Pandan leaves are widely used in Southeast Asia to flavour sweets and desserts. Most of our local kuih are cooked infused in pandan leaves. Pandan is also a popular flavour for cakes here. In Malaysia, apart from the common vanilla and chocolate flavoured cakes, you'll find pandan cakes as well in bakeries, markets and even commercial packed ones in the supermarkets. It's easy to plant pandan, just poke the entire plant with the root into the soil and it'll grow. They don't need much care. I have a pandan plant in my garden and it's very handy to have fresh pandan leaves off your garden when you need it for asian cuisine. I am thinking of planting more pandan since I use quite a lot of it in one go.
My favourite recipes at the moment are those by Momofuku Milk Bar. I love their confetti birthday cake, the very cake which inspired me to come up with the Oreo Red Velvet Cake. Needless to say, when I was asked to bake a cake for my mum's birthday, I chose a recipe by Momofuku Milk Bar.
Apple pie cake is a safe choice since everybody enjoys an apple pie once in a while. This cake incorporates apple pie filling and half-baked cheesecake as the filling to the layer cake. You won't miss out on the crunch of the pie crust as pie crumbs are used in the filling and to top the cake. It's really an apple pie converted to a cake. It's genius!
It really isn't that troublesome to bake a Momofuku Milk Bar layer cake. Although their cake recipes require things like sheet pan, acetate sheet and 6" cake ring, you really don't need to go all out to buy those things to make one of their cakes. Firstly, the filling is thick and sturdy enough not to flow down the side of the cake even if you were to just spread the filling without the cake ring and acetate sheet. Secondly, I personally don't like my cake to be too tall. With the cake so tall, you'll only need a small wedge for one serving, especially for Momofuku type of cake which you can't eat a lot because it's so rich and sweet. It becomes problematic when you want to cut a high cake into small wedges. It doesn't stand. Everything just falls out into one big mess. I find that up sizing the pans to 7" or 8" gives you the best size and height for the cake. I bake mine in round cake pans rather than in a sheet pan.
I would never think of Oreo and red velvet as a good combination but some people commented on how their friends and family were raving about the red velvet cake with Oreo cream cheese frosting they've made. I shouldn't shut the door in the face of new things since experimenting with different and totally unexpected combination of flavours is necessary for creative growth. It shouldn't be so bad, after all, the experts at Kraft did produce a limited edition red velvet Oreo cookie. I think it's genius because, if you notice, red velvet doesn't have much flavour. It's basically a red cake with a little cocoa powder. So Oreo will be a breath of fresh air to plain old red velvet.
I'm baking this red velvet because it's a special request from a friend. I've been baking so many red velvet and it's quite off putting to be baking yet another red velvet cake, but I also didn't want to give her a different cake when she was clearly looking forward to a slice of red velvet. This spruced up red velvet would be a nice halfway point. It's always nice to be baking something for someone, makes it more meaningful.
I didn't want this red velvet to be just another red velvet with Oreo frosting. There must be something more to make it special. I'm still in my "Momofuku Milk Bar phase" so I thought why not do a Milk Bar inspired red velvet cake?
The construction of the cake involves making cookie crumbs from Oreo, buttercream frosting for the top of the cake and half-bake a cheesecake for the filling. And, just for fun, mix chocolate sprinkles in the cake batter before baking.
Birthdays to me are reminiscent of butter cake filled with cheap vanilla buttercream frosting. Back in the days, that was the kind of cake we got from the bakery to celebrate birthdays at home. This Momofuku Milk Bar Birthday Cake is exactly what birthdays taste like to me. The first bite I took really brought back old memories of birthday celebrations when we were still kids. We used to have some friends over for home cooked noodles, red eggs and chicken nuggets, and after hours of video games, we would get bored and it was time to sing the birthday song and cut the cake. The fun filled celebration always ends with a sweet note with a slice of creamy birthday cake for everyone.
My "baked main course challenge" would have to take a back seat for awhile to accommodate my current obsession with red velvet cake. Earlier, I baked a red velvet from a recipe by the man who came up with the "best ever red velvet cake", Cake Man Raven, but I found the cake to be very oily. I thought that I would not bother baking another red velvet again but I was wrong. Clearly, there is something intriguing about its taste. I tried three different recipes in order to come up with the red velvet that I like, one that is light and fluffy compared to the usual red velvet which is dense and has fine crumbs. For the third recipe, I use two different frosting and that explains the four cakes above.
It's almost midnight, you're already in your pjs and you're craving for Doritos. You go downstairs to your kitchen to look for a snack to satisfy your cheese cravings. You open your pantry. No Doritos in sight, but you see a box of cornmeal. You knew from preparing the club sandwich this afternoon that there is leftover mature cheddar in the fridge. What do you do?
Being the little Masterchef you are, you decide to bake some cheese muffins to munch which could double as breakfast the next morning. Without further ado, you pulled out the Sweet Chilli Cheese Muffin recipe from mum's recipe box.
Being a lover of white chocolate and strawberries, I wanted to come up with not just a good, but a great white chocolate and strawberry muffin recipe. I won't say I'm there yet but this muffin recipe which is adapted from Bouchon Bakery blueberry muffins is definitely a keeper.
If you have not tried making Bouchon blueberry muffins, you absolutely must try this weekend. It is the best muffin recipe. This recipe is perfect if you prefer your cake light and fluffy compared to denser fine crumbed cakes. If you want a different flavour, try my version which uses the same basic cake recipe but with strawberries and white chocolate.
Lately I've been baking a lot of celebration worthy cakes from Y3k Delicious Cakes recipe book. The cakes in this book are really interesting and each time I keep going back to try the recipes there. I was in the mood for some yam cream cake, so yam cream cake is on this week's dessert menu.
For those of you who do not eat yam, I assure you that you will like this cake. Yam in dessert tastes ten times better than yam cooked in savoury dishes. You must try it to find out.
If you have tried making mousse with whipping cream and your mousse ends
up lumpy and watery, fret not as I have the solution in making easy and
fail-proof mousse for cakes.
The secret to making the mousse without
having to wait for the cake to set in the spring form pan is to use
whipped topping. Whipped topping is non-diary whipping cream and is
sturdier and fluffier than diary whipping cream. Though many have their
reservations on non-diary whipping cream, I still feel it's better to
use whipped topping because it's easier to handle and getting it wrong
too many times is just discouraging.
With this recipe, you can make Secret Recipe's signature cake from your own home.
This year I made a green tea tiramisu for hubby's birthday. His favourite cake is tiramisu so I thought why not spice it up a bit and make a green tea version.
This green tea tiramisu is so yummy. It's also special because it is not a cake which you can get from the bakery. Again, this is a recipe from Y3K Delicious Cake recipe book. The recipe uses Mascarpone cheese but I substituted it with regular cream cheese.
This year I baked myself a blackforest cake. Last year my mum baked me a regular blackforest cake but this year I'm doing a chocolate version.
This is another recipe from Y3K Delicious Cake book. I think I'm hooked on the cake recipes here. They are so good for celebrations!
I've been making tons of birthday cakes lately because there're lots of birthdays in my family from July onwards. One in July, two in August, one in September, two in October, two in November and finally one in December.
Y3K Delicious Cakes a recipe book by Amy Heng has pages and pages of delicious celebration cakes. I miss having mocha cream cake. Even though there wasn't a birthday coming up I thought I could make a mocha walnut cake and at the same time get some practice before the next birthday. Surprisingly, this test cake turned out really good.
As I am writing this, I'm nibbling on the muffin I baked this morning. It's so so yummy. Definitely better than the ones I made the first time. The first time I baked these Bouchon Bakery muffins, I used golden syrup which wasn't a good substitute at all since golden syrup and molasses taste very different.
Molasses tastes a lot like a combination of dark soy sauce and palm sugar. Since I was determined to make the muffins again, I got a bottle of molasses (RM12.00), Beer Rabbit brand, just to bake these muffins.
I was thinking of what to bake for my dad's birthday and my mum randomly pulled out this cut out recipe from an old Ikea catalog.
This recipe is by a chef who earned a diploma in pastry arts from Le Cordon Bleu, Paris. So it must be good right?
This is the best cake to make if you don't have an oven or if you are worried about whether your cake would rise because it requires no baking at all!
There will be a lot of birthdays to celebrate every month from September onwards. Homemade cakes always taste better than store bought ones. Since we were celebrating a friend's birthday at Quivo, Pavillion, I decided to bring a cake from home.
The recipe for this cake is from a few sources. The poppy seed cake is from Rachel Allen whilst the passionfruit curd from Nasi Lemak Lover and the cream cheese frosting from Feast magazine.
Have you heard of Bouchon Bakery? I haven't until I came across their recipe book when I was browsing the baking section on amazon.com. Bouchon Bakery is the brainchild of Thomas Keller who started The French Laundry, a fine dining restaurant in California.
After years of getting their supply of dinner rolls from a family-run bakery, Keller started his own bakery to cope with the increasing demands for breads from the growing number of restaurants he owns. Bouchon Bakery is headed by the ever so charming and French Sebastien Rouxel. Love his accent especially when he pronouns "colour" in one of the youtube videos.
So happy that successful chefs like them are willing to share their knowledge and experience with us ordinary home bakers (for a fee of course - RM200, Kinokuniya / US$31, Amazon).
First off, lest I be
accused of stealing, let me make it clear that this recipe is not mine.
I'm merely following a fellow blogger's recipe. If you're interested in
the original material please visit Nasi Lemak Lover's blog.
I've said this before and I'll say it again, her blog is super awesome!
There are tons of recipes there and you'll most likely find something
you like to bake or cook on her blog. She updates her blog frequently
and her recipes never fail to inspire.
Today
we are baking a simple coconut chocolate butter cake. Experienced
bakers can literally do this with one eye closed. It's like
making marble cake but the vanilla goes on top and chocolate on the bottom instead of having swirls of chocolate in the vanilla.
Last weekend's baking was impromptu because I didn't have the time to plan what to bake. We work so hard but yet are becoming poorer each day. A carton of Dutch Lady UHT milk used to cost RM4.50, now it's RM6.00! Johoreans earning SGD must be laughing all the way to the bank! Tough luck for the rest of us.
I was going through our cookery books collection to look for recipes to try out. I decided to try a coffee muffin recipe from Carol Pastor Best Ever Book of Cupcakes and Muffins since we have all the ingredients required.
I got this book from Book Axcess quite sometime ago but only tried one recipe so far, I think it's the apricot yogurt muffins.
First off, the mousse recipe which I used for this cake was not a mousse recipe for cake. It is meant to be eaten from a cup which is why the mousse looks a bit runny. The reason why I used this mousse recipe is because I wanted to finish the leftover egg whites from Ms Beranbaum's cream cheese butter cake. The mousse was kind of rough but it tastes good.
I just had this wonderful cheese butter marble cake which my mum baked from a recipe in The Star newspaper. I was browsing for baking books on Amazon and I came across Baking Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. They say that she's very pedantic with her recipes and you have to follow her recipes to the letter otherwise prepare to face failed cakes.
I was browsing the free preview of her book and came across her cream cheese butter cake recipe. I thought of the yummy cheese butter cake my mum baked and wondered how Ms Beranbaum's recipe would match up.
Browsing further there's a photo of the cream cheese butter cake with lemon curd buttercream in glorious yellow greeting you like beautiful morning sunshine.
See what I mean?
Apart from the wonderful combination of cream cheese and butter cake, I was also curious as to how cake would taste like with sour cream - which is the other reason why I was so inclined to this recipe. And lemon curd buttercream! Doesn't it sound so good, the whole combination itself, cream cheese, butter, sour cream and lemon curd buttercream. Certainly doesn't sound like just any other cake to me.
