A taste of sunshine - Lemon Cornmeal Cake

I came across this recipe while watching Cupcake Jemma on YouTube and I know I have to give it a try. Gluten free!!

Besides, I do have 2 lemons sitting sadly in my fridge, waiting patiently to be transformed into something delicious. So I bought myself some polenta and almond meal and got to it.

Before I start, I need to clarify something. The orignal recipe is called Polenta Cake. But Polenta is actually a NAME of a dish. And this dish is made from cornmeal. So technically we should call it Lemon Cornmeal Cake right? So if you can't find "polenta" in your stores, try cornmeal. It's the same.

165g unsalted butter (softened)
150g caster sugar
zest of 3 lemons
2 tablespoons of lemon juice
2 large eggs (about 112g)
1/2 teaspoons of vanilla

175g ground almonds
70g polenta / cornmeal
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt

100g icing sugar
1.5 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Grease a loaf pan and line with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 170C. 
2. Cream butter and sugar together with a paddle attachment until it is very pale and light. 
3. Using a fine grater, directly grate lemon zest into the mixing bowl. Add in lemon juice and mix well. Add in one egg at a time, mixing well before adding another. Add in vanilla and mix well. 
4. In a separate bowl, whisk all the dry ingredients together, getting rid of all lumps. 
5. Fold the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for 50mins, or until it is done. It is done when you poke the middle of the cake with a skewer and it comes out clean. 
6. Remove from pan and let it cool completely on a wire rack before icing. For the icing, whisk icing sugar with lemon juice. Pour onto the cooled cake.

The whole house smells amazing when the cake was baking. I really love the bright yellow colour of the cake, so cheerful!

Taste wise, the cake was DELICIOUS! It tasted better than I expected. Looks dense like a butter cake, but it was very light and airy, breaks off easily actually. It taste good just as it is, but top it up with the lemon icing REALLY made a big difference in the flavour. I love the bright taste of the lemon with the fluffy cake. It's like eating sunshine!

One of the best thing I have baked so far. Definitely will do it again!

Best Durian Cake - Don't take my word for it

It's so funny. This is the second time I made this cake and I have no idea what it tasted like. My Mother takes Chinese opera lessons and they like to have these little pot luck sessions after class. One day my Mother asked me to make durian cake for her classmates. That was the very 1st time I made this cake. Since the cake was for someone else, naturally I didn't get to taste it. But my mother came back with rave reviews, saying all the "aunties" at her class loved the cake.

Last week my mother came to me again and commissioned me to make a durian cake for her teacher's birthday. Apparently they loved my cake so much that they wanted me to make the cake again. Whao~ That was so flattering.. The cake must REALLY tasted good! So setting aside my giant inflated head, I went shopping at Phoon Huat and got to work.

This is not my recipe. The sponge cake recipe is from Ann Reardon from How To Cook That and the stabilized whipped cream recipe is from Gretchen's Bakery. Since they turned out so good, I thought I blog it down for my future reference. Maybe SOMEDAY I'll get to taste it myself.

NOTE!

1. I followed it quite closely, but I needed a 11" X 11" square cake instead of a 20cm round cake, so I poured everything into 1 big pan instead of splitting into 2 small pans.
2. The original recipe flips the cake upside down to cool off. I blindly followed instructions without using my brain and the cake was nearly destroyed! Don't forget that mine was in a bigger pan so naturally the weight would pull the cake down from the pan! Stupid! Luckily I flipped it back quickly, so it was only a large crack rather than a total destruction. Phew~ Covered up with whipped cream and pretended nothing happened.

Sponge Cake

2 cups plain all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar (I reduced it)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tsp gelatine (powdered)

1/2 cup vegetable oil
7 egg yolks
1 cup cold water

7 egg whites
1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1. Preheat the oven to 160C or 130C if using a fan forced oven. 
2. Place your flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and gelatin into a bowl and whisk it to incorporate air and get rid of any lumps. 
3. Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture then pour in the oil, egg yolks and water in that order. Set that bowl to one side. 
4. Put your egg whites and cream of tartar into another bowl and whisk on high speed until you get soft peaks. 
5. Mix together the flour mixture for 30 seconds only or until just combined, don’t ovemix this. 
6. Using a spatula fold in your egg whites in three batches. 
7. Line but do not grease one 11 inches square cake tin and spread the mixture evenly in it.
8. Bake in a slow oven, 130C for 90 minutes. When it is done leave in the tin to cool.

Stabilized Whipped Cream (Yield: 3¾ Cups)

1 tsp Plain Powdered Gelatin
1 1/2 tbsp Cold Water
1 1/2 tbsp Boiling Water
2 cups Heavy Cream
¼ cup Fine Sugar (adjust according to your taste)

1. Bloom the gelatin in the cold water. Let stand about 5 minutes.
2. Add the boiled water to the gelatin mixture and stir to dissolve.
3. Using a cold bowl, whip and heavy cream whip the cream and gradually add the sugar.
4. Whip to soft - medium peaks and then add the melted stabilizer all at once.
5. Continue to whip for a few seconds longer until desired consistency.
6. Use immediately on your cakes and desserts

Durian Mousse

3 packets of durian
1/4 cup heavy/whipping cream
1/2 cup whipped cream

1. Remove the flesh from durian. 
2. Add heavy cream into durian and blend it up using the pulse function. (Taste better with some texture) 
3. Fold whipped cream into the durian paste and use immediately as cake filling.

Assembly

1. When sponge cake is completely cooled, slice into two from the middle and spread durian mousse in the middle. 
2. Do a crumb coating by spreading a thin layer of cream all over the cake and chill the cake in the fridge for 1 hour. 
3. After an hour frost the cake with the rest of the whipped cream and decorate accordingly.

 If you are lucky, slice and enjoy. If you are like me, just imagine how delicious it's gonna be!

*Apparently Mum brought home a big slice of leftover cake! Unfortunately my Dad found it first and devoured the whole thing. -_-

Orange Yogurt Cake

I saw members from my favourite Facebook group making yogurt cake and I was intrigued! Cake made from yogurt? The fact that it's healthier is secondary. More importantly was how they rave about how delicious and light it tasted and I knew that one day I had to try it. So yesterday at the supermarket, inspiration hit me and I bought a tub of yogurt home.

I looked for a simple recipe online and found this. It's like a muffin recipe. Dry ingredients in one bowl, wet ingredients in the other, fold them together and bake. Simple! Don't even need to bring out the mixer. Just a whisk from the drawer! BEST...

The cake looks like a rich butter cake but it actually taste lighter. It does have a light tangy flavour but not too much to say it's sour. Even my picky kids love it! It is a perfect tea break snack and goes beautifully with a hot cup of coffee. I made some minor adjustments and still it turned out great. So I think this cake would be great for beginners or when you don't want to waste too much effort on satisfying a cake craving. Next time I will tweak it to change the flavour!

Ingredients

vegetable oil and flour for dusting

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
3/4 cup full fat yogurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180°C. Coat a standard bundt cake pan with vegetable oil. Dust with flour; tap out excess. 
2. Whisk all-purpose flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl. 
3. Using your fingers or a spoon, rub sugar with finely grated orange zest in a large bowl until sugar is moist. Add yogurt, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla extract; whisk to blend. 
4. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients by three separate parts until just incorporated. 
5. Pour batter into prepared pan; smooth top. Bake until top of cake is golden brown and a tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes. 

6. Let cake cool in pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Invert onto rack; let cool completely.

*Can be made 3 days ahead. Store airtight at room temperature.*

Super cute ladybug steamed cakes!

I 1st saw this cake on a YouTube video, but it didn't post the details of the recipe, so I couldn't try it out. Interestingly a few months later a friend posted it on Facebook but still I didn't try it out. Last week another friend made it and posted it on Facebook, this time with a weblink to the recipe! This is perfect timing because my girl would be having her last day in K1 and I wanted to make something for her class to enjoy.

Original recipe from Mui Mui's blog (I made some adjustments)

Ingredients
3 cold eggs
1 tsp condensed milk
220g castor sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence

275g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
150ml fresh milk

1. Put eggs, condensed milk, sugar and vanilla in a mixing bowl and beat with medium high speed for 6 minutes or until ribbon stage. 
2. Sift flour and baking powder together. Alternate folding half of the flour mixture and milk into the egg mixture. 
3. Take 1 tbsp plain mixture and put into a piping bag. Take 3 tbsp plain mixture, mix with 1.5 tsp cocoa powder and put into piping bag. Colour the rest of the mixing with bright red and filled into a piping bag. 
4. Pump the red into a paper cup about 80% full. Draw a cross with the brown mixture and do dots on both sides. Colour the upper half of the cross brown and make 2 plain dots for the eye and fill the inside with the plain mixture. 
5. Steam with medium high heat. 12 minutes for full sized cupcakes and 6 minutes for mini cupcakes.

I have a giant steamer, but my muffin tins is rectangular so it doesn't fit into the steamer. So I had to use my mini cupcake moulds. Even before steaming, they looked really cute already! Hope they turned out well!

Oh my gosh can you imagine my delight when I opened the lid of my steamer after 6 minutes! A bunch of mini lady bugs looking at me! So cute!

I couldn't stop taking pictures of them! So cute!

The fact that they are small made it even more cute! My girl loved it!

I made 2 batch of mini cakes and there's still some batter left, so I tried to make bigger ones. Unfortunately I didn't have the proper cupcake casing, so the big ones were a little out of shape. But put them together and the result was another round of squealing and "aaaawwwwww soooo cute!!!" They were like a class of little ladybugs and teacher ladybugs, so it was perfect for the occasion!

OK, have to regain composure to continue.. The insides were quite nice and fluffy, but taste wise, it was quite ordinary. Like 鸡蛋糕. Maybe next time I make strawberry flavoured ones.

The cakes were a hit! At assembly the classmates gathered around my girl excitedly and exclaimed how cute the cakes were. My girl said that everybody loved it and I assumed it made her a very popular person that day. I was glad everybody had a good time and good memories for the last day of school.

Devil's Food Birthday Cake

My baby boy loves trains, so for his 2nd birthday, I decided to make him an extra special birthday cake! A 3D train cake!

I used a devil's food cake for the cake base instead of the usual sponge cake as I love a good, rich chocolate cake. I experimented with a few different recipe and this (original recipe from Ina Garten) is definitely THE jackpot! It's so rich, chocolaty, moist and yet not too sweet. PUUURFECT! For the frosting, I love the Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream I used the other time, so I'll just stick to it.

INGREDIENTS

Cake:
Butter, for greasing the pans
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk, (I used 1 cup of milk + 1 tablespoon white vinegar)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream: (about 840g) (from my original post)
195g egg whites
220g caster sugar
385g unsalted butter, softened but still cold
100g cocoa powder (I used Hershey's)

Let's Bake!

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C. Butter two 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans. I used 1 9-inch x 9-inch square cake pan. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans. 
2. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. 
3. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. 
4. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. 
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. 
6. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. Since I'm using one big pan, slice the cake into 2 and frost accordingly.

Preparing the Swiss Meringue Chocolate Buttercream:

1. Place 195 egg whites and 220g granulated sugar in a heatproof bowl. Sit the heatproof bowl on a saucepan filled with water. The base of the bowl should not be in contact with the water. This is known as a double boiler. Bring the water in the saucepan to a slight simmer. Use a balloon whisk and stir the egg whites and sugar constantly until the sugar has fully dissolved and the mixture is warm to the touch (test by inserting your finger).
2. Remove the heatproof bowl and beat the warm egg white mixture on medium high speed to obtain stiff peaks using an electric beater. (It takes a longer time when sugar is added.) At stiff peaks, the beaten egg whites will not budge when bowl is overturned. When the beaters are lifted from the beaten egg whites, the surface of the egg whites should form stiff upright peaks (not drooping peaks). The beaten egg whites should be cool to the touch (room temperature), not warm like when it was removed from the saucepan.
3. Beat in 385g butter into the beaten egg whites in 3 batches, ensuring each batch is incorporated before adding the next. The egg whites will deflate furiously when butter is added. Continue beating until the mixture is creamy and fluffy (Initially when the butter is added, the mixture may become watery. As more butter is added, the buttercream thickens up).\
4. Lastly, sift in 100g cocoa powder and continue beating to obtain a smooth chocolate buttercream.

If you are making the cake a day ahead, just cool the cake completely, wrap it up carefully in cling film and keep in the fridge. After cake has been frosted, and there are leftovers, don't worry, just keep in a airtight container and keep in freezer. It can keep for up to a week! The cake is best eaten at room temperature, so just leave it on the table for a few hours and it's ready to be served with a glass of milk or a cup of coffee.

If you love chocolate cake, you will love this recipe. Try it. You won't regret it!

Chocolate Banana Cake

I have some bananas that's ripening too quickly. Must be due to this crazy hot weather! But it's ok, at least now I can bake! Let me think.. muffins? cookies? cupcakes? Banana cake? Boring... unlike chocolate cake! OMG I love chocolate cake! I wondered if there's such a thing as chocolate banana cake and Goggled it. Apparently there are! I surfed around and found a good looking one from Joyofbaking.com I made some adjustments to the recipe of my own, and this is the end result.

Heavenly..! It's the most moist, fudgy, chocolately cake I've ever tasted. A super rich chocolate cake with a light banana taste. So good, I'm speechless. So... let's bake!

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups white sugar
1 cup cake flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Wet Ingredients:
2 large eggs
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas (I didn't have enough to make 1 cup -_-")
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flavorless oil
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 180C and place rack in the center of the oven. Butter a 23 x 33 cm pan. 
2. In a large bowl whisk together the dry ingredients. Set aside. 
3. In another large bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients. 
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir, or whisk, until combined. You will notice that the batter is quite thin. 
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 35 to 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. 
6. Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. When completely cooled, frost with the Ganache.

Chocolate Ganache Frosting:
8 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, cut into small pieces
3/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1. Place the chopped chocolate in a medium sized stainless steel, or heatproof bowl. Set aside.
2. Heat the cream and butter in a medium sized saucepan over medium heat and bring just to a boil. Immediately pour the boiling cream over the chocolate and allow to stand for 5 minutes. Stir until smooth. 
3. When Ganache has completely cooled, beat until soft and fluffy. Then spread the frosting on top of the cake.

*I didn't wait long enough for the ganache to set so it was quite liquid when I poured onto the cake. But it tasted awesome anyway!*

Tell me you don't want to put that into your mouth! Come on..!