Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cake. Show all posts
Friday, 25 April 2014
vanilla chiffon cake
Life hasn't been all that sweet lately. Literally. Just when I thought I had put the morning sickness behind me and started enjoying food again, I found out I had developed gestational diabetes. Devastating news, really, for someone who loves carbs. I was under strict orders to stay away from white bread, chocolate and desserts...basically all the good things worth living for. Seriously, if you thought dentists were evil, wait till you meet a dietician. At least we never tell our patients to lay off the sweets completely.
Needless to say, my kitchenaid has once again gone back into storage. Deprived of chocolate and my favourite past time, I think it was the first time I felt upset about being pregnant. (Morning sickness is a piece of cake compared to this.)
This chiffon was done back in happier times. It was my first attempt at a chiffon cake and I was a little disappointed that it didn't rise as much as I had expected. Eventually figured out it was because the sugar amount listed in the recipe was wrong which led to a wonky meringue. I've corrected it in the recipe below.
Please excuse the uneven bubble size. Like I said, this was my first attempt.
Vanilla Chiffon Cake
(adapted from Keiko Ishida's Okashi: Sweet Treats Made with Love)
Ingredients
80g top flour (sifted twice)
5 egg yolks
20g caster sugar
60g water
60g canola oil
seeds scraped from 1 vanilla bean or 1 tsp vanilla extract
(for the meringue)
90g caster sugar
10g corn flour
5 egg whites
Directions
- Preheat oven to 160°C.
- Beat egg yolks and sugar together in a mixing bowl.
- Add in water, canola oil and vanilla and continue mixing.
- Add flour and mix until well combined and batter is sticky. Set aside this egg yolk mixture.
- Combine sugar and corn flour in a bowl.
- In a separate mixing bowl fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites until foamy.
- Add half of the sugar-corn flour mixture and continue whisking for a few minutes.
- Add remaining sugar-corn flour mixture and whisk until glossy, stiff peaks are formed.
- Gently fold in 1/3 of meringue into egg yolk mixture first, then add in the remaining 2/3 meringue and fold to incorporate completely. Do this gently to avoid destroying the meringue bubbles.
- Pour batter into ungreased 21cm chiffon pan and bake in the oven for 40-50min.
- When cake is done, remove from oven and turn the pan over, leaving to cool on a wire rack upside down.
- Once cooled completely, run a knife or spatula around the edges to loosen the cake from the pan before inverting onto wire rack.
*I coated my chiffon cake with crème pâtissière because I love the stuff but you can opt to leave it out.
Thursday, 30 May 2013
salted caramel swiss roll
My taste buds have evolved quite a bit through the years but some things have withstood the test of time. Like my love for swiss rolls. All kinds really. Old school bakery type with the greasy buttercream, cheapo-but-still-decent Polar rolls, light-as-air but pricey Japanese ones... Give me a roll and I'll be swallowing it so fast my oesophagus will start to cramp--does that happen to you too?
My absolute favourite, though, has to be the ones from Rich & Good Cake Shop. I fondly recall the times we'd rush down from clinics in order to snag one (who am I kidding? 2, at the very least) of the limited rolls on sale at the hospital bazaar. It has always been my wish to recreate their swiss rolls but it just seemed like too daunting a feat.
Then I found Su-lyn's recipe.
I am my own worst critic and I usually don't think of the stuff I make as fantastic. But I have to say I was very pleased with this. It wasn't perfect (I tore a bit of the skin off while unrolling the cake and it's more oval than round) but it tasted almost as good as R&G's. Definitely way better than the old school bakery's and Polar's, at any rate. And the best part? It refrigerated really well! Usually cakes tend to dry out and harden when refrigerated but this was still light and fluffy after a night in the fridge.
Looks like a fleece blanket and has the texture of one too.
I filled mine with whipped cream and salted caramel because I am predictable like that. Had a panicky moment when I OD-ed on the (slightly under-whipped) whipped cream and the filling came oozing out like the blob from my childhood nightmares as I rolled up the cake. Explains the rather loose and flat roll. Well, our tummies were pleased even if my eyes weren't.
Strictly-speaking, the skin should be on the internal surface according to the recipe but I quite liked the golden-brown colour so I took the liberty of inverting it. Err... plus I made a crater when peeling off the foil but let's not talk about that. Either way, it's gonna end up in your stomach faster than your oesophagus can handle so have a cup of tea (preferably not scalding hot) at the ready.
Salted Caramel Swiss Roll
Roll Cake
This is the link to Su-lyn's roll cake recipe. Her instructions are so clear and concise I decided I can't make it any more comprehensive.
For the filling:
Salted Caramel
Ingredients
125g caster sugar
12.5ml water
75ml whipping cream
75g butter
Sea salt (to taste)
Instructions
- Put sugar and water in saucepan and heat gently, stirring until sugar dissolves.
- Raise the heat and, without stirring, wait until sugar caramelises and turns amber (watch closely and prepare to remove from heat once it turns golden as it burns quickly).
- Remove from heat and slowly pour in whipping cream, whisking well as you add the cream. (Be careful when adding the cream as it spits and hot caramel burns like hell.)
- Stir in the butter.
- Add sea salt as desired.
- Leave to cool.
Whipped cream
Ingredients
200ml whipping cream
Instructions
- Pour cream into a mixing bowl and using a whisk attachment, whisk until soft peaks form.
Sunday, 26 August 2012
rum & raisin snickers cake
Ever wondered how the idea of a birthday cake came to be? I've celebrated countless birthdays (mine and others) but have never given it much thought until today while writing this post. According to wiki, the idea was conceived by German bakeries all the way back in the 15th century. And what about those candles, huh? Apparently the number of candles decorating these cakes used to be more than the number of years of the individual's life, to indicate 'upcoming years'. Seems like a bad move there. How many extra candles is enough to prevent the individual from thinking you're wishing him/her a short life?
Well, we stuck with 1 candle for my dad's birthday this year. After a certain age, people tend to prefer that their birthday cakes not look like something the fire department wouldn't approve of. Plus the cake I made was a 7" one, way too small to accommodate that many candles anyway. Hehehe.
After much deliberation, I decided on a 3-layered chocolate cake with rum and raisin buttercream. This was only my 2nd layered cake and I had yet to master the art of cake decoration so I kept it simple, using only ganache and chopped peanuts. I know, chopped peanuts doesn't seem to go with rum&raisin but my dad loves nuts so I had to incorporate some kinda nut into the cake.
Surprisingly, the combination wasn't too disastrous and the Rum & Raisin Snickers Cake (as my bro-in-law calls it) was well-received by the birthday
Note: The entire process took me about 1.5 days because I had to soak the raisins overnight so prepare that in advance
Rum & Raisin Buttercream
(adapted from Bobby Flay's recipe on Food Network)
Ingredients
1 ½ cups
dark rum
1 tbsp
sugar
1 cup
golden raisins
113g
unsalted butter, softened
56g
cream cheese, softened
1 cup
confectioner’s sugar
Directions
- Bring the rum and sugar to a boil in a medium saucepan
- Add the raisins, remove from heat and let macerate overnight
- Strain the raisins and set aside
- Bring the strained rum to a boil and reduce to ¼ cup
- Remove from heat and allow to cool
- Beat butter and cream cheese together until light and fluffy
- Add sugar and whip until well incorporated
- Add in cooled reduced rum
- Add in more sugar if desired
Chocolate Cake
(referred to here)
3/4 cup plain flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup strong black coffee (steaming hot)
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat oven to 175 deg Celsius
- In a mixing bowl (pre-weighed), combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt
- Add in the eggs, buttermilk, oil, vanilla extract and coffee and beat at medium speed for ~ 2 min
- Divide batter into 3 equal portions (Use a weighing scale for this. Subtract the weight of the mixing bowl from the total weight and divide it by 3)
- Line three 7-inch round cake tins with baking paper (I use this method. Alternatively you can use non-stick springform pans. If you don't have enough pans, you can choose to bake the layers one at a time)
- Pour the divided batter into the lined cake tins and bake for ~20min or until toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean
- Remove from oven and leave to cool on wire rack. It should be easy to remove the cake from the tins. Remove the circumference paper first and then invert the cake onto the rack
Chocolate Ganache recipe here
*Assembling the cake
- Place first cake layer on a cardboard cake base
- Slather buttercream on top and cover with rum-soaked raisins, pressing the raisins into the buttercream
- Place 2nd cake layer over buttercream-coated bottom layer
- Repeat step 2
- Place 3rd cake layer on top
- Using a spatula, coat top and sides with a thin layer of buttercream (this is the crumb coat) and leave aside for 1-2h
- Cover the cake with more buttercream, smoothening the top with an angled spatula, and the sides with a bench scraper.
- Refrigerate for 1h
- You can decorate cake as desired from here on. If you opt to use my amateur method then...
- Place cake on wire rack (with a tray below the rack) and pour cooled ganache over cake, letting it flow down over the sides
- Sprinkle chopped peanuts over the top
- Grab a handful of chopped peanuts and, holding the cake with your other hand, stick them onto the sides of the cake.
- Refrigerate for ~1h or until ready to serve
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