Matcha (Green Tea) pound cake

Apologies for the long hiatus from blogging again! Had been busy juggling school and social life these days, I just cleared several mid term tests few days ago. Can finally take a breather, and do things that make me happy. That is... Baking! :D Since I had some time to spare today, I decided to bake a loaf cake! Very glad that I finally bought a loaf pan! Been seeing many recipes that use loaf pan to bake, and the cakes really turned out good! After contemplating for months, I finally decided to invest in one. So, cheers to more loaf cakes in future! Can't wait!

So for my maiden attempt baking a loaf, a matcha cake was baked! Matcha, also known as green tea, is an awesome product. There are tonnes of health benefits such as increasing the metabolism and anti-depressant... Go google to find out more! Benefits aside, I love the subtle aroma of green tea. It's such a delightful flavour, a good alternative to heavy flavours like chocolate and coffee. I will definitely explore more recipes with my newly bought matcha powder. Matcha cookies, matcha chiffon cake, matcha macarons.... *imagines more matcha products* Anyway, this matcha cake that I baked was delish! Only downside is probably it is not sweet enough for my sweet tooth! I altered the recipe and reduced the amount of sugar to 1/2 cup thinking that it would suit my health conscious family more. Yes, my parents accepted it well, but for the sweet tooth of mine, nope! Another thing I like about this recipe is that it is super fast and easy! Just mix everything together, and pop it into the oven. I took about 15 minutes, one of the fastest baking sessions I have ever done.

Recipe adapted from appetiteforchina
Makes 1 loaf

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons green tea powder
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs, beaten

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and green tea powder.
3. In another bowl, using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in the eggs. Add the sifted flour mixture and mix until well-combined.
4. Pour the batter into a buttered loaf pan (I used a 9"x5" pan). Bake for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool for 5 minutes before removing from the pan.

Jelly Hearts

Made some jelly hearts with my friend the other day, and even though it is very time consuming, but the jelly hearts are such a delight to eat! Love how the different layers complement one another! We also made a blueberry version with blackcurrant jelly, and it tasted just as good as well.




Shall not post the recipe here because StoryOfBing.com has great pictorial guide! So head over to that website to have a look! :D

Good Luck!

Ji Dan Gao (Steamed Egg Cake)

Annyeong! Ji Dan Gao is an old school delight that many people fondly remember as the snack that they used to nom on when they were young. My parents and older siblings are one of them as well. For myself, I do not remember eating this when I was young... Or maybe I was too young to remember then. I made this couple of weeks ago but it failed to turn out well. Maybe it was due to the baking powder that I used, the cake did not rise up well and hence resulted in a stiff cake. I cannot let it go that I failed, hence today I tried my luck again and hurray, I SUCCEED! You know, nothing tastes better than success.

The cake turned out to be really soft and fluffy. I believe it is due to the fact that it was steamed. Steamed food just have this alluring factor. Another interesting fact is that this cake uses carbonated drinks for it's soda that makes it rises up. The most important reason why I love this cake is that IT IS TOTALLY OIL FREE!!! Not a single drop of oil is used at all. Therefore, it made washing up super duper easy!! I hate washing up oily dishes everytime after I bake. Also, the oil free factor made this cake very addictive. I had to control my hands that were constantly reaching out for more of the cake.


Hehheh, I used peach flavoured fanta! That's the only can of soft drink that I could find at home. Luckily the peach flavoured didn't turn out to be strong.

Recipe adapted from thelittleteochew

Recipe
- 220g eggs excluding weight of shells (about 4 large eggs)
- 210g caster sugar (I reduced it to 150g)
- 230g cake flour or top flour (sifted 2 or 3 times)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 6 tbsp cream soda or 7-Up or Sprite

1. Whisk the eggs till frothy, then start adding sugar a little by little, to ensure it is well-incorporated. Add vanilla extract and continue beating until the batter becomes very pale, thick and creamy. This takes time, and there is no shortcut. Meanwhile, heat up your wok, pot or steamer until you get a gentle boil. Do make sure it is large enough to fit the cake tin and has ample space for the batter to rise and the steam to circulate.

2. Fold in the flour in thirds, alternating with the soda, and ending with flour. Once there are no streaks of flour, stop.

3. To steam, either pour the mixture into a bamboo steamer lined with greaseproof paper or use a 6 or 7-inch lined baking tin. Pop it into the wok, pot or steamer - then cover - and steam on high for 30mins.

4. Once done, place the cake on a rack and allow to cool before slicing.

See the cotton-like soft and fluffy inside?
Some points to take note:
- Beat the eggs mixture until frothy, it should turn out to be creamy looking.
- Steam your mixture as soon as possible. Avoid letting it rest for too long. I separated my mixture into 2 portions and steamed one after another. The second batch turned out to be less soft. I believe it is due to the long resting time that caused the rising agent in the cake to be less effective.
- You can omit the vanilla essence if you have a stronger egg taste. I added vanilla essence but my parents commented that it tasted less egg-y as those sold outside.
- Reduce the sugar amount further if you do not have a sweet tooth. However, refrain from huge reduction as it would definitely make a difference to the texture of the cake.


Many many love for this awesome cake!

Awesome Earl Grey Tea Cake

Hihihihi, any readers out there? I'm truly apologetic for not updating this blog for so many months. Previously I was really busy with school work hence I had no time to bake. Therefore, I was on hiatus for several months. However, the long awaited summer holidays have started, and it's time to start baking again! To be honest, I had already baked several times before this post, however all of them were failures (and thus I couldn't post anything up here!) But good news, today I baked something and it turned out so wonderful that I must share it with more people.


My family say that this is the best cake that I have ever baked. Personally I do love it as well! The subtle earl grey tea fragrant that lingers in your mouth after you eat it, and the zesty lemon that complements the tea flavour. Not forgetting the dessicated coconut that adds more texture to the cake. Thumbs up for myself! I'm definitely going to bake this again!


Original recipe from anncoo journal
150g Plain flour
1/8tsp Baking powder
150g Butter, softened
130g Confectioner sugar (icing sugar)
1/2 tbsp Glucose/golden syrup or honey
3 Eggs (70g each)
1/8 tsp Salt
5g Earl grey tea dust from 2 tea bags
20g dessicated coconut
1 tbsp Fresh whole milk
Lemon zest from 1 large lemon

1. Preheat oven to 170C. Line a 19 x 9 x 8cm loaf tin with parchment paper all sides up.
2. Sift flour and baking together twice, set aside.
3. Beat butter, icing sugar and glucose together until light and very fluffy. Gradually add eggs and beat well, then add salt, tea dust, dessicated coconut, lemon zest and milk. Mix well.
4. Add flour mixture and fold through completely using a spatula. Surface of batter should be glossy and smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared loaf tin and for 50 minutes or skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Note that the baking time may vary according to your oven.
6. When the cake is done, unmould cake and peel away parchment paper.
7. Leave to cool completely before serving. If storing, wrap with cling wrap.

I used a square tin that makes a thinner cake, thus my baking time is about 35 min only. Original recipe uses grounded almond instead of dessicated coconut and after cake is baked lemon syrup is brushed onto it. However the health conscious me has decided to do away with the lemon syrup. If you are interested do visit anncoo journal for detailed instructions!


I'm not kidding when i say that this cake is really gorgeous.

Look at the inside!

Rainbow cake

Who could resist a rainbow cake? I love colourful things, so I super adore my rainbow cake!! This is the first time I baked something so pretty looking, and I just cannot stop praising how beautiful it is. I really really love my rainbow cake! Totally didn't expect it to turn how so perfectly looking. However, of course the cake isn't totally perfect. This is the sweetest cake that I have ever baked. And if you noticed, I have low tolerance for sweetness. Thus, this cake is just not good for my taste buds.

Recipe adapted and modified from ladyironchef
Originated from whisk kid

Instead of using the Lemony Swiss Meringue Butter-cream from original recipe, I used vanilla buttercream recipe from mysweetandsaucy instead.

CAUTION:THIS CAKE IS VERY SWEET SO PLEASE REDUCE THE AMOUNT OF SUGAR IN BOTH CAKE & CREAM.

White Cake
226g unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 1/3cups (426g) granulated sugar
5 large egg whites, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups (426g) all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk at room temperature
Red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple gel paste colouring

Vanilla Buttercream
340g unsalted butter
7.5 cups icing sugar
1.5 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons whole milk
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
3 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

for cake:
1. Preheat oven at 175 deg cel. Butter and line as many 9" round pans as possible.
2. In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder and sat. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar on high speed using mixer until fluffy. Switch to medium-low speed and add in vanilla extract and egg whites slowly. Mix until fully incorporated. Change speed to low, using wet-dry ingredient method, add in 1/3 milk 1/3 flour. Keep alternating, ending with flour mixture. Mix well.
4. Divide the batter into 6 portions. (Can be divided equally by weighing) then add in gel colourings into each portion. Pour one portion into one pan and bake each for about 15min.

for buttercream:
1. Cream butter and salt for 30secs.
2. Add milk and half icing sugar and beat until combined.
3. Add rest of the icing sugar, vanilla extract and lemon juice and beat.
4. Beat on high speed for 5-6min or until fluffy.

tips/notes
As mentioned, this recipe yields a very sweet cake (See flour-sugar ratio-1vs1!!) Hence I would definitely suggest that you reduce sugar amount. For cake I reduced to about 320g of sugar while for buttercream I only used 3 cups of icing sugar and yet I still produced a super sweet cake. But again, it's according to your own liking and preference.If you have a sweet tooth, go ahead!

You would need to use GEL colourings instead of liquids ones to obtain a vibrant result. Liquid colourings would probably give your pastel coloured rainbow instead. Also, you may buy the primary colours only (red, yellow, blue) and mix them to get orange (red+yellow) and purple/violet (red+blue). I bought wilton's gel colouring that comes in a pack of 4 colours (red,orange,yellow,blue)and I had to mix the colours to get green and purple. It turned out quite well right?

This cake is actually quite plain in terms of taste (definitely not in terms of the look) hence I would suggest that you add in some decorating, like how I used biscuit crumbs for the coating. Definitely makes the cake more yummy!

I baked this cake for my friend's birthday. I love everyone's reaction when the cake was cut and the magic was revealed-RAINBOW! Everyone started to get really excited and many were busy snapping photos of this gorgeous cake.


I have awed all my friends, and now it's your turn to impress people with this magical rainbow cake!

Good luck! :D

Strawberry cheesecake cupcakes

Finally back to updating this blog after such a long hiatus! This afternoon I finally got the lazy me to start baking again. Maiden attempt to bake cupcakes and they were a success, lookwise.

Came across the recipe on yankaykay's blog, was so attracted to it, it looks soooo delicious. As usual I went on to search for other versions of this recipe and I found the original recipe at joylicious. Upon reading the first sentence of the post I was totally sold and I knew that I have to try out this recipe. It goes: I always tell girlfriends who can't cook -- "Ladies, there's only 3 recipes you'll ever have to learn to win over any man's heart: the perfectly seared steak, killer mashed potatoes and these Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes."

I modified the recipe quite a bit, maybe that is the reason why mine didn't turn out really delicious (but still yummy!). This recipe yields 18 cupcakes for me.



What I need!!
Recipe (crust, batter & cream cheese)

for crust:
15 digestive crackers, crumbed (I only used 8!!)
125g (or less) butter
3 tbsp sugar (I omitted this to cut down sugar)

1. Preheat oven to 170 degree Celsius.
2. Crush up the digestive crackers and mix in sugar and butter until it holds together when pressed down.
3. Spoon about 1 tablespoon of it into cupcake liner and press down with finger/spoon.
4. Bake for 3-5 minutes.



For batter:
4 egg whites and 2 tbs of sugar
1 tsp baking powder
0.5 tsp of salt
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
0.5 cup sour cream/plain yogurt
2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and diced

1. Beat egg whites and 2tbs of sugar until stiff, glossy peaks appear. Be careful not to overbeat. Set aside.
2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar until soft and fluffy, add in vanilla extract and beat on low speed. Then add half the flour mixture until incorporated then mix in the sour cream or yogurt. Add remaining flour & mix until just blended.
4. Gently fold 1/3 of the egg into the batter until combined, do not over mix the egg whites or the cake will fall flat. Add remaining egg and fold in the chopped strawberries.
5. Fill each muffin tin about 3/4 of the way and bake for about 20-25 minutes depending on your oven.




For cheese cream:
250g cream cheese
125g of butter
300g (or less) of icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla together until smooth. Add the sugar slowly in small batches, beating on low speed until incorporated. Once all sugar has been added, increase the speed to high and mix until light and fluffy. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

I omitted the cream cheese because after baking the cake I was very exhausted. Furthermore my family doesn't have much liking for cream stuffs, hence... Hahaha, coming up with too many excuses for my laziness :P