Orange Cream cheese tarts

That was a quarter of an orange peeking out from the background.  This is a picture taken with insufficient lighting.  But it doesn't bother me, for I had finally produced a fruity variation of cream cheese tart after a small hiccup in the form of some ugly tart crusts.

The tart crust for this version came from an earlier recipe, while the cream cheese filling is the recipe I wanted to experiment.  The original recipe used sweetened preserved lime to create the citrusy taste.  I didn't think I would like that flavor.  The substitution was made with the zest of an orange.

I liked the effect.  Just a hint of fresh orange, not overpowering, not stealing the limelight away from the tangy creamy cream cheese.  

After the whole experiment, I would conclude that cream cheese tart is not a difficult bake, as I imagined.  Of course, a state of panic can be well avoided if the tart crust dough is pressed THINLY into the tart mould for blind baking.  

Orange cream cheese tarts

(adapted from "Famous Cuisine, Issue 71, Nov/Dec 2011, with modifications)

Ingredients

Tart crust recipe refer to My first egg tarts

Cream cheese fillings

160g cream cheese

60g caster sugar

40ml whipping cream

2 eggs

2 tsp corn flour

freshly grated zest of an orange

Method

1. Bring cream cheese and eggs to room temperature

2. Beat cream cheese and caster sugar until soft, creamy and smooth. 

3. Add in the eggs, beat until well combined.

4. Add in whipping cream, corn flour and beat until well combined. 

5. Zest in the orange zest and mix well.

Assemble the whole pastry together

1. Preheat oven to 160deg C.

2. Pour orange cream cheese filling into blind-baked tart crust.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 15-20 minutes.

Notes

- When baking these tarts, my cheese fillings swelled into a small dome when 15 minutes was up. I opened the oven door a little and continued baking until the filling wasn't wobbly any more.  This will reduce the swell and at the same time ensure the filling is fully cooked.

Ugly but tasty tart crust

Look at the uneven surface.  Look at the rough bottom.  These are my really ugly but absolutely tasty tart crust.  

How did they end up this way?  

I had been too liberal with the amount of dough that got pressed into the tart casing.  I forgot that the dough would rise when blind-baked.  I did not have any blind-baking beans, neither did I put any sort of weight on top of the dough during blind-baking.  These crust rose promisingly, but I didn't want them to.  They rose so much that there wasn't any space left to take in the cream cheese filling I was about to prepare.  I despaired.  I had prepared the ingredients for cream cheese fillings, letting them come to room temperature.  What should I do with them? 

Anyway, how did I get myself into this mess, though a deliciously one.  I had not made any tarts after my egg tart making episode.  I had been wanting to try some other kinds of tarts, but had procrastinated until I saw a couple of cream cheese tart recipes in a food magazine I bought.  

The ingredients for this tart crust is different from the one I used for those egg tarts.  But the method is the same, rubbing-in of fat into the flour.  The fat, in this case butter, is quite high in proportion to the amount of flour used.  I ended up with a very soft dough even before adding beaten eggs.  So I changed the amount of egg added. 

Even after chilling the dough for 30 minutes, it was still very soft.  I found it difficult to handle, which is probably a reason why I failed to realize that I had pressed in too much dough into the tart casing.

When these tart crust came out of the oven, I left them to cool, and whisked up another batch of tart crust, this time using the recipe for my egg tarts.  That recipe gave a drier and firmer crust, though not any less delicious.

While waiting for the new batch of dough to chill, and the ugly crust to cool.  I took one bite into one of these golden brown skin and practically beamed from ear to ear.  Looks are deceiving.  They may not be material for a beauty contest, but these crusts are from the category I love.  Crunchy to the bite, yet melting into your mouth with a burst of rich buttery aroma!  

I had been wondering what I should do with these ugly casings before taking a bite.  After that first bite, I think I could dress up or disguise their imperfections with a little whipped cream and canned peach.  This was what I did to them.  

I am quite proud of the outcome.  I know these are definitely not tarts that can make an appearance in a bakery.  These are absolutely homemade tarts, suitable for the home only.  I am proud of the outcome because finally I managed to whip up some cream decently, and manged to pipe them onto something without making a horrible mess.  Needless to say, the couple of early experiences with whipping up fresh cream and using it had not been successful. 

I took some over to my Mum and Dad.  Dad, who doesn't really like "western" pastries, said that these tarts were good.  He said the cream tasted good.  This is another reason why I am proud of the outcome. 

I think I am going to give this crust recipe another try some time soon.

Ugly but tasty tart crust

(adapted from Famous Cuisine No.71, November/December 2011, with some modifications)

Ingredients

160g plain flour

60g caster sugar

120g butter

2 tbsp beaten egg

Method

1. Combine flour and sugar.  Rub-in butter, you will find that it will not resemble coarse bread crumbs.  Instead you will have a mixing bowl of quite moist and lumpy chunks of flour.

2. Add the 2 tbsp of beaten egg.  Mix the egg in with fingers held in a claw-like manner, until everything coheres into a very soft dough. 

3. Wrap in cling wrap and chill for 30 minutes before using.

To bake these tart crust, just press into tart casings of preferred shape.  Bake in a preheated oven at 180degC for 15-20 minutes.  

Comforting success: Apple crumble

Over the past two weeks, my mood had not been too beautiful.  It was like the weather, bright and sunny in the morning but the day would be ended with a thunderstorm.  Things got a little worse when I tried to boost my mood trying out some bakes.  I tried my hands at making a banana sponge cake and a banana crumble.  Both attempts failed, which resulted in my mood resembling the onslaught of a hailstorm.

Maybe I can't say that the banana crumble failed, because a fruit crumble is not such a difficult bake after all.  But it was my first at attempting a crumble, and since I started with banana, I thought it would be better to give it a little more blitz in the oven.  Turned out the banana was a little too caramelized for my liking.  Coupled with dry crunchy crumble topping, the banana crumble I made wasn't that palatable.  Of course I bought ice-cream to go with the crumble.  But my helpful Tiny Man stored the ice-cream in the wrong compartment, ie the chiller instead of the freezer, so the ice-cream melted.  I didn't think dumping a gooey mess of vanilla onto the already dry (and slightly burnt) banana crumble would make it look more appetizing. 

The other failure, or perhaps it is better to call it a disaster, is my attempt at making a banana sponge cake.  In the past, I had made a total of 4 attempts at sponge cakes of various flavors.  None of them came out looking anything like a sponge cake.  They were either over-baked thus tasting really dry and coarse, or they collapse dramatically once I take the cake out of the oven. I swear I could hear the air hissing their way out of the cakes! Pissssssssssss... ... out comes the air, down goes the cake into a soft pile of "kueh".  That was exactly the performance put up by my banana sponge cake, "lau hong" (漏风).  It was really quite a shocking sight, and I would have collapsed into a pile of sobbing Mummy, had it not been time to pick the kids up from school ^_^

The apple crumble is thus a cautious attempt to sprinkle some sunshine onto my foul mood, which thank goodness, turned out well.  The first time I heard of a fruit crumble was from Nigella Lawson, in her program Nigella Express, when she made this dessert called "Jumbleberry Crumble".  Of course the dessert looked so gorgeously moist and delicious, and the crumble topping practically "crumbled" out at me from the television. Another program I love watching is "Great British Food" featuring Tom Norrington-Davies, and he made apple crumble.  Seems easy enough, I reckoned.  And since apple is supposed to have more moisture, "dry fruit crumble can be avoided" is my guess.

So here's a comforting success, topped with raspberry swirl vanilla ice-cream.  This time, I made sure the ice-cream is stored in the freezer!

Apple crumble

(makes 3 individual ramekins)

For the crumble topping

75g cold butter, diced

75g demerara sugar

150g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

For the apple

3 small China Fuji apples

2 tbsp demerara sugar

small pinch of cinnamon

1 tbsp water

Method

1. Mix the plain flour and baking powder together.

2. Rub the butter into the flour using fingertips until it resembles very coarse breadcrumbs.  Sprinkle the sugar and mix well using a fork.  At this point, I kept the crumble topping in a ziploc bag and place it in the freezer.

3. To prepare the apples for this fruit crumble, peel, core and roughly chop apples.  Cook apples, sugar, water and cinnamon until the moisture is fully reduced and a light caramelized smell comes wafting out of the pot.  Let the fruit cool.

4. Preheat oven to 180deg C.  Place the cooled cooked apples into ramekins until 2/3 full, top with 2-3 tbsp of the crumble toppings and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the crumble topping is golden brown in color.

I like to let the crumble cool for about 30 minutes before serving it with ice-cream.  At least, I know I would not burn my tongue with the sizzling hot moist apples.

Pandan chiffon cake

Baked this pandan chiffon cake last week.  It was not my first experience making chiffon cakes.  My first chiffon cake debuted about a year ago, some time in the last quarter of 2010.  It was a pandan chiffon cake and it took quite a few days of self-persuasion before finally gathering all the necessary utensils and ingredients and most importantly, chiffon cake recipe, to make this cake.  

I love chiffon cakes, especially pandan chiffon cakes.  That's because it is something that has intimate associations with childhood memories.  I remember Mum making pandan chiffon cakes, sometimes with success (which I will bring to school for Children's Day party), but quite a number of times, her chiffon cake attempts ended in failure.  At that time, there seemed to be some sort of superstition that you cannot mention "kueh" when making chiffon cake else it will really turn into "chiffon kueh".  In my family, this is the curse of the "chiffon kueh".  And you were supposed to keep your mouth shut when Mum was busy whisking up the egg whites furiously.  But the problem, especially on those occasions when her chiffon cake failed, was that Dad would be around and would casually comment "Oh you are making kueh today!"  Eeeeeeek!  Dad, you just chanted the cursed incantation!  At that point, the clanking of the whisk against the bowl would stop and we would see Mum turn around, with that "I am going to kill you for saying that cursed word" look, a quick argument on the inappropriateness of word choice would ensue, Dad would retreat to the living room and the clanking of the whisk would resume.  Unfortunately, Mum's mood would be totally spoiled, she lost concentration as she got consumed by the fear of the curse of the "chiffon kueh", the egg white meringue would not be whisked to the right stiffness and finally the self-fulfilling prophecy worked its magic.  She produced the pandan chiffon keuh, all blames were served to the unsuspecting poor Dad.

When I had decided to try making pandan chiffon cake, the possible curse from the "chiffon kueh"(though I know very well that it was not true) still lingered at the back of my mind.  But I had told myself that it is after all a superstition and the real reason for Mum's failure (despite the fact that those failures always coincided with Dad's casual cursed incantation of "Oh you are making kueh today") lies in the fact that the meringue was not whisked properly.  As for the recipe, Mum did give me hers but there is a problem with it.  The measurements were in soup spoons, cups and bowls.  My standard for measurement differ very largely, I work in the grams, millilitres and litres mode.  So of course I turned to the net for some recipes to refer and I found this, from the much acclaimed blog ieat.ishoot.ipost.  It is a fantastic start for those interested in trying out chiffon cakes as this particular post spell out observations in many areas of chiffon cake making, from impacts of ingredients used to techniques in preparing the meringue, mixing the batter, when to take the cake out of the oven and overturning the cake to let it cool.  I tried out two of the four variations offered and found that I loved the last one best, the one that says "Extra whites".  The curse of the "chiffon kueh" never caught up with me, and I had went on the try out variations in flavors, made more tweaks to the basic recipe until I am happy with the sweetness, firmness and springiness of the chiffon cakes. 

Having said all that, I am still very far from claiming success at making chiffon cakes.  The usual problems with chiffon cakes would be the cake shrinks upon removal from the oven.  I do not have too much of the problem.  Yes, my cake will shrink, but just a little and the dome will still be there, like this.

The other problem is that the cake would not be appropriately browned or too burnt.  Yes, my chiffon cake does show signs of the former problem.  But a word of defense is necessary here.  I like it this way actually.  Not too browned on the sides and the bottom.  I always felt that those chiffon cakes with an all-rounded copper tan, beautiful there is no denying, tended to taste slightly dry.  I like mine moist.  And so my chiffon cake would always look like a silly little thing  spotting a successful tan on the face but is pale every where else!  Like the one above and the one I am showing now.

Finally, a problem that I am still facing, and almost happily resigned to and accepting, is the large and beautiful smile my chiffon cakes would always greet me with.

The cake would rise... ...

And rise... ...

And finally present me with a cracks of smiles... ...

Pandan chiffon cake

(adapted with modifications from ieat.ishoot.ipost)

Makes 1x16cm tube pan and 2x12cm tube pans

Ingredients

Group 1

3 egg yolks
50g castor sugar
50ml corn oil
70ml thick coconut milk
100g cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp pandan juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp pandan essence


Group 2
5 egg whites
50g castor sugar
1/2 tsp cream of tartar


Method
** Preheat oven to 160deg C.  I use a small Tefal Crousty oven, hence the low temperature.
1. Sift cake flour, baking powder together and set aside.  Add salt to the sifted mixture.
2. Whisk sugar and egg yolks from Group 1 until creamy.
3. Add coconut milk and oil, whisk together until well incorporated. 
4. Add pandan juice, vanilla extract and pandan essence and quickly whisk together until well incorporated.
5. Add sifted flour mixture in 3-4 batches, whisking quickly at each addition and finally until all flour is combined and a smooth flowing mixture is achieved.
6. Using a very clean and dry whisk, whisk egg whites from Group 2 until foamy.  Add sugar and whisk for about 30 seconds, then add cream of tartar.  Continue to whisk until STIFF peaks are formed (like the picture below).  This step is the spell that can break the curse of the "chiffon kueh".  But be careful not to over whisk the egg whites as the cake may end up dry.

7. Add 1/3 of the meringue in Step 6 to the batter mixture in Step 5.  Fold the meringue in gently, the mixture should appear slightly foamy.
8. Add the rest of the meringue to the mixture in Step 7, folding very gently until a uniform batter is achieved.
9. Pour into chiffon cake tube pan until 80% full.  Drop the tube pan onto working surface from a low height of 3-5cm.  This is to get rid of large air bubbles that may be caught into the batter when pouring.  
10.  Bake in preheated oven for 35-40 minutes (if a pale looking chiffon cake is preferred) or until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  For a well tanned cake, of course stretch the baking time longer for about 5-10 minutes.
11. Take the cake out of the oven (I did so at exactly 40 minutes for a pale cake) and immediately turn the tube pan upside down.  Let the cake cool completely before delicately extracting the cake from its tube pan casing. 


Note:
* When chiffon cake is not fully browned around the sides and bottom, there is a risk of the cake dropping out from the tube pan when overturning the cake to cool!  ^_^  That was what happened when I baked this chiffon cake.  Well, what I did was to pop the cake back into the tube pan, let it rest right side up for 30 seconds before turning it upside down again.  Stayed put in the pan!  Strange though really funny, as this is the first time it had happened.  All my previous pale looking cakes were not this enthusiastic about leaving their warm casing!

Chinese New Year: Cashew nut cookies and some ramblings...

What a hectic start to Y2012 and the Year of the Dragon!  So hectic that I've stopped visiting my blog for about 2 months.  The Tiny Man has finally joined his sister in Primary school and I, am finally spared of the daily speeding-around-the-eastern-part-of-Singapore drives, executing the task of fetching the kids.  Not complaining here, for I am thankful for the two full years of opportunities to improve on my driving skills.  But now, it is time for a life less on the road.

Not visiting my verbal sanctuary does not equate a stagnation in cooking and baking.  During the Nov-Dec school holidays, I still cooked (albeit lesser in frequency) and still make some efforts to create that something special on Fridays.  However, I had lacked the will to complete the motion with clicking the shutter and posting those few creations here.  I would readily blame it on the school holidays or the kids who drove me crazy with their noise, but honestly, the Mum had gotten lazy in the last two months of the year.

Well not totally lazy, if you consider the number of hours spent in spring-cleaning.  The panic I felt when the number of days dwindled throughout December last year, increasing in momentum throughout January.  There were so much to clean and so little time.  "CNY this year comes so soon!  Goodness! There's no time to prepare at all!"  A very common comment I hear wherever I went in the last 3 weeks before CNY.  Guess I wasn't the only one in panic-land.  

Spring-cleaning is a strange phenomenon to me.  For me, this term is never far away from the Chinese New Year.  It meant cleaning those obscure nooks and crannies that I would have otherwise ignored throughout the rest of the year.  It meant emptying cupboards, cabinets, closets and every other container to rid all old stuff in order to welcome the new.  It meant an opportunity for me to throw away items that I kept, "in case I need them in the future"; but come the time for spring cleaning, I would know very well that these items will not be required for they had been sitting there for a full year, and some, for longer.  Spring cleaning also meant that every washable item needs to be washed and every "wipe-able surface" to be wiped down.  The curtains, the sofa, the dining tables and chairs, the bedsheets, cupboards, cabinets, closet, toilets, windows and window grills and the kitchen wall tiles.  You name it, I've either washed it or wiped it down.  It's not that I'm a total slob, ignoring the virtue of house-keeping for the rest of the year, only to find myself overwhelmed with an incredibly dirty house to spring clean.  I cleaned and washed away merrily (well, as merry as I can manage when faced with such routine) throughout the whole year.  But when the Chinese New Year draws near, there will be this urge to engage in relentless cleaning.  Perhaps it's this saying that the Chinese have, 除旧迎新, rid the old to usher in the new.  I believe in cleaning out the old and dirty, which I associate with bad luck, in order to provide room for the new and clean.  Needless to say, I associate the latter with good luck.  Irrational superstition, yes I know and believe me I do agree with this observation of my irrationality.  Yet, I cannot help but staunchly spring-clean every year.
Speaking of the old, this is one old item that I had fond memories of and would be absolutely sad if it were to be thrown out.

It's my Mum's stove.  I am not sure exactly how long she had been using this stove, but I guess at least 30 years is a pretty good gauge.  That is right, this stove is at least 30 years old.  Mum, like me (or perhaps it should be the other way) is a fanatic "cleaner".  She cleans the house, diligently, daily and more staunchly than I can ever manage up to the point when the Chinese New Year approaches.  If it had not been for her relentless cleaning, this stove would have been scrap metal ages ago.

This stove came with an oven large enough to roast a turkey, a compartment to place the  familiar blue tanks of LPG to cook our Chinese stir-fries and some sort of heater/grill to warm our food, if we ever got adventurous enough to use it (but of course Mum never did).  

The oven, powered by electricity, had seen countless batches of butter cookies, cashew nut cookies and pineapple tarts baked whenever the Chinese New Year approaches.  I supposed Mum would have kept the tradition of baking some new year goodies alive had the fuse not blown.  But it did during one of our baking sessions; that spelled the end of something that I looked forward to every year.  Every year, I would imagine visiting Mum during the last few weeks before CNY and find ourselves busy over cutting out cashew nut cookies or painstakingly rolling out thin strips of dough to decorate our pineapple tarts.  But I suppose neither of us have the time now to while away afternoons like we used to.  
One of the reasons why I had started baking is the desire to relive the nostalgia of baking, those happy times I had with Mum in the kitchen, getting messy with flour and butter.  Of course making butter cookies had been the first recipe I attempted.  Mum's butter cookies are really simple to make.  It only takes a little patience to rub in 250g of good quality butter into 500g of flour and 250g of icing sugar and bring it into a somewhat dry dough by adding an egg yolk.  The only thing left to do is to cut into desired cookie shapes, glaze with egg yolk and bake them.  I had made a couple of variations with Mum's butter cookies: cashew nuts, raisins, chocolate chips, hazel nuts.  I thought all of them tasted pretty okay and one of my cousins sang praises of these mouthfuls.
Since the process of making cookies I had been exposed to is the rubbing-in method, imagine my skepticism when I came across a cashew nut butter cookie recipe that specifies beating the butter and sugar until light and fluffy using a mixer.  For me, this method is only applied when I need to bake a butter cake.  Of course I had to try it out, as part of the new year goodies baking line-up.

Not knowing what to expect, I experimented with a reduction of the original recipe.  Beating the butter and caster sugar till light and fluffy was not difficult.  I could manage that, and did it with hand held mixer (that's the only mixer I have anyway).  It is this particular step that I was wary of: turn to low speed and gradually add in sifted flour. Coming to this step in the recipe, I had imagined flour spewing all over the my kitchen counter top, mimicking December snowfall in some faraway winter land.  How do you beat in flour with a mixer whirling around,even though at low speed, without sending some (I hope not the whole lot) flying everywhere but not into the butter/sugar mixture?  Wondering and worrying would not give me an answer, so I did just what the recipe said, beat them in.  The truth is, it wasn't as messy as I imagined.  Some flour still managed to escape from my mixing bowl, decorating the counter top with specks of white, but most of them stayed put.
Once all the flour and ground almond were mixed in, I let the soft dough rest for about 15 minutes in the fridge.  The recipe did not specify this step but I did it anyway.  Simply because the dough was far too soft, I should say the softness is not what I am accustomed to when baking cookies.  I was pretty worried about rolling out such soft dough and cutting them into shapes, so I thought letting it rest in the fridge should firm it up a little, in the hope to make handling easier.  Anyway, it did not really work.  The initial first few rolls and cuts were okay, but with our weather, the butter started to soften again.  It was quite messy that in the end, I decided to just pinch a teaspoon amount, roll it into a ball, flatten it slightly before popping on a cashew nut for decoration. 

So how did this cookie taste?  Buttery, like the butter cookies I am used to, with a bit of crunch which I had not expected as there was no bicarbonate of soda added (you see, I associate the crunchiness in cookies with bicarbonate of soda, which is a must in Mum's cookies).  Keep these cookies in an airtight container for about 3-4 days (in other words, let it age) and it will taste better.  Gave some of my experiment to Mum and she approved of this deviation from her method.  Gave some to this cousin who is a fan of my rubbing-in method cookies, and he swooned.  I think I had found a staple for my new year goodies must-bakes. 

Cashew nut cookies

(adapted from "Famous Cuisine No.71", November-December 2011, Famous Cuisine Publisher Sdn Bhd) 

Ingredients
250g butter
130g caster sugar
230g low protein flour (I used cake flour)
130g corn flour
55g ground cashew nuts (I used ground almonds)
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp vanilla essence (I used 1 tsp)


Glaze
Egg yolk
Cashew nuts for topping


Method
1. Sift low protein flour, corn flour and baking powder, set aside.
2. Cream butter and caster sugar until fluffy.  Add in egg yolk and mix well.
3. Turn to low speed and gradually add in sifted flour.  Add in vanilla essence and ground cashew nuts.  Mix well to form soft dough.  (I added the vanilla essence after the egg yolk.)  
4. Roll out dough onto lightly floured surface to 7mm thick and cut into desired shapes and place space apart on a greased baking tray.  (I did not bother with cutting into shapes, just rolled into a ball, flatten and decorate with cashew nuts.  I also find that it is not necessary to grease the baking tray and the butter in the dough is enough to prevent sticking.)
5. Lightly brush cookies with egg yolk and add halved cashew nuts on as decoration.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes over 180degC.  Let it cool for 2 minutes before transferring into a container.


Notes:
- when removing the cookies after being cooled, tap the tray lightly on a flat surface to loosen the cookies.  I am not sure but I guess this step may not be necessary if the baking trays are greased.
- it is not necessary to let the dough rest in the fridge.  In my next attempt, I used the dough immediately after preparation.
- use a teaspoon as a measurement if you choose to just roll the dough into tiny balls.  I scoop about half a teaspoon for each cookie, roll it into a ball and flatten it in the baking tray.

Test-drive and the actual race: Orange flavored cupcakes

I will always remember how I celebrated Children's Day when I was still in primary school.  On the eve of Children's Day, we would gather in the school hall for assembly and watch a Children's Day Concert put up by fellow pupils from the various performing ECA (back then it was known as ECA, extra curricular activities) groups.  At the end of the concert, all of us would stand up and sing along to some songs, songs which I have no idea why these were chosen to be sung as a way to celebrate Children's Day.  What were some of those songs?  Di Tanjong Katong and Chan Mali Chan were two songs we sang every year.  Imagine I sang these two songs for six years on two occasions each year, National Day celebration and Children's Day celebration!  ^_^  It may not had made much sense to me back then, but now hearing these songs warms the heart because now I had categorized these as my childhood songs.  Every time I hear them, I'll always recall how my school hall looked like and remember a fuzzy happy feeling: the anticipation of Children's Day celebration we would be having back in our classroom.  The final one hour on the eve of Children's Day was always reserved for a little in-class party.  This precious one hour was set aside by our form teacher for all of us to celebrate with games and food.  I would always request Mum to make something for me to contribute as party food.  And Mum would always make pandan chiffon cake for me to bring along.  So when my girl requested me to bake something for her class party on the final day of the school term, I agreed without hesitation.  We toyed around a couple of ideas before finally deciding on cupcakes and cookies.  Cookies and cupcakes are not difficult items to prepare and most importantly, relatively easy to handle, that is for my girl to carry them to school without too much worry of damage.

I have a couple of cupcake recipes that will make 12 cupcakes with roughly 3 inch diameter in size.  But I think that would be a little too big for children, especially when they would be having other nibbles and snacks.  So I decided on converting a butter cake recipe that I always liked to use into cupcake size.  I didn't want to use the usual 3 inch diameter paper cupcakes casing that I always do, so I got hold of some souffle cups that are 2.5 inch in diameter and 1.5 inch in height.  Since I'll be using a new cupcake casing measurement, a test-drive was necessary.

Test-drive

On the day that I tested out this recipe, I halved the original butter cake recipe and that produced 8 souffle cups of cupcakes.  But I think I filled the cup too much and some of the cakes overflowed (that means I could get more than 8 cupcakes for a halved portion).  See the picture below, the cupcake on the forefront, to the left side of the cup.  That's where the batter flowed out.  The butter cake recipe I used applies egg separation method, so that was probably why the batter overflowed.  For this recipe, I added orange zest, since it was intended to be orange flavored cupcakes, and I also added about 1.5 tsp of strawberry jam as filling.  I didn't have much expectation, just the hope that these cupcakes would turn out tasting acceptable.  But much to my surprise, the combination of butter, orange and strawberry actually tasted great.  The sprinkling of chocolate rice also added another layer of texture (the chocolate rice remained slightly crunchy) and flavor to the cupcakes.

We had these cupcakes for breakfast the following day, and the kids loved this combination too.  However, the strawberry jam filling did not stay at the middle of each cupcake even though I made it a point to put in the jam near to 2/3 full position.  I suppose the jam is simply too heavy and upon heating up sank to the bottom.  But at least these did not sink all the way to the bottom!

Actual race

Having done a test on taste, appearance and quantity, I felt more at ease and confident of producing 30 cupcakes for my girl's party.  30 cupcakes may be just a piece of cake (what a pun here ^_^ Not intentional!) to many people, but to me, this is not an easy feat.  It meant that I have to be prepared to make at least 2 batches, maybe 3 batches in case one of the batches failed for whatever reason, throughout the day.  Just to recapitulate on the calculation, halved portion of butter cake will probably give me 10 cupcakes using the souffle cups I bought.  That means whole portion of my butter cake recipe should give me 20 cupcakes.  That means if everything goes well, I just need to make 2 batches, once in the morning, once in the afternoon.  And to cut the whole story short, that was exactly what I did.  Which was pretty lucky for me as all the cupcakes behaved well (meaning I did not overfill each cup), no overflowing, no shortage of strawberry jam or chocolate rice (^_^ I worry too much, I am getting to be a hypochondriac!).  The only problem I had was with slightly deflated cupcakes.  The two pictures below are actually the same, but I was just toying with them with a photo editing software.  I love how the cupcakes had rose, such smooth dome they had.  But unfortunately, these cakes sank a little after removal from the oven.  But again, fortunately, the reduction wasn't too much as the top of each cupcake still stay near the rim of the casing.

Once the cupcakes were completely cooled, my girl and I spent about an hour packing them into little cookie bags together with some butter cookies I made in advance.  While the packing job was very tiring (we did that after dinner, around 8pm), it was actually very satisfying to see my bakes neatly allocated and packed in cute looking bags, ready for 28 children and 2 teachers to enjoy.  I wondered if my Mum had felt this way more than 20 years ago when she put her pandan chiffon cake into a container for me to carry it all the way to school to be shared with my classmates and teachers. 

Cupcakes and cookies, all packed and ready!

Same picture, just toying with my editing software.

My cupcake peeking out at me!

Orange flavored cupcakes 

Makes 20 souffle cups measuring 2.5" diameter, 1.5" height

Ingredients

Group 1

250g salted butter, I tried a new label called Gold Leaf

85g caster sugar

200g cake flour

1 tsp baking powder

4 egg yolks

1.5 tsp orange flavor

Zest of 2 oranges

2 tbsp low fat yoghurt

Group 2

85g caster sugar

4 egg whites

Filling

Strawberry or raspberry jam

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160deg C.

2. Make sure butter and eggs are at room temperature.  Sift cake flour and baking powder together and set aside.

3. Beat butter and caster sugar from Group 1 until light and fluffy. 

4. Add in the egg yolks one at a time, making sure that each yolk is well beaten in before the next addition.

5. Add the orange flavor and orange zest and beat until well mixed.

6. Fold in the flour mixture, spoon by spoon, until all are used up and well mixed into a smooth batter.

7. In a clean bowl, process Group 2 in the following manner.  Beat the egg whites until foamy, add the caster sugar and beat until soft peaks form.

8. Add 1/3 of egg white mixture into butter batter in Step 6 and fold until incorporated (or no streaks of egg white is visible).  Fold in the remaining egg whites until well incorporated and smooth.

9. Gently fold in the 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt until well incorporated (i.e. no streaks of yoghurt is visible).

10. Fill each up with batter until about 2/3 full, drop in gently 1 tsp of preferred jam and top with batter until 3/4 full.

11. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes or until an inserted skewer comes out clean.

I am submitting this post to Aspiring Bakers #13: Enjoy Cupcakes! (November 2011) hosted by Min of Min's Blog.

Our 10th Wedding Anniversary: surprise, chocolate cake, slow cooking dinner and some chairs...

Completed look, writings done with Wilton icing gel

We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary on 3rd November 2011.  It was a simple affair: a surprise, home-made slow cooking dinner, chocolate cake and some new chairs for the dining area.  Time really flies.  It was just 10 years ago that the both of us were preparing for our wedding.  He had been working for quite a number of years while I was still in graduate school, struggling with a dissertation and worrying about whether I could get a job after graduation.  Back then, the economy was still recovering from the last downturn and the Asian financial crisis.  

10 years on, the economy is still struggling to recover from another downturn, perhaps recession would be a better term.  Life had moved on for me since 10 years ago: graduation, getting employed, starting a family and expanding it with two children.  The marriage had since matured two people who chose to share their lives together.  There were numerous disagreements, arguments, adjustments and compromises.  We learned to appreciate each other's strengths, tolerate and love each other's shortcomings.  I must admit it had not been easy.  It would not be such a significant and meaningful 10th year anniversary had it been smooth-sailing. 

This is the second year I spend our wedding anniversary as a stay-at-home Mum.  But this is the first time the Hubby asked me about my thoughts of our marriage.  Frankly speaking, I haven't given it much thoughts.  But when asked, the only thing I feel immediately is happiness.  Needless to say, there were spousal arguments.  Ultimately, both of us came from different background and upbringing, we have different habits.  Frictions are unavoidable.  My happiness came from all the efforts that both of us made to stay together (through thick and thin episodes of fights), the compromise that both of us made for each other's family and the sacrifices that both of us made for each other in the last 10 years to hold our small family together.  There is something I'd like to put here to remind myself and to share with whoever that comes across this blog and who decides to read it.    

10 yellow sunshine-looking flowers: one for each year spent together...

"I've learned this much about marriage," he said now.  "You get tested.  You find out who you are, who the other person is, and how you accommodate or don't."
Is there some kind of rule to know if a marriage is going to work?
Morrie smiled. "Things are not that simple, Mitch."
I know. 
"Still," he said, "there are a few rules I know to be true about love and marriage: If you don't respect the other person, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  If you don't know how to compromise, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  If you can't talk openly about what goes on between you, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  And if you don't have a common set of values in life, you're gonna have a lot of trouble.  Your values must be alike.  
"And the biggest one of those values, Mitch?"
Yes?
"Your belief in the importance of your marriage."  
He sniffed, then closed his eyes for a moment.
"Personally," he sighed, his eyes still closed, "I think marriage is a very important thing to do, and you're missing a hell of a lot if you don't try it."

-- "Tuesdays with Morrie: an old man, a young man, and life's greatest lesson", by Mitch Albom

==========

I had planned to make a cake to surprise the Hubby.  But he surprised me instead.  For the past few days before our anniversary, he had been persistently asking me where I would like to go dinner.  Knowing the nature of his job, I suggested a simple dinner at home and save the dining out for the weekend instead.  I didn't want to tolerate the possibility of phone calls disturbing our dinner, not on our anniversary.  On our anniversary day, the Hubby went about his morning ritual as usual, taking a shower and getting ready to send the Tiny Man to school, en route to his office.  I went about my usual routine too, bustling about with the housework after I got home from walking the girl to school.  The Hubby walked out into the living room, ready, but not in his usual office wear.  He was in jeans!  That means he took the day off!  And he didn't tell me!  Okay, he hinted, countless times, with questions about where to go to celebrate our anniversary.  ^_^  Really, this is not the first time he surprised me this way.  But I guess I never did learn to see through his tricks.  

So he was on leave.  That is a problem.  I had planned to make a chocolate cake as a surprise for him.  I had planned to have the cake ready, put it in the fridge and let him find it.  My plans were ruined basically.  And so, I told him about the cake.  He laughed, like how he would always do when I did something silly.  What a way to start our anniversary day ^_^

While the Hubby sent the Tiny Man to school, I rushed to whisk my slow cooking dish up so that I could get on with the cake.  I haven't got the whole day to do all these because the Hubby suggested going to Ikea to get some chairs for the dining table!  Right, I can manage this.  Here's the plan: get the slow cooking dish cooking away in the slow cooker, whisk up the cake and bake it.  Cake should be baked by around noon.  From noon to about 2pm, shop for chairs in Ikea, get lunch and fetch the girl from school.  Get back home, check that cake is cooled enough to garnish with chocolate garnache.  Prepare the rest of dinner and be ready to fetch Tiny Man home by 5pm.  Believe it or not, that was exactly how I spent my 10th wedding anniversary.  But I was glad we didn't go out for dinner.  The Hubby had phone calls to entertain.  He was still entertaining those calls and pounding away on his notebook while I drove out to fetch the Tiny Man.

Those chairs from Ikea.

If it had been the first few years of our marriage, I would be irritable and miserable and felt absolutely "mistreated" by his gross "trickery" and downright insensitivity at not helping out while I was kept so busy the whole day rushing with dinner, cake, chairs and fetching the kids.  But now, I am simply amused by the whole thing.  Silly me for not guessing his game.  Silly me for insisting on ploughing through the range of tasks; I could have just changed my plans.  On the other hand, thanks to the Hubby for his willingness to go along with my plans.  


It was a hectic day...  Happy Anniversary!


Chocolate cake with chocolate garnache
(This is what I did after modifying and improvising on a butter cake recipe from Cooking Crave, I used a 8" round tin for this cake.  Normally I would bake this cake in a 9" square tin.)

Ingredients for chocolate cake
Group 1
250g butter, softened (I prefer salted Golden Churn Creamery butter)
85g caster sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
4 egg yolks
2 tbsp low fat yoghurt (I always put yoghurt into my cakes instead of milk)
170g cake flour
30g unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
150g semi-sweetened dark chocolate, melted


Group 2
4 egg whites
85g castor sugar 


Method
1. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pot of simmering water.  Set aside to cool.
2. Preheat the oven to 170degC.  Sift the cake flour, cocoa powder and baking powder together and set aside.
3. Grease 8" round tin and line with baking paper.
4. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add in the egg yolks one at a time, beat in thoroughly until creamy for each addition.  Add the vanilla essence along with one of the egg yolks.
5. Fold in flour mixture, one spoonful at a time.  Each spoonful must be well mixed.
6. After all the flour has been folded in, fold in the melted chocolate.  Then set aside.
7. In a separate, sparkling clean bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are foamy.  Add the sugar gradually and whisk until soft peaks form.
8. Add about a quarter of the whites into chocolate batter (6).  Mix well and fold in the rest of the whites.
9. Gently fold in the low fat yoghurt at this point.
10. Tip the batter into baking tin and bake until a skewer inserted comes out clean.  This should take between 40-50 minutes.
11. Remove cake from the oven, let it stand in the tin for about 5 minutes before tipping it out to cool on a wire rack.


Ingredients for Chocolate garnache
300g semi-sweet dark chocolate chips
250ml whipping cream


Method
1. Heat the whipping cream on very low heat until small bubbles start to form at the sides.
2. Remove from heat and pour the heated cream into the dark chocolate chips.
3. Let it stand so that the chocolate can melt slowly, around 1 minute.
4. Stir slowly until a smooth chocolatey mixture is formed.
5. Use this garnache immediately.  This means that the cake has to be sliced into two layers first and be ready for garnishing.  


Assembling my cake
I cannot make a proper layered cake to save my own life.  I cannot slice the 8" round cake into two equal layers and ensure that these have beautiful smooth surfaces.  But I tried anyhow, trimming away the uneven, slightly domed top and slicing away at the slightly burnt bottom.  Placing one layer of the cake on my wire rack and a plate beneath the rack to catch the dripping garnache, I spread a thin layer of garnache onto the cake.  Then sandwich this thin layer of garnache with the top layer and poured the rest of the garnache over the whole cake.  Watching the garnache spread all over the top and dripping down onto the sides was pretty satisfying.  Satisfying because there is no need to nudge and coax the garnache to cover up any ugly cake surface.  The slow smooth flow of the garnache does the cover-up job on its own, flowing decisively along its chosen path to disguise all portions of imperfections for me.  


Notes:
- The cake was a little denser this time.  I think I put in too much melted chocolate.  Next time try just 75g of melted chocolate.
- The garnache was pretty sweet for my liking.  I think it would be better to use unsweetened dark chocolate chips.