Birthday cake for my mother

I seldom succeed in getting a homemade birthday cake ready on time for that special day of anyone... however this time, I delivered the cake to her on the day of my mother's birthday! I am so proud of myself. Haha.

This is a very simple all in recipe, so I gamely try it out as a birthday cake. The recipe asked that all the ingredients be thrown into a food processor and then just bake and decorate. Sounds so easy right? But I do not have food processor and I think the KA can do the job. The recipe is for a 4 layers cake and I half the recipe since I wanted to make a 2 layer one (* struggling to keep awake *).

Even though the butter is relatively soft, after some mixing, there are still cubes of butter not blended into the batter. I chose to leave it because I am worried about the gluten forming when flour is over beaten. But this recipe uses self raising flour .... does this applies to self raising flour too? I am also too lazy to lay the baking paper properly, so I just simply fold and tug to cover the 8 inch tray. I thought the batter would turn more "watery" and then will press out the folds but I was wrong.

The "naked" cake ended up looking like this.

Then I happily (dozed off for a while while writing!) prepare frosting. I did not use the recommended buttercream since I wanted to finish my whip cream in the freezer. I beat the whipping cream with my hands, so tired but I push myself and when finally done, I pour cooled melted chocolate into the cold whipped cream. I am sure all of you know what happens after that. This mistake is the 2nd time. The first time, I pour cool melted chocolate into the whipped cream when I served them ice cream like that of chocolate syrup... but the melted chocolate hardens upon touching the cold whipped cream. I can not imagine I can forget the mistake and made same one again. So in the end, the frosting was a whipped cream with bits of chocolate. Well, 另類 frosting then.

The cake was very sweet. I dare not reduce any sugar as I am afraid the cake will taste bitter if there was not enough sugar to compensate. The inside looked presentable but the cake is on the dry side and crumbly. However, it taste very good with the whipped cream. This is how my decorated cake looked like.

The recipe is taken from BBC Australian Good Food April 2011

Layered Easter Chocolate Cake 

Serves 12 Prep 20 mins plus cooling

Cook 35 mins 

Super Easy, Family favourite

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups (225g) self raising flour

1 1/4 cups (275g) firmly packed brown sugar

250g unsalted butter, softened

75g dark chocolate, melted

1/2 cup (50g) cocoa 

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

4 eggs

16 mini Easter eggs, to decorate

Ganache icing

1/2 cup (80ml) cream

160g dark chocolate, chopped

buttercream filling

375g unsalted butter, softened

500g pure icing sugar

1/2 cup (80ml) milk

1. Preheat oven to 180C or 160C. Grease and line two 20cm round pans.

2. Place flour, sugar, butter, chocolate, cocoa, baking powder, vanilla, eggs and 2 tbsp water in a food processor and process until smooth. Spoon into pans, level surfaces and bake for 35 mins, until a skewer inserted into centre comes out clean. Stand for 5 mins, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

3. Meanwhile, to make icing, heat cream in a small pan on medium. Bring to boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate. Stand for 2-3 mins, until chocolate is melted. Whisk until smooth. Stand for 20 mins. until cooled slightly and thickened. 

4. To make buttercream filling, use an electric mixer to beat butter until as white as possible. Alternately beat in sugar and milk, starting and finishing with a little sugar.

5. Using a bread knife, split each cake into two layers. Sandwich together all four layers with buttercream. Top with ganache and decorate with Easter eggs. Serve.

For those interested in the texture inside, I hope the picture can help a little.

Phew, I have finally managed an easy birthday cake on time for someone's birthday!

Brownie suitable for breakfast?

There are nothing for breakfast tomorrow and I am not willing to buy bread today as I am doing marketing tomorrow, so I quickly took out the magazine that I have renewed  a couple of times just because I have not tried out the few recipes in it. There are 3 recipes I wanted to try in this Australian GoodFood Magazine but I only have most of the ingredients in one recipe - Triple Chocolate Fudge brownies.

Look how tempting this recipe is with this picture from the magazine.

I marked down this recipe due to the flaky top. I once baked such a brownie but I lost the recipe. However I did not achieve that and I cannot even explained what happened during the whole baking process when it is such a straight forward recipe. Perhaps I should not have meddle any single bit of the process and ingredients.

First, I replaced some white chocolate with cookie and cream chocolates I got from my Perth trip and I even reduced the amount of white chocolate. Then I used chocolate chips as milk chocolate. As the sugar is added into melted butter so I used normal sugar instead of caster sugar as I guessed they will melt anyway. I also reduced the sugar to 50g since my cookies and cream chocolate is very sweet. I also beat the eggs vigorously instead of lightly as instructed because I was thinking of adding more rising power to the brownie (LOL). Perhaps I am all wrong....

The mixture became like a dough. It did not even stick to the sides of my pot. I felt that if I did not reduce the white chocolate amount, I will get an even firm mass of batter.

I have chosen to try out fan mode again. Actually I am not too sure if the mode called "turbo" on my oven is the same as fan mode. The manual said that "convection makes hot air circulate around the food ..." so doesn't that sounds like fan mode? Anyway, halfway through the baking process, the cooking in process batter turned to this below -

The surface has alot of oil, all bubbling. I am not sure why is that so. When baking time is up, I see that the top did not achieved the flaky look, so I turn on the top heat and wanted to dry up the top. This process went around 3-5 minutes. In the end, the brownie seems kind of dry but I still did not get the flaky top. The kids like it thou. I guess it will go well with vanilla ice cream like my friend suggested. Presenting my dry top brownie :-)

After I settled the "no breakfast tomorrow" problem, now I started to wonder if this bake is suitable for breakfast tomorrow..... *sigh*

Here is sharing the recipe from the magazine (Australian GoodFood April 2011) -

Triple chocolate fudge brownies (Makes 16 Prep 10 mins plus cooling Cook 25mins)

125g cold unsalted butter, chopped

200g dark chocolate, chopped

1/2 cup (110g) caster sugar (I used normal sugar and reduce amount to 50g)

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 cup (185g) plain flour, sifted
180g white chocolate, chopped ( I think I used around 130g)
100g milk chocolate, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 180dC or 160dC fan. Grease and line a 20cm square cake pan.
2. Place butter and dark chocolate in a small saucepan on low heat and stir until melted. Stir in sugar. Cool for 10 mins.
3. Stir in egg, then flour, and then white and milk chocolate. Spoon mixture into prepared pan. Bake for 20 - 25 mins, until firm to touch, Cook in pan. Cut into 16 squares and serve.

So simple and yet I did not make it. Haiz. I think I will find a time to try this again, follow to the perfect T (but really worried about the sugar and the sweetness).

If there are any health concious readers, the following information that came with the recipe would be helpful to you (but not me :-( ) -

In each brownie 1216 kilojoules, 4g protein, 16g total fat (10g sat fat), 33g carbohydrate (23g sugar), 1g fibre,  31mg sodium.

*phew* I managed to update my blog today with today's bake! :-)

Supporting AB again - chocolate cupcakes

I did "Individual Milk Chocolate Cupcakes" (what a long name!) this morning with my girl. I started at around 10am and finishes at 12pm, with her help! But it is suppose to be very very simple.

Since she started PM session, she has not much chance of baking with me, so when I came across this recipe from this book I just borrowed from the new Clementi Library, I knew I just have to do it. However, I find that this recipe is rather familar. I cannot recall where is the similar recipe. Anyway, that is not so important. The important thing is, this recipe is easy, uses the ingredients I have on hand and also very much want to "get rid" of due to the soon to come expiry date.

The recipe goes like this :-


Inidividual Milk Chocolate Cupcakes (Makes 12)


75g (2 and 3/4 oz) unsalted butter
75g (2 and 3/4 oz or half cup) milk chocolate chopped
80g (2 and 3/4 oz or 1/3 cup) firmly packed brown sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
60g (2 and 1/4 oz or half cup) self raising flour, sifted


Ganache
80g (2 and 3/4 oz or heaped half cup) milk chocolate chopped
2 tablespoons thick (double/heavy) cream


1. Preheat the oven to 160 dC (315dF/ Gas 2-3). Line a flat-bottomed 12-hole cupcake tray with paper cases. Put the butter and chocolate in a heatproof bowl and place over a saucepan of simmering water - make sure the base of the bowl doesn't touch the water. Stir until melted and combined. Remove the bowl from the heat, add the sugar and egg and mix. Stir in the flour.


2. Transfer the mixture to a measuring bowl and pour into the paper cases. Bake for 20 - 25 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the centre of a cake comes out clean. Leave in the tin for 10 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.


3. To make the ganache, place the chocolate and cream in a heatproof bowl. Place over a saucepan of simmering water, making sure that the base of the bowl doesn't touch the water. Once the chocolate has almost melted, remove the bowl from the heat and stir until the remaining chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth. Allow to cool for about 8 minutes, or until thicken slightly.  Return cakes to the cold cupcake tin to keep them stable while you spread one heaped teaspoon of ganache over the top.


Recipe taken from Great Tastes Little Cakes published by Bay Books (sorry no author)

See, that is the end. Easy isn't it? I let my girl stir the chocolate and butter while I prepare lunch. I use dark chocolate couverture instead of milk chocolate by the way, dark chocolate healthier ya? Then I poured in the sugar first (to melt them with the heat),  after that wait for the mixture to cool down before I poured in the egg (incase the egg gets cooked). The mixture is pretty warm and I did not bother if the bowl touches the simmering water. What is the rational for not allowing bowl to touch the water? Can anyone tell me?

The batter consistency is not too runny, but it has alot of bubbles, so not sure if it is from the raising agent in the self raising flour or due to my constant vigorous stiring.  So, pretty straight forward, but after filling my 12 mini cupcakes I still have some left. I guess the recipe is for a 12 hole big muffin tray? After a round of 25 minutes, I baked the rest (6 only). Not sure if it is due to the batter not covered,  I noticed the batter turned alot stickier and thicker, and not so easy to pour the second round. Anyway my girl and I used spoon to scoop, thus we took a long time to fill the tray.

The resulted cupcakes are very nice and soft when warm, but looked very ugly because of the holes on top (perhaps resulted from the airy batter). After cool down, has a hard top and I feel that it is a little to the dry side. Perhaps I over baked. Should try again and bake only the standard mini muffin timing like 10 to 20 minutes.

Here's how ugly they looked.

the "solid" inside :-)

I am participating Aspiring Bakers #7 - Chocolate Delight (May 2011) hosted by DG from Tested and Tasted with this entry.

p/s : I am sorry I have to type degree Celsius in dC and fahrenheit in dF .. and the fractions ... sigh, cos I do not know how to enter special characters.

Combined post - Handmix Chocolate muffin & Melt in mouth cookie

Please pardon me for being lazy, combining my bakes into a post, but these bakes are pretty straight forward.

Early April, when I should be trying out to bake a mango mousse cake for my boy's birthday, I chickened out and did a simpler one - chocolate chip muffins (which just requires me to hand mix wet into dry). I learnt from Happy Home Baking that it is called "two bowl muffin". The baking process was pretty plain sailing as far as I can remember but as usual the muffins took longer as stated to be cooked. Still wondering if that is the reason for the chocolate chips looking burnt. Anyway, hop over to HHB's website for her fantastic recipe on this bake. I should be trying this out again, half the recipe and make them as mini muffin. Here is sharing my result.

The gooey mix

The open cups

The results

the burnt chips

chocolatey muffins

Now, this is my latest bake and one of the most satisfied one. So satisfied with the results that I gave some away. It is the (drum rolls) melt-in-mouth German cookies. Look how it caught my attention when Small Small Baker did it. Furthermore, this recipe also uses an ingredient that has been sitting there for months after I bought it for a chinese dish- the potato starch.

The process is very straight forward as I have mentioned. The "rolling dough into a ball" part is also very fun,and I guess it is suitable as a parent and child bonding recipe. The baking process is not too long but since my oven tends to take longer time to bake, I baked for a longer period and the cookies became brown (when I should not have brown it). Despite this, the cookies are so yummy, so "melt in the mouth" that I cannot stop eating. The whole family gave thumbs up for this cookie too.  Now if you did not hop over to SSB's blog to get tempted, then let my "not so well taken" photo tempt you.

Now quick go try bake it. You will not regret.

Easy non bake chocolate pie

I must thank my friend Cindy for sharing her recipe. She posted a picture of a pie sitting in her fridge and it tempted me. She said it is easy and share her recipe and so I went ahead to buy the required ingredients and get my hands on it after my hubby came back from business trip.

The pie is easy for old baker (started baking like 2 yrs ago and an old auntie too lah) but newbie (cos I do not bake that often and never learn from mistakes!) like me. Only four ingredients are required and I do not need to bake it too. Best of all, the pie crust is "broken down" by the help of a machine (my grinder) and it is the first time I use it for this purpose. Why did I use my hand to crush the oreo biscuits when I made my cheese cake the last time round?

Anyway, I lined the pie pan, poured the sandy and moist looking digestive biscuit into it, press the crumbs as evenly as I can with patience and put it into the freezer. Then I cooked the nestle cream and pour it into my chocolate buttons and stir with my hand whisk.

The completed product went into the fridge while the kids crowd around me, what else, but for the chocolate coating around the mixing bowl.

Here's the complete pie and a slice of it. I will get my friend's permission before I post her recipe here. Meanwhile, do enjoy the pictures. Hehehe.

 






Yum! My kids love it and keep asking for it! Now you want to do that for your kids?

After gotten my friend's permission, here's the recipe. She mentioned it is from a Food and Travel Mag. Thank you again, Cindy. Here it is :-

For the crust :

180g digestive biscuits
90g butter, melted

Blitz biscuits into fine sand using food processor. Stir in melted butter. Press mixture into a 24 cm tart tin. Chill in fridge while you prepare the filling.

Filling :

280g dark chocolate, chopped
260g cream

Bring cream to boil in a saucepan. Remove from heat and pour over your bowl of chopped chocolate. Stir it until cream and chocolate combined into a smooth and shiny mixture.
Fill tart tin with the chocolate mixture and chill at least for 4 hours.

Chocolate cake

This is a very very long overdued post.

I have to use up my expiring chocolate buttons (they are meant for brownie but I never made it). Not purposely looking but happened to see this chocolate cake recipe from Olivia's blog and seems quite straight forward, so went ahead with it.

I love that this cake has the height but mine sinked slightly in the centre. This one that I baked also shrinks at the side, wondering if it is due to me"buttering" the side of the cake pan.

"crater" in the centre of cake.

Cake cooling on the rack bottom up! Looks nicer, ya?

I am too lazy to do any frosting as usual, but the chocolate buttons are not all used up, so instead of making a big fuss, I just melt the chocolate with milk and pour it over the cut cake before eating.

It really looked alot more appealing with that dripping chocolate sauce .. pity I lost that picture that I took.

The kids love the cake. Although my taste bud is not sensitive, but I still feel the funny feeling of "metallic surface" when I run my tongue over the back of my lower front teeth after I eat it (wonder if you know what I mean). I will always have that feel when I bake with that certain brand of cake flour which I avoid now, but now also with self raising flour? Is baking powder the culprit? Got to bake more and pay more attention to find out.

Since I can bake this cake with this height this time, next time when I need to have layered chocolate cake, I think can try this out, cut this into two halves, frost it and decorate. Maybe for my girl's birthday?

I think I better note down the recipe here since it is a keeper .... I am suppose to jot down separately the recipes that I want to use again and again (incase broken links in future and can refer it offline) ....

Ingredients

115g plain chocolate

50ml milk

150g unsalted butter

150g light brown sugar

3 nos eggs

200g Self raising flour

1 tbsp cocoa powder

Method

1. Grease a 8 inch cake tin and line the base with baking paper.

2. Place the chopped chocolate and milk in a bowl. Place the bowl over a simmering pan of hot water. Leave for 3 mins until chocolate softens. Turn off heat and stir the mixture till smooth.

3. Cream the butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in the chocolate mixture until well combined.

4. Sift the flour and cocoa over the mixture and fold in batches until evenly mixed. Pour the prepared batter into the cake tin and bake at preheated oven at 180dC for 35 - 40 mins or until cooked.

5. Cool cake in tin for 5 mins before removing from tin and place on cooling rack to cool completely.

6. Slice cake into 2 layers. Spread a thick layer of ganache on the 1st layer. Spread the remaining ganache over the whole cake.

Thanks to Olivia again.

Double Chocolate Cupcakes (take 2)

No volcanoes this time. I half the recipe and it yields 16 cups, of which 3 are slightly taller cups (brown ones at the far end).

I also reduced the sugar. Hubby says this time is not as tasty as the first, but my kids still love it the same. I know the sugar and oil ratio affects the bake, but not sure by how much. Perhaps the sugar has changed something so hubby says not as tasty.

I noticed something weird this time. The chocolate chips seemed burnt. Look at the picture below, did you see a rim of black around the melted chocolate of the chip?

Can any expert visiting my blog enlighten me?

Black and white

Have not been baking for a long time .... cannot remember for wat reasons .. but here I am, with two recent bakes done last week and last last week.

The first is an easy Banana Chocolate cake from 手拌式蛋糕by Kevin Chai. I had very ripe bananas (so ripe that they fell off from the "don't know what to call". :-) . I am not sure if I failed or suceeded (but I baked it more than the time required), because the inside of the cake is so moist (or should I say wet) that it almost look like mud cake, or those super fudgy brownie? You see and you tell me.

The cake rises very well in the oven and it requires "tent-ing". However, after I removed it from the oven, it sank after a while. As it is a loaf cake, and I do not have a oven thermometer (my oven is very temperamental, haha) so I am worried that it will not be baked. With the aluminium foil tent, I purposely let the cake bake another 15 minutes more than the required time, so I hope the "wetness" is normal. Anyway my kids love the cake, I do too.

Look at that sunken "face".

Shortly after this bake, I remember my parmesan cheese is expiring soon, so I dig out the recipe that I had prepared long time ago ( I knew I would not be able to finish that tub before the expiry date). I followed the recipe and has Mini Cheese cupcake done with my girl in a morning. Pretty fast and fuss free, but the recipe isn't really complete because I did not jot down the temperature that I should bake the cupcakes in, so I just use any reading. Anyway, the parmesan cheese has passed its "Best Before" date (not expiry date), but I still went ahead to do it .. and eat it too! Its yummy, but oily. When they are in the oven, there are already alot of oil oozing out. My kids also love these and requested me to bake again. Look at the molehills.

and this "sunflower"

and the yummy inside.

I think I should learn from Happy Home Baker .. use more pictures, less words, esp when my command of english isn't very good. Now I am so tired to write in mandarin .. so this post will not have the mandarin part.

Here is the recipe.

Banana Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

90g SR flour, 90g plain flour

1/4 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp bicarbonate soda

1 1/2 tbsp cocoa powder, 170g butter

1 tbsp corn oil, 150g chocolate

100ml hot water, 80ml milk

170g brown sugar, 3 eggs

200g banana flesh (sliced)

Method

1. Grease and line 10cm by 32 cm (4 by 13 inches) baking tin. Preheat oven to 170 degree celsius.

2. Combine flours, baking powder, soda and cocoa powder in a mixing bowl.

3. Melt butter, oil, chocolate, hot water and milk over low heat. Remove from heat, combine with brown sugar and eggs.

4. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture together with banana slices until well blended.

5. Spoon batter into prepared tin. Bake in oven for 40 - 45 minutes or until cooked. Stand for 10 minutes and turning on to wire rack to cool.

6. Decorate with decogel, banana slices and chocolate chips.

I have forgotten where did I get the mini cheesecake recipe from, so if anyone wanted it, do email me and I shall share it with you.

Now I really need to zzz...

My second loaf from the breadmaker

Happy with the first loaf, I continued to make the 2nd loaf. This time a chocolate flavour one, because it is my boy's favourite. I took the recipe from HappyHomeBaking again, Chocolate Hazelnut Bread.

She mentioned in her post that she bought the wrong type of hazelnut (grounded instead of chopped) but I like to use grounded hazelnut because I know that my family (accept me) cannot accept a bread with nuts.

Previously, I am using Red Man Yeast but my hubby thinks that the first loaf that I baked has a hint of sourish taste, so I am determine to change the type of yeast, from RedMan to Bake King (since it is readily available at the nearby NTUC).

This Red Man breadmaker only allows me to choose the crust and type of bread, so basic and light crust is what I have chosen, thou I know the crust will turn out not light!

At the end of 3 hours, I got this.

I love the look of the bread, the inside but not the outside. I still do not have a smooth top. Is it the standard for breads out of breadmaker? The bread is still soft, but the crust is cripsy then when cooled, chewy. Anyway I love this bread. The chocolate inside makes it so tasty and I love the little bits inside. My girl ate it while it is fresh and said is nice, hubby also say its nice (but he doesn't like the bits), but my boy got chicken pox and has no appetite. Anyway, on 2nd day, no one asking for it. it is a little drier.

According to the manual of this breadmaker, the liquid ingredients will go first follow by the dry ones, then butter, but this recipe calls for melted butter and it is liquid ... so shd it be first, or last? In the end I put it in last, since i m going to turn on the maker right away.

It was after that then I realized I may have added the hazelnut in the wrong order. Hazelnut can be considered as "other ingredients" that should only be added after the 2nd kneading, but I put it in together with the dry ingredients. I wrote to ask HappyHomebaking for advices. She mentioned if the hazelnuts are grounded to very fine, I can add in with the flour. If it is in bits, adding it too early might make the dough dry as it may absorb up the moisture. If I ever had the chance of baking this bread again, I hope I remember to add the hazelnut in later.

很高興上回的麵包不錯，所以乘勝追擊，再來個巧克力口味的。

Fresh from the oven - Brownie Muffin

It wasn't until I finished baking them just this morning that
I realised I  have baked them before.

The recipe is scribbled in my notebook, and I find the steps
easy so wanted to do it with my boy.

Very happy that my boy enjoyed himself and very happy
with myself that I can still manage to prepare lunch with this
baking session on.

Here are the lovely sinful, fattening muffins.


Please check out the recipe from JY's Baking Journal.

Like she say, the muffin is moist inside and has a crusty top.
Best of all, I do not need the mixer. However, the batter is
quite thick, so spooning into my muffin cups is a challenge.

好开心今早与孩子烘了些巧克力马芬。这食谱非常简单，
不需搅拌机，所以孩子很开心能帮上忙。赶快点击这里， 与孩
子一起做，促进亲子关系吧。

Sachertorte

What's this?

The baking book says "A superb rich, very densely textured cake,
named after the Sacher hotel in Vienna."

This cake uses ground almond instead of flour.

Y this cake is chosen to be baked today? Cos my mother bought a
pack of almond nuts by mistake and she ground them into 
almond powder. So to use up the almond powder sooner (she say
she bought the pack for a long time already), I chose this recipe.

Lots of mistake made baking this cake.
1. Missed out an egg.
2. Oven temperature too low (temp lower by accident)
3. Top burnt as too busy preparing dinner and the doughnut.
4. Egg whites not beaten thoroughly. Saw liquid egg whites at the
     base of the mixing bowl. Cant be beaten egg white turning bak
     to liquid state after leaving it around for too long?

Anyway, I don't like the cake. It taste so much like the macaroons 
that I bake before I started this blog. Too chewy but my hubby
eats even thou he hates almond, all thanks to the high chocolate
contents.

Here's a picture showing the texture.


So if anyone tries this, please share with me your outcome.

Here's the recipe taken out from "Simple cakes" by Mary Berry.

Sachertorte
Preparation time : 30 minutes
cooking time : 40 - 45 minutes
tin needed : A deep round loose bottomed 23 cm (9 in) cake tin

Ingredients
265g (9 1/2 oz) plain chocolate, broken into pieces
6 eggs, 5 of them separated
215g (7 1/2 oz) caster sugar
150g (5 oz) ground almonds

For topping and icing : ( I left out the icing as usual)
about 4 tbspn apricot jam
150g(5oz) plain chocolate, broken into pieces
150ml (5 fl oz) double cream
25g (1 oz) white chocolate

Method
1. Lightly grease the cake tin and line the base witha circle of non
    stick baking parchment. Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas
    mark 4. Put the chocolate into bowl placed over a pan of hot
    water. The water in the pan must not touch the bowl of the
    chocolate may overheat. Place the pan over a low heat until the
    chocolate has melted, stirring occasionally. Allow to cook a little.

2. Whisk the 5 egg whites in a large mixing bowl until stiff but not
    dry. In a separate large mixing bowl, use a hand held mixer to
    whisk together the 5 egg yolks, whole egg and sugar until thick
    and pale. The mixture should be thick enough to leave a trail on
    the surface when the whisk is lifted from the bowl.

3. Whisk the ground almonds, melted chocolate and 1 tablespoon
    of the whisked egg whites into the egg yolk mixture.

4. Carefully fold in the remaining egg whites using a large metal
    spoon or a straight edged spatula. Turn the mixture into the
    prepared tin and gently tilt the tin to level the surface. Bake
    for 40 - 45 minutes, until the crust that forms on the top is firm
    and the cake has begun to shrink away from the side of the tin.

5. Allow the cake to cook in the tin for about 10 minutes before
    loosening it around the edge with a small palette knife. Turn
    the cake upside down on to a wire rack covered with a tea
    towel, remove the lining paper and leave to cool completely.

6. For the topping, gently heat the apricot jan in a small pan and
     then brush it evenly over the top and sides of the cake (heating
    the jam makes it easier to brush).

7.  For the icing, put the chocolate into a bowl with the double
    cream and melt slowly over a pan of hot water. Stir occasionally
    until smooth and glossy. Allow the icing to cool and thicken
    slightly, then pour it into the centre of the cake. Spread it
    gentlely over the top and down the sides with a palette knife
    and leave to set. To finish, melt the white chocolate slowly in a
    bowl over a pan of hot water. Spoon into a small paper icing
    bag or polythene bag and snip off the corner. Pipe 'Sacher'
    across the cake and leave to set.

failed Brownie ?

Was told brownie wasnt a difficult item for a newbie so off I went to "collect" the ingredients required and finally attempted it today.  The result (the look) is not satisfactory and I am not sure if that is the right result (the taste) anyway. The recipe is from Happy Home Baking. Its call Nut and Chocolate Chip Brownies.

I am getting lazier to clean up the mixer these days (luckily I have not invest on a KitchenAid or Kenwood) so I tried mixing the mix with my hands. However, the amount of sugar and egg make it so difficult for me to whisk (old woman liao lah) so all I could do is to swirl the mix round and round.  After much swirling, I finally get tired of it and mixed in the melted chocolate then sifted in the flour and off goes the mixture into the oven.

After 35 minutes, it came out looking like this after standing for some time. It isn't like this when it first came out from the oven.

 Look at the "squarish" hole in the centre.

 The pieces of brownie are only 2cm tall!

Patiently waited for it to cool down, then cut and taste it. It is very very sweet (even thou i reduced sugar to 180g thinking that my Van Houten baking chocolate should be a semi sweet chocolate). It is indeed moist (a consolation since it supposed to be) and maybe it is fudgy (since I am not sure how fudgy taste like) but it is flat (since it collapsed).

Only my gal wants to try upon me asking, but my boy rejected my offer. Now I am stucked with many pieces of fattening brownie 
(I am too fat to keep eating these nice stuff). I must go buy
smaller pans. My kids have not been eating alot of my bakes
accept the egg tarts. I should start "recruiting" testers 
(don't want to stop cos i like baking leh).

I forgot to mention, i even hv problem leveling the mix for oven cos it is very gooey.