Butter Pound Cake

I'm baaaaaacccckkk!!  ^_^

Apologize for the mini hiatus..I realised that it's kinda hard to update the blog regularly! =/

I have been baking and taking loads of pictures but the thought of uploading all of that sort of deterred me from posting any entries. Procrastination!! Grrr...

But fret not! Coz here's a recipe! ✌✌

Butter Poundcake

Ingredients:

1. 230g butter

2. 180g sugar

3. 230g eggs (whisked, without shells)

4. 230g flour

5. 2 tablespoons milk powder

6. a pinch of salt

7. 1 vanilla pod (you can use essence or extract)

Methods:

1. Cream butter until it's slightly pale in colour

2. Add in the sugar by parts, slowly and cream until it becomes light and fluffy

3. Add salt

4. Stream in the eggs little by little, add more when the eggs have incorporated with the batter

5. Lower down the speed of your whisk and add in the flour

6. Mix until everything is well-combined then fold in the vanilla

7. Pour into a loaf pan or an 8" cake pan

8. Turn on the oven and bake at 180 (not pre-heated) until a toothpick inserted comes out clean

Happy Baking!!^_^

Quick Cinnamon Rolls

I had been down for the past two days and yesterday (Saturday) was the worst. So the HB told me to catch up on my sleep and rest, while he looks after the little one, over the weekends. I woke up on Sunday feeling tons better and felt like baking. Had told the HB yesterday that I felt like baking cinnamon rolls and today he reminded me, saying that he missed my breads and cinnamon rolls would be ideal. And so, cinnamon rolls it is, to show my appreciation for the much needed rest! =)

These are the extras that I had baked on a tray

I had taken the recipe from Guai Shu Shu's blog. He had adapted the recipe from 1-Hour Cinnamon Rolls but I thought the cinnamon rolls from the latter looked a tad too uncooked. So I had obviously followed Guai Shu Shu's adapted recipe, coz his cinnamon rolls look sooooo good, soft and fluffy that I was won over (plus he gave his measurements in grams!).. ;p

Here is the recipe (adapted version):

"Milk-wash" Ingredients
1. 2 tablespoons of milk

- To brush over the rolls just before baking. This will give the rolls a nice brown hue during the baking process


Filling Ingredients

1. 65g brown sugar
2. 65g granulated sugar
3. 60g butter (softened)
4. 2 tablespoons of cinnamon powder

- Mix everything well and set aside

Dough Ingredients

Part A
1. 240g milk
2. 60g butter

- Heat up until butter is melted, leave to cool until slightly warm to touch

Part B
1. 440g all purpose flour
2. 60g granulated sugar
3. 1/2 teaspoon of salt
4. 10g instant yeast
5. 1 egg (67g)
6. 20g milk powder

- Mix all the ingredients in Part B

- Create a well and add Part A and use the dough hook to knead

 Dough will be sticky at the initial stage but continue kneading. I used medium speed on my KitchenAid

Dough is coming together after about 10 minutes of kneading.

- Continue to knead until window-pane stage (Sorry I can't show the window pane stage as both my hands were occupied)

Knead the dough and tuck it in into a ball

Cover loosely with cling wrap and let it rise to double its size

After rising, poke the dough. If dough bounces back, let it rise for a bit more but if the indentation stays, dough is ready

Roll it out to make a rectangle (I didn't really do a good job coz I was rushing but do take your time to get a proper rectangle so that you will get more rolls)

Spread the filling evenly on the dough

Roll the dough like a Swiss Roll, dabbing some water at the end to seal the dough

Place the sliced dough onto a lightly greased pan

I had used a pan that was too small and my rolls came out topsy-turvy coz the dough did not have much space to rise..hehehe..so choose a bigger pan and do ensure that you don't have to squeeze the dough in. Alternatively, you can just place the rolls individually on a tray that has been lined with parchment paper.

Brush lightly with milk and bake at 180 Degrees Celcius (which has been preheated) till golden brown. While baking, you can prepare the glaze:

Glaze Ingredients

1. 20g butter
2. 70g icing sugar
3. 50g milk

It tastes like condensed milk; so if you are lazy, you can just drizzle the cinnamon rolls with condensed milk instead but this taste really good! =) Here's my topsy-turvy cinnamon rolls:

Verdict, weird looking but very delicious and tasty, simply loving it! Will bake another version of these cinnamon rolls and hope to post the recipe soon! =)

Caramel and White Chocolate Chips Cookies with Nutella Filling

Gosh! It had been almost a month since my last post!! I really should post more often but it's difficult with a 9 month old; especially since time management has never been my forte! =_=

Anyway, my initial intention was to submit a picture of these cookies for the SCS Baker's Challenge but I missed the deadline (surpriseeee..not!)! =/ But I'm kinda proud coz this is an original recipe which includes brown butter; something that I've known for soooo many years but trying it only now..hehe!

Really love the taste of the cookies, so do give it a try and let me know how it turned out! =)

Caramel and White Chocolate Chips Cookies with Nutella Filling

Ingredients:

Dry ingredients

- 330g all purpose flour

- 1/2 teaspoon of salt

- 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda

- 2 tablespoons of milk powder

(Sift and mix well)

- 100g of mini white chocolate chips

Liquid Ingredients

- 225g brown butter

- 1 egg + 1 yolk

- 2 teaspoons of vanilla

- 112g of castor sugar

- 100g of brown sugar 

- 15g of heavy cream/yoghurt/milk

Filling

- Nutella

Methods:

Brown Butter

1. First up, prepare your brown butter by cutting up the butter into small pieces

2. Melt the butter over medium fire and stir continuously. You will see large air bubbles

3. Continue stirring and the liquid will turn foamy. Turn off the fire when the it has turned brown and let it cool

Cookie Dough

1. After the brown butter has cooled, pour the brown butter into your mixing bowl. Add sugars, vanilla, egg+yolk and heavy cream and mix well until it becomes caramel-like

2. Add the dry ingredients

3. Mix until a dough is formed

4. Scrape down with a spatula, wrap it in cling wrap and chill dough in the fridge for at least an hour. This is to firm up the dough as well as to bring out the flavour of the brown butter as the dough rest

Nutella Filling

1. While waiting for your dough to chill, prepare your piping bag. I have posted pictures on how to seal your piping bag so that Nutella will not seep out when you fill up the piping bag:

Twist the piping bag

Tuck the bag into the piping tip

2. Fill it with Nutella and chill in the fridge until ready to use

Preparing the cookies:

1. Line a tray with tracing paper and take both the dough and Nutella out from the fridge. Pre-heat the oven at 180 Degree Celcius

2. I used a teaspoon to scoop the dough so that all my cookies will be of the same size but got lazy and just pinched an estimated amount of dough, roll it into a ball and flatten it before placing it on the tray

3. Pipe a small amount of Nutella. Not too much unless you want Nutella to be showing at the sides of the cookies

4. Cover with another flattened dough, sealing it at the edges. DO NOT press the centre or the Nutella will ooze out

5. Bake for about 7 minutes if you want chewy cookies,10 minutes if you want crispier cookies

6. Cool the cookies before keeping in air tight container. Enjoy! ^_^

Japanese Cheese(cake) Chiffon

Ok, this is gonna be my virgin entry and what better way to kick-start my baking blog than to post a recipe of my favourite cheesecake! As this is my first time, please bear with me as I figure out which blogging style is the best! =)

                                       

Japanese cheesecake! =)

The recipe was easy to follow but I was still pretty worried when I was melting the cream cheese, butter and milk as the batter was rather gritty but the whisk was all I needed to smooth everything in a jiffy! ^_^

I have posted (almost) all the steps to baking the cake below; making some changes to the way I prepared and baked the cake. I had simply mixed all the ingredients together and folding in the meringue as the last step. I was also too lazy to use a water bath so I used small tube pans instead..heheheh..^_^

1. Melt the cream cheese, butter and milk over a

      double boiler

2. Mix all the dry ingredients together

3. Whisk in the egg yolks and the vanilla extract 

4. Add flour to the batter and whisk till well-mixed, set aside

Next step will be the meringue which I find is the crucial step that will determine the outcome of your cake. I had whisked the egg whites till you can see bubbles as shown below in Step 5. Add the cream of tartar. The 'bubbles' will now be able to hold the cream of tartar better as opposed to adding it to the liquid egg whites, making the meringue more stable.

5. Add cream of tartar to the 'bubbly' egg whites.

6. Whisk till foamy and add in the sugar and whisk till soft peaks are formed

7. At soft peaks, you can overturn your mixer and the meringue doesn't drop. The tip of the meringue will also bend over like a hook. DO NOT over-whisk the eggs white or it will be dry and clumpy and it will almost impossible to incorporate it into the yolks batter!

8. Folding in the meringue into the yolks batter

The meringue should be added to the yolks batter in parts. First you take 1/3 of the meringue and FOLD IN GENTLY into the yolks batter. When everything is mixed, FOLD IN the rest of the meringue into the batter and be very careful not to deflate the meringue as it will prevent your cake from rising, giving you a dense cake. Finally, pour the batter into tube pans (I used 3 small pans) and bake it at 160 Degree Celcius. When baking is done, invert your tube pans immediately like how you would do with other chiffon cakes. This will prevent your cake from collapsing as hot air escapes. However, do take note that this cake shrinks slightly and is perfectly ok! =) 

         

     Tadaaaaa! Japanese Cheese Chiffon cake! 

                                         

     Fluffy cheesecake! But do you see the big air bubble on the left side? That is caused by improper mixing of the meringue into the yolks batter! So do ensure you fold in the meringue evenly! heh.. >.<

And here's the recipe that I adapted from DianasDesserts:

140g/ 5oz.  fine granulated sugar 6 egg whites 6 egg yolks 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar 50g/2 oz. butter 250g/9 oz. cream cheese 100 ml/3 fluid oz. fresh milk 1 tbsp. lemon juice (I omitted this) 60g/2 oz. cake flour /superfine flour 20g/1 oz. cornflour (cornstarch) 1/4 tsp. salt

Instructions: 1. Melt cream cheese, butter and milk over a double boiler. Cool the mixture.Add in the flour, the cornflour, egg yolk and mix well. 2. Whisk egg whites until 'bubbly'. Add cream of tartar and whisk until foamy. Add in the sugar and whisk until soft peaks form. 3. Pour into small tube pans (I used 3 pans) 4. Bake until set and golden brown at 160 degrees C (325 degrees F). Weeeeeee! First blog entry done! Let me know how your cakes turn out and stay tuned for more recipes! ;p