Banana Cake

Ingredients

• 240 g very ripe banana

• 120 g sour cream

• 2 eggs
• 140 g butter softened

• 100 g caster sugar

• 2 tbsp brown sugar

• 200 g cake flour sifted

• 3/4 tsp baking powder sifted

• 1 tsp baking soda sifted

• 1/2 tsp salt

Oven temperature: 180 degree

Baking time: 1 Loaf (55mins) / 10 Cupcakes (30mins)

Method

1. Line both baking moulds with baking paper.
2. Preheat oven at 180 degree celsius.
3. Puree banana, sour cream and eggs together.
4. Cream butter, white and brown sugar till light. Add in the banana puree a bit at a time, and continue to cream until smooth.
5. Fold in flour mixture in two batches.
6. Transfer to baking moulds and baking for about 30 minutes or till cooked.

Recipe from: MissTamChiak

Plain Bread

Old school bread success! 😋

Traditional Bread

(Part 1) Sponge Dough

• 215g bread flour
• 130g cold milk/water
• 2g yeast

(Part 2) Main Dough

 A

• 95g bread flour
• 12g cold milk/water
• 30g egg (used 1 egg)
• 7g yeast
• 5g salt
• 60g caster sugar

B

• 45g unsalted butter

Method for cake

1. Part 1: Mix everything together with a stand mixer with bread hook attached on power 1 until it formed into dough (around 7-10mins). Let dough rise overnight (recommended) or 4/5 hours.
2. Part 2: Mix (A) dry mixture together in the mixer. Add (Part 1) sponge dough into the (A) mixture using power 2.
3. Add in (B) butter to the mixture and continue to mix till it forms a clean dough that is elastic and do not break easily (windowpane state). Let the dough rest for 10mins.
4. Prepare the baking tray with baking paper or grease it. Roll 50g of dough into a ball and place onto the baking tray to proof for another 60mins or double in size.
5. Preheat oven at 170 degrees and bake for 15mins.

Recipe adapted from:

Baking Corner

Charcoal Swiss Roll

Another bake this weekend! 😊

Lil' Sis is always complaining that there is nothing for her to eat in school and that her school's canteen is exploding with people, so we try to bake weekly so that she can bring something to school as lunch on light days. But this time round, the cakes were gone even before Monday is here.... cause it's way too yummy!!! Too bad for Lil' Sis this time, go queue with all the people for your lunch~

About a year ago, we tried to bake swiss roll and failed very very very badly. The cake looked a lot like omelette and it had a lot of cracks when we tried to rolled it. We swore to never try swiss roll again since they are usually cheap and yummy even when we buy them from stores (especially those that we get from Malaysia, super good!). We came across this post online and decided to give swiss roll another try which turned out to be a successful bake to our surprise! Even the filling which was to use whipping cream, something that we are afraid of doing as we failed many many times with anything involving whipping cream, was a success! Wooohooooo~~ It wasn't a difficult at all too, other than trying to scrub all the stains on our bowls left behind by the charcoal powder. Do give it a try even if you have failed baking swiss roll previously just like us. The end product of this will definitely amaze you!

Charcoal Swiss Roll

Cake

Ingredients for cake

A

• 60g egg yolks (about 4-5) - please use the exact weight
  (we used about 68g)
• 50ml milk 
• 50ml vegetable oil, preferably something that is light and neutral tasting

B

• 70g cake flour with 8% protein 
• 10g charcoal powder
• 3/4 tsp baking powder 
• pinch of salt to taste 

C

• 140g egg whites (about 4-5) - please use the exact weight
  (we used about 120g)
• 80g caster sugar 

Method for cake

1. Preheat oven to 180°C.
2. Line one 35 x 25 cm baking tray with baking paper.
3. In a large mixing bowl, add all ingredients of A and use a hand whisk to mix until all are combined.
4. Combine all in B. Sift mixture B into mixture A and use a hand whisk to mix until well incorporated.
5. Using an electric mixer with a whisk attachment, beat egg whites (under C) in low speed until foamy. Increase beating speed to medium - Avoid using high speed as it will form large bubbles. While beating, add sugar (under C) gradually and continue to beat until stiff peaks form.
6. Using a hand whisk or a spatula, gently fold in the egg whites (C, from step 5) to the flour mixture (A+B, from step 4) in 3 portions. Making sure most of the white is not visible after folding. 
7. Pour batter into baking tray. Use a spatula to spread the batter evenly and gentle tap the filled tray on the kitchen top to remove any large bubble.  
8. Bake for 15 mins or until the cake is well risen and fully cooked. 
9. When done, remove cake (with its baking paper) from the tray immediately and transfer it onto a wire rack to cool. 
10. After 5-10 mins of cooling, flip the cake onto a clean baking paper and remove the used baking paper at its bottom. 
11. Allow the cake to cool completely. 

Filling

Ingredients for filling

• 120ml (1/2 cup) whipping cream
• 10g icing sugar

Method for filling

1. Use an electric mixer with a whisk attachment or a cream whipper on medium speed to whip cream and icing sugar until stiff peaks form.

Assembling

1. Place cake with its flawless (you can choose which side to use if both sides of your cake look good) side down on a clean baking paper. Use a knife to trim off about 0.5 cm from all the sides of the cake.
2. Spread thin layer of cream evenly on the cake. Roll the cake from the shorter end along the longer side to form a Swiss roll. Wrap in cling wrap and allow the cake to firm up into its shape for 2-3 hr in a fridge or until firm enough to slice.
3. Slice and enjoy the cake. Store uneaten cake in an airtight container and in a fridge for up to 3 days.

Recipe adapted from:

Bake for Happy Kids

We did not reduce the sugar for this cake too and the sweetness was just nice! Only Mama Lin commented that it was too sweet for her, but she still happily gobbled down the cake just like the rest of us. Looking forward to baking it again! 😄

Sour-Cream Chocolate Cake

Almost two years since our last update, omg! 😆

We have been very very very lazy in updating this blog, but we are still baking frequently especially when Phoon Huat is having sales soooooo often!

Ever since joining a Facebook group that is dedicated to baking, we were always influenced by all the posts posted in the group as they all look super nice and yummy. There is always a certain 'trend' going on and a lot of bakers would be baking the same category of bakes and post in the group such as chiffon cakes (😍😍😍), breads, cheese tarts (in time with BAKE cheese tarts opening) and many many more. We've tried chiffon cakes from recipes posted there and they were really good!

Other than all baking related posts, there are also several bakers who are really good in piping buttercream flowers and they look really pretty! Oink was inspired by those pretty buttercream flowers, especially those made with Korean buttercream as the texture looks slightly different from standard buttercream - glossy, dewy, almost like real flowers. After much research, we (finally) made buttercream for the first time and we were quite surprised that it is quite similar to the Korean buttercream as seen from the posts even though it has a different name to it. Yummy too, quite like buttercream on old school cakes! Oink also succeeded in piping pretty flowers even with no experience of piping! So happyyyyyyy! 🎉🎊🎉🎊 Will definitely share the photos next time!

As we like our buttercream flowers to be of a light colour, we were looking for a good dark-coloured cupcake to pair it up with the flowers. We stumbled upon this chocolate cake recipe and decided to try it and it turns out soooo good that we couldn't stop thinking of it! This is absolutely the kind of base we would use together with our buttercream flowers, or even just baking it to eat the cake on its own! The whole process is one of the easiest too!

Check out the recipe below~

Sour-Cream Chocolate Cake

Ingredients for Chocolate Cake

• 150ml sour cream or crème frâiche
• 2 eggs
• 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste
• 200g plain flour
• 40g cocoa
• 200g caster sugar
• ¾ teaspoon baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 200g unsalted butter, softened

Ingredients for Chocolate Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. Line and grease 2 x 20cm (8 inch) round cake tins.*
   *We lined cupcake trays instead!
3. In a small bowl or jug, lightly whisk together the sour cream, eggs and vanilla extract.
4. Place the flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and butter into the bowl of a stand mixer with the flat paddle attachment. Beat on low speed until the butter is incorporated into the dry ingredients.
5. Slowly add the egg mixture and beat until the batter is thoroughly mixed.
6. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared cake tins and bake for about 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.**
   **We baked for 15 min since we made cupcakes instead of full cakes.
7. Place the cake tins on a wire rack and let the cakes cool in the tins for about 10 minutes, before turning them onto the wire rack to cool completely. 

Recipe adapted from:

Eat, Little Bird

We wanted to reduce the amount of sugar at first, but thankfully we didn't as the cake did not turn out to be too sweet. Just nice to our liking, slightly more towards the bitter side. It is a very moist cake and we can have several of it in one go. As we were so in love with the cake, we ended up ditching the plan to make the icing and just ate the cake on its own. Maybe the next time, we will decorate it with our buttercream flowers!

We will definitely try to update this blog more too! 😊

Macarons Finally!

2 more days to 2015! Happy new year to all in advance!

It's been a looooong time since we've updated, sorry about that! The kitchen was under renovation for some time and we stopped baking, but we're back again! :)

Last year, me and Oink had tried baking macarons but failed miserably. Cracked shells, feetless, brown, etc etc. We had almost every problem that a macaron can have. We kept trying though that time, 'upgrading' from the small packet of almond powder to the 1kg packet. We somehow forgot all about it and left the almond powder there sitting in the cupboard. When we were going through our ingredients last week, we realised that we had almost 2kg of almond powder and they were expiring at the end of this year! (omg) We then set a year-end resolution for ourselves, which is to successfully bake macarons! Every single night we tried to bake them at least twice. We failed every single time but we did not give up! We went to many websites, looked through their recipes and troubleshooting guides, tried different ways to salvage our macarons and we finally succeeded!

Below is the recipe that we put together from a few websites and it worked for us! Hopefully it will work for you too (:

Ingredients for Macaron Shells

• 70g egg whites
• A pinch of cream of tartar
• 35g caster sugar
• 115g pure icing sugar
• 60g almond meal
• gel/powdered food colouring (optional)**
  * We halved the recipe from How To Cook That.
  ** We personally prefer using powdered food colouring (:

Method for Macaron Shells

1. Sift almond meal and icing sugar at least 1-2 times.
2. Beat egg whites on medium speed until foamy.
3. Add in a pinch of cream of tartar. Continue to beat egg whites on medium speed until soft peak.
4. Change mixer to high speed and add in caster sugar, one tablespoon at a time. 
5. Gently fold the almond mixture into the egg white mixture. Lift from the bottom, up around the sides, and toward the middle, being careful to not overagitate the meringue and lose too much air.
6. When there are no traces of almond mixture left, use the flat side of the spatula and press the batter down, pushing them to the sides of the bowl. Scrape more batter from the sides to the center and push them to the sides of the bowl again. Keep repeating this until you get the right consistency. 
7. Pipe onto trays lined with baking paper, rap trays on bench firmly.
   [Many other recipes will ask to let the macarons sit and let them dry. However, as Singapore is really humid, we adapted the steps from The Baking Biatch and modified it slightly to dry the macarons without having to wait for hours!]
8. Preheat oven for 5 minutes at 200 degree Celsius. 
9. Turn off the oven and open the oven door, leaving a small gap of about 5cm. Leave it this way for about 3 minutes.
   [We tried to put the tray in immediately without waiting as indicated from the site and it ended up "over-drying" the macarons and started baking them instead.]
10. Place the baking tray into the oven with the oven still turned off and leaving the oven door open with a small gap of 5cm. Allow the macarons to dry for 5 minutes. Check the drying of the macaron shell by touching the surface. If it is still sticky, remove the tray from the oven and repeat from step 9 to 11 again.
11. Preheat oven to 150°C. (We try to go slightly below 150°C)
12. Place tray into the oven and bake for ~13-15 minutes. Halfway through, rotate the tray for even baking. If your macarons brown, place another tray above after rotating the tray to prevent browning. 
13. Check if the macarons are done by removing them from the baking sheet. If they come off cleanly, they're done. If they still stick to the baking sheet, they're underbaked. If they are browning, they may be overbaked.
14. Once they are done, remove them from the oven and cool them on baking sheet placed on a wire rack.
15. When fully cooked, assemble them with your choice of filling.

Recipe adapted from:

How To Cook That

The Proper Pinwheel

The Baking Biatch

Some useful links:

How To Cook That (Troubleshooting)

FoodNouveau (Troubleshooting)

Pictures!

Foamy egg whites.

After beating the egg whites to stiff peak.

Adding in of icing sugar and almond meal to the egg whites.

Waiting to go into the oven~

Feet feet feet feet!

Our final product!
Baby blue macarons with blueberry buttercream.