Zebra Butter Cake

Finally a successful uncrack butter cake. Of course this is the famous blogger recipe Mrs NgSK's butter cake. However I did some modification and have a chocolate mixed in it , thus it become the Zebra Butter Cake.

When I was young, every Chinese New Year my grandpa will get some buttercakes from a small cake shop in Skudai. In my memory the butter cake was uncrack and with chocolate swirl in it. Each time if anyone mention butter cake, it should be this style and this type to me.This is a childhood thing  we have in our family . Now my grandpa has gone so is this little cake shop. Each Chinese New Year when siblings gather together , we often will talk about the butter cake we have since we were a child.

So these is the reason why I have modify the butter cake recipe and hopefully it will bring back some childhood memory to myself during this near festive season.

The recipe as below ( Adapt from Mrs NgSK's butter cake )

Ingredients :

230gm butter (salted), softened ( I used 240g as this is what left over)
200gm eggs, no shell (4 grade B eggs)
50gm + 110gm sugar
200gm self raising flour, sifted.
60ml milk + 1tbsp of Baileys
40gm dark chocolate ( melted used double boiler method)
1tbsp vanilla extract


Method :

1. Preheat oven at 170C . Prepare a 8 inch round pan..Line the base and grease the sides (greasing helps the cake’s sides to rise well)
2. Separate the eggs, and place the whites into a medium sized bowl .Beat egg whites until soft peaks, gradually add 50gm sugar and beat until stiff. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and 110gm sugar until pale and fluffy. Put in vanilla extract and and beat for a while. Put in egg yolks one by one and beat well after each addition.
4. Put in half the flour and mix on low speed until incorporated. Put in milk in 2 additions and mix until well incorporated. Mix in balance of flour.
5. Put half the egg whites in and mix on low speed. Pour the balance of egg whites in and FOLD.
6. Separate the batter into half. ( you can measure exactly or estimate), mixed in the melted dark chocolate into one of the batter and fold in well.
7. Use a ladle to scoop the vanilla batter into the round pan, use another ladle to scoop the chocolate batter on top to the vanilla batter in the round pan.
8. Repeat step 7 until all  the batter is finished.
9. Level the batter in the pan.
7. Bake for 45 minutes or until skewer comes out clean.( I have it sit on the lower shelf of the oven, each individual oven is different you might want to adjust accordingly)


 Note
 I add in Baileys as I found it make any chocolate dessert smell great .
 This batter is quite thick is not easy for me to have an even style as Zebra Butter cake should be.

So here is my Zebra Butter Cake. The taste is moist and yum , we did not wait till it cool but have our cake as a supper treat on that night. Warm butter cake is irresistable.

I gave a quarter of this cake to a close family friend. Another group of friends come for dinner the next night , they can not resist the cake and nearly forget to keep a slice for the one who come late. The most funny thing was, some gals wanted to share instead of having a whole piece, but after sharing the one slice , they decided to cut one slice each for themself.

Is it a moist fragrance butter cake. Does it resemble the one I had when I was young? Honestly I can not remember the exact taste. At time people always say the one in your memory is always the best. Maybe I should bake this cake as one of my Chinese New Year gift :))

liebster award nomination

liebster award nomination

I’ve been nominated for a Liebster Award by Eelmsthenovicebaker.

Hmm I hope I got this right. Not sure how this works but will follow instruction. :)

Thanks Eelms for given me this opportunity to be part of this Award =) Eelms and I have been friends for a looong while . Eelms bake way earlier than I . She used to bake muffins for us and do other chinese style breakkie and bring in to office for us to enjoy ! At that time, food blogging is not even known by us. Perhaps everything about internet was "new" then. We met each other at our start of career life. The field we chose is pretty hectic to have time to bake and dream about things. Is great to see how she has done so much in her interest . Keep it up babe am sure it will be something you will enjoy doing it continuously :)


So here are the rules for the Liebster Award

1) Visit and thank the blogger who nominated you.
2) Acknowledge that blogger on your blog and link back.
3) Answer the 11 questions proposed by the blogger who nominated you.
4) Select 11 people for the award.
5) Pose 11 new questions to the new nominees.
6) Copy and paste the award on your blog somewhere.

The  11 Questions for my answer

1) What is your absolute favorite dessert?
- Yet to discover I tend to like things at different time in life but at this point would say is any Chiffon cake
2) What is your most handy kitchen equipment?
- Unbrand hand held electric mixer. The best and easy way to whip up anything at short time

3) What is the most exotic ingredient in your pantry?
- Lavendar baking seed ( still trying to figure out what is the best dessert to make from this ingredient)

4) What is the most expensive ingredient you’ve bought?
- Not really , I am into using most common ingredient to produce an easy make dessert at short time

5) What is your most memorable bake?
- Indonesia Kuih Lapis ( Thousand layer Cake ) my first attempt of real baking

6) Who would you like to bake or cook for, if you could choose anyone?
- Jamie Oliver

7) Who is your inspiration?
- Honestly my inspiration come from lot of the bloggers in the world especially those who has kids, works, and bake non stop and consisitant in updating thier blogs

8) Who is your favorite chef?
-  Jamie Oliver

9) Where is the best travel destination you’ve been to so far?
- Korea

10) Where would you like to travel to?
- Europe

11) What is your favorite cookbook?
- Love most of it cant filter out one particular one.

My Nomination :

1.Strawbeari3

2. Happy Flour

3. Table for 2 or more

4.Aeris Kitchen

5.Rasamalaysia

6.Sea salt with food

7.Baking Library

8.Baking Mom

9. FatMom Baking

10.My Alternative Career

11. Not quite Nigella


My 11 Questions :

1. Chinese or western desserts?

2. Coffee or Tea ?

3. Cakes or Cookies ?

4. Buttercream or Whipped Cream?

5. Favourite Cheese?

6. Favourite spices?

7. Cooking or baking?

8. Ocean or Mountain?

9. Movie or Musical?

10. Prefer City or small town lifestyle?

11. Working or stay home ?

Am not sure how this will works, as in how people will know I have nominated them. Some of the food blogger I nominated are those I love their blog and used their recipe to cook . A lot of them are quite famous in the food blogger world.

However I knew there will be some would like to join in and have this continue from here.

I do my best to try out, the rest GOD will arrange for me :)

Thanks again for the nomination Eelms :)











Strawbeari3

Pandan Layer Cake

This cake was one a popular pandan cake in Malaysia and is my favourite cake among all the pandan cake. I baked this cake 2 years ago, for a friend birthday but it was not quite successful . As the pandan layer on the cake is just too chewy and is not soft as it should be. I have this cake for a dear friend farewell on Dec 12.  She has finished her study in Australia and flying back to Singapore after Christmas.

I have this cake posted today , as I would love to start my 2013 post for a cake I really love. As my friend moving back in 2012, let have a fresh start in this new year with all the good memories we share and look forward to meet each other soon .

When I first bake this cake I used the recipe from -Lily's WaiSekHong. I guess a lot of people know this famous food blogger as she has done lot of baking and cooking which is easy to follow and result is great. However this time round , I used Lily recipe on baking the Pandan Chiffon Cake and the pandan layer I used another recipe .

 Pandan Chiffon Cake recipe : ( I did make some changes)

 Ingredients:
 4 egg yolks
90g castor sugar
160g Cake flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder, sift with flour
1/2 tsp baking soda, sift with flour

100 ml coconut milk
1 tsp pandan essence
50g corn oil

4 egg whites
60g sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Method :

1.Beat the egg yolks with sugar till pale white, add in the coconut milk mix well

2.Add in the corn oil mix well with whisk, follow by the flour and combine the mixture till well and smooth

3.Beat egg whites and cream of tartar at medium speed with electric mixer until the egg whites are bubbly. Add sugar and whip at high speed until stiff form but not dry.
4.Fold 1/3 of whipped egg whites into flour mixture of Step 2. Then, pour this mixture to the remaining egg whites in the other mixing bowl. Fold lightly to combine both mixtures.

5.Pour this combined mixture into a greased and line 8-inch round cake pan

6.Bake at a preheated oven at 165 deg C for 40-45 minutes until a skewer insert come out clean.

7.As soon as the cake is removed from oven, quickly invert the pan and let it cool. (I forgot to invert the  cake and the middle of the cake sort of sink in :( )
8.When the cake is completely cool, run a knife around the sides of pan to remove the cake(I remove the line baking paper and tear it carefully).

9.Slice cake into 4 layers.Let it cool before we assemble with the pandan fudge.

Pandan Layer ( Fudge ) : ( I adapted this from Agnes Chang I can Bake book)

Ingredients:

8tbsp of green peas flour/hoen kwe flour

800ml coconut milk

170g caster sugar

1/2 tsp salt ( put in coconut milk)

1/2 tsp of pandan essence

1tbsp of gelatin powder

3tbsp of water

Method:

1. Sprinkle 1tbsp of gelatin powder onto 3tbsp of water in a bowl, leave it to bloom. Have the bowl steam on a bowl of hot water let the gelatin melt.

2.Put the rest of the ingredient into a pot and mix well. 

3. Used medium heat, stir and cook till mixture has thicken and pour in the gelatin to mix well.

4. Keep mixture hot by putting the pot in a pan of hot water to prevent it from setting too quickly.

Assemble:

1. Place a 8" cake ring on a cake board, put 1 slice of cake into the cake ring, there will be space around the cake as the cake will shrink after it cool down.

2. Scoop some pandan fudge to cover the cake and side. Make sure the pandan fudge flow down the side and cover it well.

3. Place another layer of pandan chiffon cake on the pandan fudge repeat the step 2 and till the last layer . As my ring mould is not that high I only manage to have 3 layer for my cake.

4. Some might like to deco this cake with dessicated coconut. however I did not do that , I just want to keep my cake clean .

Simply love the softness of the pandan chiffon cake and the fudge layer is soft , it just too bad the cake is not big enough and we all can only have a thin slice.Surely will make this cake for myself soon.

For this coming year 2013, hope I can bake more , update my blog more frequent. Most of all to learn to appreciate whatever I have in life. This year my hubby and I plan to be not stress but be efficient in doing what we have to do .

Blessed New year to all , be blessed, be loved , be full of joy and happiness.