What can be better than the choc mint cake?

... a sugarless chocolate mint cake, of course. I have been thinking about it cos I didn't get to really taste the last one. This Mothers' Day seemed like a good excuse for me to try it out given my mum is also diabetic...

I have also been thinking how to do the nice zebra marbling, but I guess its best I do something else rather than keeping banging my head against the wall. What I did for this celebration was a mint cake with chocolate frosting:

Comparing the 2, I prefer this. As I cut the cake, the kids went "wow, its green inside!". Also I find this easier to prepare than the other marbling one - no need to separate the batter into 2 bowls, plus the alternating spooning of batter into the baking pan.

Mint Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting
200 gm. Self raising flour
230 gm. Butter, softened
190 gm. Castor sugar or Maltidol powder
230 gm. Eggs (~5-6 eggs, depends on the size)
Optional: ½ tsp ovalette (whisk with egg)
1/2 tsp Green colouring
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
1 tbsp peppermint liqueur

1. Pre-heat oven to 160C. Line a 10 " round cake pan with greaseproof paper.


2. Sieve the SR flour into a mixing bowl. Add butter and cream them together well.


3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar/matitol & ovalette (if using) until spongy. (about 6min, depends on the mixer)


4. Add colouring, peppermint extract and liqueur into the egg mixture. Beat for 30 sec to combine well.


5. Add flour paste (step 2) gradually to the egg mixture and beat till smooth. (about 2 min)


6. Pour into the prepared baking pan and bake for about 35min or until done.

Note:

• this recipe above gave me just over 1 inch tall cake in a 10" pan. Much shorter than I thought, so I measured out all the ingredients all over again and made 1 more recipe to get a taller cake.
  

a rather short cake agh....

Milk Chocolate Frosting

recipe from Matt Lewis & Renato Poliafito's "Baked", thru crummb:

8 ounces (224g) bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
8 ounces (224g) milk chocolate, finely chopped
1-1/2 cup heavy cream (360ml)
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1-1/2 cups (3 sticks / 339g) unsalted butter, soft but cool, cut into 1-inch pieces

1. Place both chocolates into a bowl. In a saucepan, bring cream and corn syrup to a boil, then pour immediately over the chocolate. Let stand for 2-3 minutes, then stir until mixture is completely smooth. Cool to room temperature.


2. Beat in butter pieces using whisk attachment on medium speed.


3. Frosting should be smooth and silky. Chill to spreadable consistency.

This frosting is much much much better than the previous ganache. Partly of the better whipping cream I used this time round ( i used Nestle cream the last time), partly of the good chocolate that goes into it, partly of the butter beaten into it. It is silky smooth delicious, just as I expected! My only quarrel is that it is very light and could not coat the cake very thickly. When put in between the layers, all the extra got squeeze out to the sides. When put on the side, the extra "slides" its way to the cake board. Yo!

I do not know what's wrong, the cake could not sit tight on the cake board. It slid on the board, and ruined the sides. I can't imagine what if I am doing this is for some grand event? BTW, if you know something that I should have done, can you leave me a comment below?

Just a bit of thoughts - this Mothers' Day is quieter than last year. Some may think I read too much but I think it is attributed to my mum babysitting for my brother's new born and that has somewhat created some inevitable conflicts with her daughter-in-law.

We had celebrated many occasions together but this year, they chose not to turn up... how sad right?

One day I will be someone's MIL too, and I wonder how I will handle the intricate yet complex relationship :-(

Til then, I propose this toast to all the wonderful mothers out there! HAPPY MOTHERS' DAY.

Eggless Mocha Cake

These days, I seem to bake nothing else but chocolate cake. Almost every other day, I get requests from friend who do not take eggs or colleagues who cannot have enough of chocolate. I got so bored with baking the same thing day in day out...

When I saw this recipe in Joy of Baking, I tried it out right away.

It is similar to the one I always make; this one here uses less fat, butter as fat, and water instead of buttermilk. One interesting time saver tip says that it can be mixed in the same pan which you are going to bake! That only help if you are baking it in a proper cake pan, and not cupcake!

Another thing to note here is the type of cocoa powder - natural vs. dutch processed. The recipe calls for natual cocoa powder (Hershey is commonly found in our supermarket) which would create chemical reaction with lemon juice to give a red tinge. In addition to the red undertone, it natural cocoa gives a more intense chocolatey flavour. I do not have Hershey at home, and having just bought a kilo-pack valrhona, I do not want to create another SKU in my tiny kitchen. But I would certainly try bake this with Hershey same day!



-----------------------

Mocca Cake:
1 1/2 cups (195 grams) all purpose flour
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
1/4 cup (25 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-processed), sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup (75 grams) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup (240 ml) warm water (I used black expresso to balance out the sweetness)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (or vinegar)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (177 degrees C) and place rack in center of oven.


2. In an ungreased 8”(20 cm) square cake pan, stir together the flour, sugar, sifted cocoa powder, b.powder, b.soda, and salt.


3. Add the melted butter, water, lemon juice, and vanilla extract. With a fork, mix all the ingredients together until well blended.


4. Bake in preheated oven for about 35 minutes, or until the cake springs back when lightly pressed and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

My Notes:

• It takes 18min for my cupcake. But time will vary depending on the size of cupcake case.

Chocolate Frosting:
6 ounces (170 grams) semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup (180 ml) heavy cream (I use President Whipping Cream)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temp

1. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel bowl. Heat the cream and butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth. (see notes below)


2. Let the ganache sit at room temperature until slightly firm (about one hour) and then beat the ganache until creamy smooth and light. With an offset spatula or knife spread the ganache over the cooled cake.
   

My Notes :

• What I did was to place the cream into a stainless steel bowl (or any heatproof bowl will do). When the cake is baked and taken out of the oven I put the cream into the oven, using only the balance heat. About 15min later, I put in the chopped chocolate and goes back to the oven again for 5min. By then the cream is warm enough to melt the chocolate.
  


• Made frosting with Valrhona Araguani – very strong couverture but personally I find there’s some trace of acidity in the chocolate. Went googled and found this review :
  
  "Valrhona Grand Cru Araguani is an extraordinary bittersweet couverture chocolate made from a blend of the best Criollo and Trinitario cocoa beans from Venezuela. With a 72% cocoa content, Valrhona's Araguani is perfect for the bittersweet chocolate needs for home pastry chefs and professionals alike - it has a powerfully bitter base with strong liquorice, raisin and chestnut notes and the use of brown sugar has given it notes of dark honey. Araguani also has a higher than typical amount of cocoa butter to give your desserts and truffles a silky mouth finish. It is suitable for pastry, chocolate fillings, molding, enrobing, and icing. The Valrhona "feves" are small oval disks that are easier to work with than large industrial size block. It all started in 1924 a pastry chef from Tournon created a chocolate factory, which eventually achieved a worldwide recognition, and in 1984 became the first to offer a chocolate with 70% cocoa. Valrhona in Tain l'Hermitage is considered by most pastry chefs and chocolatiers as the premier chocolate company in the world. Their focus is solely on their chocolate, and to ensure the highest quality, and optimum flavor, they grow their own cocoa beans, their own cane sugar, and their own vanilla on plantations all around the world - now that's quality control. Valrhona has finally begun to offer its professional products, cocoa and couvertures, packaged for the home pastry enthusiast, a palette of subtle flavors, to create and elaborate delicious chocolate preparations. Araguani is a couverture with 72% cocoa content (with 27% Sugar and 43.5% cocoa butter).
  
  Source : http://www.amazon.com/Valrhona-Araguani-Dark-Chocolate-ChefShop-com/dp/B000UZT6XC
  
  Haha, the info didn't help a thing right! Perhaps the less I know, the better I will be.

Anyway, I made everyone in the office so happy with these cuppies:

After seeing all the creations by some fellow bloggers, I resolute to put in as much effort in frosting... afterall we eat with our eye first!

My piping skills are still raw, but I am working on it:

This flower is store-bought:

Using Wilton tip 30 (star):

Using Wilton tip 2C:

In case you are thinking of the taste... well, i marvelled at how the butter made a whole world of difference to the same o'cake. As for the frosting, the creamy ganache has such strong chocolate taste that my colleagues told me it's as good as eating real chocolate.

"Better than those off-the-shelf chocolate", I quipped.

Coffee Sponge with Cafe Latte Frosting

Dec 22, 2008

The office was so quiet today with almost everyone I know have rushed off for their year end vacation and celebration! I decided to call it a day at 3pm, and got back to try out the recipe which I was going to use for Dad's birthday on Jan 1! Yes, Jan 1... it's impossible to ever forget his birthday ugh. (btw you you know I am catching up on the previous bake!)

Recipe is from Jo.


This is the first time I am making a sponge cake... so I made sure I followed the recipe to a T!

Only thing I have changed is the baking soda. The original recipe says baking soda but I check up all the books I have ... almost every sponge recipe states baking powder (instead of baking soda). After some inner reasoning, I use the baking powder :-)

RECIPE
4 eggs
110g castor sugar (I use 90g still sweet)
100g cake flour
½ tsp baking soda (I use baking powder)
2 tsp cake emulsifier (ovalette, I omit this)
40g 3-in-1 instant cappuccino powder (I use 10g instant coffee + 10g milk powder)
50g melted butter (I used canola oil)
1 tsp coffee emulco

Method:
1. Preheat oven at 180 degC. Prepare and grease a loaf pan. (I use muffin pan)
2. Sift flour and baking powder. Set aside.
3. Beat eggs, flour in (2), castor sugar, emulsifier and cappuccino powder on high speed for 10-15 minutes or until batter turns light and creamy, i.e. thick ribbon state. To test, lift beater. Batter drops from beater should disappear when you count from 1 to 10. (My batter didn't disappear even after counting to 20!)
4. Pour melted butter/oil and emulco. Mix at slow speed until well blended.
5. Pour mixture in to the greased pan. Bake for 30-40 minutes (15 min for cupcake) until skewer inserted into the centre of cake comes out clean.
6. Turn cake on to a wire rack and let cool completely.




Baker's Notes:

• Do not overbeat the batter. I wasn't sure if I had reached the ribbon stage cos I see no difference at 10min mark and 18min, so I went on to beat for a full 20min. In the end, the surface is very wrinkled when cooled.


• The oil must be warmed when added to the batter. I can't remember the reason for this but I know it cos that's what I've jotted it down on my little notebook when I came across previously.


• The cake did not sink after baking but it shrinks considerably (maybe becos of the omission of ovalette). Look at the gaps between the paper liner and the pan:

• Becos of the shrinkage, it is best to use the corrugated paper liner in your cupcake. When it shrinks, it still sticks to the paper instead of pulling away if you use the sturdy paper cup. This is more for asthentic though.


• The texture is soft but compact. Not as fluffy as the chiffon cake but it is certainly more suitable for beginner in making layer cake as it is less likely to tear right before you!


• If you use a good coffee powder, the cake will have a strong coffee aroma. All coffee-holic will love this!

FROSTING
I am using the same recipe as a building block. This buttercream has ZERO trans-fat! Sorry if I seemed to be promoting this recipe so shamelessly... it irks me when I see some feeding their family with buttercream made with vegetable shortening. A friend who attended a culinary class was told never to pour such buttercream into the basin cos it will choke the pipe. If it can choke the 3-inch pipe, imagine what it does to our arteries and the intestines!

6 tbsp AP Flour
2 cups of Milk
2 cups of unsalted butter, softened
2 cups of icing sugar
2 tsp instant coffee powder, dissolved in some hot water

Method:

1. Cook flour + milk in a saucepan until the mixture is thick and smooth. Cover it with cling film so that skin will not form. Leave it to cool to room temperature, about 30min.
2. Beat butter on medium high speed of an electric mixer for ~3min, until smooth and creamy.
3. Gradually add sugar & coffee mixture. Beat continuously for another 3min until fluffy.
4. Add the cooled milk mixture, and beat on medium high speed for 5min, until very smooth and whiter in colour.
5. Cool and refrigerate for 15min exactly. Use immediately. If left in fridge for too long, it hardens and it will be impossible to spread or pipe.

The frosting is creamy and slight coffee... just like the latte!

Go Go Power Ranger

Last month there I was ranting about Sheen's birthday cake... After all many days of trials, we didn't have a birthday celebration. What a shame!

The day before the celebration, Sheen teacher called to say that he had chicken pox. As it turned out, not chicken pox but a kindda of virus in the inner lips causing his face to swell like PIG! I was not exaggerating! The virus was easily treated with antibiotics but what it meant was the birthday party had to be called off since I do not want to go around spreading germs to other kids.

I actually ordered the printed icing image for his birthday cake but the printing was not so good; there are streaks of black ink across the image so I only salvaged the 3 small images from the 10x6.8".

From this:



To this:



Needless to say, Sheen was excited to see his fav show on the cakelette.

The rest of the cupcakes are given the Xmas touch. Packed this for his school next day:



His teacher kept asking me about the icing image... Ha, Customisation is BIG business!

The green frosting is very nice. I added some peppermint oil and a drop of green colour paste. The whole kitchen was minty for a while.


It (frosting) takes an extra step to cook the custard but it was an effort worthwhile! Bevis loves to eat the frosting so I always make sure it is made with organic butter!

--------------------

In my humble opinion, this is the best "buttercream" - it stays up well at room temperature, light and not so sweet.

6 tbsp AP Flour
2 cups of Milk
2 cups of unsalted butter, softened
2 cups of icing sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
Peppermint oil, a few drops (optional)
Green Colouring, a few drops (optional)

1. Cook flour + milk in a saucepan until the mixture is thick and smooth. Cover it with cling film so that skin will not form. Leave it to cool to room temperature, about 30min.


2. Beat butter on medium high speed of an electric mixer for ~3min, until smooth and creamy.


3. Gradually add sugar, vanilla extract. Beat continuously for another 3min until fluffy.


4. Add the cooled milk mixture, and beat on medium high speed for 5min, until very smooth and whiter in colour.


5. Cool and refrigerate for 15min exactly. Use immediately. If left in fridge for too long, it hardens and it will be impossible to spread or pipe.

Holly Jolly Cupcake

I just read from Wilton's Forum about the cupcake paper liners on fire (well, almost).... If you are using these pretty liners, watch the oven closely.

This makes a good prelude for my new cupcake liner:



These 2 cupcake was made with the left over batter from last session. I played with the fondant and come up with the simple xmas design:


The leaves are simple to create with PME plunger cutter.

I do not know if it is a mistake to frost the cupcake. My fondant melt away in the frosting:


Gotta to go read up more on the fondant!

Daniel, my Good Old Friend

Tomorrow is my friend Daniel's birthday. I must have known him for more than 12 years... ha, at a blink, 1 full horoscope cycle liao! I knew I had to bake him a cake... though I have absolutely no idea if we will be meeting up cos he sms to say:

> Don't bother to bake, I am catching a play.

> Don't worry, you can eat the cake off my blog!

Haha!

D's sister is a staunch Buddhist who is a vegetarian so I tried to bake the eggless butter cake. It seemed like a sensible choice for them to be able to share the cake. Unfortunately my eggless cake failed; there's not enough structure to hold up the cake. It was too crumbly to hold. I had to eat it with a spoon! After the last crazy baking week for Sheen's birthday, I resolute to have less stress and more fun this time round. So instead of spending time troubleshooting the recipe, I just go right to the tried and tasted recipe.

When I was preparing Sheen's cake, Gina suggested Steam Moist Choc Cake which was created by a very talented baker Lady Vanilla - a Singaporean who now lives in Netherlands. This is just the right recipe for me cos I am down to 2 eggs in my fridge... not enough for a sponge or chiffon cake.

Ta-da: The overall result is not fantastic but much much much better than the mess I created at my sis' birthday


The small "Happy Birthday" disc and fondant lettering was a last minute job... I got the wilton lettering set, thinking it was make my life easier but look at it...
I had a hard time trying to remove them from the backing... and broke quite a few along the way. In the end, there's ain't enough alphabets so I need an alternative.... Ya, fondant... yep, luckily there's a box at home on standby!

I do not like the taste of fondant, but will always keep a box at home cos it is so easy to handle... it's as easy as child's playdoh!

No worries I thought to myself as I promptly took out the fondant lettering and numbering set. Finally I have a chance to use it. Fantastic!



I coloured, knead and mold the alphabets. When I am done, I tried with my might to take the letters off the mold.... No amount of coaxing or picking will get the letters out in a complete piece. I even tried to dust more cornstarch (like the "A"), and tried with crisco but nothing work. The instruction said freezing 10min will help. Forget it.



In the end, I used the trusted alphabet cookie cutter set! Not as pretty, but it works. Whoosh, that save me another disaster!

(PS: I researched for other user's experience... Conclusion - we can safely blame it on the crappy fondant tool set! If the manufacturer is responsible enough, they should have recalled the product. $36 for the plastic sheets is exorbitant!)


--------------------------------
Steamed Chocolate Cake - Super Moist!

Ingredients
188gm Corn Oil
¾ cup castor sugar (I used fine sugar since it gets dissolved in step 1 anyway)
175 ml Evaporated Full Cream Milk
2 Eggs, lightly beaten with a folk
1 cup of Plain flour (I used gold medal unbleached flour 10% protein)
½ cup of Cocoa powder (I used Varlhona)
½ tsp Baking powder
½ tsp Baking soda (can be omitted since varlhona is dutch-processed)
½ tsp Vanilla Extract ( I used Kahlua instead)
1 tsp choc emulco

1. Combine sugar, Evaporated milk, vanilla extract or essence and oil in a saucepan. Stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved, off fire and keep warm.
   
2. Add the beaten eggs into the slightly cold Evaporated milk mixture and stir till well mix.
   
3. Sift the flour,cocoa powder, baking powder and baking soda into a large mixing bowl then pour the eggs mixture over the flour and stir till well mix (cake batter should be runny).
   
4. Heat up the steamer (medium fire). If the fire is too high, your cake may get a dome.
   
5. Lined and greased a baking pan. Pour the batter into prepared pan and tap the pan a few times on the tabletop to remove any trapped air. Place the pans into the steamer and cover the top of the pan loosely with a piece of aluminium foil. - do not skip this as it prevent the condensed steam from dripping onto the cake.
   
6. Steam over medium heat for 45 mins (mine took 30 min only).
   
7. Cool the cake in pan before turning out for further decoration.

I used the chocolate glaze, once again, a recipe taken from Kitchen Capers:

• 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
  2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
  1 tsp vanilla extract
  

1. Place chopped chocolate in a medium bowl.


2. In a small saucepan, bring the cream to a boil. Remove pan from heat and add the chopped chocolate. Let stand for 1 minute then gently stir until chocolate is melted and the glaze is smooth. Gently stir in the vanilla.


3. Transfer glaze to a small bowl and cover the surface of the glaze with plastic wrap and let cool for 5 minutes at room temperature before using.

To glaze the cake:
Place the chilled cake, still on the cake round, on a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Slowly pour the hot glaze onto the center of the cake. Smooth the glaze over the top and sides, letting the excess drip onto the baking sheet.

--------------------------------

My Bake Notes:

• I see other bakers can get very pretty smooth glaze on their cake... unlike mine. For a start, the surface of the steam cake is quite pokey. Perhaps I will do better with thicker frosting.
  
• I start to jot down the type of flour I used cos I learnt from my trials that the flour can make quite a difference in the texture of the cake, due to the different percentage of the protein content.
  
• The cake is very choc, only reserved for chocolate-holics!
• Pretty things are good, useful things are better. (heehee, haven't get over the fondant mold set!)

-----------------------

Bevis, once again, come and kapoh kapoh when I was decorating the cake. He kept eating the fondant by lumps. I had to distract him by letting him roll out the fondant and make out his name! Boy, I was impressed when he can tell this "mama's playdoh" is called fondant!
All went into his stomach right after this!

Full Dress Rehearsal

There's no post in the past week as I have been working hard to get this recipe right - the last one has a very strong egg white smell, and also, many parts of the cake looks heavy and dense like this . I do want to bake a decent cake for Sheen's birthday falling on Nov 14!

This is the final rehearsal in the run up to the party tomorrow!



Come, help yourself to a slice:



Just taken out from the oven. I like to smooth top... the hole that you see on the cake is made by my skewer test:


This is the bottom of the cake - "swee swee" this time round :-)

The last one was very patchy and dense on some parts of the cake. I panick and turned to the Guru. Very shortly, Gina replied to my questions:

Q: The top of my top looks perfect but when I reverse the cake out, I can see dark patches on the bottom. Is it becos I did not fold in the cocoa batter with egg white well enough?
"...you didn't mix the batters evenly, so there is more concentration on one end of the cake.

Q: Is there a time limit how soon the folding must complete?
"Time limit? more like don't over do it. Do a good 5 to 8 sweeps of the spatula when you mix the batters. As long as you don't see 2 different colours of batter, you should stop stirring or mixing."

Q: The cake has a strong egg white smell. Anyone has similar encounter? I added 1 tbsp dark rum in (A).
"Egg smell should not be evident if you have added cocoa and rum. Its only evident when you don't add any flavouring. Also, when you steam a cake, the egg smell usually is stronger. "

Got it, Gina.

This recipe is from Florence in Kitchen Capers - she baked this into a beautiful black forest cake! I followed the method upto step 9 only to get the chocolate sponge cake .

Black Forest Cake
(A):
4 egg yolks
40g sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 tbsp rum (I used 2 tbsp dark rum)

(B)
85ml corn oil, warmed
25g cocoa powder

(C)
135ml warm water

(D)
125g cake flour
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder

(E)
4 egg whites (I used 5 whites)
½ tsp cream of tartar
50g sugar

Filling
15 fresh cherries, pitted and halved
15 canned pitted sour cherries, halved
400ml whipping cream whipped with 2 tbsp icing sugar

Decor
80g shaved Lindt Dark Chocolate
Fresh cherries


Method:

1. Mix ingredients (A) well with a hand whisk.


2. Stir cocoa powder in warmed oil until dissolved and pour into yolk mixture.


3. Stir (C) into yolk mixture.


4. Sieve ingredient (D) and stir it into yolk mixture.


5. Whip egg whites in a clean mixing bowl until big bubbles are formed. Add in the cream of tartar and whip until white in colour.


6. Divide 50g sugar into 3 portions and add a portion at a time into egg white slowly while whipping the whites. Whip until stiff peaks formed.


7. Pour ½ white into yolk mixture and blend well.


8. Pour yolk mixture into the remaining egg white mixture and blend well.


9. Pour batter into clean baking pan and bake at 175C for 45 minutes or until cooked.


10. Invert cake and leave to cool. Then cut cooled cake into 2 layers.


11. Whip the cream with icing sugar until stiff.


12. Add pitted fresh and sour cherries into a small portion of the whipped cream.


13. Sandwich the cake with (12).


14. Decorate as appropriate with whipped cream and chocolate shavings.

To decorate the cake:

1. Do the filling then around the cake but leave the top bare.


2. Shaved all the chocolates onto a large baking sheet, hold the top and bottom of cake with both hands, roll the creamed side of the cake on to the chocolate shavings, gathering as much shavings as you can


3. Settle the cake onto your cake board and do the top creaming.


4. Spread a layer of cream on the cake this will seal in the crumbs. If you have time, freeze again after the first layer . Else, add on more cream and spread again. This way it won't be so messy trying to stick the choc shavings onto the side of the cake.


5. Freeze the cake overnight and refrigerate the whip cream the same day. The next day, assemble everything and allow about 4-6 hours to defroze in the refrigerator before eating. As soon as you take it out, you start decorating... it will probably take ½ to 1 hour before you are done. So by that time is already starting to defrost.

I used the fudge recipe given by Sophie in no place other than Kitchen Capers! :-)))

Chocolate Fudge Topping
550 ml water
1 tsp instant jelly (I used gelatine leaf)
150 g fine sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp cocoa powder
60 g hoen kwe flour
100 g cooking chocolate (chopped)
2 tbsp chocolate emulco

Method for Chocolate Fudge

1. Boil water, sugar, instant jelly, salt and chocolate emulco.


2. In a separate bowl, combine hoen kwe flour and cocoa powder with a little water ( water from 550 ml). Mix well.


3. When water boils, remove from heat. Pour hoen kwe mixture into water and mix well with a whisk.


4. Return the whole combination to the stove ( slow fire ). Keep whisking until it’s bubbly (boiling), thick and shiny ( about 2-3 minutes).


5. Remove from heat. Pour in the cooking chocolate and whisk well. Done. Use almost immediately.


6. Spread a layer of chocolate fudge topping on top of one layer of cake. Cover with second layer of cake. Coat the whole cake with the topping. Let it cool before refrigerate for 2 hours.
   

The Taste Test:

• I have not eaten Lana cake for a long time, so I asked a colleague, a Lana regular, to comment. She said, "Lana cake is more fluffy, and the fudge is thicker. ... but this is good!". Smart girl, year end ranking coming... better say the right thing!!! :-)))

My Baking Notes:

• The sponge cake receipe has the right level of sweetness for me! Already very low sugar, so there's no need to cut back anymore. I am encouraged to frost the cake, in fact!
• Initially I find the chocolate taste overpowered by the egg white, so I added 1 tsp of chocolate emulco. This greatly improves the choco-ky-ness.
• In another trial, I used 30g of melted varlhona chocolate instead of cocoa powder, good enough for me to skip the choc emulco.
• This cake will get better if left overnight first; for me, the egg white smell was gone!
• Becos I am a new hand taking a long time to fold in the egg white into batter, many bubbles pop right under my nose. To compensate for the loss, I added 1 more egg white. *heehee*.
• To ensure chances of success in whisking the whites: I clean all my utensil first with soap, then run under hot water. Finally, I rub them with white vinegar. Ya, kia-su. I cannot afford to fail after sacrificing so many eggs! Sorry hens.

As Gina (super chef from KC) correctly point out, this is quite a challenging recipe. Personally I find it tough having to balance the need to fold in the mixture very well and evenly for a perfect cake, at the same time, to ensure that we maintain as much air in the batter.

For me, it was a bold move cos I live to hear enough horror stories from my friends ranting the countless failures they had encountered. I wouldn't have made this if not for Sheen's birthday. So when push comes to shove....

Moral of the story? You smart enough to figure out lah!

Healthy Yoghurt Cupcake

I bought some strawberries with the intent to make the yummy strawberry jam featured in Sunday Times weeks ago. Unfortunately I have been hunting for Sure-Jell pectin, a substance to make the fruit gel, in almost every supermarket I have set foot in, but to no avail.

To save the fate of these berries being tossed out, I decided to make the Healthy Yoghurt Cupcake.

This is the same recipe that I baked last month. It uses yoghurt, egg white and very little butter hence the reduced calorie.



Strawberry: The chopped strawberry bled alot during baking... end up the cake was so soaked at the bottom. I also have to extend the baking time from the usual 25 min to 40min to dry up the bottom a little. What I would in future in to coat the berries with some plain flour - that should help to buffer against the liquid being released into the batter.




Frosting: I think I am I am starting to enjoy the fun of piping... if only it takes less effort to make the buttercream.



Now and...



then:






Berry nice - I love the simple classic look!