Victoria Sponge Cake

I shall try to update as much as I can since I'm updating now! :D

In early Jan, Big Sis was sooo generous and she bought us a Kenwood Chef Titanium mixer for us!
*Yay to Big Sis!*

With this mixer, our baking sessions became much less tedious as we do not need to use the handheld mixer anymore! We became so dependent on the mixer and even leave the folding step for the mixer to do it for us. Most of our baking sessions are a success now thanks to the mixer (: However, we are still unable to bake macarons successfully T.T

We borrowed this book which includes detailed step-by-step instructions and also pictures and it is one of our favourite baking book! This Victoria Sponge Cake recipe is from this book and it is superrr yummy. It tasted really like the old-fashioned kind of butter cake that our parents used to buy for us and we really loved it! It has been ages since we last ate it. We loved it so much and baked it once a week for at least 3 consecutive weeks!!

Equipment for Victoria Sponge Cake

• 20cm (8inch) round/square sandwich tins
• Baking paper
• Electric hand-held whisk or food mixer

Ingredients for Victoria Sponge Cake

• 250g very soft butter, plus a little extra for grasing
• 250g caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 eggs, large
• 250g self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp milk

Steps for Victoria Sponge Cake

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C. Prepare the cake tin by greasing it well and lining the base with a piece of baking paper.
2. Before creaming the butter and sugar together, the butter needs to be really softened. You should be able to easily push a knife right through the block of butter with little to no resistance. Dice and put it into microwave proof bowl and heat for 30s in the microwave on half power if it's not soft enough - but don't let it melt!
3. Place the butter in a large bowl and add the caster sugar. Cream them together until the mixture has gone very pale. It should almost double in volume and you should no longer feel the texture of the sugar within the butter. This will take about 5-6 min.
4. Add the vanilla extract to the creamed butter and sugar and stir together. Crack the eggs into a jug and beat them with a fork so that they are less likely to curdle when added to the creamed butter and sugar.
5. Add a small amount of the beaten eggs, just a little drop and whisk them in fully. Add another drop and beat again. As you add more and more egg, the mixture will slip about as you whisk it - but keep whisking until the egg and creamed butter and sugar come together. It is important to do it step by step and whisk the air back into the mixture before adding the next drop of egg. Keep working this way until all of the egg is incorporated and you have a light and fluffy mixture - still packed with the air bubbles you've been working in (and not a sign of curdling!). If the air isn't worked back in after each addition, the mix will be very liquidy.
6. Sift the flour if it is looking lumpy, otherwise it is ok not to sift it. Add the flour to the butter, sugar and egg mixture in the bowl. Using a thin edged spatula or metal spoon, fold in the flour, cutting through the mixture, lifting and turning it until all of the flour is incorporated.
7. Add the milk and stir through.
8. Pour the mixture into the 8 inch square tin and roughly level with the back of spoon. Try to avoid getting mixture up the sides of the tin if you can as this can give the finished cakes a little raised lips.
9. Bake in the oven for 25-30 min until golden brown and when pressed lightly on top, the cake springs back up. Allow to cool in the tin for 5 min before removing and cooling fully on a wire rack. If left in the tin to cool complete, the cake will sweat and become soggy. It is fine to leave the paper on the bases as it cools.

Recipe adapted from: The Pink Whisk guide to cake making / Ruth Clemens.

Total Time Spent: 1 hour + 1 hour of cooling

Japanese Cheesecake

Sorry for the lack of updates! We are still baking from time to time, just that we're a bit lazy on updating this blog :P

Our most recent baking session was to bake a Japanese cheesecake! We're always kind of scared to bake anything that requires 'cream cheese' as the taste would be overpowering and we couldn't really accept it. For this Japanese cheesecake, we changed the brand of the cream cheese we used to SCS and the taste was acceptable and we found the cake really yummy! Oink finished almost half of the cake in one day~ Our cake is more dense than airy though, so we're looking forward to baking it again to improve on it!

Ingredients for Japanese Cheesecake

• 140g fine granulated sugar
• 6 egg whites
• 6 egg yolks
• 1/4 tsp cream of tartar
• 50g butter
• 250g cream cheese (we used 200g)
• 100ml fresh milk (we used 150ml)
• 60g cake flour (can also use plain flour)*
• 20g corn flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

*We used plain flour.

Steps for Japanese Cheesecake

1. Preheat the oven at 160°C. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture. Fold in the flour, the cornflour, salt, egg yolks and mix well.
2. Whisk egg whites with cream of tartar until foamy on high speed. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form on low speed. (about 5-6min)
3. Sieve the cheese mixture. (mentioned in the link below, tip #2)
4. Add the egg whites to the sieved cheese mixture to and fold well. Pour into a 8-inch round springform cake pan or removable-bottom cake pan (lightly grease and line the bottom and sides of the pan* with greaseproof baking paper or parchment paper). Wrap the base of your cake tin with aluminium foil, to prevent seepage. (We did not do this!)
5. Bake cheesecake in a water bath** for 1 hour 10 mins or until set and golden brown at 160°C.*** Use a sheet of aluminium foil and place it loosely above the tin. Remove the aluminium foil only at the last 1-2 minutes of baking for the cake to brown.
6. Leave to cool in oven with door ajar, about 30mins to 1 hour. Sudden changes in temperature may cause the cake to cool too quickly and collapse.

* Line the bottom and sides of your cake tin. Make sure the baking paper extends higher than the cake tin by about 1.5 inches. (mentioned in the link below, tip #4)
** For the water bath, place 4 tart moulds filled with water in the 4 corners of the oven at the lowest rack of the oven. Place a wire rack one level above the lowest rack and place your cake tin on this wire rack. (mentioned in the link below, tip #3)
*** We baked for 1hour 10min and the cake came out to be slightly uncooked, so we are planning to bake it longer the next time ( (mentioned in the link below, tip #6)

Recipe adapted from: The Little Teochew

Do visit the link to the original recipe as there are tips given there!

Chocolate Brownie Cookie

The baking spirit is now on!
Our another very ugly but yummy creation :D

 

Ingredients for Chocolate Brownie Cookies

• 1 cup (180g) dark chocolate chips
• 5 tablespoons (75g) butter, softened
• 1 2/3 cups (200g) plain all purpose (plain) flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup (150g) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract (essence)
• 1/2 cup (75g) confectioners' (icing) sugar

Method for Chocolate Brownie Cookies

1. Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler over barely simmering water or in a microwave until smooth. Let cool a little.
2. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Beat the eggs and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high speed until pale and thick, 3-4minutes.
4. With the mixer on low speed, beat in the chocolate mixture and vanilla, followed by the flour mixture. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 hour.
5. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Butter a large baking sheet or line with parchment paper.
6. Put the confectioners' sugar in a small bowl. Shape the dough into 20cents balls and roll in the confectioners' sugar. Place on the prepared baking sheets and press down lightly with your hand to flatten (we did not press them lightly as we do not like the outcome of it, so we left them on the sheets in the form of a ball).
7. Bake for 9minutes, until just set around the edges. Rotate the sheets halfway through for even baking.
8. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets until they harden a little, 2-3minutes. Transfer to racks and let cool completely.

Recipe adapted from book: Carla Barbi - Cookies Bars & Brownies

Total time spent preparing + baking + cleaning up: 3 hours
(the 1hour in the middle while waiting for the dough to set in refrigerator,  we baked banana muffins)

Made 1 large container of cookies :)

Mini Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffin

It's been almost a year since we last update! *guilty face*
Yes yes, we're still baking from time to time, just not as frequent and adventurous like how we used to be. We're still learning and level up-ing bit by bit~

Introducing our first time doughnut making, they really look so cute!
Was very amazed with our impromptu-ness nowadays for baking, the making do with whatever we have is really nice! For this recipe we had a step by step photo blog to follow and we really appreciated the effort of the owner for shooting such beautiful and clear photos for us to reference.

This is the first time we finally get to a "white", light and fluffy butter + sugar mix. Now we know we always under beat our butter + sugar, thought it's cause angmoh got whiter butter or what, thats why theirs always look so white. hahahaha. So another lesson learnt yea.
It was truly a success, the muffin turns out round and smooth which we didnt expect it to be :)
Good job sisters! Let's continue with our baking journey for the rest of this year and the many more years to come k!

Ingredients for Doughnut Muffin

• 12 tablespoons (1.5 sticks) butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 cups (13.5 oz) all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup milk

Ingredients for Brown Butter Cinnamon Sugar Crust

• 12 tablespoons (1.5 sticks) butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Method for Doughnut Muffin

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. 
2. Beat the butter and sugar for 5 minutes until soft, fluffy and lighter in color. 
3. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until just mixed in. 
4. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. 
5. Beat a fourth of the dry ingredients into the batter. 
6. Then beat in a third of the milk mixture. 
7. Continue mixing in the remaining dry and wet ingredients alternately, ending with the dry. Mix until well combined and batter is smooth, but be careful not to overmix. 
8. Fill muffin tins with 1.5 tablespoons of batter (about 3/4ths full). 
9. Bake at 175C for 10-12 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.

Method for Brown Butter Cinnamon Sugar Crust

1. Melt the butter until it starts to bubble and then foam. 
2. When it starts to foam, whisk constantly for 1-2 minutes until it turns brown and you see brown flecks at the bottom of the pan. 
3. Immediately remove from heat and pour into a bowl for dipping. 
4. Combine the sugar and cinnamon. 
5. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove and dip them on all sides into the melted butter then roll in the cinnamon sugar.
   
   Recipe adapted from: Kevin & Amanda's Recipes

Total time spent preparing + baking + cleaning up: 4 hours

Made 12 mini doughnut muffins by using only half amount of the recipe.

Cranberry Bliss Cookies

Hohoho! Merry Christmas to all! Christmas is here and we definitely did not forget to do our Christmas baking! We specially chose a recipe for this festive season and this was what we picked!

Ingredients for Cookies

• 3 cups flour (375g)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar (250g)
• 1 cup packed brown sugar (200g)
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 cup white chocolate chips (175g)
• 1 cup dried cranberries (125g)

Ingredients for Frosting

• 1 (8 oz.) bar cream cheese, room temperature (225g) 
• 1/2 cup white chocolate chips, melted in the microwave or double-boiler (87.5g)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 cups powdered sugar (250g)

Ingredients for Topping

• 1 cup dried cranberries, roughly chopped (125g)
• 1/4 cup white chocolate chips, melted in the microwave or double-boiler
  (we used much more than that cause Big Sis was really generous with her chocolate topping :P)

Method for Cookies

1. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt until well-blended. Set aside.
2. Using an an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
3. Add in vanilla extract and mix until incorporated.
4. Add in the eggs one at a time, beating in between to incorporate.
5. Reduce speed to low and slowly add in dry ingredients.
6. Increase the speed to medium, and continue beating until well-combined.
7. Fold in the white chocolate chips and cranberries, and mix until just-combined. (Do not overmix.)
8. Cover and refrigerate dough for at least 1 hour. 
9. Place dough by rounded tablespoon-fulls onto a baking sheet that has been prepared with parchment paper, at least 2.5-inches apart.
10. Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden around the edges.
11. Remove pan, and transfer the cookies to a cooling rack until cool.
12. Repeat with remaining dough until all cookies are baked.

Method for Frosting

*Wait until cookies reach room temperature before adding frosting and toppings.

1. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the cream cheese and melted white chocolate until combined. (**Be sure that your cream cheese REALLY is at room temperature before adding the white chocolate. Otherwise the chocolate could seize up.) 
2. Add in the vanilla and mix until combined. 
3. Reduce speed to low and add the powdered sugar. Mix until incorporated. 
4. Use a rubber spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl, and beat once more for 1 minute on medium speed until the frosting is smooth. (You can add more powdered sugar for a thicker frosting.)
5. Spread the frosting on the cooled cookies. Then immediately sprinkle the frosted cookies with the chopped dried cranberries. 
6. Use a fork to drizzle on the frosting, swishing it back and forth over the cookies.
   
   Recipe adapted from: gimme some oven

The cookies are a success! Our cookies were not really the same as the pictures from the adapted recipe though, most probably cause of the brown sugar. Despite that, the cookies are really tasty! The recipe actually makes a lot of cookies and it took us hours to finish the whole baking process cause we could only bake three at a time (the cookies can really expand!), but we are very happy with them! (: