Durian Crepe Cake

we celebrated Jess' 21st birthday last friday at my place. had a simple bbq together with all her friends and the cblc peeps. good to see all of them after a long time :) and the food was good too!

baked this really challenging durian crepe cake for her birthday. the cake may look just plain simple and normal, but i tell you, it was sheer hard work! standing in front of the stove making layers after layers of crepe, and failing at the first 3 layers cos the pan i used wasn't non-stick. and i kept thinking i didn't add enough oil so i kept trying and then failing. zzz. so dumb! until i changed to another pan and each crepe came out perfect! :) awesome!

i think i managed to get about 20 layers in total. considering that i wasted some. haha i really scrimped on the batter to get really thin slices.


managed to get durians the night before at marine parade. phew! and they were pretty good too.

the choc layer could be omitted but i thought it would be more appealing to the taste buds. but i guess it would be as good without it too.

the recipe was obtained from florence's blog. find it here! i was more generous with the durian filling and added more than what she used, and used lesser whipped cream too.

to jess: wishing you an early happy 21st birthday! may you be happy, healthy and pretty always :)

Strawberry Yoghurt Cake

something i did pretty long ago but never had a chance to upload. blogger has been cranky. not sure if it's the same for you?

anyw i did a strawberry yoghurt cake with cranberries added.

it turned out really soft and moist..

but i cant rmb where i got the recipe from! gosh. maybe when i rmb i'll post it up here :)

Durian Bavarios Cake

happy 25th birthday to you!

baked a durian bavarios cake for him, pretty challenging and tedious! some hiccups here and there, the deco wasn't very pretty...but still satisfied with the end product :)


i adapted the recipe from aunty yochana. made some changes here and there. the original recipe is available here. as always the recipe is a keeper :)


i used 3 slices of sponge for this one so that i can stuff more of the durian mousse inside!

happy happy birthday!

Durian Bavarios Cake
Adapted from Aunty Yochana's Durian Bavarios Cake

Vanilla Sponge cake:

100 g top flour
30 g cornflour
25 g water
1 tsp Baking powder
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
80g sugar
10 g ovalette (cake stabilizer)
50 g cornoil

Durian Mousse filling:

400 g Durian flesh
250 g fresh milk
40 g sugar
1/8 tsp salt
2 eggs
15 g Gelatine Powder
40 g water
300 g whipped cream - (Pour N Whip)

Method:

1) For vanilla sponge cake, whisk all the ingredients together except the cornoil until thick and fluffy. Add in cornoil and mix till well blended. Pour mixture into 3 - 9" square trays. You can also pour it into 2 trays for a thicker sponge. Bake for 15 to 20 mins. at 175 deg C till cooked.
2) For durian mousse: Boil milk with sugar till sugar dissolves. Whisk eggs and salt lightly and pour in the hot milk mixture. Add in durian flesh and mix till smooth. Off the heat and let it cool completely.
3) Mix gelatine powder with water and let it sit for 5 mins. Microwave for 20 secs. then add into the durian mixture.
4) Whisk whip cream till fluffy. Fold into the durian mixture. Divide mixture into 2 portions.
5) Spread 1 portion of durian mousse onto 1 slice of sponge cake. Then spread the durian mousse again and then top up with the second slice of sponge cake and cover with the last layer of sponge. Chill in the fridge till set.
6) Decorate cake as desired. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Guys ;)

to wenphei, lung kwan and kang,

happy birthday ;)

it was my first time making such a huge cake. a mango chiffon cake covered with whipped cream and topped with mango and longans.

and i've got to admit chiffon cakes aren't easy to make. after subsequent failures :( some parts of the cake was actually hollow for this one opps! and since i had no more time to make another cake, clever me went to patch up those hollow parts with this.

but anyhow, it turned out decent enough ;)

at least kit volunteered to finish up almost a quarter of the cake. haha. give me face!

happy birthday guys, tis' probably the last cake i'm gonna bake for 17th mc.

to cblc's 17th main comm:

thank you for being my guinea pigs for the past year (and being my biggest sponsors! haha), giving me excuses to bake amidst my stressful final year undergraduate life, appreciating my amateur baking skills haha ;p and watching me improve with every bake? haha or is it!

bake-me-happy wouldn't have had been so lively and merry without you guys! cheerios :)

Mango Chiffon Cake

everything seemed so perfect after i took it out of the oven...

until...

it plopped like 2 hours into cooling..

and my heart plopped too ;(

the texture of the cake was good thou..must have been my error somewhere along..


i have to rebake another one tomorrow!

anyw i adapted this recipe from an orange chiffon cake recipe obtained from here. i'm sure it's a good recipe, gonna try making it again ;)

Double Choc Cake

i finally did some baking!

i've been enjoying myself so much ever since the exams were over.

and i'm so glad i've graduated! woohoo ;p

we had a mini gathering at my prof's house yesterday. and i baked a double choc cake; something easy and probably wun go wrong after having not baked anything for soooo long.

i was really nervous when the cake was in the oven haha.

yea it was successful! a super chocolatey cake adapted from M.eats. reduced the sugar as usual, and omitted the choc chunks and instead did a choc ganache coating on it. glad everyone loved it :)

apple/mango strudel and doughnuts courtesy of shinhui!

we all had a good time and i'm glad our relationship with each other doesn't cease with the end of final year projs and dreadful labs ;p

on another note, i'm really lucky to have had dr zhao as my fyp supervisor! hope everything goes well for her as she takes on her 2nd batch of honours students next semester ;)

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Here's wishing all a Happy 2009 :)

My wishes for you in year 2009:

Great start for Jan,
Love for Feb,
Peace for march,
No worries for April
Fun for May,
Joy for June to Nov,
Happiness for Dec,
Have a lucky and wonderful 2009.

i baked pandan chiffon cake for the new year, nothing too complicated. haha cos i used whatever ingredients i had in the kitchen.


i tried a new recipe from hugbear baking mum this time round. it calls for top flour instead of cake flour. see my previous recipe here.

i love this recipe as well. simple and easy to follow. really nice green even thou i omitted the green colouring and fluffy as well!

3 min Choc Cake!

amazing isn't it? in 3 minutes you can actually make a cake that's so choclatey!

i made this for suqi's bday a few weeks back when she bunked in with me in hostel. haha no choice cos the oven isn't working and the only thing i've got in the kitchen is the microwave oven and the stove.


yea so this is a really ideal ;p

i sprinkled some icing powder on the cake and presented suqi with her birthday cake! awesome :)


i guess this would also be a good supper treat (a little unhealthy thou haha) since it only takes 3 mins to make! and the ingredients are really simple too.

i got the recipe here!

pardon me for the lousy picture quality cos i took them with my handphone. the cake looks so much better in real!

Non-Baked Rum Cheesecake

the birthday peepz:

from left: kim, wilson and dannish cutting their cake

we celebrated kim's, wilson's and dannish's bday last tuesday. happy birthday to all three of you!


it was my first time baking a non-baked cheesecake, and i'm glad it turned out well ;p

yea anyway, the original recipe uses baileys instead of rum. but since i didn't have any i substituted it with rum instead.

everyone was eyeing the ferrero rochers!

i especially like the marble swirls; they are so pretty haha! i think it would be awesome if i had baileys. the rum flavour wasn't very distinct in this one.

nevertheless, thanks again to aunty yochana for sharing this, her recipes never fail!


Non-Baked Rum Cheesecake
Taken from Aunty Yochana's Blog: Stef's Non-Baked Baileys Cheesecake

For an 8-inch round cake:
(I used 9-in so I ended up with a flatter cake)
BASE:
1 small pack Malteser candies,crushed to bits with food processor
About 12 digestive biscuits,crushed to crumbs with food processor
50g butter,melted

FILLING:
1 block Philadelphia cream cheese,softened
1 tsp vanilla
25ml to 30ml Rum
200ml whipping cream
1/2 cup caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup boiling water
1 and half tbsp gelatine powder

Swirl:
1 tbsp butter
50g dark chocolate

HOW:
For base,mix crushed Maltesers,crumbs and butter together. Press and smooth evenly in an 8-inch springform pan. Place in a freezer while you get on with the filling.

In boiling water,sprinkle gelatine evenly,leave to "bloom" for 2 minutes. Stir to dissolve.
In microwave,melt butter and chocolate in 30 sec bursts. Stir to combine.

In your mixer or using a whisk,whip cream till stiff peaks form,chill.
In a mixer (no need to wash after whipping cream) or food processor,cream the cheese and sugar on high speed till smooth,beat in lemon juice and vanilla.
Stir gelatine mixture,(while resting,some gelatine will settle to the bottom) and beat in to combine.
Fold in whipped cream, remove tin from freezer.

Pour about 1/4 of batter into chocolate mixture,stir to mix.
Mix in rum with white batter.
Pour about half of white batter into tin,add half of chocolate batter,swirl to combine.
Add other half of white batter,top with spoonfuls of remaining chocolate batter,swirling to marble patterns.
Chill overnight.
To serve,run a knife along the sides of the cake,unmould,and slice.

Madeleines

i finally put my madeleine pans to good use. it has been kept in the store ever since i brought it back from the US. i was really happy to have found these made in italy pans as i got them at a very good deal - just 2.99 USD!!!


over here in singapore, a pan like this is probably selling at S$20? btw, i bought this pan from a shop called ross; the things they sell are cheaper than the retail prices by quite a fair bit.

for the first attempt, i would say i wasn't really satisfied with the results. the madeleines didn't turn out looking good (i think there were air bubbles?) and mama commented that they were a tad too hard. so well, i've gotta try baking them another time. i'll prob pay more attention to the oven temperature the next time round.

i made them into little cupcakes as well haha cos i was too impatient to have to wait for the 1st batch of madeleines to bake before i can re-use the pan. surprisingly, they turned out beautiful :)



Madeleines
Taken from Bon Appétit, Jan 2000 issue. Available from www.epicurious.com

Ingredients:
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
Pinch of salt
1 cup all purpose flour
10 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, melted, cooled slightly
Powdered sugar (i omitted this)

Method:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Generously butter and flour pan for large madeleines (about 3x1 1/4 inches).* Using electric mixer, beat eggs and 2/3 cup sugar in large bowl just to blend. Beat in vanilla, lemon peel and salt. Add flour; beat just until blended. Gradually add cooled melted butter in steady stream, beating just until blended.

Spoon 1 tablespoon batter into each indentation in pan. Bake until puffed and brown, about 16 minutes. Cool 5 minutes. Gently remove from pan. Repeat process, buttering and flouring pan before each batch. (Can be made 1 day ahead.)

Dust cookies with powdered sugar.(i omitted this)

*A metal mold with scallop-shaped indentations, sold at cookware stores.

Thank You for making My Day :)

poor me had to go down to lab on a saturday 2 weeks ago, which coincidentally was my birthday :(

went home rather late to have dinner at sakae sushi with sis and mum, together with him. and he baked a pineapple cheesecake for me :) so cute cos he made it in an Fortune Palace Bird's Nest box. it was a no-bake cheesecake and i think he didn't refridgerate it long enough so it was quite soft ;p

a quick celebration in the kitchen at home!

Japanese Cheesecake

i baked this japanese cheesecake sometime ago..haha been too busy to blog about it.

anyway, this recipe was taken from catherine lau's cheescake seduction which i borrowed from the library. i felt the egg white taste was a tad too stong..and probably cos i didn't mix the egg white mixture well with the cream cheese mixture :(

i just read from a forum that the publisher for this book was sued against by a homemaker who bought the book and her cakes did not turn out as good as the book described. by the way, the book contains many beautiful pics of all sorts of cheesecake. that was why it tempted me to borrow it from the library while i was browsing thru the shelves.

the cake rose till quite high :)

Banana Cake

this weekend, i baked a banana cake!



we had lots of over-ripened mini bananas at home. they were given to us by a japanese friend who bought them from m'sia. yupp so i was tasked with baking a cake to use them all up.

and it's great cos over-ripened bananas are ideal for making banana cakes!

and so, i headed over to aunty yochana's site and found a well-reviewed recipe. mine looked different from hers thou. i see none of the black stripy thing in my cake. (actually i see some!) haha i guess it's because of the kind of bananas i used.


the cake turned out really soft and fragrant :) and i brought some over to share with my korean neighbours.

Banana Cake
Adapted from Aunty Yochana's Banana Cake.

Ingredients:

180 gm. Butter
155 gm. Fine sugar
2 nos. Extra large Eggs - beaten lightly
250 gm. Cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda
220 gm. Bananas - mashed
50 gm. Dairy whip cream
2 bananas - slice

Method:

(1) Cream butter and sugar till light and creamy.
(2) Pour in eggs gradually and beat till creamy.
(3) Add in whip cream, mashed bananas and mix well.
(4) Add in cake flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and beat for a while only.
(5) Pour into an 8" round tray, and arrange sliced bananas on top.
(6) Bake at 175C for about 50 to 60 mins. or until cooked.

Steamed Moist Chocolate Cake

hello!

it's been a long hiatus from blogging!

sorry for the lack of updates since i was back. it's been almost 2 weeks since i got home from the US. i've been really busy with my final year project ever since i was back.

and i guess i'll blog about the trip when i get hold of all the photos. the trip was awesome, fun and lots of fun. and not to forget, i made really good friends at grant village.

anyway, bean and chingman invited a group of us to their housewarming last saturday. and having not baked in 3 months, i was pretty excited about trying out a new recipe taken from aunty yochana.

it's rather simple. i could describe the steps in four steps. prepare ingredients-mix-stir-bake steam! steamed cakes are so popular nowadays. the choc cake turned out moist and it was very rich :)

covered the cake in ganache, decorated with silver icing sugar beads

and to the owners, happy housewarming!

Pandan Chiffon Cake

this is my first time baking a pandan chiffon cake. in my previous attempt in baking the green tea chiffon cake, i couldn't achieve the height which i usually see in many food blogs.

this time round, the pandan chiffon cake was a success! abeit a little ugly on the surfaces haha. nevertheless the cake was soft, spongy and very fragrant :) i love the pandan aroma when the cake was baking in the oven.

i adapted this recipe from aunty yochana. i used 5 eggs instead of 6 and made some modifications here and there.

there are many variations of this recipe as i browsed through the many food blogs. i might give them a try another time. have a look at the pandan chiffon cakes fellow food bloggers have made:

Emily's Mimosa Diary
Florence's Do What I Like
Little Corner of Mine
Hugbear's Baking Mum

i've got lots to improve on!

spot that big air bubble!

tip here: to release the air bubbles, you should bang the pan on a hard surface several times before placing it in the oven.

Pandan Chiffon Cake
Adapted from Aunty Yochana's Pandan Chiffon Cake.

Ingredients

Egg yolk mixture:

5 egg yolks
2 tbsp Pandan juice
150 gm. coconut milk
1/4 tsp. salt
4 tbsp. Corn oil
1 tsp. Pandan Paste
60 gm caster sugar **
140 gm Cake flour

Egg White Mixture:

5 egg whites
1/8 tsp Cream of Tartar
65 gm caster sugar **

** I reduced the amount of sugar added by quite a bit. If you have a sweet tooth, you can increase the amount added.

Method:

1. Mix all the egg yolk ingredients together and stir till smooth.
2. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar and gradually pour in the sugar. Whisk at high speed until frothy and stiff peak forms.
3. Gently fold egg yolk mixture with egg white mixture until blended.
4. Pour into a 9" (23 cm) tube pan. Bang on a hard surface several times. Bake at 170C for about 40 to 45 min.s or until cooked.
5. Remove from oven, invert cake onto cooling rack until completely cooled before removing from the pan.
6. Slice and serve!

Choc Durian Mousse Cake

hello! i'm back :p happy labour day to all!

well...exams aren't over for me yet. one final paper next monday. but my major papers are done. yay! took some time to bake this choc durian mousse cake today. he had a hand in this too haha. with that extra help from him this cake was done in about two hours plus.

i've always wanted to try baking a "spike-d" look-a-like cake which is sold at big o. it's a dome shape cake with durian mousse sandwiched in between really thin layers of sponge cake and covered with choc ganache. i've got to say it's really heavenly!

aunty yochana has tried to create her own version. i adapted her recipe but made mine into a normal round cake. i think it's gonna be really messy if i were to make them into little dome shaped cakes. haha too delicate to handle!

the verdict? yummy! but more durian puree would have been better. haha the more the better! i did my best to slice the sponge as thinly as possible and i managed 5 layers in total. will experiment more with this recipe. hopefully it'll be as good as big o's ;p

spreading the mousse

choc!

i did some simple pipings.

tada. a little uneven thou ;p

heavenly!