Hazelnut cake with Dark Chocolate glaze.

Hello world! Its been a while since I last baked, 2 months I reckon! And why have I not been baking? Its because I am lazy, plain and simple :/ Moving forward now. I have decided to bake Hazelnut cake with chocolate glaze. Its My first time baking a cake with glaze! 

So I finally get to use my christmas present from Ah huat! Its so slim and light weight! This is the best invention for baking if you are a noob at baking still! Before having this digital weighing scale I was using the old school weighing scale, well that sounds pretty alright right? BUT the one I was using was to weight paper! Rather pathetic, but not that I have this, life is a lot easier! 

I think Hazelnut cake is seldom baked around here, at least at home unless you have one of those food processors that could ground your hazelnuts. Since I did not have that, I could not bake it even though I have been wanting to try it out. So last year when I was in Germany,  I bought the ready grounded hazelnut. While searching for a nice Hazelnut Cake recipe, I chance upon a hazelnut recipe from allrecipes . After reading through some of the reviews I concluded that 

1) This is a really good recipe 

2) Its really easy to bake 

3) It seem Germans like hazelnut chocolate cakes. 

Ingredient (serves 11) 

70g Hazelnut

80g Butter

205g White Sugar

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

170g Flour

1 1/4 Tsp Baking Powder

Pinch of salt 

80ml Heavy Whipping cream

115g Dark Chocolate ( at least 70% cocoa) 

1 Tsp Vanilla Extract

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease the bottom of one springform pan.

2) Pulse the nuts in a food processor until ground.

3) Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat, cool

4) In a large bowl beat eggs, sugar and 1 Tsp vanilla extract until thick and lemon colour (about 2-3mins)  Add flour, baking powder, salt and ground nuts, mix well. Continue to beat mixture while slowly adding the cooled melted butter until blended (mixture will be thick). Spread batter into prepared pan. 

5) Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 35-40 mins or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 15 min then remove sides of pan. Remove pan bottom and invert onto a serving plate. Cover with a cloth towel and cool for another 30 mins before glazing (I did not cover with a cloth though and it worked pretty alright.) 

6) To make Glaze: In a medium saucepan bring whipping cream just to a boil, remove from heat and stir in the dark chocolate until melted and smooth. Stir in 1/2 Tsp vanilla extract. Spread glaze over top of cooled cake, allowing it to run down the sides. 

If you are wondering what the donut looking thing is on top of the cake. Its sorta like rice loops coated in chocolate. 

The cake tasted pretty good I must say! :) Combination of Hazelnut and dark chocolate goes pretty well! 

Here it is! Bought it from Germany. And its very tasty too! 

Gingerbread Cupcakes with cream cheese frosting

Have been MIA for a while because 1. I busy with shopping 2. I was away 3. I was lazy as simple as that. Its a super belated entry, meant for the christmas season as one should be able to tell from the lovely pictures I took when I was in germany.

I thought the recipe is really good and should share with everyone. Everyone deserves good gingerbread cupcakes whether its christmas or not! I baked them as a christmas gift for my colleagues actually and I have never baked so many cupcakes before! I think after that practice, I am ready to sell some cupcakes! Really! These taste pretty awesome!

So I got the recipe from allrecipes.com (Ginger cupcakes)
I followed the recipe pretty closely, except I used honey instead of molasses.
The result was fantastic. Taste best fresh out of the oven, okay maybe not immediately but about 10 mins later when its still warm. The different spices simply complement each other, which gives this really wonderful taste to the cupcakes.

After frosting the cupcakes. Its time to decorate them!
check out these cute m&m minis! Perfect decoration for the cupcakes!


In line with the christmas theme :)

Crustless Spinach Quiche.

Been busy with all the christmas shopping. There are simply too many people in the malls these days, would rather stay at home and bake or simply do nothing. I've decided to bake quiche today because its been something I have been wanting to bake ever since I am able to remember.

The first time I tried quiche was in secondary school, when a friend brought her mum's home-made quiche for us to try. Its was so good, I fell in love with quiche. For some reason quiche also reminds me of something very british. Well perhaps because it became popular in England sometime after WWII.

 I did some research and found out that although quiche is now a classic dish of French cuisine, quiche actually originated in Germany, in the medieval kingdom of Lothringen, under German rule, and which the French later renamed Lorraine. The word 'quiche' is from the German 'Kuchen', meaning cake.

(Food Reference)

(Pictures were taken when I was in Edinburgh )

Adapted from (Allrecipes)

2-1/2 Tsp Vegetable oil

1 onion

110g Fresh spinach leaves

4 Eggs, beaten

2 1/2 C Munester Cheese ( I used parmesan and leftover pizza cheese)

1 Slice ham ( had a slice of leftover ham, so I threw it in as well)

1/4 Tsp salt

1/8 Tsp black pepper

1/4 Tsp Garlic

1/4 Tsp Oregano

1) Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Lightly grease a 9 inch pie pan.

2) Heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring occassionally, until onions are soft. Stir in ham and spinach and garlic. Continue cooking until excess moisture has evaporated.

3) In a large bowl, combine eggs, cheese, salt, pepper and oregano. Add spinach mixture and stir to blend. Scoop into prepared pie pan.

4) Bake in preheated oven until eggs have set, about 30min. Let cool for 10min before serving.

Could be eaten warm or cold.