Dutch Apple Cake (Rachel Allen's recipe)

I first saw this in one of the food blogs and then head over to Rachel Allen's web to check out the recipe. It's a simple and nice cake. I love to arrange the apple slices on top of the cake. Only one thing, if you are baking on the lower rack of the oven you might need to bake ~5min using top heat in the last part of the baking to get the nice brown top :)

Packed these for hubby to share with his colleagues.



Chiffon Cake...again...after a long long time

In case you thought I have not only packed but sold my oven, NO, no, NO,...how could I??? :) The eggs had been staying in the fridge for a long time and it's time to get rid of them. So, what cake to bake if not chiffon since egg is the main ingredient for this cake. Since I still have some coffee powder as well, coffee chiffon it is!

See...my tall and lovely chiffon cake ;p Packed most of it for my MIL to bring back to Sg. Yes, I am still the old me. I love to bake but don't eat much of what I bake.

I am really hoping that I can start baking again...when can I have the next baking session??

All-In Muffin

You could be wondering what muffin I am talking about. Well, I am trying to clear my stock of baking ingredients and I tried to put in many different things into this muffin, thus the name "all-in". Hahaha.... I guess this will be my last bake before my little girl comes and hopefully I will be able to find some time to bake again very soon! These muffins are easy to make and it smells good!

If you do not have milk or for some reason coulnd't take milk, you can substitute it with soy milk. I just use about 3-4tbsp of soy powder and mix it with water. Works well!

Ingredients:

Plain Flour (2 cups)

Sugar (3/4 cup)

Salt (1tsp)

Baking Powder (3 tsp)

Poppy Seed (2-3 tbsp)

Egg (2)

Oil (1/4 cup)

Milk (1 cup)

Chocolate Chips

Red Cherries (chopped coarsely)

Toasted Walnut

Preheat oven at 200C

Method:

1. Mix flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and poppyseed in a bowl. Set aside.

2. Mix eggs, oil and milk evenly. Pour this mixture into the dry ingredients mixture.

3. Mix till just combined.

4. Add in chocolate chips, cherries and walnut. Mix.

5. Spoon into lined muffin cups.

6. Bake for 25min or until cooked.

Chocolate Sponge Cake with Chocolate Chips

A very simple sponge cake with chocolate chips....taste even better after it's been cooled in the fridge :)

Ingredients:

Optima Flour (250gm)

Eggs (4)

Oil (80gm)

Water (50ml)

Cocoa Powder (3-4tbsp mixed with some water to form paste)

Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven at 180C

Method:

1. Beat flour with eggs till thick.

2. Add cocoa paste and water. Beat till light.

3. Fold in the oil. Mix well.

4. Fold in some chocolate chips (leave some to sprinkle on top).

5. Pour into a lined baking pan, sprinkle some chocolate chips and bake for 30min or until cooked.

Walnut Cupcakes

Still have some walnut left and not sure what to do with it, so this is the most simple solution ;p This yields about 10-11 cupcakes. Although the taste is not strong, the texture is good and walnuts gave it some crunchy bites.

Ingredients:

Self Raising Flour (190gm)
Milk Powder (2 tbsp)
Butter (150gm)
Sugar (130gm)
Egg (3)
Yoghurt (4tbsp)
Walnuts (toasted and roughly chopped)

Preheat oven at 180C

Method:
1. Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2. Add in egg one by one and beat well after each addition.
3. Add yoghurt and beat till combined.
4. In another bowl, mix self raising flour and milk powder evenly.
5. Add flour mixture into no. 3 and mix till combined.
6. Add in walnut and mix till combined.
7. Spoon into cupcake pan lined with liners. Bake for 25min or until cooked.

Banana Chocolate Chips Muffin

Ingredients:

Bananas (3-4 medium sized, mashed)

Sugar (1/2 cup)

Oil (1/3 cup)

Egg (1)

Plain Flour (1.5 cup)

Baking Powder (1tsp)

Baking Soda (1tsp)

Salt (1/2 tsp)

Chocolate chips (as much as you like??)

Preheat oven at 190C

Method:

1. Mix mashed bananas, sugar, oil and egg together. Set aside.

2. In another bowl, mix plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt evenly.

3. Pour the wet ingredients in 1 into the flour mixture and add in chocolate chips. Mix till combined.

4. Spoon into muffin cups and bake for 20-25min.

Mango Chiffon Cake

This cake is very soft and nice to eat especially after it's cooled in a fridge, but unfortunately the mango taste is not strong. I don't want to put mango essence, so maybe will need to put in some very ripe mango or just add in more mango puree.

Ingredients:

A.

Egg Yolks (6)

Plain Flour (9 tbsp)

Mango Puree (2/3 of a mango - cut into small cubes, blend with 4 tbsp of water)

Sugar (1tbsp)

Oil (1tbsp)

B.

Egg Whites (6)

Sugar (6tbsp)

Corn Flour (1tbsp)

C.

Mango (cut remaining 1/3 of mango into small pieces)

Preheat oven at 170C.

Method:

1. Mix all ingredients in A together and leave aside first.

2. In a clean bowl, beat egg whites till soft peak forms.

3. Add in sugar and beat for 3min or so.

4. Add in corn flour and beat until the mixture becomes quite stiff. When you turn the bowl upside down, the mixture will not drop.

5. Take 1/3 of the egg white mixture and mix evenly with the mixture in A. Continue to mix 2 more times with the other 2 portions of 1/3 of egg whites mixture.

6. Add in C and mix well. Do not overmix.

7. Pour into a chiffon cake pan and bake for 50-55min.

8. Invert the cake once out of oven. Unmould when the cake is cool.

This cake is best eaten after being cooled in the fridge for a few hours.

Raisin and Walnut Cupcakes

This cake is very easy to make and yet the result is excellent. The cake is fluffy, moist and the aroma of the toasted nuts in the cake really makes me want a second piece of it. If you want to bake a simple and nice cake, I would say this is it.

You could bake it as one whole cake in a larger baking pan or in a loaf tin and even in cupcakes form. The baking would be longer though if you bake it as one cake.

Ingredients:

Butter (150gm)

Sugar (130gm)

Eggs (3)

Vanilla Essence (1/2 tsp)

Plain Yoghurt (5tbsp)

Self Raising Flour (190gm)

Milk Powder - you can use soy powder too (2tbsp)

Walnut (chopped coarsely and toasted)

Raisins

*For walnut and raisins, put as much as you like.

Preheat oven at 175C.

Method:

1. Beat butter and sugar till light and fluffy.

2. Add in egg one by one and beat till combined.

3. Add in vanilla essence and yoghurt. Beat till combined.

4. In another bowl, mix self raising flour and milk powder evenly.

5. Pour in the flour mixture into the wet mixture.

6. Mix evenly.

7. Add in raisins and walnuts.

8. Pour mixture into baking pan.

9. Bake for 30-35min (for loaf tin and cupcakes). You might need to bake longer if you bake it in a large pan.

Coffee Walnut Butter Cake with Coffee Chips

The whole cake

Yum....this is great with a cup of hot coffee

Ingredients:
Butter (250gm)
Plain Flour (230gm)
Sugar (230gm)
Baking Powder (1tsp)
Coffee Paste (1.5 tbsp)
Eggs (5)
Walnut
Coffee Chips

Preheat oven at 180C

Method:
1. Cream butter and sugar till fluffy.
2. Add in eggs one by one and beat until it's mixed evenly.
3. Add in coffee paste and beat till it's mixed.
4. In another bowl, mix flour and baking powder evenly. Pour this into the wet mixture and mix till combined.
5. Add in some walnut and mix.
6. Pour into a lined baking pan.
7. Sprinkle coffee chips and walnut on top.
8. Bake for 45-50min or until cooked.

Chocolate Brownie with Coffee Chips

Fancy a piece with your coffee? :)

Ingredients:

Chocolate (280gm)

Butter (120gm)

Sugar (120gm)

Eggs (2)

Vanilla Essence (1/2 tsp)

Salt (1/8tsp)

Flour (180gm)

Coffee Chips

Preheat oven at 180C

Method:

1. Melt chocolate and butter together.

2. Beat sugar, eggs, vanilla essence and salt till light and fluffy.

3. Add this to mixture to the chocolate and butter mixture.

4. Lastly add in flour. Mix well.

5. Pour into a lined baking pan and sprinkle coffee chips on top.

6.Bake for 25-30min.

Variations of Chiffon Cakes

I've always love this cottony soft cake. It's light and fluffy and doesn't make you feel guilty even when you're on your way to the 2nd piece :)

Here are different 'flavors' which I have experimented recently.

Pandan Chiffon Cake with Sunflower Seeds

Hubby thinks the cake is better without the sunflower seeds because it seems the sunflower seeds had overpowered the pandan taste and he thinks it's a bit complicated. LOL....

Lemony Almond Chiffon Cake with Almond Flakes

This one smelled real good while baking!!! The almond and lemon combination is pretty good.

Bailey's Coffee Irish Cream Chiffon Cake with Coffee Chips

This is definitely one of the best especially for coffee lovers! Everyone who tried it just loved it!
If not because I can't take alcohol and coffee now, I would have gobbled one piece right after it's out of the oven ;p

Pandan Chiffon Cake

This must be the best chiffon cake I've ever baked in terms of the texture, aroma and taste! While it's just a normal plain old pandan flavour cake, I love its simplicity. I used real pandan juice, so the cake didn't turn out that green. This time I added some coconut powder too, so the smell alone makes you want to have a piece while the cake was still in the oven.

This cake is for my hubby as we celebrated our 3rd year anniversary (it has been 3 years since the day we 'pak toh'). I wanted to bake him a cake but I don't want to make it something too heavy since his birthday is just a few weeks away, so we can save such cake for the birthday.

Lesson from this bake: if you bake with love, it taste better :) Haha....

(Gigantic) Almond Cookies

I made these right before CNY and since I was so tired after work, I made these really big. Saves time ma.... It's the same recipe as the peanut cookies, just substitute peanut with almond and increase oil to 120ml.

Peanut Cookies

For this year's Chinese New Year, I made 4 types of cookies (crazy??); pineapple tart, almond cookies, peanut cookies and cornflakes cookies. Of the 4, pineapple tarts and the peanut cookies are favourites. I made some for in laws, my family and also friends. It was too bad that right before CNY was a busy period at work, otherwise I think I would have tried out more recipes :)

Here's to share with you a very simple and nice peanut cookies recipe.

These were nicely packed for friends :)

Ingredients:
Ground Roasted Peanut (120gm)
Plain Flour (180gm)
Baking Soda (1 tsp)
Baking Powder (1 tsp)
Caster Sugar (120gm)
Oil (110ml)
Egg Yolk - beaten (1)

Preheat oven at 170C.


Method:
1. Mix everything together except the egg yolk in a big bowl.
2. Take some of the mixture and form into small round shape.
3. Place it onto a lined baking tray.
4. Repeat until dough is finished. Glaze with egg yolk.
5. Bake for 15-20min.
6. Store in container when cooled.

Cake Stand

Sometimes God answers our prayer in ways that we can never imagine and here’s a good example :). I have been thinking of buying a cake stand but didn’t see any that I like. They are either made of plastic or not in the design that I want. So, I thought I’ll just wait and see and slowly shop for it until I can find the right one. Well, of course God knows us best and so, it was really a pleasant surprise when a co-worker from US bought me this lovely cake stand for my wedding gift! Don’t get me wrong, I am not the type who go around giving hints to people to buy me things! Never and I do not like this kind of behaviour ;p I’d only do that to one person, that’s my hubby. Hahaha....At work, I’d always like to remain professional. Serious...



Isn’t this lovely? It’s exactly what I was looking for!



So, since I was given a cake stand, I got to bake a cake, right....Here’s the chocolate moist cake I baked as a thank-you to Ken. It’s really nice and thoughtful of him to get me a wedding gift even though my wedding was already 5 months plus ago.

Marble Cake with Raisins for my in laws

This is a cake I baked yesterday for my in laws in SG as hubby is going back for the weekend. Some aunties said they didn’t get to try my cakes, so this time I thought I’d get hubby to bring back the whole cake! Haha…sure enough kua.

As usual, to be on the safe side, better bake the reliable marble cake. I just added some raisins into the cake this time. Hope it’s not too sweet!

Birthday Cake - Moist Chocolate Cake with Ganache

Today is Jac’s birthday, a friend at work in my department so her team mates wanted me to bake her a birthday cake. I was considering between carrot cheese cake or moist chocolate cake, and in the end settled for moist chocolate cake. I guess we can’t go wrong with chocolate cake! This one has a layer of ganache in between the 2 layers of cake and covered with chocolate ganache as well (yummy…but fattening for sure).

Initially I wanted to decorate it with some fresh strawberries but this didn’t work out because I stored the strawberries in the freezer and when they were out, all the berries turned soft. It was already 9+pm at night and even if I can make it to the nearest supermarket, I don’t think I’d have the energy to continue decorating the cake afterwards. So, what you see here is a last minute idea ;p Not too bad, I guess??

I’m glad all of them loved the cake and they even thought the deco was cute. Haha…. :)

Chocolate Rum & Raisin Cake.....Sold :)

Wow...can't believe it that I've been away so long. Was out of country for my honeymoon for 2.5 weeks and after I am back, there's of course the work to clear in the office and right before the quarter ended.
Anyway, it's nice to be back where I can find noodles soup and nasi lemak easily ;p


Have not been baking for a long time too; 1 month+. This week, CF ordered 2 chocolate rum and raisin cakes for her friends, which is also why I tried my best to make the cakes look more colourful with the strawberries. Haha...I am just not a cream person when it comes to decorating cakes because I don't like thick layers of cream in my cake. At least that goes for cakes that I bake for own consumption or for family members/friends. It's good to try to be healthy ma...at least try...;p


I am happy with how the cakes turned out. Most importantly, CF liked them.
They smelled good too as I soaked the raisins in rum overnight. :)

Marble Cake for Mum's Birthday

Ever since the successful bake last year my sis and I made for my mum, I'd decided to bake mum a cake for her birthday this year. When it comes to my mum, there is no need to crack my mind and spend sleepless nights thinking about what cake to bake because plain butter cake or marble cake are the only approved ones. So, I did a reduced sugar butter marble cake for mum. The only decoration are the walnuts on top of the cake. No cream pls....cos she dislikes cream. I'm glad she loved it! My dad enjoyed it too. He ate 2 big pieces at one go!

Sesame Chiffon Cake

Open sesame....unveiling another out of the world flavour for a chiffon cake :)

Ingredients:
(A)
Egg Yolks (6)
Plain Flour (7 tbsp)
Ground Black Sesame (4 tbsp)
Oil (1 tbsp)
Water (5 tbsp)
Sugar (1 tbsp)

(B)
Egg Whites (6)
Sugar (5 ½ tbsp)
Corn Flour (1 tbsp)

White Sesame Seeds

Preheat oven at 180C
(As usual, I reduced temperature to 170C during the last 15min of baking.)

Method:
1. Mix (A) in a bowl and beat till combined.
2. In another bowl, beat egg whites till soft peak forms.
3. Add sugar and beat till shiny and glossy.
4. Add corn flour and beat till it’s almost stiff (turn the bowl upside down and the egg whites should not fall).
5. Fold in 1/3 of egg whites into the (A) mixture.
6. Repeat 2 more times adding 1/3 each time.
7. Pour into a chiffon cake mould and sprinkle some white sesame seeds on top.
8. Bake for 45-50min or till cooked.9. Invert the cake to cool. Un-mould using a thin knife by loosening the sides.