Stamped ShortBread

Time goes past fast even as a home mom . There will be days , my schedule is about cooking,eating, feeding, coaxing the little one to sleep , rest and cooking etc repeat itself from days to weeks. Well, am not complaining at all. In fact I thank GOD , my princess is a good baby. By 2nd months, she sleep through the night from 9pm - 6am. She is a happy baby most of the days. As I am not into carry baby all day and times, she kind of knew it and able to adapt well . Praise GOD , prayer works and I now find time to bake and hopefully can update my blog as much as I can .

We are back to church and most of the activities we family used to do . This shortbread was baked for the ministry I am serving. Our church has a small cafe operate on Sunday to let people have some munch and coffee before service started each Sunday. Of course those who serve in the cafe are all volunteers . We do need more volunteers to help out. So we have the Ministry Fair Sunday to encourage people to serve in different ministry.

I come across this shortbread recipe from one of my favourite blogger ->Dailydelicious. As I need some cookie that I can stamp some wording on it, I have to make sure the dough of the cookies is firm and will not be out of shape once bake. Her recipe is just perfect. So here is the recipe I have used to make my Book Cafe Short Bread.

In total I make 47pic with heart shape and round shape mould. I double the portion from the original recipe and add orange zest in it to give a hint of orange in the cookies.

Ingredients :

200g  Butter ( cold and cut into pieces)
1/8tsp Salt  ( as I used salted butter, so I omitted the used of salt)
60g  Icing Sugar ( original recipe is 80g)
240g  Cake Flour
90g  Rice Flour
1 Tbsp of Orange Zest.


Method :

1. Cut the butter into small cube and put in a mixing bowl.
2. Sift cake flour, rice flour, icing sugar and orange zest , pour over into the butter.
3. Use your fingers to mix the dry ingredient into the butter. Mix it till looks like small bits of bread crumb.
4. Knead the crumbs till stick together and smooth.
5. Wrap with the plastic and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
6. Take the dough out from the fridge, roll the dough to 5mm thick and cut it to different desire shape.
7. Preheat oven to 160C, and line the tray with baking sheet.
8. Place the cut cookies on the tray with baking sheet and press the wording you desire on the cookies.
9. Bake the cookies for 15-20min until the light golden.
10.Take the cookies out from the oven and cool on tray. Keep the cookies in airtight container.

The cookies is soft but firm, it will not easily break into pieces and it hold the shape after baking. Though the cookies look "plain", the taste is simple delicious.If you want to send a message in a cookies , this might be a good choice too.

Soon Kueh - May this be a smooth sailing year with our little one

The pregnancy happen on last year, does take up a lot of my time and energy in the whole process. Add on to it, we were moving during my pregnancy. Moving to a new home , is a whole entire full on project for a pregnant lady. Packing and unpacking is insane. Thank GOD all is over and we have welcome our new born in Nov 2014. Now I am a homemaker aka mommy and also a feeding cow to my little one. As all mom said, is tiring, is stressing at time but all is WORTH it. I hope to get back to baking and more cooking as my little one grow older.

So here is a long outstanding blog . However is good to start my 2015 with this kueh I love most - Soon Kueh. Hopefully this will be a smooth sailing and soon soon year for our whole family .This is one of the kueh I sort of crave during my pregnancy. As I can not get any here I have to make it myself. I follow the recipe from this link ->atkokken-soon-kueh-turnip-dumpling

The skin for this recipe is easy to follow and I simply love the result , the skin is transparent and chewy soft . Is just the right texture for me.I hope you will like it as well.

Ingredients for fillings:

500g Turnips
3 tbsp  Oil
1 tbsp  Minced garlic
1 tsp    Oyster sauce
1 tsp    Salt
1/2 cupChicken stock
55g      Dried shrimps
Sprinkle of white pepper

Method:

1. Peel turnip and cut into matchstick and soak in water. Drain and set aside.
2. Add oil to a heated wok. Fry garlic until fragrant and brown.
3. Add dried shrimps stired fry till aroma come out add in turnip stir fry to combine well
4. Add in the chicken stock ,oyst,r sauce,salt and fry for a 3 mins.
5. Cooked till the water reduce and turnip turn transparent and soft. Dash some white pepper on it
6. Let the filling cool down before wrap it .

Note: I have some leftover carrot, I just put in together to enhance the sweetness.

 Ingredients for the skin wrapping :

375 g Wheat Starch ( Tang Mien)
180g  Tapioca Flour
450 ml Boiling water ( I add a little bit more, this can varies as to see how the texture to be)
3 tbsp  Vegetable oil ( original recipe suggest either shortening or oil )
Oil for greasing

Method :

1. Place all flour ( Wheat starch & tapioca flour) in a mixing bowl. Pour in boiling water and mix quickly with ladle ( I used wood ladle). Leave aside with cover for 15 min
2. Add in oil and knead into a pliable dough. Be careful it can be real hot.
3. Roll out in a cylinder , cut with a sharp knife into 2cm slices. Dab some oil on both side and roll out gently into thin round shapes.
4. Place 1 Tbsp of the filling in the center of the each dough and fold in half . Seal the edges by pressing it.

I used a curry puff mould to help me in this. As I just want to make sure the size of the kueh is consistant. I am not good in making any pleat at the edge. Cover the dough with warm tea towel during the process to avoid it dry up and keep moist.

Oil the steaming tray with some vegetable oil and place all the kueh in it and steam in high heat for 15-20mins. Once the kueh is cooked , brush some vegetable oil on it while is hot so the kueh will not stick to one another when take out.

Serve with chilli sauce or you might want to top with some deep fried shallot and dark soya sauce.
I even pan fired one of the soon kueh to test the texture. The texture is soft yet will not easy broke. I will keep this recipe as is what I like :)

FootBall Cake

I can only say I have my months past really fast with all the sleeping and eating in this period of my life. I am journey into my 6th month of pregnancy. I still felt drain and tire after work and can not stay awake after dinner.  Most of the time I will be sitting and doze off infront of the TV till my love gentle nudge me and ask me to get into bed. Gosh I hope I will have more energy as time past.


Not be able to have this post on July I hope I will not miss it in Aug14. Time flies just too fast for me to realise it. I have make this Football Cake early this year. This cake is for a little boy 1 year old celebration, his party theme is Football as he love balls. This is the present I gave to him for his 1 year old celebration . Really love this cute little boy, he is one of the babies in church that who does not scare of my love. :p


Instead of baking the round cake in oven, I actually used a steam cake recipe. As I do not want to buy a Football mould cake tin. However I do have some metal bowl to do some steaming . So here is the recipe I follow ->Blessed Homemaker


Steam Moist Chocolate Cake


Ingredients :
185g Unsalted Butter or cooking oil. ( I used butter)
180g Castor Sugar
200ml Evaporated Milk
2 Eggs lightly beaten
110g Cake Flour
45g Dark Cocoa Powder ( I used up to 60g and good quality cocoa powder)
1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract


Method :


1. Heat up the steamer. I used my normal wok to steam
2. Line the bottom of the round metal bowl and spray oil around the bowl.
3. Put castor sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla extract and butter in a saucepan, stir over low heat until the sugar is dissolved and butter melted. Off fire and leave to cool.
4. Add the beaten egg into the above mixture and still till well combine.
5. Sift the flour , cocoa power , baking powder and baking soda into a large mixing bowl.
6. Pour the eggs mixture over the flour and stir still combine. The batter should be runny.( If the chocolate mixture is not dark to the color of your liking , put a drop of red velvet essence )
7. Pour the batter into the prepared pan , cover top of the pan with a piece of aluminium foil.
8. Steam over medium heat for 45min.
9. Cool the cake in the pan before turning our for further decoration .

I have this cake decorate by using Vanila Buttercream and Melted Chocolate. To make the football filed, it is the simple pandan chiiffon swissroll base. 

I would not say this is a good decorate football cake. Anyway is the 1st attempt of making a football cake. I do hope to improve my skill in near future. The steam chocolate cake is kind of dense however as it is a steam cake so the moist still keep well in the cake. I do hope the parents and the boy has enjoy this cake.

Pandan Checkerboard Cake with Coconut Cream

Gosh it has been awhile that I did not update my blog. There was a saying , if a blogger suddenly sort of disappear , it might mean either get back to work ( normal work life) or adding another family member in the life.


^__^ by the kindness of GOD, I am currently pregnant with the bundle of joys . Never do I know pregnancy can make so much difference in my life. I was mostly tire and sleeping super early most of the nights. By 8pm , I am totally gone. If I still able to stay awake is just because I might be eating or trying hard to keep awake till another half hour to be knocked off again . Having to work and body changes is no something I used to cope. Well, I shall not "complain" is another phrase of life , me and my hubby are journey towards.


This cake has been make in April to celebrate the birthday of a group of guys !! Ya ! in total we have about 5 people born in the month of April . We notice those we born in the month of April seem to be talented in art , most of them are musician in our midst.


I thought of making a checkerboard cake but instead of doing what I have done before ( the not very successful attempt ->orange-chocolate-checkerboard-cake) I decided to have the flavour change to what we all love, pandan checkerboard.


So here is the recipe I used from -> NasiLemakLover Basis Sponge Cake. I love the texture of this sponge cake and have been using this for most of my cake.


Pandan Sponge Cake ( 1 7" round pan cake )


Ingredients :


4 Egg ( large) - Separate the egg yolks and egg white in different bowl
20 Caster Sugar
50g Corn Oil
60g Milk
1/2 tsp Pandan Escense
90g Cake Flour


1/4 tsp Cream of Tartar
60g Caster Sugar
( I did not reduce the sugar in this recipe , as I find the sweetness is just right)


Method :


1. Preheat oven at 140C .
2. Place egg yolk and sugar (20g) in a mixing combine , lightly whisk till combine
3. Add in corn oil , milk and pandan essence stir to combine
4. Add in cake flour mix well and set aside.
5. In a clean mixing bowl , combine egg white with cream of tartar , beat with electric mixer.
6. Add in the caster sugar ( 60g) gradually , beat till stiff peaks but not dry .
7. Mix 1/3 of the egg white mixture using hand whish with the egg yolk mixture till light.
8. Fold in the balance of the egg white in 2 portion into the egg yolk mixture until well combine.
9. Pour the batter into the pan and bake at 140C for 25min at the lower rack . Increase to 160C and bake another 30min. Till insert the cake tester is all clean .


Note:
1.The oven I am using is pretty hot so the temperature I used is according to my oven .
2.The cake pan used should not be non stick pan and I only line the bottom of the cake pan. The reason not using the non stick pan is for the even rising of this cake.
3.For even tone of baking and rising , this cake should be cake in low temperature at first then increase it heat. At lower rack.
4.If you follow the step , the cake will not crack at all. That is why I said this recipe is a winner among all the sponge cake I have tried.
5. To make a vanilla sponge cake just have the pandan essence replace with vanilla extract.


To make this checkerboard cake , I make 2 sponge cake , once is pandan sponge cake another one is vanilla sponge cake.


Each cake need to be slice into 2 layer. I did not take pictures on how to assemble the cake. I am sure if you google the checkerboard that is heaps to follow. Or you can jump back to the above post follow Wendy instruction .

For the coating I used Coconut Milk with white chocolate cream. As this is a 3 layer cake , hereby is the measurement for this 8" round cake.

Coconut Milk Coating

Ingredients :

700ml Coconut Milk
300ml Cream
120g White Chocolate
3 Tbsp Gelatin
6 Tbsp of Water

Method :

1) Pour 6Tbsp of water in a bowl, sprinkle 3 Tbsp gelatin on top of it and let it bloom.
2) In a saucepan, combine the coconut milk and cream. Bring it to a boil and simmer for one minute.
3) Remove the pan from the heat and add the white chocolate and gelatin.
4) Stir the chocolate and gelatin until completely dissolved.

Assemble the cake :

1. Put the cake layer in the cake ringform mould. Slowly pour in the 1/4 cup of coconut milk cream.
2. Fridge for 10min for the cream to slightly set
3. Place the 2nd layer of cake on top of the 1st layer, slowly pour in 1/4 cup of coconut milk cream in.
4. Fridge for 10 min for the cream to set.
5. Place the last layer of the cake on top of the 2nd layer, slowly pour in 1/3 of the coconut milk cream in .
6. Allow the last year to set in fridge for 15 min and pour all the reminding cream to the cake.
7. Fridge overnight to set. 

The reason to let the cream set in each layer ,as this is more a liquid cream then a buttercream. If you pour too much at one time the cake will float in the mould. So it does take some time for each layer to set properly.

I think my 2nd attempt for this checkerboard cake is better than the previous one. Well I guess practise make perfect. :)

The taste is great. All the birthday boys love it. However, everyone can only have a slice of it. I think good thing sometime when is lesser it make the taste better.

Chocolate CreamChesse Layer Cake

 
Up to date, I have make this cake 3 times. It was a well received cake. I make the 1st one for a sister birthday . Make in a 8" square cake mold. Using the original recipe it turn out quite thin . I should have know it better when I saw the batter and the size of the tin. Well , it was the 1st attempt, I do allow some mistakes to improve.

When the cake was share in a lunch table, it was so yummy . Everyone was waiting to get a 2nd piece if there is any extra. It was a joy to see how everyone love the combination of chocolatere  and creamcheese. I must say the texture of the cake was so soft , it make one felt it is not a heavy cake. Indeed this cake , I would classified it as a healthy chocolate cake.

After the 1st attempt , I received 2 order for this cake. I manage to make to double the size for a customer order of 8" square cake and use the original measurement for a 7" round cake .

The recipe was from this blogger ->Eggplant10. It is a steam bake cake. 1st of my steam bake experience. The cake is soft and creamy yet is not heavy in term of taste .

Ingredients :

Part A - CreamChees layer

250g CreamCheese
50g Caster Sugar
1 Egg ( Extra Large)
1 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Flour ( I used Cake Flour)

Method :

1. Beat Creamcheese with sugar till combine.
2. Add in egg and beat till combine
3. Mix in water and flour . Leave aside for later used.

Part B - Chocolate Layer

2 Egg ( Extra Large)
1 cup of Caster Sugar ( I used brown sugar and did not top to full cup)
1 tsp of Vanilla Essence
1/2 cup Hot Water
1/2 cup Milk
1/2 cup Cooking Oil
1 Cup of Cake Flour 
3 Tbsp of Cocoa Powder ( I used good quality Cocoa Powder)
1 tsp Baking Soda
1/2 tsp Baking powder
( I  have all the powder pour in one bowl and sift and put aside)


Method :

1. Beat egg with sugar using electric mixer till fluffy and double in size.
2. Pour in vanilla essence, hot water, milk and cooking oil. Mix gently with hand held mixer.
3. Pour in all the sifted powder to the egg mixture. Combine well


Steam Baking the Cake :

1. Heat up water in the steamer, grease the cake mold.
2. Pour 2 ladle of chocolate mixture in the mold, steam for 15-20min
3. Pour 1 ladle of creamcheese mixture on top of the chocolate layer , steam for 15-20 min.
4. Continue with another layer of chocolate mixture then creamcheese layer. Till all mixture finished.
5. One complete steaming, take the cake out and demould when the cake has cold down.

I make the cake with few layer as it give some volume to the cake and I think it looks nice like a layer cake.

Is a simple recipe yet the result is fanstastic. Give it a try, I am sure you will have a great feedback from those you share the cake with.

Honey Castella ( Kasutera) Green Tea Layer Cake

 
Castella or Kasutera Cake has been a quite popular cake in Asia for a long while. I guess when I first have this cake I have no idea what is so special about this cake. It seem to be a spongy cake with hint of honey. The top always seem sticky and brownish. The cake texture is soft and even if leave outside it still remain it softness.


When I first started to bake, I heard about this cake. My friend make one for me when I was back home visit few yeas ago. My the Castella cake she make is so delicate and soft, moist and is very beautiful . Too bad I did not take picture. Well, you can go to her website and look at it ->Eelmsthebaker


After much research , I knew this cake required to bake in a wooden mold and the cake is baking sponge cake in low heat and not over beat the cake . Not suppose to crack, should raise evenly . The bigger mistakes one can make is incorporate too much of air while beating the eggs and mixing with the flour. The flour need to be bread flour which is high gluten.  So required to beat the egg on a bath of warm water this will help make the texture of the cake fluffy .


I come across this recipe by ->Kitchen Tigress. To me this is more like a chiffon cake method with egg white beat separately and mix the egg yolk in slowly.


I like her details and the you tube link to help understand how to make this cake. Which does make me feel more confident of it.


Below is the recipe adapt from the link above :


Ingredients:
( I double this portion , one is pure honey favour , another one is green tea favour. I added 15g green tea powder and melt in the milk)


85g Egg Whites
60g Castor Sugar
60g Egg Yolks
20g Honey
60g Bread Flour
20g Full cream milk


Method :


1. Preheat oven to 160C.
2. Beat (with hand held electric mixer in low speed ) egg whites till bubbles started to form and gradually add in castor sugar and continue beating.
3.Beat till the egg white is firm peak stage, reduce speed to remove big air bubbles and prevent over whisking. ( I did a z whisking method to break down the bubble)
4.Add in yolks to the white egg mixture , one by one till evenly mixed after each addition.( I used hand held whisker from now onwards)
5.Add honey and repeat the whisking.
6. Sift half of the bread flour into the batter, mix with whisk till almost even. Sift in the remaining flour . Mix till just even.
7. Drizzle the milk in the mixture , whisk skimming just top part of the batter , till no milk is seen.
8. Scrape down and fold the mixture with spatula, banging the bowl against worktop from time to time, till everything is well combine. Let batter rest 10sc or so in midway, then bang the bowl against worktop.
9. Pour batter into line cake pan, slowly and from about 30cm high so that the air bubble burst as they flow out of the bowl.
As I am doing the Green Tea layer, so what I did was, one scoop of pure honey batter, one scoop of green tea batter. Repeat till all the batter is finished.
10. Tap pan against the workshop 3-4 time .
11. Place the pan in the lower bottom of the oven and bake for 35min.


As mention above this cake was baked in a special wooden mould. Is such impossible task to find one in Australia. Even if I manage to get one from Asia , to bring in a WOOD product to Australia, might cost another AUD200- 300 to treat it before you can bring a wood item in this country.


I do consider to did what Kitchen Tigress did , using cardboard. However I can not find any cardboard to modify. At the end of the day , I found something in Daiso which is a rectangle paper baking mould. I am going to bake this cake is some rectangle small tin , it just fit in nicely in the paper baking mould.

Voila !!! So this is how I bake this cake. Another important note, once remove the pan from the oven. Remove the tin from the paper baking mould. Drop the cake tin from about 30cm high , 2-3times. Wait a few moment when the top of the cake start to wrinkle slightly, invert cake tin onto wooden chopping board. Wait till top of the cake is flat and smooth , about 30sc. Re-invert the cake tin and leave it to cool on wire rack. Unmould, trim edges , cut and serve.


I did not eat the cake immediately so I wrap it with baking paper and put in a Ziploc bag and place in the fridge . The cake is moist and soft , I might have pour in too much batter, so that is a slight crack in the cake. Is it actually ok to put some to a cupcake paper to bake it as cupcake to enjoy. I will do it next time so not to over fill in the cake tin.

Mango Yoghurt Mousse Cake

 This is birthday I created by adopting from a Mango Mousse Cake ->Bisousatoi-mango-mousse-cake.
When I am searching for recipe, this recipe attract me with the beautiful picture and the cotton cake in it.


I am looking for a cake base that is not easily shrink and give me a light texture so I decided to give this cake a trial with some tweeting in the mousse. The reason I would like to incorporate yoghurt in the mousse is to bring a different favour to the cake compare to the normal mousse cake. Another more realistic reason will be , I cannot  find some good mango in the market . Gosh, just when I thought is the mango season, it just seem goes pass too fast . Well is not this always the case, when you want something, you can not find it. When you do not want it , is always flashing in your eyes.



So here is the Mango Yoghurt Mousse Cake recipe :


Cotton Cake


Ingredients :


145g Cake Flour
15g Corn Flour
1 Egg
5 Egg yolks , lightly whish with fork ( if the egg is large should use 4 eggs instead)
150g Unsalted butter
65g Fresh Milk
1/2 tsp Vanilla essence


5 Egg whites
80g Castor Sugar ( origin recipe is 100g)
1/4 tsp salt


Method : (for a 7" square tin)


1.Preheat oven 150C. Line the square tine with baking paper and wrap bottom of the pan with aluminium foil.
2.Combine butter and milk in a small sauce pan , heat up till warm and do not boil it. Take away from the heat and sifted all the flours in and mix well until combine without any lumps
3.Transfer to a bigger mixing bowl and add in the eggs ,egg yolks and vanilla essence. Continue to mix till smooth
4.In another mixing bowl, beat the egg while till frothy add in salt and sugar in 3 addition. Continue to beat till soft peak
5.Fold 1/3 of the egg white gently into the egg mixture till combine well. Continue to fold 1/3 of the egg white into the egg mixture till all finished and well incorporate .
6.Pour batter in the baking tin and tap out the air bubble on the bench tap before baking.
7.Bake the cake in a bath of hot water for about 45min.
8. Once the cake is baked, let it cool and slice horizontally into 2 slices and trim them into 6"x 6" square.


Mango Yoghurt Mousse


Ingredients :


2 Tbsp of Gelatine powder
4 Tbsp of water
300g whipping cream
3 Tbsp icing sugar
200g Mango yoghurt
200g Mango puree
140g slice Mango ( I prefer to slice the mango thin instead of dice , as the mango yoghurt has dice mango in it)


Method :
1. In a metal mixing bowl, whip the cream with icing sugar till soft peak and refrigerate to chill.
2. In a small bowl , pour in the water and sprinkle gelatine powder, let it bloom. Sit the bowl on a bigger bowl of hot water to dissolved it.
3.Mixed the mango yoghurt and mango puree together and pour in the dissolved gelatine
4.Add the mango yoghurt mixture well with the whipping cream till well combine.



Assemble the cake :


1. Place one of the cotton cake in the tin, pour half the mango yoghurt mousse in it.
2. Level the surface and make sure the side is cover well.
3. Layer the slice mango on top of the mousse and place another cake slice on top.
4. Pour in the reminding yoghurt mousse to the cake and smooth the surface.
5. Chilled in the fridge for about 2 hour before pouring the mango jelly/glaze.



Mango Jelly/Glaze

Ingredients :


100g Mango Puree
1 Tsp Gelatine powder
1 Tbsp Water
100g of slice Mango


Method :

1. In a bowl place the water and sprinkle the gelatine powder to let it bloom. Place the bowl onto a bigger bowl with hot water to dissolved the gelatine
2.Pour the dissolved gelatine into the mango puree . ( I do add some mango juice as the puree seem too thick to pour on the cake )


Take the chilled cake out from the fridge, layer with some slice mango and pour the mango jelly on top.


Refrigerate the cake for another 3-4 hours before serving.


The cotton cake is not as light as sponge cake. The texture is more dense then I expected. The original recipe does not put any vanilla essence, I find the cake is too eggy without the essence. The texture of the cake is more firm and it does not shirk. The method of the cake is like a chiffon cake yet using butter instead of cooking oil . Is like a sponge cake method yet not beating the egg yolk to fluffy and is bake in steam bake method.

I make 2 of this cake , one for a birthday celebration another one is for a customer order. The feedback from customer was the cake is dense and firm . They prefer the light fluffy sponge cake texture compare to this.


I personally think the same as well. Maybe it will be some people liking if they prefer a dense cake then expect something that is light.