Are you an adventurous dunker?

They say when it comes to morning teas, afternoon teas or supper, there are only 2 types of person, the dunker, and the non-dunker. If you're the later, then a little explanation for you:
to dunk, is to dip biscuit, bread, cakes etch into beverages like coffee, milk or tea. The dunking, can soften the biscuit, and hence, able to enhance the flavours to particularly dry biscuits, bread or cake. One of my greatest childhood pleasure was to dunk heaps of "ping pong" brand soda biscuits into hot Milo. Later when I was a little bigger, and demand for better dunking biscuits like Oreo into milk. As i was getting older, i also have experimented with almost every dunking biscuits with different beverages. Lately, i fall in love with a whole new level of dunking activities, i discovered that dunking banana into hot mocha creates a wonderful taste sensation. I know it sounded a bit awful, but if you have not tried it before, i urge you to try it just once. You may like it, you may not, it doesn't hurt to try! I am totally addicted to the strong coffee aroma that comes with biting into the banana.


That is why, when i come across this banana coffee bread recipe from Australia Good Food Magazines, I know i just have to bake it. and yes, it's not a typo, it's suppose to be a bread, and to be baked into the bread loaf tin, but I don't have the big loaf tin, and I just happen to buy a silicon baba cake mould. So, it came out looking like a cake, but with the texture of banana bread. This cake/bread is also very moist, and have a very light texture, laden with coffee and banana aroma. If you remember my mission to use up the wattle seeds from the pantry, then you won't be surprise i also added wattle seed, to further boost the coffee aroma.



Coffee Banana Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1 cup mashed very ripe banana
• 1 cup sour cream
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup wholemeal flour
• 1 cup plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarb soda
• 2 tbsp finely ground espresso coffee ( i use instant espresso coffee )
  
• 1 tbsp wattle seeds

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree Celsius, grease and line a large loaf tin, or a 22cm baba tin
2. Whisk together the eggs, sugar and oil until smooth.
3. Add banana, sour cream and vanilla. Stir until combined.
4. Sift the flours, baking powder, bicarb soda and wattle seeds. Add in the coffee.
   
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, and stir until all combined.
   
6. Pour mixture into the prepared tin, and bake for 50-60 mins. Cool in pan before turning it out. If using the baba mould, turn it upside down and leave to cool.
   

It's perfectly fine to serve it just like that, warm or cold with a dollop of cream and dusting with icing sugar, but I'm trying to be fancy and a drizzle the cake/bread with custard, and decorated with fresh sliced banana.
yeap, i love banana; and coffee.

A taste from the outback

We have been doing a lot of cleaning and clearing at the moment, though my house seems tidy over all, we were still amazed at the amount of junks hiding in the cupboard, under the bed, behind the sofas....some of these things are brand new unwanted gifts, some of them were the result of impulse buying, and most of them were just junk that we thought it will be useful so we kept them at the time, but we've never really needed them. Even though husband and I are no haorders, some of the junks were difficult to get rid off, especially those that hold sentimental values, like my engagement and wedding flower bouquet. They have been drying quite nicely, and been sitting on the shelf beside my wedding photos, but even dead and dried flowers have their used by date, and lately they have been deteriorate quite rapidly, and the dried patels began to turn into fine, powdery " ash". Husband have been asking me, no, begging me to get rid of the pile of patel ash, and finally, I had but no choice to put them ( unwillingly ) into the big black plastic bag together with other junks.

My pantry is another place with a lot of hidden junks, and gems. I'm absolutely delighted when I found a jar of wattlseeds sitting nicely behind the many other cans of food inside the pantry. I remember searching high and low for it after I read about these particular spice from a cooking book, and finally bought it from the Essential Ingredients, alas, never used it after!! I was so relieved to find that the use by date is still one long year away, and I swear to myself that I'll use it in my next baking. Wattleseeds are Australia native spice, they are edible seeds from wattle plants dried, and ground. They have very nutty, chocolaty and coffee flavours. It was used by the aboriginals for cooking and making bread and has become quite a popular spice lately because of their distinctive flavour, and can be found quite easily from gourmet food store. Because of their nuttiness, i decided to pair them with the coffee and almond crunch recipe, adapted from the October 2008 issue of Australian Good Food Magazines.


Bush Coffee Crunch Cake

Ingredients for the cake

• 170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 170g caster sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1/2 tsp vanilla essence
• 1/2 tsp coffee essence
• 100g almond meal
• 1/4 cup strong coffee
• 2/3 cup SR flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp wattleseedes

Ingredients from the crunch topping:

• 60g plain flour
• 40g demerara sugar
• 1/3 cup pecan nuts ( optional )
  
• 40g cold butter, cubed

Methods:

1. Preheat the oven to 170 degree Celsius. Line a 20cm round cake pan with baking paper.
2. To make the topping, mix flour and sugar in a bowl, and rub in cold butter until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs. Put in the fridge while making the cake.
   
3. Beat the butter and sugar in a large bowl with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in egg, one at a time until all combine. Add in the vanilla and coffee essence. Fold in the almond meal, alternating with half of the the strong coffee.
   
4. Sift the SR flour, wattle seeds and baking powder together, gently fold the flour into the egg mixture, and add the other half of the strong coffee.
   
5. Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top. Scatter the topping and pecan nuts on top of the cake batter, and bake in the pre heated oven for about 1 hour.
   
6. Remove from oven once cooked, and cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar before serving.
   

The cake is loaded with heavenly coffee aroma and is very moist with a crunchy nutty toppings. The addition of wattleseeds is wonderful, and gives another layer of nuttiness and mocha flavours to the coffee aroma. It's not overly sweet, and I serve it warm with a dollop of chocolate custard ( ice-cream would have been perfect too! ).



After galloping 2 huge slices of the cake almost all at once, the husband put on a big smile, comforted me and promise me that I can always have fresh bouquet of flowers whenever i like on his credit card, at the same time, he took bags after bags of trash out to the bins. Suddenly, my house is less cluster, and I can see much clearer; it's the man that's should matter, not the moulding wedding flower!!

Tea with my cake

Teacakes are great because they're not as heavy as cake. Hence, they makes a fabulous treats for morning teas, afternoon teas, even for supper. I decided to turn the unsually plain and simple teacakes into something more elegant for a church function.
This apple custard teacakes looks complicated, but it's actually very easy to bake, in fact, the hardest thing is to keep me from having one after another. They taste sensational!!


Apple Custard Teacake

Ingrediants:

• 150g butter, softend
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 2 1/2 cups SR flour
• 1 tsp cinnamons
  
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• Tinned Apple
• Vanilla Custard
• 1/4 cup desiccated coconut

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degree celcius. Grease and line a 22cm square cake pan with baking paper.
2. Using electrci mixer, cream butter, sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until pale and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time beating well after each addition.
   
3. Sift flour and cinnamons together. Gently fold flour and milk alternatively into the eggs and butter mixture until just combine. Take care not to over mix or else the teacake will be tough.
4. Spread half the batter into prepared cake pan. Arrange apple on the top, and dallop some custard over the apple. Gently spoon over the remaining cake batter. and top with more custard. Use a skewer to swirl custard into the batter. Scatter deseccated coconut on top of the cake.
5. Bake the cake in preheated oven for about 1 hour to 1 hour 10 mins, or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.
   
6. Cool cake in the pan before inverted into the wire rack to cool completely.
   
7. Serve teacake with remaining custard, or ice-cream with a cup of tea in a hot summer afternoon.
   

scent of summer

Today is the last day of summer, I decided to celebrate the end of this glorious season with lemon because lemon always remind me of summer. Their bright yellow colour, their scent, a whiff of lemon always chase my sorrow away, just like a ray of sunshine, always brought happiness.

Because lemon is such a volatile fruit, there were thousand of recipe with lemon being the main ingredient. From lemon tart, to lemon pie, to lemon biscuits to lemon cake... and many more, but with my guests arriving in less than 1 hour time, I decided to bake this easiest 1 bowl lemon cake.
As the name suggest, it only involved 1 bowl, 1 balloon whisk, 1 sieve and 1 spatula. Minimal clean up, my kind of cake!

1 Bowl Lemon Cake

Ingredients:

• 11/2 cups caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup oil ( any light flavoured oil )
• 1 cup yoghurt ( I use vanilla yoghurt )
• 2 lemons rind, grated
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Pinch of salt
  
• 2 cups SR flour, sifted
• Icing sugar for dusting
  
• Vanilla yoghurt, to serve
  

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius, grease and line a 20 cm round cake pan with baking paper.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, oil, yoghurt, lemon rinds and lemon juice.
3. Fold in the flour and pinch of salt. Lightly fold until just combine.
4. Pour into the cake pan and bake in the oven for 50 mins, or until cooked.
5. Cool in pan for about 5 mins, turn out into wire rack to cool.
6. Dust the cake with icing sugar before serving, and serve either warm or cold, with yoghurt and a cup of lemon tea!
   

I serve this cake after 1 hour of cooling, and it's still warm, and very moist.
The next day, we celebrate the first day of Autumn with the left over cake, it's still moist, less crumbly and more flavoursome. Yum!

My Fav Cake

Carrot cake have always been my favourite cake, but i have not lay my hand to bake any because i was so afraid that i would fail. But as sydney weather suddenly change from 45 degree to 16 degree in just 1 day, i decided to start my 2009 baking with my fav cake. To my relieve, this cake is so yummy that i polish it off about half myself!! and the frosting is the best frosting ever!! The best part is that it is virtually like baking a muffin, ( no beating, no creaming, just add wet ingrediant into dry ingrediant ). I strongly suggest that you try to bake this if you're a carrot cake lover like me!

Maple Carrot Cake

Ingrediants for the cake:
-200g ( about 2 ) carrots, finely grated
-1 cup SR flour
-1/2 cup P Flour
-1 tsp bicarb soda
-1 tsp ground cinnamon ( more if you like cinnamon)
-1/2 cup brown sugar
-1/2 cup vegetable oil
-1/2 cup maple syrup
-3 eggs
-1 tsp vanilla extract

Ingrediants for the frosting:
-250g cream cheese ( I like to use the lightest version, taste wise, it really doesn't make much diffrence, but your waist line will thank you for that! )
-2 big tbsp of Maply Syrup
-4 big tbsp of icing sugar
-100g pecan nuts for decoration

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 170 degree celcius. Grease and line a 20cm round cake pan.
   Sift SR flour, P flour, bicarb soda, brown sugar and cinnamon in a large bowl.
2. In another bowl, or a big jug, combine the vegetable oil, maple syrup, eggs and vanilla. whisk together until combine.
3. Gently pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, stir until just combine. Fold in the finely grated carrots.
4. Pour cake mixture into the cake pan, smooth surface with the back of spatula. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hour or until cooked when tested with a skewer.
5. Cool the cake in pan, and remove cake from pan while cool. Leave the cake to cool completely.
6. To make the frosting, just combine the soften creamcheese, maple syrup and icing sugar together, and chilled it in the fridge for about 10 mins.
7. To assemble, cut the cake in half horizontally, spread the frosting on top of the cut-side, and sandwitch the 2 cake together. Frost the top side of the cake with the remaining frosting and decorated it with peacan nuts. ( or your desired nuts )

The cake is very moist and soft, and it taste even better the next day!!!!

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.
   

"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!

Winter Warmer

The only good thing about winter is that we got to eat warm and hearty dessert. This pudding cake is incredibly wonderful, and it's very grown up taste. It is not sickly sweet like some pudding cake, it has got chocolate, and a slight orange bitter tang that makes it so special. It is adapted from Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess, and from the moment i read it, i just want to make this cake. I love orange and chocolate, i think the combination of the 2 is heavenly. Of course, if you dun like marmalade, you can substitute it with any other jam, like apricot. Of course, it will taste entirely different with a different jam, but it won't be too bad. Worth a try i would say!



when just came out of the oven, the tangy orange aroma of the pudding cake just make you drooling ***
and the best part, you dun have to wait for it to cool down completely, it's best serve warm, with very cold custard.





Orange Blossom Chocolate Pudding

125g unsalted butter
100g dark chocolate buttons
300g thin-cut marmalade
2 tbsp orange blossom water
120g caster sugar
pinch of salt
2 eggs, lightly beaten
150g SR flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius
2. Grease and line a 20cm spring foam tin
3. Melt butter and chocolate in a bowl, over a saucepan of simmering water, stir it gently with a metal spatula, and remove from heat when melted. Cool slightly.
4. Add marmalade, sugar, and a good pinch of salt. Combine everything.
5. Gently add in the beaten eggs with the spatula.
6. Sieve flour over the batter, gently fold in.
7. Bake in preheat oven for about 50 minutes or until cooked. If pudding become brown too quickly in the oven, cover it with a piece of foil for the last 10 mins of baking.
8. Cool for 10 mins in the pan, remove cake, slice and serve with orange custard.

Orange custard

Sure you can make your own custard, but I'm lazy and i use store-bought pouring custard. For orange custard, just mix in 1 tbsp of orange liqueur like Cointreau. If your guess includes kids, then just leave the Cointreau and use 1 tbsp of Orange Blossom Water instead!

Suprise Marriage

I love pistachio! The buttery, salty taste just linger in yuor mouth and you just can't stop eating them once you start. The only downside being i'll almost always end up with sore finger tips or broken nails, because some of the shells can be too stubborn to cracks. God knows how sore my fingers are for making this cake, as i'm not prepared to pay for the triple price of the "nude" one! heheh!
This recipe is actually adapted from Nigella Lawson How to be a domestic Goddess.
It was a suprise that chocolate and pistachio make such a good combination, the colour and the taste of this cake is devine, nutty, chocolaty, pitachy...you just have to try it. You can either make it into a marble cake, or 2 layer cake, as i did. But somehow, my chocolate layers didn't stick to it's layer and mix with the green pistachio layer, oh well, it doesn't bother me as it looks nice and taste great!



Chocolate Pistachio Cake

Chocolate Batter

135g AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
75g butter, soften
125g sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup natural yoghurt
1tsp vanilla extracts
2 tbs cocoa powder
1 cup chocolate chips
Oven preheated to 180 degree celcius

1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Beat in eggs, one at a time
3. Add in yoghurt and vanilla, continue to cream the mixture until combine
4. sift flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa over the butter mixture, fold the dry ingrediant over the butter mixture until combine.
5. pour chocolate batter in a 25cm spring foam pan, scatter chocolate chip on top, and set aside while making the pistachio batter.

Pistachio Batter

135g AP flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

75g butter, soften

125g sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup natural yoghurt

1 tsp vanilla extracts

1/3 cup shelled pistachio, finely chopped

1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy
2. Beat in eggs, one at a time
3. Beat in the natural yoghurt and vanilla extracts
4. sift flour, baking powder and baking soda over the butter mixture, gently fold until well combine.
5. Fold in the chopped pistachio. Enjoy the green colour of the batter!!
6. Pour the pistachio batter on top of the chocolate mixture.

Bake in preheated oven 180 degree celcius for 50mins, or until cooked.

With such a devine taste of this cake, who can stop at just one piece?