be done using a hand whisk!!

Orange Cupcakes


Ingrediant:

• 2 cups SR flour, sifted.
• 3/4 cup castor sugar
• 1/2 cup orange juice
• 1/4 cup milk
• 125 g butter, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 tbsp orange blossom water ( or orange essence )
• 2 tbsp of orange zest
  
• handful of white chocolate chips ( optional )

Method:

1. Preheated oven at 200 degree celcious. Line two 24 holes mini muffin pan with colourful paper cases.
2. combine melted butter, orange juice, milk , eggs, orange water and zest in a jug. Whisk to combine.
3. In a bowl, combine flour and sugar, and make a well in centre.
   
4. Pour the butter, milk mixture into the flour sugar mixture, stir with a ballon whisk until all just combine. Stir in zest and white chocolate chips.
5. Put one teaspoon of the batter into the prepared paper cases. Be careful to only fill it half way, other wise the cake will over flow!!
6. Bake in pre-heated oven for about 12 mins.
7. Cool on wire rack.
   
8. Frost and decorated them once cooled.

( the above recipe will produce about 48 cupcakes )

Cream Cheese Frosting

• 125 g butter, soften
• 250g cream cheese, soften
• 4 cups pure icing sugar
• 2 tbsp orange blossom water
• food colours

Method:

1. Beat everything except the colours together until it tripple in volume.
2. divide the frosting into saperate bowl, and dye them with your choice of food colour.
3. put in the fridge for 10 mins before frost them on cooled cupcakes.

( the above frosting is more than enough to frost 150 mini cupcakes )

"The" Cake

Lot's of people tell me that it's not easy to bake a chiffon cake, in fact, it's "the"cake, that if you master, you could basically pass as a cake baker. I didn't took those saying seriously of course, what could be so difficult? Chiffon cake is just ordinary and cheap cake that you can easily buy from Aisan shop!! SO, i decided to give this cake a try, and search high and low in the internet for a good recipe, and finally, after reading extensively on how to succeed in chiffon cake baking, i'm ready to bake.
However, it's very diffrent when you experiance it first hand in baking this cake than you do the reading. My first chiffon rise beutifully in the oven, but when i took it out, it sank horribly!!
My second chiffon cake turn out nicely, and i faild to get it out!! SO, i blame the cake tin because i dun really have a chiffon cake tin. I'm desperate to find a chiffon tin and try again. SO, i bought it in e-bay, for about $15 dollar. at the mean time, i read again more information about chiffon cake baking, and i find out that the hardest part is actually the beating of the egg whites part. If you beat for too short, the cake will be desse, but if you beat for too long, it'll be tough and chewy, you have to beat it just right! ( ie: Stiff peak, but when you invert it on the hook, it'll still make a curve shaped). Another tip is also when you fold in the batter with the egg white, must be carefull to use a folding technique, so that the air in the egg white will not escape, resulting in a tough cake. If you can manage these 2, then you'll have soft, cottony chiffon cake, that rise beutifully.
2 weeks later, my chiffon cake tin arrive, and i can't wait till the next day to bake it, and this time, i really put more efford into beating my egg whites and folding the yolk to the white mixture. also, i put in extra patience for the cake to cool down before i loosen them out from the tin. Hence, my first chiffon cake was born at 12 am midnight!! yes, it was soft, cottony and rise so tall and proudly!

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Ingrediant:

• 100g cake flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1tbsp pandan paste
• 100ml coconut milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 50ml corn oil ( i use conola oil)
• 5 egg whites
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 100g castor sugar
• pinch of salt

Method:

1. Preheat oven at 170 degree celcious.
2. Combine egg yolks, 50g sugar, oil, pandan paste, salt, and coconut milk together. Whisk them up using a electric mixer until all incoporated.
3. Sift cake flour and baking powder for at least 3 times, and then fold them into the yolk mixture.
4. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar on high speed until foamy, gradually add 50g of sugar, continue beating until stiff. To check if egg white is ready, take the hook of the mixture out and invert it, if the egg whites attach to the book form a curve loope, but not falling down, it's ready.
5. Add 1/3 of the white into the yolk, to loosed the yolk. then, gradually fold the rest of the egg white into the yolk mixture. Fold until just combine.
   
6. Pour the batter into the ungrease chiffon cake tin ( 18cm ), and bake for 1 hour.
   
7. invert the cake immediately and leave it to cool for at least 2 hour in winter, and more in warmer weather. ( in hot weather, it is best leave it overnight to cool down completly)
8. Run a knife around the edge of the cake tin to loosed it, the cake should fall away easily.
   

I'm very happy with the result of my chiffon cake.


Soft Cottony texture


It's also very fragrance because of the pandan! Yamm!!



The cake rise high and tall.

The dose of antioxidant

When i first look at the recipe book of Bill Granger, i was drooling over this blueberry crumble cake, magnificant toping and all the goodness of blueberry. So, i decided to make it at a friends' place seeming it was actually a very easy cake.
But for some weird reason, the crumble sink into the middle of the cake, although the overall cake was nice, in fact, too nice. Hence, i decided to try it again at home, and i alternate the crumble recipe a little bit, adding oats and almond. This time my crumble turn out to be glorious, crunchy and yummy. I love the buttercake below too, the sour cream make this cake stay moist. Blueberry also add to a lot of flavour. I think it will work well with any berries, but blueberry is my fav.

Blueberry Crumble Cake

For the Crumble ingrediant:

• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 25g oats
• 25g butter, chilled and cut into very small pieces
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup flake almond
• 2 punnets of blueberry

Combine everything together and set aside.

For the Cake ingrediant:

• 2 cups Plain Flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 125g butter, soften
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1cup sour cream

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree celcius. Grease and line a 23cm spring foam pan with baking paper.
2. Cream butter and sugar in a saperate bowl using hand/electric mixer, until combine.
3. Beat in eggs, one at a time, continue beating until combine.
   
4. Gently fold in sieved flour, alternating with the sour cream.
5. Pour mixture into the prepared pan, and smooth the top with the spatula.
6. Sprinkle crumble mixture on top of the cake, and bake in preheated oven for about 1 hour or until cooked.

it is best serve warm from the oven, with dallop of cream or ice-cream. But i find it delicious to eat the next day too. Just reheat in the microwave.




i likethe part where the berries ooze into the cake...yam!