Cotton Soft Japanese Cheesecake

Actually this recipe has been on my "must-do" list for the longest time, yet I've always have some other things that will crop up and stop me from baking this. It could also be some of the not-so-successful reviews that I read about this recipe that made me 'procastinate' and hesitate to try it. But I'm very glad that I finally baked it today, as it turned out to be my almost-perfect baked cheesecake!

I followed closely to one of the reviewers' comments that gave a very clear step-by-step preparation, and it works well!

Ingredients/ Method

140g fine sugar

6 eggs, separated

1/4tsp cream of tartar

50g butter

250g cream cheese

100ml fresh milk
2 tbsp lemon juice

grated lemon zest (optional)

60g cake flour/ superfine flour (i accidentally used self-raising flour)

20g cornflour

1/4tsp salt (again, i accidentally omitted)

1) Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double-boiler. Cool the mixture.

2) Sift the cream cheese to avoid lumps and to achieve smooth texture.

3) Add in lemon juice and egg yolks using wire whisk, mix well.

4) Add in flour and corn flour into the cream cheese mixture, a little at a time, until well mixed.

5) In a separate bowl, beat the egg white till foamy, then slowly add in cream of tartar.

6) When egg white mixture reaches soft peak, add in sugar slowly and continue to beat until you reach stiff peak.

7) Take 1/4 egg white mixture and add into cream cheese mixture, mix well.

8) Fold the remaining egg white mixture into the cream cheese mixture, do not overmix.

9) Pour mixture in 8' cake tin and lined the bottom and side with baking paper.

10) Bake at 160 deg C for 1 hour 20 min in water bath. (PS. The last 10 mins, I switch to bottom heat only, to prevent the cake top from over-brown.)

The cake lives up to its name - cottony, soft. I've got rave feedbacks and for once, I gave myself a 'band 1' pass! Definitely a keeper!

Dates Tea Cake

You may notice that during the Ramandan, there's always alot of dates available in the supermarkets. I love these dates as they are usually very sweet, juicy and fresh, unlike those red dates that's sold all year round. Not too sure why, but i think it must be something to do with our muslim friends' diet as they will fast for a month.

I was on leave on Friday to visit some of the childcare centres open-house. By Friday morning, we were already done with the 'selection' and registration. Actually we have sort of made our mind on the childcare centre, since we have did some pre-homework. Time really flies, and my l'il baby is ready to be sent to school. By Jan 2009, he will be in school uniform and attending classes, playing with his peers, etc, and i hope he can really enjoy himself and grow up to be a fine man....wow am i thinking too far?

Anyway, i had the Friday afternoon and with the baby taking his nap, i started preparing for the bake. The dates were in the fridge for quite a while and I was thinking of how to bake with them. So when i flipped to one recipe that uses prune, i thought i could replace them with dates. This tea cake is not the cake that you have in the afternoon tea, which happyhomebaker mentioned, it is a real tea cake. However, my tea cake does not have any aroma of tea, possibly i used a rather mild one - chamomile. Anyone can suggest the type of tea to use to make a teacake? When i had the cake, it is still warm and i think it will definitely go very well with a cup of hot coffee or tea in a lazy afternoon. The texture is soft, and you could still taste the sweetness of the dates, and bites of walnuts. Nothing beats freshly baked cakes!

Ingredients/ Method:

(A)

3 eggs

80g sugar

(B)

100g dried dates (I used 130g)

1/2 tsp baking soda

80ml hot tea

(C)

150g plain flour

50g walnut, toasted

(D)

30g melted butter

1) Pit and chop dates. Pour in hot tea and baking soda. Soak for 2 hours. ( I soak mine in half an hour.)

2) Beat ingredients (A) for 10-15 mins until thicken.

3) Pour in tea with dates and mix well.

4) Fold in sifted flour into the prune mixture.

5) Pour in melted butter and roasted walnuts. Stir gently.

6) Bake in 7-inch cake tin at 170-180 deg C for 35-40 mins.

Soft Cake with Carrot & Raisin

After my long hiatus, i finally did my baking, but sadly it's a flop! Blamed it on the.... recipe? stupidity? It's a steamed cake, and should be the easiest cake that anyone can make, right? I must be too complacent and not thinking at all. The title is soft cake, but mine turned out as hard and chewy than anything else. After a while, i realised where my mistake is ...... i didn't beat the egg mixture enough at all. I missed the word 'fluffy' that is called for in the recipe... sigh!

I've 'borrowed' this recipe book from my brother, and I've not returned him ever since....kekeke. Bet he doesn't need to use it anymore? This recipe book is all about low-sugar desserts and cakes, so there's no need to cut down on the sugar level, which i used to do for some of the recipes that i use.

I will try this again, since it is really a easy one. It probably takes less than 30 mins to prepare and wash up.

Ingredients/ Method:

2 eggs

80g sugar

1 tsp cake emulsifier

200g superfine flour

1 tsp baking powder

120ml milk

100g carrot, grated

1/3cup raisin

1) Sift flour and baking powder, and set aside.

2) Combine eggs and sugar until fluffy.

3) Add cake emulsifier, flour, baking powder and milk. Beat together for about 5 mins or until the mixture is fluffy.

4) Put in grated carrot and raisin and mix well.

5) Spoon into mini paper cups.

6) Steam over medium heat for 5-7 mins.

Simon's Birthday Cake (cont'd)

I know i'm totally slack and very slow in putting up this continuing post following my earlier one. I thought i had the time and energy to complete this post before i depart for my 2-weeks trip, but too many things just crop up, i was almost drained. I very much wanted to do it immediately i return 1 over week ago, but it didn't happen. Now i'm writing this post, and it's with very strong determination to get myself out of the slumber, and that i've this nagging part of me which constantly remind me of the outstanding post. It is the same fate for my baking endeavours, except that i still have not warm up my oven for a month! Don't get me wrong, i still have deep passion for blogging and baking, but time and energy (the lack of it) forbid me from doing it. Most importantly, i wanted to really spend quality time with my little baby, to make up for the 'lost' time. The 2 weeks away from him is really not a nice feeling.

Back to the earlier post, if you have guessed that it is a sexy lady with voluptuous assets, then it's a bingo! It was for my Uncle Simon, and though he's nothing near lecherous, i was thinking more of a 'fun' cake for him! I like how the decorated cake turn out and feels proud of myself, for churning out something like this. Of course, this kind of standard is only meant for family members, and far far far to be comparing with cakes you buy from the shops or other bloggers.

The cake was using Amanda's Banana cake recipe, which was supposed to be a cupcake, but i baked in my usual cake tin. I used the same miracle cream cheese frosting, which i did for my earlier muffins. I actually planned to add cinnamon in the cake, but totally forgotten until the cake was half-way baked. Anyway, the banana cake tasted good without the cinnamon, but the frosting is a tad too sweet. Perhaps i got the measurement for icing sugar in the frosting wrong, but there's no way to tell unless i try making cream cheese frosting again. I reckon this would be a rather long wait....., but hopefully not too long.

Ingredients/ Method:

225g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
150g butter
150g castor sugar
2 eggs, large
50ml milk
3 large bananas, mashed


1) Preheat oven to 175 deg C.
2) Sift flour and set aside.
3) Cream butter until light and creamy, about 5 to 8 minutes.
4) Add sugar and continue to mix till light and flufffy.
5) Beat in eggs, one at a time.
6) Beat in mashed banana and milk.
7) Fold in sifted flour into mixture.
8) Bake for 50 to 60 minutes.



Will start getting my oven warm again, let's see how this weekend turn out to be!

Simon's Birthday Cake

Guess what's this cake? Stay tuned.....

More mooncakes

There are a few variety of mooncakes that i wanted to make, those baked ones, cheesecake snowskin mooncakes, chocolate snowskin mooncakes, durian snowskin mooncakes..... but alas i only have so little time to do either of them. Since i have some left-over ingredients from my earlier moonies, i decided to finish up all of them. There's also a pack of red bean paste that i bought a few months ago, supposedly to bake this, but i never had the chance/ courage to try out bread-making. For bread-making, it seems you need alot of time for proofing, which i don't have the luxury since i usually do my baking almost in the 'wee' hours. I also made some custard filling, which i initially thought would be quite effortless to prepare. Things are easy until sieveing the custard, ohmigod, i started to regret preparing it.

Ingredients/ Method for custard filling:

2 egg yolks

150g caster sugar

40g superfine flour

40g corn flour

30g custard powder

100ml coconut milk

150ml milk

50g butter

1. Mix all ingredients except butter till well combined.

2. Stir in butter.

3. Steam for 15 mins or till cooked.

4. Sieve the custard paste and leave to cool.

5. Scale custard paste at 15g each.

I had 2 types of fillings, custard with white lotus paste, and custard with red bean paste. Hands-up for the low sugar white lotus paste. The red bean paste is a tad too sweet.

The snowskin is using the same as my previous bake. However, i tried added a few drops of pandan paste and strawberry paste this time round to give me more 'colorful' moonies. Yields 24 mini mooncakes, which i shared with my family members.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

I've been trying to find a recipe that uses yogurt as the tub in my fridge will be expiring soon, and i definitely have to use it up by this week as i'll be away for 2 weeks from this saturday. Went back to the usual blogs, and found one "Another Yogurt Cake" by HappyHomeBaker.

The result of the cake doesn't turn out what i expected it to be, as it was rather dense and heavy. Other than that, the cake is very flavourful, and of course, you can't go wrong with fresh blueberries. Not too sure whether i did anything wrong in the preparation, but i will attempt this yogurt cake again when i return.

Ingredients/ Method:

125ml yogurt

100g caster sugar

60g brown sugar

3 eggs

95g ground almond

140g plain flour

2 tsp baking powder

125ml olive oil

some blueberries

1. Preheat over to 180 degC. Grease and line 8" round pan with baking paper.

2. Mix yogurt, sugar and eggs.

3. Add ground almongs and sieve over flour and baking powder. Mix till combined.

4. Fill 2/3 of the batter in the pan, arranged blueberries on the batter and pour the rest of the remaining batter over the blueberries.

5. Bake at 180 degC for 40-50 mins or until skewer comes out clean.

6. Let cool in pan for 20mins before unmoulding.

Strawberry Chiffon Cake

My cousin, Sandra, birthday happened to fall on Malaysia's National Day. For couple of years, there was no birthday 'party' for her as i think the date is near/ the exam period. So the next time if anyone were to plan for a baby, timed it to holiday season so that your kid would not be 'deprived' of birthday parties! This year, however, is an exception and it was a rather last-minute decision that there'll be a celebration for my cousin. Not too sure whether my cousin would like a home-baked cake, i actually sought my aunt's permission to bake a birthday cake. I thought my cousin like cheese or chocolate, but no it wasn't; it's strawberry, perhaps this is all (little) girl's favourite??

There wasn't much time for me to search the internet for strawberry cake recipe, so i dig through my rather-thick stack of recipe print-outs that i've accumulated so far. Since my sponge cake has not been very successful, i was thinking of using other sponge cake recipes, but i eventually found one recipe that is exactly what i intend to bake - Strawberry Chiffon Cake by Little Corner of Mine. The batter is little too much for my 8' cake tin, and pour the remaining batter to a smaller cake tin. I bake these 2 cakes at the same time. I would say the small cake is a success as it did not sink after cool. But i can't say the same for the big cake, it shrink quite a fair bit and has a sunken top after cool. Weird? Why 1 is ok but the other is not, when they are being bake at the same time, same temperature, same batter, same level in the oven? Anyone can advise?

We ate the small cake for our breakfast, and i like the texture, although the next time, i will cut down on the sugar. The big cake is to be decorated as a birthday cake. I like the simple decor. The verdict from T is that there is enough fresh strawberry for the cake and too much whipped cream. In my baking journey, T and my aunt Cat has given me alot of valuable feedbacks, which i appreciate. I hope i can improve a little step at a time (^..^)

Happy Birthday, Sandra

Ingredients/ Method:

(some modifications were made as most of my measurement is in gm instead of cup)

(A)

230g plain flour

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

100g sugar (to reduce sugar the next time)

(B)

1/2cup canola oil

6 egg yolks

185g strawberry puree

1 tsp strawberry paste

(C)

6 egg whites

1/2tsp cream of tartar

125g sugar

1. Preheat oven to 170 degC.
2. Sift (A), stir to mix. Add (B) and use an electric mixer till well incorporated. Set aside.
3. Beat egg whites and cream of tartar in another bowl until soft peak, then gradually add in sugar. Beat until stiff peak is formed.
4. Fold 1/3 of the egg white mixture into yolk batter gently but thoroughly. Then, add 1/3 egg white and do the same until all the egg whites is used.
5. Pour batter into cake tin, and igive it a knock on the table.
6. Bake for 45-50 mins or until toothpick inserted come out clean.
7. Invert the pan and let the cake cool inside the pan. When cooled, loosen the edge and remove the cake to cool completely on wire rack.

Snowskin Mooncake

My baking experiment is getting more interesting and little bit varied. Have you ever wondered that sometimes those goodies that you thought you will never know how to do it, is actually so simple. Of course, all these cannot be accomplished without the generous sharing of good and easy to follow recipes by fellow bloggers. It's kinda weird that i can spend almost everyday blogging or simply catching up blogs of other homebakers, to T, he just lamented that "i don't understand why you want to spend so much time on this, i find it a waste of time!" I suppose you must be in it, to understand this world of blogging, and baking (~0~)

The 'craze' now is my office is making snowskin mooncakes, and everyone ('exaggerated', only the usual group bakers) seems to be trying it out, sharing different recipes found from the world-wide-web, and our baking experiences and experiments. Since this is my 'virgin' moonies, i did a fare bit of surfing to sift out the recipes, and at the same time, to 'hear' from other bloggers' experience with making mooncakes. This was narrowed to this from Held by Love, Bake from Scratch, who like me - is the first time trying out mooncake, and bought the mooncake moulds from Elyn from e's joie.

These moonies were the 1st few that i did, see the skin

is quite uneven and ugly.

Ingredients/ Method:

Snowskin

100g koh fun (commercial fried glutinous rice flour)

70g icing sugar

30g shortening

120g cold water

1. Sift koh fun and icing sugar.

2. Rub in shortening into the flour mixture.
3. Slowly add in the cold water, until soft dough forms.
4. Weigh 20g dough each, and 30g filling each, and set aside.
5. Flatten the dough and put the filling in the centre and wrap.
6. Press into mould.

*Note: I put the dough in between a plastic bag and flatten with rolling pin. The wrapping is also done using the plastic bag. This method was 'invented' as the dough keep sticking to my hand, and i don't wish to use more flour to coat the mooncake. It made handling of the mooncake very easy!

Although these mooncakes are never near perfect nor in comparison with commercial ones, personally i like it just because it is home-made with love...kekekeke. This is another 'spirit' of my baking endeavours!

Again.... muffins & mini butter cake

I'm back to baking the 'same old stuff' - muffins and butter cake. The only difference is the little frosting that i did on both the muffins and mini butter cake to freshen up the look, and baking the butter cake in muffin cups. I suppose these changes qualify this post to be put up as i don't wish to appear repeating my post. But of course, with my limited baking experiences and skills, doing things different can be quite a challenging feat.

For these last couple of months, ever since i started this blog, i seem to be addicted to - either baking or blogging, or possibly both activities! Other than honing my baking skills, i'm brushing up my english and some story-telling ability at the same time...kekeke! To fast-forward another 10, 20 years, if i'm still posting on this blog, i will be able to publish a Biography, if not, at least this is still some-kind of MY 'valuable' legacy.

Back to baking, this batch of 'goodies' were done over the weekend, where T's company had the 7th month prayers and mini buffet. Another opportunity for me to satisfy my baking craving..... The muffin is using this recipe, and mini mixed citrus butter cake this.

The chocolate muffins were frosted with more chocolate ganache, and whipped cream which was some left-over that i kept in the freezer. There is no need to thaw, and it was almost ready to use right out of the freezer. The mini mixed citrus butter cake was frosted with Taste Goblet's miracle cream cheese frosting.

Double Chocolate Chips Muffins

Ingredients/ Method:

150g plain flour

30g cocoa powder

1.5tsp baking powder

3/4tsp baking soda

75g sugar

1.5 eggs

90g olive oil

135g milk

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1. Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bow, and set aside.

2. Add egg, oil and milk into the bowl, mix till just combine. Add chocolate chips.

3. Spoon into muffin cups 2/3 full and bake in preheated 170 deg C for 20 mins or till skewer comes out clean.

4. Remove from oven and leave to cool.

Miracle Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients/ Method:

1/2 cup cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup mascarpone

1 cup icing sugar, sifted

1. Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth.

2. Add vanilla and cream.

3. Add in mascarpone cheese straight from the fridge and beat gently until thick, about 10-15 sec.
4. Gradually stir in the icing sugar and beat on low speed to combine for about 30 sec. (Do not overbeat.)

5. Frost immediately or store in fridge.

I love the muffins and cakes with the frosting; like all men and women, it's the clothes that maketh them; or they maketh the clothes?!