X'mas Nicola Cake

Merry Christmas!!!

Serikaya Cake

Put the beater blade to test and it creamed the butter and sugar beautifully and evenly..cuts the creaming time down a great deal and I even used it to fold flour into the mixture. Less tools to wash, simply brilliant!

See how snugly it fits. :)

Mochi Bread

Beater Blade

Finally my parcel has arrived. Can't wait to test it out.

I do have some extra pieces on hand, so for those who are interested in this product, pls do drop me a mail at shop2bake@gmail.com.

BeaterBlade attaches to all KitchenAid tilt-head stand mixers.

BeaterBlade - White

BeaterBlade - Pink

Steamed Milk Cake

Steamed Banana Cake

Mochi for the Housewarming

I've always wanted to try my hands on mochi making. Since Janet likes them too, it will be perfect to bringt these along for her housewarming.

I've adapted the recipe from here and here.





As I prefer more bite to my mochi, I've followed Do what I want's recipe largely, substituting the santan powder with matcha powder instead for the green hue and flavour. For the filling, I used store-bought red bean paste to save time. Initially I was worried the paste might turn out to be too sweet, thus coated the mochi with green bean powder. The combi was just right for me! *grin*

Madeleines

Italian Tasting & Food

I've decided that perhaps I should post about my wine tasting sessions as well to keep track of the wines my kakis and I have tasted. After all, when there's wine, you'll always find food. ;)

Most of us are not too familiar with Italian varietals, thus to match up with the Italian theme, I made some pasta with porcini mushrooms dressed with white truffle oil.

I used dried porcini mushrooms, fried with chopped garlic. Next I chopped up some english parsley and tossed it all in with olive oil and about 20ml of white truffle oil. Seasoned with sea salt and freshly grounded pepper. I find the flavours lacking, perhaps I'll add in a portion of fresh porcini in future if I make this again.

I also made a 40 cloves Garlic Roasted Chicken. Halve 2 bulbs of garlic and stuff into cavity of chicken, brush with softened butter all over chicken. Season with salt and pepper (cavity as well). Roast chicken in a pre-heated oven at 220C for about 15 mins, remove and add the vegetables and remaining garlic cloves (with peel on). Place 2 knobs of butter on the vegetables and continue to roast for about 1 hour.

Now here comes the bottled participants. :)

The Masi was my favourite for the evening. :)

CookUp @ Home

Invited Fann & Jing over for a small gathering.

For starters we had salad caprese. Pity Jing could not stay for the main.

Followed by nil cream Carbonara - one of Fann's favourite.

Chocolate Raspberries Cupcakes

These are brownies I made into cupcake form. I frosted the cake just before the wedding dinner so did not have time to take pictures before I left. Marc & May, these are made specially for you. Hope you had a smashing time. All the best!

Original recipe was extracted from here.

Donna Hay Raspberry Brownies(makes 12 small mouthfuls)

50g dark chocolate, chopped

60g butter½ cup brown sugar

1 egg

¼ cup plain flour

¼ tsp baking powder

1 tbsp cocoa powder

¼ cup fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 180C.

Melt chocolate and butter in large bowl.

Mix in remaining ingredients except raspberries.

Fold in raspberries.

Spoon into mini muffin pan lined with paper liners.

Bake 20 minutes or til set.

Frosting:

200g dark chocolate

200ml cream

Heat up cream and add chopped chocolate.

Remove from heat and continue stirring till chocolate has melted to form a smooth ganache.

Cool completely and refrigerate prior to piping on cakes.

Decorate as desired.

I made 4 times the quantity listed above and poduced about 20 regular cupcakes.

Note to self: I used 15ml tbsp measurement.

Lemon Cream Cheese Cupcakes

Made these cupcakes and moist chocolate cakes for Archie's housewarming. Good reviews :)
Got the recipe from here. I followed the modified version. It was not too sweet yumz. I have reproduced the recipe below for my own future reference.

Ingredients:(Makes 12)

130g cake flour

½ tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

130g cream cheese, at room temperature

135g butter, at room temperature (reduced to 100g)

145g castor sugar (reduced to 100g)

1 tsp grated lemon rind (increased to 2 tsp)

2 eggs, at room temperature

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Steps:

Preheat oven to 175 Degree C and line muffin pan with paper cups.
Sift cake flour, baking soda and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Set aside.
Cream butter and cream cheese until light and creamy for 8-10 minutes.
Add castor sugar and continue to mix until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs, one at a time.
Stir in lemon rind and lemon juice.
Finally, fold in sifted flour into mixture.
Divide batter evenly into paper cups. Bake for 20 – 25mins or till an inserted skewer comes out clean.
Remove the pan from the oven. Rest for 10 minutes before removing the cupcakes from the pan. Cool on wire rack.

Moist Chocolate Cake

Recipe from here.

Ingredients (5" x 8" loaf pan):
1 cup cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs
125g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla essence

Chocolate Paste:
½ cup cocoa powder
½ tsp instant coffee
¼ cup sugar
½ cup hot water
¼ cup evaporated/fresh milk
Pinch of salt

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 180 degree C.
Grease the loaf pan and line the bottom with baking paper.

Chocolate Paste:
Combine cocoa powder, instant coffee, sugar, hot water and salt in a medium mixing bowl.
Whisk the mixture until the sugar is melted, then add in milk and mix well.
Set aside for later use.

Sift together flour with baking powder for 2-3 times. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, beat butter together with sugar until creamy.
Add in vanilla essence, and eggs one at a time. Beat until light and fluffy.
Fold in sifted flour in batches, alternate with chocolate paste.
Start with flour and end with flour.
Bake for 45-50 minutes.

Japanese Steamed Cakes

Saw this at Daiso and was curious why it was called Steamed Bread. Ingredients contain rice flour so I got it to see if it taste anything like our Wa Ko Kueh.

I added a tsp of matcha powder to half the mixture.

Split the remaining mixture and added half tsp Valrhona cocoa powder to a portion. ;)

Matcha Flavour
The Original
Chocolate

Update: The texture was sticky like huat kueh but not as dense. Something different from our wa ko kueh. :)

Orange Blossom Madeleines

Thought I'll make some madeleines and share with the class tomorrow.

All was looking fine initially... then the hump development wasn't too successful for the last 2.

Probably due to hot spots in the oven?
The humps were not nicely developed too. Looks oozed out.

I've adapted the recipe from Fergal Connolly.

4 eggs

100g caster sugar

1tsp orange blossom water

125g self raising flour

115g unsalted butter, melted & cooled

1tbsp lemon zest

1. Preheat oven to 230C. Beat eggs, sugar and orange blossom water till pale and thick.
2. Sieve flour in a separate bowl. Slowly add flour to egg mixture.
3. Pour in the melted butter and fold in the lemon zest.
4. Refrigerate the batter for 20 minutes or overnight.
5. Transfer batter into piping bag and fill moulds till almost full.
6. Bake at 230C for 4 minutes, lower temp to 200C and bake for further 4 minutes.
7. Remove from moulds and cool on rack.