Pandan chiffon cake turn malay kueh

Tried making a pandan chiffon cake today. I know it is a difficult cake and i am not
overestimating myself, just that my family is sick of chocolate cakes 
and my fussy little  eaters like pandan cake.

I hv coconut milk in fridge so I thought I give Aunty Yochana's Pandan chiffon cake a try.
Thank you Aunty Yochana for sharing the recipe.

How embarassing. The cake is a total failure. Mixing the egg yolk part is quite a breeze (I wouldn't know if it has gone wrong anyway). There isnt anyone around to confirm my "beating the egg white (which is a first to me)" is correct. Anyway I folded ard 1/3 of beaten egg white  into the egg yolk mixture first then the rest of it. There is still streaks of white thou.

On the cooking portion. The recipe calls for 40 - 45 minutes, but at abt 20 - 25 minutes (but i did half the recipe), I saw the cake rise , dome shape, and cracks in the centre. I even witness a crack starting from the centre, working its way to the side of the cake (like ice cracking in ice age movie). According to baking book, the dome shape is the symptom of temperature too hot. A pity my oven thermometer is not at a correct angle for me to chk properly.

As I can see the inside through the crack, I think it looks cooked, so I tested it. The satay stick comes out clean. I declare its cooked and took it out of the oven. While testing, 
the dome has already sank back to be levelled with the rest of the 
cake, so I thot it will not sink any further and so did not follow
 what the recipe says abt cooling it inverted. 
After a minute, or maybe less, the cake collapsed further. Look at this sorry sight.

 
I did not wait for it to cool too long cos i wanted to taste the cake. This is the look of the inside.
I can imagine how it will look if it has not collasped.

Hubby tried and say not bad, taste like malay kueh. I also find the taste very pleasing, not too sweet, just nice. 
Infact I think I love the taste. Got to try this again soon.

Some minor changes i want to note here.
- Half the recipe is used
- Only 65ml coconut in the packet, so 10ml if HL milk is added to make up the liquid content
- 8 inch square pan is used instead of tube pan (now considering shd i go buy a tube pan instead)
- I lined the pan, bottom and sides (not sure if this affects the rising of the cake)

Dinner - Baked rice

Sick of cooking the usual dishes and think that it has been a long time since i do bake rice. Had 2 recipes cut out in my recipe file, but i choose to source recipe online from my fav food blog - Happy Home Baking blog.

Read it a couple of time last night, but i did not jot it down. So I simple rely on memory. Start cooking the thighs, cut up the meat when cooled. Chopped ingredients (just use my own) red green capsicum, button mushroom, tomato, and the usual garlic and onion when cooking chicken. After that I use butter to stir fry the garlic and onion, followed by the other ingredients, then pour in the nestle pouring cream that has been sitting in my fridge for a long long time (wanted that cream to do the cake frosting) then the stock. In goes the last impt ingredient, cooked rice. I placed a few slices of crabmeat stick (those frozen ones) and sprinkle on the mozz cheese generously (almost used all of the packet that i bought from 
NTUC).

The cheese took quite some time to start turning brown. Kids are complaining that they hungry (time is 545pm). Finally, after 30 minutes of ard 180 deg C, I can serve my baked rice.

Its the first time i use cream.  All previous attempts uses tomato ketchup, or tomato puree (my other cut out recipe), or canned soups. Camera low batt and got to feed kids, so only manage this foto.



My hubby commented that it is tasty leh .. yay. My kids, also say nice, accept they keep picking out the mushroom.

I baked my Girl's bday cake

Daring hor. With these kind of skills still bake bday cake for my girl. As usual, i chose an easy recipe. She asked for chocolate cake even thou i proposed strawberry flavour. Its called "family chocolate cake". I feel that we hv been eating too much chocolate related cakes. Hubby at the end of the celebration also ask me if i can try other recipes like those very eggful flavour ji dan gao cake.


Ok, heres how the end product look.

How is it? Pretty? (if you are not asking for a smooth frost done) Well looks can be deceiving.

Hubby commented that the frosting is too yulky. Asked me how come i did not try it out in small amount first and told me I shd just stick with using chocolate. Cake wise, he at first said it taste like huat kueh, but after a few tries, without the frosting, told me is ok, but he dun like. The kids? They are only interested with the gummy hearts. I find the cake ok leh. The frosting (the recipe call it fudge) is really very powdery in taste, not to my liking too.  I post the recipe at the end. Try (if you chance upon this blog) and tell me so that I can compare to see if i did the right thing.

This recipe uses water in making the cake. I hv not come across such recipe so far, that is y tempt me to try. This is the in progress picture.

The mixture "grows" when boiling (perhaps the bicarbonate) so better prepare a bigger saucepan. I added in flour and egg all in one go cos the mixture is very watery. The flour at first appears in lumps but I hand mix the mixture with spoon first. Then I used the mixer to beat. I am not sure if i m right in beating the mixture. 
I beat for quite sometime before I am satisfied.
Anyway the mixture is almost at the ribbon stage.

The cake rose beautifully in the oven. Since I halved the recipe, so I thought I shd half the baking time too. But when i checked at end of 30 minutes, the cake is not cooked even though the cake rose high high. Guess what happen after the prick test. The cake cracked in the oven while still baking! So finally after 50 minutes (as per recipe time), the cake is out from oven.

Finally, the cake did not sink back down. This time the cake measures ard 3.5cm tall (i used a 8 by 8 inch square pan). How happy I am. A pity i cant test the cake at that moment, but as I need to trim off the cracked top for a flatter look to frost, i did try the bits and pieces from there. Quite ok, soft then. Heres how it looks inside.

 tall right? Did it look alright to you?

ok, heres the recipe taken off from the book "The Australian Women's Weekly, CAKES biscuits & slices". This book is borrowed from NLB.

Family chocolate cake -Preparation time 20 minutes, cooking time 50 minutes (plus cooling time)

Ingredients
2 cups (500ml) water
3 cups (660g) caster sugar
250g butter, chopped
1/3 cup (35g) cocoa powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
3 cups (450g) self raising flour
4 eggs

Fudge frosting
90 butter
1/3 cup (80ml) water
1/2 cup (110b) caster sugar
1 1/2 cups (240g ) icing sugar
1/3 cup (35g ) cocoa powder

1. Preheat oven to moderate (180 dC). Grease deep 26.5cm x 33cm baking dish; line base with baking paper.
2. Combine the water, sugar, butter and sifted cocoa and soda in medium saucepan; stir over heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves, Bring to a boil then reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, 5 minutes. Transfer mixture to large bowl; cool to room temperature.
3. Add flour and eggs to bowl; beat with electric mixer until mixture is smooth and pale in colour. Pour mixture into pan; bake about 50 minutes. Stand cake 10 minutesl turn, top-side up, onto wire rack to cool.
4. Spread cold cake with fudge frosting.

Fudge frosting -  combine butter, the water and caster sugar in small suacepan; stir over low heat, without boiling, until sugar dissolves. Sift icing sugar and cocoa into small bowl then gradually stir in hot butter mixture. Cover; refrigerate about 20 miutes or until frosting thickens. Beat with wooden spoon until spreadable.

Try it and let me know.

What is this, you may ask. This is the steamed moist chocolate cake, recipe taken from my friend's blog.  Thanks Pris and the originator (if she ever chanced upon this). I did not put any frosting, cos i did not hv condense milk.
Anyway it is already very soft and moist and delicious.
Hubby say very nice leh.

Not difficult to make since it doesn't require mixer, and no need for oven too (not heaty then i suppose). Wonderful! BUT my kids are not eating it :(.

Just wondering, did u see the holes? Are the holes suppose to be there?

Non bake oreo cheesecake

Was saying earlier boy "complaint" I did not buy him an oreo cheesecake from McCafe right, so I make one using the recipe from Happy Home Baking.  

I replaced the base of digestive biscuit with square cracker called "Soh Da Bia" ( or maybe call Graham cracker ), cos I thot my cracker is wheat cracker, not as sweet so less 
fattening.

Hubby say base doesnt go well with the cake. My boy ate one piece and when
 asked, he say he wouldnt want another tmr.  My girl din like the cream (which is the white cheese part). *she also dun take the cream frosting from cupcakes!*

Anyway, here are the pictures :-
  (Sorry, did not bother to clean the knife :) )

I hv to jot down here to remind myself, never mix milk into melted chocolate. Wanted some melted chocolate to deco the cake, but is not "watery" enough for dribbling, so i add in fresh milk.
The mixture changed texture to a sticky paste.  I even went to the extent to add hot water and it still doesnt work. In the end,  I added in butter (For the 2nd try hor. First try just cant make it). Somehow, i decide that even if it is not good enough for dribbling, i just use a spoon to "pour" the melted chocolate on top. Abstract art ya ? :-)

Baked brownie muffin yesterday. Used this recipe from JY's Baking Journals. I did not know it is a brownie muffin until i revisit the recipe
 at night. No wonder need to add so much chocolate.

However, mine is a mini muffin tray and I do not know how to adjust time of bake,
so i think very likely my muffins are overbaked. Similar to the chocolate butter biscuit I baked earlier, there are many oil oozing out from the muffin during the baking process. So there are puddles of oil beneath the paper liner when i took out the muffins.

With the oil oozing out, muffin is dry and compact (or maybe called dense?). Hubby likes it thou. Oh there are also unmelted raw sugar on top of the crust (cos cant get caster sugar so substitue with raw sugar). I did not use mixer, so lazy me did not 
wait till the sugar dissolves.

Anyway definitely edible, but cos of this failure, no mood to take pictures.

Different types of cakes - info from net

Question always bothering me.

What are the differences between the different types of cakes ? butter cakes, sponge cakes, chiffon cakes, muffin, cupcakes etc etc

So i googled it and here's one of the helpful link. Have to save it up here cos just too much info to digest at this hour.

16th Oct -  created a "QnA" section for me to save up the URL of answers to my questions.