My Dad's Favourite Things - in Cake

I know I haven't blogged in a while (understatement of the year). But now that I've got a little bit more time on my hands, I'm gonna try to write about the things that have come out of my kitchen over the past year or so.

So let's talk about birthday cake. My mum asked if I'd surprise my dad with a banana cake, as he is sort of a banana monster (It's true! No banana is safe when he is around). But well, you know me...why have banana when you can have banana and chocolate. And peanut butter. And popcorn. Just imagine the awesome combination of flavours. They also happen to be my dad's favourite things to eat, so it was a happy coincidence for all involved.

So I started with a good chocolate cake recipe. I've liked this one by Martha Stewert since I tried it for my own cake last year. It's rich, fudgey and not dry...you can actually use any chocolate cake recipe, but use one you would even eat on its own (no use hiding a not-so-good cake under tons of frosting, it'll still suck).

Ultimate Chocolate Cake (adapted from Martha Stewart)

Makes 3 two-inch layers, or 4 one-inch layers (9 inches in diameter)

·         1 cup (90-100g) good quality cocoa powder, plus more for dusting

·         3/4 cup strong coffee, boiling hot

·         1 cup milk, room temperature

·         2 3/4 cups (344g) cake flour (not self-raising)

·         1 teaspoon baking soda

·         1/2 teaspoon salt

·         1 1/2 cups (340g) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan

·         2 cups (400g) sugar

·         1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

·         4 large eggs, room temperature

1.  Place rack in middle of the oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (180degC). Butter two (or three, if you have them) identical round cake pans. Line with greaseproof paper. Butter the paper, and dust with cocoa powder; tap out excess.

2. Next, sift cocoa powder; whisk in boiling coffee and milk. Let cool. Sift together cake flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside..    

3. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Gradually add sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Pour in the cooled cocoa mixture. Mix until fully incorporated.

4. Add the sifted dry ingredients to the chocolate mixture, stirring until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pans (I usually weigh out the batter to ensure it's evenly distributed, but that's just me. If you can guesstimate, by all means.) Bake each layer for 10 minutes, rotate the pans, and bake for an additional 10-15 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center.

5. Remove the cakes from the oven, and allow to cool in pans for 15 minutes on a cooling rack.
Carefully run a small spatula or butter knife around the edge of the cakes to loosen them from the pan. Remove cakes from pans, and invert onto a wire rack. If you greased and lined the pans well, they should come out reaally easily.Let cool completely, about 1 hour.

So now you have your cake layers! Now to fill them with more good stuff: chocolate ganache and roasted bananas, and wrap the whole thing up in a peanut butter buttercream (that's quite a mouthful to say, but it's all good. Trust me.)



My ganache formula is simple: equal parts heavy (whipping) cream, and bittersweet chocolate.

• 250g bittersweet chocolate (I used one with a cocoa mass of 56%)
• 250ml (1 cup) heavy cream

You can melt the chocolate into the cream over the stove, or microwave the cream until it's simmering (not boiling!) and then mix in the chips. Leave to cool and thicken for at least an hour until the ganache is spreadable.

Spread about one centimetre of ganache onto each cake layer. Then top it with a layer of sliced roasted bananas.

I really don't have a recipe for the roasted bananas...I just sort of toss them with a few tablespoons of butter and brown sugar, and bake or grill them until they're softer and caramelized. If your bananas are ripe enough, you actually don't have to do this extra step, but I like the flavour.



All stacked and ready for frosting!


I used a Swiss Meringue Buttercream, which is a little bit more complex than other frostings, but the texture makes all the difference. It's smooth and light and you don't feel like you're crunching on grains of sugar.

Peanut Butter Swiss Meringue Buttercream (base recipe adapted from Sweetapolita. She's awesome.)

• 100g egg whites
• 170g white sugar
• 1 cup (227g) unsalted butter
• Pinch of salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup peanut butter (I used chunky)

1. Using a paper towel and some vinegar (or lemon juice), wipe the bowl, spatula and whisk/electric beaters you will be using. This step is CRUCIAL because you need to remove all the grease/oil from your utensils. Or else, the meringue will not form.
2. In a heatproof (metal or glass) bowl set over a pot of simmering (not boiling!) water, whisk egg whites and sugar together. Heat until the sugar dissolves and the mixture reaches 160degF (about 70degC) on a candy thermomether. If you don't have a thermometer, the mixture should feel hot to the touch.
3. Take the butter out of the fridge and cut it into 1-inch cubes. It should be cool, but not soft. If the weather is insanely hot like it usually is around here, put the butter back in the fridge for a few minutes.
4. With an electric mixer set on low speed, beat the mixture until it cools slightly and becomes foamy. Turn up to medium-high speed and whip until the mixture turns white (like liquid marshmallow), and the bowl is completely cool to the touch.
5. Switch from the whisk attachment to the paddle attachment of your mixer, and slowly add one cube of butter at a time, waiting until each cube disappears before adding the next. If the mixture becomes curdled or too watery (if the butter is too cold or too soft), put the bowl in the fridge for a few minutes and then beat it again.
6. After all the butter has been added, beat the mixture until it is light and shiny. Add salt, vanilla, and peanut butter.

Slather on the buttercream (no it doesn't need to be that neat yet), chill the cake for about 10 minutes to set the frosting, then smooth it out as best as possible.


The cake is actually really nice even if you don't add any decorations to it. But hey, it was my dad's birthday. So to make the cake even more over-the-top, I melted some Nutella, toasted some leftover popcorn we had lying around, and wrote Happy Birthday in white chocolate. Ta-daa!


The flavour of the cake was amazing! All that chocolate, the slight tangy-ness of the banana, the creamy, slighty salty buttercream, and the crunchy popcorn. But...each slice was so huge that we couldn't eat more than one slice at a time!

What I would do differently next time: Add some of the buttercream inside the cake layers, to balance out the seriously fudgey cake and ganache. Also, I think I need to make smaller cakes. We took more than a week to finish this, and that was even after giving some cake away!

Sunshine for Valentine's :)

"After Chinese New Year comes a whole lot of dying oranges..." (Ong,2011)

I spent Valentine's Day evening with my family, having our early Last-Day-of-Chinese-New-Year dinner, watching So You Think You Can Dance on TV, and...peeling oranges. It all started with my determination not to let our mandarin oranges go to waste this year. We're usually left with so many after visiting our relatives that we have them for dessert every single day...for two weeks. And well, some of the poor defenseless oranges don't even last two weeks. The stress of being passed from hand to hand, house to house does take its toll, and I'm sure everyone can identify with lots of orange wastage each year. Last year, I smoked a duck and stuffed some oranges up the poor creature's butt to keep it moist. This year, I decided to be kind to animals and make jam instead.

My colleagues were kind enough to let me acquire the dying oranges off their desks, so I spent a good 3 hours peeling them (with my OCD-ness, I wanted to peel every last bit of white fibrous pith off), splitting every slice open to extract the seeds, cutting bits of peel and then blending and boiling the whole lot down. At 11.30pm, I ended up with this:

I love the sunshiney-orange colour :)

This was taken a few days after the jam had cooled and set. Better lighting (and at 11.30pm, I was way too tired to take proper pictures anyhow)

One of my sister's rats decided to come sniff out the jam...

Spread some of the sunny orange stuff on plain crackers or toast :)

*Note: Because mandarin oranges tend to be rather sweet, I added some lemon juice to perk up the flavour, and cut some of the sugar in the original recipe.bvg

Happy (Y)Ear of the Rabbit! :)

I know everyone will think their own mothers or grandmothers make the best pineapple tarts, but I really have to say that my mum makes the best pineapple tarts :) Think soft, crumbly, melt-in-your-mouth pastry wrapped around tart, chewy pineapple jam. I definitely prefer the covered version of this traditional favourite to the open-faced ones (and they're easier to make too :p). Our recipe originally came from my grandmother, who picked it up from a cooking class, then made her own modifications, and then my mum made her own modifications...so it's a sort-of family recipe.

My contribution to the annual CNY baking is usually in the design. We thought it'd be cute to make the tarts in the shape of whatever Chinese zodiac animal which was represented. So we've done rats, cows, skipped the tigers last year because that was too hard...and this year I'm proud to present my pineapple bunnies :)

With rainbow-coloured noses! :)

Of course I think the pink-nosed ones look the best ;p

The ears are sliced almonds, and the nose is a heart-shaped sprinkle. The face and mouth...well you're on your own for that :p I used a toothpick to carve those out...

The bunnies got a little fatter after baking...

My other contribution: peanut cookies (the recipe and step-by-step are in the previous post). Decided to try hearts and flowers this year :)

Have a hoppy, nutty new year! :)

Chinese New Year Peanut Cookies

Besides pineapple tarts, this is another one of my must-haves during Chinese New Year. I first tried out this recipe last year, and they were so good that my mother declared that we shall never go back to store-bought peanut cookies. :) Which means that I think I have to make these every year from now on :p There's just something about freshly-made, really peanutty and preservative-free cookies that make all the difference :) Here's the recipe and step-by-step guide...

Ingredients:

• 200g finely ground peanuts
• 200g plain flour
• 100g icing sugar (or, if you like, use 75g icing sugar and 25g brown sugar for greater depth of flavour)
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 100g cooking oil
• 1 egg, beaten (for glaze)

Ground peanuts are readily available in most supermarkets, but I prefer to roast my own as I can control the amount of oil and salt that go into the nuts. In this case, I didn't use any oil and salt when roasting. Just put the raw peanuts on a baking tray, and bake at 200degC for 12-15 minutes.Check on the nuts after 10 minutes, as they do burn easily.


After the nuts cool for a few minutes (please don't forget this step, your fingers will thank you...), rub each nut between your fingers, and the papery skin will come off easily.


It's a bit time-consuming but also fun to do. Sort of like snapping the roots off beansprouts :p


And before long you have your own beautifully-roasted peanuts :) If you look really closely you'll see that I burned these a little...went to eat lunch and forgot to check on them.


To make your life easier, use the chopper attachment of your blender to grind the nuts. If you don't have one, a mortar and pestle work fine too. Just that you'll have really strong arms at the end of it...


And there you have it...ground peanuts!


Icing sugar gives the cookies their fine, melt-in-the-mouth texture. But I like to add a bit of brown sugar (unrefined, if you can get it) for the deeper flavour. This time, I used black sugar (sometimes found in the dried herbs section of the supermarket).


Put the ground peanuts, flour, sugar and salt into a nice big mixing bowl. And from now on, you're gonna do everything with your hands :D


Add the 2 tablespoons of butter to the dry ingredients...


And rub it in. If you've made shortcrust pastry before, this is the same idea. If you haven't, well just rub the butter with the flour-peanut mixture until all the butter disappears.


Next, make a hole or well in the middle of the bowl, like this...


And measure out your cooking oil. To get 100g of oil, simply put your measuring cup or any container, really...on the weighing scale. Tare the scale back to zero, then pour in the oil until the dial hits 100g.


Pour the oil into the flour-peanut mixture in parts, mixing well with your hands after each addition. You may not use all the oil. When a dough is formed (i.e. everything sticks together), that's enough oil.


So this means: add more oil!


And this means: you can stop now! To make the dough more pliable and easy to work with, knead it a bit more as the heat from your hands will help meld all the oils in the dough.


Roll the dough into small balls. Incidentally, that's another way to check if you've added enough oil. If the dough falls apart when you're rolling it into balls, add more oil!


Flatten the balls of dough slightly (and decorate them) with whatever you have on hand. A fork, bottle cap, they all work and produce different patterns. Here I used both ends of a piping bag tip.


And this is how you can get two different patterns from one little tool :)


But since Valentine's Day is during CNY as well, why not do heart-shaped cookies? Push a ball of dough into a cookie-cutter...


It should look something like this. Then gently push the heart out...


Ta-dah!


Here are some I did last year. I put a little peanut piece in the centre of each cookie for decorative purposes...


And for some reason...I had a peanut-shaped cookie cutter lying around. So I did peanut-shaped peanut cookies!


At this point, preheat your oven to 165degC. Brush a thin layer of egg onto each cookie. This gives it a nice golden colour and shine. There's no need to oil/grease the trays as peanuts have a lot of natural oils so the cookies won't stick :)


Bake for 15-20 minutes. Again, check on the cookies halfway so that they don't burn. Leave the cookies on the trays for about 5-10 minutes after baking. This allows them to set and firm up (if you try to move them before this you'll get crumbly peanut powder...)


Have a happy and blessed year of the rabbit! :)

Pink, Fluffy Beginnings :)

This is what inspired me to start food-blogging again: A perfect batch of pink marshmallows!

I've always wanted to make marshmallows. Not just because I absolutely love the puffy, fluffy sweet stuff (and hey, it's 99% fat-free ;p), but marshmallows belong to the category of "Wow! You made that?!" foods. Most people (and for many years, me included) have only seen (and eaten) the white, tubular ones that come in a bag from the supermarket, and they always make a special appearance at BBQs. Who can resist the crisp exterior? The warm gooey insides? The fun of toasting them on satay sticks and trying not to burn them too much? (Oh by the way, marshmallows are great with Lay's Sour Cream and Onion Chips too. But then again I'm weird that way :p)

And then one day, I saw homemade marshmallows on a food blog. And it was like there was sunshine and rainbows all around. They were huge, fluffy and looked like they weighed nothing at all. And they could be made with all kinds of wonderful flavours like peppermint, coffee, mango...But at that time I thought that making them would only result in a sticky mess, given our hideously humid climate. And then one day, my sister mentioned that she had a digital food thermometer, which is key in candy-making. Thus began my adventures into the world of marshmallow magic. It wasn't as hard as I thought! The mystery of marshmallows (did they fall from the sky?) was solved. Some gelatine, water, sugar, egg white and lots of air, and you get the lightest, prettiest marshmallows ever. I can never go back to the commercial stuff again...

This is actually my second batch. After whipping all that sugar and egg white, you get a whole tray of puffy stuff.

Which you can cut into squares (or any shape you want!)

But since the marshmallows will still be sticky...

They need to be tossed in cornstarch and icing sugar. In this case, I used snow powder instead because it doesn't melt in our sweltering heat

Now pop one in your mouth and enjoy! :) They're also really good with warm melted chocolate.