Longan Peach Cake for CH

Happy Birthday CH!

Another year had pass... and CH is one year older ...

Children look forward to every new age, but we adults dread every upcoming birthday. :)

After doing stock taking of my baking ingredients last week, I am quite glad that my stocks of all sorts were almost used up. Not baking for about 3 months had rendered 2 new bags of floor useless due to bugs infesting in it.

I used up the last bag of sponge cake mix and also some canned fruits to make this cake up. Got to get rid of the carton of whipping cream in the freezer as well. Quite please with the outcome of the cake. The fruits looked a bit dry though as this cake was in the fridge for 2 days before it was taken out to cut and I did not have any glazing jel at home, so I didn't do any glazing on the fruit.

As I won't be baking as much as I used to, I won't stock up too much on ingredients and will only buy what I need.

Last week I was very happy as CH brought back 13 baking books from Taiwan on his business trip for me. It resulted in a 3kg excess baggage and he was fined $50. Thus, there was very little savings for the books bought due to the fine.

Banana Chiffon Cake (High banana content and low sugar)

It hasn't been good past 2 months. Basically wasn't feeling too well and not up to bake anything at all. I only felt better 1-2weeks back and was more or less back to my usual self. I had been looking at making a Banana Chiffon Cake few weeks back and last weekend, the opportunity came when there was a bunch of overripped bananas setting on the dining table screaming 'Use me! Use me!'

I have modified the recipe to make this low sugar and banana filled chiffon cake. The original recipe called for 1 cup of bananas but I threw in all 6 large bananas I had which was about 2.5cups to 3 cups of bananas in total. The cake still baked into a beautiful chiffon cake, soft and full of bananas.

Banana Chiffon Cake

Ingredients:

(A)

200g cake flour (sifted with 1/2 tsp of baking powder and 1/2 tsp of bicardonate soda)

50g castor sugar

8 egg yolks

6 tbsp oil

2.5cups mashed bananas

(B)

8 egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

100g castor sugar

Method

• Mix all (A) ingredients together to form a thick batter.
• Whisk egg white and cream of tartar till 'soapy' stage.
• Slowly add in castor sugar
• Whisk till egg white becomes medium peaks.
• Mix egg whites to (A), mix well but with a light hand.
• Pour into a 25cm/10" chiffon tin
• Bake at 160C for about 1hr or till cooked.

Have fun!

Sugee Cake

Make a batch of biscottis over the weekends and had many egg yolks left over. I decided to make the Sugee Cake which I read in a magazine. However, I have modified the recipe slightly to accomodate to the ingredients I had at home.

The cake has a grainy texture due to the semolia flour and almond powder. I guess this is a cake that you will either love or hate. I personally do not really like the cake. I would prefer blueberry cupcakes or butter cakes to this.

Here is the recipe (reduced sugar version):

Ingredients:

250g butter

200g sugar

9 egg yolks

3 egg whites

225g semolia flour

170g almond powder

30g cake flour

1tsp mix spices

2tbsp milk

Method:

Preheat oven at 160C.

1. Cream butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

2. Add in egg yolks one at a time. Beat well after each addition.

3. Add in semolia flour and almond powder and mix till just blend.

4. Sift flour with mix spice. Add into no. 3.

5. Add 2tbsp milk. Put batter aside.

6. Whisk egg white till light and fluffy.

7. Add into butter mixture. Mix well.

8. Put in a baking tin and bake at 160C for 50mins or till light golden brown.

Father's Day Cheesecake

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY!

Dad asked for cheesecake for Father's Day. I used the same recipe as the cake chessecake I baked for my son's Birthday excluding the Oreo Biscuits inside the cheesecake.

Pardon me for the messy handwriting. Doing writings on cakes is something that I need to definitely improve on.

I bought a new recipe book - Bit Size Desserts by Carole Bloom over the weekends at Kinokuniya since there was 20% storewide for members. Initially, I thought I would wait till this book was available at the library to see what the book was like before buying. But after waiting for 2 months, still no sign of it being available at the library and the thought of the book keeps appearing in my mind. In the end, I decide to take the risk and just buy the book.

Well, no regrets buying the book. The recipes were interesting and it included weights of ingredients in ounces instead of just cup measurements. There were also pictures includes for many of the recipes so you actually get to see how the outcome of the recipes would be like.

A good book to add to my collection.

Ice Box Cookies

These are called Icebox cookies. I got this recipe from the book called Great Cookies: Secrets to Sensational Sweets. These cookie dough were quite tricky to handle as it was soft and needs to be chilled. I made a total of 4 different flavours here.

1. Orginal Flavour (ie the plain ones with red sugar coating)

[The kids called them cha siew cookies]

2. Orginal Flavour with chopped glaced green and red cherries.

3. Chocolate Flavour

4. Marbled Flavour (Orginal with chocolate)

In order for it not to be too sweet, I actually reduced the sugar content and forgot that cocoa powder is bitter. As a result, the Chocolate and Marbled flavour cookies tasted 'non sweet'.

My son and niece was so excited when the cookies came out and as the chocolate ones were not sweet, I would think that the kids won't like it. To my surprised, the 2 rascals said that the chocolate cookies where yummy... .... ...

Well, glad they liked them!