2 Birthdays of our First Semester

Back in the UK for a rather long time now and all's good. The internet on my laptop is finally up and running (phewee...after 2months you'd think it would!) so here are some pictures of my birthday celebration in Garford, Oxford 25Sept. Chocolate cake handmade by Hannah in the early hours of my birth day. Waking up to the smell of cooking chocolate. A very good present indeed. Not to mention sparkling wine, Crabtree&Evelyn goodies, and lots of cards. I couldn't be more thrilled.

Halloween this year was a phenomenal event as well!
The best we've ever thrown. Everyone pretty much went all out in their costumes, everyone was completely sloshed and my bday cake apparently was the best yet! Chocolate dense cake, white chocolate icing with a mango chocolate ganache. Err..I'm quite sure I got an applause for the amount of effort I put in, slaving away in the kitchen (without an electric mixer i might add, since you know how i'm such a lazy bum always relying on technology)
This ganache was more or less inspired by Chockylit from Cupcake Bakeshop, have to say I didn't quite like the mango in chocolate. :( It was a hit with the pals but don't think I would ever make it again with mango. Just not quite a fan here. I suppose I'm too much of a Singaporean tropical island girl to eat my mango with something as rich and dense as chocolate. I'd rather just have slices of mango. Mango,neat pls. :D

My official favourite TV program at the moment is Gary Rhodes' Local Food Heroes. One has definitely got to see this. Rustic flavours; good traditional English food. that's what i'm talking about. Gary Rhodes certainly is doing a good thing increasing the publicity of locally produced foods. Although, beware! Watch with caution cos it definitely does give you a serious case of gastronomical frustration. Happened to me. tsk tsk.

one thursday morning - armwrestling with chocolate

I would think that this recipe could've turned out so much better. the batter turned out too thick i think because i'd lacked the right amount of butter. i could definitely have up-ed the amount of sugar as well to get the muffins a lot more moist.
this was really a DARK CHOCOLATE-Y muffin batch. lacked a breadth of flavour though.

getting up early with dark rings under my eyes, body extremely knackered from lack of food for bout 3 days, i couldn't have been more depressed with the outcome of this recipe.
am determined to keep my work up to standard so i'm hoping the next thing i do will be miles better than this!

whatever it was, and despite my disappointment thereafter, it smelt gorgeous and has seemed to have fulfilled its purpose...has already melted his heart i believe.

LOL.

BBQ & Liquory Snicket's Unfortunate Series of Events

Don't question the title, I know it seems real silly-sounding, but pretty apt in my opinion. :D Had a great bbq today..messy, greasy but of course good. Before that, i was pretty much flustered, what with all the smses, and the online msges, & the phone calls, whilst whisking away at the stove. Was nearly going mad, but thanks so much to Kitchen on Clarendon for her easy steps for Nigella's Guinness Chocolate Cake! I was extremely excited abt this new recipe. Thought it was something very bold to do with chocolate, and great for a bbq. A very relaxed, let-your-hair-down kinda cake.

Was a little unsure at first abt the simplicity and seemingly lazy steps of the batter-making process but all ended well, at least..to my own belief. After taking a gulp of guinness, i forgot to measure 240ml for the cake batter & poured the whole can in instead (this was an additional 70ml of stout). Of course, in my hurry, I only realised this after putting the cake in the oven and could do nothing to salvage the situation except pray very very very hard. How could I ruin the cake before the bbq (sth i was organising) even began?! The result was pretty ok though. The taste was still great. Sweet, dark and lusciously rich chocolate, with deep undertones of stouty bitterness. It came out very well on the tongue, where the flavours melded very well together and unfurled smoothly on your palate. Very pleasant indeed. The extra stout only served to contribute to an already damp cake, and increased its general fudgyness. So overall, I'd still say i did not screw this up! Something I'd definitely do on another special occasion, even christmas!

p/s the cream cheese icing was superb. the next time I do it though, i'd try adding a few drops of lemon juice though, just the zang it up a bit! you can get the recipe on Kitchen on Clarendon's webbie, or get it here, below with my own messy directions tt worked out just fine! enjoy!!

Ingredients
250ml Guinness (or the whole 320ml can)
1 cup unsalted butter
rounded 1/2 cup cocoa
2 cups sugar
140ml sour cream (light)
2 eggs
1 tbs vanilla essence
2 1/4cup plain flour
2 1/2 tsp baking soda
Icing:
250g cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cup icing sugar (i deviated from the original recipe by 1/2 cup cos i couldn't really get the sweetness)
125ml pure cream

Preheat 180dCelsius. Grease and LINE with waxed parchment a 23cm springform.
Pour Guinness in saucepan. Heat slightly and added sliced butter. Heat till the butter has fully melted, stirring constantly & remove.
Sift in cocoa, pour in sugar & whisk.

In another bowl, beat sour cream till smooth. Beat in eggs & vanilla. Pour cocoa stout mixture slowly into this bowl. Sift in flour & soda, beat. Be careful here as it's a pretty wet batter & might slosh over the bowl. Use a large one to ensure a clean kitchen!
Bake for 45min-1hr. (I baked at 180dC for close to 50min & baked another 10min at 190dC)
Leave to cool in tin for round 15min, remove the springform sides and cool completely. Note that this is a very damp cake and you'll have to be extra gentle with it.

Icing: Beat cream cheese. Sift icing sugar and beat till nice & smooth. Add cream and beat till spreading consistency. Then decorate the cake to your heart's desire!
I used raspberries & cherries for the top to add a little colour and to match the summer tropical heat. :D

Serve nicely chilled after lots of sensationally greasy bbq-grilled meat & potatoes, with cold beer.
Follow this up with crazy chit chat, drinking games, lots of ice cream & good ol' fun.

To the guys out there : thanks for loving my cake. Had such a great time...hopefully ppl will start lookin me up in birmingham & stop hanging around london? ;)

Peanut Butter Toffee Chocolate Bars

Have you tried eating super gooey messy chocolate bars on a hot afternoon with a glass of ice-cold lemonade whilst watching something stupid like Spongebob Squarepants? That was exactly what i did today. It was 100% sinful because it was laziness and sloppiness carried out to the extreme, and i loved every moment of it! Felt like i deserved it and honestly, i think i did! Even though I've been slacking around for a very long period of time (months i suppose)...one can never have enough rewards or good lazy ol' summer times, i should say.

I had a request from my mom to bake sth nice & English - tea scones, pretty muffins - to match her new silver tea set. It's really lovely I must say, something that blends in very well with our silver, white, brown kitchen. Some relatives were coming over for tea so I was pretty excited to do something nice & pretty too...thus, I was rushing around last evening in town looking for a grocery store to get good butter. But then, I was told last nite that plans had changed & i really wouldn't be needing to trouble myself to make tea cakes and all. Feeling really tired, i thought yeehaa, that ain't so bad. Moreover, it would mean i could sleep late and try to escape the heat in my own bedroom with my fan blasting it's blades off the ceiling wall.
Of course, that didn't happen because my hands were itching to do something pretty exciting today. And gosh, was I glad i woke up early. Besides, these would be good as a gift for dear bertie's bday too. Nice, messy, rich, crazy gooey, and so good. I remember the times when I always craved for chocolate bars, or brownie bars, or anything that came in a good solid rectangle so that my short, chubby fingers could just grab one as I ran for my life away from cavaty-fighting teachers/parents.And that memory really inspired me to try make cookie bars...or GOOEY bars as what mine turned out as. I'm a reaaaally lazy (honest!) worker in the kitchen, and i wasn't fancyin the idea of doing a cheesecake or a pie or some 3-layered slice for tt matter, so this recipe I found in Lisa Yockelson's Chocolatechocolate (pg 146) was perfect for me. For those with this adorably pink chocolate bible, you'll know that the recipe is a Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chunk Bars and I tweaked this recipe in terms of ingredients because I literally had all my Cadbury Chocolate missing AND i'd thrown out my Reese's peanut butter because it'd gone past the safe to eat date with all my lazy procrastination.

Below is my own version..the ultra gooey messy Peanut Butter Sticky Toffee Chocolate Bars, inspired by good ol' Lisa, but if you do want the original recipe, feel free to leave a comment with your email & I'll get it sent over right away. :D

Ingredients
1 cup + 1 tbs all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsk salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup + 2 tbs creamy peanut butter (the creamier it is, the more moist ur choc bar)
1 tbs vegetable oil
approx 3/4 - 1 cup mix of giant, miniature semisweet & dark choc morsels + more for sprinkling over the top(i did my own mix here of nestle morsels, hershey's miniature choc chips and a german brand of dark choc chunks)
hershey's semisweet choc, chopped into chunks
8-10 chewy toffee candies

Preheat oven to 180dCelsius. Grease a 9x9" pan.
Sift flour, baking soda and salt.

Cream the butter on low speed for 3min till nice and creamy. Add the sugar, and continue beating another 3min.
Beat in the eggs, one at a time, mixing for approx 30sec. Beat in the vanilla, peanut butter and oil.
Scrape down to ensure a smooth batter.
On low speed, mix in the sifted mixture.
Fold in the choc morsels and cut up toffee candies.

Scrape batter into pan, and spread it evenly. Do smooth the top with the back of your spoon or a rubber spatula, and proceed to sprinkle the top with more choc morsels, big, small, huge, tiny WHATEVER! :D just have fun doing it and press in the broken choc chunks for added choc power. If you'd like a glossy sticky top, add some more toffee candies to the top, these will melt and add a little gloss to the choc bar, but will make an ultra sticky bar to eat. beware!

Bake for 25-28min. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool completely.
Once cool, cut into bars. Be careful with cutting or removing frm the pan as these are terribly soft and gooey, unlike what Lisa actually meant them to be. Store in airtight container and consume within 2 days.
I recommend eating it with a glass of cold drink in front of the telly, preferably watching some nonsense cartoon.
It really makes you feel like a million bucks! :D

Butter Republic cupcakes - a Marshall special

A couple of weeks back, I made a Chocolate Blueberry Loaf Cake for my Marshall group of fellow scholars but was unable to attend the dinner gathering & bring along my sweet goody. The cake turned out really great. I was afraid it might taste a little strange cos of the wet blueberries which I've always associated with trifles, muffins and really..not tea loaf cakes. (for the recipe & pictures, you can scroll down to the end of this entry) Ever since, I've been feeling terribly guilty and thus, today's special which will be served to you guys tmr! :D

I was feeling very kiddyish and played around with blue, green and pink! Finally...a time to stop being so stressed abt everything going on around me so I can just be quirky and whimsical. I had the best time of my life in the kitchen today, whipping and beating and fiddling around with hundreds & thousands. After all that effort, I do hope my marshall pals love em........yikes.

The recipe for these cupcakes were the very basic vanilla cupcakes I've always used. The next time round I'm gonna try another recipe I found in this month's Donna Hay magazine under cupcake coutoure section, which uses rose water and some other interesting stuff. I've always wondered how exciting cupcakes can be because it pretty much uses the same kind of ingredients but every time I check out Cupcake Bakeshop's webbie, I can only say she proves me wrong ALL THE TIME. She uses ingredients like pistachio cream, tea, etc. It's really amazing how she gets so creative with something so beautifully simple & satisfying like cupcakes. I'm inspired to experiment as well..but of course, my laziness is such a deeply-set flaw in me that it hinders any progress I wish to make. HEH. In time to come, I suppose. For now, let me just enjoy rainbow coloured, silly looking cupcakes for all its worth..:)

I was a little surprised with my buttercream today. I've been using the usual Magnolia's buttercream recipe for all cupcakes that I make and this time round I believe I probably threw in too much butter. It got a little difficult to beat, and it kept making disgusting slapping sounds. I remedied this problem with a lot more milk than usual, so my buttercream this time round was very glossy, sometimes bordering on an oily look. The colouring solved that too as it made it slightly less obvious. If it was van, think she wouldn't mind the butter at all....Butter Republic! It's sooo her. :D

* Baking Tip of the Day : Should you run out of self-rising flour (like I did today), there are 2 ways to substitute it.

1) 1 cup all purpose flour, 1 1/2tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine salt --> this gives you 1 cup self-rising

2) 2 cup cake flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp fine salt --> this gives you 2 cup self-rising

I went with the first method cos that's the substitute I've been using all this while. Am pretty unsure how my cupcakes would turn out if I used cake flour in addition to the plain flour in the rest of the recipe. Suppose it'll be of a fluffier texture? If any one knows how cake flour can change the texture, do drop me a comment. :)

Chocolate Blueberry Loaf Cake (adapted from Lisa Yockelson's Choc Chip-Banana Tea Cake)

Ingredients

2 cups flour

2 tsp cocoa ( I used Cadbury's this time round)

1/2 tso baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup semi sweet choc chips, miniature sized

8 tbs unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1 punnet washed, dried fat fresh blueberries

Preheat oven to 180dCelsius.

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and soda and salt.

Cream the butter for 3 min. Add granulated sugar in two additions, beating for 2 min after each portion. Beat in eggs one at a time. Blend in the vanilla extract. Scrape down bowl, then add the sifted mixture in two additions, beating on low. Stir in the chocolate chips and fold in the blueberries. Spoon into prepared loaf pan, mounding slightly in the centre.

Bake for 1hr. Cool loaf in pan for 10min then remove it from pan. Cool completely. Be patient after this, let cake mellow for 2-3hrs before cutting into slices for serving. You can wrap in clingwrap if keeping overnight, this locks in the flavours very well. **bake & serve within 2 days**

Drunk Chronicles I : Rummy Mocha Biscuits

The beginnings of the alcohol collection. Finally! This is heaven babe. Sam has always talked about adding that dash of gin, or kahlua, or brandy into biscuits and cakes and i've never got round to doing it because i think i'm a whimp (so you'll find out when you read more) and besides, no one in my family would really fancy it i suppose since they link alcohol to festivities or some special occasion. But yes, i think it's preeeetty exciting don't you think? Simply thinking about vodka truffles and brandied biscuits makes me all hot and bothered. Heh, kiddin but seriously, it makes the end result so much sexier.

Anyway, hear ye. hear ye! My oven gave birth to rum flavoured biscuits this morning. I used the Rum flavoured Coffee granules from Whittard of Chelsea which i got from Leamington Spa. The rum taste wasn't as strong as I liked it. It wasn't real liquer. (yea..i'm a whimp aren't i?) Good enough an end result though. I thought it would give the mocha a nice little twist too, something different from the usual and it reduced the usual intensity of the cocoa. The coffee was a very black colour after it dissolved in the boiling water and contributed mainly to the body of the biscuit, expanding its flavour and enhancing the deep brown of the dough. I used Hershey's Cocoa Powder. However, I don't really like it because of its bland and weak brown colour. Quite unlike Valrhona's cocoa which is a very deep dark sexy brown. Couldn't use any other since I didn't have Valrhona with me and didn't have the heart to open my Cadbury one yet. :S

The first time I tasted mocha was at Starbucks. Sounds pretty pathetic, yeah I know, but from then on I was hooked. I thought it was such an exciting taste. Bitter yet sweet. And it didn't mask the flavour of the coffee all that much and yet it didn't entirely remove it. I'm really not a coffee person so the only way to drink coffee for me was to have it blended with chocolate! Honestly, I was ready to kiss the cutie toes of the genius who invented mocha. I read this book once titled Marrow about this chef with a huge you-know-what (hence the title and his restaurant Marrow), and there was a page right about the middle of the book that listed out the best pair of ingredients in the world. Chocolate and coffee was on that list and i couldn't agree more. Anyhow, that's what I tried to bring out in these biscuits. The beauty of mocha, with the sidekick flavour rum!...unfortunately, i think i failed. the biscuits didn't turn out crispy like i thought they would. instead, they were chewy and kind of brownie like. I guess that isn't bad but it really wasn't what i was hoping for. As mentioned earlier, the rum flavour wasn't as evident as I would have it too and the coffee tended to come out more than the chocolate. They were very pretty though and the dough came together very easily. It's definitely a recipe i would keep trying to improve and work on and with their prettiness, every one at home can't seem to keep their hands off it despite it's letdown for me.

I'm gonna forget bout this for now and work on my next experiment with real alcohol this time. :D Got a bottle of Irish Cream just seating there waiting for me to pour it out. Now tell me, what would you do?

For whoever's brave enough, recipe's here:

Rummy Mocha Biscuits (inspired by 'The Complete Cookie' by Barry Bluestein & Kevin Morrisey)
Ingredients
2 tbs instant rum flavoured coffee granules
1 tbs boiling water
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt (i didn't add salt at all because i didn't want any savoury taste)
heaping 1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbs unsweetened cocoa
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 tbs vanilla
granulated sugar and whatever for decorating :)

Directions
Preheat oven to 190dCelsius.
Dissolve coffee in boiling water. Smell the good ol' scent of coffee whilst stirring carefully and set aside to cool.
Combine flour, baking powder and baking soda, salt, cinnamon and cocoa.
In another bowl, combine butter, brown sugar and egg. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Follow with the coffee liquid. Stir in the flour mixture and mix by hand in gentle folding movements.
Drop on cookie sheets.
(the original recipe requires you to use the oiled base of a glass dipped in granulated sugar to flatten the cookie but the dough was a little on the sticky side. i didn't bother to flatten the cookie as i didn't think it would matter much and just went ahead to decorate it as i liked)
Bake for 9-10min, just until cookie starts to form nice-looking cracks. Remove and let cool on sheets for 1min then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

April Babies!

15th of April! The day to produce Lianne's spread for her party on Sunday. Was really nervous when i started baking and doing the prep work. It's always like this when i'm making something for a big event. Baking jitters! Who would have thought? :D
From what I know, it's a little party to celebrate the birthdays of 10 adorable April babies. And these babies can't take sugar or eggs so the lil cupcakes that DIVANA came up with had little sugar, mostly banana and some honey with no egg at all. Honestly, I believe it was really ambitious of Sam and I to try doing such a recipe (not because i'm such a big fan of eggs and sugar) but because we've just about never tried something like that before! And to start it right out with a recipe of our own...dangerous...like balancing on a cliff in with a big jug of sloshing milk. The cupcakes (which are really muffins...) came out good and solid, smelling heavenly with their banana-ish perfume.

They weren't overly sweet but had a good texture and wholesome taste to it. Hopefully, they find a satisfied home in the stomachs of those pretty babies! I can only cross my fingers and hope with all my heart. What I really loved bout these cupcakes were the names piped onto them. I thought it was such a sweet thing to do...get one cupcake for each baby. Sam and I couldn't resist adding the little heart quins too. Adding a little of our love :) Sam started fantasising abt how this was her life..baking for babies..(of course she means her children)..fulfilling her dream of being a wonderful mother and a baking goddess in the kitchen, which of course i'm 100% confident of her becoming! She's amazing and i know she'll love her children and shower em with all the fat-full goodness of sugar, eggs and butter. Ritey sam? :D C'mon admit it..it's the only way to love em these days.

The chocolate cake was also the original DIVANA cake, made extra chocolatey as instructed by Lianne cause the adults apparently are chocolate fanatics. :D My kind of people. Well..all in all, it was a good day taking a rest from work and enjoying myself baking for people who love to eat.

So hey guys! I do hope you all really really REALLY enjoy em. And thanks Lianne for supporting me with your order. Somehow I hope you won't regret it. Maybe if it's bad, just don't contact me. Ha, so I can silently wallow in my shame. Have a nice time tmr!

p/s World Gourmet Summit is going on now. I'm so tempted to go for those classes or at least one of those 195++ per head dinners but that's major overkill and way past my budget considering i'm flying out to UK next week. Money's just never enough and the world's too big for my wallet!

My Volcanic Blueberry Chocolate Muffins

I'm too much of a chocolate fan to leave it out of something like blueberry muffins. Hence, this recipe which you'll see produces beautiful muffins that have fat blueberries bleedin into the muffins and taste great with these dark chocolate chips.
My tummy has recently been calling out for blueberries and the markets have of late also been bringing in some punnets of fat blueberries so i simply couldn't resist.

Honestly, I think i'm a person with pretty traditional taste buds so if you start to realise that most of the stuff i make on this blog tend to be the really simple classic stuff, don't hold it against me. I'm a lazy baker and a traditional one who seldom veers away from the good ol' stuff. And yea..i'm only eighteen so i'm still experimenting and discovering :D
Anyway, these muffins were really great. They came out big and firm with a nice crusty bite. The insides were real solid in that each bite didn't feel like it was 60% air. I never like muffins that are too light or fluffy because then I feel it doesn't pack a punch. I like my muffins big, generous and full of flavour. So this recipe was a big hit with myself, and my sisters. My dog was quite blown away too, though she didn't eat the chocolate bits cause she can't. The cinnamon i added into the batter didn't come out strong enough but i guess it's alright cause I still wanted the blueberries and the dark chocolate to be the stars of the show.


So here's the recipe. I trust that it's a no-fail one and it really uses simple ingredients. You can't go wrong with this.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups plain flour
3/4 white sugar (don't be too generous with this)
a pinch of salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/3 cup canola oil
1 large egg
cinnamon sugar (you can prepare this yourself with your own measurements. I used storebought cinnamon sugar)
1/3 cup full-cream milk
a punnet blueberries
dark chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 200dCelsius. Grease your muffin cups. I used medium sized ones but for real giants, use the texas muffin cups!!
Combine your flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Make a well in the centre.
Place the oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg (already whipped) and enough milk to fill the cup to the brim. Pour into the well and mix with flour mixture. Do not overmix or the batter will become overly stiff.
Fold in the blueberries. Add a few shakes of cinnamon sugar (approx 1 tsp) and as much dark chocolate as you like. The more the merrier i'd say but not too much that you can't taste the blueberries any more.
Fill the muffin cups all the way, do not be afraid that the muffins would end up too heavy and rise in an ugly fashion. These turned out just fine like perfect volcanoes. :D

Valentine's

I have a whole ziploc bag full of red rose buds, am getting very inspired to do something with them. I have yet to chance upon any rose cake but i've come to the realisation that cakes are beautiful and even more beautiful when simply decorated with flowers. I think cakes done up with lots of double cream and cute little sugar figurines are very appealing but u noe wad, shouldn't the cake be admired for what it is?
Anyhow, the edible roses from japan are Bell Roses. Or at least, that's the brand of the roses i guess. They're terribly small and fragile and they feel so cotton wooly soft. And what's more, they are in a shade of a very vibrant reddish pink, as you can see in comparison to the blood red rose buds. I'm so glad i bought em from Mr BOH! :D In addition to this bag of dried roses i have, i'm now very very determined to do up something with roses.

Lastly, before i get on with some sleep before work tmr, here are some pictures of DIVANA's Valentine's 2006 Chocolate Box.

Best Birthday Cake

Malteser Creation

I believe in chocolate being the most wonderful ingredient for a cake. Since the day i started eating chocolate, i'm a firm believer in birthday cakes existing in only one flavour - chocolate. And bless Nigella for creating the Malteser chocolate cake; such a cake would have been perfect for my sister's birthday today since she just loves maltesers (so do i really!) but the sad thing was i just didn't have time to go out and get plain flour or horlicks. time's been really lacking for me lately and i had to settle for whatever i had at home.
Last night, i really started to panic because i was lackin so many things: an extra 9" cake pan, plain flour, caster sugar, dark chocolate. It really gave me a headache since i wanted this to be the best birthday cake my eleven year old sister will ever taste. I scoured my recipes and my books and managed to solve the problem by combining a chocolate cake recipe from Lora Brody's Chocolate American Style, leaving out her decadent white chocolate cream cheese frosting (cos i didn't have any white choc or cream cheese...darn...but i would certainly try it in the near future), and my favourite Debbi Field's chocolate frosting from a previous devil's food cake recipe. Except, this time round, i used about 2,3/4 cup icing sugar instead of 4,1/2cup cause i figured the cake didn't need to be so intensely sweet.
And honestly, Lora Brody's cake recipe was about the best chocolate cake i've ever made. Although it really gave me a heart attack because i had used one 9,3/4" round springform instead of 2 9" ones and had to figure out the best cooking time for it (i switched it from a 35min cook time to about 1h5min cook time because my cake tester came out wet after 35min). Even a last minute idiot like me could whack out something so tasty from the oven, so you know how good this recipe is. What's so good about it ain't just the fact that it was no-fail. It's a very interesting recipe because on tasting, it's slightly deep-tasting and bitter from the coffee that is in it (yes, there's coffee!) but on moving the cake about in your mouth and mashing it between your tongue and the ceiling of your mouth, the sweetness starts to melt out of the cake and it's quite an amazing taste experience. While it's baking in the oven, it sure looks ugly but no worries because it tastes like a beauty!

This cake is good to fridge but must be taken out to thaw for an hour before serving. I've left mine out at room temperature and will fridge it for half an hour before eating. Can't wait!

If you're wondering how much the frosting recipe yields, for a 2 layer cake it's just about right. But since i was too lazy to slice my cake in half and turn it into a layer cake, the recipe yielded a little too much even though i'd only used 2,3/4cup icing sugar. My advice would be to half the recipe or simply be overly generous in your frosting. The vanilla extract is also a little too much for 1tbs, so i used only 2 tsp. And thanks goes to mel for calming my midnight jitters about baking time, great advice mel (the one about just standing guard by the oven and watching :D).

I wanted to be daring and copy nigella by throwing in horlicks (which i didn't have) or milo into the cake batter but i was a coward. figured it would be too risky to be held responsible for ruining the birthday cake and throwing a wet blanket on the whole occasion. Despite it not being the Malteser cake i initially wanted to make, i made up for that (hopefully) by decorating the final product with Clarissa's favourite candy. A simple garnishing would require one packet 40g of the candy. Something more fanciful or funny (like a heart design) would maybe need you to get two packets. Just have fun decorating! I sure did.

Speaking of chocolate cake, i had a fudge slice yesterday with caramel gelato at Estivo. It's located at Greenwood behind Raffles Girls' Pri. Greenwood has the most amazing food bistros and restaurants, my favourite being the Fish market restaurant that serves super good fish & chips (either beer batter fried or grilled in asian style). Anyway, it was an ice cream outing for my sister as a treat. She had a mocha gelato and a hotdog which she insisted was served with a sinfully good chilli sauce. I don't know bout that but the cake was quite good. It was buttery and chocolatey in the sense that there wasn't an overpowering sweetness but a good solid chocolate taste. The gelato we had were all normal flavours but it still tasted like a million bucks. I guess that's what makes a gelato good gelato, or at least a gelato maker a fabulous gelato maker. I'm not saying Estivo was world-class but it certainly made our day by serving out good ice cream in regular flavours ( & not so regular flavours like that kiwi sorbetto) and making us think of homemade goodness, lazy Sundays, Tom&Jerry cartoons on a peeling leather couch right from the comforts of an air-conditioned parlour.

Best Birthday Cake

Ingredients

2,1/4cup sugar

1,3/4 cake flour

1,1/4cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2,1/4tsp baking soda

1,1/4tsp baking powder

1/2tsp salt

3 eggs

1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 tbs vanilla

1,1/2 cup buttermilk

1tsp instant coffee/espresso powder dissolved in 3/4 cup boiling water, cooled

Preheat to 180dCelsius. Butter your pans and dust with flour.

In a large bowl, sift together the sugar, cake flour, cocoa, bkaing soda and powder and salt. In another bowl, beat the eggs and then beat in the melted butter and vanilla. With the mixer on medium speed, beat in the buttermilk & coffee mixture until just combined. The mixture will appear curdled. Pour this into a well formed in the flour mixture and beat until traces of flour disappear. Check that none of the floor has formed on the sides of the bowl, if so, use a spoon and gently mix it in. Divide the batter between the 2 pans and bake for 30-35min or until the cake pulls away from the sides of pans and cake tester inserted comes out clean. Transfer to rack and cool cakes in pan for 20min, no later. Then remove from pans to cool completely.

White frosting

4oz white chocolate, coarsely chopped

16oz cream cheese, at rtp

1 stick unsalted butter

4 cups icing sugar

semisweet chocolate shavings

Melt chocolate in bowl set over, but not touching a pan of simmering water. (I think it's called bandmarie?) When melted, let cool. In another bowl, beat cream cheese and butter together on high speed for about 4min. Reduce mixer speed to low and gradually mix in icing sugar. Increase speed to medium and beat for 2min. Add melted white chocolate & beat until well blended. Fridge the frosting, covered, until firm enough to spread.

When ready, slice your two cakes into 2 so you get 4 layers in all, then ice it generously, scattering the shavings on top thereafter. :)

Vanny Birthday

We made a cake yesterday for van's birthday today. That's good news! But the bad news is...we created our own cake?! One thing was we were reallly broke and couldn't afford really lavish ingredients like berries n all. Second thing was we really didn't have enough ingredients at home or the time to run out to the store to get em (things like half-and-half,heavy cream,sour cream,the makes). Third thing, we were kind of sick of the usual all-choc cake (but arh shucks, we used choc in the end) So we were really forced into doing things our own way.
Sam & Dav's Crazy Cake aka Chocolate-covered Cookie Butter Cake
White velvet butter cake layers with a chocolate frosting & OREO cookie filling.
It sounds pretty good ya?
The butter cake was a pretty basic recipe and was egg yolk-less. Check out the amount of yolks we wasted. But weren't they cute in that lil cup.

The cake layer was supposed to be pretty light and fluffy, especially since we used skimmed milk but it came out pretty dense like a pound cake. Sam figures it might have turned out more like an angel cake should she have fluffed up the egg whites until they were those cloud like white peaks. Well, at least it turned out more pound cake then car tire-like. Besides, we used 2,1/4tsp vanilla extract so the cakes smelt really good.

Next, we used up our left over espresso frosting we kept in the fridge and used that to ice the top of the bottom cake layer. Then sprinkled broken OREO bits onto that. We used 9 oreo cookies in all and kept 5 of the cream fillings.

Then we used more of the frosting to cover the bottom of the next cake layer so that the layers would mesh together. Finally we just iced the whole darn thing with our cocoa frosting. It isn't one of our prettier cakes I have to admit. Guess it really is just one crazy cake. :D

O in an effort to be artistic, we even made chocolate leaves to decorate the top. Ha. Doesn't matter. Van rated the cake fabulous. So one point for Sam's euphoria and my craziness. Don't think anyone would ever want this recipe. Cheers.

Housewarming

Today was the big day, big dinner. Tonnes of people came, and so many i had never ever seen before in my life. But they were friendly faces so that was alright. Got up way early in the morning to bake the cake for the dinner. It was a Debbi Field's Devil's Food Cake which basically means a pretty special Chocolate Cake with this wonderful chocolate icing. Did a bit of adjustments but it turned out just right. Think the only problem with it was that i might have beat too much between adding each egg so it ended up too light and crumbly?
Here's the recipe:
Ingredients
Cake:
6oz semisweet chocolate
1,3/4cup boiling water
1,1/4cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2cups sifted cake flour
2tsp baking soda
1/4tsp salt
1,1/4cup softened unsalted butter
1,3/4cup darked brown sugar
4 eggs
1tbs vanilla essence
Frosting:
1,1/4cup softened unsalted butter
4cups sifted powdered sugar
1cup unsweetened cocoa powder (it's very important that this is sifted otherwise your frosting would not be smooth but ugly and lumpy, though the taste wouldn't be affected)
1tbs vanilla essence
1/4cup + 2tbs lowfat milk (use full-fat milk if you want an even richer and thicker frosting)

Directions
Cake:
Preheat oven to 180dcelsius. Butter the sides of 2 springform 9" rounds and place a circularly cut baking parchment on the bottom of the pan.
Chop the chocolate and place into a bowl, pouring the boiling water over it. Set aside for a short while then add the cocoa and stir till smooth, rubbing the unmelted pieces at the sides till it melts into the mixture. Set aside to let cool to rtp.
In another bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.
Next, cream the butter and brown sugar until fluffy for around 4min on medium speed. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, and beat well in between each addition.
Beat in the vanilla. Add the dry ingredients and half of the chocolate mixture. Beat to combine.
Add the remaining chocolate mixture and beat on low speed until smooth.
Divide the batter evenly between the 2 pans and bake for 30-35min.
Remove to cool on wire racks for 10min or so then remove the springform to let cool completely. After about another 10min, remove the baking parchment and the bottom pan.

Now to the frosting!
Put all the softened butter in a bowl and beat it with your electric mixer until fluffy. You'll know it's fluffy when the butter starts making a slicky little sound and looks pretty glossy.
Whisk together the sifted sugar and cocoa in another bowl and beat about a third of the mixture into the butter. Add the vanilla and beat.
Just keep beating~
Add the remaining of the mixture and beat until the frosting is ABSOLUTELY smooth.
Once your cake is completely cool and that is when you touch your cake, it's no longer warm, you can begin to frost it. I waited around an hour for mine to cool. Used that time to munch on some food, rest my aching feet and watch some tv (jungle book II was showing on cable).
So basically, get a cake stand or a cake plate and put the bottom cake layer on it. If it is slightly volcanoed like mine was, slice off the top to get a nicely flat surface. Do the same for the other layer if it is so.
Using a metal spatula, lop on a generous amount of frosting and in neat gentle circles, (or by simply moving the plate) ice the top. Then place the next layer on top, arranging it such that it is directly above the bottom layer, frost the top and the sides to give a very smooth looking cake.

Debbi Field's used a pastry bag to pipe decorative rosettes but i did mine simply by using cranberries and fresh strawberries. Try using peaches, kiwis or whatever fruits. They go well with such a cake and add a burst of colour to the deep brown richness of the cake as well. Just make sure you keep the cake cool because my cranberries started to bleed after all in the warm tropical air of Singapore. :S

Pipin' hot

It's an extremely hot afternoon, so hot I think the flowers outside my window are dying.
But still, a baker's gotta do what a baker's gotta do.
So today was the day I taught my sister how to make brownies. I think aside from cookies, they're just about the easiest things alive. Put the ingredients together, give it a good mixing by hand, sprinkle any extra toppings in and slide it into the oven. In it goes for 50 min in a 8x8"pan and voila! Simple classic fudge brownies, dense and heavily chocolatey.


So there, we made fudge brownies and for half the pan, we decorated it with mini baking M&M's. These are really pretty sweets that appeal to kids so I highly recommend them for cookies and brownies. They're cheap and really come in handy when you think what you're baking is looking a lil bleah. Just be careful with them because sometimes when the oven gets a little too hot, they start to crack.

I served em hot with cold caramel sauce for fun. Was too hot in the kitchen to bother prettying em much with ice cream and all. But these brownies turned out really great. So thick and dense we had to down em with a glass of cold milk with each mouthful! Anyhow, there's no other way to eat brownies. Brownies with ice cream are a no-fail dessert but ha, brownies for lunch? Do em with milk!

Another satisfying day in the kitchen.