I also bake fruit pastry cake :)

I notice something similar in every food blog that i have been following recently. A must have 'fruit pastry cake'. Not to be left out, i also bake my own version of this cake, coupled with a little 'modification' of the recipe..... to stand out from the others sold out there. Initial plan for the decoration was peach, green apple, cherry and grapes. Talk about variety here. Funny..cuz we never use local fruits to bake cakes, rite? But the green apple was given up at last due to the constraint of space.

Well..to cut the story short..(to know the process, just surf any other food blogs) After just mere 15 minutes, minus the time for the butter to melt, I had my own masterpiece ready. Not really up to expectation but satisfaction level was pretty high. Partly due to the speedy process. 15 minutes is just all it takes... faster than a drive to a bakery. haha..

The cake during 'summer' time -steaming hot fresh from oven...


and when the 'winter' comes...it takes a little skill not to cover the peach with icing sugar. Done.


U won't believe the baked grapes actually tasted very nice, although they do not look apealing. Imagine how the grape juices oozing out to the edges (the dark part on the edge as shown at the picture above) that make them taste awesome. Almost all bloggers gave very good comments on this cake, saying it is easy to make and tasted very nice. For me, overall I would give a 2 thumbs up...out of 5. The only downside, or I can say a major one, was the 'tallness'. My version of this cake is just too short. Could it be my 'gene' that had been pass down to my cake?




Nevertheless, mum and dad said they enjoy this pastry on their tea time. What a supportive (or hungry?) parents.

For recipe, click here

Joanne's Creation

I am so happy Joanne finally did it. Everyone likes the muffins and it is nice to heard that the kids enjoy the fun baking session with her :p

How To Bake Orange Chiffon Cake

I was given a task by my sister to write a detail yet simplified recipe of orange chiffon cake on this abandoned blog after her failed attempt last week.


1. Grate 1 teaspoon of orange skin.


2. Squeeze orange juice.


3. Add 1 and 2 to make up orange juice mixture.


4. Bring 5 eggs to room temperature. Separate the egg whites from egg yolks. U have to make sure all the container and ur hand are free from oil and water when u handle the eggs. Place the egg whites into the mixing bowl of ur electric mixer and egg yolks to another mixing bowl.



5. Weight 150g of self-raising floor, then sieve it. Weight also 75g of fine sugar to be added into egg yolk mixture and another 75g of fine sugar to be added into egg white mixture.


6. Beat the egg yolks, add in fine sugar and beat until the mixture turn pale using manual whisk (as shown at picture below). Add in 5 tablespoon of oil (i use corn oil) and orange mixture and whisk for a while. Then sieve in the self-raising flour and whisk in one direction until smooth and well combine.

7. With electric mixer, beat the egg whites with 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar until frothy and foamy with high speed. Then add in the sugar in 2 batches and continue beat using medium speed and then low speed until peak. The peak form when the peak of the whites form straight line and do not drop. If u are not confidence, u can try to turn ur mixing bowl, if ur egg whites do not flow then it is the peak stage. The whole process usually takes me about 7 minutes.

8. Pour egg yolks mixture into egg whites in 3 addition. Each time gently fold the mixture from upside down with a spatula until just blended. Beware not to overmix the mixture as this will break the air hold in bubble of egg whites.

9. Pour the mixture in a dry and oil-free cake pan and bake in preheated oven at 150c for 35 minutes (u have to pre-heat the oven at 150c for 15 minutes before baking the cake). All oven have difference characteristics, therefore the baking temperature and duration is only for reference. U have to monitor the cake while baking but do not open the oven door during the baking process. Sometimes the cake raise too high (always happen to me as my oven is small) until it is really near to the heating element. To avoid the top from getting burned, u can put one sheet of aluminium foil on top of the cake if the situation ever happen. Beware not to open the oven door too long if u want to do this.

10. Ur cake is done if the skewer inserted in the middle of the cake comes out clean.

11. Remove the cake from the oven and invert the cake immediately. U can use whatever to support the centre of the chiffon pan, i usually use a cup. Let the cake to cool completely before removing it from cake pan.

Mini French Cake (Oilless)

This cake is really an easy and quick to make cake, even the most daunting part - washing was made easy with this oilless recipe. Everything, include washing can be settled within 15minutes while you are pre-heating the oven. If you are as efficient as me, you may still have the time to sit back and relax before sending the batter into the oven :)

The beautiful part of the cake

• The ingredients in this cake are also so easily available (don't call your kitchen a kitchen if you can't find them in your kitchen).
• There are no chemicals (baking powder, baking soda, cream of tartar, vanilla essense etc)involved, so a healthy cake from a pharmacist perspective.
• This oilless formula can fit the bill of those with hypercholestrolemia (but not those with diabetes, haha).
• The batter was easy and quick to be prepared.
• Save money on dishwashing liquid (no dishwashing liquid is required, all you have to do is just rinse all the utensils as no oil is used).
• Everything was snapped up within matter of minutes, so you know how good it tastes :0)

Recipe for mini french cake

1. Sieve the mixture of 30g all purpose flour and 15g corn flour.
2. Whisk 2 egg yolks with 20g sugar until the sugar dissolved.
3. With electric mixer, whisk 2 egg whites with 20g of sugar until peak.
4. Fold in the egg white mixture to egg yolk mixture in 3 addition, mix well after each addition.
5. Add flour mixture into the batter and fold gently until well incorporated.
6. Pour in muffin cup, cover top with desiccated coconut (optional).
7. Bake at 180c for 20 minutes.

Orange Chiffon Cake

I like orange and I like cake, but i don't fancy orange cake. However, i baked this for my mum as she always ask for orange chiffon cake.

The resulting cake was very satisfying, soft, moist and aromatic. It will be perfect if not for the identity crisis that it faces, haha. If I were to bake this again, I will add some orange cordial (sunquick) to enhance it's orange coloration and thus the appearance of this cake.

Orange chiffon for a friend

Orange chiffon cake recipe:

1. Grate 1 tsp of range rind and sqeeze 5 tbsp of orange juice to make up orange mixture.
2. Add 5 egg yolks, 150g self-raising floor, 75g sugar, 5 tbsp corn oil and orange mixture in a bowl. Whisk in one direction until smooth and well combined.
3. Whisk 5 egg whites and 1/2tsp cream of tartar until frothy, than add in 75g sugar in 2 batches and continue whisk until a peak.
4. Pour yolks mixture into egg whites mixture in 3 batches, after each addition, stir the mixture in one direction until well combined.
5. Pour in chiffon cake mold and bake at 150c for 35 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, invert and leave to cool completely before removing from cake tin.
   

Dad's birthday cake

It is very much a not well planned cake. The result is not so satisfying. Spend a lot of time doin chocholate curls, chocolate cards but all didn't turn well. Haha, too pity my dad having such an ugly cake for his 65th birthday, but he still so happy to have the simple birthday celebration :)

Chocolate Banana Muffin

I found a lot of new recipes recently. This is the first one i wanted to try because i am looking for temptation from the chocolate-banana combination.
I had to put on halt all the preparing work when i suddenly found something worth remembering. A twins egg, the first one in my baking journey, I nearly scream out of excitement ;p So, of course everything needed to be put aside for a photo session.

The muffin rise higher than expected eventhough the recipe do not call for baking powder. Chocolate Banana Muffin Recipe (adapted from 孟老师的100道小蛋糕)
Banana 70g，Sweetened condensed milk30g, butter 65g，Icing sugar50g，egg yolk 1, cake flour 90g，Chocolate powder 10g，Baking soda 1/8tsp，
1）Crush banana, add in condensed milk
2）Add icing sugar into soften butter and mix.
3）Fold the egg yolk into mixture 2 and mix well.
4）Add 1 into mixture and continue mix
5）Sieve all the powder and stir in the mixture
6）Pour the mixture into muffin cup up to 70% full.
7）180c bake for 25-30min

Happy Mother's Day

A cake for mum- wish u a happy mother's day

I feel very bad when i unmould the sponge cake, the height of cake is out of my expectation (it is as short as me). While I was very sad looking at my bake, I burned the almond flakes (as dark as charcoal). The mother's day cake turned out to be very colorful (as like it is for small kids) because the colored chocolate rice is the only thing i could use to substitute the charcoal.Yap gave the idea to use orange, papaya and banana in decorating the cake. I laugh out on his stupid suggestion. I don't think I can get a presentable cake with these fruits. However, I decided at the last minute to use the orange because I ran out of idea (don't want to open a can of peach fruit just for 3 slices), and I think it works well isn't it? I have to admit creativity always start from a stupid idea :p

I use separate egg method for this sponge cake. The original recipe call for 3 eggs but i increased it to 4. The resulting cake was still too short for a 8 inch pan, so i think next time i'll use 6 eggs.

Sponge Cake Recipe (adapted from韋太烹饪教室)

Ingredients

4 eggs, sugar, 80g, flour 80g, corn oil 40g

Methods

1. Whisk egg whites till fluffy, add sugar in 2 batches and continue to whisk until stiff.

2. Add in egg yolks into egg whites mixture, mix with spatula.

3. Sift in flour and mix with spatula until even.

3. Add in corn oil and gently fold in gently until well blended.

4. 180c bake for 25 minutes.

Honey Cake

This honey cake is long time in my to-do list, but i always found other more exciting baking than this honey cake when i am looking to bake something. This time actually i am planning for a pandan chiffon cake but found out i had only 4 eggs left (the recipe ask for 5 eggs). I flipped through my recipe book and decided to give this honey cake a try.
The making of honey cake is quite same with chiffon cake. The resulting cake was very nice and soft. Luckily i don't miss this recipe :)

The cake was decorated using the new toy i bought from singapore

Happy birthday to me

Eventhough everyone laughed at me when i said i wana bake a cake for my own birthday, i still insist to do it myself as I really couldn't wait for other special occasion to make a cake with cream. Thinking of having a easy cake as my 'virgin cake', I made a black forest cake.

A simple chocolate sponge cake

Get things ready like a professional - revolving cake stand and spatula (such a cute cake stand right?)

The final product. As expected, the cake was not so good looking. The most daunting part must be the shaping of the cake with whipping cream. The piping of decorative swirls was also not easy and i ended up getting ugly and unevenly spaced swirls on the cake. Equally exhausting was the shaving of the chocolate to get beautiful chocolate curls which supposed to be the main decorating ingredient in a black forest cake. I tried so hard and finally i gave up. I could't find any reason but blame the old and blunt vegetable peeler.

Yap said the outer presentation of the cake is better than those sell in Indian bakery shop. Indian? Why? Isn't it ironic?

Kiwi Yoghurt Muffin

Japanese Black Pearl Cake 日 本 黑 珍 珠 蛋 糕

I was still hesitating whether to make tis cake tis morning while i was mopping the floor.Get this recipe from aunty yochana, however, it seems like all the followers fail to make this cake, and even aunty yochana herself make tis cake without egg yolks. will it be sucessful?or should i juz play safe and make a cheedar cheese cake?After much consideration, i'm still decided to be adventurous, be it sucess or fail cuz tis is a golden opportunity for me to make such a chocolate rich cake as yap and twins all around, otherwise, it is very hard for me to find 'victim' to finish tis cake as none of my family members are choco-lover, includes me.

I used 6 egg yolks and 6 egg white regardless of the weight from the recipe cuz i didn't want to waste my ingredient. The cake was grow too high and nearly touch the heating element, so i covered the top with aluminium foil. The baking temperature was change to 160c to suit my small oven. The cake was well baked at 30 mins.

The result was so satisfying. I tot the outcome will be a brownies-like cake, something moist and dense. But the cake turned out so soft, light and fluffy, but still very moist, have a very chololatey taste as described. The cake's colour was very dark as the name implies. Yap rate it as 10/10. Twins like it too. Yeah, what a success! Think it will be a cake for all choco-lover.