A Call For Celebration: The {Red Velvet Cake} Edition

Boy meets girl. They kinda like each other. They like each other enough to want to get hitched. Wedding bells rang. Then there was one of us. And another. And another. Decades later, they welcomed a grandchild. 39 years on, the boy and girl still love each other very much. I don’t know what their secret is to a long, successful marriage, but I know we have lots to learn from them.

Said boy and girl are my dearest Dad and Mum. For decades, they have stood by each other and raised the three of us, my brother, sister and me. They taught us to respect people, love others, work hard towards our goals, do the best we can regardless of the outcome and be gracious towards those who are unkind to us.

In a society flecked by fleeting relationships and featherlight commitment to people, it is hard not to be astounded by a couple’s 39 years of love, sheer hard work and understanding (not to mention doing this with three impish children in tow). How can we not celebrate?

I couldn’t think of a better way to do so than with a Red Velvet Cake. It is something that my parents have not heard of, and I thought it would be lovely to surprise them with something novel, just as how they have taught me new things every day of my life. It doesn’t help that a Red Velvet Cake is a stunning cake to look at and an equally delicious one to have when done properly. I tried my best to do the cake justice and I’m glad that this version brought a sense of wonder and satisfaction to my parents with its perfectly moist crumb and tangy, fluffy frosting.

Happy Anniversary, Mum & Dad! You are our role models and we can only aspire to be half as awesome as both of you are.

P/S: Pardon the mismatched styling – all my props are still in transit…..

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post is featured on Tastespotting. Check out my profile on  Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

Pink October: Rose & Lychee Chiffon and Crème Brûlée

The year has gone by in a flash and the month of October is here again. Yes, my friends, the month of Pink is here, when people from all over the world come together and raise awareness about the disease that is breast cancer, a disease that has hit closer to home in recent years, a disease that has been fought with strength, courage, and love, a disease that has thankfully not taken my loved one away from me.

Yet, the disease continues to plague many women, creeping into their unsuspecting lives, and sometimes, claiming some. I feel strongly about this, having witnessed the heartache, pain and struggles that are inflicted on the sufferer and loved ones when fighting this disease, and it is with the memory of almost losing a loved one to the disease that I urge you to tell your mother, sister, aunt, daughter, wife, girlfriend, and your friends about breast cancer.

Last year, I did this by creating Pink Lychee Mascarpone & Emperor’s Treasures Macarons for the month of October. A few of you have gone on to spread the word. This year, I hope to raise more awareness in the smallest but hopefully still a significant way, with double doses of Rose & Lychee, in the form a chiffon cake and crème brûlée.

Please, tell people you love about breast cancer awareness. Encourage them to go for mammograms, to perform self-examinations, encourage them to tell others about this disease. The more we know about breast cancer, the more we can fight it, and the more lives we can save. As for me, I pray that breast cancer will never again taint the lives of the people I care about, and I continue to pray for the recovery of the fighters of this disease.

If you have a blog, and would like to help raise awareness about breast cancer – join me by creating a simple pink recipe of your own and linking it back to this post. You could also use any of these pictures in this post to spread the word and link it back to this post. Let me know when you’ve done so, and I’ll create a list over here so we can all hop over, read your personal stories, share your voice and raise more awareness.

For everyone else, here are the recipes if you would like to recreate these desserts. The rose & lychee chiffon cake is perfect in texture, very moist, soft and fluffy. Taste-wise, my only complaint was the rose flavour wasn’t strong enough and was overpowered by the coconut milk, I’ve indicated what you should change to tweak this). The crème brûlée was a real winner though, boasting silky smooth cream and rich lychee and rose-scents. [Note 18.11.2011: I have recently served a lychee chiffon cake at the Plusixfive supperclub, and that was the precious darling of much experimentation - you can have a look at the photo on the link. I will be posting the recipe soon too, which gives a far more pronounced lychee flavour than the one below]

Hop over to LadyJ’s and Maameemoomoo’s for their PINK recipes!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post is featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and  Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

Rose & Lychee Chiffon Cake
(for a 21cm chiffon cake tube pan)

Group A:
70g plain flour
20g corn flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Group B:
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar

Group C:
100ml coconut milk
80ml sunflower oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon essence of rose water (you can use rose syrup which is stronger in flavour, I found that the rose flavour of my chiffon wasn’t strong enough and was overpowered by the coconut milk)
1 teaspoon lychee liquor
Few drops of red food colouring (cake batter should eventually be a very light pink)

Group D:
6 egg whites
50g caster sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
10g rice flour

1. Preheat the oven (fan-assisted) to 160 degrees Celsius.
2. Sift ingredients in A together, twice. Set aside.
3. Using ingredients in D, beat egg whites till frothy, add cream of tartar and beat to combine until the mixture turns a little more opaque than the frothy state. Meanwhile, combine the caster sugar and rice flour in a bowl. Add 2 tablespoons of this mixture to the egg white mixture, and beat till you get soft peaks. Then add the remaining caster sugar-rice flour mixture gradually and beat till stiff peaks form. Set aside.
4. Using the ingredients in B, beat the egg yolks and sugar together till volume triples and mixture turns pale. Meanwhile, combine ingredients from C in a bowl. Beat in the combined ingredients from C to the egg yolk mixture. Next, add the flour mixture from Step 2 and beat well to combine.
5. Fold 1/3 of the meringue (from Step 3) to the batter from Step 4. Then gently fold in the remaining meringue until well-incorporated.
6. Pour the batter into the chiffon cake tube pan, use one chopstick to swirl round the batter to get rid of some bubbles. Smooth out the surface with a spatula to remove the ripples created by the chopstick.
7. Bake the cake at 160 degrees Celsius for 16 min, then turn the temperature down to 145 degrees Celsius and bake for 29 min. The times and temperatures may differ, depending on the oven.
8. Remove the cake pan from the oven and invert it immediately. Let stand to cool.
9. Unmould the cake when it is completely cooled, by running a knife along the surfaces that the cake makes contact with the pan (including the tube itself).

Rose & Lychee Crème Brûlée
Makes four ramekins, each 4.5cm in diameter

300ml whipping cream
1 tablespoon lychee liquor
2 teaspoons essence of rose water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 egg yolks
30g caster sugar
Sprinkle of demerara sugar

1. Pre-heat oven (fan-assisted) to 150 degree Celsius.
2. Beat yolks and caster sugar till pale and fluffy.
3. Scald cream, liquor and flavours in a saucepan over medium heat. Do not let mixture come to boil. Once it’s barely simmering, remove the saucepan from heat.
4. Pour half of the hot cream in a stream-like fashion to yolk mixture, and whisk continously. Do not pour the cream too quickly or the heat will scramble the eggs.
5. Add this mixture to the remaining cream mixture in the saucepan, and scald this again without allowing it to come to a boil.
6. Pour the cream into ramekins, place them in a deep oven tray. Fill up the oven tray with some water (to a depth of one inch) to create a water bath and bake for 25 minutes. Crème brûlée should jiggle but should not be wet to touch. Note that the times and temperatures may differ, depending on the oven.
7. Let the ramekins cool on a cooling rack and refrigerate till crème brûlée is set.
8. Add demerara sugar to the top of each portion of crème brûlée, and use a blow torch to caramelise the sugar. Alternatively, caramelise the sugar under the broiler for 5 minutes at 230 degrees Celsius. For best results however, use the blow torch.

Death By Chocolate Cake

Would you like to die a death by chocolate cake…? Or more specifically, a death by my Chocolate & Hazelnut Salted Butter Caramel Cake? I didn’t know what I was thinking when I decided to whip up this evil thing for a dinner party for our friends, S & C. I probably wasn’t, because I could have killed someone with it.

I think there are different ways to depart this world with this cake. I could have suffocated S or C or M or myself by smothering one of us with the thick, luscious, smooth sour cream chocolate icing, which in a warped kind of role-reversal, is dying to be licked too. I could have choked one of us to death by clogging the throat up with greedy morsels of deep, dense, and very chocolatey cake. Or, I could have dehydrated someone by making one of us weep to death after my rich salted butter caramel has blazed a trail on the tongue, with that tiny savoury-sweet-buttery dribble threatening to leave the corner of one’s lips. Oooh, to kill or not to kill, my caramel has conscience and it ponders.

They say that nothing is certain but death and taxes. I say that nothing is ever worth living if  we don’t die a Death By Chocolate Cake. It is an arguably good way to go; you see, you leave this world with your teeth stained with chocolate, no one judges you for that, you get endorphins buzzing in your head, and then you sigh and go to heaven. So, why not?

P/S: No humans were killed in the making and consumption of this chocolate cake, unfortunately…

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

Now, go slaughter someone you love with this too (and by the way, if anyone asks, you didn’t hear this evil doing from me):

Chocolate & Hazelnut Salted Butter Caramel Cake
(slightly adapted from Nigella Lawson’s How to be a Domestic Goddess)

Makes an 8-inch two-layered, ironically, round weapon

To choke someone with the cake:

200g plain flour
200g caster sugar
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
200g unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
40g cocoa powder (I used Green & Black)
150ml sour cream
2 eggs
1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla paste

1. Preheat oven (fan-assisted) to 160 degree Celcius. Grease and line two 8-inch sandwich tins.
2. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt in a large bowl.
3. Beat in the softened butter to the ingredients in step 2.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the cocoa powder, sour cream, eggs and vanilla paste till well-mixed, and then add this in a stream-like fashion to the flour mixture from step 3 and beat till everything is well-combined.
5. Pour the batter into the greased and lined sandwich tins (make sure both get equal amounts of batter) and bake for 26 minutes, rotating the cake tins halfway through if your oven has hotspots. You don’t want to overbake these as people might go to hell instead of heaven if you do…26 minutes work well for me, but if you want to check yours, the cakes should just begin to shy away from the edges of the tins, and the skewer should come out almost clean when inserted. Cool the cakes in the tins on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes, then turn the cakes out directly onto the rack to cool them further. In the meantime, work on the salted butter caramel sauce.

To set one’s tongue on fire with the salted butter caramel sauce:

100g caster sugar
55g unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
100ml whipping cream

1. Melt sugar and butter in a saucepan, and caramelise to copper colour (be careful not to burn it). Keep stirring during this process, and keep a watchful eye. Add the salt whilst stirring.
2. Scald the whipping cream in another saucepan (it should be shy of coming to a boil).
3. Remove the caramel from Step 1 from the heat, and add the cream. Be careful here, as the mixture will bubble vigorously and might splatter onto you. Stand far far away, with gloves on as you stir the hot cream and caramel together to form a smooth sauce. You don’t want to die looking like a blistered chef, that defeats the purpose of making this cake as the chef isn’t supposed to die. Let the caramel sauce cool down before use. Next, work on the icing.

To smother someone to death with the sour cream chocolate icing:

150g dark chocolate (I used 85% Lindt, broken up into small pieces)
105g unsalted butter
150ml sour cream (room temperature)
75ml whipping cream (room temperature)
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
1 tablespoon golden syrup
250g icing sugar, sifted

1. Melt the butter and chocolate in a microwave (do this in 20-second blocks because you don’t want to overheat the chocolate and cause it to seize), or if you prefer, do it bain-marie style. Let the chocolate mixture cool slightly.
2. Gradually stir in the sour cream and whipping cream, vanilla paste and the golden syrup.
3. Slowly add the sifted icing sugar and combine till smooth.

Now, to assemble the weapon:

100g blanched hazelnuts, blitzed to tiny chunks in the food processor

1. Outline your serving plate or cake stand with strips of baking parchment, and sit your cake on top of strips, such that the edges of the cake are actually on the parchment pieces.
2. Spread the cooled salted butter caramel on the first layer, and then top it up with the second cake layer.
3. Pour the chocolate icing over the assembled cake, and let the icing flow down the sides while smoothing the surfaces with a palette knife.
4. Propping up your cake at different angles, pat on the blitzed hazelnuts on the sides, and leave the cake to set in the fridge till the icing is less gooey (it should still be sticky though). Remove the cake from the fridge when this is so. Carefully remove the parchment pieces from the plate/stand. You should get a very neat-looking cake.
5. Now, serve the cake to your unsuspecting guests. Remember, you didn’t hear it from me!

The Prettiest Cake I’ve Made – Ispahan

Mention lychees, rose and raspberries in the same sentence, and the first person you think of is Pierre Hermé, the one pastry chef I truly revere, and the one man I might actually kiss, other than my husband (shhhh, it’s our secret). If you’ve followed this blog since I started, you would have seen how I’ve progressed in the kitchen and how I became increasingly obsessed with macarons and other pastries. Pierre Hermé is the source of my inspiration; his dexterity with pastries is something that I can only dream of, not here but in a parallel dimension. Yes, he is that good.

I love his creativity and his works of art so much that every other friend of mine seems to think I’m a nutcase for his sweets now, and I was very generously gifted one of his cookbooks for my birthday last year. I have yet to actually use any of his recipes, for fear of getting them totalled in an ugly accident that (trust me) will be reality in my incompetent hands; but one day, when I’m good enough, I will plough through each and every of his recipes (they are in French though…) and hopefully, delight my friends with the creations. For now, Pierre Hermé remains a dream that seems too good to be true, and I only aspire to be inspired.

I have managed to tackle the tricky business of macarons, and now, I yearn for more. Iconic and truly delightful, the beautiful combination of lychee, rose and raspberry was first created by Pierre Hermé and it seemed like the perfect way to get started. Yes, my dears, I’m working my way into the heart of Monsieur Hermé.

To you, the Ispahan cake I’ve made here probably isn’t a product of inspiration; the truth is you could probably find it in any pâtisserie. But to me, this cake is a bit of a big deal. I’m used to making slapdash easy-peasy cupcakes, brownies, cakes, cookies and macarons, but an entremet? That’s a tall order. Entremets are refined, very pretty layered and textured mousse cakes that don’t do very well when poked by stubby, careless fingers like mine. Getting them to look perfect is a real challenge for me, and I was terrified of making my first entremet, but I guess, I have to start somewhere if I want to be more prolific in pastry-making. So I hope you’ll see why this Ispahan cake represents a more accessible way in, to that Pierre Hermé cookbook that has been sitting on my shelf for more than half a year, and also to more good things that will hopefully turn up in my culinary adventures.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present my first entremet to you, possibly not the prettiest cake you’ve seen but definitely the prettiest cake I’ve ever made. It is not perfect, but I hope to make it so one day. For now, the flavours tease and delight, as they should and as they did when I first had an Ispahan years ago. The sweetness of lychees, tartness of raspberries and lingering aroma of rose bring a sensual touch to this cake. It’s hard not to be drawn in, even M loved it. For me, I was extremely pleased to see it come together (as opposed to it falling apart…). Here’s the recipe that I tweaked from Okashi to include the signature Hermé flavours of lychees, rose and raspberries, and I hope you enjoy making it as much as I did!

Ispahan Cake

Makes two 4.5cm (diameter) cakes and one 15cm cake
(adapted from Okashi by Keiko Ishida)

Special Biscuit Sponge

15g corn flour
15g plain flour
17g unsalted butter, melted
45g egg whites
40g egg yolks
40g caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius. Line 15cm by 25cm tray with baking parchment.
2. Sift flours together, twice, and set aside.
3. Beat egg whites in a bowl until foamy. Add 1/4 of the sugar and beat briefly, before adding in the remaining sugar. Continue to beat until stiff and glossy peaks are formed.
4. Lightly beat the egg yolks, add them to the meringue made in step 3 and gently mix till combined. Do not overmix.
5. Sift the flours again, into the batter from step 4 and fold the flours in gently till batter is glossy. Pour the melted butter into this mixture and fold gently to combine.
6. Pour batter into the lined tray, and spread evenly with a spatula. Bake for 10 minutes in the preheated oven.
7. Once baked, remove sponge from the tray and cover it with a clean tea towel. Leave to cool on a cooling rack.

Flavour for the sponge

35g water
12g caster sugar
1 tablespoon canned lychee juice
1 tablespoon lychee liquer
1 tablespoon essence of rosewater

1. In a saucepan, heat up water and sugar to make a sugar syrup. Remove from heat and add lychee juice, liquer and rosewater essence. Stir to combine. Set aside and let cool.
2. When sponge is fully cooled, cut out (diameter) 4.5cm and 15.5cm round pieces with the mold rings.
3. Brush sugar syrup from step 1 over the sponge cut-outs.

Crème Mousseline

235g whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
3 egg yolks
75g caster sugar
20g plain flour
5g corn flour
135g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon canned lychee juice
1 tablespoon lychee liquer
1 tablespoon essence of rosewater

1. Bring milk and vanilla to boil in a saucepan, then remove from heat and set aside.
2. Whisk egg yolks and sugar till mixture is thick and pale yellow. Add flours to this and mix well.
3. Pour the hot milk from step 1 to the egg mixture, and fold to mix thoroughly. Return this to the saucepan and bring to a boil on high heat. Stir continuously. This forms the pastry cream. Beat the pastry cream, whilst in the saucepan, until smooth, thick and glossy. It should resemble the gloopy filling you see in cream puffs. Remove the saucepan from the heat, and transfer the pastry cream to a clean tray. Cover the tray with cling film and let cool in the freezer. Do not allow it to freeze.
4. In a clean bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add the cooled pastry cream and beat until combined. At this point, beat in the lychee juice, liquer and essence of rosewater. This is your crème mousseline.

To assemble

100g raspberries, halved
7 lychees (I used canned ones), drained thoroughly and quartered

1. Place the flavoured sponge cut-outs into the respective mold rings.
2. Pipe a thin layer of crème mousseline onto the sponge. Spread this evenly (you want uniform layers so the entremet looks pretty).
3. Arrange the halved raspberries, cut-side facing out, against the inner surface of the mold ring. Arrange lychee quarters and remaining raspberries in concentric circles as you move inwards from the outer edges. Note that for the smaller mold ring, you won’t be able to put in extra raspberries in the middle, there will only be enough space for lychees.
4. Pipe another layer of crème mousseline on top of the raspberries and lychees and make sure you level this layer of crème (remember entremets need to be pretty and neat when you unmould them!). Place the cake in the freezer for about 20 minutes. Next, prepare the Ispahan jelly.

Ispahan Jelly

70g water
1 tablespoon canned lychee juice
1 tablespoon essence of rosewater
5g sugar
3-4 raspberries, washed
2g gelatine sheet, soaked in ice water to soften
1/4 teaspoon red food colouring

1. Bring water, lychee juice, essence of rosewater, sugar and raspberries to boil, remove from heat and then add softened gelatin sheet.
2. Run mixture through a sieve to remove any debris. Let cool slightly before using (but do not allow it to set).
3. Remove the cake from the freezer and gently pour the sieved liquid on top of the crème mousseline. Leave to set overnight in the fridge (mine took only a few hours, but best to do it overnight).
4. To unmould, warm sides of the mold ring with a warm towel. You will need to do this a few times before you even attempt to unmould it. Unmoulding the cake prematurely will only create mess, so make sure you do this after you’ve warmed the mold ring sufficiently!

If you love lychees, check out my lychee chiffon cake or my lychee mascarpone & Emperor’s Seven Treasures macarons here!

*Updated: This post was featured on Freshly Pressed on WordPress.com! Check out my other Freshly Pressed post here. This post has also been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

Look Ma, No Cracks!

Nope, I’m not back in the kitchen, not properly or full-time-ish anyway, but I’m picking out the pictures and recipes that have been collecting dust in my drafts (bin) since… alphatime. So just this January (aka, yonks ago), I bought myself a Kate. No, not Kate Spade – that’s an old joke (for non-Singaporeans, just google Kate Spade and elections, then go figure…). No, it’s not Kate Middleton either – that’s much too posh (say it with you mouth in a perfect O) and I certainly can’t afford the ring that comes with her. But this, oh this cranberry sexy thing is what I’m talking about. This blushing new bride was admired for right about less than a day, and then, as Madonna coos, ‘like a virgin, touched for the very first time’, she was no longer. Ahem.

Kate lost it, *coughsiamtooembarrassedtosayitoutloudcoughs*, to the most perfectly bronzed Swiss dude that stepped out of my kitchen. Hairless, poreless, smelling like the tropics (think coconut!), and with skin that puts most people to shame, I’d say he was the perfect thing to hook up with Kate. Yes I am the dreamcatcher dream matchmaker, thank you very much.

Anyway, getting these two hotties together could have gone either way for me – ego-boosting or soul-destroying. I’m glad it was the former because I’ve always had a fear of Swiss dudes, and to me, it’s just so darn hard to get the skin right. Too much tanning, and one winds up looking like cracked dirty feet; too little and one looks like erm, alabaster me or the equivalent of a pink baby pig. But Kate seemed to bring a little bit of lady luck with her, for I have conquered the Swiss that had long refused to tame in my hands, and now he’s just…..perfect. Poreless, scrumptious, soft and so delicious with all that toasted coconut whipped cream within. Oops, did I just say whipped cream? Sorry, Kate, everyone seems to know your ‘preferences’ now…

Here’s how to get YOUR Swiss dude that smells and tastes like a beach holiday:

Pandan soufflé Swiss roll with toasted coconut whipped cream
(adapted from Okashi by Keiko Ishida)

For the roll:

1 egg
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
35g unsalted butter
50g plain flour
10g corn flour
60g coconut milk
3 egg whites
85g caster sugar
1 teaspoon pandan extract
1 tablespoon pandan juice (6-7 pandan leaves, finely chopped and pounded with 1 tablespoon water, squeeze juice out and pass through sieve to remove any debris)
1/2 teaspoon green liquid colouring

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Line 12 inch by 9 inch cake pan with baking parchment, making sure the edges high enough to peek out from the tray as you’ll be using these to handle the sponge later.
2. Combine 1 egg, 3 egg yolks, vanilla, pandan extract, pandan juice, green colouring in a small bowl and lightly beat to incorporate. Set this mixture aside.
3. Sift flours together twice, and set aside.
4. Heat butter in a small saucepan over low heat until butter is melted. Add sifted flour to melted butter and cook till you get a dough that comes away from the sides of the pan. Remove this dough to a bowl, and add the egg mixture from Step 2 in small amounts. Gradually mix the dough and egg mixture into a smooth batter with each addition. Add coconut milk to the batter and combine well. Strain the batter through a sieve and set the batter aside.
5. In a clean bowl, whip up egg whites till foamy. Add half of the sugar and beat for a few minutes, then add the remaining sugar and beat till stiff and glossy peaks are formed.
6. Gently fold one-third of this meringue mixture from Step 5 to the batter from Step 4 till roughly incorporated. Fold in the remaining meringue until just incorporated. Pour this batter into the cake pan and smooth the surface out with a scraper. Bake the sponge for 18 minutes, then remove the tray from the oven, loosely cover the cake with a piece of aluminium foil and place it on a cooling rack to cool completely. Remember to keep the foil on, so the moisture won’t be lost from the cake. This will prevent the sponge from cracking when you try to roll it.

For the sponge filling:

200g whipping cream, cold
2 tablespoons caster sugar
25g dessicated coconut
5g unsalted butter
Pinch of salt

1. Melt unsalted butter in a shallow pan, add a pinch of salt and lightly toast the dessicated coconut in it. The coconut flakes should turn golden brown.
2. Beat whipping cream and sugar till just about stiff. Do not overbeat this as the cream will split. Gently mix in the toasted coconut, and set aside.
3. Peel the baking parchment off the sponge, and carefully turn the sponge over such that brown skin is in contact with the peeled parchment (or use a new parchment if it’s easier to lay that out). Lift the cooled sponge (using edges of the baking parchment) onto a clean tea towel. Gently roll the sponge up using the tea towel as a guide and hold it loosely for a minute or two. Unroll the sponge again, remove the baking parchment, and leave the sponge on the tea towel. Spread the cream evenly across the green surface of the sponge (I like to have the browned skin outside the roll) with a spatula. Using the tea towel as guide, roll the sponge up again, carefully re-positioning the towel as the cake comes into contact with the cream. You don’t want the cream to get on the towel! Cut the edges of the roll to make it pretty and neat, and there you have it, your very own Swiss stud!

If you like pandan and coconut flavours, don’t forget to check out my pandan chiffon cake here!

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker and Tastespotting. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker and Tastespotting to see my other featured posts!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

I Need A Kick Up My Arse

I have been MIA for almost 3 weeks – that’s record time in blogosphere for me. I have also not been getting creative in the kitchen for almost two months, again record time in my teeny tiny world of cooking and baking. I wouldn’t put it to a mental block, because I still think up ideas of what to do next in the kitchen. I still want to document my activities here. But I seem to have lost the will to do it. Zapped of energy and motivation, what makes me even more frustrated is I don’t know how this could have happened. I really do miss having something to look forward to, and getting excited about my plans in the kitchen, plans that usually give me a high and an avenue to take away the stresses in life.

Some weeks ago, after much inertia, I tried to make a Mont Blanc, but I ended up screwing up the swiss roll sponge before I could even get to making the chestnut cream. True to my perfectionist self, I angrily chucked the sponge straight into the bin. It was as if I knew that I was going to fail before I even began. The buzz that I usually get when I’m about to get busy in the kitchen had gone. I thought that it was a phase, so I told myself to move on and let nature take its course. Even kitchen geniuses need to take a break, let alone amateurs like me. M convinced me to go out on weekends to try and soak up what the city has got to offer, to see if I might get the zing back. Then this happened. Thoughts about getting the kitchen mojo back flew out the window.

After that, we went out on trips that we had booked long ago. The first was meant to be a break for us to spend time with each other after the craziness that was the thesis writing, PhD viva and our hectic lives. Given recent events, we didn’t want to go but Expedia wasn’t able to give a refund so after assessing the situation in Singapore and making sure that everything was alright, we went to Florence anyway. A bit of a shame because despite the magnificent city, I was mostly pre-occupied with thoughts of my family. When I finally let go and was ready to enjoy the company of M in such beauty, our trip had ended and we were due to return to London.

Then, M’s parents visited, bearing good news after they visited my dad. We spent lots of time together and took them to Spain during the royal wedding weekend. These things kept me busy, I didn’t have time to think about the disinterest in the kitchen that has hit me like an unfriendly, ugly shadow that refuses to leave me alone. M’s parents just left this week, and it’s our first weekend alone, with nothing to do and yes, those horrible thoughts of mine have returned to haunt me. I dreaded this weekend, I wished I could drown myself in work so I wouldn’t have the chance of feeling dead inside. I spoke to M about this and he said that I should perhaps stop thinking and just throw myself into the last thing I wanted to make. So I attempted a Mont Blanc again yesterday morning.

It was a disaster. The swiss roll sponge came out wrong again, although I did manage to make the creams before I realised that. I was about to throw in the towel, and dump everything into the trash, when I stopped myself for a second and thought, maybe it’s time for me to accept this. That it’s okay to not feel excited about the things I used to be singing about, that it’s okay to feel dead for a while, that it’s also okay to not want to do the things I usually like to do, to just to give it a go than to regret not trying.

The swiss roll sponge did end up in the bin eventually, but not before I used it to learn to construct and plate up my ‘Mont Blanc’. At least one good thing came out of it; I thought the ‘Mont Blanc’ looked decent, imperfect yes but decent, and I practised shooting it with my new-ish lens. The creams were thankfully delish and I snuck a few licks of the spoon, so all was not lost.

I don’t know when the crazed kitchen maniac will be back to inhabit the shell that is me, but bear with me as I get back on track. I may need a kick up my arse along the way, or perhaps you could suggest something to help me retrieve that energy; in the meantime, allow mawkish me to entertain myself and you, my friends, with tales from the past. I guess this might be the best possible time for me to let you in on kitchen adventures that I embarked on months ago (I have almost two dozen drafts of entries….), and to tell you the stories of our travels beyond London.

For now, this ‘Mont Blanc’ that wasn’t, remains a lesson to me – that when things go wrong, some sense or value can still be made of the worst of situations, even if it comes in the form of a few licks of cream or photos that mostly won’t see the light of day. Erm…right?

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

Also check out my other food adventures.

*Updated: This post has been featured on Foodgawker. Check out my profiles on Foodgawker to see my other featured posts!

A Sexy One for M

Crimson lips on porcelain skin. Blood-red satin skimming luminous legs. Bold, yet shy. Sexy, yet innocent. Red versus white. Yes, beckoning, and alluring. Call me the open-minded, generous wife, because I brought Sexy back for my dear husband. M was craving for it, and yes, I am not quite a sexy being, but surely I could give him someone something else that fits the bill? It was his birthday, for crying out loud!

We were watching food porn one evening. Sexy filled the bigass screen with her equally voluptuous assets. M got a little hot under the collar, and blurted, ‘Can I have a {Sexy} for my birthday, pleeease?’. Yes I was a little jealous, but the man has his needs and the way to a man’s heart is surely through his………*ahem*.

So I did it. The frumpy ‘housewife’ made Sexy and let the husband do whatever he wanted to it, errrr, I mean her! He certainly was very forward; he ate her and declared that she was one of the best he has ever had. Good-looking, tender, bends to his will, gives, deep, dark, voluptuous, tangy and sweet.

Poor me. I think the girl with the perfect everything actually exists.

Here’s how if you want to make whip up a Sexy. By the way, I was being rude. Even hotties have a name – Red Velvet in this case.

Red Velvet Cake
(adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

For a luscious body:
120g unsalted butter, room temperature
300g caster sugar
2 eggs
20g cocoa powder
40ml red food colouring (only Dr Oetker’s suits her)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
240ml buttermilk
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
3 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 quantities cream cheese frosting (see below)

1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius (fan-assisted). Grease a cake tin (with removable base, 8-inch diameter) with unsalted butter.

2. Beat butter and sugar with electric mixer with paddle attachment till light, pale and fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time and beat until everything is well incorporated.

4. In a separate bowl, mix cocoa powder, vanilla extract and food colouring to make a thick dark paste. Add this to butter mixture and beat briefly until well-combined. Slowly pour in half the buttermilk. Beat until well mixed, add half the flour and beat until everything is well incorporated. Repeat this process until the remaining buttermilk and flour have been added. Add salt, bicarbonate of soda and vinegar at this point and beat the batter until well mixed.

5. Tip mixture into cake tin and bake in preheated oven for 40 min. Turn oven up to 160 degrees Celsius and bake for another 20-22 min. Test if the cake is cooked using the skewer test – it should come out clean. Leave cake to cool slightly in tin before turning it out onto cooling rack to cool completely.

6. Once the cake is completely cooled, cut the cake into three layers.

7. Sandwich the layers with cream cheese frosting, and dress the cake all up in more frosting.

Cream cheese frosting:

300g icing sugar, sifted
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g full-fat cream cheese, cold

1. Beat cream cheese and butter together until well-combined.

2. Add icing sugar and beat till completely incorporated, and that frosting is light and fluffy. Do not overbeat as it can become runny. Add more icing sugar if you like it to be sweeter, or ease up if you prefer it to be less sweet. Do note that the lesser sugar you add, the runnier the frosting will be.

Enjoy her company.

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Japanese Cheesecake with Rose Whipped Cream

Seeing is believing, and in this case, tasting is believing. Here, we have a Japanese Cheesecake. Lighter on the palette and boasting fluffier naughty bits than its Western cousin, it deceives you into thinking that it is good. But no, if you look beneath its angelic exterior, you will find that the cream, the cheese, the fattening bits are all in there; they’ve only been whipped into shape by egg whites. The mere incorporation of air fools us into thinking that the Japanese Cheesecake is healthier….but is it?

*pause for dramatic effect*

OH BUT WHO THE HELL CARES?! Sorry for the outburst but okay, maybe I ain’t sorry, Japanese cheesecakes are just too good to ignore, alright?! I first had one when Fiesta (a Japanese sushi chain in Singapore) churned out all sorts of flavours many moons ago. My favourite was the plain one, and it was impossibly light and creamy. I remember wondering, ‘How does a cheesecake get so light?’. Back then, I was a real noob at baking, and I didn’t know how to make a cheesecake, let alone a Japanese one. It took years for me to figure it out.

Incidentally, I have recently been the worst nightmare of eggs. I dismember them, I turn my nose up at the yolks and I go in for the kill. I whip the egg whites till they beg for me to stop, and then I coerce them into macarons and chiffon cakes. When M’s birthday came around, he requested for a cheesecake; all I could think of was to fashion a Japanese cheesecake out of ‘em poor egg whites. Dictator of eggs or not, I was scared shitless. I had no idea how the cake was going to turn out, I was convinced that it would be a flop, quite literally so. Thanks to a trustworthy recipe, the Japanese cheesecake was anything but. It was light and somehow creamy at the same time. Biting into it is very much akin to pinning a cloud, impossible but so very gratifying when you do so. Think cotton candy, but on a cheesecake. You sink your teeth into a whole chunk, only for it to pull a disappearing act seconds later, and then two days later, you find an even bigger paunch (for those who find a paunch that wasn’t there in the first place, good for you because hey, you don’t have a jelly belly to begin with). That, my dears, is the prestige worthy of Houdini. Just be careful not to suffer a death by Japanese cheesecakes; dangers do lurk in magic, even if it’s light and creamy.

Here are the recipes. The ones in parentheses were the first quantities I tried when I was practising. By following the recipe, and changing it to include the ones in parentheses, you’ll get a creamy, slightly heavier cake with an egg-ier flavour. I preferred the other recipe (turned out to be similar to the original recipe by Alex Goh, it is also the one that I followed for M’s birthday cake), which yields a lighter and less egg-y cheesecake. I also frosted the cake with rose whipped cream; the addition of rosewater masks the otherwise distinct milky taste of whipped cream and gives an understated hint of fruitiness to the creamy cake. You could add rose essence instead of essence of rosewater to give it a more floral kick. I would, if I had rose essence in my pantry.

Japanese Cheesecake with Rose Whipped Cream

Japanese Cheesecake
(adapted from Alex Goh’s Fantastic Cheesecakes)

Ingredients that yield a lighter cake:

160g full-fat cream cheese
25g unsalted butter
100ml full-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
40g plain flour
20g corn flour
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch of salt
100g caster sugar

Ingredients that yield a creamier, egg-ier cake:

160g full-fat cream cheese
80ml whipping cream
25g unsalted butter
50ml full-fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla paste
40g plain flour
20g corn flour
4 egg yolks
4 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
pinch of salt
80g caster sugar

1. Preheat oven to 140 degrees Celsius (fan). Grease and flour an 8-inch cake tin (with removeable base) generously. Wrap the sides of the cake tin in aluminium foil.

2. Sift flours together and set aside. Beat egg yolks in another bowl and set aside.
3. Melt cream cheese, milk, butter, vanilla paste (and cream, if using) in a double-boiler (over barely simmering water) until smooth. Leave mixture to cool slightly.
4. In a clean bowl, whisk egg whites and cream of tartar till foamy, then add pinch of salt and caster sugar. Whisk till you get soft peaks.
5. Mix the sifted flours into the cream cheese mixture until relatively smooth. Then, mix in the beaten egg yolks until well-combined.
6. Next, gently fold 1/3 of the meringue from Step 4 into the mixture from Step 5. Gently fold in the remaining meringue until batter is well-combined.
7. Place the cake tin (which has been wrapped with foil) in a deep oven tray, pour batter into the tin, and gently rap it on the tray a few times to get rid of air bubbles.
8. Place the tray with the tin into the oven, and carefully pour boiling water into the tray till water level is about one-inch high. Do not be overzealous with the pouring, in case the tin starts floating and water seeps in.
9. Bake for 35 minutes at 140 degrees Celsius, with a piece of foil loosely covering the top of the cake tin. Remove the foil after 35 minutes (or when cake has risen and threatens to stick to the foil…), and continue to bake for another 20 minutes. Switch off oven and let the cake cool in the oven, with the door left ajar for 1 hour. You might want to do a skewer test before the cooling process, the skewer should not be wet, and should be almost clean.
10. Remove the cake from the oven, and turn it out to a cooling rack to cool further.
11. Frost with rose whipped cream (recipe below).

Rose Whipped Cream
250ml whipping cream, cold
1 tablespoon caster sugar
1 tablespoon essence of rosewater

1. Whisk whipping cream till frothy, add sugar and whip till thick and of piping consistency.
2. Add essence of rosewater and whisk briefly to combine.
3. Frost cooled cheesecake. Plonk some raspberries on the cake. Dust the raspberries with some edible gold lustre, and there you have it, magic!

I have been working on a fundraising event on my blog for the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. You can visit this post here to find out more details. I’m pledging a USD100 Amazon gift card to one lucky donor who donates before 31 March 2011, so please, please dig deep and help! – Updated: We have a a winner, and we raised £1510!!

Check out what I have been baking in my own kitchen.

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Happy Halloween: Pumpkin & Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This is my fourth Halloween here in London, and man, have I been the opposite of happening! I was busy sobbing from leaving Singapore in 2007, so Halloween was non-existent. In 2008, we went to a Halloween house party in 2008, dressed as policewoman and man-on-the-run. The idea is M dug his way out of prison with a spoon, and I went hot on his heels. M got his jailbird uniform from Camden at about £25 and I bought police accessories for only £5 and stuck them on my clothes. This was my first and possibly only Halloween costume party, ever.

Halloween 2009 was supposed to be a house party again, but ooops, poor me fell ill and we skipped!

This year, I morph from policewoman to a home baker covered in pumpkin cake batter. How unfortunate, I could pass off looking like a slave now, no costumes needed! Anyways, we both think we’re a little old for costume parties, so we are settling for a quiet cooking weekend instead (paella, pintxos night etc). I didn’t want to pass on Halloween just like that, so I went out and picked out some cute pumpkins, and did what I do best – bake!

Nothing very adventurous here in terms of recipe, but a spiced cake, and some pumpkin-wrestling are firsts for me. Since I didn’t have a clue on spiced cakes, I turned to The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook  for trusty recipes. This book has never ever failed me. I tweaked the carrot cake recipe by substituting carrots with pumpkin purée, adding a little nutmeg and all-spice, and omitting the ground ginger. Also turned down the sugar volume on the cream cheese frosting because M and I are terrified of frosting that is too sweet. The result? An incredibly moist cake gently perfumed with cinnamon and nutmeg!

I also had more fun with the food styling and photography, this time shooting on a black table top to convey autumn vibes and the deep dark mood of Halloween. I thought my cream-coloured table cloth would spell summer too much; besides, the colours contrasted nicely with the dark table top.

Without further ado, here’s the recipe:

Pumpkin & Walnut Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
(recipe adapted from The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook)

For the cake:

300g soft light brown sugar
3 eggs
300ml sunflower oil
300g plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon all-spice powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla paste
300g pumpkin, blitzed in food processor to form purée
100g shelled walnuts, chopped roughly (Set aside extra to decorate)

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius and line two 8-inch (diameter) round baking tins with baking parchment.

2.Beat sugar, eggs, vanilla paste and oil in a large bowl till well-combined.

3. Sift flour, bicarbonate of soda, baking powder, salt, spices. Add gradually to egg mixture from Step 2, and beat till well-combined.

4. Stir in pumpkin purée and chopped walnuts.

5. Pour mixture into baking tins and bake in preheated oven for 25 minutes, or until golden brown and sponge bounce back when touched.

6. Cool cakes slightly in tins before unmoulding onto cooling rack.

7. When the cakes are completely cooled, sandwich and frost all over with cream cheese icing and decorate with walnuts.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
250g icing sugar
230g full-fat cream cheese, cold

1. Beat butter and sugar till well combined.

2. Beat in cream cheese until frosting is light and fluffy. Sandwich and frost!

Hope you will enjoy making this! Feel free to leave comments!

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