Archive for the ‘Cakes’ Category
Saturday, January 19th, 2008 |
My mum started pimping this recipe as soon as I settled down from my drive home, singing praises about this chocolate that can beat the confectioners’ version hand down, so I was hooked. You see, mum has always been discouraging whenever I bring up the idea of baking a chocolate cake, so this had to be good.
And it had better be! This morning I went grocery shopping for this cake, and for goodness sake, the flour was RM1.80 more expensive than the last I bought, and butter was a whopping RM5.00! Don’t get me started with the cocoa, I think buying a cake from the bakery and proclaim it as my creation would be hell lot cheaper.
So, if this cake is a failure I am going to be so sad, because it bled my wallet so badly.
Ingredients:
250g butter (salted), softened
175g confectioner’s sugar
3/4 teaspoon ovalet (cake stabilizer)
4 medium size eggs
4 tablespoon evaporated milk
2 1/2 tablespoon Sunquick orange
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
50g Van Houten pure soluble cocoa
175g all purpose flour
Method:
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Line or grease a baking pan. I used a 9″ square pan.
In a large bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, and ovalet until light and fluffy. Use a hand mixer to make life easier. In the meantime, weigh and combine the pure soluble cocoa and flour. Sieve them together for three times.
When the mixture of butter, sugar and ovalet becomes light and fluffy, fold in the eggs. Add the Sunquick orange into the evaporated milk and mix well. This is to avoid uneven mixing of the orange syrup. Add everything into the the bowl and mix until they are even.
Slowly add in the mixture of flour and cocoa, and make sure they are mixed thoroughly. Pour into greased pan and bake for 40 minutes, or until the cake is set, that is, the middle of the cake is not runny anymore. Take care not to burn the cake, okay?
Cool the cake at the window sill.
The aftermath:
I dusted some cocoa onto the piece of cake. Is it noticeable?
Heck, why stop at cocoa? I could even dust on confectioner’s sugar!
While at it, why not drizzle some Sunquick orange too?
And chocolate syrup! I know. I think I overdid it. 
How was the cake?
Soft and richly flavoured chocolate cake with a hint of orange! The orangey-ness makes the cake less “jelak” at the last few bites, and while I think I overbaked it for a wee bit, luckily it wasn’t too dry. I like! And its easy, because the ovalet is going to make the cake failsafe, so as long as it is thoroughly cooked!
Popularity: 33% [?]
Posted in Baking, Cakes | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 |
PB cupcakes! OMG this is my first successful cupcakes! This recipe is taken from allrecipes.com. About the only decent stuff I made before Christmas. 
Ingredients:
145g brown sugar
50g shortening (30 g butter)
130g peanut butter
1 egg
180ml milk
3ml vanilla extract
155g all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar (1 teaspoon lemon juice)
A pinch of salt
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a cupcake pan with paper liners, or grease and flour cups.
In a large bowl, mix together the brown sugar, shortening and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt; stir into the batter alternately with the milk. Spoon into the prepared muffin cups.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until the top of the cupcakes spring back when lightly pressed. Cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
I used Skippy’s chunky peanut butter, hence the cupcake is full of chunky peanuts. For the extra peanut butter feel, I even added a dollop of peanut butter on it before serving. Oh yeah, since I don’t have any brown sugar at hand, I substituted it with normal sugar, which I think contributes to the paleness of the cupcakes.
Popularity: 31% [?]
Posted in Baking, Cakes | 1 Comment »
Sunday, October 7th, 2007 |
Butter cake is the most popular cake in our household, and it is surprisingly easy to make. I read the origins of this cake from joyofbaking.com, and it says that this cake is known as pound cake, due to the fact that all the ingredients used to make this cake weighed one pound. Since I have some lemons, I zested the lemon peel and squeeze the juice to add to the cake, turning the traditional butter cake into lemony butter cake.
These are the ingredients:
250g all purpose flour
250g butter
225g confectioner’s sugar
250g eggs
3-5 tablespoons lemon juice
zest of lemon
Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. In the meantime, grease the tin pan and warm up the oven. When the butter is light and fluffy, fold in the eggs. Add in the flour thereafter, and a splash of milk.
Pour the batter into the greased tin pan, and bake in the oven for 200-220 degree C for 45 minutes to an hour.
Take your cake out of the oven and enjoy a slice of your freshly baked butter cake with your favourite afternoon tea!
Popularity: 46% [?]
Posted in Baking, Cakes | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 20th, 2007 |
The first time I ate this cake was when my house mate, Frida offered some freshly steamed cake to me. The aroma of the soda cracker and the fluffiness of the cake is very different from ordinary cakes. The texture is something like Malay kueh, and tasty all the same.
Ingredients:
150g/21 pieces oil-less soda cracker, break and pound finely, or use a blender. (I used Jacob low salt high fibre crackers)
6 eggs, beaten
180 g sugar
250 g butter
Method:
Step 1: Cream the butter and sugar till it became fluffy.
Step 2 and 3: Fold in the eggs and add in the soda cracker crumbs and mix throughly.
Now that the batter has been mixed thoroughly, pour the batter into metal trays and steam then with high heat for about twenty minutes. Do test if it is cooked or not by poking a cake tester or anything equivalent into the middle of the cake. If the stick comes out smooth, the cake is cooked. If it is not, steam for a few minutes more.
Just like cake, it is possible to mix part of the dough with chocolate powder and make a marble version of this soda cake. I mixed up some portion with coffee and steaming the cake with alternate layers of normal batter/coffee batter. Whenever a new layer is spread, cook for one minute before spreading another layer.
Since I have more leftover batter, the remainder of the batter is poured into a loaf tin and steamed until cooked.
The resulting soda crackers cake is a tad on the heavier side. I think it is not cooked thoroughly enough, hence it is not fluffy. I steamed it for quite a while already, but maybe the loaf tin is thicker than the cake thin, and hence the result is not as nice.
Anyway, it was a good experiment, albeit I would prefer more ingredients adjustment to suit my taste. I will take note the next time I try this though. This soda crackers cake is just so easy to make!
Popularity: 14% [?]
Posted in Baking, Cakes, Cooking | No Comments »
