Salted caramel chocolate cake

It's other half's 40th birthday, so what cake? A friend was also baking a birthday and she decided on a gooey moist salted caramel chocolate cake. I decided to give it a go too as I've not made salted caramel before.

Oh! It is evil this thing called salted caramel! I'm not the kind who likes to lick spoons when cooking or baking but this salted caramel calls to me and just can't help myself! Consider this a warning for those brave enough to try! And yes, I made some chocolate shards for the first time too but the excitement of the salted caramel overshadows it.

Pure indulgence!

I went for a moist sponge instead of gooey as per my friend

 

 

Chocolate shards and icing

 

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Pop your own corn

It was a typical lazy Saturday afternoon, watching movies on the TV when we were attacked by the need to munch and crunch. I remembered that I picked up a bag of corn some time back and never got round to experimenting with popping my own corn. So a quick scan of the net and finger in the air selection of corn popping method, we were off. Then it was quick decision time, should we go buttered? Salted? Or caramel? In the end it was to be all three!! One thing to note, I used coconut oil to pop the corn which is healthier (pre buttering, salting and caramelising of course) and smells great!

Was it good? Well the saying goes a picture tells a thousand words. Btw I do feed the little one!

 

 

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Pandan chiffon cupcakes

This afternoon there was a desperate request for 'green cake' or better known to the rest of the world as pandan chiffon cake. The conversation went something like this

'I really really want the green cake'

'no, it takes a long time to make, how about tomorrow'

'But I want it now, I'll help you make it' goes off into the kitchen and started to clear a space on the table

'You put the ingredients here' so as commanded I proceeded to 'put the ingredients on the table'

Now cakes that are prone to collapsing and little helpers are not a good combo but I have seen this cake made in cupcake form. So I decided to half the recipe and make chiffon cupcakes. As it turns out, the cupcakes did not colaspe and my little helper, true to her words did a lot of the work. There was a bit of a volcanic action going on 7 minutes into the bake but once the temperature was adjusted it calmed down giving the end result a bit of a rustic look. Little helper happily ate two cupcakes as soon as it was done and left me to do all the washing up.

Unlike the full sized cake, no need to invert and cool

 

 

Still as fully and soft

 

 

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Chocolate fudge cake

Chocolate fudge cake Is on the menu this time round, needless to say it's for another potluck, you all know the drill by now. I made this cake before a long time ago for my girl's 1st birthday, that time it was covered ready rolled icing. This time I decided to cover it with luscious ganache and then on a whim because I bought too many bars of chocolate, chocolate covered cherries! This cake is the kind that needs to sit and think about being delicious before it actually becomes delicious for a day or two which is great as it means I don't have to have panic attacks about running out of time before the dinner gong sounds!

There's not a lot I am proud of but this is one of them!

Let is shine!

Dark choc and cherries...match made in heaven!

 

 

 

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Kuih Ketayap

I haven't had this kuih in a long time, in fact you can say years. To be honest, I've never been a fan of this one but because some friends suggested it as something easy for a potluck lunch, I decided to make it. Not having fresh grated coconut, I tried making the filling with desiccated coconut, after caramelising the sugar I added the coconut with more water and from then on it was a bit of an experiment. I can't quite remember how 'wet' the filling should be so I decided to go for the dry to touch but when squeezed it's still oozes with the syrup...makes sense? Good!!

Oh, I also halved the recipe as I always end up with lots of batter but lo and behold..I ended up with only 10 pieces of kuih! Yikes! But lucky for me there some no shows so with meagre portioning ..all had a taste! Phew! Now best I go note down that half portion makes only 10 pieces on the recipe for future references!

 

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Macarons madness

This is a back post, a while ago a friend of mine shared her macarons recipe, one which she took a class for which was very kind of her. This is the first time I attempted Italian meringue, this is the one using sugar syrup to make. The meringue was not too difficult to make, it was the piping that was challenged for me. Just using drawn circles, it was hard to get the piping going at a consistent rate in order to end up with circles that would pair up. I've made another batch since the first try, it turned out to be quite fun as you get to play with colours of the shells as well as dream up flavours for the filling, I've tried lemon cream, dark chocolate ganache and green tea buttercream..all yummy!

The green tea one

 

 

Italian meringue

 

 

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Japanese cheese cake

This is my attempt at the acclaimed japanese cotton soft cheesecake. Actually, it's my second attempt, the first one, just 24 hours earlier was not what one would call a success. After the usual searching for the recipe to try and watching countless uTube videos, I settled for one and went for it. After turning up the motivation crank to full , I discovered I only had 3 eggs instead of 6 but I was still determined so I halved everything and before you know I was watching tv waiting for the ding of the timer. As the forces that be will have it, baking is not as easy sailing as that. The cake (this is the first one btw) rose and rose while I was focused on the tv and the top cracked open, bringing to mind mount vesuvious. After which once removed from the oven proceeded to deflate and resembled something like a flat tyre. Nevertheless it still went into the fridge for the required time before being consumed as per the recipe...oh, only it actually didn't as someone (not me) forgot to put it in the fridge after promising to do so. Which meant that cake nbr1 was really not meant to be. So on to cake nbr2, deciding to give the recipe another go, I started again, this time watching the cake like a hawk. End result, not too bad, there's still a bit of a collapsed but passable. Though it tastes good, would I try again? Maybe but not in the near future.

 

 

 

Pandan kaya

I made 3 lots of kaya in the last 3 days! The first lot was the normal caramel kaya made the night before a friend's party for pulut tai tai. Since it was made late at night, I think I sort of lost concentration and probably stirred too long as though not burnt the kaya was of a weird texture but still edible. The next day when the pulut tai tai was ready, I had some spare time and so decided to whip up a new batch of kaya for my friend instead of using the one I made previously. This time, I made the pandan version, it turned out much better, in fact I liked it so much that I made more the next day for myself as I was dreaming of kaya toast!

Kaya toast... Best breakfast ever!

 

 

Angku kuih

I was making ang ku kuih again... This time for a friend's friend's daughter's birthday, so they had to be perfect! I made some changes to the recipe I used previously which was already good but I needed the ang ku to stay nice and soft for longer. With the changes, which I have now written down before I forget which tips worked, the angku stayed soft till the next day! Wow, even I was impressed, hahaha... The ones I made for the party was with the mini moulds, no pictures as I had to rush them off in time for the birthday party. After the delivery, I can home and made up some more with the medium sized mould, these are the ones in the picts.

Inside, green bean filling

Glossy and chewy!

 

 

Pandan chiffon cake

It's pot luck time again! What to bring for sharing....not wanting to have a manic morning cooking and too lazy to get in to town to the chinese supermarket for Asian ingredients, I decided to go for a store cupboard staple that I can make the night before. There's always pandan in the freezer, tinned coconut milk in the larder, no waiting for butter to get to room temperature what better choice could there be? So pandan cake it is, I've made this numerous times and my mantra while making this is ...be patient when whisking the eggs whites, be patient when whisking the egg whites, be patient when whisking the egg whites AND you will be rewarded!

So two hours later, cake is baked and ready! I can watch tv while waiting for it cool, sleep in tomorrow morning and turn up at the pot luck not looking harassed! I call that a WIN!

Cake cooling

 

 

Before de-tinning, less cracking on the top than usual, I must have been a patient whisker this time round

 

Pulut Tai Tai or Pulut Tekan

One of the recent things that I have on my 'shopping list' for trips back to Malaysia is the blue pea flower or bunga telang. It is mainly used to colour food naturally. By crushing the petals and squeezing the juice out..normally just a few drops, you get pretty shades of blues and purples. So now, everytine I get back to malaysia, I'll get a bag or two of these flowers in their dried form.

So this time, I'm making Pulut tai tai which is steamed glutinous rice topped with kaya (a coconut kind of jam). This is also the first time I'm attempting to make kaya, as it turned out, the kaya recipe that I used was great if I may say so. I will definitely make more.

 

Hong Kong egg tarts

I keep looking up the recipe for these but never got round to making them. When the Great British Bakeoff had egg tarts as the technical challenge, I just had to make them. But I didn't want the 'ang mo' version, I wanted the Hong Kong version that we get at home. I was quite nervous when it came to making the custard as I've never made custard from scratch before and have have seen lots of disasters on tv where the custard becomes scrambled eggs. In my nervousness, I forgot to add the vanilla extract to the custard, luckily it still turned out right and was not too eggy. In fact, it was quite yummy if I say so myself!

Cross section of the tart, super smooth custard!

 

 

Raspberry tart

I made this a few weeks back with raspberries freshly picked from the garden. It's simple quick and yummy, just use a ready made pastry shell, whip some custard with mascarpone cheese, top with raspberries and garnish with mint (from the garden too) and enjoy! Simple!

 

Chocolate butterflies

When I was invited to a friend's for lunch this weekend and it slipped out that it was her birthday, I decided to make a cheesecake for her. Since she was not wanting to celebrate her birthday (she claims 'I'm old already lah'), it seemed like a suitable choice as its not too birthday-ish but yet it's still a cake. To make it special, I decided to look into tempering chocolate and making decorations with it. I found a quick and simple method of tempering chocolate using the microwave. The trick is not to be impatient and melt the chocolate in small bursts, once done, to make the decorations it's more of a balance of having to move the hand quickly in order to keep a consistent flow of chocolate to draw with and keeping the movements controlled so we don't end up with blobs of chocolate which is what we started out with!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Drying out on non stick parchment

 

 

Rhubarb crumble

I've not used much of the rhubarb from the garden this year. Last evening I decided to make a simple crumble with them. This time I decided to make single portions rather than one big pie. For the crumble I added some rolled oats to give the dish a better balance in texture, turns out the oats actually helped the crunch factor of the crumble which contrasted really well with the rhubarb compote under it.

Rhubarb compote which is to be the base of the crumble

 

 

Rainbow birthday cake

 

My little girl's 3rd birthday was coming up and I was looking for something special to top last year's Mickey Mouse clubhouse cake. Just so happened at that time rainbow cakes seemed to be all the rage. As I was browsing at sample rainbow cakes, my little one came up and asked if it was for her birthday, at that time without thinking I just said yes. Since then every time I asked her what she wanted for her birthday, the answer was a rainbow cake and thus I was committed.

First, I tried a recipe from a magazine where I first saw the rainbow cake though reviews said the recipe was not great. After trying it I had to agree with the reviews, it was not a good recipe at all, though the baked layers turned out level and would hold stable stacked up in 6-7 layers, the texture and taste was bad (only was to describe it) and I know it's not due to my baking skills as that was exactly what the reviews said.

So I reverted to a trusty sponge recipe that I know and used that instead with fingers crossed that stacking 6 layers would not be too much. Another thing that I tried new was to freeze the baked layers, I read that it would not impair the quality of the cake and its true. On the day it was cut, the layers tasted as they were freshly baked and this freezing method saved me a lot of time as I had to bake 6 separate layers and now I could do this ahead of time and spread the baking over two days (yes, I was being El Cheapo and only used a single tin to bake all 6 layers).

Then it was decision on fresh cream or buttercream icing, I opted for buttercream as the cake will be rather big and buttercream will last longer than fresh cream. Then after more browsing for decorating ideas and how to do buttercream icing, I took the plunge.

As is reported by those who have made a rainbow cake, to see the surprise and delight on people's faces when the first cut is made to reveal the layers is very satisfying indeed and makes the effort of baking the layers worth it....I totally agree!

Rainbow made out of smarties

 

 

The first cut

Almost gone!

Good look at the layers

 

 

 

 

 

 

Japanese Swiss roll

So finally my battle with the swiss roll comes to an acceptable end. First a little history lesson, well, not that old but months ago, I had a craving for Swiss roll and attempted to make one...swiss roll no.1 failed. So ok, as a home baker, it's no big deal, we try again.... hence started the swiss roll week, from which swiss rolls no.2, 3,4,5,6 ...was produced, you get the drift. It became a challenge to me make the swiss roll that tasted like it did in my head, yes, some would by then term it as an obsession! So I tried numerous recipes, trying a swiss roll (or two) each day after work! All failed, some was not even edible....so after a week of wasted eggs, I waved the white flag. One type of swiss roll though intrigued me i.e. the Japanese variation where the texture is so soft and light, I believe there's a shop in Ipoh that specialises in them. Anyway, yesterday I brushed off my swiss roll pan and tried once again to make the Japanese roll swiss, after of course watching numerous uTube videos of other people making it look like a breeze to bake. Previously I had managed to produced ones that have the right taste but they collapsed at various stages, when removed from the oven, after rolling and after chilling on the fridge. But this time round, armed with new knowledge of whisking egg whites and folding flour, I think I may have cracked the secret of soft Japanese swiss rolls, it's not perfect (yet) but at least I feel that it no longer eludes me!