Monday 31 August 2009

Chiffon cake

For a period of time I did not really like chiffon cake, because the first thing that comes to mind when talking about chiffon cake is pandan cake. Which I am not particularly excited about. But while I was looking through recipes for light cakes, Angel cake popped up pretty often. After finding out about it and reading many positive reviews about the angel cake recipe, I was about to bake it until I saw the number of egg white required for an Angel cake. While I am willing to experiment and discover different types of cake I am not willing to waste stuff. I don't like having 7 egg yolks stored in the fridge. Bake Angel cake plan abandoned. 
After searching for a little more, I found a recipe for lemon chiffon cake, which looks pretty interesting. I did not have any lemon and was determined to make something with my favorite ingredient. GREEN TEA! Hence I tried baking green tea chiffon cake. Still did not get the green tea powder though so I used green tea bags instead. 
I know the final product does not look fantastic but really the texture was good. I think this chiffon cake recipe is a good base to add your creativity! 
The trick to making good chiffon cake is preparing the eggs separately. Alright maybe its not a trick but I made this discovery today! Shiny egg yolk. Shiny egg whites.  
 
Before entering the oven. So light and fluffy.
Up close and personal.
Serves 7
Adapted from Here.

  • 3/4 cup and 2 tablespoons cake flour
  • 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 egg yolks
  • 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons green tea water ( Basically I steeped 2 tea bags in the water.) 
  • 3 egg whites
  • 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
  • 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons white sugar





  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar. Add oil, egg yolks, water and lemon rind. Beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
  3. In a small bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar until peaks form. Gradually add 3/4 cup sugar, and beat until very stiff and shiny peaks form. Fold 1/3 of the whites into the batter, then quickly fold in remaining whites until no streaks remain. Turn batter into ungreased 10 inch tube pan.
  4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Invert cake and cool completely in pan. When cool, loosen edges and shake pan to remove cake.
  5. To Make Filling: Beat cream to stiff peaks. Fold in lemon filling. Chill until stiff.
* Would recommend 1-2 tsp of green tea powder. 

Carrot cake drei.

Don't ask me why am I baking carrot cake again. I think this is the 2nd time I am baking it within weeks.  The plan is to sell it actually. So I am baking my famous carrot cake ( okay kidding.) for the folks at my parent's office. Which could be a potential business opportunity. I know it is totally duh at when baking a bigger cake it takes a longer time for it to be ready. But this cake sure took its time to get ready. I think I nearly baked it for an hour at 170 degrees and even then it did not feel 'cooked'. I took it out anyways because the sides were done already and its only the middle portion thats still not ready yet and I was afraid that the top might burn. 
I also realised the importance of having an oven with consistent heat. Well my parents would not have think that I am really that interested in baking. So we ended up getting an average oven that has some issue with heat management. 
Carrots are really huge and cheap at cold storage to my surprise. 
Walnuts in the carrot cake adds dimension to the texture of the cake. 

Tadah! For sale anyone? 

I am still using the same recipe for this carrot cake and without fail, the result is definitely satisfactory. 

Saturday 29 August 2009

Chocolate coated potato chips

Been wanting to try this for a while now and it so happens that Rachel could buy it for me in Japan, which I assume should be much cheaper than getting it in Singapore.
So its chocolate coated potato chips. It did sound interesting to me and personally I thought having sweet and savory stuff in my mouth at the same time might be too confusing for my taste buds. But since its a combination of food I really like. Chocolate and Potato chips, ( I did not realise how much I like potatoes till I was in Germany, where fries could be found anywhere and everywhere.) I decided to give it a try. 
It sure was not disappointing. the taste of chocolate on one side and salt on the other combined with the crispiness of potato chips. Exciting! Once you start its a little difficult to stop eating.
However there would come a point when law of diminishing marginal return happens. An excess of something is seldom good. The chips are pretty thick and the chocolate coating is pretty thick too. So after a while it gets a little too heavy. But oh well one should alway savor good stuff and not gobble everything all at once.
Come to think of it. Its actually possible to make this on your own. Thick chips + right amount of chocolate coating. Not the difficult I think. * Mental note to self: make chocolate coated potato chips.
Upside, backside

Friday 28 August 2009

Durian Cupcake

Durian the king of all fruits. Rich and creamy. I really dont know how to describe the taste but it sure isn't everyones favorite fruit. Its either you love it or hate it. In the Tan residence 3/4 of us love durian, except for sister Tan. Since father Tan keeps bugging me to make something with durian I decided to try it out today. 
I also decided to try baking with cake flour to see whats the difference in texture. Indeed it results were great! I know self praise is no praise. But I must say these durian cupcakes were awesome! Moist and fluffy. The combination of light cake and creamy durian. OMG. 
Nowadays most of the durians are sold in boxes and not from the durian fruit. Good Stuff!
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Smooth.
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Simply warms the heart.

Adapted from Cooking matters
Batter makes 8 cupcake.
3/4 cup cake flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/3 cup milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup durian ( depending on how strong you like the durian taste to be you could add more or less.)
8 teaspoons of durian. ( for adding into each cupcake batter before baking) 

1) Preheat oven to 180 degree celsius. Line the muffin pan with cupcake papers.
2) In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Mix for a second or two to thoroughly combine the dry ingredients. Add the stick of butter and half of the milk. Mix on medium-high speed for two minutes; the batter will be very fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
3) Add the egg whites and vanilla to the remaining milk and whisk to combine. With the mixer on low, slowly pour the milk into the batter. Raise speed to medium and mix until just combined. Fold in durian.
4) Pour into muffin pan and add a teaspoon of durian in each muffin before baking. Bake for 20-24 minutes or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. 

Classic Chocolate chip cookies

First time baking cookies on my own! Turned out pretty nice and soft a little too sweet for me though. I'll add slightly lesser sugar the next time for sure! 

Its white chocolate in cubes!
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Before and after.
Chucks of dark chocolate chip and cubed white chocolate chips melts in your mouth. The cookies were soft and chewy.
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Stack 'em up!

They are gonna be gifts for friends :)
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  • Adapted from allrecipe 
  • Serves 20
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1/4 cup white sugar
  • 2/4 cup brown sugar 
  • 1 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour 
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
  • 1/2 white chocolate 



  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla until light and fluffy. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips and white chocolate chip. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
  3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool slightly on the cookie sheets before transferring to wire racks to cool completely.

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Carrot cake Zwei!

Finally have some time to bake again and i've decided to bake carrot cake for the Tan family because they have yet to try my carrot cake proper yet. I particularly like this recipe because every time I bake with this recipe (well this is my 3rd time baking with this recipe) the results are pretty constant and the texture is pretty good. As usual I made some changes to the sugar especially for the icing. Which is not sweet at all! I thought I should make something small since the serving size estimated by the recipe is 18 people. I half the portions, which I must say turned out to look pretty sad. I think it looked more like a serving for 3/4 people. Heh. I thought I could bake something big so that I could bring some over to my friends tomorrow. 
Practice indeed does makes perfect. Because I think this is one of the best cream cheese icing i've made. Because the sweetness is just nice!  
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Today I attempted to use the left over butter cream to decorate my carrot cake. Bought colouring a few days ago and was so eager to draw out carrots. But my carrot leaves are orange as well because I could not find blue colouring and bought violet instead thinking that thats the closes colour, hence its possible to use as a substitute for blue. Things did not work out as you could see. Before I could finish decorating the cake my sister wanted to try a slice. Hence the incomplete cake. *Needs really good imagination to see the carrots! Try harder if you cant see it. 

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Up close.

Serves 12 
Adapted from allrecipe's carrot cake
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
  • 1 cups white sugar
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 3 cups grated carrots
  • 1 cup chopped walnuts
  •  
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
  • 1-3 cups confectioners' sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
  2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 3 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in walnuts. Pour into prepared pan.
  3. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
  4. To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.


Thursday 20 August 2009

Pretty cupcake

Day one of project muffcup. I must say, its really not as easy as I thought to create beautiful cupcakes. How to achieve pretty appearance and have it taste just as awesome? Its something to work on. So we plunge into this project not really know how to go about doing it.
Started by shopping at poon huat. Awesome place to get baking materials. Then baking simple vanilla cupcakes as our canvas. Last but not least the decorations.
For the butter cream. I cant remember the exact recipe quantity. But its simply, butter, icing sugar and vanilla and colouring.
Used the jelly heart shaped mould to bake the first batch of cupcakes and the result was pretty good. Easy to remove, easy to wash.
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How to get purple with primary colours? Proportions are important. We did trial an error.

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The recipe for the butter cream (from memory)
115g Butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
Icing sugar ( start by adding 1 cup, at a time till you achieve the consistency desired.)
2 tbss milk
Cream butter and vanilla.
Add Sugar.
Beat in Milk
*Important not to over beat the mixture or it might become too watery.

Wednesday 19 August 2009

Ferrero Rocher Cupcake with chocolate Ganache.

Today we celebrated Marcus's belated birthday and I decided to share some of my baking love with my 'german' friends. It was nice to sit around and bitch about things in general.
I had in mind what I wanted to bake. But wanted to make it a little more fancy. Since there is a box of Ferrero Rocher lying around, I decided to use a simple vanilla cupcake. Which I got from the Martha steward's Billy's Vanilla cupcake recipe. Before putting the cupcakes into the oven, I place a Ferrero Rocher into each cupcake mixture. Much to my surprise the Chocolate did not melt in the heat and the form remained even after the heat!
I also found a really neat recipe for chocolate ganache and tried it out too.
Looks like a donut top down.
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Piped the Chocolate Ganache round the chocolate.
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Really easy to make!

Tuesday 18 August 2009

Marshmallow Cake

As usual I am still searching for something light and not too sweet to bake. Today is Mother Tan's birthday and I decided to make Marshmallow cake. Well I wanted to make something with marshmallow but have yet to figure out what exactly I could bake/make with it. So I was doing my usual google and allrecipe sites doing research on funky stuff to bake. So I found a recipe called Marshmallow cheese cake. Well I could not really believe imagine how it will taste because there were marshmallows instead of sugar. Perfect! Something not too sweet and light and it was suppose to be inspired by japanese cheese cake. ( which is rather difficult to bake, because I am still a noob, so I think this is a good substitute.) And its NO BAKE! Wunderbar!
Initially when I first placed it in the fridge, it looked a little too fluffy and watery and I was not sure if it will set. So I decided to leave it overnight till its really firm before eating it. And the result was fantastic. Finally I made something the whole family likes! The texture is actually more pudding like, very soft. My dad says it taste like egg tarts. Its not too sweet and pretty light too. Great for breakfast and tea!
Its my mum's 48th birthday. But as you can see from the pictures below, we could not decide how many candles to place because we only had 12. So we were just randomly placing candles on the cake. I can't remember what the final number of candles were on the cake.

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After settling on the number of candles and singing birthday song. Mother Tan blew the candles. In my face -_-
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Yea we were too lazy to get plates and were still feeling full from dinner so we just ask from the mould.
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Here is the original recipe (from all recipes):

  • Serves 8

  • 1/2 (10.5 ounce) package marshmallows
  • 1/2 cup milk
  • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 1/2 lemon, juiced
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • 1 small pack of digestive chocolate biscuits

  1. In a saucepan on low heat, combine marshmallows and milk. Cook until marshmallows are melted, and mixture starts to boil. Remove from heat.
  2. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Stir in egg yolk. Fold in 1/3 of the melted marshmallow mixture, then quickly fold in remaining marshmallow until no streaks remain. Stir in lemon juice.
  3. In a large bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form. Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture until no streaks remain. Spread into biscuit crust. Refrigerate for 3 hours.

Wednesday 12 August 2009

Chocolate fudge cookie dough

While doing research on something to bake, I found out that cookie dough could be eaten without being baked. And according to wiki its good comfort food, especially for women! Since I was going to meet corrine, yesterday, I decided to make this for her. I made some changes to the recipe because I really dont like chocolate chips. I think they are over priced just because of their shape. So I used M&Ms and Hersheys kisses as a substitute.

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Hersheys kisses look like the figures for a board game. The lines are there because I had to plan where to place the hersheys kisses such that three colours are in one cube.

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All sliced and ready to go.

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Adapted from here.
Serves 24
  • 1/3 cup margarine, melted
  • 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 pack of M&M min
  • 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 (16 ounce) package confectioners' sugar
  • 1 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips, melted
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  1. Line a 9x9 inch baking dish with aluminum foil, and set aside.
  2. To make the cookie dough pieces, mix the melted margarine, brown sugar, and salt in a bowl. Stir in the flour to make a dough, and knead in 1 pack of M&Ms minis. Form the dough into a disk about 1/2 inch to 3/4 inch thick, place it on a sheet of plastic wrap, and then shape the disk into a square with your hands.
  3. Place the square piece of dough in the freezer for about 10 minutes, until cold and stiff, and then slice it into 1/2 inch square pieces. Refrigerate the dough pieces while you make the cream cheese fudge.
  4. Mix together the cream cheese and confectioners' sugar in a bowl until smooth, and stir in the melted chocolate chips and vanilla extract.
  5. Lightly fold in the cookie dough pieces, and spread the candy out into the prepared dish. Refrigerate at least 1 hour, or until firm, and remove the candy from the foil-lined dish. Cut into squares, and serve.

Sunday 9 August 2009

Light Matcha strawberry Muffin

Slept at 3am yesterday because I was searching for something 'light' to bake for the family and I found a recipe with a combination of both Green tea and cupcake. I like! After much feedback from my family, I've come to realise that my family, including myself prefer cakes that are much lighter in texture. Something not too heavy and filling. I thought this would be light, because for some strange reason I kept thinking about japanese cake (even though this recipe was adapted from Martha Steward). The result however was nothing close to light, in fact, I found it pretty heavy still. But the taste and texture was good. So i'll definitely bake this again, perhaps with some adjustments.

According to the recipe, it says, matcha powder but I used green tea steeped in milk instead because the matcha powder was very expensive and was gonna expire much sooner than I could possibly finish using.

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This is my first attempt at making pretty cupcakes because I would like to sell them and be called angietanPIE. ( Okay not funny..) The main reason I stayed up late was also because I was finding out how to make fondants. I know its not reflected in the cupcake below because I have yet to make/ find any fondants yet! So I decided to use the buttercream recipe as suggested, which I failed 3 times. For some reason my butter cream was stiff for only 1 min before it turns watery again. The picture below is the little amount of butter cream that I was able to extract before it became a mashy lump of watery cottage cheesy thing.

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The inside is filled with strawberry jam :)

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I bought all these tips thinking that I'll be able to experiment with the buttercream today. It did not happen. Look how sad and lonely they look.


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I half this recipe to make 6 muffins instead ( here is the original recipe from the sweetest kitchen. )

Matcha Cupcakes
Adapted from Billy’s Bakery & Martha Stewart
Makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup + 2 Tbs cake flour, not self-rising

1/2 C + 2 Tbs all-purpose flour

1 C sugar

1 1/2 Tsps baking powder

1/2 Tsp salt

1 Tbs fresh matcha powder ( I used 2 green bags of green tea, but would suggest 3/4 tea bags for stronger flavor)

1/2 C unsalted butter, softened, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 large eggs

1/2 C whole milk

1/2 Tsp vanilla extract

Strawberry Jam or preserves


Method

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line cupcake pans with paper liners; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine flours, sugar, baking powder, salt and matcha powder; mix on low speed until combined. Add butter, mixing until the cubes of butter are peanut-sized or a little smaller.

In a large glass measuring cup, whisk together eggs, milk, and vanilla. With mixer on medium speed, add wet ingredients in 3 parts, scraping down sides of bowl before each addition; beat until ingredients are incorporated but do not overbeat.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling about 2/3 full. Bake until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean, 17 to 20 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Once cupcakes have cooled completely, using the cone method, fill cupcakes with strawberry jam or preserves.



Saturday 8 August 2009

Ah ma's house

This was my first dinner when I got back home to singapore. (Which was a few days ago.) Ever since I started this food blog, I've been a more conscience eater, and think about taking pictures of almost everything I eat. So i've decided to take a picture, for the first time, of what I usually have for dinner almost every other night. In our family we have dinner at our grandma's place and the place is called, ah ma's house. I think we use ah ma (grandmother) instead of ah gong (grandfather) because its usually my ah ma who cooks the tastiest food, albeit not the healthiest.

This is usually what my grandma has for breakfast/ lunch. Pickled vegetable and ikan bilis (dried anchovies). I use to like this when I was younger, especially eaten with porridge.

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This is a typical dinner I usually have. Some vegetables, ( the orange thing is pumpkin, cooked in a savory way) meat, (the dark brown dish at the back, braised pork) and sides, ( this is one of my favorite way of frying egg, with light soya sauce and the dish on the right hand corner is tofu, fried with garlic)

People usually say grandmas cook one of the best food. I sometimes wonder, will I be the only grandma who can't cook? It seems, I am able to bake some stuff, but when it comes to actual cooking, i'll probably serve burnt food or burnt the kitchen down altogether. Well at my ah ma's house, its the maid who cooks now, instead of my grandma, and before we had a nanny who would cook. My grandma usually cooks during big occasions, so..hm..I dont really need to learn proper chinese cooking right? (will not be cool if Mother Tan sees this because she wants me to take up cooking lessons man.)

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Does not look very nice, but actually taste great!

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Thursday 6 August 2009

Strawberry Muesli Muffin

My friend, friend told me about a recipe she found in a women's magazine and suggested that I try it out. It looked really healthy with all the oats and berries in the ingredients. Since I am back home, where about half of the family is pretty much concern about sugar intake level. I decided to give this a try. Instead of using berries, which is really expensive here, I decided to use frozen strawberries instead.

Strawberry

The strawberries looked so good even though they were frozen strawberries. So shiny and juicy. (actually they taste pretty sour.)

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Before entering the oven.

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Fresh out of the oven. The dash of red looks really pretty and simply screams "hello summer"!

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Thought it was not sweet enough, because the frozen strawberries were pretty sour. So I added some strawberry jam for added sweetness! Pretty healthy breakfast I must say.

Here is the recipe, (Made some changes to the original ingredients)
Makes 12

165g flour
80g oats ( I used Muesli instead.)
55g brown sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar, extra
15g baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
235ml fresh milk ( used 1 cup yoghurt instead)
1 egg
45ml Vegetable oil
2 tbsps butter
290g fresh or frozen berries ( Used strawberry instead)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 220 deg cel. Meanwhile, grease a 12-hole muffin pan and line with paper cupcake liners
2. Combine flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a mixing bowl. Stir in milk, egg, oil, butter and extra brown sugar. Fold in berries. Continue mixing until well-combined
3. Spoon mixture into the prepared muffin pan, filling each paper case only 2/3 full.
4. Bake for 25 - 30mins or until golden brown. Serve Warm.

*If you prefer muffin that are less sweet, leave out the 1/4 cup brown sugar, extra
*If using frozen berries, thaw them and drain the excess water before folding into muffin mixture
*Its advisable to use extra brown sugar if berries are sour.



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