Teacher Day Cake

This is what I baked for my son's childcare Teacher's Day celebration. Nothing special, juz a 8" square banana cake!Heeeheee... Not sure how izzit coz no feedback yet. Ds cannot explained to me whether how is the cake & if the teachers & kids like it or not! Juz hope it is nice!!!

This is the closed up picture of the banana cake! Top looks good but inside is really a mystery now!


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Recipe

Ingredients:
125g butter, softened
112.5g caster sugar
2 eggs
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
225g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
4 tbsp milk

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, beat in eggs until combined.
2. Fold in the mashed banana.
3. Fold in half the sifted dry ingredients and combine.
4. Add remaining flour and milk, stir until smooth.
5. Pour mixture into greased 20cm cake tin.
6. Bake at 160ºC for 1hr or until a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. (If the top layer turns brown after 15 minutes, cover it with a piece of aluminium foil.)
7. Cool cakes in the pan then remove. Slice and serve.

Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffins

Baked this muffin today! It has a long long name: "Mocha Chocolate Chip Banana Muffin". Hmmm.... from the name, one could easily guess that this muffin should be a coffee flavoured banana muffin filled with some chocolate chips in it! Banana mixed with coffee & chocolate! Wah heavenly huh!

Looks wise, not bad right? Personally, I dun quite like banana. So to me, i would prefer a mocha chocolate chips muffin instead! Haahaa...

This is the interior of the muffin, looks more like "mooncake" to me! But dh say it's nice! Err...

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Recipe (Quoted: All Recipes)

Ingredients
225 g margarine
250 g white sugar
1 egg
3 ripe bananas
3 g instant coffee granules, dissolved in
15 ml water
5 ml vanilla extract
280 g all-purpose flour
2 g salt
5 g baking powder
5 g baking soda
170 g semisweet chocolate chips

Method
1. Preheat oven to 175C.
2. Blend butter or margarine, sugar, egg, banana, dissolved coffee, and vanilla in food processor for 2 minutes. Add flour, salt, baking powder, and soda, and blend just until flour disappears. Add chocolate chips and mix in with wooden spoon. Spoon mixture into 15 to 18 paper-lined muffin cups.
3. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

My comments for this bake:
1) I do not have a food processor so I used a blender instead but with so much ingredients in it, it's really vv difficult to blend!

Banana Bread

Baked this bread yesterday, looked just like banana cake hor! Heehee... But it does fits what the recipe say: "Center should be soft and chewy, while the outside, crisp and crunchy."

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Recipe (Quoted: All Recipes)

Ingredients
55 g butter, softened
200 g white sugar
1 egg
3 ripe bananas, mashed
250 g all-purpose flour
5 g baking soda
3 g salt

Method
1. Preheat oven to 175C. Lightly grease an 8x4 inch loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg and mashed bananas. Mix in flour and baking soda just until combined. Pour into the prepared loaf pan.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour. If top begins to brown too quickly, decrease heat slightly. Center should be soft and chewy, while the outside, crisp and crunchy.

My comments for this bake:
1) I did not reduce the temperature when top becomes brown, but I covered it with aluminium foil.

Mango Cake

Just made this mango cake on saturday, using home-made mango puree. Err... lousy decorations on the top! :"p As dh came home, so I need to finish up my stuffs asap! He is cutting a mango to eat so I ask him help me to slice some for my cake... that is what he did! *faint* heh heh! (Can't expect much from someone who just came home from work & just wanna find something to eat!)

This is the sides of the finished cake! The cream "dripped" down to the sponge cake. Should have whipped some cream & cover it up! Haahaa... too bad no time to do that yet! The top jelly is actually apricot glazing gel. This is something which I did wrong for this cake as I should just brushed the gel on top of the fruit & not pour it over the whole surface like making jelly! Lucky, result looks good! ;)

This is the interior of the cake. Saw the sponge cake? Very soft huh! But the cream is uneven & unbalanced for the center part & top parts! Must do better for the next round!!


Verdict: Dh is the only one who get to taste this cake. His comment was, this is the best cake from what I had previously did! Haahaa... Yeah, he say overall the cake tasted vv nice, the jelly is a bit sour but goes well with the cake! What maked me happy is, he finished up the whole pc of cake! 1 pc consider very good already as he is not a cake-lover! Norm, he only took a bite & that's all! He asked for another pc the following day! Hmmm...

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Recipe (Quoted: HugBear)

Ingredients for Sponge
4 eggs
100g cake flour
100g castor sugar
12g spongecake stabliser
20ml water
90g melted butter

Method for Sponge
1. Put all the ingredients except the melted butter into a mixing bowl. Beat everything on high for about 6 mins or until fluffy & creamy. Add in butter and mix well.
2. Pour into a 9" x 9" lined square tin and bake at 200C for 10-15 mins.
3. When cake is cool, cut away top layer and then into two pieces.

Ingredients for Mango Fillings
300g mango puree
13g gelatine powder
1/2tsp mango essence
a few drops of yellow colouring
300g diary whipping cream whipped to a soft peak

Method for Mango Fillings
1. Boil mango puree and gelatine powder until gelatine dissoved. Leave it to cool down.
2. Mix the whipped cream into the mango puree mixture. Add in mango essence and colouring. Mix well.
3. In a cake ring, put one layer of cake in it. Pour half the filling into it and top it off with another layer of cake. Press gently on the top layer of cake and then pour in the rest of the filling.
4. Chilled in fridge for at least 2 hrs before serving.

Note:
For the Jelly part:
You can either make a clear jelly (the normal agar agar jelly) and pour over the fresh mango and leave it to harden. Or you can decorate your cake with fresh mango and fruits and boil 50g of natural glazing gel with 50ml of water and brush this gel mixture over yr fruits to give it the geelak geelak effect (shiny effect).

My comments for this bake:
1) The sponge cake part is very similar to the cup spongecake recipe. It's easy as we just "throw" all ingredients except butter and mixed till creamy & fluffy!

2) Cutting the spongecake into half needs skill! Saw my "spoilt" cake? Yeah, due to my lousy slicing skills, you can see that some parts had "dropped" off. ;"p

Assorted Breads

Tried making bread again, hoping to master bread-making mah! Haahaa... Okie, this tray of breads was made last evening! Called them assorted bread as they got different fillings in them! Well actually there are only 2 types of fillings lah! The ones on the left (w parlsey) was custard breads & those on the right are hotdog buns (can see lah hor!)

This is the interior of the custard bread. Maybe the fillings are too little? Can't really taste the custard! As I do not know how to make a bread with custard fillings, I just try my luck! I followed the method given on the custard powder tin. Of coz, w these small breads, I just used a bit of the ingredients, maybe tat's y the taste & looks are not that well-done. Think they looked more like garlic bread huh? Heehee...

Well, how much did they flare? Actually quite happy with this round of result! At least dh commented that they looked nice & different from what I normally made. Okie... he always complained that I lack of creativity (Yes, indeed I am!). Lucky that he is "sometimes" there to enlighten me on my faults! Normally after a few failure bakes, he will start to "open" his golden mouth to give ideas & advice. Tho he is not an expert in baking, but he is creative enough to give the correct/relevant advice.

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How to make Custard Fillings: (Quoted: Bird's Custard)

1) Put 2 tablespoons of custard powder into a basin with 1-2 tablespoons of sugar.
2) Mix smoothly with 2 tablespoons of milk taken from a 570ml (1 pint) of milk. Put the rest of the milk on to heat in a saucepan.
3) When nearly boiling, pour on to the mixed custard in the basin, stirring well.
4) Return the custard to the saucepan & bring to a boil, stirring all the time.

Sugar Bread

This bread just came out hot hot from the oven... How does it looks? Heh heh.... Vv happy w the result! Yeah, I'm really overjoyed! This is my 1st successful bread! Hmmm... let me count! This is the 5th attempt this week, trying out 2 recipes! Finally managed to get it just right!!

This is the side view of the bread. Looks ok, but too bad the sides were not brown! Guess, I have to try harder & harder!

Hmm... how izzit? The inside looks good huh! Just like "real" bread yeah? Yup, it did look soft & TASTE soft! Yummy!!! Dh actually TRIED the bread, this really mades me day!!! His comments was soft & nice even tho it is not sweet enough. (Well, he got an even sweeter tooth than mine!) Haahaa...

Okie enough of my "successful" bread, wanna take a look of my failed breads? Yucky huh! Sob sob....



Latest Update: This bread is still soft after 2 days, 3rd day soft & still edible. But no chance to go to 4th day lah, all eaten up already! Haaahaaa....

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Recipe (Quoted: Lee Lee)

Ingredients
(A)
480g Bread flour
120g Plain flour
110g Caster sugar (I used more sugar)
20g Milk powder
4 tsp/12.4g Dry yeast

(B)
1 Egg
300ml Cold water

(C)
60g Unsalted butter
10g Salt

Method
1. Mix (A) till well blended (just use a spoon to stir to mix well). Add (B) to form a dough. Add in (C) and knead until dough is elastic and smooth.

2. Gather dough to form a ball and cover dough with cling wrap and let it rest for abt 50-60 mins or double in size.

3. Divide dough into portions of 50g or 60g each. Shape into balls and leave it to rest for abt 10 mins. Roll out dough and wrap with desired fillings. Shape as required and let it proof on lined or greased baking tray for another 50-60mins or until dough is double in size.

4. Egg wash dough and sprinkle some shredded cheese and dried parsley on it. Bake dough at 180-190ºC for abt 12 mins.

My comments for this bake:
1) Being "stupid/slow", I din realised that one of my failure is due to, baking a big dough so end up with this flopped bread. (All thanks to dh who had "enlightened" me! :"p)

2) The dough will be sticky on hand but dun worry as you can just "peel" them off & stick back to the dough. Heehee....

3) Beat the dough using max speed for abt 30mins, well I stopped sometimes to "scape" off some dough which sticks to the mixing bowl. Good to let the mixer "rest" for abt 5mins before continuing! ;)

4) For KA mixer, pls remember to "look after" yr mixer while mixing at max speed as the mixer will be will "jumping" and just in case it dropped off the table top!

5) Last but not least, this qn is posed by dh! Why do we need to use COLD water instead of room-temperature water? Errr..... need to find out this for him! He always say: "Must know the theory behind mah!". Well, no choice! Anyone pls help me?!

Pineapple Tarts

These are some pineapple tarts which I had baked this week. Was quite bz lately so only get to post it today! Pineapple tarts... 1st impression, CNY coming? Haahaa... no lah, juz want to try out 1st & learn the skill before attempting them on the next CNY!

Hmmm... due to my "limited-edition" skills, guess these tarts dun look quite mouth-watering huh? Haahaa...

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Recipe (Quoted: Yochana)

Ingredients for Fillings
1kg Pineapple
300g sugar
pinch of salt
6g cinnamon stick
1 tsp of cloves

Ingredients for Pastry
250g Butter
90g icing sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence
380g Plain Flour
2 tbsp milk powder
a drop of egg yolk colouring

For glazing
1 egg yolk + a little water + a drop of egg yolk colour

Method for filling
1) Peel pineapples, cut into pieces and blend till fine.
2) Pour blended pineapples into a wok and fry for awhile before adding in sugar, cinnamon stick and cloves. Cook till it thickens and set aside to cool. Shape the pineapple jam into small balls.

Method for pastry
1) Cream butter and sugar then add in egg, egg yolk colour, salt and vanilla essence and blend till well combined.
2) Add in flour and milk powder and mix till a dough is formed.
3) Roll out the dough to 5 mm thick. Cut it out with a fluted round cutter.
4) Place pastry into the greased tray and place a small round ball of pineapple jam on the centre of cut out pastry.
5) Roll put small pieces of dough into thin strips and place it on top of the pineapple jam to make a cross.
6) Brush with egg glaze and bake at 170C for about 15 - 20 mins or till pastry is golden.
7) Leave pineapple tarts to cool on wire rack before storing in cookie containers.

My comments for this bake:
1) I did not fry the pineapple filling dry enough, so after baking the filling still soft even with a vv soft touch.

2) Must pick up the skill on egg glazing, some parts are baked too dark due the the poor glazing I did! Plus I din add in the egg yolk colouring lah! Haahaa...

3) Overall the pastry part was okie, except the fillings!

Doughnuts

These doughnuts are what I had made last night! Okie... maybe should called them "flowery" doughnuts? Heehee... 1st time making dough(nuts) so I do not really know how to handle them well. They are nicely proofed but due to my 粗手粗脚, all the doughnuts become "koyak" before they went into the frying pan!

Nevertheless, they still taste nice! Just like what doughnuts suppose to taste like! Taste best when they are hot! Saw my cut-out doughnut above?! At least the look of it still passable hor! ;)

Okie, if u think my doughnuts look yucky, how about these doughnuts? Looks good huh? Looks familiar?? Wanna have some?? Heehee....

Yuppie! You are right! These are Dunkin' Donuts!!! Now you can order them online. Say NO to queue, isn't that good? Woah, eating those colourful donuts w a cuppa! Heavenly!!

Click-A-Donut:


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Recipe (Quoted: HugBear)

Ingredients
300g bread flour
200g plain four
60g sugar
10g salt
20g milk powder
1/2 tbsp baking powder
3 1/2 tsp instant yeast (1 pkt of 11g instant yeast)
2 egg yolks
280ml cold water
50g butter or shortening

Method
1. In a bowl, put in all ingredients except butter and salt. Mix to form a dough (about 2-3 mins). Add in salt and butter and continue to knead at high speed for about 5 mins, do the stretch test to see if dough is ready.

2.Flour your tabletop with some bread flour, take dough out and round it up into a ball and cover with a plastic wrap for about 1 hour to rise.

3. After 1 hr, divide dough into small portion (abt 10g-15g per portion). Roll into a small round ball using your palm on the tabletop. For those who wants a bigger donuts instead of the mini ones, divide into bigger portion, maybe like 30g and do the same until you finish up all the dough. Cover it and leave it to prove for another 35 to 40 mins.

3. Heat some oil in a pot, fry the donuts for only a min or 2 or until golden brown. Take it out drain it and coat with castor sugar (or icing sugar).

My comments for this bake:
1) The dough is a little bit sticky so when I remove them from tabletop for frying, they become "flatten"... not as nice as when they are proofing! Hiazzz.... should have put more bread flour on the tabletop before letting them to proof for the 2nd time.

Mango Marshmallow Cake

This is what I had tried making today, mango marshmallow cake! Very nice & sweet cake, esp for people like me with a sweet tooth! Made a few mistakes on the way but lucky still taste good & edible (for me only lah!). Heehee...

Pls check below for recipe & my comments on it!

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Recipe (Quoted: Cranberry)

Ingredients
(A) Base:
200g digestive biscuits
80g melted butter

(B) Marshmallow filling:
10 pcs of marshmallow
300ml of HL milk
80 ml of diary whip cream
150 gm Mango Puree
8 pcs of gelatine leafs (or substitute w 2 tsp of gelatine powder)
80g sugar

(C) Gelatine Topping:
6 pcs of gelatine leafs
200 ml of water
4 tbsp sugar

Method
(A) Crushed digestive biscuits and mix well with melted butter. Press into a 8” or 9" square or round cake ring. Refrigerate for later use.

(B) Put all the ingredients into a pot. Double boil over small fire until gelatine leafs, marshmallow and sugar are dissolved.

(C) Boil all ingredients until dissolved.

Assembling the cake
Pour marshmallow filling (B) into the prepared baking tin with biscuit base (A). Put in freezer until slightly harden but not totally frozen. Take it out and arrange sliced fresh mangoes. Put it back to freezer to harden a little. When slightly harden take it out and pour the slightly cool Gelatine (C) on it. Put in fridge to chill. Cut and serve.

My comments for this bake:
Generally this is not a difficult recipe. Every step is vv simple but how come I can still make mistakes??? :(

1) Okie, I had decided to do a smaller cake for testing purposes so I divide the recipe into half (so all ingredients above are supposed to be 1/2). But I forgot to half the mango puree (b) & water (c)... OMG! SO I think that's y the marshmallow layer is so soft (b) & no wonder the gelatine mixture din hardened when waiting for it to cool down (c) ;(

2) The lower 2 layers (base & marshmallow) dun stick together, they fell off once cut!

3) Base is too thin, the marshmallow layer covered it... *FAINT*

Recipes

I had decided to post some recipes on my blog as requested by some readers. As some recipes are not invented by me, I will quote the person's name/nick who originated the recipe. For recipes which I have no idea who is the owner, I'm sorry if it is similar to yours!
如有类同，纯脆巧合 okie? ;p

Banana Cake

Baked another banana cake again! Haahaa.... Tks for viewing!!

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Just baked this. 2nd output from my new mixer. Okie, it's banana cake again! I'm using a another recipe for this cake. I'm using half the ingredients only so the cake looks quite small.

Wonder how does it taste? Wonder Jx dare to try again? Haahaa...

Feedback from vevey: This cake is fluffier than all previous cakes! Not densed n hard... 再接再利！


This is the interior of the banana cake. Taken by vevey. (Tks vevey!)
Inside looks fluffy huh!

Recipe (Quoted: Yochana)

Ingredients
180g butter
180g fine sugar
2 extra large Eggs - beaten lightly
250g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp. Bicarbonate of Soda
220g bananas - mashed
50g Dairy whip cream (can substitute with evaporated milk)
1/2 tsp Banana essence
2 bananas - slice

Method
1) Cream butter and sugar till light and creamy.
2) Pour in eggs gradually and beat till creamy.
3) Add in whip cream, mashed bananas and banana essence and mix well.
4) Add in cake flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda and beat for a while only.
5) Pour into an 8" round tray, and arrange sliced bananas on top.
6) Bake at 175C for about 50 to 60 mins or until cooked.

My comments for this bake:
1) Very easy recipe but baking time is quite long abt 1hr. I tested the cake w a stick, some parts still a bit wet at 50mins, so i con't to bake for another 15mins.
2) This is suppose to be a drier & fluffier cake, hope it dun look wet like my previous batches. ;)

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This is the banana cake which I had baked today. Looks lousy hor. So sad... sob sob!!! Banana cake is something which I had to put in extra extra effort. This is a flop again! Will do better the next time (i hope?) heeheee...


This is the interior of the banana cake. These are my guesses for the failed cake:
1) Over-mixed the batter? (Tips from paw paw: HAND-MIX my batter!)
2) Wrong temp or did not bake long enough?
3) Too much liquid in the batter?


This is my previous batch of banana cake. Looks better huh? But taste wise... not sure if I got make any improvement. Haaahaaa....

Waiting patiently for my tasters, Vevey & Jx for comments!!! ;p

Feedback: Vevey's comment on it was good! Real or not?! Pls re-cfm!! keekee....

New updates: Since vevey say is nice, haaahaa... I will try again next time to improve on the looks of the cake!!! As I'm an idiot in decorating...

Cup Spongecakes

Baked some cup spongecakes today to ease my cravings for cake! Can get a nice photo on a cupcake alone, so post this photo 1st... Will add in more photos if available! Thanks for viewing! ;)

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Just baked these cup spongecakes... tho looks far from what's selling in Crystal Jade Bread but the taste is really nice and soft! All thanks to Hugbear's recipe! My kids loved them, esp my little girl will ask for more & more.

Heehee... rem a joke by vevey! Haaahaa...
Mum: Auntie Cherie is baking some spongecakes for you!
Jx: What will happened if I eat sponge, mummy?
Mum: Then you will become SPONGEBOB lor...

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Recipe (Quoted: HugBear)

Ingredients
4 eggs
100g cake flour
100g castor sugar
12g spongecake stabliser
25ml milk
90g melted butter

Method
1. Put all the ingredients except the melted butter into a mixing bowl. Beat everything on high for at least 7 mins until ribbon stage. This means that if you use your whisk with batter to write an "8" on the batter won't sink in but will appear visible for a while. This will be the right constitency for your batter. Add in the melted butter at this point. Mix thoroughly.

2. Line some waxed papercups with baking paper. Pour batter into the lined cups abt 3/4 full and bake it in a preheated oven at 190C for about 20 mins. When done, remove the cake from the cup immediately and leave it on wire rack to cool.

Note:
To line the cup, cut out some baking paper or greased proof paper in square or rectangle shape. Roll it loosely like the kacang puteh style and push it into the cup. Adjust as necessary.

My comments for this bake:
1) Very easy to do recipe. Follow closely & you can't get it wrong! ;)

Butter Cookies

Just baked these star-shaped butter cookies this afternooon. I had tried using my cookies cutters but the dough was too soft & stick to the cutters. So end up only this star cutter is able to hold the dough.



These cookies are meant for my son's good friend, Jx. Hope he is happy when got this surprise! No more tears okie?! Auntie Cherie, will bake more cookies & cakes for you okie? ;)

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As per requested by Bluebo_Bear, this is the recipe which I had used for the above star-shaped butter cookies.

Recipe (Quoted: HugBear)

Ingredients
250 gm butter
130 gm icing sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla powder/essence
400 gm plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder

Method
1. Cream the butter and icing sugar until creamy.
2. Add in eggs and vanilla powder. Beat well.
3. Fold in flour and baking powder.
4. Put mixture in a cookies mixer and press out different designs onto greased baking tray.
5. Bake at 160c for 20-25 mins.

My comments for this bake:
1) I find that the batter (mixture) is very soft, difficult to use cookie mould on it.
* Tips: Leave in fridge (not freezer) for 1/2 hr. Remember do not add more flour to it! Kaypo added extra flour last time, the cookies came out hard n inedible (to me lah!) heehee...