Chocolate Semifreddo ( Chocolate Ice Cream)

Is another of my baking journey. I have some friends come over for dinner. He love lamb , so I decided to do a roast lamb. So when the menu set to be more western , I thought I should try something different about the dessert. Instead of doing my "usual" cake , why not try something else.

I happen to use Donna Hay recipe for my roast lamb so I happen to come by her Chocolate Semifreddo recipe. This recipe does not require an ice cream machine to make the delicious and rich frozen treat. It is easy and fast to prepare. Of course you have to prepare one night to freeze it before you serve ^^.

Hereby I shared this recipe with adding a little bit of my own "secret" ingredients, these ingredient when it combine in chocolate is just simply add an omph in it .

Recipe : ( Adapt from Donna Hay magazine Dec 2012)

Ingredients :

3 eggs
2 eggs yolks  extra
3/4 cup ( 165g) caster (superfine) sugar (I used brown sugar)
250 dark chocolate , melted ( used double boil method)
1 3/4 cup ( 430ml) single ( pouring) cream - I used pouring cream
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
2 tablespoons bailey - optional ( I added this to enhance the chocolate favor)

Method :

1. Place a metal bowl in freezer , for cream whipping used.
2. Place the eggs, extra yolks and sugar into a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of simmering water
3. Using a hand-held electric mixer , beat for 6-8 min or until the mixture is pale and thick and doubled in volume.
4. Gentle fold the melted chocolate and bailey into the egg mixture till well combine
5. Take the metal bowl out and whip the cream until soft peaks form and fold in the cocoa powder. 
6.Gently fold the cream through the above egg mixture, pour into a metal container, cover and freeze for 3-4 hours or until set.
7. Spoon into glasses and serve with fresh berries if desired.


Is such an easy and delight desserts. My guest simple love it though he asked me for the recipe I doubt he will do it himself. For a guy is still a bit too tedious to prepare all this when is more direct for them to pick up a tub from the super market.

Given am not so a chocolate lover , I find this ice cream is creamy and dark chocolate with bailey is just perfect to like a cream on top of the cake for a lovely western dinner night :)

Do try out this easy recipe and get impress yourself .

Pandan Red Bean Mousse Layer Cake

Gosh I only realised I have not update anything yet in Mar 13. March is about to end soon. How time past and flew without us knowing it.

Is the 1st quarter of year 2013. Scary, how I wish the days will not past by so fast and we have time to really pause and enjoy the spring .

I have this cake make for one of my beloved friend birthday. She is indeed a gems for us. She is very selfless and caring to the people around her. She is my leader in our christian fellowship group. Is not easy to lead so many young working adults who has so many opinions of their own . However she is very patience and always see the potential and good from others. Her birthday was in late Feb , I do not have time to post this cake till now . Aghh how busy life can be at time. We have her birthday celebrate in Korean restaurant and we sincerely wish whatever her prayer was on the birthday it will come true soon.

She told me one of her favourite is red bean . I was thinking to make the standard " Matcha and Red Bean Mousse " .After looking through the recipe , I knew Matcha is not her fancy but we all love pandan. I am sure pandan go perfectly well with red bean ( afterall we used to put pandan leave while boiling red bean) . Hence this is another so call my own invention cake with some adaption on other recipe :

Biscuit Base 

Ingredients

100g Digestive Biscuits
70g  melted butter

Method:

1. Crushed digestive biscuits till fine crumbs.
2.Combine the biscuits and the melted butter well and press evevnly into a 8"inch square loose base baking tin
3. Put in the fridge let it chill and set for assemble later


Pandan ChiffonCake ( I used the same recipe as my Pandan Layer Cake )
( I make the cake in square mould instead and slice into 3 layer, this cake only yield for 2 layer)

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.

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 the cake

Red Bean Mousse (Adapt from mykitchenof love)

Ingredients 

1 Tbsp gelatin

3 Tbsp of water

400g Chunky Azuki Bean ( I bought a tin from store)

360g  Pouring Cream

 As there are sugar contain in the canned azuki bean , I did not put any sugar in this mousse.

Method :

 

1. Put a metal bowl in the freezer for later use to whip the cream

2. Put water in a bowl, sprinkle gelatin powder onto the water and let it bloom.Place the bowl on another bigger bowl of hot water to dissolve the gelatin .

3. Take out the metal bowl from the freezer , using electric mixer to whip the pouring cream till soft peak forms.

4. Pour the Azuki bean in a mixing bowl, slowly pour in the gelatin and mix thoroughly.

5.Genlty fold the cream into the Azuki bean mixture .

Assemble:

1. Take out the biscuit base square tin from the fridge, pour 1/3 of the red bean mousse on top of the biscuit base.Even it with a spatula

2. Place one layer of the pandan chiffon cake on top of the red bean layer. Slightly press the cake down.

3. Pour the rest of the red bean mousse on top of the pandan chiffon cake ( step 2) . Smooth it evenly , place the 2nd layer of pandan chiffon cake on top.Press the cake slightly down.

4. Put in the fridge for an hour to let the mousse set.

My measurement of the red bean mousse in between the cake layer was not that even, so please do according to your preference.

 

As I need to have a nice smooth topping to cover the surface of the cake , I decided to do a Coconut Panna Cotta  layer to pour onto it to finish off my cake .

Ingredient

250 ml Coconut Milk
50 ml  Whipping Cream
60 g White Chocolate
1.5 Tbsp Gelatin
4 Tbsp of  Water

Method

1) Pour 4Tbsp of water in a bowl, sprinkle 1.5 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.

When the cake has set well , pour the Coconut Panna Cotta layer onto the cake. Refrigerate the cake for at least 4 hours. 

Unmould the cake and decorate the surface as you like. I do a neat simple deco on my cake with some chocolate I prepared.

The recipe seem to be long , however you can modify as per your liking. It can start off with the pandan chiffon cake layer instead of the biscuit base.

 

How the cake taste like ?? Oomph.. the combination of pandan and red bean is perfect , top with little creamy coconut is just like the dessert we all love.

 

Hope you will try it yourself

 

Chestnut Paste Bun

I was thinking , I will not try to bake bread at any point. As I knew bread making is not easy, it required skill and time. Yes time is the thing I lack most. I did make bread once when I have my oven back 4 years ago. It was a recipe from a friend sharing with me how she make HK Sausage Bun. However the kneading and waiting sort of put me off.

One should never say never. Here I am the first bun in 2013. I went to Sydney celebrate Chinese New Year. One of the place that must visit to me is the Japanese Big Bookstore - Kinokuniya. There is where I can find some chinese reading material including famous Taiwanese Teacher Meng Bun Making (孟老师的100道面包）. It really inspire me. She make baking seem so simple and easy.

However I did try one of the recipe in the book and used  another Christine recipe on this Chestnut Paste Bun. This recipe is using cook dough method ( Tang Zong). Which will help to make the bun softer.



Ingredients :

Tang Zong :

25g      High Gluten flour
125ml  Water

Method for cooking Tang Zong :

1.Slowly mix the flour into the water well. Pour into a saucer pan cook in medium fire.Stir constantly as cooking. When you stiring and see line forming it mean the dough is cooked.
2. Scope the dough in a bowl, wrap it with cling wrap . Make sure the surface of the dough is cover with the wrap. Leave it cool in room temperature. If you not using it now it can be kept in fridge. I did mine one night before.

Bread :

350g High Gluten Flour
55 g  Sugar
5g     Salt
56g   Egg
7g     Milk Powder
125g Milk
120g cook dough ( as per above)
5-6g Instant Dry yeast
30g Butter ( in room temperature)
500g Chestnut Paste ( I bought from store )

Method : ( The reason I used this recipe is because is using bread maker machine)

1.Put all the wet ingredient except butter into the machine follow by all the dry ingredient. Leave the instant dry yeast to the last. Make a well in  the ingredient and place the yeast in it.
2.Used the dough function in operation. When all the ingredient start to mix and form a dough put in the butter. Let the machine continue it kneading process.
3.When the machine stop, let the bread rest and raise double to the original size.It take about 70min
4.Take the dough out from the machine, press and knead the air out from the bread on a clean surface. Cut the dough into 10 portion. Roll it into individual ball cover with cling wrap and let it rest another 15min.
5.Weigh the chesnut paste 50g each . Roll into a ball as filling for the bread.
6.Use a rolling pin, roll out each dough into flat round shape and wrap the chestnut paste in it. Seal the top by pinching the dough together well.
7.Cover the each bread with cling wrap and rest for the 2nd time and raise double to the original size. It takes about 70min.
8.  Preheat oven to 175C. When the bread has raise to its size, brush the bread with egg wash and sprinkle some sesame seed onto the top
9. Put in the oven and bake for 15-20min. Once done take the bread out and let it cool on rack.

This is the warm bread. And it was YUM !! I gave some to my friends as breakfast. However the bread is not as soft as I expected on the next day . Am not sure what was not right.

Will I make bread again ? Is really a time consuming process. Is not about work need to be done. Is to wait for the bread to raise, wait for the 2nd raise. I can not go out to do other things which make me felt a bit annoy . Am learning to be effecient in all my baking which I think baking should be easy , simple and fast.

However is indeed a good baking experience and to enjoy the fruit of your baking is always wonderful ^__^.

Cheese Cookies

This is not the 1st time am baking cookies. Often I do it during Chinese New Year season. Yes is the traditional to bake cookie to present some food when people come and visit during Chinese New Year. I am still in Australia, to get Chinese New Year cookies nowadays is not that difficult anymore,I still would love to do some just for fun ( GOD knows later I realised it was so stress especially you have got everything prepared but NO time to bake it )

Ok to not to get so stress up anymore , I manage to bake a few cookies for this festival. Some of it is those famous one. Since I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover. I would do post something I think is different .

The recipe is from a magazine and is as below :

Ingredients :

200g butter
100g icing sugar ( I used only 80g)
1 egg
300g plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda
20g parmesan cheese


Method :

1. Beat butter and icing sugar until fluffy. Add in egg and mix well.
2. Sift flour add in baking powder, soda and parmesan cheese.
3. Pour the mixed flour into the butter mixture, mix until forms dough
4. Refrigerated for 30min.
5. Roll out the dough on the floured surface. Use cutter to cut out desired shapes. Place onto baking tray.Sprinkle some peanut crumb onto.( Optional)
6. Bake in preheated oven at 160 C for 15-20 min


I love this cookies, it give a fragrance of cheese yet not over powering taste. With some peanut crumb on top of it just give the cookies a bit of nutty taste.

I have to go bake another batch of cookies again . Too much things to do too little time. Oh another year to celebrate :)

Wish you all HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR !!! ^^ all wishes come true .

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.