Banana Chocolate Bottom Square Cake.

Hi

I would like to give a thumbs up for this.

It’s definitely a keeper!

The combination of bananas and chocolate are perfect match and they make cake absolutely delicious.   The cake was topped up with chocolate chips and walnuts and “Wow!” It’s so pretty and really made it so hard to resist!!

I have been seeing this cake everywhere in the internet.  Therefore I decided to give it a try.

The banana fragrant was not as strong as my Banana Chocolate Chips Cake and the texture was a bit dry and crumbly.  Not sure it is because of the cocoa powder that had covered up the banana aroma and also caused it to dry…

Anyway, you can assure that nothing will go wrong when chocolate and banana meets.  These 2 are a perfect match!

If I’ll to bake this again, I’ll increase the amount of milk to 3-4 tbsp on the chocolate batter as I prefer it to be moister.

As I modified the recipes coming from various sources and have forgotten exactly this recipe was adopted from where.

Here goes my modified recipe.

INGREDIENTS

110g       Unsalted butter 

120g       Sugar

1 no.        Beaten egg

300g       Ripe bananas (mashed)

210g       Cake Flour

1 tsp        Vanilla Essence

1 tsp        Baking powder

1 tsp        Baking soda

¼ tsp       Salt

35g         Cocoa powder

2 tbsp      Milk (Can put 1 tbsp more to add moisture to the chocolate bottom)

120g       Chocolate chips

120g       Walnut

METHOD

1.Preheat oven at 175ºC.  Lined 18cm square tin with parchment paper.

2.Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

3.Drizzle in the eggs, follow by vanilla and mashed bananas.  Beat thoroughly till well incorporated.

4.Sieve cake flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the butter mixture.  Mix well with a spatula.

5.Divide the batter into half.  Add cocoa powder and milk into 1 portion.  Spread this chocolate portion evenly into the square tin.

6.Spread the remaining plain batter evenly on top of the chocolate batter, swirl gently with a knife.

7.Sprinkle chocolate chips and walnut on top.

8.Bake in pre-heated oven at 175ºC for 30mins.  Remove immediately from the oven when it is baked.  Let it cooled down completely before cutting it into squares.

Parmesan Chiffon Cake

Hi

I told you I haven’t got enough of Chiffon Cake right? J

I simply love the spongy texture of Chiffon Cake and since now I can make quite a pretty good one, I’ll bake whenever I feel like eating it.

This Parmesan Chiffon Cake uses the basic Chiffon Cake ingredient for Lavender Chiffon Cake, Lemon and Orange Chiffon Cake.  Just replace the flavour you like accordingly.   For this, I replaced 75ml of water with non-fat fresh milk and added 40g of parmesan grated cheese to it.

My skill in folding in the egg meringue is still not perfect as you can see there’re still many air holes.  But it never affects the taste and the texture of the cake at all.

My unmoulding is not skilful too.  No matter how careful I was, I would tend to cut part of the crust away when running the knife around the cake tin.

Ok ok.  It’s enough! I can’t just stop at Chiffon Cake.  I need to move on to explore other things. 

 Not sure whether did you notice there’re some logos at the right side panel of my blog?  Yes, those are some virtual events, which the bloggers come together to organise.

Recently, I was been invited by Bake For Happy Kids to join in the virtual events, which organised by her and some of the bloggers coming from different part of the world.  I was quite excited about it because I know I’m going to bake many things by baking along with the experts.  Its fun and motivating when you’re baking along with people whom share the same hobby and you’ll never bake alone…  J

Forbes Thought of the Day –

“The greater part of progress is the desire to progress”

The Lemon and Orange Chiffon Cake

Hi

The Lemon and Orange Chiffon Cake.  My 2^nd and 3^rd attempt!

I’m pretty pleased with them.  I tried to obtain the maximum height for the cake but looked like 10cm tall (baked in 18cm tube pan) was the best I could achieve so far.

How much the cake shrunk will all depend on how skilful one’s fold in the egg meringue as no cake stabilizer was used in this recipe.

Cake Stabilizer, the leavening agent, is also been known as Emulsifier.  I’m not against using it.  However, as much as possible, I prefer no addictive or chemical in my food.  

It is possible to achieve the airy, spongy and light texture cake as long as we are able to,

(1)          Beat the egg whites sufficiently until it reaches stiff peak and forms ribbon liked trail.

(2)          Fold in the flour correctly.

These are the 2 critical steps for making Chiffon Cake or Sponge Cake.

My family preferred Orange flavor to Lemon as its more flavoring.  We love the orange aroma coming out from the oven.

Before you start grating the orange skin, give it a good scrub and a thorough rinse under the tap to get rid of the chemical that’s sprayed on the orange.

While my chiffon cake was still in the oven, in midst of rising to its peak, I read “The 25 cents meal and The $50 buffet” written by Robert Kee from Operation Hope Foundation.  

This book encourages us to look beyond our comfort zone of affluence.  In the midst of our busy in catching up with our earthly possessions, it’s good to take a step back to think and consider visiting the 3^rd World countries as volunteer. 

I believed through volunteering to these countries, it’ll change our perspective on life…

OK, back to Chiffon Cake.  I’m thinking how about Tofu Chiffon Cake and Parmesan Chiffon Cake? 

 Ha ha ha! I don’t seem to have enough of Chiffon Cake and I’m getting more and more adventurous about it J

  

Lavender Chiffon Cake

I’m very happy with my 1^st attempt of Chiffon Cake.  The experiment was a success.  It’s indeed a great encouragement to someone like me, who just started baking not too long.

I have taken the recipe from Happy Home Baker.  She has failed several times in order to perfect chiffon cake.  The recipe is certainly a keeper!

I’m still very nervous whenever I need to whip the egg white to stiff peak due to numerous failures.  The egg whites just gone to waste…

The recipe is supposed to be Earl Grey Chiffon Cake.  I didn’t know I had run-out of Earl Grey teabag.  So I replaced it with Lavender.  It’s not lavender tea bag.  It’s dried purple lavender.  The fragrant is fabulous.  It was given by Lay Choo.  She used it for her butter cake.  I’m going to try out her recipe on lavender butter cake one day.

I didn’t have temperature issue like what other bakers encountered.  I followed every step strictly according to the recipe and it works.

The cake rose beautifully and it’s true that it started to shrink towards the end of the baking time.  There’s a tiny crack on the cake.  But it didn’t bother me because it’s already a perfect cake to me!  The texture is beautiful.  Springy, soft and light

I'm going to bake nothing except Chiffon Cake for the next few coming weekends.

INGREDIENTS

(makes one 18cm cake tin)

A.

1 tbsp      Lavender dried flower 

100g       Cake Flour

1½ tsp     Baking Powder

¼ tsp       Salt

3              Egg Yolks

40g         Caster Sugar

50ml       vegetable oil

75ml       water
*If doing lemon or orange flavor, reduce water to 50ml and replace it with 25ml of lemon or orange juice.  Prepare also 1 lemon or orange zest too.

B.

3              Egg whites

40g         Caster Sugar

METHOD

·       Sieve flour, baking powder and salt together, set aside.

·       Separate egg yolks/whites and bring to room temperature.  

·       Place egg yolks in a mixing bowl, add in sugar, in 3 separate additions and with a manual whisk, whisk till the mixture becomes sticky and turn pale.

·       Drizzle in the oil, whisking at the same time till the mixture is well combine.  Repeat the same with the water.  Sieve over the flour mixture and whisk until flour mixture is fully incorporated into the batter.  Add in the lavender dried flower and mix well.

·       In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites with an electric mixer until mixture becomes frothy and foamy.  Gradually beat in the sugar and beat on high speed until just before stiff peaks.

·       Add the beaten egg white into the egg yolk batter in 3 separate additions, each time folding gently with a spatula until just blended.

·       Pour batter into a 18cm (7”) tube pan (do not grease the pan).  Tap the pan lightly on a table top to get rid of any trapped air bubbles in the batter.

·       Bake in pre-heated oven at 170˚C for 45-50mins or until the cake surface turns golden brown, and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

·       Remove from the oven and invert the pan immediately.  Let cool completely before unmould.  To remove the cake from the pan, run a thin-bladed knife around the inside of the pan and the center core.  Release the cake and run the knife along the base of the pan to remove the cake.

It's Mum's Cake

What a stunning way to say Happy Birthday to my mum with cake of rosette that’s full of fruits topping on it.

Did I make this?? Ha ha!  Yes, I made this!! 

The cake is amazing and beautiful. 

As you can see, it’s still not perfect but I’m already very happy with the outcome.

As usual, every year, my siblings and I got together to celebrate my mum’s birthday. 

 I really enjoyed making this cake from scratch especially for occasion like this.  It’s so rewarding!

It’s a sponge cake and required to whip the egg white to stiff peak which always make me a little nervous.  However, it simply a pure joy when the egg white turn foamy and you know that you have made it!

The sponge cake is from my usual recipe.  I’ll continue to use this recipe for making cream cake until I find another recipe which is better than this.

BBQ Meat (Char Siew)

This is awesome!  It’s my family’s favourite dish.  I made it quite often.

Simple and delicious!!

INGREDIENT / METHOD

1.   1 streak of pork belly 五花肉

2.   Marinate it with Lee Kum Kee Char Siew Sauce for at least few hours.  

3.   Arrange the marinated pork belly on the pan that can fit into the Air Fryer.  Air fry 200˚C for 15 mins.  Mid-way remove the tray and brush with honey then air fryer for another 15mins.  Mid-way turn around the meat and air fry for another 5-10 mins.  Timing will all depend on how thick is your pork belly.

Black Pepper Chicken

Hi

Here is another dish which I frequently cooked over the weekend.

There’s no special or secret recipe for all the dishes I made.  As a working mum, I source for easy, simple and fast fix recipe that my family can enjoy at home.

INGREDIENT / METHOD

1.   3 pcs chicken thigh meats (remove the skin and cut away all the fat)

2.   1 tbsp of black pepper sauce (your choice of brand, for me I used Woh Hup).  Mix black pepper sauce with 1 tsp of water.

3.   Marinate the chicken thigh meat with the sauce for at least few hours.  For me, I usually will marinate for 5-8 hours.

4.   Arranged the thigh meats on a pan that can fix into the Air Fryer.  Air fry at 180 Deg ˚C for about 25 mins and mid-way turn around the meats.

Honey BBQ Pork Ribs

Hi

My family loves meat.  We are meat eater ha ha ha!  

So I have been exploring meat recipes.  

This is one of the dishes which I often prepared for my family over the weekend.  It is so simple and the easiest dish to make. 

INGREDIENTS & METHOD

1.   4 pcs of pork ribs from wet market.  Each is about 16cm long.

2.   Marinate the ribs with Lee Kum Kee BBQ Sauce (it can be any sauce of your choice) and Honey for at least few hours.  I marinated the night before that.

3.   Arrange the ribs on the plate that nice fix into the Air Fryer.

4.   Air Fry 200˚C for 15 mins.  Turn the ribs around and air fry for another 15mins.

5.   Check the meat and see whether they are done.  For this case, I air fry for another 10 mins and brush a bit more honey on it to make a little browner.

The meat is so tender and juicy.  It's not dry at all!

You should try this out if you have a Air Fryer at home.