Happy Birthday To My Big Boy

Eleven years old today!

I made him a chocolate sponge with fresh whipped cream. The recipe for the chocolate sponge is from Kitchen Tigress. Delicious!

Three Layered Sponge Cake

This cake caused me a lot of anguish. I started two days earlier before the birthday celebration of a close friend and mentor, with previously successful recipes, but batch after batch failed (thick fatty layer on bottom of cake) till I was at my wits' end. Up till now, I still don't know what I did in the last batch that magically resulted in these almost perfect sponge cakes.

Anyway, here it is. A three layered sponge cake, filled between layers with cream and sliced fresh strawberries and kiwi, then topped with more fresh dairy whipped cream and fruits.

Happy Birthday Yvonne!

Japanese Strawberry Shortcake

After the relative failure of the Devil's Food Cake last month, I really wanted to bring my family's opinion of my cake-baking skills up again, so I set my heart on this Strawberry Shortcake that I'd heard so much about. Especially since it was for the birthday celebration of my sister.

Strange. The first few recipes on Google seemed to be making something like a scone or choux pastry, instead of a cake. I was getting increasingly befuddled.

Finally, I saw the words "Japanese Strawberry Shortcake" and THIS really seemed to be a kind of sponge cake. Later, I did more researching and realised that the "western" Strawberry Shortcake and "Japanese" Strawberry Shortcake are actually very different things. Perhaps the only similarity is that they both use whipped cream and sliced strawberries for filling.

It was an undisputed success! All loved it, okay, maybe except for the fussy Roast Meat of a son who doesn't eat strawberries. I regret forgetting to take a pic of the cut sides, so I can show how beautiful the cake looks with all the layers. Well, there are countless pics available online, as long as you search for "japanese strawberry shortcake".

Happy Birthday Jie!

Devil's Food Cake - First Try

It's my Dad's birthday, and we are having a family celebration tonight. Technically, it should be the combined celebration that includes my birthday celebration, the anniversary of my first cry being a few days later, but we usually only sing for my Dad.

Now that I've become the official family baker, it was a given that I should again be the supplier of the cake. I decided to try something new -- Devil's Food Cake. Sounds incredibly easy from all the various versions -- just cream the butter, sugar and eggs, then pretty much beat everything else in. No need to fold, no need to worry about deflating eggs, and assured dense chocolatey flavour. Bring it on!

The top few hits on Google yielded Nigella Lawson, Martha Stewart and a few others. I read them all (including the reviews where available) and then found David Lebovitz's recipe on the next page. I read it through and decided to go for this one because I've had success with his Madeleines (every single time) and like reading his blog.

Unfortunately, as everyone could tell after taking a couple of bites, it was a little too dry. I suspect it was the baking time, but it was weird because everyone's recipe says to bake for about that length of time. If I try this again, (and I will for sure, because my big boy loves it and is requesting it for his birthday next year) I shall have to decrease the baking time by 5 mins and test for doneness, something which I didn't do this time because of blind faith.

This has turned out to be my best and most cooperative chocolate ganache icing, though. Smooth, glossy, easy to spread, delicious.

Check out that sheen in the ganache.

Cheese cupcakes

I first fell in love with cheesecake years ago when I tried out (for fun) this recipe on Allrecipes called Chantal's New York Cheesecake. It took some time to make (and get right) but the final product was incredibly delicious. My daughter likes it too, and over the years often begged me to make it, which I seldom acquiesced because it takes some work, quite some cost and most of all, lots of TIME to complete (including leaving it to cool in the oven for at least FIVE hours and THEN chilling overnight in the fridge, ye gods).

A slice of New York Cheesecake

Then recently, I came across a recipe that made mini-cupcakes out of cheesecakes. It seemed so easy - just beat, pour and bake. Really? I had to try. The result of that recipe was passable cheese cupcakes (I didn't have mini muffin pans at that time) that were a tad hard and dry. However, it was fast to make, lower in cost (only half a kilo of cream cheese whereas a whole 9 inch cake required 1 kg at one go, that's not cheap!) and simple to complete, which meant I could do up a batch easily anytime we wanted a cheesecake fix. Best of all, I can double the recipe or halve it to my requirements. I wanted my cake and eat it! (Oh dear, this last sentence was bad grammar but I'm too sleepy to figure the right structure out).

I brought out my trusty Chantal's recipe to compare and decided to give it another go, this time using the ingredients ratio for Chantal's recipe but baking it the cupcakes way. The results? I don't think I've ever made more delectable cupcakes or cheesecakes in my life.

Cheese cupcakes

In the pic above, two cakes are topped with some chopped strawberries that have been mixed with sugar, and the others  are just topped with grated dark chocolate. A few members of my family prefer another topping - strawberries mixed with passionfruit.

And here are some I made for a family friend's birthday. All topped with only the strawberry-sugar mixture (ran out of dark choc).

Culinary exploration - Kueh lapis legit or Spek koek

I have been thinking about this for a long time and I think I have psyched myself enough - I am going to make kueh lapis! Not the Chinese kind aka 九层糕, but a many-layered cake made with lots and lots of egg yolk and butter, and lots of TIME.

If I pull this off, it shall be one of my greatest achievements in the universe of baking.

After picking a suitable auspicious day to carry out the deed (the DH must not be working so he can help handle the tot while I labour in the kitchen), I bought the equipment, and today I got all the last of the ingredients, namely the eggs, which must be as fresh as possible. Tomorrow will be the day!

I think I shall be too excited to sleep tonight.

Choc version of Buche

Added cocoa powder to the whip topping along the way to make choc cream frosting, that's all. But the cake itself is a little overbaked, because I was ambitious and baked a double batch. Oven was not well-controlled.

This half is for a neighbour.

Buche De Noel

My first try at this, really! Recipe from Allrecipes.com, as usual, at least I used the part for the cake itself. Frosting is this Red Man Whip Topping available from Phoon Huat. The lady assured me this was the same one used by all the cakeries around, and that the real "Heavy Whipping Cream" wouldn't work. But while you're whipping it, it smells like coconut milk with added sugar, eew.

Ray and I tried some of the roll itself before we frosted it, and it was of the melt-in-the-mouth variety. I didn't believe at first that you can make a cake without flour, but according to Allrecipes' Cook's Encyclopedia, a sponge cake is traditionally made entirely out of the "power of eggs", no flour. Well, all I can say is, you've gotta try it to believe it!

And how much does a Yule Log cost these days at the bakeries? $50? Gosh... I probably spent less than $10 for everything... 6 eggs though, go easy on the cholesterol, said HL when he heard.

Will be served up this Sunday evening at our family's Xmas gathering with the extended relations.