Friday, November 27, 2009

new job = piling backlogs!

For those who are still not in the know, I have finally started my new job. And have been into it for almost 3 weeks now. I haven't been slacking from baking, in fact I just got a HUGE HUGE oven =DDDD

Backlogs are piling and I have on hand, one of the most exciting recipes to share thus far in my baking life. hahaha! If you've been following my twitter, you'd have guessed it and YES! it's the SUPER DARN spongy chocolate sponge cake which can be made in a breeze. Even muddled-headed D could do it, so I believe anyone else out there can hehe =p

So, let me post 3 posts in one breathe, before more gets piled up! First up!! PIGGIES ENCORE!!!! I received another cupcake order for the same piggies theme and decided to mould the piggies a little more differently. But, due to work and all, I only managed to think of one new design and the rest remained similar. So here it is!


Mango and Peach Yoghurt cupcakes with lemon swiss meringue buttercream =)





Flower pig?!


Truly piggy!


Party piggy =p


NEW! Hot Pig! (both *ahem* literally and figuratively)
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SAERAH!! I hope you love the cupcakes as much as how I enjoyed making them =D

Next up! D and I made a birthday cake for my sister's 21st. I gotta admit it was kinda like a last minute decision, so the cake was done in a jiffy and the design was, erm...kinda simple. BUT, I'm glad she liked the cake and she was surprised!! So, without saying, it was made with the darn good chocolate sponge sandwiched with fresh blueberries and whipped cream filling. Some thought it was a black forest! haha.

This was the second time D and I made this cake in hmm a week and a half? D even boastfully said he can now memorise the weight of the ingredients heh... T_T

We themed the cake spongebob as we knew my two younger sisters were fanatics of spongebob and friends. Ok, maybe just spongebob himself. But oh well, I wanted to mould spongebob out of fondant but was seriously running out of time! D was brilliant and remembered he bought small little sponge bob figurines for my other sister. So we told her that we would borrowed it just for the cake (since it's gonna go back to the same house isn't it? hahaha!!) so there you have it! A sponge bob cake!

Well, come to think of it, D did 95% of this cake. Inclusive of baking the cake, whipping the cream, filling and coating the cake and also the decorations!!! I only helped with piping of the words which was bleahhh. I'm so proud of him =D


Spongebob on shore haha!

Last but not least was little Chermaine birthday! My church friend JM asked if her colleague could do a cake for her daughter and I'm sad to say that this cake ended up in a mess =(( I am SO SO SO terribly sorry and to make up for it, I decided not to charge for the cake. I still hope little Chermaine was happy nonetheless.

Little Chermaine is a HUGE fan of mickey and minnie so I was asked to do a normal cream cake with mickey and minnie fondant figurines. It was raining cats and dogs every other day for the past week that the figurine barely had time to dry =( So the hands dropped off by the time it was delivered.

What's worse, lesson learnt. No.1: NEVER paste fondant on whipped cream. Whipped cream is so moist, it practically melt the fondant and it just became GOOOEYYY. EWW!

My sister was supposed to deliver the cake for me when she called and told me about the horror. She quickly whipped up another batch of cream and re-creamed the cake. But, it still didn't make it in the end =(

The cake was in dire straits when delivered and I was almost tempted NOT to deliver the cake. But upon fearing that little Chermaine would be really upset, I decided to just do it.

Many apologies for the terrible cake, I am still thinking of taking time out to compensate the terribly done cake. Hopefully I have time to make a new one this time. maybe a smaller one?

But, for viewing pleasure, I snapped photos of it while it was still...hmm.. presentable. So this was how the cake looked..while still o...k...




Mickey and minnie dried ok in my tupperware container but fell apart almost instantly when i transferred them to the cake board. SIGH...this was how they were..on the tupperware..




Oh well, HUGE lesson learnt. I hope little Chermaine's parents don't hold it against me =XX

As for something with a lighter note, I actually translated the darn good chocolate sponge cake recipe from Grace's blog. I saw many comments that they didn't understand the video. So, hopefully this is of some use to someone hehe..





Here's the darn good chocolate sponge which has NEVER creacked in the oven despite me NOT shielding it. =D IT is super moist and spongy and has a nice, chocolatey taste to it. Try it and you'll not regret!

Don't be surprised at how she man-handles the cake hahaha! I admit i was really skeptical with the way she mixed the cake it was as if she was beaten the heck out of it and the bubbles were all going to heaven. haha! I admit I still wasn't as daring as her. but yep! IT WORKS. Mixing in flour WITH a electric mixer. haha!



DARN spongy Chocolate Sponge Cake



Ingredients:
203g Whole eggs
32g Egg yolks
135g Caster sugar
21g Glucose
1g Salt
32g Vegetable oil
21g Cocoa powder
106g Cake flour
1g Baking soda
21g Milk


Method:
1. Warm vegetable oil and mix in cocoa powder until well mixed and dissolved.
2. In a large mixing bowl, add in whole eggs, egg yolk, caster sugar and salt and beat on high speed until foamy and about doubled in volume and salt and sugar have dissolved.
3. Add in glucose and beat on medium speed until ribbon stage.
4. Sift flour and baking soda over beaten egg mixture. Mix in flour on low speed for 3 seconds just to combine most of the flour. After which, mix at medium speed for approx 20 seconds (or even less) just until mostly incorporated. Fold in any remaining traces of flour with rubber spatula.
5. Take some of the beaten egg mixture and add it into the cocoa powder-vegetable oil mixture to lighten the mixture. Add it into the egg mixture, together with the milk and fold until well incorporated.
6. Pour into an 8” tin and bake at 170C for about 35 minutes.
7. Invert onto a cooling rack after removing from the oven.

24 comments:

Pei-Lin said...

Youfei,

FINALLY!! You're back to blogging!! I know you've been baking, but just don't have the time to blog about it! Well, job keeps both of us busy and tired huh? Miss my kitchen a lot when I go daydreaming at work hahaha ...!

Yes, would love to try the sponge cake sometime ... But, don't have liquid glucose for now ... Gotta run to baking supply store to get one ... =)

Btw, you got my emails? I urgently need to start planning, which explains my worry about this ...

Pei-Lin

P.S. SOOO jealous of your HUGE, NEW oVEN!! Will get mine next year when we move out next year hahahaha ...!

Anna Chan said...

Hey Fiona,
Missed your blog posts. The chocolate sponge cake you made looks marvellous!! The video is great too. And your piggie cupcakes are very cute. Don't be too sad over the mickey mouse cake. On the bright side, the figurines were very very well done.

youfei said...

Hi Pei-Lin,

YEA! Working just keeps you really tired and busy. Sometimes, I don't even have the mood to snap photos. No photos = no post. haha!

I'm thinking of using honey to replace the liquid glucose. Since honey has sugar and water contenc (just like liquid glucose)

Hi Anna,

Yea! I was kinda apalled with the way she mixed the batter! According to her (other videos) it is very important to stabilise the air bubbles in the beaten egg batter and that is the trick to making the cake fine textured. And once the air bubbles are stabilise, the flour can be beaten in with an electric mixer was the beaten eggs are "strong" hehe..OH and she did mention somewhere that overbeating the eggs (i.e. too fluffy) will cause coarse textured cakes. just like what you told me before =p

D said...

me not muddle head!

haha

Passionate About Baking said...

Hi Fiona,
Your piggy cupcakes are so cute and adorable! I'm amazed by people who has that "small" fingers to do delicate figurines. My fingers are a little too fat to mould cute little stuff. Heehee... You've finally got some time to post up your bakes. Hope to see more of them soon. :)

youfei said...

Hi Jane!

I'm sure you can make those little figurines too! I don't think my fingers are exceptionally small neither do I think yours is too fat haha!

Yep yep I'm trying hard to squeeze time out to post my baking stuff =p

D,

you ARE muddle-headed. don't deny anymore wahahha!

Tamil Home Recipes said...

Your blog is very good.

Aimei said...

interesting chocolate recipe. Looks real moist and soft and no cracks at all! Will bookmark it and try it some day! :)

youfei said...

Hi Tamil Home Recipes,

Thanks for your compliments! I hope you find something useful =))

Hi Aimei,

Please please do try it! It really super duper moist unlike other sponge cakes I've tried. It's practically as good as a sponge cake which uses SP. =D

Do try and let me know how it went =))

Aimei said...

I just tried this cake yday! It's really moist and spongy. But I need to tent the top as it got a little black, not burnt. :)

The texture is kinda coarse, not fine like chiffon cakes or butter cakes, though its very soft, spongy and moist. Is it suppose to be like this? I will post the photo once i upload it. :)

youfei said...

Hi Aimei,

I'm really you got back to me about the recipe. =)

Yea, it's good that you actually tent the cake if not it'd become burnt. Some ovens do tend to over heat on top. =p

The texture is actually typical of a sponge cake. It definitely not as fine as a chiffon cake. As for butter cakes, it's quite difficult to compare. Depending on how "coarse" the texture is, it maybe due to over-beaten eggs.

did you mix the eggs on medium speed until ribbon stage before adding the flour? It is very important not to overbeat the eggs if not the cake's texture will be very coarse and dry.

Hope that helps =D

Reverie! said...

Lovely cake!!!!!!! Thanks a tonn for translating the video instructions...only thing i did not understand is that 203gms of whole eggs and separate 23gms of egg yolks from other eggs??? i am too keen on trying this one...i have never seen such a spongy cake...though i dunno where to get glucose from :(
Thanks once again!

youfei said...

Hi Shivani,

Thanks for dropping by and many more thanks for your compliments! =D

Yep, this sponge cake recipe requires additional egg yolks. (which means you'd have balance egg whites left) **My guess is the extra egg yolks may somehow stabilise the beaten eggs, just like emulsifiers.**

Are you located in Singapore? If you are, then the local baking supply stores do carry liquid glucose. =) I still haven't had the time to experiment with using honey instead, but do check back when I do finally try and upload the "results" =)

Hope that helps! And I really hope you'd be able to try this cake out!!

Ju (The Little Teochew) said...

Hmmm ... I am tempted to try this :)

youfei said...

Hi Ju,

pleeeeeeease do. It's rewarding. haha. I steered clear of sponge cakes a while back as there was always very dry and unappetizing. But this is good! Even when eaten plain on it's own =D

Reverie! said...

Hey Youfei :)

Thanks for the reply...will try the cake today as soon as i can get liquid glucose... actually I am from India so guess liq. glucose is not so readily available. Though i did come across something that is called a cake improver, wondering if its the same thing...not sure about it.
I loved the cute little piggies as well... do you make them using marzipan? Would love to learn to make those...they were so adorable and so was the mickey minnie concept thinking about each other... awesome! :)

youfei said...

Hi Shivani,

You're welcome! ahh I see, I am not sure where to get liquid glucose in India hmm. I don't quite suppose cake improver is the same as liquid glucose. You can actually omit the liquid glucose, but the cake might be a little dry.

I'm glad you like the piggies! I actually made them using fondant + tylose powder. I've not worked with marzipan before, but i supposed you could also use that =)

wow! Thanks for the compliments! I was still afraid that mickey didn't look like mickey hahaha..I hoped to post up the step-by-step tutorials on how to make the piggies, but am delaying it due to some personal reason. In the meantime, you can check out the link I posted in my latest blog post =)

Do let me know how did the cake turn out! =D

Aimei said...

Hi Youfei, I just posted this cake on my blog. If you look at the photo, it doesn't seem to be a very fine-texture cake. It is very soft and spongy but the crumbs doesn't seem very small. It is like this?

youfei said...

Hi Aimei,

I popped by your blog and saw the sponge cake. The texture looks great and the crumbs looks perfectly alright to me.

If you want an even more fine-textured cake, you may wanna try to beat the eggs/sugar mixture a little longer on medium speed to allow the air bubbles to be more evenly distributed. That helps in making the crumbs tighter.


Overall, I'd say you need not worry at all about your sponge cos it looks really good and perfect!

p/s: if you check back a review I did on Jane's Cake station's chocolate fudge cake, you'd realise the crumbs on her cakes are even bigger than yours. So, yours is good =DDD

Aimei said...

Thanks for your reply and assurance that I've got it correct! Thanks also for sharing this recipe! :)

quizzine said...

I made this cake for my bro's birthday, which happened to my last bake for year 2009, and i must say this recipe is really really good!!! Thumbs up!!! Thanks for sharing this ;-)

youfei said...

Hi Aimei,

You're most welcome. I've been through and still is going through what you feel right now. Haha! People like us who are madly passionate about baking strive to get every detail right. The crumb, the texture, the taste, the level of sugar, how nicely the cake browns etc etc.. =p I may not have come across better sponge cakes, but at least I know this recipe wouldn't fail on me =)


Hi quizzine,

Wow! I'm glad the cake is well-received by your family and hopefully you had a nice memorable 2009 while we move on towards accomplishing our goals set for 2010 =p You're most welcome and actually we all have to thank Grace for first sharing and posting up the video =p Happy 2010!!

Simonne said...

hi, mind sharing what oven u using ?
Thanks

simonneho@yahoo.com

youfei said...

Hi Simonne, sorry for the late reply. Missed out this comment.

I'm using a Bakbar turbo. =)

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