Mmmm...

fellow flickr friend, now turned good msn buddies, Pei Lin made me feel guilty for not trying out the recipes in the book "Paris Sweets" by Dorie Greenspan.. Since making tarts were always on my mind which I somehow never got around to do it, which I blame on the dazzling list of distracting recipes to try, I finally plucked up some courage and tried a really simple chocolate tart.

Sad to say, I don't think I've quite succeeded in ti as the chocolate filling seemed a little separated and..oily?? I wasn't sure if I'm supposed to wait till the chocolate as fully blended with the cream before adding the yolks..and the moment I did, the mixture looked separated, my heart ached for the expensive Valrhona. Heck! I shall continue and not waste my good chocolate. Turns out, the chocolate became smooth in the end, BUT was a little..oily..not like ganache at all! Felt like some water made its way in there and spoilt my chocolate mixture! argh!

Despite that, the chocolate took super long to set. Even after basking in the fridge for more than half an hour, the chocolate still remain pretty soft. Check out the picture above and you'll see what I mean.

Maybe I was too anxious to take a peak and taste how it was leading to this very unsightly slice of tart, but mind you! This is definitely a tart you can't have in chunks! You'd probably DIE of chocolate over-dose and lose your voice the next day. *ah hem* if you know what I mean. The tart was buttery and fragrant but I'm not sure if it was supposed to taste that way as I haven't really had a tart? or made one?

Probably not THE best, but defnitely good enough for me. =D

pound cakes!!

Do a simple search and I bet you'd get many raving reviews over this condense milk pound cake! So many mentioned about how this pound cake recipe yields Sara Lee tasting pound cakes. Ahh..Sara Lee pound cakes were my favorite when i was a child. It's been really long since I last tasted one and sad to say, I've really forgotten how it tastes like.

Speaking of which, it's my first time baking pound cakes. I baked my first pound cake using Rei's recipe on chocolate pound cake and reduced it to fit a 6" cake pan. I probably reduced it a tad too much and the miserable batter filled less than 1/2 the height of the cake tin! What made things worse was that knowing my oven's got this annoying over heating top element, I forgot to tent the cake! the top cooked too fast, too soon, that I ended up with a volcano! boohoo!=(( It was such a disappointment, I didn't bother with any pictures. The taste however, was wonderful. moist and soft.

I couldn't take it lying so I just had to try out the condense milk pound cake recipe which Rei kinda posted too. This time, results were much more satisfying! just look how tight and fine the crumbs are!

I was taking pictures of the cake when my sister just came home from school. Needless to say, she asked to try the cake and of course i gladly obliged. One mouth from her and she asked for another slice! So I had to try it and I fell in love with it right away. Moist, soft and acceptable sweetness! Although I can't give any comparison to Sara Lee's pound cakes, these were good enough and need no comparison =)

I didn't manage to capture how fine the crumbs were on the picture above and thought I'd take a close up shot on the crumbs. I don't think the picture did justice to the cake but, well, I hope you get the picture. (pun intended)

So what are you waiting for? Try this and you'll not regret!

Recipe here

pick-me-a-birthday-cake

Tiramisu which literally translates to "pick-me-up" in Italian is a popular cake/dessert i supposed? I pretty much love this dessert too, but not to go ga-ga over it. I saw HHB's post on her birthday cake which reminded me about this dessert which has been on my to-do list for more than a year!

Well, more like it was a promise to SJ that we would try making this together since it's a favorite cake. I felt really guilty upon seeing HHB's post but hey! her birthday's just round the corner, so what better way to make a tiramisu to..pick-her-up? haha..

And so, I set off to searching and consolidating some tiramisu recipes i've gathered and mind you, they were a bunch! There are variations as to how to make a tiramisu the simplest being just mixing some whipped cream with mascarpone cheese. The more complicated ones involved making Sabayon, which is also know as Zabaglione, which is actually egg yolks beated till pale and thick over a double boiler (to cook it). and of course, there's the "raw" option which is not to cook the eggs at all. Some use egg whites to make the cheese mixture lighter and others use whipped cream. With a variety and thousand and one methods staring at you certainly makes you spoilt for choice.

I ended up mixing and matching and putting together a recipe from various sources. Everything went well, except the coffee and liquor taste wasn't as evident as I would liked it to be =(( Also, my cheese mixture didn't seem as thick as those I viewed on the video. =X

I had a little extra leftover and made a really small cup of extra tiramisu. Having tasted a good tiramisu eons ago, I really couldn't recall how a tiramisu should taste like =X My worries were unfounded when my younger sister couldn't stop exclaiming how tasty it was! Well, is it because she hasn't tasted a real good tiramisu before? perhaps so!

I'm really terrible at cake decorating so I copied HHB's decoration. The strawberries i got were from US and my! the sizes were soooo uneven. I ended up picking the bigger ones and spaced them out. The korean strawberries are soo much better in terms of size, taste and fragrance. sigh..I was lazy to make chocoalte curls so I did it the usual tiramisu way, sprinkle some cocoa powder =p

More importantly was how Si Jie felt isn't it? Well, an sms from her mentioning she liked the look of the cake and it tasted good except the coffee taste could be stronger (which I totally agreed) was most comforting. But i heaved a sigh of relief when she mentioned that it does taste like a tiramisu.

Till I'm more satisfied with the recipe, will I post it up. If you're really dying for this little treat, you can just drop me an email for the recipe or simply, google it!

Lastly, Wishing Si Jie a very Happy Birthday and God Bless!

going easy

I didn't realise that it has been almost a month since I last posted something. Finally done with my exams!! and am now officially unemployed. sigh~

Well, on a happier note, I'm back to my baking regime again! I have been checking back regularly and have been baking during the past month. Was pretty busy with preparing for the exams towards the end so I totally ceased baking. My brother saw me mixing and measuring in the kitchen this afternoon and he said "eh? you like very long nv bake le hor?" well, yes my dear, i'm glad you realised. =p

I have been baking then and now but was just too tired and couldn't really be bothered to take pictures and blog about them. they were more like..erm..a break from studying for me. of course, i did attempt some new stuff and re-visited some old recipes and now, i have a huge pile of recipes waiting for me to try them out!

I seriously had no idea where to start, so I decided to go easy. Isn't it pretty obvious that cookies would be the number one choice? hehe. no complicated mixing, no fretting over super accurate oven temperatures and of course, a breeze to make. and fast too. needless to say, easy to photograph as well. no need to fret over the slices, the whole look, etc. most importantly, they're so yummy and addictive!



I got this recipe via Anna's freebies (by subscribing to her mailing list). She has her story and how she arrived at naming these cute little peanut butter cookies - peanut butter blessings. Well, I have my own too! I brought some freshly baked ones for my brother to try without telling him what were those and got him to guess. he went, "is it one of those cny cookies again?" I went ?! aren't they obviously peanut butter cookies? and it suddenly struck me after tasting a second one, gosh! they're almost identical to those peanut cookies you'd probably have during cny! Tries to modify the cny almond cookies recipe to the peanut version, didn't taste as nice and addictive as the almond ones. and so...this means, i've found my cny peanut cookies replacement!!

That aside, this recipe is really really easy. you don't need a mixer. just a whisk or a wooden spoon and 1 mixing bowl. you're good to go. i got every mixed in less than 10 minutes. quick. fuss free. and yummy =)

I'm not sure if i'm able to share the recipe out here as she changes her freebies link from time to time and subscirbers get updated ones via her newletters. So if you really wanna get your hands on her various free recipes, just hop on here to join her mailing list. it's free anyway!

I orignally intended to try out three cookie recipes. All thanks to my laziness and procrastination, I only managed two! The other is none other than these super chocolatey double chocolate chip almond cookies!

I got this recipe from Elyn which, is another really easy recipe to make =) Although the recipe required creaming the butter and sugar, I was again, too lazy to bring out the mixer. So...yes you guessed it, I used a whisk to put everything together. It's pretty easy to cream the butter/sugar mixture with a manual whisk provided your butter is soft enough and of course, the amount not too much lah. I found this pretty manageable for this recipe and managed to get it light and fluffy without breaking my arms =p

Elyn doesn't mention how big or how much each cookie should be, so I just guessed and used my own measurements. Her recipe state that it yields about 42 cookies, but i managed about 48. *shrugs* nonetheless, the cookies were crispy, crunchy and chocolateyyy!

Here's the recipe with some of my modifications.

Double chocolate chip almond cookies

Ingredients:

100g butter
45g sugar
45g brown sugar
20g egg (about half an egg)
140g plain flour
20g cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
60g chocolate chip
30g diced almond

Method:

1.Line baking tray with parchment or baking paper. Preheat oven to 170C.
2.Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy. Add in egg a little at a time until well mixed.
3.Fold in sifted flour, cocoa powder and baking soda till just combined.
4.Mix in chocolate chips and diced almonds.
5.Measure out leveled 1/2 tablespoonfuls of dough, roll them into a ball and place on baking tray. Use a fork and flatten the cookies.
6. Bake for 13-15 min.

Makes approx. 48 pieces.

Note :- The cookie does not flatten or spread out during baking.

adapted from Elyn

~happy baking!~

marble cake

ok..this was something really spontaneous. I had attempted butter cakes sometime ago in between my "mini hitiaus" but was just too lazy to take pics and post about them. Besides, they were nothing fantastic. Plus, I was upset that i couldn't even handle butter cakes.

speaking of how did I arrive at wanting to make butter cakes, Ian's grandma was asking me at the party if I made butter cakes and if i did how do I make it etc etc..And it struck to me that "hey! you haven't even attempted a simple butter cake!". She asked of a trusted recipe, if i had one, and so of course, I went home and made a search for it. I remember reading from Rei's blog about some marble cake she made to be given away as gifts for her son's first month celebration. Which received RAVE reviews and that she cited her recipe back to aunty yochana's butter cake. So, that's how it all started.

The recipe couldn't look any simpler BUT when I attempted, it failed. it was still edible nonetheless, but i seemed to have encountered all the problems other readers left on the comments section for aunty yochana's post! how devasting right? =( k, that aside, it left me worried, restless, and 不甘心. Everything felt weird right from the start, perhaps I underestimated the recipe and overestimated my abilities. Aunty yochana's recipe uses the egg separation method which is supposed to work wonderfully! (just like a chiffon right, so i thought it should be a breeze since i succeeded at chiffons before, but no, i did not.)

1. everything went well with creaming butter and sugar and adding in eggs. trouble started when i added in the flour. it literally became a dough.

2. Recipe stated to whip whites to soft peaks. I underwhiped and it totally had no effect on lightening the "dough" mixture.

3.the batter ended up like a pancake/waffle batter. Zzz.

4.that spelled D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R

5. cake rose, and CRACKED.

6. i had the "bubbles" problem all over the cake surface.

The second attempt went on much much better, i whipped the egg whites longer, and the butter/egg mixture was much workable, and this time, it resembled a cake batter. however, i left the cake to cool in the pan (as I was rushing for school and wasn't sure if i should cool it or remove it). When I was back from school. the cake shrank from the sides and in height. though i thought the cake was gonna be some dense pound cake, it did not! haha..and boy was I glad my mum polished off by bringing it to her friends for some gathering hehe!

so after those 2 attempts, I couldn't consider myself having succeeded with this supposedly darn good recipe.

After a chat over msn with Ian's mummy and passing her the links to the recipe, i convinced myself that yes, now's the time to try it again. So this time, i did a marble cake. I've always loved marble cakes and always wanted to bake them. I'm aware of how simple it is actually to obtain those lovely marbles but have just not gotten around to making it. So, everything went well, batter looked right, and marbling was pretty =)

horror started when i removed the foil that i used to tent the cake. saw that bare patch? sigh. it ripped off the "skin" which bore the great marble design. shade! (which is what the Germans would say) so, i totally wouldn't have known how the marbling would have turned out right? wrong! there was a tiny speck which wasn't affect by the foil and i could see remnents of how it would have been. So, I just had to look at that small patch and imagine it on the whole cake =X

Thank goodness the interior of the cake was ok, not the prettiest i've seen, but still passable lah.. yea? =p The cake was soft, light and not crazily oily.

I happened to come across a baking book bought long ago which had quite detailed write-ups on chiffon/sponge/butter cake methods and tips.

Before I get real naggy, lemme first post this really good recipe =) (with a few slight modifications of my own)

Ingredients:

250 gm. Butter
80 gm. Sugar
1 tsp. Vanilla Essence
90 gm. Egg Yolk
2 Tbsp. Evaporated milk
200 gm. Cake flour
5 gm. Baking powder (about 1 tsp)
a pinch of salt
160 gm. Egg White
100 gm. Sugar

1 tbsp Cocoa Powder (sifted)
2 tbsp Evaporated Milk

*Mix thoroughly, warm up the milk if you find the cocoa powder difficult to dissolve

Method:
(1) Grease an 8” cake tin. Preheat oven to 180C. Beat butter, margarine, sugar, salt and vanilla essence until light and creamy.
(2) Add in the egg yolk one at a time and beat until creamy. Add in evaporated milk.
(3) Fold in sieved cake flour and baking powder.
(4) Whisk egg white and sugar to soft peaks and fold gently into the creamed butter mixture. You can fold in 1/3 of the egg whites first to lighten the creamed butter mixture followed by the rest of the egg whites.
(5) Spoon about half of the mixture into a separate bowl. Add in the cocoa mixture and stir well.
(6) Drop alternate spoonfuls of mixtures into an 8" round pan. Use a chopstick to pull backwards and forward through the mixture.
(7) Bake cake for 1 hour in oven at 180 deg.C or when the skewer comes clean. Turn the cake onto wire rack to cool. *I tent the cake with foil from the start of baking and remove it towards the last 10 minutes of so for the surface to brown. Oil the foil to prevent the batter from sticky to the foil.

adapted from Rei and aunty yochana

Some tips..
1. Do not over/under cream butter sugar mixture. Over creaming results in a cake with a sunken center. Under creaming results in a dense, heavy cake
2. Do not over/under bake. Over baking results in a badly cracked, dry cake or cake that shrinks upon cooling resulting in a cake with less volume. Under baking results in a heavy, wet cake.
3. personally, i find that it is ok whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks and i prefer to do so. instead of soft peaks. update: whipping the egg whites till stiff may make the cake dry. I have yet to verify this, so I guess just stick to soft peaks for the time being
4. Turn over the cake immediately after removing from the oven to prevent it from sinking and shrinking from the sides.

more bread!

Speaking of pork floss buns, what do I usually associate it too..hmm..yes, you guessed it, breadtalk. Well, pork floss isn't my no.1 favourtite/comfort food. (I think i'm a little odd right, keep baking stuff i don't like to eat) I used to LOVE pork floss when I was a kid..especially when it is sandwiched between 2 bread that's been spread with a thick slab of butter. The combination is..mmm..heavenly..I think i must have had too much of it too often, that somehow, i grew to dislike it instead.

I guess, now I'm slowly trying to re-kindle my love for it haha! Especially since I made these buns. To be honest, I havent tried a single pork floss bun from breadtalk nor from any bakery at all. So, I asked my siblings about it, about how it tastes etc. They all mentioned this mysterious custart like, not really butter, not really mayo, dunno-what-is-it thing. Just then, I recalled coming across this blog which mentioned about the "transparent mayonaise" breadtalk uses. tada! that must be it..

I jumped at the recipe and made it. It looked transparent to me, and looked like those they used to "stick" the pork floss. (I'm sure you've observed those breadtalk people making them) But...my sister said, "why so sweet ah?" sigh..

Just then, I had one bun which i had mistakenly wrapped in butter instead of the transparent mayo.. and that one, my sister nodded her head in agreement while she gobbled the bread. (ok..maybe she was hungry) So it struck me that, why bother making the transparent mayo? Just fall back on the heavenly match between butter and pork floss. One try of that bun with a mistake brought back some childhood memories..and I THINK i might just have began falling in love with pork floss again =p

I made these buns with the sponge and dough method again but this time, it didn't feel as successful as the other time. The songe portion felt like it overproofed as I could smell hints of alcohol. I went ahead as I have already prepared the ingriedients for the dough portion. To my surprise, while interviewing my sis abt the bread, she mentioned that this time, the "bread taste" was present..my heart skipped a beat, though I was puzzled as to why (since the dough kinda overproofed) It still remains as a mystery as of now but I'm glad with how it turned out =p
These are really good out of the oven, really soft. And goes really well with a nice hot cup of coffee/tea/milo/etc This time, no bread improver was used but the texture was still really really good..=D

durians!!

I didn't really realise that it has been quite a while that I last blogged. I haven't stopped baking totally and i'm still alive and kicking. =p

I've baked stuff in between but somehow, with overwhelming school work and classes, I couldnt find the energy to take pics and to upload and much less blog about them. I then started to regret bring lazy. So here I am, with my latest experiments! durians!

I personally am not a fan of durian. I don't hate it. Neither do I love it. I eat anything related to durian (durian cakes, durian puff, etc) but not just durian alone. weird huh. In any case, I decided to bake some durian muffins, using a banana muffin recipe and of course, substituting the banana puree with durian puree.

Had a guest photographer today and so, the pics uploaded are all taken by him =p The tops looked a little too brown and burnt, but they tasted perfectly alright. It seemed like the durian was too thick and heavy and the batter was super duper thick. I guess i was overly generous with the durian and it tasted more like 榴莲糕 rather than a muffin =X

On the very same day, I proceeded to prepare the ingredients for a durian chiffon cake while the muffins was in the oven. Again, the yolk batter was super duper thick due to the thick, dry fibrous durian. I still carried on nonetheless. This time, I baked it in a normal cake tin, to experiment and to see how things goes. A couple of email exchanges with Rei, I was told to reduce one egg white and bake for about the same time.

This was a bad bad one..

1. The cake didnt rise much at all. Fill only like..2/3 of the cake tine height? =(

2. The cake clinged well to the sides upon overturning the pan..BUT..slipped off slowly and silently after 15 mins or so..=((

3. The durian puree was so thick and chunky that you could even see the spots they've occupied in the cake!

4. You could hardly taste the texture of chiffon, unless you bite into an area without the durian chunks.

5. the weird thing is, the texture of chiffon was largely present though it slipped off the tin..hmmm..what went wrong? the durian too heavy?? beats me!

This brings me to my conclusion about baking with durian..though still very unsure as to why..

Lesson #1:
Durian puree is much thicker, drier and crazily fibrous as comapred to banana. never, do a 1:1 substitution

Lesson #2:
Always process the durian puree in a blender/food processor to make sure it is soft and smooth

Hopefully i'd have a much better durian attempt..not too soon la..durian expensive heh..